...and then my phone fell in the toilet...

Once upon a time I was at a Relief Society activity. As we were all eating cinnamon rolls at the end, I took a little trip to the ladies room. After entering my stall, I realized my phone was in my back pocket (where it often resides). I removed it and placed it on the lid of the trash can on the side of the wall, which was slightly sloped. Luckily my phone has a rubber case on it, so even with the slightly sloped surface, my phone was secure...right? Next thing I know, I heard the familiar sound of my phone vibrating...next I hear a *plop!* as my phone falls into the toilet!! The vibrations caused the phone to slide from its secure location, down the sloped lid, a perfect trajectory to the water below. As I look down, I see my sister Annie's face lighting up the screen as the phone continues ringing and descending to the bottom of the toilet bowl. Good times friends, good times. Good news...it still works!

thank heaven for my fishing licence and manual door locks

What a morning! I needed to renew my driver's licence. I was so proud that I had filled out the application online and made an appointment so it would go smoothly and quickly.

FAIL #1: I walk out my door and realize it has snowed AGAIN and the roads are covered. This isn't really a big deal, except I hadn't planned extra time for this. Result? I am about 20 min late to my appointment after creeping along I-15 trying not to die as my little car slid around.

FAIL #2: I walk into the driver's licence place a little flustered since I hate being late. I walk up to the counter and hand them my application. "Do you have your documents?" ....awkward silence... "Documents?" Yep, turns out there were detailed instructions on the application that I failed to read. This is where I started feeling like the clueless girl that the workers at the counter would roll their eyes and laugh about after I left. Luckily I had most of the necessary documents with me in my purse. "Do you have proof of address?" Hmm...I remembered I checked the mail last night and left it in my car so I told her I'd go check my car quick. (I'm sure she thought I was super incompetent.)  Unfortunately, all the mail was for my roommates.

TENDER MERCY #1: Starting to panic, I check my wallet one more time. I find a reimbursement check with my address on it and my fishing licence that I had forgotten was in there, also containing my address. Relieved, I headed back inside and gave the lady all the necessary documents.

FAIL #3: As she is paper-clipping all my documents together, I start to panic as I realize I am not holding my car keys. I ask the lady if I handed her my car keys. She looked at me like I really was crazy. "No ma'am, I do not have your keys. Do you want to go look for them?" "Yeah, I should probably go look for them...I'll be right back!" I check the snow-filled parking lot along the path I had walked. Nothing. I get back to my car and peek in the window...and there they are! They are sitting nicely on the seat. I try the door. Locked. I try another door. Locked. And another. Locked. I start talking to myself, "It's all good Liz...don't stress...we'll just call roadside assistance...you will laugh about this later!"

TENDER MERCY #2: I try the 4th door...it's unlocked! I am officially so glad I don't have power lock doors! I get my keys and head back inside.

I get my picture taken. I get my temporary licence until my real one arrives. I drive away legal.

FAIL #4: Noooo parking at BYU.

TENDER MERCY #3: Someone pulls out of their spot right as I drive up.

TENDER MERCY #4: As I walk to my lab, I pass a guy with headphones on. He is BELTING out "I've got the magic in me"...you know, the version from Pitch Perfect. Made my day that much better.

So today has left me super grateful for my fishing licence and my little car with no power locks. And people that sing with their headphones on. And life.

glazing ham like a boss

Read this list of ingredients and tell me if it doesn't make your mouth water:

*honey
*ketchup
*mustard
*worchestershire sauce
*minced onion
*ground cloves
*ginger
*orange juice
*molasses

Yep, Abby, Ryan, and I just came up with this sweet recipe all by our creative selves because we wanted to glaze the ham we just put in the oven. Annie was the taste-tester and gave it two thumbs up. You are reading the blog of the next Paula Dean. NBD. I thought I would blog about it before we tasted it so I can follow up with a raving review later on.

PS - MERRY CHRISTMAS! Despite Abby and I being sick as dogs, it's been a joyful holiday! I'll hopefully blog more about it later, but in the meantime, here was my glorious day: sleeping in (and waking up feeling a little less sick = win), watching Gilmore Girls with the sisters, reading some more of the books I got for Christmas, going to see "Les Miserables" with my aunts/uncles/cousins (it was INCREDIBLE. more about that later too), and now watching the Jazz game while we wait for our glorious ham and funeral potatoes to cook. Today is a success.

