So I quite regularly participate in fMRI experiments on campus

because the psych department needs people to be in their studies, and I like knowing I'm helping to make science, and they pay me quite handsomely. I made $52 today for about 2 and a half hours of my time. I just got a small raise at work, so I'm now making $11.70/hr to do nothing in the basement of a library, but only the Psych department really seems to understand how much my time and minimal effort are worth.

Anyway, it's a wonderful system and everyone wins. 

The only slightly annoying thing is, I can't have any metal on my person when I go into the scanner. This means no makeup (because evidently some makeup is made of very small bits of metal that could burn your face in the scanner...not cute), no bras that have wires or clasps (i.e. the one sports bra I own), and no pants with zippers or buttons (i.e. sweatpants). Basically, I go to these things clad from head to toe in Princeton gear and sneakers, and look like a bum with a lot of Princeton pride. Sometimes in the spring I can get away with wearing a dress without a bra, but it's cold in those scanners...

And it's break right now, so not that many people are on campus. I've been wearing cutesy outfits and not even getting compliments on them, because all week I've only really been hanging out with K and very occasionally a couple of other Quad people. After my friend and I rescheduled our lunch date to tomorrow, I decided to put my fMRI-required sweatpants early this afternoon and hole myself away in the student center doing work with K.

Then I was thirsty and had a package to pick up--my winter hat!--so ran downstairs and ran into a cute friend of mine, who hung up on whoever he was on the phone with to have a conversation with me about the take-home midterm we have for a class we're both in and how break is going.

If it was just that, this day of sweats wouldn't have been so bad. I would say that I came away from it relatively unscathed. But no. Then when I was on my way back to the student center post-fMRI and dinner, in a Pton hoodie on top of my Pton t-shirt and Pton sweats, I ran into another friend of mine whom I may or may not have had a small, back-of-my-mind kind of crush on since April of 2008 coming out of the student center, and he wanted hugs and convo and then asked if we could do dinner or hang out when he emerges from thesis-hole in a few days! Of course I flashed my best smile and said yes, but inside I was just cursing myself for being a shapeless lump in sweats instead of the form-fitting sweater I would have worn was today not an fMRI day. 

Whatever, the day is still looking like an overall win. :D