I figure it's not so much a sin from someone who typically errs on the other side of things, so just a quick moment of glee for me:

Today was the retreat for the group of three semi-independently-funded labs of which I am a part. I gave a 25 minute talk on my work that went pretty well, but I was second-to-last and had been marveling at how good all the other speakers were. I felt I stumbled a bit at times, but overall better than I had expected. Afterward during the poster session, all three PIs sought me out to tell me I had done a good job. One (the one on my thesis committee) even phrased it as "as usual, a very good talk" which gave me a warm fuzzy (particularly since he had been particularly hard on the structure and organization of my talk at my first committee meeting). At the end of the day, they announced a prize for the best question that had been asked, and then for the best talk, which just happened to have been given by me! I'm still a bit giddy about it, so you'll have to forgive the moment of braggity :)

The non-committee-member PI also hadn't heard of our publication troubles and encouraged us to keep aiming high. So here I go condensing what used to be a 60,000 character, 7 figure paper down to a 4 printed page, 4 figure paper for submission to another Big Three journal. Watch me go. To sleep.

I'm too much of a chicken to comment at Shakesville, but the questions-of-the-day are always interesting. I've had kind of a lousy day (some lousy stuff happened, but mostly I was tired and not feeling well so the logical (by my brain's standards) conclusion of everything was "I suck") so here we go with today's QOTD:

What part of your body is most beautiful/handsome?

"None" is not an acceptable answer. Go on and be radical and publicly love at least one part of your body!

I do like my eyes a lot, and also my hair, but a big part of both of those is the artificial stuff I put on them (dark eyeliner/mascara and bright red dye, respectively) but the part I like most of all is the bolero-jacket region-- back, chest, collarbones, arms and hands. I may not have been the most ballerina-shaped and -talented, but I always loved how graceful I could make my arms look. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so averse to strapless dresses, because they show off the only part of my body I actually don't think of ways to change. They always seem a bit out of proportion-- technically from the size of my wrists I'm supposed to have a "small" frame, which my good solid german thighs would disagree with. But I'd rather like my wrists than hate my thighs :)

I tend to be a fan of Maria Bamford's version of, oh, EVERY how-to-lose-weight article: "Step 1: eat less. Step 2: exercise more. Step 3: ... what was I saying? I'm so hungry...."

But I have to say, I think Amy Ozols has her beat. This article is just fantastic in all ways. My favorite bit, by way of appetite-whetting (no pun intended):

And, if the going gets tough, remind yourself: every person is beautiful on the inside, provided that they are also extremely attractive on the outside.

H/T to Fillyjonk at Shapely Prose via Her Dreadful Worshipfulness