The Mongo Brain

Major fail.

2012-01-26T08:15:00.000-08:00

When one wakes up to a dream where one has killed one's child, that is starting the day off with a MAJOR fail. It is a terrible terrible way to wake up. Thank goodness we co-sleep. I was able to check in on her (lots through the night) to make sure she was still ok.

Sigh. Lately I've been feeling like a failure, both as a mom, a productive worker, as...well as just about everything (though can say I have most of my basic biological functions down...well except for sleep).

Sigh.

Ok, enough griping. Hoping to get through this week reasonably. Just one more day then the weekend.

New glass for the new year!

2012-01-24T08:44:00.000-08:00

The first day of the lunar new year (year of the Dragon) was yesterday. One tradition my family followed growing up was to wear something new to start the new year. With the birth of my daughter, aka Dinosaur Chick, my free time has been limited so I wasn't able to go shopping for a new outfit. Luckily, I had ordered some classes (frames from ebay and lenses from an online glasses shop) that came just in time. Here they are:
I like them, though they do feel a little bold to me. They were previously owned by someone who kept them in pristine condition.

Since I couldn't make it back to NYC this year, as per J's suggestion, I hosted a dinner party with foods I grew up eating. I'll post more about how I celebrated Chinese New Year's this year in Pittsburgh when I get the pictures uploaded from our camera.

Dangerous pastimes

2011-04-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

In the past few years, I've committed myself to reusing as much as I can. There are two benefits: 1. it reduces my waste footprint in this world and 2. it is usually much much cheaper to reuse than to buy new each time I need something. I think #2 is probably the main reason why I do this.

Usually, it means looking at what I have an re-purposing stuff or shopping at thrift stores or craigslist and using hand-me-d0wns. So the part that has gotten a bit dangerous for me lately is that I finally signed onto freecycle. Oh boy. It is great. People give away lots and lots of things. Bed frames, TV's, BABY ITEMS (!!!), garden supplies, you name it, someone will eventually give it away (or take it away from you if you want to get rid of something).

So why is this dangerous for me? Well, people post things all the time on the site. And if you are not quick, it can be taken up by someone pretty fast, especially if it is a high demand item (like the two baby carriers I missed out on a few days ago). I signed up for the "digest" version, which bundles a bunch of posts together and sends it to you in email form. Between last night and this afternoon, I received 5 of those email bundles already! And the more you look at the lists, the more you think, "Hmm... I could use one of those...." All in all, I could spend all day on the site accumulating lots and lots of stuff.

Dangerous.

But I guess this was what it was like when I first started thrifting or craigslisting. Eventually, I will develop my freecycle callouses and will not be so easily sucked into this. Until then, I guess these are dangerous times for me.

It Kicks!

2011-04-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

And it squirms, wiggles, punches, and flops.
That is what is in my belly at the moment and it is called a fetus!

I have been noticing a lot more activity in my abdomen lately. Pretty durn cool.

Though I clearly look pregnant, the uterus has not reached the point where the activity is visually noticeable by the outside observer (like the emerging alien creatures ala James Cameron's Aliens). At this point, it's like my own personal secret. This sometimes makes long meetings pass in a more fun way. I've also discovered that if I press on my belly in spots, I can get the kiddo to react and press back. It's really fun (though I guess the kid might just be saying to me, "Mom! QUIT IT! I wanna nap."

New experiences

2010-11-02T18:23:00.000-07:00

Two noteworthy parts of my Pittsburgh experiences so far: the driving culture and stink bugs.

Driving
In Pittsburgh, folks here are not shy about honking and giving you the much offended-look. One woman was so offended my driving clueless-ness that she drove behind me and up into the gas station in order to cut around me. I inadvertently didn't allow her to merge into my lane. But before she completely cut around me, she stopped her car along side mine, scrolled her window down, and yelled at me.

The other odd thing about driving here pertains to making left-hand turns. It seems that it is common practice here for drivers to cut into the lane of the on-coming traffic as you make the turn. The schematic on the right shows what I mean. The blue arrow indicates the path of the turning car. Notice how the path cuts into the lane of the red car. In Pittsburgh, this is absolutely NORMAL! In fact, the city draws in the lines for folks in the red car lane to stop at about 20 feet from the intersection, a good chunk of the way behind the cars that would be in the green car's lane. Even with that consideration, cars will regularly cut into the red car lane.

I do not make this up. Look at the picture I got from Google maps. The SUV is crossing the intersection. Notice the car waiting for the light is way in the back there, on the off chance someone makes a left-hand turn onto their street. It makes me wonder how Pittsburgh drivers fair in other cities where cutting off a lane to make a left-hand turn is not the norm.

Stink bugs
I was introduced to these little critters when I first moved here. According to the NYTimes, they are an agricultural pest that has taken over the Midwest. These bugs seemed really dumb when i first met them. They would fly into walls, repeatedly. Windows I can understand but opaque cold surfaces? When it gets cold outside (as it has lately) they seek the indoor warmth. Or in my case one night, the warmth of a snuggly pair of pajama pants. They stink when they are attacked, which I found out that night when I inadvertently crushed one in said snuggly pajama pants. Though I am still creeped out by that experience, I learned something really cool about these buggers.

One day at work, colleagues and I sat around a table playing with a stink bug. We flipping it over on its back and watched it wiggle its legs in the air. Then it would anchor its two hindmost legs onto the ground and swing its body up into a vertical position. Once it was past the tipping point, the bug would fall onto its legs and proceed to scurry away. It was the coolest things to see, better than any Transformers movie. We kept doing this for at least five minutes. After a while, the bug seemed really pissed off at us (it tried to stare one of us down) so we felt compelled to stop.

This is what I have to report for now. It is always fun to go to a new place.

First Day

2010-10-01T06:08:00.000-07:00

It is now 9:08. I have been officially at work for about 10-15 minutes. It is exciting. I can't do much socializing at work, since my part of the office faces the door of a heavily trafficked area-- the way my computer is set-up, my back is to the door and the monitor is in full view of the walkway to my boss' office. :)

At least in the first few weeks, I will likely be very very productive at work. :)

Museum membership

2010-09-28T20:21:00.000-07:00

I guess this is yet another sign that I'm staying in this city. J + I just bought a dual membership to the Carnegie Museums. For $100 we have a year long membership that lets us visit any of the four Carnegie Museums in "Picksburgh" (local dialect) an unlimited amount of time.

We went the Carnegie Museum of Natural History today to celebrate. J came back from Philly yesterday. He led a workshop and it went well. He designed a workshop for graduate students in an industrial design program to help them learn how to use different visualization techniques to brainstorm, sort out or capture ideas, and facilitate conversations.

The Carnegie Museum of Natural History and of Art are located within walking distance of work. I am pretty excited about this. When I lived in the DC area and was working on my dissertation, I would take work to a museum sometimes- the museums were free. It was nice because I could take a break and walk around to look at nice art work or people watch.

I have three more days before I start work. Whoo hoo!!!

The dust has settled.

2010-09-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

I moved to Pittsburgh about 13 days ago (9/15). It has been a whirlwind the last two months.

In July I was still slogging away at my dissertation revisions. My advisor had decided my first set of revisions was not enough. After "metaphorically" throwing myself on the floor, pounding my fists into the ground, kicking my heels, and wailing with a full-on tantrum (11 on a scale of 10), I went about tacking my revisions again. I have to admit, this took longer than most tantrums thrown by toddlers. I think it lasted about 2 weeks. I made it through (with the help of a copy editor who saved me many hours of chasing down errant commas, incomplete sentences, and the such). At the end of July, right before a conference, I got the ok from my advisor. The dissertation was officially done (though there was an administrative hiccup that didn't let me submit until a month later).

Now that was done, J and I had time to sort out a few things. We that it was better for us financially to move to NYC. It would be closer to family and give us a bit more of an economic support network. With me working as an instructor and J's business just starting, living where we were living was not tenable. We were slated to move August 15th.

Also, without the stress of the dissertation, I felt like I had renewed confidence. This was great because I was more empowered to tackle job search related activities- e.g., networking at a conference, job applications, gaining more clarity on the kinds of projects I wanted to start or get involved with, and contacting people I might want to collaborate with.

Ok, that is the backdrop for all the craziness that ensued, involves travel to three different states, two job interviews, making a difficult decision between two very good jobs (which involved also talking about how our lives would be impacted), and initially delaying then belaying our move to NYC. For those of you who might now know I took a job in Pittsburgh doing research and curriculum development. My work is to focus on teacher education stuff- thinking about how to help teachers learn how to use the new curriculum we design.

So now I am staying in the house of one of J's cousin's while we wait for our new apartment to be inhabitable and for my new job to start. So now that the craziness has calmed down a bit, I have finally had time to sort through my thinking of this whole thing. Two thoughts have been occupying my mind lately:

1. I am proud of myself for finding this job but I also recognize that there is a whole lotta other things involved here. I worked hard to complete the applications and think that my skills were well suited to the job offers I got. But it wasn't all me. I think that there are other folks who might have comparable skills. I would not have known about them if I didn't have friends who told me about them. In fact, the one I have now is from a friend who is from a different field. I am fairly certain it helps that my professional name is associated with my advisor (and the research group I was a part of)- it at least gets people interested in looking at my application. Then there is also the timing of things. I finished and had renewed confidence just in time to make those applications, networking opportunities at conferences, etc. I am also lucky enough to have friends who are interested in talking with me about how one gets (and keeps) a job that one likes. I really appreciate all the other things and people that were involved- many of those things helped to set the odds in my favor.

2. There is an underlying assumption that academics will move away from family and that there may be a period of moving around. Some welcome this, and some are resigned to it. I am not sure how I feel about that. I am uneasy about the fact that I have dragged J out of NYC to be down in DC with me for two years, then in Philly for two years, and now in Pittsburgh for (possibly) another two years. It takes about two years to really make a community and for him to establish a professional presence (which is needed for someone running his own business). Most of my family (cousins as well as immediate family) are within 4 hours of NYC. So getting back to NYC for major and minor holidays as well as big and small "emergencies" is possible at an almost moment's notice. Being a 2 hour flight or a 6-7 hour drive means I will necessarily be more removed from family activities. If J and I decide to have a kid, this is a concern we have.

I'll talk about my explorations of Pittsburgh in another post, as this one is already getting quite long. Pittsburgh is a neat city- a very interesting mix of lots of different things.

Credit cards

2010-06-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

My credit card company is definitely serious about credit card fraud. If anything unusual happens, they call me immediately or stop all charges on my credit card (until I can verify that all is alright). I just bought a computer this morning and within two hours, they gave me a call to verify the charge. Once I traveled out of the city in which we lived and used our card without telling them about my travel plans. They put a stop on all charges on my card until I could call them to verify things.

