weekend happenings

Friday:
Watched Howl's Moving Castle (a Miyazaki film) at an independent movie theater near the Amgen facility with two other female interns. During the movie and shortly thereafter, I was overly critical of certain trite plot elements, but in retrospect it was a beautiful and well done creation. I enjoyed it.
Saturday:
Woke up late, ran along the Charles river again, watched my roomate make quiche, ate it with all but two of the interns in one of the girls' apartments at about noon. We then reconvened later to take public transportation way into Boston to eat at a sushi restaurant recommended by our Pauline, the lady that orchestrates the social events and details for the interns. The food was excellent. I've confirmed that I really like eel. We also ordered some sake, that turned out to be very nice--and there are very few alcohols (of the limited sampling I've had) that I enjoy. And I like the fact that it's generally meant to be consumed in small quantities; I'm just not comfortable with the image of drinking lots of alcohol. On a whim we then decided to go to a theater off of the Boston Common and watch a movie... which turned out to be Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I don't recommend paying money to watch it, although it was mild entertainment... albeit with significant levels of innuendo throughout the movie.
Sunday:
Woke up late again, and didn't run, although I had planned to. Instead, cleaned up, fixed some stuff on the computer, then went to the store with Nate, Jason, and Bob; Bob has a car here. When we got back, Nate decided to cook dinner for the four of us and make a Thai-ish mint-beef-and-rice concoction that was very tasty. He's definitely a good cook.
And I found some interesting insights in his methods and approach to cooking. The way he cooks seems to be the way he works in lab; he's fast and comfortable in the kitchen, and he just dives right into the process without much preparation. And everything turns out very tasty! But one could find little issues of balance texture, etc, that could have be improved. However, the methods that yield these results, give him the freedom to start cooking on a whim and create the social evening that we had tonight. There's not much necessary planning; he improvises as he goes. In contrast, I tend to put a lot of planning into whatever I make. I like to find the perfect recipe, check all the recommendations, think about my modifications, and then sit there and do whatever it takes to complete the dish as perfectly as I can. I don't like to make mistakes! Nor do I like unexpected conflicts during the process. But this slows the overall process, makes me methodical, and makes it more difficult for me to cook for myself every night of the week; too much work is required.
This work ethic translates directly into how I've experienced his and my work in the lab. Nate works very quickly, moving around his workbench and hood quickly with needles and septae in hand, quickly setting up his reactions. He's doing chemistry methodology (trying many reactions in many environments to find ideal conditions), so this is a very valuable skill.! Compared to him, I am rather slow; I like to be very methodical, double-check my calculations, record details in my notebook, and have a good hold on what's going on in my workspace. And I start making small mistakes when I try to move faster with things that require my attention. I don't work well under pressure at all.
The difference between cooking and chemistry is that I have confidence in the pace of my cooking. I don't truly know if my chemistry pace is sufficient or valuable, or if I need to force myself to move faster. I don't know if I have some innate inadequacy in chemistry, if I don't have enough practice, or if I don't have enough confidence in my abilities to push myself somewhere else. I've also wrestled with this over the past year in research on campus too.
Hopefully I'll get an understanding of this over the next few weeks.

edit: Another example of our differences; Nate and the other guys expressed their difficulties in making rice outside of rice cookers; it's never come out quite right for them. I mentioned that I've never had any trouble with rice, by following the directions on the package, and they responded with "oh, yeah, what a good idea!" - it's not something that they had considered.