Time for myself, thank you...

As a fledgling scientist...very very fledgling...I find it is sometimes overwhelming to take on the task of writing sciency posts. I don't feel qualified, I don't feel like I have much to offer and I certainly don't feel like I can do anything new and interesting. Those, of course, are all feelings that kept me from initially pursuing a science career so I do my best to work through them and forge ahead. But today I want to just write about whatever comes to mind. I need a post without expectation. I need to write with no end in sight. So that's what I'm doing.

Here's what's going on in my corner of the world (and by "my corner" I mean "my life"):

• Shopping... Holiday season is here and I'm running around trying to find interesting, personal and meaningful gifts for the people I love. It involves spending lots of money, fighting other drivers for the parking space closest to the downtown area and generally arguing with myself over the fact that I highly dislike religion and still seem to love Christmas.
• Debating... I'm slowly...okay, quickly...getting drawn into the ID/Evolution debate. I really love it. It's something I feel very passionate about that I also understand and am fairly well-informed on. I've been spending a lot of time reading blog posts about the debate, visiting atheist websites and reading up on Intelligent Design (know thy enemy).
• Chillaxing... That's J's word for "chilling" and "relaxing." I've been watching movies, mainly "Flock of Dodos" and "Shrek 3." And I've done some more work on my Triceratops painting. It's really coming to life...very 3-dimensional and highly textured. I promise to post some pictures of it soon.
• Studying... I have a final on Friday and one on Tuesday! Study study study!!!
• Play-fighting... I get into these wrestling matches with J...they're fun, but then I get hurt and I get all "how could you hurt me?" for a moment (I usually get hurt on the offensive, which is a bit embarrassing and totally my fault). I'm pretty sure my thumb needs a cast. I can't even hit the space bar with it and certainly can't use it to grab anything.
• Getting worked up over the gender gap... Check out this post at Shakesville. It's pretty interesting. I showed it to a few guys and their reactions were "well, at least they make one for girls" and "but the blue one costs more." I thought that was interesting, too.
• Battling rashes... Well, not really. The steroid creams have mostly cleared up the eczema, but the dermatographia is alive and well. I was taking antihistamines every night for a few weeks and moved on to the "take as necessary" stage. Unfortunately, it seems they're necessary every night, since one missed night results in weird, puffy red rashes. The clincher: the antihistamines sometimes make me feel like I'm on drugs. And for a recovering drug addict, that's not good.

That's enough from me. Tomorrow I'll post something more sciency. Promise.