Their customer service, well, that is not so good. If I do have a problem on either the weekend or after business hours (and this is more typical than I had expected), I get a serious workout on their telephone lines. I get shuffled from one electronic message to another for what seems like hours (but is probably only about 0.75 to 1.5 hours really).

I am definitely impressed with their seriousness regarding fraud. They also have a very reasonable rate (9.90 % for as long as I have had this card). If they could just improve customer service, then I would likely never leave this credit card company.

(If you want to know the name, send me an email. I don't want to put it up on the internet for fear of identity theft.)

"What it is" by Lynda Barry is astounding.

2010-05-29T09:22:00.000-07:00

J came home with a book from the library the other day. I am riveted.

It is called What it is by Lynda Barry (NPR did a story on it in 2008). I don't actually know what to call this book. Beautiful? Not sure that is quite the word for it.

It is definitely an exploration of some pretty heavy ideas like "what is an image?" "What is an imaginary friend, and are there imaginary enemies?" "Can you remember something you cannot imagine?" In parts a philosophical exploration, in parts a biography/memoir of her development as an artist/comic artist. No research and lots of vignettes. The questions she raises and the ideas she puts forth definitely hold my attention. I find myself coming back to them later in the day (or on other days).

But the thing that really blows me away is the way the book is done. It is in parts collage, in parts doodles, in parts comics, in parts paintings, in parts text. Even then the text is used as a visual point as well as a verbal point. There are so many layers to this book. I find myself wanting to first just look through all the pictures. The pictures tell one story. Occassionally, my eyes are drawn to the text. Sometimes I try to make connections between the text and the pictures but not always. The words seem to tell a slightly different story from the visuals. The result is this really thick rich experience, like going through the layers of sandstone. Each layer contains information about a world that was complete and only existed in that time (in that layer).

Looking at the book evokes these sensations I do not yet know how to describe- a sense of electricity but odd calmness too. Is this what being on the edge of thrilling feels like? Kind of like the feeling before the thunderstorm at night? It also calls up these feelings of longing to participate. To immerse myself in this world of drawing, writing, creating so much that I want to be a part of it too.

That is a great piece of art. I hope you will check out this book for yourself.

A good blog post about how we do evaluation in American School systems

2010-05-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Check out this blog post by David Berliner in the Washington Post- am interested to hear your thoughts. He is an interesting Ed Policy academic.

http://bit.ly/4IFb37

What I take from this is that we should allow teachers to take a more active role in assessing students and their learning. We should take into consideration the situation of the school, the student, etc in considering the meaning of the evaluation. We should also reconsider the kinds of assessments we give our students. For example, a multiple choice test for a surgeon may test whether or not the potential surgeon knew facts and labels but might not show whether or not the surgeon actually knew how to do surgery on real people (where body parts aren't exactly where the book says they will be).

What I am worried about and can see someone misreading is that this could be considered a call for school systems to administer more of the standardized tests that they use to evaluate students. I used to work with student teachers and licensed teachers in the state of Maryland. In one particular elementary school, it was a bit tragic the impact of increased district standardized testing had on the teaching and learning that happened. For some odd reason, this school had a lot of tests their students had to take during a period of about 2 months. During those two months, I'd say no teaching and learning occurred. Teachers and students were all focused on helping students cram for one exam, then take the exam, then cram for the next one, etc. Time for course work was supplanted by the cram time (officially called preparing students for the exam). As everyone knows, when you cram, you are not really learning. You are just trying to hold as much as so you can deliver it on the test. After you have released the floodgates and dumped all that material on the test, you are not likely to recall much of that information.

change is afoot!

2010-05-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

I had decided long ago to grow out my hair mostly because I wanted to see if I could do it. I had never had really long hair (e.g., hair to the middle of my back or longer) mostly because I never had the patience to grown it out. I knew that to have hair that long, I needed to learn how to style my hair (e.g., get the right kind of cut for my face, buns, French twists, etc) as well as taking care of it so I don't have split ends and the such. I gave myself a time frame- grow it out until I finished my dissertation and see what happens.

Well, my dissertation process took longer than I had expected, my hair got quite long- the longest I have ever had. It reached mid-back. It was an entertaining experiment but I don't think I look so good with hair that long (J kept asking me when my hair experiment was over and how my shag looked a lot like Joan Jett's shag). Additionally, since we don't usually use the air conditioner, I hate sleeping with my long hair. It sticks to everything, tickles me, and feels like it is strangling me at night.

With the summer coming and my dissertation done, I decided to cut all my hair off. It actually took two tries to get it this short. The first hair dresser actually was really really hesitant to cut my hair short. I basically had to fight to get it cut off. Even then, the cut he gave me was not short enough. So tonight, I went to someone else, armed with several pictures (of different head angles) and demanded that it be cut this short. She too was a bit hesitant but in the end, agreed and even said it could be a really fun hair cut. The funny thing is this hair cut is going to make me more of a high maintenance woman than before. I am going to have to style my hair with goop and wear accessories on a more regular basis now.

I love cilantro

2010-04-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

Some people in the world hate cilantro. Eating it would be akin to having their mouths washed out with soap by some sadistic school teacher. I had heard that it was a genetic thing- that the taste buds of some could not handle the chemicals in cilantro. I never understood that because cilantro has this delicious green fresh taste to it and just felt sorry for those with this genetic predisposition. Well according to this NYTimes article, the love/hate maybe very much related to chemistry but not in the way I had originally thought. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html?hp

One of the chemicals in cilantro is reminiscent of soap/hand lotion or bedbugs, depending on what is more common in your environment. In ancient days, soap/hand lotion was not that common so many non-cilantro eating cultures thought it smelled like bedbugs. Mind you, that is not the only chemical in cilantro and depending on how frequently you eat it (as well as what and with whom you eat it), your brain may focus on one or another aspect of the chemicals in cilantro. In my case, I don't notice the soap aspects, only the yummy, fresh, green, cilantro-y aspects of it.

If you have not had much experience with eating delicious things with cilantro, then the first time you eat it, your brain may likely associate cilantro with the nearest chemical pattern it has stored- soap (or bedbugs)! But if you eat it alot (and under pleasant conditions), then your brain is likely to associate to down play that part and learn to pick up the other parts of the cilantro.

Kind of cool to think that we can rewire our brain on such a basic level as to rethink our sense of taste.

March 29th

2010-02-23T05:27:00.001-08:00

I have set my dissertation defense date. it is March 29th. The only writing I will do between now and March 14th will be on my dissertation or on grading. I hope everyone who is reading this will have a good next few weeks.

new things to do on a snowy weekend

2010-02-06T20:07:00.000-08:00

There is a lot of snow outside, 26 inches. This is what our backyard looked like this morning (and it continued to snow for another several hours).

Right now the snow reaches up to the bottom of the table and the chairs just look like big mounds.

Some friends in the neighborhood went out for a walk and stopped by for lunch. It was quite unexpected but luckily J had decided to start a major cooking endeavor (salad + beef stroganoff) so we were oddly ready for guests. Ready food-wise but certainly not cleanliness wise. Good thing the good food distracted them from the not-so-clean bathroom.

While J was engaged with his cooking adventure, I got it into my head to do some craft work. It was a "green" (or really pink) craft project that was easily finished in one day. I used old plastic mesh bags (the ones that hold onions and citrus fruit) and a size H crocheting needle to crochet a dish scrubber. I got the pattern off of a website called crochetpatterncentral.com but I can't seem to get the link up right now.

The pattern I used originally called for 1" strips of old plastic bags but I wanted something with really scratchy scrubbing power. I read in a post somewhere that someone made scrubbies by balling up the plastic mesh bags that hold onions. Well, I put one-and-one together and voila!

Will this little pink scrubbie put the pads by Scotch-Brite to shame? Well, the test will be with tomorrow's dishes. I have to admit, even if they don't, I'm still quite excited about this. It was a great way to use up those baggies that were lying around.

I'm not so good with following instructions or patterns so it isn't exactly a round. It is more of a spiraling coral-shape. In fact, it makes a nice hair ornament.

Custard love

2010-02-05T18:32:00.000-08:00

I love English custard sauce. It is one of the things I look forward to when I visit England. Even really bad custard sauce is still delicious in my book.

(picture from: http://www.recipetips.com/images/recipe/sauces_and_bases/creme_anglaise2.jpg)
It is delicious, lightly sweet + vanilla-y, runny sauce that the English put on lots of things (like English trifle)

(picture from: http://www.baking911.com/images/trifle.jpg)

I looked up a recipe online (it's a joy of baking recipe) and learned that if you add different thickening agents, you have standard pastry custard or bavarian creme. I mentioned this to J. He said, "And they went to war with each other? You'd think all custard eating countries would get along."

A world united by custard. I can live with that kind of peace and love.

Coming to the end

2010-01-29T20:00:00.000-08:00

I know I am coming to the end of my dissertation when I don't mind deleting large chunks of good analysis I did. For a long time now, I had the stinking suspicion that the analysis of the data from one of the teachers in my study didn't really fit what I was writing about- that it might be a different phenomenon all together. In the past I would have been sad to have to give up so much work (I think that analysis was a total of at least one month of solid work, and not to mention the hours of data collecting and stuff). I tried so hard to find a way to fit it in. It is still good data but writing about it in this dissertation just makes things too complicated and unreadable. So I am letting it go for now instead of trying to find ways to elegantly shoehorn it into this piece of work.

I have in the past let go of other large chunks of data and analysis from this dissertation, but not one where I have invested so much time and energy.

Oh well, this means I am that much closer because that is one big chunk less I have to edit and make work.

Charity

2010-01-28T11:23:00.000-08:00

I believe very much in giving back to the world but have realized that there are limits to my charity. Today, I take serious issue with my digestive system's new approach to giving. It has decided to give away everything it receives.

Adventures in artland

2010-01-20T21:41:00.000-08:00

Pearl Paint in Philly is closing down so J stopped by to do some scavenging. He picked up some really fun bright orange modeling clay. Tonight we had some sculpting fun and here are the results. Can't you just see the excitement in our eyes?
The piece of clay I worked with had an extension that looked a lot like a beak, which is what inspired the beaky-lizard head I made. Also, I recently hung out with my neice and nephew who are into dinosaurs. This may have contributed to the beaky-lizard idea.

A few weeks ago I had a really really bad day. One of those days where I felt really angry about the futility of it all (can you tell it was dissertation related?). In any case, J suggested I try to channel that into something else, since I could do no productive work that day. The picture on the right was the result. I think I was trying to express how I felt at the moment, like an egg dropped from high up.

Declined

2009-12-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

Every now and again, I am surprised by people's relationship to money and social image.

