Hello, April

Well, it's been a super busy semester and teaching two new classes is keeping me quite busy.  So busy that I don't have time to read, write, knit or even sit.  I'm most definitely not complaining.  It's been a long, but good semester. I mostly have good students and I'm enjoying the new job. 

So, to give you something to ponder I'll just comment on a few things that I have read about in the last few weeks that might be of interest.

--> FSP writes about this Ms. Mentor column.  My first impression was very negative.  Based on what I read over at FSP I thought: Fantastic, Ms. Mentor just freaked out a bunch of already stressed out PhD students by telling them they now need voice training.  And that pissed me off.   Being a formally invisible female assistant professor, myself, I know that often the problem has absolutely nothing to do with the pitch of your voice, or the ageing ears of your colleagues.  I wasn't invisible just in faculty meetings, but in email correspondence and other written communication.  My thoughts or just about anything related to me was also invisible, even it was spoken by the correct timbre of a male colleague's voice.  The bottom line, if you are invisible, go get another job.    Then I read the article and I was less angry, it's not as bad as what I was expecting, but I still don't think that it was exceptionally good advice either.  My (untenured) advice would be the invisibility is indicative of a bigger problem that needs to be addressed in whatever way it can get resolved.  In my case, that was leaving. If that is not an option, find the ombudsman, let people know what's happening, find an advocate, or a real life mentor.  (Ms. Mentor is good for somethings, but I don't think she'll argue your tenure case for you)  If they are ignoring your voice, they are also likely ignoring your publications, grants and teaching reviews, and that's a dangerous situation come tenure time. 

--> Dr. Isis tells us about extremists.  Yikes, just yikes.  Here's the deal, extreme activism is not ok.  I'm not saying you shouldn't stand up for what you believe in.  Stand and be heard.  Speaking out is one thing.  Bombs and threats of violence are another. That crosses the line and  these people should be arrested for impinging on the civil rights of others.  Period. 

--> Jezebel reports on a new study finds why women leave engineering.  Really? Seriously?  Get with the program people, this is old news.  I left 10 years ago for these reasons, I was 22, "family" didn't have a thing to do with it.  I guess, it's good we finally have some numbers to back up what most women who've been through it have been saying for years...maybe now we can do something about it. 

Real women have curves

So, just in case you missed the memo: women have hips.  Yup, hips and sometimes boobs too.  Today I'm just talking about hips - we can talk about boobs some other time.  Hips don't follow straight lines, they have curves.  This inherent, non-linear, feature of hips is a direct consequence of the shape of a women's hip bones. Now, I know I'm a physical scientist, so my knowledge of biology is well, lacking, but last time I checked, no diet in the world is going to change the shape of your bones.

Women have hips for a very good reason, a reason that is required by the biological imperative to preserve the human race.  Hips are curvy to carry babies.

At least that's what I thought.  I was happily going through life with my curvy hips thinking that it was normal.  Until this morning, when I decided to peruse the Sunday flyers and this caught my eye.

This is a page from this week's Target ad.  In general, I like to shop at Target, they have good products at a good price, they donate some of their profits to education, it's a pleasant shopping experience as far as big box store shopping goes, etc.  Truth be told, I buy clothes there too.  Professional looking clothes that I often get a lot of compliments on.  So typically, pants on sale at Target is a good thing for me.

Then I read a little closer.  Target is following in the footsteps of some higher end clothing stores and starting to sell pants by "fit". This is a phenomena that has appeared in the last few years. Different pants come in the same "fit" so, theoretically, you don't have to try on every pair in the store, but just the ones that have the waist where you want it and the legs the shape you like.  Sometimes the fits have numbers - Target is calling theirs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and other times they have cutesy names like "The Lolita" or "The Kate".  I would tend towards the "Kate" since it evokes visions of a classy princess-to-be and avoid the Lolita - given that it will most likely show more of my butt then is appropriate at my age.  (Men: if you have read this far and now find yourself dumb-founded, go ask your wives - this is true - shopping for pants these days practically requires a PhD in psychology)

So there I am, in my blissful curvy-hipped existence, thinking that I might be able to find some new pants at Target this week.  Until I looked a little closer...

Fit 1: Just below waist & relaxed hip/thigh
Fit 2: Just below waist & straight hip/thigh
Fit 3: Mid waist & straight hip/thigh
Fit 4: Mid waist & curvy hip/thigh
Fit 5: Low waist & straight hip/thigh
Fit 6: Lower waist & straight hip/thigh

WHAT????  4 of the 6 fits have "straight" hips?  Dear god, should we all fear for the future of the human race*?  Do women not have hips anymore?  Those curves serve a vital purpose, if on average - which I assume is the target demographic for Target - 4 out of 6 women don't have those very important curves, we're in big trouble.

