monday.

So those pictures? I'm having a difficult time posting them, but I'm trying. Dr. Gribble put the zebrafish pics in a weird file format and I can't open them in normal places. It's a .tif format. I may just have to show you those ones when I see you next.

Dr. Gribble was telling us this morning that Duke is doing an experiment similar to ours and that we're going to try to get ours done and published before they do so they don't dominate the market. Apparently they just started but they have way more money and people than we do so there's the possibility that they finish their research first and then ours is sort of moot.

Anyway, I'm writing because I was thinking today when I was sitting out on Stephen's steps for a while, that Monday was one of the best days I've had in a long while.

Everything at the lab seemed to go really well. Stephen and I are finally figuring out how to do everything by ourselves and that was the first day that Dr. Gribble didn't have to babysit us the whole time. Jordan was visiting and he helped out in the lab a little bit and that was awesome and fun. Then we left work early, rode our bikes back to Stephen's apartment and made pasta for lunch/dinner in the early afternoon and sat around his living room eating pasta together and listening to music. Then I got to dress up and we drove to Pittsburgh and walked around a bit, ate sushi at the sushi bar, met Eric Hutchinson, saw that awesome concert got back not too late, watched a little of this new show the guys found. It was awesome. I love hanging out with Jordan and Stephen, all the three of us together. We get along so well. They're both great guys and they're hilarious together. I've missed Jordan this summer. During the school year, it's always some combination of the three of us hanging out and usually a forth rotating person. Usually it's one of my good friends LabJenn or Bekah. And without either of them and Jordan it just seems a little empty.

But Monday was great. I couldn't stop smiling. Not when I almost choked on a mouthful of pasta from laughing so hard, not when we were driving through Grove City with the windows down and I could smell fresh-cut grass and I felt - miraculously - WARM, especially not when walking around the city, or when we had to count to three to try some weird kind of sushi (everybody takes a bite on "three"), or when shaking hands with the guy whose concert we came to see. Or when Jane called my name to say hello when I got home.

Monday was a really great day.

And I think I'm getting better at feeling at home places much faster. But more on that later.