I went to one of my favorite local pubs this evening to celebrate all the hard work I have been doing in the past two weeks. They have a wonderful wood burning fireplace, really good beer, and yummy snacks. Also, they have a really really well priced happy hour.

When I wanted to leave I gave my new credit card to pay the check. A little background to this story: My old credit card just expired and they sent me a new one. I just activated the new one yesterday. Well, the waitress came back with a hushed voice and very apologetically said, "It was declined."

So I promptly called the credit card company, had it all straightened out, and the card was activated. I called the waitress over and said, "We sorted it all out. Can you please try this card again?" At which point, she smiled and was very friendly with me.

I was a bit taken aback by her embarrassed and apologetic demeanor in letting me know that my card was declined. I know that people are sometimes embarrassed by this but I do not wholly understand why. (This may be because I was not embarrassed in this situation). I know that usually it is seen as a sign that the person has overcharged on their account. But, there are many reasons why a person's card might get declined. In my case, it was because my card wasn't activated. In some other case, it might be that the person's magnetic strip was demagnetized.

Even if the person had overcharged that one account, so what? Isn't that the problem of the person who's card it is? Why exactly is that a problem to be embarrassed about? I can guess at two possible reasons but I am not sure how accurate they are: 1) getting caught trying to get something you cannot afford causes a lot of problems for the proprietor and ultimately the person who owes the money- problems are embarrassing (though the odd thing is not all problems are embarrassing, only some); 2) getting caught trying to get something that you cannot afford is like getting caught trying to be something you are not (e.g., being poor but pretending to have money)- being labeled a fake or a liar is not a good thing in this society. I feel like I must be missing out on something in my thinking but can't see it clearly. Any thoughts?

Kitchen empowerment

2009-12-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

It is quite empowering to be able to make the things I normally buy from the store. J and I have recently gotten into making a lot of the food we normally purchase. Doing so helps me: 1) de-mystify a lot of the stuff we use on a regular basis, 2) see what I am putting into me, and 3) given me more control over my life (I know, to a fair degree, what I am putting in to my body).

Baking had always seemed magical to me- but I found out how easy it is to bake. You just follow a recipe. Chinese people do not make baked goods much. We "bake" things like salt-baked chicken, roasted duck, and the such. With bready type products, which is more typically a northern Chinese thing, we steam cook it. It makes for super moist breads with a lovely shiny skin- very very pretty. So we have gotten into making mini muffins (those were the only muffin trays we had in the house), pizzas (we just got a pizza stone for Christmas and are L-O-V-I-N-G it), breads (with the bread maker), and cakes.

Another thing we have been making (every week, in fact) is our own fat-free yogurt. We started off with a recipe from the internet but by know I know it by heart. I got the idea to do my own yogurt from my dear friend who keeps a blog on food, decorations, and other stylish things. (TIP: I use a cooler, a hot water bottle, and some towels to keep the containers of yogurt mixture at a steady temperature for about 7 hours, plus or minus an hour or two). It is pretty easy to follow a recipe.

Last night, J made matzah ball soup. We already had a turkey based broth made (compliments of Turkey day leftovers). He found a good recipe that used canola oil instead of schmaltz. YUMMY! When I complimented J on the delicious matzah ball soup (I actually gave him a big ol' hug and said, "You're awesome!") he simply said, "Well, it's pretty easy to follow a recipe."

So the theme for kitchen empowerment is really quite simple- just follow the recipe. You too can do it, especially with the help of the internet. Or if you can't get access to the internet, you can go to a library or bookstore with some index cards. I'd love to hear your empowerment stories too. It doesn't have to be from the kitchen.

The Phillies

2009-11-02T07:15:00.000-08:00

It's hard not to get swept up into the Phillies mania that has taken over this city. Last year, no one in Philadelphia could really believe that the Phillies had made it to the playoff- let alone win it. This year, they are in it for the second time. AND they are playing against the behemoth baseball money machine called the Yankees. Phillies has this homegrown feel to it that the Yankees don't to me, which inclines me to be attached to them. But really, in this day and age, no professional sports team is very "homegrown"- players are traded or moved around depending on skill and money, not necessarily because of any connection to the local community. Also, it makes for a bit of fun rivalry between me and my dad, who is an avid Yankees fan since he moved to America.

It is interesting being in a town where there is a lot of city attention and pride put into their local sports team. Local business and homes are decorated to celebrate the Phillies. A house in the neighborhood rented a bunch of stadium benches, pitched a gazebo/tent, and set up their huge plasma screen TV on the sidewalk every night so that they can watch the Phillies play with their friends and neighbors. Talk about the Phillies seem almost everywhere- and it is all happy, hopeful, excited talk (though after losing the past three games in a row, I am not sure how hopeful it is any more). In other cities I have lived in, it is much easier to not connect to the sports excitment. This is the first time I've ever cared that much about following the games. J and I have been watching or following each game closely- either at the local pub, on the radio, or on our neighbor's outdoor TV.

I hope they win the few games- it will be nice to have an exciting World Series.

Philadelphia in the fall

2009-09-23T10:45:00.001-07:00

I move to Philadelphia in the fall about a year ago. At that time, I fell head-over-heels in love with this city. The city is very pedestrian and bicyclist friendly. It is filled with old-world-city charm (think small streets, rowhouses, lots of cafes and independently owned restaurants and stores). I moved into a great neighborhood in South Philly; easy walking distance to really good food supplies to let me cook to my heart's delight. It was lovely and wonderful. So what if there is a bit of trash every where I look? So what if I had to be constantly vigilant that I don't step on the ever present dog poop on every sidewalk?

Winter and spring, Philly is still quite nice. Spring, especially because there are very many flowering bushes and trees- more variety here than any other city I've lived. Magnolias, lindens, cherries, pears- to name a few. The air is rich with fragrance. Mostly in a good way because the air is light (not yet heavy with humidity), breezy, and, more often than not, sweetly scented. Yes, the dog poop and trash is still every where, but with so many things in the spring to distract the nose and eye, it is less of a problem. But not the same as that "I'm dizzy with love" feeling that I had in the fall.

Summer is not Philly's season. It is humid (so my asthma acts up), it smells (with increase in humidity and temp, the dog poop, trash, and sewer smells are every present), and just all around hot and not fun. I'm happy that my garden does well in the summer but really, I can do without the rest of the city in the summer.

Then the other day, I walked around my neighborhood and felt the same pull on my heart I felt a year ago for this city of brotherly love. The air was mild. It didn't smell as much. People are just chilling outside. It is fall again in Philly and I'm in love again.

baking adventure

2009-09-18T12:13:00.000-07:00

Growing up in a Chinese-American household, baking (and good baked goods) were not a priority for my family. I didn't learn until I was an adult that I actually like bread- I had always had bad bread. Considering that I grew up on mostly wonderbread or wonderbread-like substitutes, it is shocking that I was even willing to try bread as an adult.

I can cook but I had always convinced myself I'm not really a baker. I just occasionally dabble in baked goods, when a really good reason calls for it. Also, I am ill at ease with the amount of sugar and butter (or lard in some cases) that goes into baked goods. I have made banana bread in the past that is supposed to be healthy- nuts, low on the processed sugar, no butter, whole wheat, etc. Sometimes it turns out okay but mostly it turns out like one of those health food protein bars and not at all like banana bread.

Well, I have noticed that lately, I have had cravings for some fat and sugar on a carbohydrate delivery system. Usually, I go to the grocer's, a local bakery, or a coffee joint and get my hit. But to try to live frugally this summer, I have committed myself to at least try to make at home what I crave. Not only will it help me save money, it helps me understand how much things really cost (in terms of both time and money) and what I am eating.

J and I have made a couple of things this summer- scones and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They were fabulous. When we dig up the pictures, I'll post a full report. Today, I wanted to talk about my latest adventure. Right now, I am making pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.

J just recently finished a very big project (that went on for MONTHS) and is currently hosting/running/doing and event at the Philadelphia Park(ing) Day. Basically, on Park(ing) Day, people sign up in advance for a parking spot in the city and turn that spot into a park of sorts. J's is called Sketch Park- a park where people can sit around and draw/sketch/doodle/etc. I wanted to have something for him when he came home to celebrate. What better way than fat, sugar and carbs?

POST-SCRIPT
Made two batches (tot: 24) of mini-muffins. I used a silicone muffin tray with a light wiping of canola oil (an oiled towel works just as well as a spray). The muffins popped out very easily. The first batch (in the oven for 30 minutes) was undercooked and doughy tasting. The second batch (in the over for 35 minutes) had a light golden brown top, slightly crunchier and oooooh-soooo-yuuummmmy!!!

J appreciated the muffins as best he could, considering that he is very tired and sick. I think it is the post-stress crash plus the bug he caught from me.

I might not have been an American if not for Ted Kennedy

2009-08-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

I might not have been an American if not for Ted Kennedy and all those who worked to pass the Immigrant and Nationality Act of 1965.

With the passing of Ted Kennedy, The Daily Kos put out this blog post about about his work helping to pass the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This ended the long history of heavy restrictions on Chinese immigration to the US (from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which outrightly banned the Chinese entry into the US and denied citizenship to those already in the States, to the series of acts that followed that expanded and extended the Chinese Exclusion Act until it's repeal with the Magnuson Act of 1943, which allowed only 105 Chinese into the US each year and gave those already in the US citizenship). After the Immigration Act of 1965, many more Chinese immigrated to the US. In part because restrictions were loosened and in part because of the social, economic and political unrest in China (re: Cultural Revolution). My mom's family was a part of that wave of immigration that came after 1965. Her aunt (a citizen of the US at the time) sponsored my grandpa who in turn was able to bring over the rest of his family. A few years later, my mom was introduced to my dad (via the phone and mail for he lived in HK) and they courted for a few months. After she married my dad, she brought him over to the States.

Yes, this act helped to change the face of the United States. It became and continues to be more multi-colored, multi-cultural, multi-lingual. This may be disturbing to some people but I, for one, am glad for this diversity. Without it, I might not be here to comment on it today.

Whistle while you work...

2009-07-16T11:07:00.001-07:00

My brother and I (independently) learned this very strange form of whistling. My spouse calls it the "asthmatic whistle"- it sounds like a very very weak whistle that keeps leaking out along the sides. I find it odd that both my brother and I had learned how to do this independent of each other.

I have taken up the task in my spare time to learn how to properly whistle. I am able to produce some tones that sound like proper whistling but it isn't consistent. I also have a very funny looking face when I do whistle. I start by acting as if I am sucking through a straw. While keeping the tight shape, I slowly stop sucking (I need to do this to keep the mouth form that is the base for my whistling technique). Then I blow through my mouth, slowly open my lips and adjust the lip placement until I get a tone. What i have found is that when I have my lower lip protruding (like some odd monkey pout) or when I have my upper lip protruding (like a very lippy overbite) I can somewhat consistently get a sound.