Now I know that no one really thought this through.  I know that "straight hip/thigh" is fashion speak for  "form-fitting slut pants" and that's what's in fashion these days (seriously - can we be done with the damn skinny jeans already?). I  know that "relaxed hip/thigh" really means "baggy pants for the days you feel bloated" and "curvy hip/thigh" means these pants will likely fit you appropriately enough to wear to work.  I know there is a similar coding for the "waist" - mid = appropriate, low = not so much, high = grandma style.  So I  can still go to Target and get some pants.  Curvy - mid waist - average american women pants.

But, I am a grown women, with a healthy body image.  I know that I could stand to lose a few
extra pounds, but I also know that I am healthy and that there is a right way and a wrong way to lose them - and really if I want to keep them there's nothing wrong with that either.

BUT:

I am not a teenage girl, or a young women even, who is still vulnerable to the societal pressures of conforming - although some days I was.
I am not a girl who's lost some weight and still feels it's not enough. - although some days I am
I am not a girl whose parents insult her - and I am lucky that I never was and I never will be!
I am not a girl who gets teased - although some days I was.
I am not a girl who has low self-esteem  - although some days I am.
I am not a grown women with a healthy body image who just happened to feel "bloated" this morning - although some days I am.

If I was any one of those women, the message here is that I shouldn't have curves, that I should work harder to be "straight".  If I was one of those girls, I might find myself crying in a Target fitting room and checking out with a pair of sweatpants and a box of Oreos instead of real pants.

If I was any one of those women, I'd likely be a grown version of one of 70% of teenage girls in America today.

Some of you have young daughters.  Tell them they are beautiful.  Tell them that every day.

Some of you have sisters, some of you have friends. I think everyone of us knows one of those girls, or worse yet, everyone of us hides one of those girls way down deep inside at some point or another.

In the end, I'm not going to boycott Target or anything like that.  If I did I'd have to boycott every place else where I can buy pants too, or clothes at all really, and while I have the skills to make my own clothes, I certainly don't have the time!  I'll proudly go get a pair of those curvy ones, they look really nice and at $20 you can't be that with stick.

But, I am still sad that not everyone can recognize the bull and be proud of those curves!


*we probably should fear for the future of the human race, but I certainly don't think that it's because we have evolved past the ability to bear children. It is much more likely because we have too many children and are going to overpopulate the earth - but that's a whole other matter. 

Yummm....

We're on a cooking kick here. We decided to start the new year off in a more organized fashion and we've been doing the "Grocery Bag" feature from Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. This is a really great feature, we are having a lot of success with it, and I'm discovering that cooking can be fun and easy. Anyways, one of these was to make chicken pot pies. Rather than the traditional "pie" method, this recipe called for putting a layer of puff pastry on top for just an upper crust.


Well it turns out puff pastry sheets only come in a pack of two. So, not wanting to waste the 2nd sheet, or let it fall to the back of the fridge to be lost forever. I jumped on puffpastry.com in a rare-I-must-bake-something-right-this-minute mood. That spontentatiy really limits what you can make, since most puff pastry recipes require some specialized filling, which was not immediately available in my house. This was one of those baking-now-or-never emergencies, so it could have very easily failed. But, puffpastry.com came through with this result:

They are called peanut butter cups. It takes less time than the recipe implies, I didn't really measure, just threw in some chocolate chips instead of baking chocolate and skipped out on the marshmallows (I can't remember the last time I had marshmallows of any sort in my house).


I sprayed the pans with PAM before putting in the pastry, and they popped right out. I only have 12 muffin tins, so I made four giant cups with my ramekins:

So, yummy....

So many things...

Wow, it's been a long time since I've updated here. This hiatus was not the self-imposed internet striker like last time. This was just plain old life keeping me away from nearly everything. I'm on the travel cycle again. I overbooked this summer by quite a bit and it's all good stuff, but I'm going to be very tired before it's over. I've very tired now and I've only just scratched the surface. In the last 2.5 weeks I've gone from here to Colorado to CT to Nevada and back. I'm off again on Friday morning to go from here to NM to TX to here to CT to ME and then back six weeks from now. Like I said, I over booked. TT lesson number 1: Learn to say no!

Which you'll be happy to know I have been doing more of lately, which will hopefully make year 2 of this endeavor go better than year 1. I actually feel like I have my feet under me now, which is a good thing, so maybe I can return to regular blogging rather than just regular bitching like you got last year.