2 new check-marks!

This past week I have found myself checking things off my PhD to-do list...

Defend Prospectus....CHECK

Pass Qualifying Exam....CHECK

Complete Teaching Practicum....CHECK!

Complete ALL Coursework....CHECK!

Defend Dissertation....Summer 2013 :)

Let's just saw after about 20 years of homework, I will never again be assigned a project, homework assignment, or test for a class. EVER. From here on out I will be the one assigning things! NBD. Just wanted to share my excitement! Also, after a fun skype with my mom this morning, I find myself very legitimately considering applying to be a professor in Kazakhstan for a year starting next fall. Crazy? Maybe. But I am actually seriously thinking about it! Why not, right?

Also...I just spilled yogurt on my pants...yep I'm still me.

disgusting...disturbing...

Just a normal day in the lab. I had noticed a plastic bag on the counter for about a week now, but had never looked closely at it. Until today. This is what Allie and I discovered...

A large ziplock bag containing a paper towel, bag of water (?), and what looks like some sort of MEAT...our best guess is salmon... (??)

Let me reiterate it has been there for about a week. Kind of grossed out right now. And kind of disturbed. Also pondering the purpose of the bag of water...

reunited in Helsinki!!

When you don't get to see your Pops for a whole year, this is pretty exciting: 

First meal in Helsinki!

Side story that makes me laugh:

Mom thought that Dad's text said he was waiting right outside our gate (he flew into Finland from Russia 5 h before we arrived). So as soon as we exited the plane, we were looking for him. There was a man with a shaved head like my dad so we walked towards him excitedly. Turns out it was a different guy. The funny part? Mom says pretty loudly, "Oh dang, I thought he was THAT bald guy!" haha hopefully he didn't hear that...

this one time I was in Munich...

So I got my first stamp in my passport yesterday in Munich, Germany! We were only there for 3 hours, and we didn't leave the airport, but I'm still claiming it. :)

One funny story...Mom was watching my bags for me so I could go use the restroom. I found some that were for one person only (a personal WC as they call them) which is all good, EXCEPT they didn't have those helpful little stick figures. They only had the words for "man" and "woman" in German...which I am not familiar with. I had a good guess of which was which, but I wasn't sure. There were a bunch of people around speaking German...so I didn't want them to know that I was an ignorant American...so I decided to wait and watch someone go in one of them and then I would know. Turns out no one else was going in, and I had waited way too long before I decided to walk a little further down the hall. Alas, there were larger bathrooms complete with stick figures. Crisis averted. Good times.

Also, my mom sneezed in front of one of a stewardess who then said, "gesundheit!" We decided that was bucket-list-checking-off-worthy...sneezing and having someone tell you "gesundheit" WHILE IN GERMANY. We're pretty legit like that.

sometimes

Sometimes you have a busy, stressful day ahead of you and you forget to eat breakfast.

Sometimes this leads you to purchase a strawberry poptart from the vending machine (Dr. Judd would be so disappointed in me).

Sometimes the vending machine gods smile down on you and give you a strawberry poptart AND a bag of cheddar goldfish.

Sometimes that somehow makes the task ahead seem doable.

Final presentation for my cancer research fellowship, here I come!

frustrating? yes.

So this blog post is just a rant. I thought if I typed it I wouldn't be so frustrated. Don't feel obligated to read this long, detailed story.

So I am currently on hold on the telephone. This gives me a couple minutes to blog about what it has taken me to get to this point to talk to an actual person and accomplish my task. Goal: reserve a public pool for an upcoming ward party. Simple task, yes? Or at least you'd think it would be simple. But no. I look up the pool online and it gives me a number to call to reserve the pool for a group party. I dial the number. One of those recorded messages comes on with about 8 different options (you know, like: "For information on ____, press 1." and so on and so forth). I patiently wait for my option to pop up, but it doesn't. Finally at the end it says, "For information on (the pool I needed), please hang up and dial ___-___-___." So what do I do? I dial this new number. This time there is another recorded message, but instead of options, it's just a LONG message giving every little detail about this pool. Finally at the END of the message it says, "To reserve a group party, please hang up and dial...(the FIRST number I tried).

I hang up and ponder what to do next. Not really having any other options, I called the first number again, listened to the whole message AGAIN hoping I missed something the first time. Nope. Hmmm...so I tried the 2nd number again. This time I felt like an idiot. You know those things that says, "How do you keep an idiot entertained for hours? Turn this over." (Turn over.) "How do you keep an idiot entertained for hours? Turn this over." Yeah I felt like that.

