AeonFluxCapacitor

brief respite

2012-01-20T21:53:00.000-08:00

Guess who was warm for a whole week?

These fools!

We stayed close to here

which, you know, just had views like this for no reason

We went to Nassau a couple of times. I got something shiny there for my birthday but I had to promise that I would give it back before my birthday so I could be surprised. Also, I promised that I wouldn't put pictures of it all over the internet because that would ruin the surprise. We looked for some elusive pirate museum and never found it because I refused to consult the guide book in the middle of a busy street. Jeff looked at me sideways and asked me if I was trying to blend in. I hadn't really thought about it but I guess my translucent Boston winter skin was a dead giveaway. Also, I wore SPF 50 sunblock like the whole time. This was my strategy so that I a) avoid skin cancer but mostly b) don't look like a person who goes to the Bahamas instead of beating the bushes looking for a job. I had to give a seminar to a bunch of scientists 2 days after I got back. Here's a hint - never do that. The seminar was fine but preparing for it was torture. Anyway...

I went snorkeling and scuba diving for the first time ever. Snorkeling was pretty cool - you put your face in the water and hang out with fish.

Scuba diving is scarier. They keep telling you things like "don't hold your breath because the air may expand in your lungs if you change depth" and "if your mask starts filling with water, cus you're under the ocean and it is so much bigger than you, tilt your face up and snort out" and "make sure you pop your ears because if you don't then your sinuses will explode and your eardrums will burst." And you take up maybe 0.06 square meters and the ocean is maybe 1.3 billion square km, it's pretty easy to feel expendable. So it took me a minute to join the rest of the group on the dive. I hung out by the surface for a while until I ~~felt comfortable~~ convinced myself that people do this all the time and they don't die. This is what I saw.

So, yeah, worth it. When we got back to the hotel room that night we ended up watching some show called Fatal Honeymoons where every story is about a young couple who died in the Bahamas or died during scuba diving or both. Oddly, my mantra of people-do-this-all-the-time still works on me. I'm nothing if not ~~persistent~~ dense.

Oh man, I almost forgot the best ending possible to the dive.

Nicholas Cage lives somewhere in Nassau so it's not totally random that there's a picture of him in the dive shop. My Chinese colleague told me that Asians love Nicholas Cage, which I find funny because I think Americans find him borderline ridiculous (Jeff's coworkers made a money voucher with Nicholas Cage's face on it to remember who was the last person to buy pizza). Anyway, as we were leaving, I heard the only Asian woman on our dive boat exclaim "aaah, Nichoras Cage!!" along with a camera shutter snap. Perfect ending to a day where my spouse and I did not die.

the clanking of crystal...explosions off in the distance

2011-12-31T13:11:00.000-08:00

I really actually just checked my phone and said out loud "hey, did you know it's New Year's Eve?" The last 2 days were spent on a long drive that directly followed a too-short trip to Georgia so today has been a relaxing day of making messes and enjoying being home. To offset 2 days of road food, Jeff and I made food with two o's (marriage shorthand for nutritious food, as opposed to mac and cheese dinner, which we refer to as füd) then watched Elf. He has developed a significant mancrush on Ron Swanson and is now hacking away at a piece of wood that will become his first project. Diego alternates which human he'd rather share a room with and gets called a traitor by the other human. Right now I am winning.

This year has been the first one wherein I feel like a grown up. Sometimes I wear nice pants to work. I never wear my t-shirt with the skeleton torso on it. I have thrown away shoes when you can see my socks through them and I have exchanged business cards with older people. I try to look older (having been told multiple times that I don't look old enough to have a Ph.D.) but feel frumpy when I let my hair grow out. My visceral reaction to becoming a career woman was to learn how to sew. I make curtains and lopsided bags and have a couple of pillows. Since I don't need any more lopsided bags, I haven't done anything in a while, although I have my eye on fixing the bare living room windows. They face the neighborhood and some curtains would relax my constant worry about the free, low-budget reality show that our neighbors have 24 hour access to.

This year has been the second one wherein I've been married. Living with someone who is funny and goofy and smart and egalitarian and supportive is really wonderful. Having lived alone and "being your own captain"* for the 11 years following high school steepens the relationship's learning curve a bit. We and our are pronouns that sometimes fit like new shoes. Fortunately my husband is patient and doesn't take things too personally.

It's been a slow start but I've made a couple of friends here that I would like to keep and am finally feeling like this place is home. Word from the wise: it takes a year, or a little longer if you stubbornly spend a few months wishing things were the way they used to be. This is a tough environment to be human since most people I am in contact with are just as busy and transient as I am. My workplace is fairly antisocial and my nebulous status guarantees I will be ignored. A visiting scholar from Italy became my contact with humans for the last 3 months of the year and was an absolute blessing.

Places we have been: Last New Year's Eve was spent in New York with Jess (come back to this side!!) then later in January was the weekend in Maine spent at Sunday River where the temperatures were brutal and so was the snow. We are indeed spoiled from snowboarding in the Wasatch. February through May is a stressful blur since teaching a course outside of my field and trying to make progress in research is a combination that turned me into something less human, more tired fragile robot. However, I am not dead, so I can only assume that it made me stronger. In July, we traveled back to Utah for Jeff's brother's wedding and I got to drive to LA with my favorite academic ally as she moved into her ivory tower. September saw us drive to Niagara Falls and October demanded a lazy Saturday drive through Massachusetts and Vermont to look at nature and visit northern Appalachian mountain towns. The last road trip of the year was to Georgia for Christmas, with stops on the way back in Helen, GA, Gettysburg, PA, and every McDonalds from Atlanta to Boston to participate in a Diet Coke/Dr. Pepper exchange program. They really do have the nicest, consistently clean bathrooms on the open road, along with very very large sodas. Evil geniuses.

