oh my gosh, i've been so busy that i have been neglecting this little facet of my self expression.

last week i did three main things: eat, learn, and sleep.

i ate southern pizza again, because i'm a glutton for pizza-disappointment. i miss you, charlie fox's and giordano's. i tried chinese food from a place that had free delivery and it wasn't BAD, but it was extremely americanized. one night i ate chips and spinach dip for dinner, which made me feel pretty gross about my life. but last night, tom and i went to Lime and Basil, a vietnamese restaurant that everyone tells me is great, and it totally lived up to expectations. i had a chicken-broth seafood version of pho for $7.50 and it was a huge. finally i was able to enjoy what is enjoyable about asian food: the perfect blend of non-western flavors. it was excellent. the seafood wasn't great so i'll probably get tofu next time, but mm the broth and the noodles and the vegetables were perfect. mm Lime and Basil = the only good asian food in chapel hill.

i started working in lab. i only worked about 12 hours this week but i designed a sampling protocol for a video-taped behavioral experiment that the post-docs ran in june. i am going to go over the sampling protocol with them and hopefully get an undergrad to do that for me, or at least part of it. kendra (one of the post docs) brought in a bunch of wild-caught house finches from the aviary and she's going to start them on a short photoperiod so in 2 months she can stimulate them to reproduction again. she took measurements and weighed all the birds and i wrote down the data for her. i'm not on the protocol to handle the birds yet, but she let me practice holding one anyway-- you hold their neck inbetween your pointer and middle finger, and keep the tips of the fingers together. the bird has a surprisingly thin neck so this is not hard to do at all. if you have your fingers closed together the bird will not be able to escape your grip.

sleeping. i have not been doing enough of it. it's not my fault, really. i go to bed but i have trouble falling asleep. in the morning it is really hard to get out of bed. i crawl into the living room and do situps before i let myself do anything else. then i inject myself with a near lethal dosage of caffeine. no... i drink have a cup of coffee standing up at the counter (i have no chairs) while i watch Good Morning America.

my friend Tom is visiting this weekend! he drove all the way from chicagoland to see carrboro/chapel hill, delight me with his culinary skills, and be afraid for my health when he saw that i had no food in my apartment but granola bars, yogurt, Crystal Light, coffee, and condiments. we have been buying lots of food. now we are off to a coffee shop so i can do some homework. yayyyy work.

i'll try to be more clever and entertaining next time i post. SORRY Y'ALL.