After I was sure I hadn't missed any options to talk to a real person, I called the FIRST number AGAIN and just tried pushing numbers that were about other things, hoping to talk to a real person who could redirect my call. Any real people to talk to? No. Only voicemail. So I googled "group parties" with the name of the pool and a THIRD number popped up. So I called it and I could put on hold. So then I started typing this. Since then, I talked to a real person! But, this person told me the other person who could REALLY help me with what I wanted is unavailable...so she will call me back. Yup that's the whole story. Super annoying.

The upside? I now know just about everything about this public pool. If your child is not potty-trained, you MUST purchase a swim diaper for him/her for $1. This was made very clear on BOTH messages. I even know how much money you will save if you purchase a punch card. So at least the last 10 minutes weren't a total waste, right?

4-year-old Liz

So you thought this would be a post about me when I looked like this (I'm in the purple and Abby's the darling one in pink)...

...but it's actually a post about 25-year-old me that hasn't progressed since age 4. Let me explain: I cannot eat without spilling on myself. This is not an exaggeration. One time I was on a date with a cute guy and he bought me JDawgs for lunch (famous hot dog place in Provo that has a special secret sauce). I thought the date was going well...good conversation, etc...until my date paused mid-sentence, grabbed a napkin, and wiped some special sauce off my forehead. Embarrassing. He never asked me out again. The reason I'm writing about this now is to document something funny Ryan said to me last night at Hires Big H. We went to dinner there for Annie's birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNIE!) last night and it blew my mind how many times I spilled on my pants. White pants. Bad idea for Liz to own white pants. By the end of the night, I had like 5 fry sauce stains, 1 stain from the fudge sundae Annie got for free, and 1 stain from the avocado that wasn't supposed to be on my burger. It was disgusting. Ryan's comment: "You can always tell what Liz ate...just look at her pants!" Embarrassing.

cat dissection?

So I'm having one of those days where you realize there IS going to be life after grad school and that perhaps you should think of future plans just a LITTLE bit. So I was searching for faculty position openings around the country to get an idea of what's out there. I found one that looked pretty interesting, and I was reading the qualifications to see if I am, in fact, qualified. You know how it goes: "PhD in life sciences...CHECK...teaching experience...CHECK...well-versed in the biological sciences....CHECK...(and just when you're starting to feel really good about yourself, 'man I could actually get a job!!')...experience with cat dissection...WHAT THE?? CAT DISSECTION??" Yup, interesting field I am in isn't it? Let's just say I have ZERO experience dissecting cats.

you know you look rough when...

everyone you see in the widstoe building either asks, "Did you sleep here last night?" or "early morning huh?"

:)

yes...yes it was an early morning. yes...i am in fact wearing slippers. yes my braid was braided yesterday, not today. no...i don't really care at this point.

:)

gill

Meet Liz, the fisherman...er woman...

This may or may not be the story of Liz catching her first fish EVER.

She's not excited or anything.

 Meet Gill.

We intended to keep him alive and set him free,

but Gill swallowed the hook :(

After having the hook ripped out,

(yeah that doesn't sound painful does it?)

Gill's little gills were still struggling to work,

so we thought we'd put him back in the water to see if he could bounce back.

Result?

Meet gutless Gill.

The End.







PS:

How gorgeous is this? Wow, I'm a lucky girl to see scenes like this one.

note to self

Dear Liz,

Next time you go 4 wheeling up hobble creek canyon, don't leave your cell phone in your back pocket. It will not still be there when the ride is over. You may never find it again. You may have to go to T-mobile tomorrow and buy a new phone. You may be sad about his :( Just wanted to warn you,

Love,
Liz

"are you married?"

Well I keep procrastinating blogging about this because it was so funny at the time that I worried I wouldn't be able to do it justice. Oh well, I'll just pretend that my readers will catch the hilarity of this moment despite my lack of talent for writing.

(Sidenote: I'm trying really hard to capitalize "I" and write in full sentences because it bugs Steph when I don't. So Stephanie, this is for YOU!)

