blog action day

Something I miss every year is blog action day. Every year Paul has something very smart and interesting to say, and I think to myself, I should also have something smart and interesting to say, but I have a hard time being smart and interesting on demand. (I think I used up all that power in all of those interviews earlier in the year)

Today is not much different, and last night I actually was thinking that I might write a post today about the debates, because that whole anyone can teach with out those pesky qualifying tests remark really got to me. Really John, anyone can teach? Being in the military qualifies you to teach? Come wrangle a classroom for a day dude. ANY classroom and see how well you do. Students are not soldiers. I'm going to stop before I say something I regret. Let's just leave it at this, to me, it was the most important moment of the debate and, it's been lost among all the Joe the plumber talk. Education is an issue that has been largely ignored in this race, and one that is near and dear to my heart. Maybe it will be next year's blog action topic.

Anyways, poverty. I haven't really spent much time thinking about poverty. We are not poor by any standards, although the budget is pretty tight right now. Tight is relative. One salary, two mortgages and some school loans also doesn't make us well-off. We fall somewhere in between, which I guess counts a middle class. That's not to say that we don't feel the pressure knowing that our current situation is not sustainable for much longer, but we also recognize that this life (the academic one) was a choice we made and we were lucky to have the means to make it. I could be an engineer, making more than twice what I make now. I have the training and the certifications, I chose not to use them. That being said, it is sometimes hard to not feel sorry for ourselves and to feel the stress of the zero-sum balance at the end of every paycheck.

Being wrapped up in my own life, as we all are, it's hard to remember that others are having an even harder time. I guess that's what blog action day is all bout though, making us remember.



At times in my life I have been fortunate to visit other parts of the world where poverty is a completely different situation than the one we have here in the US. On both occasions what struck me the most was how different cultures deal with different things. This is a working school, I mean can you imagine? But, I maintain that the multiple generations of family members living in a hut smaller than our "spare" bedroom are happier people than the wealthiest Americans you could find. Core values are different in different places and wealth is not necessarily one of them.


Here in America, I have recently relocated from a wealthy state to a poor state. From one with one of the lowest poverty rates to one with one of the highest. My perspective has changed. What lesson can I expound to blog readers about poverty? The one I learned during my first hurricane season. I may not be able to afford to replace my ruined pants this month, but I also didn't have to spend hours in a FEMA line waiting for food or water. I am lucky, many others are not. This does not make them bad people, or lazy people, or less deserving people. They are people. People like you and me who are trying to navigate in a society that values looking out for number one and no one else. It is not the value that makes every kid that attends this one room school house have a smile on their face everyday. Maybe we can learn something from these poor societies. Maybe a culture that values people more than it values wealth is one we could all start to strive for.

Adding a little color to life

Today I did what any good knitter who feels a little down does. I went to the yarn store. Gasp! Yup, this is my first visit to a yarn store this year. THIS. YEAR. PEOPLE! I vowed to go on a yarn diet, with three exceptions to yarn purchasing. 1) The Webs tent sale, if I could get there. 2) Rhinebeck, if I could get there. 3) Purchases specifically for baby gifts to be made this year, I don't have much baby yarn in my stash, and people are getting prego left and right, so this was a must.

Now, I must come clean and admit the gods have conspired a bit to foil my year of destashing a bit. First, there was the unexpected win of a yarn club membership from Knitgrrl. That's a whole lot of yarn to be added to my stash, but not draining my pocketbook, and really how can a girl turn down free yarn. Free hand dyed yarn at that. Second, there was a tiny thing I forgot about, I joined the Neighborhood Fiber Co. Tour of DC Sock Club for three months, way back in November, so there were three more skeins of sock yarn coming my way. Third, I ordered some yarn for a baby project which you will be hearing about in a couple of days. Technically I have not violated any of my rules, but yet my stash grows. To be fair, however, ball for ball in and out it's about an even trade. So today, I slipped. Just a little.

I convinced myself it was ok because I really needed something soft to knit with on the plane tomorrow. (Yes, that is the plane home...finally). I've been knitting socks for hub with some trekking xxl, which is my favorite all time sock yarn, but it's a little rough on my very very very dry desert hands. I've also been working on Ellen's afghan, but I accidently put in the box of stuff I shipped home. Finally, I could work on the sleeve of hub's cobblestone, but the Skye Tweed is also a bit rough on the hands right now, but I digress. Soft yarn.