Hooray for the new year! This last one has been tough and unbalanced and my plan for 2012 is to seek balance, work smarter and not harder, and survive the Mayan-predicted apocalypse. Also, did you know Isaac Newton predicted the end of the world in 2060? He was apparently a bit of a secret alchemist (get your nerd on).

* When I told a very old female relative that I was getting married she shrugged and said "eh, if you want to... right now you're your own captain." I had been living in a very marriage-centric place for the past decade so her comment was particularly surprising (and awesome).

outro

2011-12-14T09:10:00.000-08:00

I(will miss)TFP

Thanksgiving ambassadors

2011-11-25T14:26:00.000-08:00

I love Thanksgiving. It is my favorite holiday because the whole point is to share a good meal with people you like. No presents, no costumes, no undelivered expectations or half-hearted resolutions, just a great meal and conversation followed by leftovers and laziness. It's a wholly American celebration of survival and gratitude that I am very proud to be a part of. Jeff and I spent the whole of Thanksgiving day making an unholy amount of food for my lab's grad student and visiting scholars, none of whom are American. Actually for two of them it was their first Thanksgiving in the US so I felt it was our responsibility as emissaries of America to be as traditional and over-the-top as possible. I really wish I had thought of making everybody wear ridiculous construction paper turkey hats before just now. Jeff spent all day smoking a turkey and it was as delicious as it sounds.

We also made mashed potatoes, stuffing, vegetables, smoked mac and cheese, and cranberry sauce in the shape of a can (like I said, I was going for authenticity). I made my great aunt's coconut cake for dessert.

This was the dog's default position all day.

In the end it was a fantastic meal. I made everyone go around the table and say something that they were grateful for. My family has never actually done this (nor have we ever worn turkey hats) but since I was the leading expert on Thanksgiving at that table, I took some liberties. I think something was lost in translation, though; my Italian friend thought we were going around the table telling secrets. I sort of hope a bunch of people in Italy now think that we play truth or dare as part of the Thanksgiving meal.

So what am I thankful for?
Being married to somebody who makes boring things fun and tragic things surmountable. A job at a world class institute and a couple of job interviews in my future. Health and stability and all of the boring things you take for granted but really notice if they're gone. The thing that I said was that I was grateful to be part of the lab that I'm in so I had a chance to meet everyone that I've been working with. Particularly Giovanna: imagine having a really cosmopolitan Italian aunt who leaves work with you one afternoon to help you pick out shoes for your podium presentation the next day. It was nice to have a minute to really look at what's right and be grateful for the good life.

yay religion!

2011-11-06T22:25:00.001-08:00

I don't talk about religion here much because I don't usually have a lot to say to a wide* audience, but I read something tonight that I want to process.

I've been reading Mindy Kaling's book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me and somewhat enjoying it (about as much as I enjoyed Tina Fey's book, which was kind of interesting but felt really slapped together). I have a lot of nonfiction good-for-your-brain books but they suck when you want to relax. Anyway, tonight I read this excerpt:

"From now on, let's all agree that hooking up = sex.** Everything else is "made out." And if you're older than 28 then just kissing someone doesn't count for crap and is not even worth mentioning. Unless you're Mormon, in which case you're going to hell."

First thought: is that funny? I mean, I like telling people they're going to hell, but always to people I know and always for benign things like forgetting my birthday because it's funny and not at all serious. Reading those words on a page from a stranger changes the dynamic, though. The following was my thought process: Does Mindy Kaling actually think I'm going to hell (if she's Baptist, the answer is yes). Not that I care, because I'm either not going to hell since the God that I believe in does not send people to hell for getting their faith wrong, or Mindy is right and I am going to hell and that's ok because I couldn't abide with a God who denies people the knowledge of how to avoid hell and sends them there anyway. Since this is a funny book, I will assume it's a joke that didn't work on me and move on.

Second excerpt: [She defines Irish exit and French exit] "Um, I may have found these on kind of a xenophobic website. Makes me wonder about Jewish exits or Black exits. Okay, thin ice. Too far."

Oh, ok, so making fun of Mormons is cool, but Jews and black people are off-limits? Why? Which of the following sentences makes you more uncomfortable:
1. Unless you're Mormon, in which case you're going to hell.
2. Unless you're Jewish, in which case you're going to hell.
3. Unless you're black, in which case you're going to hell.

For me, it's all three. For a lot of people, I suspect it's only the last two. Why? Is it because of the icky history of racism/bigotry against both populations (Mormons also have a history of persecution, but it's less widely known). Are blacks and Jews more vocal about being upset when people say dumb things about them than Mormons are? We are sort of a roll-over-and-take-it people, which draws less attention, both to the issue and to the individual and institution. Besides people who participate in the Mormon.org campaign to convince everyone that We Walk Among You And Are Totally Normal, I think most of us want to be left alone about our religion. I'd like to be recognized for who I am as an individual, not what religion I subscribe to (although it's true that for most of us, the religion significantly impacts who we are).

So maybe I never figured out whether the comment about my eternal soul was benign or not. At this point I don't really care anymore, either. I would like to see a culture emerge where a person would substitute Jewish for Mormon in any sentence before they said it and check to see if it made them feel a little gross before proceeding with the sentence. I'd also like to see a culture emerge where people who believe in God aren't automatically dismissed as homophobic bigots and opinions about who goes to hell are kept to oneself***.

I'd also like to see a culture where corporations aren't people, pensions can't be absorbed into newly acquired companies as assets, government bailout money doesn't go toward executive bonuses, and every dime of taxpayer money is tabulated and accounted for in a publicly accessible forum.

As my grandfather used to say, folks in hell want ice water, too.

*Hi mom.
** Seriously.
*** Unless you forget my birthday, then feel my wrath.

