Halloween!!

At work we got pumpkins to carve for Halloween and then we were going to have a vote on who carved the best one. My co-worker and I decided to carve McCain and Obama on ours. We did not though win the contest, a few labs were a bit more propumpkin. There was a Hula Pumpkin, Phillie Phanatic and an Alien one, that were just crazy, one of which involved dry ice, two had rainbow light things and one was eating a pumpkin hamburger. Very creative I must say. It took my coworker and me 2 1/2 hours to get ours done, not bad since we were at work and getting paid to carve pumpkins!!

A happier note gas is now down to like $1.95/gal which is pretty crazy!!
I like it though, makes filling up my tank under $20, which is awesome! The real only happy side effect of the Economic CRISIS we are in!! Worse crisis in a century, blah blah. Everyone is trying to figure out what went wrong, whose fault it was, mainly because they want to see someone go to jail. Probably not going to happen. I feel sorry for all the other countries whose economies have now been made worse, largely to ours failing. One more reason to dislike America. But optimism is surely on its way! Two more days until the election!! And then HOPE Arrives!!

Just to put it out there, since everyone else is doing it, I, Katie Spitler, am endorsing Barack Obama. Yeah that's right, jumping on the Hope bandwagon. Technically I did that a few months ago during caucus time but whatever.

Things Weighing on My Mind!

So I've been working at Pioneer for a while. It is fun! My job may not be that exciting and I may be doing the same thing...day after day.. after day. But I always have something to do that can keep me busy every day, all the time, which is nice. Unfortunately I do tend to make little slip ups... always when my boss is around, of course.

Last week I actually made a glass dish explode! No joke! So I had a glass dish on a hot plate with water in it, because I was boiling some samples, and after I am done boiling them I am "supposed" to turn off the 400 some degree F hotplate, but I forgot and an hour later when all the water evaporated out of the dish, I heard this loud crash and tinkling of broken glass, as well as, a scream from a co-worker that was nearby the dish, luckily didn't get hit by the glass! And I go over and my boss has a broom and a dustpan and points out my mistake.. I'm like Opps.. luckily she didn't seem to mad so its ok.

We also had a department picnic, which we got to learn work at 2p.m. but still clock in the hours we would have normally worked! We played badminton and volleyball and all wore our free t-shirts we got! They also had coolers of beverages including 1 with soda, 1 with water, 1 with juice and 4 or 5 with beer! I am like, "Man if only I liked beer, this would be awesome!" But its ok, they had Mt. Dew so all was well! And for dinner they had an actual roasted PIG, like the entire pig,
I couldn't eat any of it, too bizarre being able to see exactly where it came from. I still ate the shrimp though... which is kind of like the same as the pig.. but I just don't think shrimp are as cute and don't feel bad eating them!

My First BIG PERSON job!

I just started my first "REAL" job as a college graduate! It is researching starch producing genes in CORN! I LOVE CORN, so this job works out well. So far it hasn't been super exciting, but it is enjoyable. I always have something to do so the day goes by pretty fast. So far I ave just ground up corn, about 440 times roughly. Needless to say I have the grinding process DOWN! But now I am actually doing tests with it.
OUR lab listens to NPR which is quite entertaining and enlightening. It is a good source for news, local and global. They always talk about new books that are coming out, many I would like to read, of course what I should do is write down the title so that I remember what books they were so I can actually get them, Details!
Luckily I work with 4 other Drake Grads, so there are very few really DULL moments. We have a good time in our lab, we also listen to the classical music station when we are tired of NPR and we make up stories of what is going on in the song, like fairies, chocolate thieves, banana parties.. you get the idea!
All in all I like my job, I get paid and research experience. It is really flexible, laid-back, fun kind of like ME!! HEHE!

I always like to put pictures in my blogs so here goes!


Caleb and an elephant at the Omaha Zoo! One of them has 4 knees(the only animals that have 4 knees), but I'll let you figure out which one it is!!

Oh Where Did the Year Go?

Curious....

It is very exciting that it is already May!! I have been looking forward to this month since this school semester started!! I always loved May, and no, not just because my birthday is in May, although that is nice too! This May is especially exciting seeing as how I'm graduating!!! YAY!! I am so looking forward to that! Proudly walking down the aisle in my cap and gown! And eventually this summer I'll be getting the piece of paper that officially shows off the fact that I have a bachelors degree in BCMB!! Yee-Haw!

I was thinking about how it will be "summer break" but not really. Since usually my Summer break is 3 months and then school starts again. But this Fall I won't be having classes. Which isn't really scary, just weird!! Sure, there are a few classes I never got a chance to take, but I'm not going to spend another $20,000 just for classes I wanted to take just because. If you want to give me money to do that, I will gladly accept it! :-) Just kidding

A lot of people are asking me my plans for after graduation. I was hoping to proudly say, "I'm going to graduate school at _____(insert name of school here)____ but that isn't how things turned out. So now I am trying to be a big girl and get a job! GGRRR... how lame is that? Jeez. Oh well! I shall try. Surely there is someone out there looking for a cute, smart and silly girl that wants to do scientific research right? Surely!! Shirley?

