Bitchy book review OTD (week? year?)

Just had to share this! mummimamma on Jane Eyre:

I didn't know until I read this where Barbara Cartland got her story (singular) from, and as usual, the original is just so endlessly much better.

The rest of her post is also worth reading. Her sparkling one-liners devastate Dan Brown, Helen Fielding, LK Hamilton and take in a few others on the way. I am in awe at your cutting wit, mummimamma.

I love my friends!

Yesterday I had a rotten day when everything I tried to do took twice as long as it should, and I got all upset about totally trivial things and even completely imaginary problems. So of course, I posted to LJ whining about all this. (The post is friends locked, not because I'm embarrassed to admit to the whole world that I have the EQ of a spoilt three-year-old, but because some of the stuff I was whining about involved other people in ways it seemed better to keep private.)

And several people, people who mean a great deal to me, came and gave me hugs and sensible advice and made me virtual tea. You made me feel so much better, people. I know it's the stereotype of LJ that people post looking for sympathy and get duty *hug*s from their friends list, but my friends were much nicer than that and gave me real comfort. And nobody told me to shut up and stop being an idiot, which is probably what I deserved (though telling myself that was of course reinforcing my awful mood and self-hating stupidity). So, blackherring, rysmiel, darcydodo, blue_mai and lethargic_man, I love all of you and thank you so much for looking after me! Also much gratitude to redbird and monanotlisa who said cheering things which weren't directly connected to my self-indulgent whining.

Obviously that doesn't mean I love my other friends less. Not everybody is good at the e-hugs thing (I'm hopeless at it myself; I'm as likely not to comment or to say something crass), and not everybody was around at that particular moment. But it goes without saying that I still appreciate the other lovely things you've done for me at other times.

Balance

Reasons why I like today's experiments:

• It's one more step towards finally finishing this PhD; all being well I think I have somewhat less than 2 more experiments to do.
• Lots of ice, the very large majority of which was used for entirely sensible and scientific purposes.
• Being alone in the lab so there was no-one to wonder what happened to the rest of the ice.

Reasons why I don't like today's experiments:

• Being alone in the lab so there was no-one to talk to during the boring bits.
• I'm not finding anything new, just 'confirming' stuff I've already shown but not proved.
• Tiny fiddly little 100 µl eppies, which are really too small for someone as clumsy as I am to handle.
• The fact that it's taken somewhere over 12 hours in total (and I'm not quite finished yet), with no real break point in that time. I mean, there were 10 or 15-minute gaps where I could check my friends page and go to the loo, yes, but there was no point at which I could break to divide the protocol into two days.

Gah. I hope my social conditioning is sufficient to prevent me from biting the next person who asks me whether I've had a good Christmas.