There are so many thoughts in my head I don't even know where to start. The last two weeks were really great. This thing in CO was FABULOUS! I even met some knitters, who are scientists. It just doesn't get better than that. There are so many great things I learned and so much I got out of it that isn't truely science. There is a lot of good women in science blog material that may appear later, but mostly I got a new lease on me and my career. That's not to say I've got it all figured out, but I feel like I know what I have to do and how to define my path a little better. A bit of self-discovery came out of it all, and with it a new perspective. Like I said it was FABULOUS.

Then we went to a wedding. A wedding which makes me smile just thinking about it. The love story between these two people is just so romantic that it makes me little girl giddy to just think about it. Hub and I did a little reading during the ceremony and the energy that comes from so many people attending such a happy affair really could carry the world.

Then I went to another conference in Nevada, and while it was not great, it served to put a little more perspective on the path I'm going to try to take with my research and my career, so ultimately that was a good thing.

Hey, would you all look at that, my optimism has returned. Watch out world. I'M BACK!

I can see cleary now

When I was talking to a friend the other day, she asked about what was going on. We hadn't talked in a while and the last post worried her a little bit. I didn't really have a good response, just that I needed to leave it for a little while. She understood perfectly, as any good friend would and she made the most perfect analogy. She said it was like a carb diet, "you have to go cold turkey for a while, and then you can ease back into it, a peice of toast here, an occasional bagel, but never back all the way to carb heaven". Well it was something like that at least, I'm sure she'll forgive me for paraphrasing. :)

She was right, I had to leave it for a while. The blog and the internet was taking over my life and subsequently I wasn't living my life. I was spending time on facebook and the blog and I was just whining about being here, but not really being here. I had to cut off and get out in the world. And I did, and it wasn't so bad. I feel like I can see things a little clearer now. Partly because I got some new glasses, and partly because I'm can separate the reality from the emotional spiral.

So, things are better. Hub and I are in a better place. I'm not entirely sure if was our change of attitude, just having hit the 6 month mark in a new place, or the elimination of some big stressors (we rented out the old house, we've come up with a plan for his employment, and while he doesn't yet have a salary, he has a position at the University that let's him put out proposals, which is way better than sitting at home, I got another small grant, and while things aren't necessary great in my department, I'm learning to navigate my way around the politics), or if it's just a little bit of all three, but whatever the case, things are better. And I feel like I can start to reintroduce those carbs, a little at a time of course.

So what did you miss in my world. Well, some new stuff like this:

these:



and shortly the single treadle version of this:

Random links part 2

Part 1 was getting too long for a single post and I felt this one really deserved it's own special time.

She finds this guy kind of offensive. So do I. So much so that it makes me mad. I've been an engineer, now I'm a scientist. Both have a place, both can be good and both can be bad. But, the truely great stuff, the stuff that can change the world, is the stuff that has one foot in both. This particular article cites our impending energy crisis and seems to imply that science has no place in a solution. I can't beleive that someone has the gall to imply such a thing. (Then again, I left engineering for a reason, I guess I shouldn't be surprised.) Go ahead dude, build a windmill for renewable energy. I'm sure you'll do a really great job, but do you know where to put it? Do you have any understanding of how the wind blows, or any knowledge of recent observations of the natural world that could make that windmill even more efficient? I do. Scientists do. Are you going to ask? I sure hope so? Otherwise that windmill, while well-engineered, is a complete waste.

A real solution to the energy problem we face is going to come from engineering of new technology, that I will not deny. But that engineering means nothing without an understanding of the natural world (science anyone?) Technology that uses biofuel is useless without enough understanding of the natural world to know if biofuel is sustainable. AND, all of it's crap if we don't do some solid social science understanding of what people want and are willing to accept into their lives. We better watch out, or our sustainable energy technology will be more akin to an edsel than an acutal solution. Sure it worked, but no one bought it.

While he correctly points out some great engineering achievements, he seems to forget that engineers were also responsible for the betamax, the edsel, (30+ other disasters) and oh yea, those space shuttles (technical problems aside) that never would have gone anywhere in the first place if science hadn't first figured out gravity!

Collaboration is the way the future of science, technology and humanity. Crossing traditional disciplinary boundaries is really the way to go. I believe it, and most "academics" I encounter are starting to believe it. The attitude expounded in this article "can actually get in the way", in my humble opinion.

random links part 1

Here are a couple of things I came across in my web travels that struck me as interesting.

