from the desk of stinkpot

first day of the year it was warm enough to bike to lab in sandals.

this blog is like the pony express – it takes about two weeks for news to get communicated. for instance, i’m finally going to post some photos i took from the passover seder christina and i crashed at the beginning of april. aside from getting to see our friends and pigging out on unleavened bread, […]

shown to me by a fellow grad student this morning: 1) pamphlet advertising a new energy campaign at mit: “do it in the dark.” 1) green fluorescent condom, packaged in black plastic and a big white font that read, “now glows in the dark!” according to the handout, if everyone at mit had sex in […]

the second year of grad school is the best thing that has ever happened to my body. for one thing, unlike undergrad, i sleep now. a lot. without 9am classes anymore, i’m able to get 8 hours of sleep a night. who knew you could say good morning with any sincerity? i’ve also finally been […]

biological engineering here at mit is a giving department. their discoveries give sick people hope. their innovations give scientists new tools. and, most importantly, their annual retreat gives grad students an all-expenses-paid-trip somewhere in new england. things i’m going to remember about this trip: 1) having a bizarre, alcohol- and chili burger-induced nightmare the first […]

chris brought to my attention today that i poured the cynicism on a little thick in my earlier post. fair enough – i did feel like a brooding bessy that day. but, i didn’t intend for that post to belie just how happy i am with how things are going right now. basically, i feel […]

oh so close to finally getting all of the photos from the philippines online. sorting through all 1600 original photos was like sitting through a colorful, but still intensely repetitive assembly line. what doesn’t help is my habit of taking two or three photos for every single shot i want (made necessary by my lousy […]

like clockwork, my annual quarter-life crisis strikes each spring. daylight savings just gets my existential juices flowing. this time, i thought i’d worry about skating to where the puck is going to be; instead of grieving over what i’m doing with my life in the present, i’d worry about what’s going to happen to me […]

lots of stuff i’ve wanted to mention, but don’t individually muster sufficient activation energy for me to post. inspired by my trip back to the philippines, i learned how to cook one of my favorite filipino dishes over the weekend: chicken adobo. for those of you unfamiliar with it, adobo is the quintessential filipino poultry […]

because its journalists – even those covering business misdealings – don’t see creative writing and news reporting as mutually exclusive disciplines: “Like worms that surface after a torrential rain, revelations that emerge when an asset bubble bursts are often unattractive, involving dubious industry practices and even fraud.” [crisis looms in mortgages] for further tutorials in […]