Fall Road Trip

2011-10-19T17:52:00.000-07:00

When I was living in Utah, every fall I decided that the next fall I would fly to somewhere on the East Coast and drive around to look at leaves. Looks like last year's goal was finally accomplished this year, mostly because I already live here. Last weekend, Jeff and I drove to the Green Mountains in Vermont by taking back roads and using a paper map, no less.

This farm was selling pumpkins about 10 feet from where they were grown.

That gorgeous stem got smashed off as the pumpkin rolled around the trunk for the next 6 hours.

Diego made friends with a calf. Not pictured is when the calf stuck her head all the way out of the fence to sniff Diego.

Yay meat raffle!

Holy crap. A legitimate covered bridge. Not pictured are the 4,000 other pictures I took of that bridge. You're welcome.

We drove through a few small mountain towns that were overcast and rainy and very adorable. I now want a big fluffy sweater and some tea. We just kind of kept driving and toward sunset we got to the Hoback Mountain overlook at the western edge of Vermont.

It was at this point that we remembered we were almost 4h from home. So even though we didn't get back until midnight we agreed it was still worth the trip.

Ethics question

2011-10-17T12:42:00.001-07:00

Do I have to cite these papers as integral to the research?

Niagara Falls

2011-09-11T19:09:00.000-07:00

Niagara Falls is 8 hours and some change from Boston so my coworker, who is trying to see as much of the US as possible before his visa expires, suggested we take a trip before it gets too cold. In preparation, we listened to a Niagara Falls episode of This American Life on the drive. Since Jeff and I are on a mission to introduce said coworker to all things great about America, arrival in Buffalo, NY demanded BBQ.

I found this place on yelp. Suzy Q's is everything a BBQ joint should be: delicious, with paper menus that come in a bucket and a proprietor who chats you up for about 10 min on your way out the door. I had 3 different animals at once!

We walked over to the falls that night. There was AC/DC playing in the background and a surprising amount of Indian restaurants/food trucks, and colored lights shining on the waterfall. It kind of felt like Six Flags, except that ride would definitely kill you, instead of only maybe kill you like that time my harness opened 1/3 of the way on an upside down roller coaster. I was screaming for real that time, but I digress...

The buildings across the way are in Canada. There are only a few vantage points where you can see the waterfalls from the U.S. This one does not do it justice. You have to either get on a boat or walk to Canada.

This boat. Full of Smurfs.

I took zero chances with my hairdo, thankyouverymuch.

From the Canada side:

American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls:

Horseshoe Falls:

It's funny in retrospect how much I had built up Niagara Falls as being romantic. On the radio program I learned that until the 1960s or so, Niagara Falls used to be the honeymoon capital of the US because of its proximity to major rail hubs. The two-tank honeymoon: one tank of gas to get there and one tank to get back. Between the masses of plastic-wrapped tourists on the boat and the concrete footpaths through the gift shop leading down to the falls and elevators to the base of the falls and complimentary ponchos, it was hard to feel the romance, if you know what I mean. There wasn't really a place to sit and reflect on the falls at all: on the American side you can only see water going over the ledge and from the Canadian side there is a fence and a wide sidewalk. It's easy to see how one could lament the loss of a spot for peaceful introspection at the sight of something grand, but considering the number of tourists who also want to see and feel the same as you do, that peace is necessarily replaced with turnstiles, gates, and (most lamentably) AC/DC.

Niagara Falls

2011-09-10T06:25:00.001-07:00

teaser

2011-09-02T12:07:00.001-07:00

Some point in the near future I will make a legit post where I brag about some crap I made and try to make my life of work/tv/candy/sleep sound interesting (it's not, and yet the weeks fly by).

In the meantime, and in honor of all the Mad Men I've been watching, watch this.

LIfe in a jpeg

2011-08-10T09:26:00.000-07:00

Friends, a picture is worth a thousand words.

If you would like to know a little bit about how my life has been lately, pay close attention to the donkey suspended in air by his overenthusiastic load and the sweat shop workers.

I have spent 13 (?!) years in academia and I promise the first 3 rows are extremely true.

Maybe one day I'll let you know how I find the 4th row, or if I were really sharp, the 5th.

2011-08-01T09:20:00.000-07:00

Some gentleman dropped this into my lap as I was tracking the 88 bus down Highland.

I dunno... sex parties, a bat mitzvah? General debauchery? Explaining to people why I'm wearing a cloak in July?

Ok, I give up. What is it?

Oh, haha.

I honestly wasn't expecting that punchline. Besides, I was under the assumption that hell had some of this:

In which case I was planning on bringing the brimstone.

2011-07-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

Having a dog is sort of like having a Roomba with an extra component that allows it to hear food falling from 3 rooms away and knock over everything in its path between it and the chip/pasta noodle/almond to clean it up for you. Consequently, sometimes I drop food at other peoples' houses and forget to pick it up because I am not used to having to do such tasks.

One day I'm going to do it right. One day I will not write blogs instead of my grant. One day I will wake up before noon on the Saturday that I cleared specifically to write said grant and I will not suggest to my husband that we walk the dog and get breakfast. One day I won't look back on the last week and not be able to think of the last time I ate a vegetable (excluding ketchup). One day I will remember that a diet of DC and brownies makes it harder to work because my brain goes into autopilot after the initial sugar/caffeine high wear off. One day I will take care of myself during times of stress. Clearly not this time.

Jeff is threatening to turn off the internet router unless I get back to my grant. I told him to mind his own damn business. He is now scheming ways to remote log in to my computer and shut this window. This dictatorship is unbearable.

I have run out of things to say. I love Jeff so very much... He is a healthy dictator, who has my best interest at heart, and it trying to help me

I've been hacked

boy I am going to regret this tomorrow

2011-07-13T11:50:00.000-07:00

Even with public humiliation and unemployment looming in my near- and not-so-distant future, I still opted to use my favorite drawing program to make fun of my husband for his confusing pizza topping choices (green peppers are for perverts). Then I put it in dropbox so he could see it immediately without me having to attach it to an email first. Boy I love technology.