Well, it turns out that it my not just be the texture that sent me in search, but that army green, beige, and brown just aren't lifting my spirits enough. My soft yarn is 100% Alpaca from Lonesome Stone, color Hot Rod Red. Every reference I find to this yarn online says the skein should have ~665 yds, but mine says 340. The pictures aren't really doing it justice. It's bright and it's cheery and adds some much needed color to my world. Everything is brown here. The walls, the floors, the bedding, the sink, outside is the same, it hasn't rained all year, and I think the brown has really got me down. Well, the brown and other events of late. It was so cheery I had to cast on right away. The pattern is Lace Ribbon Scarf from knitty, on size 5s because that's what I had, and with less width because that's what I wanted. It makes me happy.

On that note, here is something else that makes me happy:

That's my suitcase, waiting for the clothes off my back so I can go home, for a solid four weeks. I have not stayed in one place for a solid four weeks yet this year, and my own bed, well that's just decadent.

Tired

So very tired. That's how I am. I haven't blogged in a while, because there has been nothing really to blog about. Nothing positive anyways, and I hate to seem like a whiner, so I've been avoiding the blog. But to my loyal readers I owe some form of an update, and since I believe in being a straight shooter, that's what I'm going to be. This trip sucks.

The trip has not yet been what I would consider a success. In fact, it's dangerously teetering on severe failure, which is just emotionally tiring. I am exhausted on every single level one can be tired on. Mental, emotional, physical, etc. My bones are even tired. I forgot how physically demanding field work can be. I swear out loud everytime I have to pick up the damn generator. That sucker is heavy.

.........

Well, apparently I was so tired that I fell asleep. With my contacts in. Which made for a very confusing morning when I put another pair in right over the first....Anyways, yesterday was a low point, that is for sure. Today much better. All equipment up and running and functional: AT THE SAME TIME!! Miracle of miracles.

Plus, I got some wicked good news today. Babies are always good news, especially when the are going to be from such great parents. (You know who you are.) Congrats!!! It might be time to break the yarn diet because baby knitting will ensue. :)

Ok, well, I'm still pretty pooped so more news soon. Goodnight all.

Well here I am

So, as you may or may not know, I originally started blogging on a the three month research trip to collect the data for my dissertation. That was three years ago. Wow, three years in blog land goes by fast. The original intent was to keep everyone up to date on my goings on out here. Some people thought I was funny, some liked knowing what I was up to and well, I blogged just slightly more frequently then I called home, so my mom was pretty happy too. Of the 20 or so friends I emailed about the blog, about 5 actually read it. During that time I found a renaissance in my crafting, mostly crochet at the time, so the blog was a little about that too. When I came home I stopped blogging almost completely, but kept up with it sporadically.

After a lot of thought about my online life and googlability, I moved the blog here, which had no connection to my real name, and tried to give it a theme. I was knitting a lot, and reading a lot of knitting blogs so I thought I'd give it a go to be a *mostly* crafty blog, with some tidbits about my day job of science. But mostly, the blog remains the same, random thoughts and tidbits about my life. My readership remains about the same as well, although I've picked up a few readers since then from friends made since the original departure. So here we are 3 years later, and I'm one week into the three month follow up study of that original project. Which means I am ~2300 miles from home back in the littlish town and the very different life that provided the inspiration for that original blog. (I don't really know where I'm going with this, but hang on for the ride, it might be fun).

It's weird to be back. Kind of like going to your hometown after you graduate college. Everything's the same, but just a little different. Was that minimart always there? Was that house always purple? When did that development start? I think that it's those little things that remind us that it's not just the physical place that's the same but different, but ourselves too. Three years ago I had been married for <6 class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">resurrection of the fiber crafts. It was also an extremely productive time for me professionally. All that alone time was great for writing my first paper, and most of my second. I have fond memories of that time, but to be honest, I have no desire to relive them. I want to move on with my life. Al ot can change in three years.

This time it's different, we have new grad students working on the project, and we are all living in an apartment together. If the over 60 set made me feel young, these guys make me feel old. nearly 30 is a far cry from just past 22. The math doesn't show it, but trust me, there is a lifetime in those 8 years. These kids were in 2nd grade when Kurt Cobain died. They weren't old enough to vote in the Bush/Gore election, and they were sitting in a high school classroom on 9/11, not even remotely the same stage of life as I was starting my very first research project at that particular moment. They are great fun though, I think I'm still hanging ok, but it is an effort to not take on a mom-like role.