This guy keeps all his journals. I do the same thing. Well, not exactly the same, but I love love love blank journals (stationary of all kinds really) and my "research notebook" is never too far away. It's partly a carry over from engineering school, when it was required in senior design and partly because I just feel the need. I wish that I could be as diligent about it being the same size and shape everytime I fill it up like he was, but I'm not. Not even close, but each one is loved and worn in it's own special way, and some are even referred back to now and then. When the rest of the trail goes cold, I can usually flip through the page and find what I'm looking for. It takes me about 2 years to fill one up, so the pile is growing. Maybe in another 26 years I'll have a really good story to tell.

This guy finds social networking somewhat of a burden. Sometimes I do too. Hence the facebook re-org. What I didn't tell you in that post is that I put alot of "friends" in a separate category that basically represents the people that I'm obligated to maintain an electronic social connection, but in reality, they weren't really friendships to start with and the connections would not have been maintained at all if technology didn't burden me to do so. I've also started to use the filter feature in AlertThingy, so that I don't have to waste my brain cells reading status updates from this particular group of "friends". The truth is, the feeling is probably mutal. But no one will say it out loud. People come and go from our lives for a reason.

• MAJOR SIDE NOTE: If you are reading this blog, and know me in real life, and are on facebook you most definitely did not fall into this cateogry. You fall into the category of people that I would have exchanged letters and phone calls with before the days of social networking. I miss letters, I think it has something to do with my weird love of paper and all stationary products (see above). If you are reading this blog and don't know me in real life you aren't in my facebook entourage anyways so this doesn't apply to you, but I'm very happy to have you share in my corner of the world.

Fixing my facebook problem

With all the buzz in the news this week about FB* and their rights to what we post and all of that stuff**, I got to thinking about my online life. I go through this every few months or so, and last time I talked about it here on the blog so I thought I'd give a little update.

My main problem with facebook, twitter, and even this blog to some extent is the line between my personal and my professional life. The two do mix somewhat, sometimes, but I try very hard to keep them separate. I was good on twitter (using my dr. rini persona), and mostly good on this blog (the real life people who know me and my actual situation can be trusted to be discrete). Aside from that, I figure if someone does go through the trouble to put the pieces together, I haven't done anything actually wrong. I talk in vague terms about people and events and my own opinions, none of which can get me in too much trouble. Facebook on the other hand has always been a little bit of a gray area. Colleagues are on there, it's rude not to friend them, and it may actually have some uses in my professional life.

Today, my attention was brought to this article and I actually gained a little more confidence in the system. I've spent a little time on my profile tonight and by grouping my friends, family and colleagues and carefully choosing who can see what, I feel a little more comfortable with professional Rini and personal Rini exisiting in the same place and a little less like I'm being watched. Go read it, I thought that I was being pretty good about my settings, but even I didn't know about all of these tricks.

* I'm too lazy to find the links, google facebook TOS and you should be good.

**I'm not going to get into the debate on the good, the bad, and the legal of all of this. I have my own opinions and skeptism but I have come to terms with the fact that online social networking is a necessary evil in our lives. It's going to take the laws and licensing rules awhile to catch up with us. That's the beauty of a democracy, after many years we'll end up with a system that the majority of people feel comforatble with. The wheels of democracy move slower than those of innovators, always have, always will.

Riding the Roller Coaster

You might have been able to guess from the snarky edition last week that things weren't going so well around here. This is both the complete truth and a blatant lie at the same time. It is the enigma we all know as life. Yesterday was bad (bad enough for me to start looking at job postings), today is good (NSF grant! woohoo!), and it's anyone's guess what tomorrow will hold. It's a roller coaster with the ups and downs coming faster than you can handle. Mornings can be good, one email can change it all and make you feel like the gum on the bottom of someone's shoe. I've always maintained a "c'est la vie" mostly optimistic attitude, beleiving that as long as the good outweighed the bad, I was leading a quality life and couldn't really ask for much more.

Here's the thing: What to do when the ups and downs are just about equal, or the balance starts to tip and your're feeling like you want off the ride more often than you are enjoying it? Is it just a rough patch? Does the long term average count for more? Or is it an indication that it's time to take a long hard look and figure out what's causing the imbalance?

There have been times in my life when I knew a change was required. The balance was clearly tipped and the long term average just wasn't ever going to make it ok. I've always been pretty good about knowing myself well enough to know what was right and what was wrong, for me and then taking the steps to fix it. I do beleive that to some extent our fate is in our own hands, so I rarely take the wait an see approach, preferring to be a little more pro-active in my life.

But here I am on a rollar coaster bigger, scarier and more stressful than I've been on before, and I'm not sure I like it, and I'm not sure I want to ride it until it's over. (I guess all new rollar coasters feel that way the first time you ride them, but once you survive they feel like kiddie rides in the rear-view mirror, but still...)