Also, At the end of the month I'm going to Vegas with Caleb!! YAY!! I know it is a crazy city, but I love it! The big hotels, gambling, bright lights.. shiny things!

So its February..

I haven't written anything in like 2 months!! Time flies.. unfortunately it hasn't been the flying by of good times. Some of the times were good, but some, not so. Oh well, time still goes on as does life. Lets see.. This semester I am taking some awesome classes: Dinosaur Biology, Into to Primatology, Science Lab Safety, Research and Ancient Rome! So it should be fun. I am very excited to learn about Dinosaurs because they are AWESOME! And I love Primates, so it is exciting to learn about them, there are 350 species of Primates!!

Speaking of Primates, Curious George the so called "curious little monkey" is not a monkey because he is a chimp and chimps are apes! The book is wrong... it is teaching children that chimps are monkeys!! All those years of confusion. I still love Curious George though!

Grad. school updates... I have an interview of Iowa, but that is the only school I have heard from. Most of the schools mentioned they had interviews in Feb. so I probably am not getting into there since they haven't contacted me... sad. I was hoping I would have some choices, make my life exciting!! I am still holding out for Vanderbilt because they said they contact people from Feb. 15th to March 15th.. so there is still a chance I will get in there and get out of IOWA! Keeping my fingers crossed!!




SISTERS!! YAY!

Its Cold Outside...

Well its definitely winter in Iowa, although technically it isn't official until the 21stish. But yes, snow is on the ground, covering the layers of ice underneath, in hopes that an unsuspecting pedestrian will walk upon it thinking it is just nice crunchy snow, but soon realize when they fall flat on their behind that it was just snow covering up the demonic ice. Oh well... that is why I chose to just stay inside and not go out... easily said then done.

Classes are winding down, which makes me very excited. I am quite pleased with what I have learned in Ancient Greece, it is a pretty neat class, even though the Professor goes off subject sometimes. 800B.C.-360B.C Greece was such an interesting time. Democracy, war, philosophy, laws...ect. Many movies have been made from it!! In my cell/molecular biology lab I am kind of sure of what we did, but one guy in our group is so WAY off base with what we did, that now I am confused.. and sadly we haven't quite let him in on his misconcieved ideas. Oh well.

My research class has accomplished A LOT!! We did our exercise "runs" and I think we have 20-25 people fully completed. Which means in 13ish week we had 20-25 people coming into the lab for 2hrs at a time, 5 times. And gathered to do these "runs" there has to be 10ish research students there... Basically we were all in the lab for at least 10hrs/week. Pretty ridiculous, but somehow it worked.

I have fully applied to two schools for graduate school and by the 15th I will be done with two more, and then sometime there after before Jan. 15th I will have completed 6 whole applications. And then at some point I will complete the one for University of Nebraska Medical Center... I haven't quite figured out their application deadline.. they have no set date.. so I dunno.. I'll figure it out! But after that it will be exciting!!! AND I WILL BE SOOOO POOR! geez... I wish I could work more, but then I would be SUPER stressed about getting things done. So I'm going to be poor for a while, because that is much better then being a stressed out gal!! I think so anyway!!

Well... that is what is new in my life.. Here is a picture of the parthenon in Athens, somewhere I would love to go!!

Grad. School... oh my goodness!!

I hate tests... especially standardized tests, because they aren't really fair or standard. you know who their written for? Rich, white, hoity toity people that don't even have to study and can do well presumably because of some "good-test-taker-but-obnoxious-individual gene". Anyway... That normal GRE that everyone takes is just poo, I mean really when am I really going to need to know those big words, I mean I know plenty of big scientific word, but did they ask me those??? NOOO... I hope grad. schools don't look too much into my GRE scores because if they did they are going to think I am D.U.M.B. plain and simple!! Oh well.. I want to take ita gain, but that requires $$$$$$$$ a commodity I do not have right now.. but we'll see.. I can always take a year off and study really hard and retake the test. I think the Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular biology subject GRE test went ok, I don't imagine I didn't SUPER on it but hopefully I did OK, it was sOO long 180 ?'s is just way too much, I was pretty dead after the 1st 90...

I keep narrowing my list of schools.. I know I should apply to a nice spectra of schools, but I look through their websites and think about them and realize I really don't want to go there or be in that city. So far the main schools are: U of Iowa, U of Nebraska Medical Center, U of Chicago, Mayo Clinic, Vanderbilt and Cornell. As much as I would love to go to school w/ my sister the chance of me getting into Cornell are not to great.. but who knows.. one might get lucky.

I am almost done with applications, I just need to get my scores back in order to put them inthe application!! YAY!! FUN FUN!! Luckily most or 1/2ish don't have application fees so thats nice!!


Let me find a random pic to put into this blog for ya...here is me on halloween I was a fuzzy green monster!