This is a sad realization, but man, I'm just not that young anymore. I miss the early bird specials and the golf outings. These guys are wearing me out!



ETA: After I posted this I remembered a trip recently which inspired this rant, seems like I'll never feel like I fit :)

touchdown

On the ground for the next 18 days. Equipment is busted. I'm exhausted so posting may be sporadic until I catch up with myself.

Still alive

I'm in Texas. Yeehaw. Longtime readers know of my relationship with this state. Would you believe I'm actually considering moving here. Just goes to show you, never say never. :)

S is for Security

Well, here I am, looking like a yuppy in the fancy coffee shop, drinking tea and typing away on my macbook, in the Cedar Rapids Airport. Yup, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. With snow everywhere, I'm very glad to be headed toward slightly warmer clims. Texas here I come baby.

This leg of the trip was pretty successful. We got the equipmentSe up and running, took it all apart, put it all back together, took it apart and packed it up. Then loaded it in the van that left home the same time I did, but arrived two days later. Just in time to watch the snow start to come down again, which very politely stopped in time for my drive to airport today. Since I ran out of stuff to do, I'm here and checked in 3.5 hours before my flight. Thank goodness the Eastern Iowa airport is much more forward thinking than say, Chicago O'Hare and provides free WiFi, so I can blog for you today.

Speaking of what else the airport can provide. How about some visual interest:


That is a fancy old car for sale right here in the airport lounge. It's a sweet ride, and given the amount of snow on the ground here I'm posting it so dear hubby can see getting his own old beauty is possible, even in the bad weather. :)

So, while the goal of the trip was accomplished and overall it was a success, I did have a bit of logistical issues getting here, which I alluded to last time. The short story is my orignal flight was canceled so I was last minute rebooked on another airline, evoking, what I like to refer to as the evil S on my boarding pass. It's actually a set of four capitol letter S's in a row along the bottom, which makes the security agents get out their red pens, and sends you to the special line, with full bag search, triple ID check, and full body pat down. This is the first time I got the S for a legitimate reason (last minute booking), but I'm numbering over a dozen of the Ss in my time. It's not really evil, just inconvenient and raises the heart rate just a tad. As much as I follow the rules there is always a little voice that says what if you left your pocket knife in the bottom of your bag, being scrutinized that closely is never fun. It is a post 9/11 security measure, some Ss are assigned randomly, some are assigned on itineraries that have been flagged and some are just because you might be on a list. For a period of time I think I was on that list, I got the S 2 out of every 3 times I flew, then sometime in the last year and half, the Ss stopped, I've taken 4 or 5 trips without the intense scrutiny. (I think the list was active for 5 years and hence after all those inspections the list expired. I personally don't think there was any logic in the system, just bad luck on my part, or good luck depending on how you view the situation.)

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, because I was reminded of the whole security issue in a roundabout way this morning. I woke up at the hotel this AM to the people in the room screaming. At each other. Loudly. The couple was fighting. Loudly. It was scary. The girl was crying and shreiking, the man was yelling. Loudly. It started off simple enough, a heated discussion in another language. At first, I thought maybe it was the TV next door, I had heard the TV from across the hall the other night, so it was a plausible explanation. Then I realized that there were no foreign language channels on the hotel's cable system. The argument got louder, and more heated. There was more yelling and a loud bang. By this time a little over 20 minutes had passed. So I called my husband, who convinced me that yes I should call the front desk. Who then called the police. In less than 5 minutes, the police where knocking loudly on the door, waking up anyone in the vicinity that had not been awoken by the initial argument. They separated the couple and another 15 minutes of interviewing ensued. (The walls in this hotel were particularly thin, and much of the interviewing occured just outside my door, so I heard almost all of the details).