We are just shy of 6 months post move so I no longer consider my life to be "in transition". You see, to me the rules of self-evaluation don't apply to the transistion periods, all bets are off.

When I discuss this situation with others who have riden on the tenure track, they say the first year is just like that, give it a year before making any drastic decisions. So as difficult as it might be I'll give it the year, but I need a plan.

So, here's my plan, in a pseudo-scientific manor, I'm going to keep track, (mostly) day by day. Good, bad, ugly, ok. I'm going to keep track of why good, bad, ugly, or ok (i.e. is is my doing or someone elses that I can learn to shrug off) and I"m going to try to tell the stories behind the good, bad, ugly, and ok. I'm going to take a tally. Then we'll see where we are.

This is the roller coast we call the tenure track. My internal optimistic, hopes (and very nearly beleives) that this will be an inspirational activity for any tenure track riders just slightly behind me, but we'll see, I don't like my science to be tainted by preconceived notions, then it's not science :)

My Wordle

Came across this today and needing to get my head outside of the depressing world of academic budget cuts, and re-budgeting under the potential of losing half of my start up money. I took a few minutes and gave it a try.


I limited to the top 50 words on from this blog. I was surprised, I would have guessed that there would be some science or academic like words in there. I thought that I had a pretty even balance of the science and craft, but I must prefer to talk about the craft rather than the science.

If you need a distraction go play, it's fun.

ready made blog post

I've been feeling guilty about not posting lately. I have completed knitting, but no pictures yet. I can't think of any good products to talk about because Renee has cornered that in her "product of the week" segment. (I'm the mysterious friend btw). I have some book reviews that I want to write, but not the time to do it justice. I have some academic anecdotes, but well, they're only pseudo-bloggable. But I don't want to leave you all hanging. So when I saw this on Erika's blog I thought, what the hell. I'll check in quickly and give you all something to mull over.

Here you go my blog says I'm:

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.



Other than that policeman and firefighter thing, the personality is not entirely off. I'd like to think that I'm a little more complicated than that, but it does make sense given that I've discuss science and engineering more than once on the blog. I've never taken (to my knowledge) the real test, so I don't have basis for comparison. I did take the children's version once in grad school, my roommate was a school pysch major and I was a test subject. Taking the test that is written for a child when you are in your early 20's doesn't exactly give accurate results so, no real comparison there either.

I also found this interesting:


Do I talk alot about habits? I would have liked to think that I use more of my brain that that neat-o graphic shows...

Going Public with Me

I just got back from a faculty meeting. One of the joys of being a faculty is the faculty meeting (insert sarcastic tone). Fortunately, I'm still new, we have a small faculty, and only meet once a month, so our brand of meeting isn't as bad as it could be. I'm not privy to the politics so maybe I'm still immune a bit. Thus far, I've been relative quiet at the meetings, although I started to talk some more today. We cover a lot of topics in the 1.5 hour meeting, most of which I have little to no opinion on or have little relevance to my current life. As I become more integrated with the department that will change, but for right now, I'm quite comfortable with my new girl status.

Until it became the center piece of the conversation.

We are having trouble recruiting graduate students. Our enrollment is down this year and for a variety of reasons that's not a good thing. We were discussing our options for recruitment strategies when one of the faculty members said something to the effect of, well we'll have to get Dr. Rini to get us involved in all the new technology out there, you know facebook and twitter and my space and what not.

I should probably mention I'm the youngest faculty by 10+ years.

There was alot of "what's twitter" and "oh yes, thats why we hired a young person" talk that ensued. I explained twitter. I do occasionally but infrequently twitter. I also have a facebook account, which I have been using to keep in touch with friends, although I'm not a heavy facebook user either, and yes I do have a blog. The thing is, I don't want either of these things to become part of my professional life.

I know that some faculty have had sucess with facebook as a tool, and I don't disagree that it can be used appropriately. I don't, however, beleive that a faculty who had facebook as a student can transition her social network to a professional network. I fall into this latter category. My students and colleagues don't need to know that my friends gifted me a can of whoop ass or see picture of me at my nephews baptism. My facebook behavior is not illegal, immoral or anything that can get me fired, it's just not a side of my life the needs to intersect with my academic life. My facebook life grows because of my friends activities and not necessarily because of mine. Do I have to call everyone up and say "hey I really need you to censor your facebook life because mine needs to be professionally acceptable". Same is true of my twitter. I twitter so my friends from far away can feel connected to me and I to them. And the blog, well, the blog is anonymous for a reason.

