Train of thought

So here I am sitting at my kitchen table, typing away at YDY's computer, which I've borrowed for the last week, and eating my mom's cooking. She and my dad visited me briefly at my apartment today, bearing gifts and starting the moving out process. My mom always makes me 香干肉丝 (xiang gan rou si), which is beancurd and pork with yellow chives, my favorite Chinese dish. My back is pretty severely sunburned from Relay for Life, which makes certain back-related activities (like towel drying) painful. I can't remember the last time I had a sunburn; my swimming-bronzed skin has just been conditioned to take in the rays. I may go seek out an aloe plant on College Ave to remedy this. Except for one friend at the hospital who hasn't seen me in one month, my mom was the only person to notice that I got a haircut (on Tuesday). The next time I'll see my parents is at my graduation, which is two weeks from today! I've started sending out invitations via email. I have yet to write my researcher a card, which is sitting next to her Hope in a Jar gift. How do you thank someone for being good to you for two whole years? For taking you in and showing you what lab research is about and extending an atmosphere of grace in the workplace? This is why goodbyes are hard, because there is pressure to sum up the entirety of an experience, which really isn't possible. I hope that it was apparent in the way I talked, in the way I smiled, in the way I worked, that I appreciated being at lab with her. Tomorrow is my last day at lab and it feels inconclusive. I wish I could tie up loose ends and figure out answers to questions asked two years ago. I'm impatient that way; I wish I could know that the things we're working on now will bear fruit. That someday all of those discarded pipets tips and tissue culture plates and agarose gels and petri dishes will help solve something, anything. Such is the nature of being uprooted; I want to drink in every detail in attempt to prevent detachment from the familiar.

I started writing a post called "Things I will miss when I leave this place" and I'm not sure I will ever publish it.