What is your hurry?

College campuses are all plagued by this one strange phenomenon, and I mean no offense by this, but the asian students, typically the ones from overseas, run everywhere. I'm fairly certain this could be a part of why they are all so tiny, that and I've seen what they eat for lunch, our entire building smells like their lunch too. I once was having a conversation with a friend outside of a graduate organic chem spec class I took last winter, class didn't start for another 10 minutes and the class that was in there before us was still filtering out. We were ironically having a conversation about this very topic, trying to decide if perhaps they were just a chronically late people. Mid-sentence, an asian girl comes jogging down the hallway and shoves her way into the classroom. She was in our class, which didn't start for another 10 minutes. So this continues to baffle me. Maybe I should start his habit, then I'll weigh 100 pounds.

While we're on the subject of abnormal social behaviors, how about people who need a mute button. There's some engineers out there who just lack in the social department. I'll pause for a moment for you to gasp in surprise. The ones who really drive me nuts are the ones who just NEVER SHUT UP. It's like word vomit 24/7; like you and some friends are having a nice little chat about some random subject, and they come in and beat the subject to death. If only we could have a mute button or silencio actually worked. Alas.

I rode Polo tonight and I got to the barn late so I had the whole place to myself. It was lovely.



How precious is he? If it wasn't such a monumental waste of horse I'd take him to grad school and let him live in a field and trail ride him, I think he would rather enjoy it. But that would be an epic waste of a capable young horse, lo siento Polo.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: More cool shit being done with nanoparticles is today's topic. Nanoparticles can be used to create coatings for surfaces that are extremely hydrophobic, meaning they frickin' hate water. Water touches them and they bounce that shit off like a bouncer presented with a bad fake, although it is fun to watch the sorry suckers leave. Anywho. So the advantage of this is you can incorporate the nanoparticles in to stuff like clothing fibers or a coating for windows and you end up with items that are essentially self cleaning or super resistant to getting dirty. Rumor has it there's a self cleaning window coating in the works that photo-initiates (you know what this is now as I've discussed before, oh look, learning!), releases a radical and essentially soaps itself. The goal is to use it on skyscrapers and other such unnecessarily large buildings that are a bitch to clean. Can we have a nanoparticle spray for ponies, so they are resistant to poo stains? Take that, Lemony's white hock.

Not enough work?

I'm not used to having quarters this friendly. I'm used to drowning in a work load and wanting to die of hours upon hours of homework and barely getting enough sleep. This quarter I actually find myself thinking that I need more work because I'm bored at night.

And then I repeatedly hit my head on the wall until that feeling goes away.

Mostly I think I'm just annoyed because there isn't a damn thing on tv tonight.



Do you see this adorable, smug looking animal, sleeping in his dog bed? Yeah he's going to become dinner, as my whole family actually calls him, if he keeps getting under my bed, ten minutes before my alarm is supposed to go off, and destroying things. This morning he so badly shredded a magazine (that I haven't read yet) that I can't even figure out where the cover to it is. You should see the damage he's done to the box spring, I'm fairly certain he's been IN the box spring actually.

Oh yes, bunny stew is sounding lovely about now.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: Viruses are actually extremely advanced nanotechnology. Envision something so tiny that it can enter your blood stream, attach itself to a blood cell, and inject it's, well it's bad dna essentially into the blood cell. This is what engineers dream of being able to do someday with nanotechnology. They've actually attempted to take the virus vessels and remove their bad dna and insert good things, and send them into living bodies to do what they do. Alas, every time they've tried to do it with a human (once in the US, a few times in the UK) those suckers have said yeaaah f*ck this plan, I'm gonna do my own thing if that's ok, and promptly killed all the patients. The FDA banned that shit for humans so fast the scientists couldn't even defog their safety goggles. Definitely interesting stuff though and it'll remain as an engineering fantasy forever, or until nanotechnology actually gets there.

Smart friends are fun.

I love having friends who are smarter than I am and/or have better work ethics than I do. Last friday, when I whined about having been on campus all day doing homework, is providing me with great pleasure now. Right now I am plopped on the couch, further widening the dent in it, watching the Saints play the Vikings and repeatedly poking the cat. All thanks to having a friend who insisted we finish an entire assignment on friday that isn't due until tomorrow night. So thank you to her for having a far better work ethic than my generally procrastinating self does.

Don't you just love the phase of a cough where you're hacking up mucus? It's just so lovely. Especially when you're in a situation where you can't just spit it out and get to swallow it. I'll let you enjoy that thought for a second...

...Nice, isn't it?