That's great except I really look doofy. Since then I have started to really pay attention to how people whistle. There teeth-whistlers, shaped-tongue whistlers, perfect-O-lip whistlers, and fingers in mouth whistlers. There is even a whistle language.These whistlers are from La Gomera and are called silbadores.

Sisyphus

2009-07-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

That's how I feel these days about my dissertation.
I write. I write. I write.
I make progress up this hill. Then I get feedback and I feel like I am back to square one...okay, maybe square one and a half.

I know, I know, each iteration just makes it better- my arguments tighter and clearer. But I would like to be totally done with at least one chapter already. SHEESH!!!!

I guess it means, done enough to advance it to the next level so I can start the work on it at that level. Maybe I need to reframe my view of this process. It is more like a video game where each new level has new challenges that need to be accomplished.

But the game feels like there are at least 16 levels for each chapter and then when you get to the last level, they tell you there are actually some secret levels that you need to conquer but they don't tell you how many more there are.

sigh....

Okay, Sisyphus has to keep things rolling.

Got it!

2009-06-30T15:26:00.000-07:00

Update on the pest wars.

1. It has been expanded from mice wars to being more inclusive. We have reason to believe that the mysterious little red itchy welts that occassionally show up on our bodies are the result of fleas. I killed two nights ago. I have reason to believe that they might be an associated problem. Once the mice are gone and that central transportation body dissolved, we will have taken care of the fleas.

3. We have determined that the mice in our neighborhood are smart. They can recognize the traditional snap traps and will ignore any bait we put on it (see earlier post for details of the various baits). They will even run all around the trap (as evidenced by the trail of poop that goes all around the trap) just to taunt us.

4. We tried the live catch trap, thinking that a new contraption would confuse them but they just ignored it.

5. We recently met with some success by using this different looking snap trap (seen on the left)- my faith in peanut butter is renewed. We killed on two days ago and one last night. The great thing is that these traps are reusable. Ahh, success is so sweet, especially when J is willing to clean up the dead bodies.

6. We scheduled to cat sit a pair of kitties for a local friends but are hopeful that these new traps will take care of business. Just in case, I've started taking allergy meds.

My favorite power point presentation so far.

2009-06-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

In various cities all over the world, folks will get together to do power point presentations. The rules are: 20 slides at 20 seconds each. It's called Pecha Kucha. This was originally started by two architects in Japan who decided that they wanted to showcase the work of new architects in a format that would definitely engage the audience. By limiting the time and number of slides, you really had to integrate your visual information with your verbal information.

I had learned about this from J and had always wanted to see one. At my initiation into this, I got to watch J make a presentation on a subject near and dear to his heart- snakes. I think this is powerpoint presentation, or any presentation for that matter, at its best.

I'm inspired now to see if I can do something like this for my dissertation presentation. I might need more than 20 slides though. Or, I could try to convince my committee to let me do a 6 minute 40 second dissertation presentation.

Dangblast it!

2009-06-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

None of the traps were triggered this morning. Upon closer inspection of the trap in the cabinet where I keep my pots and pans, the bait "tray" was EMPTY!!! Dang those little bloody sneaky critters! This was the bait tray that had the fish sauce soaked tofu. GRRRR!!!!

Peanut butter they won't take but tofu they will.

I am contemplating putting bait on a small piece of glue trap paper that I stick on the trap. Then the mouse is stuck and the trap goes off. The trouble is how to get the glue trap paper to stay on the mouse trap WITHOUT sticking me and thus triggering the trap.

I must also give credit where credit is due. My friend (who has her own stylish blog) gave me a good suggestion on how to set the mouse trap without hurting myself. Use a wrench to hold the metal arm back while you set it. THen slowly release the wrench when you are ready to set it. I have improved on this method with the assistance of a chopstick (when in doubt in the kitchen, I always refer to my Chinese roots). So while I hold the metal snapping arm down with the wrench, I position the trigger bar. I noticed that as I release the wrench the trigger bar would inevitably get shifted out of place. So I use a chopstick to hold it in place while I let the wrench go. I'll see if I can post pictures at a later date. I have a feeling I am going to have to re-bait and re-set the traps pretty soon.

sigh...

Science Experiment

2009-06-09T20:30:00.000-07:00

We have seen evidence of mice in our house. A few weeks ago, J and I (on separate occassions) saw a mouse dart across our kitchen floor at 9ish in the morning. I think we spied it while it was on its morning commute to our pantry.

Well, I baited a trap and killed it one morning on its way to work. I have no qualms about pest control, especially since we had a mouse infestation (and I do mean infestation) in the previous house we lived in MD.

Well, that trap was baited with peanut butter and put along the wall where I knew the mouse was going to travel by. They have fairly regular commuting patterns.

A week later, I notice some mouse droppings on my kitchen counter. I clean those up only to notice some more the next day. Then no mouse droppings and then two or three days later, more mouse droppings for the next two to three days. And the pattern continues. After a while, I recognize that the droppings weren't due to our inability to clean up old droppings effectively but were actually new droppings of some other mouse (or mice). Well, we had put out two traps with the time-honored bait of peanut butter along the wall where we found the droppings.

Half a week goes by, no droppings and no triggered traps. By that point, I think the baits had lost their effectiveness. After a week, I notice more mouse droppings but no triggered traps. Droppings for about two or three days, then none at all. On the first day, the mouse droppings are fairly small and thin- I think evidence that they are hungry. Then by the second or third day, their droppings are round tubes- I take as evidence that they were well fed. Then there are no droppings. Also I noticed that the mice seemed not interested in the bait.

I saw fat mice droppings two days ago and none today. This should mean the mice are coming out either today or tomorrow. So, I am testing three different baits tonight- peanut butter, banana and fish sauce soaked tofu. I have to admit, I am not being thoroughly scientific here, as I am changing lots of variables- location of trap, bait, and number of traps. But I really don't think the location of the trap matters that much if the bait isn't attractive (as my earlier experience has shown). Another matter that I have considered and don't know how to deal with is that the mouse/mice might actually recognize the traps as a death machine and avoid it like the plague, regardless of how delicious the bait may be. I'll try the different baits for a couple of week. If that doesn't work, I might have to change my traps.

Wardrobe refresher

2009-06-06T06:48:00.000-07:00

Instead of working on my dissertation this morning, I opted to think about my wardrobe. I am about to go to a bat mitzvah for J's cousin and was contemplating what to wear tonight. I have worn most of my dresses many times in the past few years (several weddings, events, etc). I am a bit poor and busy these days and can't even go to a thrift store to get a new outfit. But I just realized: I have this great dress I used to wear that I haven't worn in this crowd nor in this city before! Whoo hoo! One doesn't need to change one's wardrobe, one just needs to change the people! I'm not really sure which is cheaper or more time efficient. As much as I dislike shopping I also don't really like having to pack, move and make new friends.

Different stages of life

2009-06-03T17:48:00.001-07:00

It's interesting to revisit things I favored when I was younger. I notice new things about that old favorite and gain insight into my younger self. Tonight, I was listening to a Veruca Salt cover of a song I used to like at lot- Somebody by Depeche Mode. It's your basic cheesy love song with an acoustic piano. But, somehow parts of this song redeem itself to me.

(The lyrics are below if you are interested in it)

I recall in middle and high school being hooked on to the line "I don't want to be tied to anyone's strings. I'm carefully trying to steer clear of those things." Of all the lines in the song, this was the one that resonated with me the most.

I still find a lot of resonance with that line today but upon listening to the song tonight, the earlier lines in the song had a stronger resonance. The lines about hearing me out and understanding me but not necessarily being converted to my way of thinking, in fact often disagreeing and the lines about helping me see the world differently. I was surprised that I didn't notice them so much before. I guess I was at a different stage in my life and was more concerned about other things.

Somebody
Written by Martin Gore of the band Depeche Mode

I want somebody to share
Share the rest of my life
Share my innermost thoughts
Know my intimate details
Someone who'll stand by my side
And give me support
And in return
Shell get my support
She will listen to me
When I want to speak
About the world we live in
And life in general
Though my views may be wrong
They may even be perverted
Shell hear me out
And wont easily be converted
To my way of thinking
In fact shell often disagree
But at the end of it all
She will understand me
Aaaahhhhh....

I want somebody who cares
For me passionately
With every thought and
With every breath
Someone who'll help me see things
In a different light
All the things I detest
I will almost like
I don't want to be tied
To anyones strings
Im carefully trying to steer clear of
Those things
But when I'm asleep
I want somebody
Who will put their arms around me
And kiss me tenderly
Though things like this
Make me sick
In a case like this
Ill get away with it
Aaaahhhhh....

Repellent

2009-06-01T19:50:00.000-07:00

According to dictionary.com, repellent has four meanings:

1.	causing distaste or aversion; repulsive.

2.	forcing or driving back.

3.	serving or tending to ward off or drive away.

4.	impervious or resistant to something (often used in combination): moth-repellant.

I had always associated insect repellent with the second and third meanings. Apparently, when you apply insect repellent on one such as me, who has super bug enticing blood, you really only get a mild version of number one. In fact, the bugs will just land on me and walk around sniffing until they find that one tiny spot that I didn't cover with insect repellent and bit away.

I went camping this weekend. On the first night, I put on insect repellent that was about 35% DEET. Apparently, I missed a one inch square on the top of my left hand and a quarter inch square on my right hand. Give you one guess how I found out so much detail about those missed spots.

Then I went hiking on the second day with friends in the surrounding woods. Mind you, this was not at all rustic camping and hiking. I had covered myself with 98% DEET that day. After that first night, I wasn't taking any chances. Well, that evening, a friend warned us that he found a large tick (it was wood tick and they typically do not carry Lyme disease) and that we should do a check when we get a chance. Well, I went to the bathroom and "Hello there stranger!" I find a little one attached to my lower abdomen. Hmm, whatever happened to 98% DEET and being repellent? I distinctly recalled putting this stuff on my mid-section.
My friend helped me remove the little sucker. It now sits quietly (and quite dead) in a ziplock bag.

Well, when my spouse helped me with a more extensive check a few moments later and we found two more wandering around on my mid-section! They had yet to attach to me. I think they were searching for the spots on my body that wasn't covered with DEET. So, repellent just means "diverts them to some other spot"- at least when it is in the context of insect repellent on me. After screaming some (from me), we were able to place those two into another ziplock baggie.

My spouse eventually found one attached to his ankle and another friend found one attached to her as well. They did not have any DEET on them. The other friend who also went hiking with me a lot that day didn't have ANY on him.

I think I am just really good insect protection for everyone around me. I'm like crack for tblood suckers. You have me around and I just mesmerize them. I got me some special powers.

