Why I haven't been around much...

It's amazing how fast life comes at you sometimes, isn't it? This last month has been so busy! I'm a student, so I had finals, my little brother graduated from high school, I've written a paper which should be just about ready to submit to a journal for review, I've helped some friends out with applications for professional school, and I've successfully planned, supplied, and organized a huge research project. A couple times, actually, as things have changed during the planning period. I think I'm finally getting to the point where I can just focus on the research and start getting some results. That will feel really nice. Be nice to your managers; its a lot of work coordinating the activities of many people, especially if they have a lot of unique circumstances.

I did have some fun, too; I recommend both the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie and the new Spiderman movie. They had mixed reviews, I know, but I found them both thoroughly enjoyable, taken for what they are. Fun scenery and costumes, reasonable, interesting character development, running jokes... good stuff.

Naming the blog

There is a particular poem my grandfather has loved to recite for as long as I can remember. He is a very intelligent man, and has a great passion for understanding the universe. The poem, Measurement, by AM Sullivan, appealed to the scientist in both of us, and quickly became a favorite of mine. I have grown more fond of it with time, as my forays into molecular biology have reinforced to me that "there is in God's swift reckoning a universe in everything." The poem opens with the assertion that "Stars and atoms have no size; they only vary in men's eyes." It seemed appropriate, when asked by my computer what name I wanted to present to the blogging world to describe myself, to draw from that first line. I'm lucky, actually; names are important to me, and I could have been stuck on this one a very long time.

To add a little second layer of meaning here, I'll just add one of my favorite quotes, one from Nietzsche that comforts me when the chaotic nature of my life starts to get to me. Yeah, you all know it, but I'm going to repeat it anyway. "One must still have chaos in one's self to be able to give birth to a dancing star." Pretty, no? There is hope yet for my chaos. On the atoms front, well, I'm loopy about them, although I work more with molecules (most of them macromolecules) than with individual atoms. I am fascinated by the complicated workings of the human body, particularly the way that all these inanimate bits work together without our conscious intervention to make us alive. It's a huge, intricate, amazing dance, and I expect to happily spend the rest of my life exploring it.

So that's me, in three words. Stars and atoms. Welcome to my nook.