Then I managed to use technology to confuse and enrage an aunt that I haven't physically spoken to in almost 10 years. It's not her fault she doesn't know how hilarious I am. Also, to her credit, she has probably never had Mexican food that was actually made by Mexicans.

Oh, right, public humiliation. I'm giving a lecture tomorrow to teenage girls who have traded a month of their summer break to live in the dorms here and do engineering activities all day and homework all night. I've been asked, once again, to talk about things I barely understand. Apparently I fooled enough people last semester because this is an encore lecture requested by not one but two students from the previous class. Want to see one of my slides?

Now to remember what that mirror does...

show-off

2011-07-11T16:55:00.001-07:00

Diego is the only one in this house who looks more adorable when he's roasting hot.

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When will I ever learn the lesson the universe is trying to tell me?

2011-07-11T16:44:00.001-07:00

Low-fat cheese is disgusting. Always.

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happy post!

2011-07-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

No, nothing changed except it no longer feels like I swallowed a handful of bees (maybe just one bee now) and I can control the body aches with ibuprofen. Hooray!

The 4th of July was pretty cool. Admittedly, I don't get into parades, flag waving, crowds, enthusiasm, or exuberance of any kind so the 4th doesn't get me too excited. I like America and I like days where I am expected to stay home and cook meat outside but I will not usually seek out star spangled activities. However, Jeff and I now live in AmericaTown so we figured we should probably go do something patriotic. We waited until it was almost dark outside then rode bikes down to the Charles River where there were going to be fireworks launched from barges in the river. We sat on the steps of the Walker building, which was right in front of the barges. This was hands down the best fireworks show I have ever seen. The explosions were huge - like they took up the whole sky, they were well-planned (so that when they were launched they looked good together) and there were multiple mini-finales so it didn't just look like the pyrotechs got bored and wanted to go home so they lit the remainder of the fireworks at once. Honestly, I could have done without the music but then I heard Star Spangled Banner and the part about red glare came in and they launched a bunch of red fireworks. This is what is known as planning and the outcome is well worth it.

I took some pictures.

There were some 3D fireworks that if you weren't sitting at the right angle, they just looked like duds. I liked these the most because they reminded me that when things go perfectly, it looks easy and nobody appreciates how hard it really is.

Happy week after the 4th!

the world's tiniest violin...

2011-07-05T11:04:00.001-07:00

I have a sore throat.
I have less than 2 weeks to prepare slides for my lecture on microfluidics again.
I have less than a month before my grant submission changes are due.
I am running on borrowed time as far as my adviser is concerned about the paper I'm writing.
I will be unemployed in 6 months unless I figure something out.
I still haven't written back to some students in Korea about something.

As I was opening the 95th cough drop of the day, this is what I saw.

Thanks, Halls. I will try to refrain from hiding under my desk and feeling sorry for myself.

You've been here before.

2011-07-01T21:47:00.000-07:00

We actually did not plan this. Nor did we plan to match the second day, when we both wore grey tshirts and the same cutoffs again.

Emily met us at the Bear Something or Other in Sandy for breakfast just before our trek away from the Great Salt Lake. We made definite plans to be those old ladies who go on cruises together and leave their families behind for a week. I wanted to give you a visual so I googled "fat old ladies at the beach." Just don't. Or do, but be warned: you can't unsee that.

Naomi and I drove to Mesquite that night to stay with Christasha. It thrilled me to no end to know that I would be seeing those two while I was traveling. They were staying in a suburb of a tiny desert town and it was so fun to imagine growing up in a place where your back yard is scorpions and beige. Being surrounded by trees in the east for a few months makes the empty space of the desert that much more humbling. Christopher and Morgan took Naomi and me on a 4-wheeler ride through juniper bushes and over rocks and sand as the day was cooling off and the sun was setting. I'd forgotten what it was like to see that much sky at once. It looks like being on another planet. Back in the casa, Tasha had key lime pie waiting for us then Morgan and I went outside to look at bats. I am, in general, pretty ambivalent about kids, but when that 2 year old in a cowboy hat and rain boots sat next to me on the porch and talked about horses and racoons and his grampa Bill while I looked at stars, my Grinch heart grew 3 sizes that day.

Naomi, I, and our constant companion Diet Coke (along with gas station bathroom) slowly made our way toward LA the next day. We toured her new campus - sunny with palm trees and a small shopping/cafe district along with a 7-11 in the building next to her office. Seeing her new home made my heart ache for permanence and sunshine. She's endured a lot to get where she is and I can't describe how excited I am for her to begin this leg of her adventure.

I was going to post some pictures of mountains but my phone isn't cooperating.
End transmission.

word vomit

2011-06-10T15:42:00.000-07:00

You know how I posted some pictures of my soda cup like 2 weeks ago then silence? It's because my life is boring. Not boring to me, but here's a big mashup of words that represents that last couple of weeks for me:
sleepless night cus too hot and no a/c; bought an a/c; learned to sew a mitered corner; made another bag; made some pillow cases and a table runner; became obsessed with The Wire after a coworker let me borrow his hard drive to prove to me that he's not looking at porn at work (it's a somewhat complicated and ultimately boring story so that is just the gist); I have enough data for a paper; I like korean pears; bought some pants today to go to a conference tomorrow; went camping in Maine last weekend. Here are some pictures:

One of those chairs was broken. I found out the scary way, which is when you have a delicious perfectly cooked steak on your plate and a dog who licks everything about 2 feet away. I managed to save the steak. The dog was nonplussed.

One day I will post something that isn't a drive-by of pictures and words.
Also, I'm going to be in Salt Lake in a couple of weeks. If you're there and you don't mind hauling my butt from Sandy, give me a call.