Star Trek

2009-05-26T18:43:00.000-07:00

WARNING: Potential movie spoiler!!

Enough of my friends have watched it I can now talk about this movie. If you haven't please don't keep reading unless you don't mind having the movie spoiled for you.

I walked out of the movie quite happy. I think it was mostly because I really enjoyed hearing the original theme song in a movie theater. This was the first Star Trek movie I ever saw in a movie theater. I know, I'm pretty pathetic as a Trekkie. But I do have a comm badge pin.

Upon reflection, I think there were aspects of the movie I didn't like but all in all, it was a nice way to spend the evening.

It was an entertaining yarn they spun. I was impressed with how the different actors were able to take up the mannerisms of TOS's original actors and yet still give it enough new flavor to make the characters their own. It was reasonable the way they were able to bring in Leonard Nimoy into this movie. It also provided an interesting context in which Spock and Kirk's friendship developed. There were updates in the technological look of everything- the ship and everything look quite spiffy and more "modern". But they also kept enough of the campy-ness that it still felt like Star Trek (the blob of red matter looked so like a blob of bright red nail polish that I couldn't really take it seriously). Though Kirk doesn't walk around without his shirt every 30 minutes, he is seen in his underwear at least once.

I didn't like the romantic subplot between Spock and Uhura (why would Spock be dating anyone if he isn't in his mating season? Do Vulcans date?), the disappearance of an entire (very important!) world, and the disappearance of TWO parents of important characters from the history of the universe (though it is supposed to be in the future and it is fictitious, i know). Okay, so neither Kirk's dad nor Spock's mom makes many appearances in future episodes, I still think they shouldn't be off'ed like that! I was mildly irritated at the story line in which the future Spock gives the "present-day" Scotty some very useful formulas that Scotty was supposed to have created in the future that would allow for some major advances to their matter transport system. Somehow this seems like they took away some of Scotty's intelligence or something. It would have been cooler for Scotty if he came up with it all by himself rather than having someone give him the answer a head of time and he just works backyards to figure out all the explanations. ALSO, they didn't apply the appropriate signals of red shirt = mark of death. People, regardless of shirt color were dying left right and center!

I have to admit my problems with all these changes (well, except for Scotty getting the formulas from the future-Spock) may just reflect my inability to deal well with change. On the plus side, this means they have just re-opened this franchise because they were able to "rewrite history". Now new adventures and stories can occur.

Academic advice

2009-05-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

I got some great advice from a colleague about tenure at academic institutions.
I had always known that from the time of right after graduation to the time of tenure review, one must publish, publish, publish. Conferences are great and all but really, at that point, it is all about publishing in peer review settings. But going to conferences help one get published.

What I didn't know is how important it was to show that one had a tightly focused research agenda. What this means is that everything you do research and publishing wise should be tightly related to one topical area. So, say for example, you are interested in looking at the issue of framing and affects on classroom practice. Well, everything you do for the next few years must be some how related to that, to show that you have a focused research agenda. So, there may be really interesting projects that are not related to your research but you will have to say no to them (or find some way to tie it back into your research agenda).

Typically, it is much easier to adopt the same research direction as your dissertation's- since you already have that base, it is sooo much easier to become a recognized expert in the field that way. Sometimes, one can pick a new research direction, but you will need to do it early on so you have the time to really develop it into a rock solid research agenda and to develop into an expert.

Also, as an academic, the work never stops. Which can lead to lots of workaholism- but I think that depends on how smart one is about working (e.g., quantity is not always quality, and it seems that quantity tends to win out a little more in this field than quality) and on how well one is able to focus (e.g., not agreeing to doing too many things, no matter how exciting or worthy the cause).

beauty in motion

2009-04-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

I get a thrill in watching things move, especially if the movement involves coordinationg of multiple parties or objects.

One of the things I love watching is a beautiful pass in a ball game, but mostly in basketball or soccer (European football) game. When I watch basketball or soccer, I love watching that more than a beautiful shot. It is like watching a very complicated dance. Team members in coordination, all the while very aware of the opponents surrounding them. People slip, turn, bounce, run past and around each other then fire the ball in between, over, around, or even under their opponents who may also be another shifting constellation. I imagine the team members are connected by spider-web thin strands of light, every movement they may initiate or respond to triggers a team mate's movement. Sometimes a team, when they are really in flow, will follow up that breath-taking pass with a fabulous, spot-on shot into the net, the basket, the goal. Not always but sometimes everything they do just makes perfect sense in a lovely "world is in perfect motion" sort of way and the shot is true.

One of the most astounding passes I have ever seen in my life was at a University of Maryland basketball game against the University of Virginia. A Maryland ball player runs towards the basket. Two UVa players are in the process of converging in front of him to block his path. His team mate somehow appears behind the UVa players. The UMd ball handler shoots the ball in between the two UVa players straight into his team mate's hands. That guy immediate turns around and sinks the shot before the UVa guys have had a chance to fully turn around and deal with the situation. Beautiful.

That is not to say that sometimes a terrific shot doesn't take my breath away or linger in my memory with such pleasantness that it makes me warm. One such shot was in the European Cup by a Spanish player. He blew in between two on-coming defenders, lept over a third with the ball, then made a textbook shot straight into the net. Elation comes near to describing what I felt in seeing that.

Good old fashion minstrels

2009-04-01T08:14:00.000-07:00

Every so often I hear an old John Mellencamp song (especially Jack and Diane), an old Billy Joel, or a Tom Petty song and am blown away by their songwriting abilities. They spin great stories that are knit together with effective and simple music. They are following the time honored tradition of the singing minstrel. I'm sure there are others too who fit into this category (one in particular is a friend of mine, Dave Alpert) but I can't think of them right now.

So this post is a request. I am looking for other singers who are also great storytellers. People who have a real gift for songwriting and storytelling- performers who are fabulous writers. Know of any? I noticed that the above writers sort of fit into a certain genre (male, white, acoustic rock and roll musicians). I am looking to branch out. Rap? Female? Electronica? Gregorian chants?

So close and yet so far...

2009-01-04T12:21:00.001-08:00

I have to admit a somewhat geeky hobby I have because I need some help here.

i collect state quarters (I am typing in lower case because I don't really want anyone to hear me).

SSSSHHHHHH!!! Don't read that too loud.

Well, I have been dutifully holding on to the various state quarters, selecting out the least damaged representatives and putting them in my book called "Washington Quarters Statehood Commemoration 1999-2008 Date Set" I am so near completion but still not quite there. As dorky as this hobby might sound, it is actually quite fun. It's like having a scavenger hunt on a regular basis. Just today I got the Alaskan quarter.

So right now, I am missing Hawaii (to be expected since that was the last quarter to be produced) and Pennsylvania and Florida-- yeah, the two election swing states. It's a little embarassing to acknowledge that I am missing Pennsylvania, since I do live in Philadelphia and it does have its own mint (Denver is the other state to have the only other US mint). In my defense, PA's quarter was produced a long time ago and it is likely that there aren't that many in circulation any more (especially since they are only produced for a limited amount of time).

So, this is why I am going public. I can't find PA or FL quarters ANYWHERE! If you come across one, can you hold on to it for me? I'd greatly appreciate it. I think I will eventually encounter an Hawaii quarter because they just came out in November. But, then again with all the attention for Hawaii because of Obama, I might just never see one of those.

Mission: Accomplished successfully!

2008-12-31T12:51:00.000-08:00

J and I spent half of 12/23 just food shopping.

Then we spent part of X-mas day and all of the 26th cooking. The results from the judges about this meal are in:

Star of the meal: The bouillabaisse
Most intriguing (in a good way): prosciutto stuffed dates
The saddest part of the meal: Garlic Chicken made in the slow cooker-- it was overcooked by about four hours and was a very soft flavorless mess.

The brisket also didn't quite turn out as nicely as it had in the past. It was decent but not spectacular. Being unfamiliar with the quantities made it difficult for me to gauge whether or not I have over-, or in this case, under-seasoned. The ratatouille turned out great but I think folks with a Cantonese pallet are not used to slightly sour and mushy veggies (even though they were super flavorful!).

Everyone kept going back to the bouillabaisse for seconds and thirds and so on...

No one noticed the drink pairings.

I have to admit, I was quite blown away by the bouillabaisse. I really didn't know what to expect. But I guess with a dish like that, you just simply can't go wrong. Basically, you boil the crap out of aromatic veggies, fresh seafood, and some wine, then strain out the broth only to cook more fresh seafood in that yummy seafoody broth. You'd have to have dead taste buds to NOT appreciate that dish.

Cooking was a lot easier this time. We were armed with recipes that seemed reasonable way ahead of time. We had a time line of what needed to be done when so that when one of us was exhausted, the other knew how to take over. We also had help from my mom and dad's maid. She helped us do a lot of the prep work so that J and I could just focus on the cooking and seasoning. I can see the allure of being a chef in a big kitchen with sous chefs and cleaning staff at your beck and call. I think it was also kind of fun for her because I tried to explain what we were doing (she only knows how to do southern Chinese cooking).

So, lessons I have learned: If you have one super fabulous fantatic dish that just simply blows everyone away, you really don't need three more dishes to follow. No one cared that the chicken or the brisket wasn't up to snuff. Also, for complicated recipes, especially ones that you have not attempted before, one must really follow the recipes. Expert time and knowledge was put into crafting them, one must respect that expertise (and thank you Julia Childs for a wonderful bouillabaisse). Don't try too many dishes that are very "new" for the guests. It is good to stretch them but, like Vygotsky says, stay within their zone of proximal distance (new things that will stretch them with a little bit of help). It really pays to have someone help you with the prep work. And, in response to my friend Renee Michelle's earlier comment, we did end up buying our dessert-- a chocolate ganache cake that seemed like it was soaked in Grand Marnier. So the last lesson is, know your limits.

Bacon sprinkles- reprised

2008-12-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

I had one of the bacon sprinkled cupcakes this weekend and need to report on the experience.
Well, the banana-bread cupcake was a delicious and moist. The peanut-butter butter cream frosting was pretty good, not too sweet and not too heavy. And the bacon sprinkles...

...well...

well, they are just like bacon, and cold bacon at that. I had hopes that it would prove me wrong. Well, I wasn't offended by it but I wasn't wowed either. Cold greasy bacon isn't as fun as hot crispy bacon. Also, smoked meats doesn't go so well with banana bread and butter creamed frosting.

But, I do have to admit, salty does go well with sweet. I think if I were to bake my own cupcakes (as well as make my own butter cream frosting) I'd put some crushed salted pretzels on top. That would satisfy the crunchy salty goodness that would bring out the peanutty, banana-y yummiess of the cupcake. And this is speaking strictly as a back-seat baker who has more suggestions about how to improve than ability to actually carry out the suggestions.