I really, really hate facebook groups made by teenage children which have improper grammar or word usage in the title. I'm fairly certain the current 13-17 generation is actually opposed to using the proper form of their, there and they're and knowing the difference between to and too, lose and loose, amongst others. I had one I know say she was soar to me. That's....what birds do. Birds soar. You can be sore, but you can't soar. Unless you've sprouted wings recently or your horse bucks you off in to a spectacular trajectory. Do these kids not read? Ever? Maybe it's just that I have an incredibly low stupid tolerance. Or they're that dumb. Probably both.

The Ohio State Hunt Seat Team had a horse show this weekend at Ohio University, and it went really well. These horse shows are weird because at the beginning of the day you draw a horse's name out of an envelope and that's the horse you show and you get no practice time. I've got a gift for picking the biggest horse in the class, and looking like a peanut perched a top it. Our old coach coined a lovely song that goes "little girl on a big horse" to the tune of...well I'm not really sure. Yesterday's picture was a good example of that. And so is today's.



That's from a couple years ago, I'm "human lunge lining" Mongo, this unnecessarily large thing one of our clients had. He's now doing the big eq with some girl somewhere else in the country. I believe I'm riding in my please-don't-spook-because-I-can't-stop-you-if-you-do position. When he did spook I then went into the other classic little girl on a big horse position we like to call waterskiing, meaning your feet kicked out in front you leaning back with your hands in the air, which usually still does not result in stopping the horse.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: Today we're going to learn about diethylene glycol, because it's an interesting compound with a ton of uses and is toxic. I think some of the most interesting uses of it are as a humectant for various things like cigarettes or cosmetics (there's two things you want in the same sentence, eh?). Humectants absorb water from air so they, obviously, keep things moist. I find it really interesting that diethylene glycol is not allowed in food and drugs because it is indeed toxic, although there's quite a bit of debate about how toxic it is (how many mg/kg of body weight would be bad news bears, there is no definitive answer at the moment, I think, but no worries it is in fact a poison!). I'm sure the amounts used in cosmetics and cigarettes are low but that's just further proof that cigarettes are FUCKING BAD FOR YOU, and oral ingestion is more effective than dermal (through your skin). It's also a component of antifreeze. Makes you wonder what kind of crap is in stuff you use everyday. Antifreeze in your toothpaste? Could be. Yum.

You can't make me.

I'm a huge homebody. My ass and my couch have a love hate relationship. They love to be together but the couch hates the permanent indent. Which has gotten wider since the first year I lived here. Woops. It's thusly hard to convince my lazy ass to go out unless I've been exceptionally lazy lately or it's something I really want to do.

I don't even have any good pony updates because I haven't left the house all friggin' week until today. Sweet, blessed freedom. And what thrilling adventures did I have on my first day of freedom? I did homework. For five hours. In a computer lab on campus. Behold the excitement that is me. It's overwhelming, I know. I may need to sit on the couch for awhile until I am less whelmed.



That's me on Rueben, the biggest horse we have at the barn. He's fun. He also doesn't steer (yet). My roommate rides him better than I do, his size freaks me out. I prefer my horses to be wee and smaller.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: Chloroflourocarbons (CFC's) are made of, get this, chlorine, flourine and carbon. No I'm not done there a chem 101 student could probably figure that out. Actually, that might be a generous assumption. Anyway, chloroflourocarbon is what one would call volatile, it's most problematic reaction is it's photo-induced ability to spit out a chlorine, meaning some sunlight touches it and carbon gets its panties in a wad and says f*ck off chlorine and sends chlorine out the door with nothing but a spare radical. Rude, really. This chlorine then takes its radical and cries to ozone and tells it dirty lies and convinces it to change to oxygen (Ozone: O3, oxygen: O2. Pretend those are subscripted numbers). Oxygen doesn't absorb UV rays as well as ozone does, hence thinning of the ozone layer. CFC's used to be used in all kinds of things like as a propellant in aerosol cans, hence why people were like omg hairspray is ruining the ozone layer. They make such items without CFC's now, but it's much more fun to think of Snooki walking around with her own personal hole in the ozone layer above her. Although I'm not sure she's tall enough for that to happen. Her poof might be though.

Blah.

Because Shane is whining, I'll make a short post. I have H1N1. Yay. I have to go pick up my meds and buy tissues and then I'll be sitting on my ass for the rest of the day. And probably week.

No chem fun fact for you, because I don't have any functional brain cells right now.

Oh dear.

I'm not making a real post. I think doing that whilst drunk is a poor idea. This took a lot longer than it should have to type. I'll make a real post tomorrow. Wait, it is tomorrow. Because it's 1:41 AM so it is now Sunday. Yep.