For a long time I didn't use facebook at all, because of these very reasons. Now that I live 1500 miles away from everyone I know I've started to use it more, but my security settings are on super high. Thus far I've found that it is a good balance for me. I'm not sure how to integrate it with a professional twist. I'm not sure I want to try. As far as twitter, I could set up another account, I suppose I could start a professional real me blog as well. In the end I suggested that the department set up a blog, where the current graduate students and faculty could post about what we're doing, what we want to do etc. I think that it might be a good solution, but it made me think a little about this stuff.

So I want to know how the rest of you feel? Do you live a split personality in reality and if so do you live one online too? I'm not sure I'm ready to maintain another public me.

in the news update

Here is a better blog post about the real article and the actual science and the full implications. But I do have to say, the New York Times did a pretty good job of summing it up correctly for the public at large.

So none of you think I'm an irresponsible science girl: I do have intention of reading the real article, because fully trusting media snippets of scientific exploration is never a good idea, but I'm swamped with my own science right now, so it went on the TBR (to be read) pile, which to save paper is really a list in Zotero...oh yea, I still haven't blogged about that. Well I'll get to it, maybe after the move...

In the news

We all know that I rarely read the news. But I keep it on my google homepage anyways, just in case the urge strikes. (BTW: I'm one of the "test subjects" and I absolutely hate the new left navigation pane. Total waste of space, are you listening google? If so, MAKE IT GO AWAY).

But, tonight this little gem caught my eye. I don't have much to say the article says it all. I'm feeling the need to shout "I told you so" to someone, but there is no one in particular that comes to mind that needs to here it. Girls can do it, yes we can. Now all we have to do is address that stupid No Child Left Behind thing and get more girls to take physics and we're on our way to that good ole' equality.

I like that I can choose to only read good news.

Summer Reading

All the plane time has given me a bit of time for some reading. Getting lost in a book has always been a favorite activity of mine and while I don't do it as often as I wish, I recently have put aside the knitting needles in favor of of good tale. Most recently, I read a really good one so I thought that I would share.

(click for book's webpage)

I've always been fascinated with Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture, and I'm a huge fan of historical fiction so this caught my eye. Fallingwater is one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I have ever visited. To me, he is one of the few people who successfully merged form and function and in doing so he appeals to my inner engineer and my crafty side. I also love historical fiction, so I picked this book up why wandering through the local bookstore in Boulder, which by the way, is a fabulous store if you're ever there: Boulder Books, it's on Pearl Street. I've been eating much to much fast food and I hate eating out sit down restaurants by myself, but I can accomplish that with a book in hand.

While I knew about his architecture, his legendary strive for perfection, and his art, I didn't know about his love or personal life. The book, is centered around his affair with Mamah Cheney, which is also quite legendary, and horribly tragic. More than the love, however, the book is about the woman herself, a woman I fell in love with. One of the blurbs on the back of the book says she is "everywomen" and I found that to be true. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating affairs, marriage vows are sacred and should be honored. But we do live in a social structure very different from Mamah's, not only do we now consider it acceptable for women to vote, but it is generally assumed that we are also allowed to choose our mates, and our careers, and a whole lot of other things. Anyways, I'm not going to get all uppity feminist on this one. Just go read the book, it's a good story.

Another year

Well, the holidays have come and gone. They were, as always, a whirlwind of family and friends. And, as always, I am just as happy to see them go as I was to see them come. So what's new in my life. Well a lot of things and nothing much at all.

The nephew, gets cuter by the day, and he's so well behaved he's almost got me convinced to maybe think about providing cousins for him to play with someday. Then I remember that I don't cook, don't clean and often forget to feed myself, so infant care might not really be the best option at this particular time in my life. But he is pretty damn cute.

This time of year is always filled with visits from friends as well, and it's always best when them come bearing big happy news: Jr and his lovely wife are having a baby. Krista is getting married, and I'll happily be serving as a bridesmaid :) So congratulations all around.

I, myself, have no big news to share, but I do have a couple of irons in the fire on the job hunt side that give a glimmer of hope, which, I think is a good way to start the new year: looking forward to the new adventures it can bring.

Oh yea, I won yarn! More info on that later.

One of those weeks

I had a whole post planned. A trademark, funny, insightful, a tad controversial, totally random, but oddly relevant post all planned. (I think all of my posts are all of those things in my head, but I most likely miss the mark all the time). But, the best laid plans.

Hub and I had a really great and interesting conversation about my planned blog topic and I must have gotten it all out of my system, because I didn't feel like typing it all out. It was about kids, the choice to have them and why people make that choice or not. Well it's still marinating on some level so maybe you'll get to hear all my thoughts another day.