Get the butter*...

2008-12-20T11:35:00.001-08:00

There is a very frequent pattern in which my brain engages. I see/read/hear how beneficial/wonderousness/beautiful/(fill in some very positive life improving/changing aspect) of something is and I am hooked. I just read an article in the NYTimes about butter and baking. It gave very specific instructions on how to cream butter so that you are guaranteed to have perfectly shaped and fabulously rich cookies. I have now fixiated such cookies. Keep reading and you will see why my brain is just being silly!

For Christmas this year, my spouse and I decided to forgo "real" presents and make everyone in my family (extended as well) a really fancy dinner as a gift instead. We like to cook and I like giving gifts that are personally made.

We have been planning this dinner since the beginning of December. With each passing week, the menu gets more and more elaborate. It is now a four course meal for 11 adults (with multiple dietary restrictions) and 2 young children.

We have more or less settled the menu of three of the courses
First course: nutmeg + ginger carrots, a white bean dip + bagel rounds and proscuitto wrapped dates,
Second course: Bouillabaise
Third course: Chinese style beef brisket, lightly sauteed Chinese green vegetable, white rice, mashed potatoes seasoned with smoked paprika, garlic roasted chicken (will actually be done in the crockpot, so technically not a roast), and ratatouille,

So dessert has not been wholly settled and this is where the butter comes into play. I read the article and now think, "Mmm, yummy buttery cookies and pasteries!" Neither J nor I are very good with desserts. We can certainly whip up something yummy in a pinch but it is not just what we gravitate towards and always looks...homely. We had floated the idea of just buying some cheesecakes and fresh fruit. But, as with anything that I do, if I have enough time with it, my imagination runs wild.

I have never, ever, ever in my life made cookies and pastries from scratch. Somehow in my silly brain, I see myself whipping up beautifully elaborate and sublimely scrumptious baked goodies to end the fabulous four course meal. It's like my brain saw a demo video on biking up and down hills and has decided, "Yes, I can race in the Tour de France!"

I need to learn to keep my imagination in check.

(*That is a famous line from a very sordid movie called Last Tango in Paris)

Bacon is the new chocolate

2008-12-19T14:19:00.000-08:00

Every Thursday at my spouse's workplace there are cupcakes. Someone there is very obsessed with baking interesting cupcakes from scratch. This week, they had banana bread cupcakes with a peanut-butter butter cream frosting topped with bacon sprinkles. Yes, bacon sprinkles.

Eww.

I had always thought of myself as being fairly open-minded about food. I have eaten congealed duck blood, chicken feet, and cicadas on purpose. Don't get me wrong, I like bacon. When I was vegetarian for five years, I deeply regretted having to give up pepperoni and bacon. But bacon and peanut butter? That just seems so wrong. I am also of the mindset that bacon and sweet milk chocolate should not go together.

I have to admit, my spouse raved about those cupcakes. I generally respect his tastes but he is also the kind of person who will eat almost anything that is put in front of him.
Caveat: He is not totally indiscriminate. There is one line he will never cross again. We tried the Taiwanese delicacy called smell tofu and never again. They really do taste and smell like old rank gym socks.

Supper

2008-12-17T06:49:00.000-08:00

For my birthday this year, my spouse agreed to take me out to "a fancy restaurant with really good food". It was important that the atmosphere was nice. I knew I was taking a risk here because I have been to many fancy restaurants that charged a lot of money and was disappointed with the food. I don't deny that the food was probably better than average but I have very high standards when it comes to good food. So, my darling dear, set out to find me an appropriate restaurant. After many many hours of searching and calling for reservations, we ended up at a place called Supper. It was a bit pricier than we would normally do but it had great reviews, was close to home, and looked like it had the kind of ambiance I wanted.

Well, I was not disappointed last night. Here is their description:

"Chef Mitch Prensky presents a menu of New American cuisine tempered by French and Italian techniques and global influences, with a variety of ways to enjoy your dining experience: Hors D'oeuvres; Plates, slightly larger than an appetizer but smaller than a main course; The Large Plate, for the heartier appetite; and Desserts."

We ordered two hors d'oeuvres, two plates, a full cheese platter and a dessert. The waiter (Alex) did a marvelous job of helping us select just the right wine and figure out how to pair the dishes so that they arrived in just the right flavor combinations as well as provide us the right amount of time to linger over their flavors. J and I ran out of words to describe our experience and the food. It was decadent but not overwhelming. It was such a superb experience that when I think of it, I still smile.

That is what a lovely restaurant experience should be!

Remains of Apartheid

2008-12-06T02:48:00.000-08:00

We drove by some of the neighborhoods that had been demolished during apartheid. We drove through and stopped at some of the townships which were where a lot of the informal housing (South African for Shanty Towns) was.

I took a photo of a plaque in front of a museum that memorialized this part of South Africa's history. I have video too but haven't had a chance to edit the videos yet.

It was a bit odd to be a tourist of poverty and legalized oppression. I took lots of videos of just miles of these informal housing-- shacks made with corrugated metal for walls and rooftops.

The South African government is working to turn the informal housing in those townships into more formal ones. The trouble is that it is quite difficult. Not only were there a lot of folks in these townships originally (meaning when apartheid existed), there are a lot of immigrants now who end up settling in to the informal housing "system" of these townships (from within the country, its neighbors like Zimbabwe, and other countries within Africa like Burundi) because so many are poor.

Unemployment is at about 24%. Schooling is also a major problem in South Africa (according to a major international study, the TIMMS, in 1999, they were ranked dead last in both math and science as compared to 38 other countries; they did not participate in subsequent studies). As a result, many folks do not have the skills their industries need. There is a lot for me to process (am still processing it) but my entire trip was all heavy. In fact, it was one of the most touristy (and least "heavy") trips I have taken in a long while. I lived mostly in the rich tourist bubble and had a chill fun time. It is just that I started to reflect on this aspect of the trip now and so a lot of the heaviness is coming to me post-trip.

It seems I can only figure out how to upload one photo to one post at a time. When I try to upload a second photo, blogger seems to freeze up on me. Any one have any suggestions on what to do?

For now I will only post this. So more posts in later days.

Back from South Africa

2008-12-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

I'm back in the States and dealing with some crazy crazy jet/time/season change lags. I am utterly exhausted by 8 or so and wake up at 3ish in the morning. I also recently went from getting a sunburn sitting out in my tank top to getting frostbite on my toes.

The trip to South Africa was a bit of mind bender to me. I flew straight to Jo-burg (as South Africans lovingly call Johannesburg) and then another 2 to Cape Town. On the flight to Cape Town, a really really drunk French man sat in front of me. For two hours, he attempted to hit on every female within arms distance. The poor woman who sat in his row was cornered into the window seat by this man. Being French didn't really matter except that he seemed even more lecherous with a drunken French accent. He was really giving French men a really bad name.

When I arrive, it was evening but warm and lovely. To top it off, my friend (the groom) who was getting married happened to meet me at the airport. Whoo hoo! That made up for the crazy drunken French man.

Since the wedding was about seven days away and I had no wedding responsibilities other than the honor of making the toast to the groom's parents (I succeeded in my goal of keeping it short and sweet), I got to play the tourist for the next 7 days. This was by far the most stereotypical touristy trip I have done in a very long time. Each day was fairly packed with sightseeing and doing of fairly touristy stuff. All in all did not much interact with the locals and wondered every so often as to whether or not I am really in a different continent. We had been warned time and again that South Africa was very dangerous and I should avoid all contact with locals that either hadn't been vouched for or I didn't know. I am not used to NOT interacting with people I don't know. When at home, I am quite happy to talk to strangers at bus stops.

I had tried to upload some photos and descriptions but was having trouble with blogger. So I will post more in the upcoming days.

Lid or no lid-- scientifically explored

2008-11-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

At work, I like having a warm cup of tea because my office is cold. Well, also because I really like tea. Well, my tea is typically cold before I even get half way through with my tea. I blame it on a cold office (though I can imagine a dear friend of mine arguing that it is because I am just a slow tea drinker).
I had been trying to find ways of keeping my tea warm, given the materials I had available. Today, I decided I was going to do this scientifically-- meaning, isolating variables and testing it out! I wanted to compare whether a tall cup with a smaller opening and no lid was the same, better, or worse at keeping my tea warm than a shorter wider but lidded cup.

I used approximately the same amount of green tea (+/- 5 milliliters) at approximately the same temperature (+/- one degree celsius) in each.

I started off with both cups open to the air (unlidded). The initial temperature was 70 degrees C. After about two hours, the wider cup dropped to 27 C and the skinnier cup to 29 C-- after error analysis, it is apparent that there is not statistical significance to the temperature difference.

In the second phase of the experiment, I started off the two cups at about 79 C and placed the lid on the wider cup. The lid was made of the same ceramic material as the rest of that cup. Though both cups were made of ceramic, it is unclear of they are the same kind of ceramic material, molecularly speaking. But for now, I am going to assume that they were similar enough because they felt like they were the same. Well, after approximately two hours, the lidded cup dropped to 32 C and the unlidded skinny cup dropped to 31 C. Clearly no statistical significance.

So, according to this preliminary study, it seems that lids don't do much.

Okay, so I have to admit, these were not tightly controlled experiments but for the purposes of the experiment (and also for this blog) they were good enough. As it turns out, a possibility why the two resulted in such similar patterns may be because the openings of both cups were really not that far off from each other (one was 3 1/8 inch and the other was 3 3/8 inch). Future work can be directed toward exploring the question: At what point will the width begin to make a difference? The rationale for this question is that surface area, in particular the top surface area, makes a lot of difference in how quicking something cools. Here, it seems that a difference of 1/4 inch doesn't seem to matter much.

More sober now

2008-11-13T07:34:00.000-08:00

A comment on this blog from a friend of mine has reminded me that it was not an overwhelming majority. Even though Obama won by 7 million votes, that really isn't that many votes on a national scale. That means Obama won slightly more than 5% of the votes cast. The population of the New-York-City-metroplex is larger than that amount. That's about 5.8 Dallas' or 11.9 Denver's.

Now that I am a bit more sober and now that the angry reactions are starting to pop up, I see that there is still a big divide to bridge. For example, at Lehigh University a student was called "an ignorant black bitch" when she talked about the Obama victory with a friend (there were other incidents at Lehigh to0). I am surprised by this. My initial reaction is, "Gosh, don't you know better than to embarass yourself in this way?" I know that this is motivated out of fear, fear of change and difference (because difference might imply change too). And we certainly do live in very uncertain times. I hope we can find a way to help people with these fears.

As I said, we do have a lot of work ahead of us.

