Milk. Where's your mustache?

Yesterday I met with my personal trainer. He turned out to be a huge, built guy with a buzz cut from the medical school. The other one, surprisingly, was an equally huge guy from the engineering school. My trainer asked me what my fitness goals were and created a routine for my body type. We went to the weight room and he showed me all sorts of exercises I would have never thought of doing before. Some of them were pretty intimidating and maybe a little embarrassing for a small guy like me to do: the Bench Press, the Military Press, and especially the Squat -- but pretty soon after showing me, he would have me doing them like clockwork. Suffice it to say, I’m sore as fuck this weekend. I’ve never felt this good about pain though. This morning I lay in my bed with my chest and legs hurting and I felt good about not being able to get up. I’ve been eating like hell too to keep up with my training. I’m to eat a thousand more calories each day to fuel muscle growth. I’ve been eating eggs and whole-wheat peanut butter sandwiches like crazy, and I have a protein shake three times a day. I don’t know how long I can keep this up (it takes up quite a bit of time to prepare food, eat, and clean up so often), but I’ve been trying to eat every two hours. I start off with a stack of sandwiches in the morning and carry them around in my pack till they’re all done by the end of the day. I am never skipping a meal again. That to me now is the ultimate sin, and probably the reason why I couldn’t gain a single pound last year. I’ve been keeping a food journal too to keep track of how many calories and grams of protein I have in a day. Yesterday, I ate so much it amounted to 4140 calories. I guess that’s a thousand too much than the 3000-3500 I was going for, but I got scared I wasn’t going to meet my goal yesterday and had a gluttonous 600 calorie shake after lunch to make up for lost time. Guess I didn’t need it at all. My protein tally was pretty good though. After yesterday, I had consumed 218 grams of protein. That’s at least three to four times what I would have consumed on a normal day before, but it’s clear I wasn’t getting enough of it before. I’ve switched all the candy in my room for jerky, and I’ve acquired a fine taste for smoked meat. I’m staying away from fat though, as my calories should ideally come from carbs. My chest is still sore as hell today, but I can’t wait to work out again on Monday. Mike is undoubtedly going to start making fun of me, but I figure once I tell everyone about this thing, guilt is going to keep me from going back.

Night

I came home from work today tired, droopy, and sleepy. I unfolded my dinner from a paper bag. I sat in front of the desk, played music, ate quietly, and thought of life as a bachelor. Not in the romantic sense-- I have a partner after all, but of spending my days living alone. I do my work, I play video games at times, and I make my own meals-- if I make them at all.

Aside from art and philosophy, what else is there to hold life together but kids? I haven’t figured out yet what role they have to play in the equation. Our society is democratic now, on an intensely personal level. There is no debt we have to pay to carry a family name or prolong the race. It is no joke that kids are a liability. Yet, life seems awfully lonely without children. I still have many years before I should even consider it realistically. I can imagine though. The house will be too quiet. There will be no one to distract me from work. There will be no arguing, no crying, no splitting-up of chores; but still, no music, no conversation. Who, besides me, will play with my toys? Who would there be to cook for and give lessons to?

Maybe I just miss my parents. Maybe I am still thinking about that dream I had last night. As it went in the dream, my sister became pregnant, and she didn’t know if she wanted to give up or keep the child. She’s actually in the point of her life when she could choose either. My mother’s birthday is this Monday. I went to the store earlier and bought her a present. They think I’ve deserted them. I haven’t really though. I just left home. My father has gotten to the point where every time we come home to visit, he cries after we leave. He tries to do it in his room. Mother hears. We always end up knowing anyway. I used to hate him, but I can’t anymore. A little distance, a little freedom to do things as I want to do them-- and the feeling has more or less faded. I remember talking to a friend recently from high school. She hated her father too. She had more reason to then I did, but then her father died. It was so abrupt. I heard about it months after it had happened. She hasn’t spoken a bad word about him ever since. I wouldn’t call it regret exactly-- what she feels for him-- but I think she looks past his faults more and more. He wasn’t bad exactly, but different. The heart was there, but he didn’t go about things the right way.

What to do about the rest of the night? I am too tired to do work. Too tired to clean. It is too early yet to go to sleep, and I have no compulsion to go out and seek friends. I could still have a good night if I wanted to, but then I’d kill the whole night and be tired and sleepy at work tomorrow. So I’m stuck here, with only my thoughts and a paper-bagged dinner for company.

The role of binding site cluster strength in Bicoid-dependent patterning in Drosophila

A paper I co-authored based on research I did at NYU in the lab of Dr. Stephen Small:

"The role of binding site cluster strength in Bicoid-dependent patterning in Drosophila."

http://tinyurl.com/q2g43hs

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15793007?dopt=Abstract

Please share these links. Thank you!

"All that is gold does not glitter"

I’m somewhat depressed today. Aside from the attack that happened to me last week, I just registered for my courses for the fall semester and started thinking about finances. I won't get into the details. It's depressing. I feel like I can’t afford school. After the robbery, I feel like I can’t afford life (or specifically, less-problematically: to live in a good neighborhood). I won’t be poetic about it anymore. I worry a certain someone enough as it is. Why can’t I ever be happy with a decision?

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost.”