So I figured I should pop in and say hi, and give the final november update. The sunrise circle jacket is great. I love it and never want to take it off. I like that I eliminated the buttons, it makes a sleek look but still think that it needs some way of closing all the way around. I'm planning to add snaps. I am not claiming originality for this idea, I'm just too lazy to search the blog-o-sphere to see where I read it.

The paper. Is. Not. Done. :(

I'm chugging the last day of data as I type. Last week's computer woes gobbled up a lot more time than one would think. I spent MANY hours searching for a reliable, viable backup solution and in general adding some organization to my computing life. The use of at least 3 different computers on any given day was adding some unnecessary chaos to life, which has been streamlined after all that time spent. I know that sounds like an excuse, and on some level it is, but sometimes deadlines have to be flexible for when real life gets in the way. Go congratulate Renee though. She rocked her November goals.

On the upside, two other papers went in for submission last week. I'm second author on both, which means I'm an "et al." in the academic world. This is my first time not publishing as first author, and I have now discovered is a lot more work than we give those et al's credit for. At this stage of my career, however, every single bullet I can add to the CV is a nugget of gold, so I won't be complaining too much.

So there you have it. The state of my life today.

Techy wonderfulness

Alright, despite my inner geek being...well a geek. I sometimes come a little late to the tech game. Wireless internet in my own home is one of these examples. My mother in law was there before we were. Not that I didn't want it, not that I didn't think it was cool. I was just kind of lazy on the whole subject. Then MIL gave up on hers and her router ended up in our house, so we hooked it up. This was around last Christmas. I liked it. Internet from two computers at one time made life for the two of us easier. The she decided she wanted to try it again, so at Eastertime we gave the router back, and a few weeks later bought our own. All was good again. Then one day it just stopped working. Just like that. No more wireless internet. I tried everything, nothing worked. I talked to some friends who said that has been known to happen with the particular brand of router we had and that we probably should just get a better one....this was in June. Laziness again took over. Well, my parents just went wireless in their house and I was once again inspired. I decided to dust off the old router and see what I could do. An evening or so later I was back online. I always figured that the the problems before were a PC/Mac conflict, we use both in this house alternatively, and it just seemed that if you set the firewall settings for one the other would go wonky. So this time, I wired the router directly in the the Mac (it's an iMac anyways...so it stays in one place...it doesn't need to be wireless), and went wireless on the PC laptop. So far so good, it's working great. I'm blogging from my couch.

Why does this matter...why am I blogging about it. Because the really cool part is: I just printed from my couch too! I never did this before and it's been a question in my folks new wireless system, they have three computers and they'd like them all to be able to print to the same printers. My brother in law is setting up the system and asked if I knew, I didn't and my inner geek was shamed into trying. So I did, and it worked. Really simply. So if anyone else wants to try this, here's all I did. A key point I think is that my printer is hardwired to my mac, so it just prints regularly. I enabled printer sharing on the mac...under system preferences. Downloaded Bonjour for Windows from that apple site on to my PC, installed it and then clicked on the Bonjour Printer Wizard icon it made on my desktop. It found the printer that is hooked to my mac. I followed the prompts and voila. I can print wirelessly! I'm home alone and I felt that I needed to share my joy.

I'll post about Rhinebeck later.

Keeping in touch

As promised...consistent posting!

So, I'm at a workshop in Boulder, CO. I haven't been here in 5 maybe 6 years, and it turns out I'll be back again for a conference in June, and if we get the funding we are applying for, possibly for another month in July. It's grown a bit from what I remember. Last time I was here I was at another conference on a similar yet not so similar topic, and oddly there are some people at this conference that were at that, it's like two worlds have collided. I went to that other conference twice and made a really great friend, who I really had met previously when she was my host for a grad school visit at a school I didn't attend, long story, but we became fast friends and when we went to this conference we would fly from our respective schools and meet at some connecting airport and talk nonstop for the whole damn week, like we were long lost sisters or something. We both loved to travel and loved the National Parks, we would take a couple of days after the conference and go up to Rocky Mountain National Park and hike and laugh alot. She was fun, we had fun together, when I made my exodus from engineering we lost track of each other. I miss her.

Life is funny like that, I've had some really good friends over the years, and there are several I've lost track of, that I regret losing track of. Most of them I knew from the time that I was getting my MS, and a I was little lost off my path, a period of my life I was happy to leave behind because it was the right thing for me to do both personally and professionally. I just lost track of them, not because I didn't care, not because they didn't care, just because life took us on different paths. I wonder if it was because on some level in my brain they were associated with a time that I wasn't happy with everything in my life so I blocked it out. I don't really know, but I know I miss them, and I regret losing touch, but it feels weird to still call them friends after all this time without contact all this time.