I am blown away

2008-11-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

I just listened to President Obama give his victory speech. I am so happy that I am in tears. I cannot believe that I am alive, a part of this, that my nation overwhelming voted for Obama, that any of this just happened. Hope for a better future has just taken root in my heart. Pride in my fellow Americans for not only voting him in but more importantly sooo many participated and cared about the direction of our nation. Joy that I am happy to call America MY nation. It is my nation. Even my brother, who is a staunch Republican in my family, voted for Obama. Eventhough he didn't agree with Obama's tax policies, he trusted him more and he had hope that Obama could help improve things in America. Yes, we have a lot of work ahead of us, but we, as a nation, have decided that we all have a vested interest in participating in it and making things better.

I am also blown away by the fact that we have elected an African-American into the White House. This is inspiring. So many little boys and girls across America can really begin to believe that it is possible to move past the fetters of racial oppression, that this possibility is not in theory but in reality.

I am blown away by the hope that is in my heart.

South Africa

2008-10-25T22:32:00.000-07:00

So to respond to a comment to an earlier post on this blog, I will be going to South Africa over the week of Thanksgiving to attend a friend's wedding. I had put off purchasing the plane ticket because it was so expensive and because I didn't have a job beyond being a graduate student research assistant (not high paying enough to afford the flight to S.A.). Well, I got a job and finally bought the ticket, which ended up being 14 hundred (can we say OUCH?).

I do have to say that one plus of the downturn in the economy is that the dollar is doing a lot better now. So though the plane ticket hurts, being in Capetown doesn't hurt as much. My friend pointed out that all of the sudden, he got a 33% off of his wedding in South Africa because of the falling rand. I guess he can consider it a wedding gift from the rest of the world to him and his fiancee.

The squishy pink dude

2008-10-25T22:20:00.000-07:00

So not doing so well on the keeping to one thing at a time. Here is the squishy pink dude at the Asteroid belt.

BUT! In defense of me, I have limited myself to using the drawing of the squishy pink dude's travels across the universe as a reward for when I get some chunk of my dissertation done. (Don't ask me to define a chunk.)

I think I really deserved this reward. I got some dissertation done this weekend. Sent off an entire section of Chapter 6 to my advisor (this section consisted of 16 pages single spaced) and made decent headway into the next major section of Chapter 6. All this WHILE attending a full two day meeting in Seattle (I was acting as a supporting facilitator).

I think Squishy Pink Dude needs a name. Any suggestions? While we're at it, anyone have any suggestions as to where he should visit or go do next? It is preferrable if it can be easily drawn. Black holes, for example, are a bit difficult for me to do.

Life is quite different now.

2008-10-22T18:33:00.000-07:00

In my new job, I get to travel a lot. Within the first 90 days of my probational period on this job, I will have travelled to 4 different cities/metro areas within the US and one in Africa (well, this last one is for a friend's wedding).

I'm learning lots of new things, one of which is how to eke out time every chance I get to work on my dissertation. This is actually not a bad way to go with my dissertation, except that I have this bad habit of losing my train of thought when I get disrupted. So that means I find myself looking at my dissertation and thinking,"What the hell was I trying to say here?" To remedy this issue, I have had to write little notes to myself all over my work to remind myself of my train of thought. Sigh, gone are the days of long hours trying to hash out one idea. Happily, gone are the days wherein I get so lost in one thought that I have trouble speaking. This used to be a problem when I would analyze my words before they came out of my mouth to make sure what i was saying would address critiques from various theoretical frameworks. It is very much a problem if all I was trying to do was ask my husband if he wanted to eat dinner.

Another thing I am learning is that sometimes people, neighborhoods, communities, even entire cities, can become stark raving mad if the right circumstances come along. Take for example the event: the Phillies have made it to the World Series. On the night this happened, I settled down to sleep at a reasonable hour (10 pm) and proceeded to drift off into sleep. At 11:30 or so (I can't recall the exact time because, well, I WAS ASLEEP!), I am jolted out of bed by this loud deep wail-like sound. In my sleep haze, I thought it might have been the hounds of hell, sirens alerting people of an impending attack, demons attacking city.... I realized that the noise (which in my estimation was going on for at least a 1/2 hour) was the city collectively expressing joy at the advancement of the Phillies into the World Series. One might wonder how one could mistake expressions of joy with hounds of hell, well, this is Philly. They express joy a little differently here, it seems. It has been known to happen that exuberant sports fans have reoriented cars so that they were parked on their rooftops rather than on their tires.

Life is quite different now.

Look what I made!

2008-10-18T17:12:00.001-07:00

Instead of working on my dissertation or even folding laundry, this is what I did-->
I just used the paint program that came with my computer. I toyed with the idea of turning this into a whole series of pictures for an illustrated book. A squishy pink dude who goes on a tour of the universe and these are the photographs from his trip.
Well, we'll see. As one of my advisors said, I have to finish my dissertation first. Stick to one thing at at time.

A bad dream

2008-10-15T16:14:00.000-07:00

Two posts in one day! Goodness.

Given how happy that last post was, I really needed to keep this topic separate.
I had a bad dream last night. In my dream I was very tired and wanted to take a bath. While taking a bath, I discovered I had rats in the house. The method of discovery was that two of them jumped into the tub with me!

Well, in the dream, I remembered that a friend of mine had discovered a mouse in his tub, WHILE HE WAS IN THE TUB!!! To deal with the mouse, he jumped out of the tub, got a pot, and found a way to seal the mouse underwater (using the pot) and drowned it. This actually happened in real life.

So in the dream, I wrestled with the two rats and held them underwater until they drowned. Of course they bit and scratched me. But, I thought I could go to the hospital and take care of the diseases I was sure to catch after I killed them. Well, in dreams, things get weird and don't always happen the way they are supposed. The rats didn't die, they just morphed into little slimy splotches in the tub. Which, if you recall the fact that I was sitting in the tub naked at this time, is particularly gross. Then I woke up and just felt really icky.

Moral of the story: If you are going to kill rodents in your tub, don't stay in the tub.

Old friends + good food = great times!

2008-10-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we were visited by some old friends of ours. I guess they are considered old friends now that we don't live in the same state any more. They stayed the weekend and in return for our piddly air mattress they provided us with a four course meal complete with two bottles of wine AND clean dishes at the end of the evening. That was, by far, one of the best hostess gifts I have ever gotten. And to think, I was just excited by the fact that they'd schlep three hours up here to visit us!

The evening started with steamed artichokes with a lemon garlic butter and a bowl of olives. Then we transitioned to stuffed zuchinnis. That helped prepare us for pasta with a cream based roasted red pepper pesto. Two reds were served with the meal (a cab sauv that has helped me learn to like cab sauvs and a petit sirrah). The evening ended with a pecan cake topped with roasted figs (I think there was some cream sauce here too but I can't recall).

The bar has now been raised very very high.

movin', movin', movin', keep 'em doggies movin'

2008-09-10T12:15:00.000-07:00

My dear ol' dah-ling and I have relocated to the city of Brotherly Love. I am in the last week of "vacationing" (which really means unpacking, trying to figure out what that awful death-like smell in the kitchen is, managing my challenges with the local law enforcement, sanitation, and DMV, AND working on my dissertation) before I start work on the 15th.

Philly is a nice city. It feels a bit smaller than I am used to but I have to admit, I have only been in a few areas of Philly (mostly south philly, so this judgment is based on my travels in 1/4 of the Philly city limits). It is a lot more Italian-American than I had expected. But, again, there is a caveat here, I do live in the Italian Market area- the heartland of Philly's Italian community. It is very nicely bike-able. I am looking forward to making it part of my regular commute and being on a reduced car-life. I will be biking 4.4 miles to my colleague's on a regular basis so that we can commute to work across the river together. I couldn't commute to work because, not only is it about 12 miles from home, it is also mostly on the highway.

An exciting culinary development occurred in my house the other day. My spouse purchased a small (approx $10) grill. The legs fold up and it looks like a spaceship. We did the typical grilling of a steak and some veggies. It was delicious but that was not the revelation. We tossed two super ripe and soft plums on the grill too. A few minutes later, we had these mind-blowing, unnaturally bright fuschia mushy orbs of yummy goodness. Wow. We just grilled up the rest of the plums last night (we had about 3 pounds of plums). Now I am looking for more things to grill now.

I miss them

2008-08-25T09:52:00.000-07:00

Though I stopped crying every moment I stop moving and there is no longer and empty black pit of feeling where my heart was, that doesn't mean I have stopped missing my grandma, my friend Ed and my friend Leslie.

I miss them. I still want to cry every now and then. I want to hear them, hug them, and give them kisses. It isn't always sad. Sometimes I smile because something funny reminds me of them, but I still miss them, even underneath that smile. I am also sad because these were really creative people who produced beautiful works of art (dance, quilts, paintings, stories,...). They will no longer create and I miss their work.

I was just listening to the song by Denis Witmer about not wanting to let go of someone you love eventhough they are dead.

Part of me doesn't want to stop hurting because I am afraid that means I have really lost them. The rationale is that right now, the pain is the last tangible thing I have left that is associated with them. Once that is gone, all I have left are faded memories that will recede into the grey-black soup of deleted memories. The sharp edges of these remembrances will soften, the bonds that hold their molecules will undo. They will dissipate. Maybe a kernel will be left but that will be so distilled and reduced that it will bear little resemblance to the original. It's like a theoretical physicist's representation of a cow ("let this point source represent the cow").

mah-wiage

2008-08-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

Two good friends of mine just got married this week. In fact, they were married by me! I am currently listed as a Reverend. I think I quite like this title and am wondering if I am allowed to officially doll it up a bit, The Very Righteous Reverend M. Then when I get my doctorate, I am The Very Righteous Reverend Dr. M. It was a short, sweet and simple ceremony. It helped that I knew the two quite well so could sprinkle in bits of personally related anecdotes and
advice.

This apparently is the marrying year for me. I guess every year is a marrying year for SOMEONE in the world. I have been to three weddings thus far and will be at the fourth one come November. It is great to celebrate my friends' happinesses but, phew, I am wedding caked and YMCA'ed out! I am happy to see my friends so joyous. I wish them all the best.

Attending all these weddings has given me much opportunity to reflect on love, marriage, commitment, and my own relationship with my husband. A wedding is a public declaration of commitment. In that way, we are held accountable by our community for our promises. I am reminded that I need to learn to be more patient and kind to my husband- especially in times of stress and challenge. So, I am making a promise and since it is public there is more pressure to try to keep it. I vow to try to learn to bemore patient and kind to my husband, J, especially in times of stress and challenge. Now that you have all read this, you need to help keep me accountable to this.

Okay, I'd like to return this one, please.