Choice of soda

2011-05-28T15:12:00.001-07:00

The one place where Jeff and I do not agree.

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Just another day

2011-05-27T17:43:00.001-07:00

like all the ones that came before it, except this time there was a dry ice monster.

I get a lot of stuff packed in dry ice and I am no stranger to dumping it in the sink and walking away. Today there was a bucket of soapy water in the sink and a couple of chunks of dry ice fell into the bucket. I had some equipment in there that I didn’t want to get too near the dry ice so I tried to dump the pieces out. They, along with about a half gallon of soapy water, landed onto the mountain of dry ice already in the sink. Instant chaos!!!

seen

2011-05-25T16:54:00.001-07:00

Only on the Harvard-MIT subway line do you get your graffiti graded.

Also, the bubble gum is highly recommended.

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I almost forgot that I live really close to the ocean.

2011-05-21T18:45:00.001-07:00

Also, pizza, Hulu Plus and a raft full of sleeping bags is killing it tonight.

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Something you haven't read

2011-05-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally made it through the great Google Readernazimageddon 2011, and not a moment too soon. I bet a lot of people were forced to actually do work all day. I went home and watched the Fantastic Mr. Fox instead. (In defense of my work ethic, it's 11:30 on a Friday night and I'm back in the lab.) Anyway, here's the thing I wrote last night and was unable to post until now.

My phone may be actively trying to kill or at least maim me. Google maps is how I get directions to places and it has a bike route option. Anyone with half a capacitor knows that going through Harvard Square on a bike (or in a car for that matter) is a death trap. Any map of Harvard Square may as well look like this:

Except now imagine that it's spinning and can throw you out in any direction. This isn't just happening for people on bikes. It's just as random for a motorist hurtling through space at an alarming rate. As you're wondering if that third unlabeled street is the one that will lead to your freedom, do you notice the biker trying to cross 3 (unmarked) lanes of traffic? Probably not. Does Google route you and your aluminum 10-speed through this? Yes. Always.

So what fresh hell did Google maps have planned for me today? This is the proposed route to get between my desk in Cambridge and a lecture that I wanted to attend in Brookline.

It's very tough to navigate and bike at the same time. It's even tougher when your technology routes you to dead ends and unmarked streets. Someday I will get an eyephone. Until that day happens, I will be late to everything. The good news is that I did not die, which was a distinct possibility since this was the day I'd forgotten my helmet. Me: 1, GoogleMaps for Android: 0.

Fun!

2011-05-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Remember how I'm too lazy to go make friends? And how I beg people to come to Boston? My sad sack tactics worked on Naomz!

I've been meaning to post some pics but first I really needed to figure out how to make this montage of pics a flaming reality.

Here's Naomz in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery being excited cus she is not dead!

Upset in Newport because she wanted a pink mansion instead of the beige one she got.

I was just happy to live in the guest wing.

We also went to get our history on in Lexington and Concord. Because my skillz do not extend to history, Naomi educated us about the shot heard round the world while we sat on the battlefield where the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.

We also went to the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, which is the first landscaped cemetery in the US. I took every picture possible. Naomi was a good sport about that. Here are some.

The overwhelming number of flowering trees around here makes spring a grand affair so it was the perfect time to go wander around the cemetery and be outside.

spring!

2011-04-27T14:55:00.000-07:00

I never thought this day would come. I thought it was going to be rainy and freezing cold until the first day of July at which point I would be plastered to the apartment floor in a pool of sweat and trying to keep the dog from licking me. Today is the perfect middle of that scenario. It's humid and sunny/cloudy and there are suddenly flowers everywhere.

I walked with Jeff to work today. I don't usually do that because by the time I walk from his work to my work, my arrival time is squarely in slacker territory. Today I didn't care and I kind of made Jeff late to his job because of my insistence that I photograph every flower we passed.

I love these trees!

Like, I seriously can't get enough.

Hmm, I ended up with a lot of pictures of those trees on my phone...
Jeff walking my bike so I could take pictures like a person who's never seen nature before.

I pretty much spent all day outside today. I've timed an experiment to start at 7:00 tonight so the day was really open. I rode my bike to AtaCycle to get my bike tuned up. This is my favorite bike shop even though it's not the most convenient one to my job. There's a bike shop closer to my work but in there they act like they invented bikes and you've never heard of them before (an employee once felt impressed to explain to me what a road bike was). It's a weird vibe and I always leave kind of irritated plus the day was perfect for a ride. Also, I took some papers to a coffee shop and read for a few hours so my excursion was justified. Later I went to a grant writing seminar and afterward my visiting teachers (who are awesome and live on campus) came to take a walk with me by the Charles River.

Life is significantly less tragic than when everything looked like this:

science.

2011-04-25T12:14:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, things at my job confuse me.

I walk by this a lot and every time I think "ah, the ol' shake and poke." Then I wonder what exactly that is.

project #2: put a bird on it

2011-04-24T17:59:00.001-07:00

Yay!

Instructions here.

The temptation to open my own etsy store and quit my crazy day job is building. Haha just kidding. We like food and shelter.

skillz.

2011-04-18T08:19:00.000-07:00

You guys!
My domestic skillz are on fire.
First, I made homemade tagalongs. Don't let the chocolate dipping step discourage you. It's not as hard as it sounds. Well, maybe it is if you care what the cookies look like. Bonus: there is no longer any need for the girl scouts. These cookies are 100x better than anything those little green brats will sell you, and you don't have to wait for your yearly fix. (Maybe you can tell I have beef with the girls scouts. Girl scouts was a worthless endeavor for me - maybe you liked it, but we did not get our own knives or go camping ever so I feel kind of cheated. Oh, wait, 8 year old girls with knives is a horrible idea.)

Also, there is only one tagalong on that plate because it was the last survivor.