Chem fun fact for the moment: In the body alcohol becomes acetaldehyde which is what makes you drunk and hung over and how quickly your body processes that to acetic acid determines your tolerance. Essentially. Yeah that's right I can still give you chem fun facts while I'm drunk, I'm that good.

Ouchtown, population: my butt.

Holy cow, am I sore. I got suckered into a work out class at noon called "whole body sculpt" aka death by exercise. There was running involved, let me tell you if there's something my short legged, sway backed, large butt physique is not for, it's running. So off to a great start with the go run and skip and knee high your sorry ass around the gym 4000 times. Or like...6 but whatever. Then we did suicides and squats with a weight ball and so and so forth and more squats and why are we still squatting and oh good lunges now my thighs are excited for a break and jog it off? Why are we jogging again? How are you people chatting casually? Ack. Good news is I probably burned more calories in that one class than I did all week doing whatever else.

I was so grotesque after that I decided to not go sleep through class and just went home and then off to the barn to ride Polo and a friend's horse. And then I got suckered in to riding a third horse, (I've got to figure how to not get suckered into these things so easily) who is being rehabbed (the horse is), and is also being a giant asshole in the process. So I nearly had my arms pulled out of their sockets for a half hour trotting his sorry butt up and down the long walls of the arena, all the while my thighs are basically laughing at me for how intensely miserable they plan on making me tomorrow.

At least the other two were good today.

Dog vomit update: 0 times today. Thank god, the piece of crap carpet in this apartment can't handle much more.

One thing my short stubby ass is good for: schooling ponies. Which produces pictures like this gem:



That pony is Buzz. He is maybe 12.2 hands, which for non-horsey people: he's frickin' small. He's the kind of pony an 8 year old rides. And I fit him rather nicely there. Alas, to have grown after sixth grade.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: Shear thickening is an interesting phenomenon, it's counter intuitive to how you think a pile of goop might react. Goop that is shear thickening, under low velocities or forces, the goop will flow easily with a low viscosity, which means "resistance to flow". But at higher forces, they "shear thicken" or become very high viscosity (refuse to flow). Have some corn starch? Pour some corn starch in a small bowl and add water and mix. Stick a finger in and just let it sit there, don't push. The goop will suck it in really easily. Now jab at it with your finger, the surface is hard. If you had like...a bathtub full of corn starch and water, you could run across it and not sink in, walk slowly and get stuck. You would notice how if you stuck your finger in and let it sink, if you try and yank it out, it's kinda stuck. Pull slowly, comes out easily. A current research aim with shear thickening polymers and materials is body armor. You could ideally create a super lightweight bullet proof vest that way amongst other death-inducing-proof items. I've got no way to apply this to ponies. Yet. Give me time I'll come up with something. Maybe that's my ticket to millions...

I prefer animals that can't vomit.

We are dogsitting until mid February for my roommate's grandma. So we have an elderly mutt with us who really is delightfully stupid and easy to care for, when he's not vomiting. He's upchucked four times today.

This is part of why I love having a rabbit, he can't vomit, rabbits are physically incapable of vomiting (downside, hairballs can kill them). Horses also can not vomit, neck is too long and gravity's a bitch. Consequently neither can giraffes, yes, I know you immediately thought of that next, it's like I've got espn or something.

I just saw a commercial for "The Pregnancy Pact", a show about a group of high school girls who made a pact to all get pregnant. What. The. Fuck. There is no good reason for that, other than sheer stupidity. Honestly it should be legal to remove people from the gene pool for the betterment of society. It happens in the natural world, stupid zebra makes a bad choice, he gets eaten by a lion. Stupid lion picks a fight he shouldn't, he gets impaled by an angry buffalo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM If you've never watched that, you should. Looks like bad decision day by the lions to me, it's the famous lions take down baby buffalo who falls into water which crocodile tries to steal which lions save from the crocodile then the buffalo gang up on the lions to save the baby and...well I won't ruin the ending for you.

We need a picture today, so here we go.



Now let me just tell you something about my horse Polo. He's kind of weird. If he were human, he would be in to all the kinky whips and chains and bondage stuff. He loves anything to do with his nose and mouth. Poke it, pull on it, hit it, whatever. The harder and the more you hit it the happier he is. So my good friend Louise is...poking him in the nose. Much to his joy.

I have strange animals in my life. My horse likes to be beaten, my pony eats bean burritos, and my rabbit is 18 pounds.

