Operation: Rebound

I'm in Boston with Grayer. I got home to Pennsylvania on Sunday, and made it all the way to Wednesday when I decided I couldn't take it anymore and I bought a bus ticket to Boston. How long will I be here? Depends. I'm not leaving until I properly rebound.

The Rebound Quest got started on Saturday. Grayer and I went to Fenway, but not inside the stadium. No, we don't have an extra $200 each to see the Yankees/Red Sox. But we did better. We went to a bar behind the stadium to watch the game. On our way over, we put together an impromptu Scavenger Hunt list, to ensure a good time and make things a bit more interesting. What we put on the list isn't all that important, except one thing: Get Yankees fans to buy us drinks. We had been there at the bar an entire 10 minutes when Shorty (named so because of his small stature) walked up to Grayer and gave her a high-five. He was taller than Grayer (barely) but shorter than me. He had two friends with him, one extremely tall, and one in the middle. They were all Yankees fans. 10 minutes after starting the conversation, they offered to buy us the next round. Well, that was easy.

Shorty made it known that he was interested in Grayer, while I basically went back and forth between the other two. During the course of the conversation, we found out that the Tall Guy was the only one who actually lived in Boston, and the other two were staying with him for the weekend. Not an ideal situation for sleepovers for any party.

After the game, Grayer and I decided to go find some food, and the Yankee boys came with us. The dinner was entertaining, to say the least. We were a loud, but not obnoxious table. So much so that the manager told our waitress to give us two desserts on the house, simply because we were the nicest people he had met that day. Lesson: Be friendly and loud.

Afterward we walked to a different bar, and the medium-sized guy asked me if I was "going to stop doing the big sister thing." Apparently it seemed to Shorty that I was being too protective of my younger sister and not letting her go off alone with him. This was not the case. Excuse me, but Grayer and I have a long-established code, and when she wants me to get lost, she will give me the code, and I will. The only person who was cock-blocking was Shorty himself, because Grayer just wasn't that interested.

After awhile, we decided nothing else was going to happen that night, thanks to out-of-town guests. The Tall Guy had my phone number, so if he wants to call me after his friends go home, he will. So we left, but not before the medium guy told me I shouldn't move to London, but instead move to New Jersey and date him, because he never meets girls like me. This made me feel loads better. I may not have rebounded, but I know that I could have.

The Quest continues...

The Perfect Whoopie

The Whoopie Pie. A little piece of Pennsylvania deliciousness. And my latest baking obsession.

Throughout our childhood in Central PA, Grayer and I split a lot of whoopie pies (one of the joys of adulthood: eating a whole whoopie pie by yourself), but here in Georgia, they're hard to come by. I've found them at places such as Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, and I get super-excited and buy them, only to be disappointed. I can tell they are store bought and not made by the Amish, as truly delicious whoopies are.

So, I began a Quest. The Quest for a whoopie recipe that produces the perfect, Amish-tasting whoopie pie. And by Amish-tasting, I mean tasting like it was baked by the Amish, not tasting like an actual Amish person. That would be gross. I've always been a big fan of baking, so I looked forward to the challenge. It gave me a chance to use my Kitchen Aid stand mixer (the only truly nice thing I own) and throw on my ipod and sing at the top of my lungs to Glee ballads (when my roommate isn't home), but after a few failed experiments that left me with runny filling and flat whoopie, I was more than a little frustrated.

That's when I bought The Book. The Whoopie Bible. I'm pretty sure it's going to change my life. When I finished my first batch of whoopies, I noticed they looked exactly like the picture in the book. When I whipped up the delicious creamy filling, I took a taste, and it tasted exactly like the creamy fillings of my childhood. I did a happy dance.

Since then, I've been on a whoopie binge. I've made at least one batch of whoopies a week ever since, experimenting with the different flavors of whoopie and creamy fillings. I've made classic chocolate, oatmeal, chocolate with coconut cream filling, and the completely awesome Death by Chocolate: chocolate whoopie, chocolate filling, with the edges rolled in chocolate chips. And the best part: my roommate actually paid me for those. She was in charge of birthday treats at work, so instead of going to the store, she funded my whoopie baking. Fantastic. This weekend, I'm going to try The Chipwich. Chocolate chip whoopie, classic creamy filling, edges rolled in chocolate chips.

My whoopie obsession means that I've been going through baking supplies at rapid speeds. I've been buying butter, eggs, and brown sugar pretty much every time I've gone to the grocery store. And today, I actually bought one of those industrial sized tubs of Crisco. You know, the ones you see on the shelves and wonder, "who needs that much Crisco?" This girl, that's who. I mean, most people have to throw out their small tub of Crisco after two years. I've gone through two of those in less than a month, so the big tubs are an economical advantage.

Obviously my latest baking obsession isn't exactly the healthiest, but it's making me (and everyone around me) a lot happier. Isn't that what matters?

The quest: The official report

Introduction
I've said it before and I'll say it again, as a scientist, hot colleagues are few and far between. I'm not saying we're bad-looking, I'm just saying years in the lab have made us a little more pale, out of shape and socially awkward. As Violet pointed out, "hot scientist" sounds like an oxymoron, just like "interesting accountant" or "ugly quarterback." Biologists aren't too bad, but I've noticed in my years of science that those that study life science (that's me) are far better off than those that don't (Don't even get me started the pale/awkwardness of chemists and physicists, yuck!).
Honestly most people in this field are decent looking but none of them have the classic Whoa-that-guy-is-so-hot-I-don't-even-need-a-Punnit-square-to-determine-the-likelihood-of-our-children-being-hot! (commonly referred to as the "Whoa factor") good looks (what doesn't everyone think like that?). So many creatures in the scientific field lack this Whoa factor, that it leads experts (me) to ponder it's existence. This brings us to The Quest. The purpose of this study was not to meet and live happily after with this proposed model of a Hot Scientist, but to merely prove that they do, in fact, exist.

Methods and Materials
This was an observational study conducted on an aclectic gathering of scientific communities over the course of 7 days. To determine hotness, subjects of interest were thouroughly "checked out" by performing a complete characterization without making direct contact. Subjects were evaluated qualitatively based on face, hair, body, clothing, overall appearance/awkwardness and credentials. A generous (and borderline embarassing) amount of time was given to making these assessments.

Results
In a gathering of approximately 320 participants, 90% were estimated to be married. The Whoa Factor was not present in the population, though several males achieved an above average rating of "I'd date him." The Hot Scientist remains elusive. Severe head-turning was found in the college downtown area. Though these men presumably were not scientists, they were so hot that a permanent move into the area is under further consideration by researchers (me).

Discussion
Though results were disappointing, findings in this study indicate great potential in this field. Within my conference I checked out several good-looking men, my age, who were not completely socially awkward. Though they lacked the Whoa Factor, I'd be more likely to date them than a true Hot Scientist. The fact that these above average looking men exists greatly increases the chances that the elusive Hot Scientist exists as well, I just need to attend a larger meeting. I would say I remain hopeful for further studies, though one of my greatest professors once corrected me with this by saying, "there's no hope in science!"
This week has made me wonder if I really want to date a scientist at all. Some of them can just not turn off the science talk (what a drag!). Besides, as a student of "science school" (as HOG and MF call it) I can say just about anything that sounds remotely scientific and people will believe me. And that can be pretty darn fun.