Then, what I had been dreading from the start happened. Someone was knocking on my door. It was very kind police officer who nicely asked if he could come in an talk with me. Hello heart rate. Here I was, with nothing to fear, having tried to do what I believed to be the right thing, and suddenly I could feel my whole body go into fear mode. I was suddenly like a awkward teenager who didn't know how to talk to anyone. My voice was barely above a whisper as I explained what I heard, why I had called, apologized for calling, etc. Why is that? I am a pretty self assured individual, a law abiding citizen with absolutely nothing to hide. But there it is, a fear of authority. I felt unbelievably vulnerable. And it can't just be because I was still in my pajamas, because it's the same feeling I have every time I'm marked with the evil S, and I never go to the airport in my PJs. Anyone have any good theories on why I apparently have a fear of authority? Anyone else have it? Police and security agents are there to protect us, shouldn't that envoke feelings of safety and calmness, not clammy plams and hot flashes? Anyways, just some random musings I thought I would share. I think we have maybe done something wrong in our society if someone like me has such a stressful reaction in situations that should be just fine.

Anyways, I've rambled long enough, it's time to face the security line. The kind cop did explain that they had been arguing, their stories aligned, there was no evidence of physical violence and that probably something just fell against the wall. He thanked me for calling. Left my room and told the man that the fighting needed to stop because it was disturbing other hotel guests, etc. My breathing returned to normal. Then my alarm clock rang. It was quite a way to start the day!

Here I am

Just a quick post to let you all know I'm safe, busy and tired and the trip is going well. Will the time difference it's been too late to call anyone back home by the time I finish my day, so I'm blogging what you all really want to hear. :)

Hopefully a real post tomorrow.

Let the mobile blogging begin!

Hello blog, I know it's been awhile. I hate to make excuses, I know I should be better, but you know how it is, I've been busy. What were we talking about when we last met. Oh yes, elections I believe. When I have been woefully remiss in my duties as a citizen. I cast my vote, watched the super Tuesday returns, and promptly freed up all thought space to dedicate it to the preparation for the travel whirlwind that is my time. At this point it's out of my hands unless I want to become a crazy political activist of some type and well, I'm on this career path right now, so I guess I'll see where it takes me. Right now, it's taking me EVERYWHERE.

I'm sitting in an airport as I type, waiting to get on the 3rd of 10 planes in my 10 in 10 adventure. 10 different flights in 10 days. A personal best for me (I once did 10 in 11). I'm not flying daily, so it's not as bad as it may originally seem. Most of them come in pairs as there are very few places you can fly direct these days. All in all it is a total of 4 cities 5 if you count my home base which I visited for several hours last night, and won't see again until ??? (I'm hoping for a visit in April). This was a packing nightmare by the way. Today I'm headed to a city that had a high of 18 yesterday, friday one that was 70 yesterday and then Sunday on an interview, pretty much my entire wardrobe is either checked on a plane, or in the back of the van which is carrying my equipment across the country, which I may or may not see on Thursday, then may or may not see on Sunday, so the contingency plan was that I won't see it until a week from Wednesday.

In honor of this craziness, I'm planning to do some mobile blogging, there may or may not be photos since I think the cable to connect the camera to the computer is in that van. There may or may not be blogging because not all places offer free wireless internet in the airport, and some hotels like the one I stayed in last week charge $4 for 20 minutes of net time, and well, I can't blog in <20 minutes, plus, I'm cheap. There may or may not be a theme, because it's hard to keep your head straight when you are traveling so much for so many different activities in such a short time span.

Airports are funny places. The whole system is just crazy. Those self check-in things. Just dumb if you ask me. They are a poor replacement for actual humans. Just so you know, it is 6:19 am, an hour of the day I rarely see and those stupid machines have already failed me twice on two different airlines, so I speak from experience. I log a lot of miles in the air and I've been using those machines for ~6 years now, and I have about a 35% failure rate, so I think that I'm safe in my criticisms.
........

Sorry, I'm back now, the kind airline dude just announced that we should all look at the beautiful sunrise, so we did. It was beautiful (I don't see sunrise all that often so there isn't much basis for comparison), but I was not among the half dozen people who felt it was beautiful enough to capture on my cell phone camera.

I guess my point was just made for me. Airports are funny places.

A sea of grey

I must be the only nearly 29 year old in the world that wishes I was at least 5 or 6 years older.
I mean shouldn't I be lamenting the loss of my 20's, not wishing them away?

