Another numbered list

[tarigwaemir]

Lowell House, on the Feast of St. Roderic

1. In the middle of this week's Systems Biology problem set. Actually, this week's seems shorter than last week's, and thanks to the review session, I've grown a lot more efficient at finishing the problems. Finished the weekly assignment for Molecular Ecology and Evolution too, which was also shorter than usual, thank goodness. Oh, and in physical biochemistry, we are just now covering the background material for Systems Biology lectures from two weeks ago, which only reinforces my suspicion that I should have taken p-chem before sys. bio. and that I probably should take more classes on enzyme equilibria and kinetics in the future.

2. Thanks to the LJ mood list, I figured out how to describe my mood from yesterday: numb. I still feel numb, but my mind is no longer fixating on depressing thoughts, thanks to a productive day at lab today. I set up labeling reactions yesterday so I could hybridize ten arrays today, and for the most part, the experiment went pretty smoothly. I know it sounds strange and perhaps a little pathetic, but going to lab calms me down and generally lifts my mood, particularly if I spend most of my time at the bench (as opposed to doing data analysis at the computer). Maybe that's why I've been feeling so off-center this semester; I've been a bit frustrated with my schedule because it doesn't let me spend as much time at lab as I did before.

3. What also lifts my mood: organizing my notes, cleaning up my desk, starting Stendhal's The Red and the Black.

4. I meant to post these quotes a month and a half ago. From Voet and Voet:

"The conformation of DNA, particularly B-DNA, is irregular in a sequence-specific manner, although the rules specifying how sequence governs conformation have proved to be surprisingly elusive. This is because base sequence does not so much confer a fixed conformation on a double helix as it establishes the deformability of the helix."

"It has nevertheless been surprisingly difficult to prove the in vivo existence of Z-DNA. A major difficulty is demonstrating that a particular probe for detecting Z-DNA, for example, a Z-DNA-specific antibody, does not in itself cause what would otherwise be B-DNA to assume the Z conformation--a kind of biological uncertainty principle (the act of measurement inevitably disturbs the system being measured)."

I really do like our biochemistry textbook, although I haven't done half the assigned readings this semester. -_-

5. I forgot to mention that I read The Devil in Music. Now I want to go listen to all the famous castrati arias, particularly Che farò senza Euridice, which is the one I know best and can hum on demand. We have a CD of selections from Orfeo ed Euridice at home, but the recording's quality is less-than-ideal. Also, would Orfeo be able to sing Nessun dorma (my favorite tenor aria)? It's utterly anachronistic, of course, but interesting to speculate about nonetheless. Frankly I can't imagine it at all; the later Romantic opera are too unabashedly excessive for his character. No wonder he likes Mozart best; Mozart moves the heart but in a regulated fashion.

I also wasted an hour doing some idle Google-researching for the Julian/Philippa fic I will never write. (But on the off-chance that I do, what is Philippa's older sister's name? And how old is she when she meets Julian? Would she make her entrance into Society before or after 1832?)

As a corollary, my resolution from April to May: finish all incomplete fics before starting new ones.

Yours &c.

Post-script: Oops, made a mistake, Nessun dorma isn't at all for a lyric tenor...which if I stopped to think would have been obvious. >_> Although there seems to be some debate over just how heavy a fach it is, since one site has Calaf as a spinto tenor role and another has it as a heldentenor. I never did understand these finer distinctions. -_-

Comments

[serendip.livejournal.com]

Dude, I totally sang Che faro senza Eurydice in high school for All State tryouts. (No remarks about the fact that I have the range of a castrati XD) Tho my range has shrunk tremendously since high school. I used to have a 2.5 octave range and now I have maybe a note or two above two octaves ;;_;;

[schwimmerin.livejournal.com]

Dill and Bromberg is better.