phthalombrage | (no subject)

I learned some things.

L is most likely to misinterpret choreography and not realize it. She makes it something else, usually bringing an angular quality to it. She feels freer dancing without a bra, and only had two pairs of ballet tights in her life. You can sometimes notice the lack of technical background, but she is one of the most uninhibited improv people I know.

One of A's eyes, which are startlingly blue, has a brown spot on it. She has graduated, but B has not. B has a sort of tension in her, and sucks her lips to the side as a sort of tic. They are friends and talk closely with each other.

AM is friendliest to everyone, but when she dances, she turns her eyes away. She didn't invite any friends to see this show because she was worried about how long she had been not dancing.

Everyone else (except Michael) had or was working on a dance degree. We were not really on stage, but you still feel like you are. It changes you.

Part of why Walking to the Sky is such a terrible piece of sculpture is because the statues are all un-genuinely posed. They are objectifying themselves, they are overacting, they are rigid and contrived as their bright shiny clothing that sits (not even hangs) in implausible folds. The only girl left on the pole has a ponytail aiming toward the pole and not the ground. These bodies have no movement, no looseness, no weight, and very little humanity. Everything about it screams FAKE FAKE FAKE, and not even a beautiful untruth.

Optical is super boring, but useful to have on hand, and far less nerve-wracking than fancier microscopes.

Today when I went in to use confocal, I noticed the laser was left on. One of the Korean postdocs, in fact the one who was put IN CHARGE of the confocal room, had used it last, according to the logbook. One of the power boxes had been left on, which was not as serious as the laser. I tried to set up the gas, but a wall valve was stuck open, turned way past the point at which it is actually open. I called my postdoc, who called another one to try to muscle it open. I then learned the Argon + 5% Hydrogen gas had been left running until this morning as well. As he was trying to open it, the stronger postdoc said he thought the vacuum had been left on, and it was then that I realized that while the vacuum pump itself was off, the vacuum valve was sitting wide open. I never usually have to check that. He was trying to open the pipes in another location to release the vacuum situation up by the stuck valve. In the meantime, my postdoc called in the postdoc responsible for the situation, who also couldn't unscrew the overrotated valve. He didn't know how to release the gas after use, he said, because argon was "safe" (which means that he probably didn't check for leaks, either, even though his gas mix included flammable hydrogen), expressed surprise that the laser was still on even with all the power boxes shut down, and proceeded to pull out the sample holder, dropping my crucible and losing the nickel shot I was planning to melt in the process! My postdoc was really pissed. The offending postdoc was super cheerful and apologetic. He's always looked to me like the kind of man that needs a woman to take care of his house, make his lunch, alert him when his nose hairs are growing out too long...

Considering that his postdoc colleague broke the right-hand flowmeter, overtightened his gas regulator, and ran his experiment a leaky gas line (also did EDS on the SEM when the detector was behaving erratically and didn't seem to notice), I am now way more worried about how running an experiment with cylinder gas will *actually* finally be.

Meanwhile, my partner is back from a California vacation, and my postdoc was shocked to learn that she gets paid $10 an hour to break our equipment, text on her blackberry, surf facebook, do optical, and the other sorts of things she does at work. She was asking if she could run confocal this afternoon, but she is even more rough and negligent with expensive and sensitive equipment than the two problem postdocs, so my postdoc just laughed.

I guess I get another go at confocal Friday, and then maybe next week we will finally be able to start experimenting for reals.

Also, I have a place to live and am moving furniture tonight! Yay.