More curtains!
I coveted these curtains from Anthropologie. Hard. But I do not have brain damage so I won't pay $200 for ONE PANEL of curtains. So I took apart a duvet cover from Ikea (sigh) and sewed some crooked seams and voila!

I added the dog for scale.
This whole cooking and sewing thing has been really cathartic. I spend all day doing science and I've finally got my weekends back (mostly) so on rainy weekends like this past one it's nice to have creative projects. I really miss that aspect (among others) of my friends in SLC. But, like, is it bad that making friends here seems like work? and I'd rather hole up and watch Parks & Recreation and sew and wrestle the dog and go annoy Jeff when I want a hug than think up stuff to do with strangers? I know that answer is yes and it voids my right to complain about not having any close friends here (but I'm gonna do it anyway because I can).

time stands still

2011-04-10T17:42:00.000-07:00

Hooray to the end of a psychotic 3-4 weeks (it's been so nuts I can't actually remember when it began). I've been writing a grant (on top of research and teaching) that was due Saturday night. Jessica came up from NY that afternoon. I felt bad that she had to hang out while I finished writing on Saturday and turned into zombie version of me on Sunday after I'd been up all night writing a bunch of tangential nonsense that had to be turned in with the grant. You know you've got a good friend when she will drive to a remote Walmart in a scary town to buy a sewing machine with you. Jess volunteered to teach me how to use said sewing machine. I've really been needing a creative outlet and my apartment could use some color. Thanks to Jess I can now make curtains to put up over the windows (no more free peep shows for the neighbors) and fix holes in my pants (no more free peep shows for my coworkers).

Behold my first project:

The curtains were an Ikea purchase (ugh, I know, and I really want something in my house not to come from there one day). I shortened them to just below the windowsill to make them more breezy looking (which you totally can't tell because of my parade float bed). The thing I'm most happy about is the matching bedskirt I made out of the other curtain panel that came in the package. In the past I'd just tucked half of a tablecloth in between two matresses. Admittedly it doesn't look that different. I'm still pretty proud of it though.

It rained a lot while Jess was in town. On Monday we managed to get out and see an exhibit at Harvard.

Some historians basically found all the weird stuff in closets and basements around Harvard and displayed it out of context. There was a 100 year old tortilla that some anthropologist saved for posterity and a Blondie board game from the 1930s where children could be Dagwood's wife for a day while collecting Westinghouse appliances. You win once all the chores and cooking are done (in high heels no less), although from 2011 it looks like the only winner is ever Dagwood.

Later that night Jess and I saw Cut Copy at the House of Blues. I love HOB venues (minus their affiliation with Ticketmaster) because the sound is always good and even if you are 5'2" you can usually see from wherever you are. I haven't been dancing in forever. I blame my spouse, who would rate dancing below being beaten with a hot poker on his list of fun Friday night activities. To be fair, I'm not rabid about dancing either but every once in a while an Australian band comes along and your adorable friend comes in town, the stars align and you dance your face off for an hour and a half and you love every second.

Cut Copy has some hard core fans.

It was such an amazing night. Jess took the early bus back to NY on Tuesday morning and I left for work at the same time so we found ourselves hobbling toward the bus stop together at 7:30 a.m. Our feet were still sore and I had my lovely Bea Arthur voice that I get when I yell in smoky venues the night before. We laughed at our old bodies and felt like rockstar grandmas as we staggered toward our respective days.

Dogs are surprisingly creepy.

2011-03-22T20:32:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I'll be doing something like trying to fall asleep and I'll casually look to the doorway and find Diego's laser eyes pointed right at me. I never know how long I've been under surveillance either.

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MIT, eh?

2011-03-22T13:24:00.000-07:00

Guess who left her wallet in the autoclave?

My plan was to show you a mangled melted mess but apparently my wallet can withstand 250F and 20x atmospheric pressure. For 30 minutes, anyway, which was long enough for me to say a swear and stop the temperature and wait around for the chamber to cool off enough for me to stick my wadded up sweater in there and get my wallet.

My bank card looks a little gooey but everything else seems to work ok.

a show about nothing

2011-03-17T08:42:00.000-07:00

I agree with Clifford: more blogs about doing stuff. So I thought I’d make a blog about interesting stuff I’ve done. A moment to ponder that came up with a vast field of nothing. Well, nothing entertaining. In the realm of stuff nobody cares to read on a blog, I’ve been writing a grant, finishing the formatting edits to my thesis (which I mailed yesterday for hopefully the last time), and coming up with things to put on the professional website Jeff is helping me build (yes, www.chemicalkungfu.com is registered to me). You know, on top of research and that class I’m teaching and the new young womens’ calling I got. Did you know they just expected me to teach that last Sunday? I’ve never been to a young women’s class. It’s like asking an investigator to give a sacrament talk. I asked for more time to watch what they do and I think I’ve got it. Next time I have to teach I think we’ll play a game. Book of Mormon pictionary or something. All you have to do is draw very big muscles (am I alone in thinking that Alma was probably not actually a bodybuilder, as he is depicted in church drawings?).

Last weekend I volunteered at the temple. They said I could bring comfortable shoes and I got excited about jazzing up the white jumpsuit they give you to clean in. I’d recently gone on an internet shoe-buying frenzy (see also exhibit A and exhibit B) and ended up with these gems.

I wasn’t trying to match them to any other part of the temple clothing, just they were the only shoes I had which I’d never worn so I thought they’d be good for walking around on white carpet. One temple patron was really excited about my shoe choice, though.

