Books, Rants, Raves, and Going to Hell!

Book Review....
The book I'm presently reading, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, is translated from Swedish (yes Swedish!) and has been an international bestseller. I thought I'd give it a shot since everyone is talking about this book. The story is centered around a man named Mikael Blomkvist who is disgraced in his profession as a financial journalist after his article of a powerful businessman ends up in court. He takes on a job of writing the autobiography of an elderly man who at one time was quite powerful in business and more importantly, solving the unsolved mystery of the disappearance of the elderly man's niece many years ago. It has been pretty good so far, but I am only halfway into the book, so it's hard to say how it's going to go!

Todays Rant....
People who think they walk on water. This week, a person didn't get the assignment they wanted for their senior projects and proceeded to stand in the middle of the classroom and cry for 40 minutes straight while I lecture. We are talking about someone who is 21, maybe older. They cried because they were human bio and they got stuck in an ecology project. If this person handled this differently, perhaps I'd feel sympathy but since they acted like a child, I feel nothing but irritation for them now. How childish!! Instead of crying, which is solving nothing, go talk to faculty about it, I'm just the messenger and not their permanent mentor. It seems to me that too many wealthy kids go to small private schools and expect preferential treatment, and I'm already getting tired of it. Don't tell me how hard your life is when you're carrying around a Coach bag that I know costs at least $450 big ones and wearing a Juicy Couture Hoodie. I mean come on, what do you take me for, a complete idiot? So many students are like that and I just don't understand why. Being a spoiled brat will not get you very far in life.

Rave of the Day....

So even though I went to Madison this past weekend, I have to say there are few things that make me love that town. So here's a list of wonderfulness of Madison-
1. Potbelly (which is a chain but I love eating there, and much to my surprise, there's one not far from my house, which makes me happy!!) A delicious little sandwich shop- pizza sandwich= yummy!!
2. State Street as a whole- makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
3. Urban Outfitters- one of the better Urban Outfitter stores I think that I've been to, and they had huge sales.
4. Bop- Gotta love designer, even though for the moment I'm really too broke to buy much...
5. Madison Sole- Earthy shoes, such as Keens, which I bought there weekend and LOVE. Keens are wonderful.
6. The Capital Building at night. Even though it was -15 with windchill Saturday night my honey and walked downtown and took in the amazing view of the capital building with the lights on it. Pretty nice to look at I think.
7. The Old-Fashioned- A place that makes good actual old-fashioneds, their classic brandy one using Korbel. They were delicious.
8. UW- Sigh, the campus is so awesome, it just made me itch for my Ph.D. even more.

Crafting
As you may or may not know, I've gotten into crocheting over the past couple of years, and I've been crocheting like crazy. I made a scarflette last night and I'm going to make some other things this weekend. It's a great way to relax!!!! And have fun. You can see my etsy page here.
I think my big project is going to be making a blanket. We need a new bedspread anyhow!!

I also write articles every so often, and this was one I wrote on Helium.com (it's more a of a recreational activity than anything) for a humor piece. The category was "Things I'll Go To Hell For". Feel free to leave comments on things you just might go to hell for.

Things I'll Go To Hell For
I once told someone "I'm going to hell, who's coming with me!?" in response to them telling me that because I believed in evolution I was going to hell. Now I really never thought that believing evolution over creation was a one way ticket to hell, I mean realistically, does that really rank up there with all of the other reasons why I probably will end up in hell?
People tell me that I'm nice and fun to be around. Little do they know that the smile on my face is there because of something idiotic they did or how they look. I don't look like a supermodel by any means, and I'm sure people have gotten a few good laughs at my expense, but honestly, if you have to buy a tube top in the plus size section, you shouldn't wear it unless you want me secretly making up nicknames that relate to large aquatic mammals about you. Step away from the tube tops and pick up the t-shirt. Do it for the children.
I toss out most charity info I get. United Way? Trash it. Save the Ocean fund? Recycle bin. Why do I need to donate the little money I have to something else? I should have a fund set up that people can donate to. I'm sorry but when I can barely afford to pay the bills and pay for food, I shouldn't be expected to donate money to anyone. My favorite is the Universities I went to sending me solicitations for donations to the "Alumni fund". I'm sorry, the $50,000 you milked me for in graduate school wasn't enough? Or the $10,000 in student fees I paid as an undergraduate? I could have bought a damn nice car by now, or a yacht, that I could have taken to hell, or at least to somewhere warm. Take your alumni fund and join me in hell, money grubbers.
I really don't care for most people's children. Unless you are a friend of mine or a family member, your snotty nosed kid needs to stop staring at me and get a bath. I hate being in a grocery store, and some stranger's kid is screaming. Shut it up already! I'm sure when I have children it'll be different, but I like to think that I will not allow my child to escalate to that point. Now my friends and family who have children, I love every one of them. I just don't give a flying rip about some stranger's kid. Most of them are ugly. Somehow all of my friends ended up with beautiful babies. I'm sure mine will be beautiful someday too, and the combination of my vainness of these said children and my annoyance of stranger's kids probably is sending me to hell.
I'm going to hell, who's coming with me? At least in hell, I can toast marshmallows. See you there!

Until next time-

~D.

New Shiny Blog!

Welcome to my Blog!!
To get things warmed up, I'll give my recent life in a nutshell.
I moved to Wisconsin a few months back, I'm originally from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (the part that people tend to think is in Canada). I went to school in Wisconsin for my bachelor's degree, which was in biology (emphasis in field biology and ecology) and also picked up minors in environmental science and music. After spending about a year at my first full time job in my field, I realized that I did not want to spend the rest of my life doing stream surveys and air quality surveys, although I had a great experience and got to learn a lot about things you'd never learn in a classroom. So I went back to school again, since I'm a glutton for punishment, and got a master's degree in biology- biochemistry and molecular biology. I took a job as a biology lab coordinator at a small private college and have been enjoying my job. I do like working in academia, although I would like it more if I was a professor!! I am already thinking about going back to school, probably to do an MBA first and then my Ph.D.
I have a lot of goals in life, and have a life list that I've been working on and constantly adding to (I'm slowly accomplishing things on this list!) and I am also an avid crocheter and reader. You'll see as time goes on that both of these things will be incorporated into my blogs.

Because I love to read, I thought I'd start out with an update on my book reading- I'm presently reading "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson. It started out a bit slow, but I'm enjoying it thus far. As I finish up my book, I'll let you know my complete thoughts on it and give you the Ya eh! or the Neh!

I will also spend a lot of time probably talking about biology related things, since I'm a biologist. Feel free to post ideas and thoughts on this.

I'd make this a fun entry to read but it's getting late and I have to work tomorrow!!

Love,

Dee