Get your "phass-on"

I was at the grocery store the other night, and there were two Indian girls in line in front of me. By the way, I'm currently attending graduate school and I'm at the grocery store that's within walking distance of the university housing. Which means the 2 Indian girls in front of me are NOT the usual state school groanin-for-a-bonin' freshmen girls, they are the awkward timid South Indian grad students with last names spelled irritatingly phonetically ("It's Ra-ma-krish-nan. How hard is that for you Americans?").
She had very long, poofy frizzy hair, held back behind her ears with a cheap clip. She was wearing mom pants, where the hem hits squarely at the ankle (not the chic slouchy boot cut jeans that are so fashionable. Hey, I got my fash-on), allowing men the pleasure of viewing whatever plush white athletic socks are worn inside the sneakers. Topped off with a plain striped tee. Not a iconic-ironic-graphic tee, but some Mervyn's brand stuff. I'm trying not to be contemptuous; I'm just so frustrated at seeing the same damn clothes on these girls over and over. I'd rather they wear Indian clothes than this. And you know why? (Here's the part that made it memorable.) One of the girls reminded me of my mother, or at least what she would have looked like at that age. So I'm all mixed up with feelings of shame, guilt, pity, and sympathy at suddenly having placed my mother in their shoes. I've seen the old pictures of my mom. I'm one hundred percent certain that this is what she looked like, dressed like, and what her demeanor was like (hesitant, with a 20% chance of scurrying).
I'm not quite sure why I wrote this. It's given me a jarringly clear picture of what a nasty judgemental person I really am. I think most people would say I'm nice. But that just means I'm really good at self-censorship.
I guess if you want to be a nice person, you walk a mile in someone else's shoes before you judge them. But if you really wanna screw with your head, put your mom or dad in their shoes.

Left hand or right hand

“So which hand do guys jack off with?” Vanya asked me.

“Their right, I guess.” I replied.

“Ewwwww!”

The fact is there wasn’t any answer to that question that wouldn’t have elicited an “Ewwwww!” from Vanya, for 2 reasons:

a) I suspect she’s just squeamish and hygiene-conscious enough to have at least wrinkled her nose at masturbation with either hand.

b) More to the point, in India, customarily people reserve their left hand for the dirty business of wiping themselves after a piss or shit, while the right hand is used for everything else (worshipping, eating, and the like). So eating with your left hand is taboo and considered disgusting.

This begs the question: since masturbation is a “dirty” act performed on a body part that men worship, what hand should they be using? This is a matter of “should use” than “do use”. I’ll wager they use their dominant hand, as a matter of convenience—it’s not as though there’s any mothers, aunts, or brahmins around to chastise (I hope).

Maybe the wealthier men avoid the problem by getting handjobs from prostitutes. Of course, then I wonder what hand the prostitute uses. Probably not the left. The Indian man wouldn’t allow it. Woe to the working girl with even worse luck of being left-handed. Who wants to do that kind of repetitive, laborious, and sticky work with your non-dominant hand?

It's over

It's finally over. Dr. Pwactical gave me a passing grade for the incomplete.
It's cliche but I walked outside afterwards and colors seemed brighter, the air fresher, and I even noticed some cute guys, which I never noticed before. I am Shitler becoming electric. (Is that the phrase? It doesn't seem right.)

Text message conversation with Praztitute...
Me: I got my pass from [Pwactical].
Praztitute: Fuckin awesome
Me: Break out the champagne
Praztitute: Hookers and pcp 4 err one

Stressed.

I'm so stressed out right now. Dr. Pwactical is leaving on Saturday, and he's told me I need to get all the data analysis completed by then so that he can give me a grade for my incomplete. Monday night, I finished up what I thought was the last of the analysis. Tuesday, printed it all out. Wednesday: we go over it together, molecule by molecule. And even though I've more or less finished everything (there's maybe 5% of the total analysis left to do), he still demands that I fix up the last few things (which took me five hours to do tonight). WTF? Why can't he just give me a goddamn grade? I actually bellowed in frustration. Not the kind you do on purpose to relieve your frustration. The kind of bellow that comes out that you have little control over.

The added stress is that:
a) my boss wants a bunch of work to be finished by tomorrow and I'm pretty sure that I'm still going to be messing with Dr. Pwactical's analysis still, plus I've got a 3pm meeting with Pwactical. 3pm is right about the time that my boss wants me to be piloting my experiment and testing everyone. I keep seeing that begrudging look on his face: his eyebrows go up, his eyes shift sideways, and he says, "Ahhhh...ohhhh-kay." Moreover my program is supposed to be "bulletproof" by tomorrow. My program is still rickety. It's an ad-hoc designed piece of code that's clumsy and inelegant and NOT robust at all. It was slapped together with mental Elmer's glue; who knows if it'll work if I start running subjects on it? What would you expect? This is the first thing I've ever coded and I am proud of myself, but I think I would be developing an inferiority complex, were it now forVanya's tireless cheerleading.
b) Praztitute is coming to visit me this weekend. I haven't seen him in so long, but while he's here, I have to juggle...
c) Studying for the Stats final on Tuesday
d) Doing the Stats take-home test this weekend.

Thank God I don't have other responsibilities. How do working mothers do this!? I just don't get it.

Neuroscience Picnic

Today we had the Neuroscience Program Picnic. I raced around with Norey at Costco to get all the things we needed for the picnic. I spent $170 on food and drinks and another $70 on beer.
Fun was had by many, but possibly not all. I'll post pictures later when Sister Woman sends them to me.
I got a bunch of loot out of the picnic. Since I had to buy all the food, I got a substantial amount of the leftovers. I'll probably have a get-together soon to finish it all off. I have 12 damn good frozen hamburger patties, a ton of buns, and some kickass brownies amongst other things.

Ugh, this blog is boring me. Don't I have anything else to talk about?