This meeting I'm at was supposed to be for young faculty, early career scientists, particularly post-docs and graduate students. It's about getting funding from NSF, the process, available programs, etc. Since NSF funding seems to be the second half of your union card into the world of being a full fledged scientist and/or professor, I signed up immediately. I was pretty excited, the post-doc thing is well, I talked about that yesterday, so I won't waste the space here. But the opportunity to be with other people in or about my cohort was pretty exciting. Talking about science and the future directions is always stimulating and refreshing, and I though the energy of "younger" people would make it even better. I new that there would be many of the well respected icons of the field here too, but I thought the focus would be on getting the "new blood" involved. So imagine my surprise and frustration to find myself the only one under, let's conservatively say 37. Now, I'm not complaining or anything, I love to listen and learn, that's part of why I do what I do, but it's very difficult to always feel like your outside in the cold knocking on the door. When I finally did work up the courage to take that damn mic and express and opinion I was blatantly ignored. All those old men looked at me like I was an alien. My comments didn't even make it into the plenary session review, even though others came up to me after and said they were good ideas. So it seems good ideas from the "early career" scientists this workshop was supposed to help embrace aren't good enough. That's not making us feel welcome. Yet you can devote entire sessions to the educational needs we should be meeting to "save the future of the field". The future is right here in the room, how about paying attention!

Sorry that was a bit ranty, but it was hard to sit and listen to that today, and to hear them say things like "I see a lot of grey out there, maybe we don't understand the virtual world that students live in today", and in the welcome, "we really want to get the new scientists involved, this has been an old boys club for a long time and it's time to change that". The keynote speaker for crying out loud. One of the main reasons I came her was to get recharged to feel like there was a future for me in this field. I've been thinking a lot about leaving lately. There are about a billion reasons some revolving around my specific work environment right know, and those I know will change as soon as I find a new job. Those pesky problems aside, it's still a hard road, there are alot of obstacles, that seem to grow exponentially when you are a women, and when you are younger than the average PhD out there (I'm no Dougie Howser or anything, but I am the youngest PhD I know) they seem to grow even more. Midway through day three, I almost walked out, leaving that sea of seemingly brilliant but horrifically ignorant grey behind. I have better things to do than be ignored. But I stayed, mainly because I'm half a country away from home and had nowhere else to go, but partly because my love of science will not die and I still have some silly hope that I will discover something new and meaningful and to do that, you some how have to break into the club. So I'll keep trying. I'm kind of stubborn like that.

At least now I know who to submit the proposals to, how to request use of the sites, and navigate the endless pit of paperwork to get my ideas to that panel of my grey haired "peer" reviewers. Maybe they're more receptive when the future isn't standing in front of them looking so damn young and womenlike and instead is some "anonymous" scientist on a piece of paper. Sometimes I think we live in a mad mad world.

I think this post came out more negative then I meant it to be. But this gig really is hard sometimes. The conference wasn't all bad. I did get through to a couple of the scientists here and I had a very exciting conversation with one of the scientists here, one I respect quite a bit and he was very receptive to my ideas, and offered a lot of help and collaboration and told me I should apply for a very competitive post-doc program and offered to sponsor my application, so that's all good...but another post-doc??? That's a musing for another day.

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'm back

I should be cleaning the house and paying the bills and weeding the garden. But travel always has this overwhelming effect on me. I'm tired, and I just want to let my brain go wherever it wants to go for a few hours. My mental health is too important, the house, the bills and the garden can wait. So I'm here in my PJ's with a cup of tea and my brain went to blogging. Probably because of the extended absence due to the lack of internet. I did compose a post yesterday about a particularly sexist comment made to me in a meeting, but I didn't finish and it didn't get posted. In retrospect it's kind of negative, and while I do think it's important for some people to understand, I don't feel like being negative today. Maybe I'll make it cheerier and post it another day.

So, my trip to Minneapolis. Was good. Here's my thoughts.

- It was a surprisingly lovely city.

-They like live music and British and Irish pubs. I enjoyed both.

- The city seems to have an aversion to free internet, none at the hotel, none at the convention center and none in the airport. I think this is a cultural thing because this is the first trip I've been on that I've experienced a situation where I could not get online at a least one of the above mentioned locations. (It should be noted that I did find a Panera Bread with free internet and it was like heaven, but my laptop chose to have some type of hiccup at that particular moment and refused to boot properly.)

- The world headquarters of Target is there. It's a big building.

- Auto flush toilets do not save water if they flush four times for every single use.

- Despite a very busy meeting schedule I did find a little time to make a pilgrimage:

now if I can just get that theme song out of my head...