Anyways, being here reminded me of her, so I googled her today. That's the great thing about the internet, and the bad thing I guess, you can track everyone down. It turns out she finished her PhD a year before I did and she is also doing a post-doc, and those are good things, so it's nice to know that she is being successful. It'd be nice to get in touch with her again, because I think friends are important, and she was a good friend. I wonder if I should email her.

It's weird that she's a post-doc too. I've been lamenting the lack of not knowing any other post-docs, it's been a very difficult phase of my career, a rather depressing one at that, and lonely. My grad school friends don't understand it yet, even though they try to. My real life friends also try to understand and are fabulously supportive, same with my family (I'm a very lucky girl in that sense, lot's of people who what to see me happy and that on its own makes me pretty happy), but it's hard for them to fully understand too. I'm living it and I don't totally understand it. My almost-but-not-quite-because-I'm-not-a-professor-yet colleagues apparently have blocked out their post-doc expereinces, or never had them because they are all from a generation where it was possibly to get the job without this bizarre holding tank period. So, I'm feeling kind of alone, it would be nice to talk to someone in the same boat. But that's a selfish reason to email her. But maybe she feels the same way, and she'd like someone to talk to too. Maybe I should just let things be and see if our paths cross again in some other way. Maybe I should stop spending so much time in hotels by myself, it makes me think too much.

I should blog about...

I have that thought at least once a week. What comes after the ellipsis is quite varied. Sometimes it's about my academic life, sometimes it's about my knitting, sometimes it's just random stuff. But the thought always occurs at a time when I'm not near my blog. Driving my car, on the machine at the gym, or any place else that's not blogging conducive. By the time I find uninterrupted time to sit at the computer, like now, the beautifully composed blog entry has flown from my mind never to be retrieved again, and my brain seems to be somewhat akin to a student just caught asleep in class. "Um, um, could you repeat the question please..." But, it's been a long time since I blogged so I thought maybe something would just flow today. I'm sorry if it bores you, we'll see where it goes.

That's always been the problem with my brain. It works too fast. It's a little like mental ADD, but without that annoying symptom of not finishing a task (knitting basket doesn't count here) Sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not. I've solved most of my most frustrating data problems in the shower, and have been known to sit down at the computer dripping wet testing out my "inspiration". For awhile I kept a notebook with me at all times and would try to jot down my thoughts, but the notes would get lost, or where to cryptic to decipher. Days later I'd find myself wondering what something like "morning darker yellow" meant, and what aspect of my life it could possibly relate too. And bam we're there. One of things I thought I should blog about. My new toy.

I love all things organizy. Always have. I was severely depressed when the Franklin Covey closed it's local store, but the internet saved me. I have a system. I have a planner, which I use pretty reliably for ~10 years now. I went the electronic route once before, about 6 years ago, I had a Palm M125. I know it's pretty old school now, but it was hip then. I loved it. I used it all the time...when I remembered to change the batteries that is. After a solid 3 years of use it just wasn't hacking it anymore, I was carrying both it and a paper planner and the palm just went away. Mostly because it did not have the ability to categorize my to do list. DH's handspring something or other did, I was jealous, we thought about switching, thought about buying a new one, but decided to spend the money on an ipod instead. Palm went in the drawer. I revisited the issue every 6 months or so, but the new ones all seemed to cost more then I was willing to spend at the time and didn't seem to have the features I wanted. Then there was the debate as to wether or not I just wanted a treo for my next phone, did I really want to be that connected, was it really necessary, blah blah.

Well, I've been in a bit of an academic funk lately. My lists weren't working, I felt generally disorganized, unhappy with life, etc. Like I just didn't have a direction. There are a million reasons for this, all worthy of their own blog posts someday, but I'm rambling enough as it is. So after wasting a couple of days comparing all available PDAs on the market, I took the plunge and bought one. I LOVE IT. The color screen makes a huge difference. To-dos can be categorized, alarms set, big improvements have been made. I can get on the internet at any wireless hot spot (so all over campus!) Word and excel work like word and excel without the total loss of formatting I always experienced in version 1.0 of that software. Bluetooth hotsyncing so there are no extra cables. A rechargeable battery that so far hasn't needed a new charge (~1 week for you geeky types). I'm not entirely out of the funk yet, but I feel like I'm getting there. I did actually accomplish several things this week, and I'm finally moving forward on a couple of papers that have been languishing in limbo, so maybe it's coincidence or maybe it helped. I guess I'll never know!

Ok, so it's a truely random blog post, about something no one cares about, but typing something makes me feel better already. Funk seems to be clearing all around. :)

And because it's friday and because posts are boring without pictures, here's something I knit: