me0wcat bl0g

I was in Madagascar from May 27th to June 13th to check part of Africa off my list and to visit my friend Emily who was studying lemurs at Ranomafana National Park. I have great plans to try to blog out some of my experiences and include pictures but have been having trouble attaching photos to my blog. But, thanks to CS 101 at Purdue where I learned how to create websites, I was able to figure out how to insert pictures using HTML.

Here are some teasers. Our first jungle experience was a night hike in Andasibe. Above is a Parsons chameleon. Below is a mouse lemur, only active at night. We literally scared the piss out of this little guy. Although our guide said that he was just marking his territory.
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Friday night we had a surprise fiesta for my friend Kevin's 30th birthday. These were some of the guests. And some of the activities included a pinata....and then burning the pinata (without the candy). I bought a couple of good CDs for the evening: Afro Cuban All Stars and Celia Cruz. I heard Celia Cruz on a Putamayo hour on some streaming thing from ITunes. ...

My friend Missy has linked this blog to her site. John asked if I was still going to post on the Me0wcat.
Well the truth of the matter is that I abandoned me0wcat for myspace for the plain fact of more visibility. The only people that read me0wcat are John and Gloria and I feel a little weird about writing about stuff for the sole audience of my ex-boyfriend, even if we are still friends.

I also had made a goal to stay away from my computer this summer...it makes me neurotic a bit. And I think I like writing diary entries on paper better. There is less opportunity to erase. Once you write something, you have to go with it.
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I'm doing pretty well with the teeth thing. I bought the listerine. It sits in the bathroom and I use it about 5 out of 7 days of the week. Not quite part of the nightly routine.

I'm not doing well with the "Be more positive about work" resolution. My boss just frustrates me. He reuses containers to store stuff and doesn't clean them out very well. It's like pulling a plate out of the cupboard and finding crusty food on it...only worse.

Also, some of the excipients we use to make capsules have short expiration dates, for example our current supply of lactose monohydrate expires in Aug 2006. For most of the products we make, we give them a one year expiration date from the time of manufacturing, or the shortest expiration date of one of the ingredients. When the sales rep for the our source of lactose monohydrate visited, I asked her about the expiration date. She said she would look into it, and that the next time we ordered it, we should call her and she would make sure we got a supply with a longer expiration date. We use lactose monohydrate in almost everything, so we have to give most everything an expiration of 8/2006. Today I asked my boss if we were going to try to get a supply with a longer expiration date. He said "Oh, I already ordered it through Lawson." Lawson is our ordering system. I responded "Oh, did you also contact the sales rep to make sure we get a good supply?" He looked at me in his odd way, a cross between "wow, that never occurred to me, and what a novel idea," and his look also has a bit of dumbfoundedness and shock. His reply was "No, I guess I should do that."
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4 or 5. Take better care of my teeth. I really should floss every day. But I think I will take a baby step and try to at least use mouthwash everyday. Those commercials have me convinced that it's as good as flossing!

5 or 6. Save more...or go on my trips to other countries. Now that I got this raise, I will have to do something productive with it....mmm yikes, can't forget school loans. Boooo!

I opened my paycheck today and realized I had gotten a raise! A pretty big one too. All the pharmacists at the hospital got raises. Several of them quit, so I think that in addition to the periodic market survey they conduct, they really don't want anyone else to quit. I'm certainly glad that we didn't transition to the School of Medicine on the first of December, it might have cost me my raise.

Poor Public Health

On the negative side, this raise only brings my one step farther away from a career with more of a public health focus. It would be a huge pay cut, plus I would give up the luxury of getting unexpected raises. :(
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My dad gave me a hard time about wishing people "happy holidays." In the not so diverse state of Maine, Merry Christmas is more appropriate. It's amazing that I turned out normal.

I've been home for three days. Almost finished knitting a scarf, read two books, and have amazed my dad with my baking of cookies and whoopie pies (yes, more whoopie pies) with such enthusiasm. Well dad, there wasn't much else to do. My dad was so excited with my cooking, he asked if I had a "good stove and oven" in Philadelphia. I'm not really sure where he was going with that one. What was he going to do if I said "No, it really sucks." I guess he just wanted to make sure his daughter had the best. I did give him a little attitude in my answer, and I feel guilty about that. But sometimes he is just weird with his questions...downright quirky!
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It's been a long day. I was tired from staying up until 2:30am but amped from having most of my health policy paper written. 3 cups of coffee and 2 cups of tea through out the day kept me pretty amped as well.

It's been cold and rainy the last two days. When I got home, I was so cold and constricted from the caffeine, it took coccooning in my bed to warm me up. Now I sit in front a fire I built, proofreading my paper and finalizing the references. My cheeks feel hot and rosey.

I still have one more paper/presentation to finish for Saturday, but I'm not feeling motivated. Besides, I doubt the professor will read the paper, so I just need to pull off the twenty minute presenation. I suspect that tomorrow might be a long night.
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