Okay, so last week a group of us went over to help a girl in our ward move. I had heard she needed help cleaning so I think I assumed everything was all packed up and we'd just do the deep cleaning. However, I arrived to discover that virtually NO packing had been done yet. Not only that, but let's just say there was a lot of stuff...everywhere...and it all had to be out that night. It was one of those overwhelming moments when I did not think the task ahead was possible. So, being Liz, I turned to Sara and Tara (who were beginning to box up the kitchen) and said, "Do we need more boxes?? I'll go get more boxes!" (hence appearing super helpful while really just wanting the easy job). Sara immediately said, "I'll come with you!" which left Tara..."I guess I'll stay here..." poor Tara.

So off Sara and I went on our grand box-acquiring adventure. First stop: "Dirty Allens"....no luck. Every store near the mall...negative. Never discouraged, we decided Walmart might be our best best...but who wants to drive all the way to Springville if they're not really going to have boxes right? Unfortunately, Sara and I are both in the stone age and don't get internet on our phones. However, Sara is a genius and texted google...BAM we got Walmart's number. We're so good. So Sara calls and talks to a super helpful person who tells us to go to the produce section and they'll have boxes for us! Sweet! Off we went.

Enter: super nice Walmart worker in the produce section...a spanish-speaker.

Our friend took us to the back and loaded up a cart with banana boxes. He even offered us tape! We were trying to decide how many boxes would fit in my little car, and I guess we were discussing like a married couple because the next thing our friend asks us is, "Are you married??" Did this guy think we were married to EACH OTHER?? That was definitely what we both thought when he asked us...but I'm going to assume he just thought Sara was super cute and wanted to know if she was available... Well that's pretty much the story... now that I've typed it all out I still think it was a you-had-to-be-there moment, but man it was funny! So was the trek back to the car with this huge cart loaded up with banana boxes...not to mention the next few hours packing and cleaning up that house... and watching Tara clean out that fridge...

ward talent show

well tonight was our ward talent show! steph and i wanted to do a little something...and for some reason we decided to reenact this commercial:

who knows if people thought it was funny...but we sure cracked ourselves up...and that's all that matters right? :)

the lightning cubs

so one reason i love my roommate steph is that she signs us up for random stuff i would never think of. like how she signed us up to be volunteer soccer coaches for a team of 1st and 2nd grade girls for provo city. (we don't tell the little ones that i'm not that great at soccer!) it has been a BLAST. these 10 little girls have won their way into my little heart. of course i still get frustrated when they have attitude, or sit down on the field when the ball is on the other side of the field, or get tangled up in the net while they're playing goalie and can't get out when the ball is coming toward them, or when they get mad when i put them on defense, or have a hard time focusing...but we love 'em anyway. :) one gem: "hey liz guess what!! i have a boyfriend...but we're not going to kiss until we're 26!" sounds like a good age!

here's us after our only win so far...

randoms

(1) I PASSED MY COMPREHENSIVE EXAM!!! basically this means my coursework is complete and i am officially a PhD candidate! sounds official eh? so now i only have my dissertation left to complete. psh that will be cake ;) currently, writing this paper takes up most of my day...

“MOLECULAR DETAILS OF MEMBRANE FLUIDITY CHANGES DURING APOPTOSIS AND RELATIONSHIP TO PHOSPHOLIPASE A₂ ACTIVITY”

Gibbons E, Pickett KG, Streeter MC, Warcup AO, Nelson J, Judd AM, Bell JD

(2) with the semester over I get to do research full time for the summer! i'm super lucky because i got a fellowship with the BYU Cancer Research Center....so they basically pay me more money than i would usually make to do the same research i would have done anyway! lucky me. (oh and they took me out to lunch at la jolla groves in the Riverwoods...BEST. SALMON. EVER....oh and the bathrooms were pretty shnazzy as well...bonus)

(3) I may or may not have tripped on like 3 chairs at once the other day while i was all alone in the lab. i may or may not have fallen HARD CORE all the way to the ground, right on my knee. i may or may not have a huge black bruise on that knee.

(4) my bro-in-law ryan and i decided which half marathon we're going to do this summer! the hobbler half marathon (no pun intended) is 12 weeks away so this was my first week of training! I've run 3 out of 4 days this week so i'm feeling pretty heroic. saturday  i'm running a 5k with steph in payson for her school so hopefully i can beat my sad rex lee run 5k time from march. (sidenote: it's super depressing to start running again after you've been slacking. hopefully my body will forgive my recent neglect)

(5) so i get asthma when i'm running...but the more i run the better it gets and it usually only lasts about 1 mile. who cares though...the funny part is what i think about when i'm running with asthma, all i can picture is a diagram dr. judd drew me of a glob of mucous in my airways hanging there making it harder for me to exhale. we called it the loogie explanation and got a good laugh out of it (because i wondered why mucous in the airway wouldn't prevent inhalation as much as exhalation ... turns out there's this thing called gravity making the loogie hang the way it does). disgusting i know. sorry about that. i may or may not have drawn this on the board during my final review for the physiology lab i TA. good times.

(6) one of the highlights of this week:

we got to meet the Guschins! they are my parents' good friends in Novosibirsk and were visiting the United States from Russia for their daughter's graduation. we had such a fun visit with them...they were so kind. it made me happy to feel a little more connected to my parents since they seem a world away. it made it more real that they're actually in Russia. a favorite quote from Brother Guschin: "your father IS russian...he is a russian man." :) so proud of my jukie and pops.

(7) When i was growing up, my mom would always make the 4 girls matching Easter dresses. they were usually the same pattern but different colors. it seems like annie was always blue, jenny always pink, and then abby and i were purple, yellow, or green or something. we were pretty cute. if i had old pictures on my laptop i'd put one on for your viewing pleasure. since i DON'T...here's one from THIS year :) some things never change...

(8) did i mention i bought a fedora? sometimes i'm random like that.

(9) i finally applied for my passport so i can go to Russia in August!! SO EXCITED.

(10) so i was just looking up something on Craig's List...and thought this was funny/weird. sorely tempted though. enjoy...

FREE PHYSICAL LABOR

My name is Mike and I'm looking to do some physical labor for anybody who needs it. Why am I offering this? Lifting weights is incredibly boring! I'd much rather help somebody move a bunch of bricks, dig a hold, pull some weeds/plants etc. The catch is it's gotta be something that will give me a good sweat so I can get a work out. I'm 6'3" and a big strong guy, so give me something difficult! I need to do this! Give me a call anytime, leave a message if I'm not there. I teach piano so that's the recorded message you'll hear when you call. Thanks!

mondays

what do your mondays consist of? today, mine is 6 hours of having my students pee in cups so we can measure the volume, pH, and osmolarity of their urine. did i mention i force one of them to drink a LOT, another to down a lot of Tums, another to eat salt tablets, and another to drink lemon juice? and by "force" i mean i ask nicely and they are happy to do it. good times. i love my job. jealous? :)

PS - the kidney is miraculous. it's amazing how every little nephron does its job so well to keep everything balanced so our bodies are happy. have you been grateful for your kidney today?

SAN DIEGO

so this past week i got to go to san diego for the biophysical society annual meeting! basically biophysicists from all over the world get together for a week and share what we're researching. it's one big party! here are the highlights:

*12 hour rides in the 12 passenger van: sleeping. listening to oldies. playing ticket to ride on jared's phone, being productive and doing homework on my laptop (on the way there, not so much on the ride home), texting lauryl even though she was only a few seats away, eating SNACKS, chatting about my project with dr bell, etc, etc.

*eating out a LOT: thai, italian (way fancier than anticipated. like the waiter put your napkin on your lap for you...good old juan), mexican, seafood (think salmon tacos and clam chowder..mmm), sketchy jack 'n the box in the sketchy part of town, etc.

*beautiful run in balboa park (jen i realized we never went again! my bad...sorry friend)

*THE BEACH. i love pondering life while listening to the waves and watching the sunset (yes waking up to a car covered in snow this morning was depressing)

*presenting my poster! had some great discussions about it with other people who care! so fun.

*fun to realize you remember people from past years! that's right...i'm a member of the biophysical society.

*once again helping to get the dance party started! this year i had a swing-dancing, cha-cha-ing friend. loved it!

*bike taxi. no words. this was the most hilarious night of my life.

*lauryl and i trying to out-laugh jared through the hotel walls.

*the great pillow caper that almost ended tragically.

*mike being late...always...

*being photographed at ghirardelli's for their ad compaign. watch for me on the side of a bus!

*watching chick flicks with jen...always a tradition.

*meeting friends from all over the world.

*networking for post-doc opportunities!

*saturating my brain with lots of science stuff!!!

most of these things probably aren't funny to anyone else, but at least i will enjoy reading it in the years to come :) i love what i do!!