I was assigned to be in the kitchen. In the Salt Lake temple, Saturdays are kind of like zoos. In Boston, not so much. I found myself looking for things to do. This 4 hours reminded me of almost every job I’ve ever had as a teenager – nothing to do but watch the clock and lean on stuff, except this time I didn’t have a manager telling me if I’ve got time to lean I’ve got time to clean. I was occasionally directed to wipe crumbs from something. Then came the real work: 4 or so temple patrons wanted more beef stroganoff! Finally! I was entrusted with boiling a bag of noodles. Since I am somewhat of a foodie and am usually offended by temple food, I took this job seriously. I timed the noodles so that they were al dente: firm, not crunchy, and definitely not mushy. My attempts at jazzing up the food were thwarted by the old lady in charge of me who insisted that the noodles weren’t done and that I boil them another 10 minutes. Oh well, the only thing that could have jazzed up the stroganoff sauce anyway was extreme hunger. I chatted with a couple of bored guys in my ward who also had nothing to do. They are MIT students so we got a pretty interesting discussion going about science and jobs and bikes and stuff.

Speaking of bikes, I rode mine to work today. Funny how temperature is relative. In Utah, 40F is cold. Here, it is pleasant, perhaps balmy even. I didn’t think riding bikes would be safe before I moved here – I imagined cobblestone streets and homicidal motorists with extended side mirrors. It’s not so bad, though. The potholes in the roads here are no joke and there’s loose gravel in the bike lanes but it was still better than taking the bus. I got an iced chai when I got to work this morning and it tasted exactly like summer.

A conversation with my husband.

2011-03-01T20:53:00.001-08:00

Him: Sooo do you want your birthday present right when we get home or later?

Me: I dunno, I mean...

Him: It's just books. No big deal.

Me: Oh so now I know what the present is.

Him: Well you don't know which books. And I got you something else.

Me: I guess you'll tell me what that is, too.

Him: No. It's just a (he stops short)

Me: Fine. Yeah, maybe I should open them after dinner. (lengthy pause) You know you have to wrap them.

Him: Oh.

To be fair, I never said what the books needed to be wrapped in.

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up all night - or - sleepy is the Mormon drunk

2011-02-23T10:37:00.000-08:00

So last night from a solid 6:30 in the evening until 8:45 this morning, I was grading 60 lab reports. In a row. Something surreal happens to me around 3 or 4 a.m. and I start getting a little loopy. I have no clue what I wrote on those lab reports. I can think of specific reports I read and in my sleep-drunk state of mind I felt like I was having a conversation with those students. Around 4:30 I started to feel like I'd just come home from a party really late where only 2 people are left and they are blackout-drunk and all the students were there and we'd had conversations about the difference between mixing and diffusion and they'd told me a few reasons why the edges of their epoxy microchannels weren't as sharp as they'd expected (mostly it was because the UV light wasn't collimated). The difference between this party and any party that would happen in reality was that the students didn't think I was creepy if I tried to make jokes or chat like we were just regular people. Let's just say I am really happy that I didn't see any of them as I was dropping off their reports on campus this morning. I might have scared and confused them by trying to talk like we were just two people who ran into each other the day after a party. I'm an instructor now. I'm supposed to go wait in the closet until next lab class.

day late and a dollar short

2011-02-22T22:49:00.000-08:00

It would have been nice to have posted something adorable about Valentine's Day. In reality I was in my office until 9:30 practicing my lecture that I was giving the next day and Jeff was in class until then. I picked him up on my way home (Diego was in my office with me - I wonder how many students walking by thought the dog was my valentine and felt sorry for me). I went straight to bed and Jeff finished homework. He may have kissed me goodnight, I don't remember. It was all very romantic. I don't want to be one of those people who lets life (i.e. the million alligators vying for attention at any given moment, midnight emails, deadlines) get in the way of life (the things that really matter...the things you remember as the sweet parts of that era). I'd like to think that I remember to show the people that I love how much they make my life better. I don't though, unless they are right in front of my face, vying for attention, dancing for a full 5 minutes before I look up from my mac and cheese and laptop screen. Or maybe they are drooling on my keyboard and leaving paw prints on students' lab reports. Most of you who own little pieces of my heart are too far away to drool on my laptop. This is a crappy venue to say happy belated valentine's day to all the loves of my life but too little is better than nothing at all. I love you and thank you for being the author of those sweet slices of my life that sustain me.

Nerds.

2011-02-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

So busy!

Found this here.

"Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff.... Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like, jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is, 'You like stuff.' Which is just not a good insult at all, like, 'You are just too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness.'"

Love it so much I would eat it.

2011-02-11T17:20:00.001-08:00

To all of those who played along with my fun invasion of your privacy, thank you. I enjoyed compiling the statistic that 75% of my friends have a facebook tab open at any given time. Also, the clear winner in the google search term prize is the typer of "ladies wearing fur hats." You'll have to come to Boston to collect your prize. Yes, it's a hug. I'll throw in a mug of cocoa if I haven't drank it all.

Well, I've been busy. Teaching a class, even a low-commitment 2 lectures + 8 labs gig, is a massive time suck and interferes with my ability to do science of my own. I have serious doubts about my career path. The fortunate side is that this class is teaching me some hard lessons about what I want and what I don't want for my life. It feels good to get far enough in this career path to really understand what I'm signing up for so I can start making informed decisions about where to go from here.

Ok, and now for some crap I found on my phone.

Fat squirrels:

The day I was going to write some sad-sack post about snow or rain or something.

Last weekend Jeff and I drove to Northampton to see Neko Case.

She is the red dot in the middle and, yes, even live her vocals rip your heart out. She puts on a great show and is very interactive with the audience. She promised us all subscriptions to Ranger Rick when we didn't catch some eagle reference and she told us she was sorry that we didn't know anything about the world. I am just a tiny bit more in love with her.

Look, my brain won't let it go. I can only picture these stupid squirrels in small people underwear.

You're welcome.

a fun violation of your privacy

2011-02-02T10:48:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the love, friends, about the new background and the past couple of days. As per Rachel's comment about my slew of tabs (I should get Katie Job to take a screen shot with all her windows fanned out - it's wild), I pose this curiosity-motivated challenge to you: take a screen shot of your computer and post it to your blog. Or you could send the shot to me and I could post it anonymously or credited if you just don't want to have to explain yourself on your blog. Basically I want to see what your tabs are, what you bookmarked, what you searched while you were goofing off. It's sort of the equivalent of going through somebody's wallet or, in my case, digging through somebody's console when you sit in their passenger seat (if I have done this to you, I'm sorry, it's unconscious and habitual but terribly fascinating).

oddity

2011-02-01T20:06:00.000-08:00

I am so confused.
I write this blog for the 5 of you who read it (and I love you for it). People who don't know me I guess could read this too but I can't imagine it would be that great for them.
Why am I waxing philosophical about this?
Because I basically found a whole boatload of settings for this blog that I had previously never seen since I created this blog with an old email address that I never check anymore. I also found the stats tab, which led me to this page:

I think it's weird that a random website is hawking my blawg.

today

2011-02-01T18:25:00.000-08:00

I did ok. I probably didn't talk loud of enough, I should have practiced the slides more and I gave at least one student the impression that he needed to write a term paper and do a final project but let's look at the big picture. If you came to me 6 months ago and said "worst case scenario: teaching...Go!" I probably would have said something about a room full of MIT students, a topic not related to anything I've ever studied, and an embarrassing mishap (i.e. wardrobe malfunction or loud farting). Today was 1.5 of those things. I'll get the suspense out of the way: no loud farting or wardrobe mishaps except I wore some professional trousers that are too big and they made me feel like a thug at times. There was a room full of MIT students, so that was on the list, however the lecture was nuts and bolts of the course and some fun facts about nanotechnology. I used slides that the course professor provided to me and I either read up on things I didn't get, made guesses as to what he was trying to say, or changed examples in the slides to things I'm more familiar with. So in the end it wasn't awful. Sometimes people looked bored, sometimes people looked interested, and a couple of kids geeked out at a slide about the number of transistors per chip by year (like, I heard "whoa"). I love nerds.

ugh

2011-01-30T11:49:00.000-08:00

I'm lecturing on Tuesday to a group of professional geniuses on a topic that they have been studying for a few years now but that is outside of my field (microelectromechanical systems), my slides are unfinished, and thinking about the whole thing makes me feel nauseated.

Why on earth am I writing a blog?
Why did I just spend the last 30 minutes on facebook?
Why am I still writing?

SNOWMAGEDDON!!!!!

2011-01-27T11:42:00.000-08:00

Actually, we're fine. This city is way too narrow for this much snow but other than that, we have heat, electricity, and zero desire to go outside.

Also, yeah, that's a total ripoff of A Hyperbole and a Half but she isn't the only one who gets to have fun with crappy paint programs.

))<>((

2011-01-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Because everyone else needs to update their blogs (I am BORED, people) I will go first.

I made some boring new year's resolutions. I would tell you what they are but I would fall asleep mid-sentence. Just pick some really cliche ones and go with that. Normally I don't make them because if I want to do something bad enough, I do it whenever the jones hits. However, after buying a pair of stretchy pants specifically so I could both lounge at home and procure fat-kid food, I realized the trajectory of my life was a scary downward arc. Maybe I threw in a resolution about being nicer. Won't matter next month anyway.

What else?

Oh, moment when I felt the most old? Standing outside of a restaurant in Chinatown (Joe's Shanghai on Pell St. - order the dumpling soup - you're welcome) trying to blog on my phone but then posting a blank blog and being unable to figure out how to edit or remove it. Ugh. I had no idea that 30 would be such a graceless plunge to the bottom. Actually, that maybe ties with having to explain to my brother and sister who David Bowie is. Come to think of it, that whole afternoon made me feel super old. This Simpson's quote kept going through my head: "I used to be with it! Then they changed what it was. Now what it is is weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you!" Then I realized that they only know Lame Simpson's Era. It was never relevant to them.

I think I have some metamucil in my desk drawer.

NYE pics I finally managed to post them in the blank blog. It doesn't show up on reader as new (cus I'm old) but they're in there. Jeff and I went to NYC for New Year's and met up with Miss White. It was great to catch up and have her take us to her favorite spots. We did a lot of wandering around (my favorite) and I saw a little girl with her tongue out trying to catch "rain drops" - you and I know it as nasty pigeon water run-off from awnings. She'll survive the apocalypse for sure. Jess and I had fun wandering into the MOMA and taking some very mature pics in front of Yoko Ono's bum. At least my sense of humor will never mature.

NYC_NYE

2010-12-31T12:41:00.001-08:00

Question:

2010-12-25T19:35:00.000-08:00

What do you get after you banish Diego to his room after fighting with your mom's dog over floor snacks?

Answer:

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T16:53:00.001-08:00

Wow, that was very ambitious of me to think I would get around to posting Saturday part 2. Just take my word for it. It was cool.

I assumed that being in Georgia would give me lots of time to catch up on my blog and do some reading (for work and otherwise). I was wrong. I have no idea how it is Saturday already.
Some highlights:
Christmas eve

Christmas day:
My cousin works for the power company so he was giving bucket rides to the kids (and adventurous adults).

God bless the South.
And you.

Saturday pt. 1

2010-12-12T20:26:00.001-08:00

Hooray! It wasn't ridiculously cold outside so we followed the freedom trail's 2.5 miles around Boston. It begins in Boston Common, which is home to some of the fattest squirrels I have ever seen. It was pretty comical watching one of them trying to get up a tree.

Not sure if there was another entrance for fancy hookers. We didn't look very hard, tho.

found

2010-12-11T05:36:00.001-08:00

We have some friends in town this weekend so we will brave the cold and go do stuff. Like digging around the Soul section at Cheapo Records.