At least the dog is asleep now.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: This is kinda cool I learned this in my polymer nanotechnology class the other day. There's two kinds of polymers, thermoplastics and thermosets. Thermosets are one giant networked molecule. An example is a rubber tire. Rubber tires are one HUGE networked molecule. Think about that, polymers are kinda like connected spaghetti on a really wee scale. Tires are one MASSIVE collection of connected and networked and branched spaghetti forming ONE SINGLE molecule. Which is why it's really difficult to dispose of them, because thermosets do not break down like thermoplastics to a state in which you can reuse them (like melting down plastic and reshaping it). Although hacked in to little pieces they make a great addition to high tech arena footing for horse stables. Yeah that's right, I brought it back to ponies. It's a gift.

That was an unnecessarily long day

Holy fricking long day. Four classes + one programming review session = I'm pooped. My right contact also boycotted my vision for most of the day so I spent a lot of it looking at things sideways.

The cat and dog are on the couch asleep right now, I may vomit from cuteness.



That's Lemons in winter turnout from a few years ago. She loves snow. In fact the first time we got a big snow fall in New Jersey* I almost carried my dad to the car to drive me to the barn so I could ride in it. And as soon as I got on and walked into the snow covered ring (and I mean like a foot of snow) Lemony promptly tried to roll in it. It was all I could do to get myself and my saddle off first. Rotten pony.

How to make friends with Lemony: present her with food. Carrot, apple, nutrigrain bar, taco bell bean burrito and/or mild sauce (she'll eat the sauce straight). Once she pulled a lady's dunkin donuts bag in to her stall and ate the chocolate chip muffin that was in it, without eating the bag, the wax paper, or the paper wrap on the muffin.

If my days weren't so damn lame I'd have more to talk about, but since this trend of Emily-is-uber-boring doesn't look like it will end anytime soon I'll probably just continue to regale you with pony related stories. I could talk about school and being a chemical engineer but then I would put us both to sleep.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: You can disarm a bomb with liquid nitrogen. Avoid cutting the blue wire...red wire? That's a hollywoodism. But the typical battery operated bomb can be disarmed with liquid nitrogen, it freezes the battery and stops the electrons in it from moving and stops the timer. You know where I learned that one? Manswers. Who knew men could be useful.

*I grew up in NJ. No fist pumping involved.

Today was boring.

Damn you, reeses easter eggs and cadberry eggs being right by the check out. You taunt me with your 2 for one dollar special, convincing me to buy you, "Do you want this in the bag or with you?" "In the bag" as if I'm not going to eat it the instant I get into a car. But the check out lady thinks I have willpower, and that's more important here.

I hate blogs without pictures, I will probably post a lot of pictures. Generally mostly of ponies.



That's my horse, Polo, who is now for sale. He's not going to grad school, he needs to go find a new person who wants to jump big jumps and go to horse shows/has time for that.

Also, I match awesomely in that picture.

This is a really lame entry. Today was a really lame day.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: if a hamster were human size, it would drink us under the table. Like by about 50x as much. Their livers have that much more of an enzyme that breaks down the alcohol. Also studies have found that hamsters love alcohol. Thusly I conclude hamsters would make epic frat boys.

I blame Frank

My friend Frank is forced to write a blog for his first year english class and somehow convinced me start one. So we can all blame Frank for this. He'll be thrilled.

I'm not even sure what I have to say. I'm a big nerd, I love chemistry, especially organic, I love ponies, and I'm a ginger. Those seem to be the main three things people remember after they meet me.

I am a 5th year at Ohio State (obligatory go Buckeyes!) and I finish in June. I'm anxiously waiting to hear from grad schools, I only applied to three and I'm hoping that doesn't bite me in the ass.

I do have a pony, got her as a sophomore in high school, holy crap my 7th year anniversary of owning her is March 2nd of this year. That's crazy. I'm getting old.



The picture is from summer before my first year of college and it's one of my favorite pictures of us. We don't do the horse show thing much anymore, believe it or not that's frickin' time consuming.

I have a giant bunny as a housepet, my roommate currently has a cat and a dog so we're living in a bit of a zoo.



That's him, his name is Buddy, and he weighs 18 lbs. No I'm not kidding. Yes he'd like me to just let him nap in that picture.

So yes. That's me in a nutshell. Life is better through chemistry, especially since they invented sunscreen.

Chemistry fun fact of the day: Freckles form and darken with exposure to sunlight. The UV-B radiation increases melanin production in the skin. So if you see me outside and suddenly notice I have freckles, tell me, because I need to reapply my SPF 462 or whatever the ginger special is now.