2008-07-22T21:22:00.000-07:00

My body is defective. I am not even 33 yet and it is falling apart in more ways than I can count. I'd like to return to back to the maker, file a complaint and either get a replacement body or my money back.

My latest problem: I currently have a fractured tooth. It is now infected and the bacteria is eating away at my bone. Yes, it does hurt but less than one would think. I will need to have oral surgery to get it removed, bone replaced, then an implant and ultimately a fake tooth screwed into my jaw.

Yeah, does not sound fun.

Basically, I had a bad bad bad dentist about 10 years ago and have been paying the price all those 10 years for this one terrible mistake. I was also to dumb and naive to say to the dentist, "Um, I think you are wrong about this one and I do not need to get this procedure done." Basically, since that woman laid her hands on me, I have had to redo a root canal twice, replace the cap five times, AND now get it completely extracted and implanted with a fake tooth.

So technically, this one isn't my body's fault really. But this is part of a long strain of problems associated with this body.

My public service announcement: Please take care of your teeth, brush, floss, rinse, etc. Please go see the dentist. Be skeptical of everything the dentist tells you. Oh, and if you have the opportunity to get some dental insurance, take it!

Dining in the Netherlands

2008-07-07T15:42:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

My friend Kitty and I took a break from our conference and headed into Amsterdam for a day of "just chillin'". We discovered that on a low budget (e.g., a graduate student budget) you can get fairly good food. We had lunch in what was the equivalent of a Subways in the States- a soup and sandwich shop.

jetsetting and the troubles with committed relationships.

2008-06-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Just went to a friend's wedding down in North Carolina. It took place at the Chapel on Duke University's campus. Boy, that is a well endowed university. It was from the 1800's I think and it was a marvel of woodwork, metalwork and stonework. It was smaller than the cathedrals from the Renaissance period of Europe but it was no less ornate nor of less craftsmanship. J, two friends and I drove down on Saturday and came back on Sunday.

It was a fun time. I'm glad I went but now I am worn out and have a hard time focusing on my dissertation.

To further continue my travels, I will be leaving on Sunday for a two week trip to three (possibly four) cities in two different countries in a different continent. That is my long way of saying I will be in Utretcht, Netherlands for a conference then visiting a friend in Hamburg, Germany and then in-laws in Rosstock, Germany.

I'm sure it will be fun but I really don't want to do much travelling and just want some quiet time with my dissertation. Part of it is that I am at a hard and complicated part that really requires a lot of my attention. We (my dissertation and I) are currently have a difficult time right now but we have faith in each other and the relationship. We know that we will ride through this rough spot, we have in the past. But we need time together. Time to work through our communication issues. Time to reaffirm our love and commitment to each other. With all this travel, I worry that I will not be able to do what is needed. It was very difficult from March to April when I had to do a lot of travelling and dealing with a lot of other emotional issues. My dissertation felt neglected and was upset. For weeks she wouldn't talk to me and so I couldn't write. It was awful. I devoted May to repairing our relationship and I think it is starting to be okay again. I worry that with this slate of travelling, she will feel neglected again and just shut off from me. I mean I'll bring her along but writing while travelling is not the same as sitting in my office and devoting all my attention and energy for a good four hours writing. I hope she'll understand. sigh....

hot geeks.....

2008-06-09T20:26:00.001-07:00

If I had lots of money, I'd do lots of shopping here...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/

...and I really don't like shopping at all. That must mean this is a really cool site. Check it out!

On a different note, the weather has decided to b!+@CH-slap us lately. We had a tornado and now withering heat.

In efforts to save energy (and costs) this winter, we kept the heat low and and butts frozen. As a result of that, I am very used to being cold. So now, when the temperature has hit a consistant mid to high 90's F with 75% or more humidity, I can't handle it. I am whiney, sluggish, crabby, sweaty, and just plain not happy. We have only one air conditioner up in this house and it is barely working. My housemate, husband and I take turns sitting in front of it.

I so prefer my cold and numb appendages to these heat headaches any day.

Lastly, my parents came to visit. YAY! We went to the International Spy Museum and learned all about espionage. On the way home, J and I saw a drug deal go down. One guy walked by another guy, passed him a McDonald's bag (was bunched too tight and small to hold even a hamburger), then turned around and walked away. Now with my well trained eyes, I know he must have been dealing in contraband!

those days..

2008-06-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

You ever get those days where you just think..."man I'm kinda sucky and I kinda do sucky things." Well, it's one of those kind of days today.

So there was a tornado warning and being in the basement, I had no idea it was going on. I heard sirens but I thought "Oh, it's wednesday, maybe it is our air raid drill". So, all of the sudden, there was all this noise in the hallway. I am thirsty, tired and cranky. Then all of the sudden some people just walk into our office and start trying to make cellphone calls, use our phones, etc. I got kinda of cranky and kind of cranky with the wrong person (she is a professor in this dept.). I was irritated that people were barging into my office space or making that much noise. Well, everyone who knew what was going on outside and who knew who I had just irritated royally and made a big fool out of myself tried to educate me (and prevent me from making a bigger fool out of myself). Well, so I get angry too easily and irritated without trying to be understanding. I frequently (or at least I think i frequently do) make stupid social mishaps like this out of anger and frustration, or sometimes out of sticking my nose where it doesn't belong out of a desire to do something nice. But I guess I am not that good with social stuff and I should just stop. I guess the other part of the problem is that I stick my nose in things that might not need me to help out with.

So I feel kind of sucky right now.

It also doesn't help that I am having trouble with my dissertation right now. can't figure something out and all my doubts about my abilities are coming to mind.

Also, I'm hungry and still a little sick.

Am I just making excuses? Maybe.

Not good....

2008-05-28T17:49:00.000-07:00

I went away Memorial Day weekend and came back with some crazy stomach infection. It was much like normal food poisoning but 10 times worse. All the lovely waves of nausea, pain and torrents escaping from both ends of me PLUS pain in every major joint in my body (including every single vertebrae of my spine), sleeplessness (due to the pain), mild fevers, pits of despair feelings, tears, and whimpery moans every 15 minutes or so. The plus side was that I was restricted to lying in bed for much of the time, which allowed me to rest my knee, which I had banged up right before Memorial Day. I am not too good with my body these days.

So, now I am back to eating solid foods. But not all is well, particularly in the bowel related region. The interesting thing is that it has really made me re-evaluate my relationship with my body.

So I had a terrible terrible day today. Lord knows why. This morning, I went swimming after a week-long haitus. I had a rice and beans burrito afterwards. Then life was all down hill from there. My stomach hurt, I felt quite fatigued again, and I was an emotional basket-case for the rest of the day. The slightest push of any sort, even if it was wind, would send me tumbling down into the pits of despair. For example, this evening, J, the husband, and I were talking about his aunt who is about to undergo a biopsy. J said that if I wanted to call his aunt before the surgery, it was up to me. But that I should do what I think I would want someone to do if I was in his aunt's case.

I just fell apart there, bawling for twenty minutes.

I think it is my digestive track giving me grief about eating the rice and beans (and all that abdominal work out while swimming). Who'd have thunk that my body has so much control over me. I now know who's my master.

wanton...

2008-05-03T04:01:00.001-07:00

I planted tulips in the fall so that they would come out this spring. All winter I anticipated these lovely and graceful red flowers when the weather got warmer. Well, the tulips emerged this spring and boy, did they emerge! I planted traditional champagne glass shaped ones and double layered petal ones. Well, when my tulips finally opened, they just popped right open and threw their petals way back. I was so shocked at how wanton my tulips were, curling their petals way back and waving their reproductive organs in the air for anything to help them move their pollen along, be it an insect or the wind. As I watched the tulips in my neighbors yards emerge, I became more and more embarassed. My tulips were downright trashy! I was so glad that they were hidden from the street by my azalea bushes. They might think I was advertising a flora bordello or something! But when you came up the front porch steps, there they were, in plain sight.

sometimes I wish...

2008-04-25T11:17:00.000-07:00

So sometimes I wish I had superhuman powers.

The superhuman powers I wish I had would be to be able to put out a job application and know with quiet confidence whether I was going to be hired or not when I send off that application. I guess it would save me all the hassle of applying for a job I wasn't going to get but I guess it might seriously depress me to know ahead of time the number of rejections (because that is just generally what happens, very small percentages of acceptances). Maybe I should revise that, to have the superhuman power of getting acceptances to every thing to which I apply! I guess while I'm at it, I wouldn't mind having the power of being able to just look at something and make it clean and orderly (I'm sitting here making googley eyes at my desk at the moment...ain't working too well).

Alas, sigh, I am only human with humanly powers.

What superpowers would you like to have?

a weakness...

2008-04-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

I have an affinity, okay really a weakness, for desk and fancy bathroom supplies.

Every time I go by Staples, Office Max, any stationary store, Linens -n-Things, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, L'Occident, Crabtree and Evelyn, or any store with fancy bathing accoutrements, I feel a little weak in the knees, a tug at my psyche and a longing in my heart. It doesn't matter that I have more thank you and blank cards than I have time to write. It doesn't matter that I have organic facial mask stuff and fancy soaps that are still waiting to be opened. If I could just find that perfect pen to go with that superb piece of paper or that heavenly towel that I will use after I have bathed in some luxuriously scented bubble bath, then my life will be wonderful.

But that's just the start. When I really get into thinking about it, it isn't just pens, towels, papers, and soaps. It is also shelving, organizers, furnitures, fixtures, and the decorations that go with the environments in which those things are enjoyed.

It isn't just the rooms for the office and the bath. It is also what view is outside the windows of those places. I was once in a bathroom in NYC where one of the walls of the stalls was a huge ceiling to floor window. We were far enough away and high up in enough that I don't think anyone could really see in, but the view of the East River and the Brooklyn Bridge was just lovely. If I were to live in a large city, that would be my dream bathroom.

That would mean I would have to earn enough money to purchase a place where I could have a bathroom like that.

Will work for a good bathroom.

blogs from friends and TV

2008-04-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

I love that my friends and family create photo sharing and blog sites now. It makes it sooo much easier to keep up with my friends, especially since quite a few of them now have kids. I think what's great is that I get to see the lovely pics of my friends and their families when i need a break from my dissertation (or other writing). Since I don't own a TV, this provides me with nice little short bursts of distractios. It also helps me keep connected to folks I care about on a more "everyday" kind of basis. Then when i actually am able to chat with folks on email or the phone, we've already had the "let me catch you up on things" conversation and can spend time developing deeper connections.

So, folks, keep it up!

I guess I should do my part too.
To my friends who may be curious: I have not heard from the people who I interviewed with in March. They were supposed to have made their decision two weeks ago. I was sad, despondent, angry and anxious all last week. I think I have finally let it go and am now looking forward to looking for another job. In finding a job, there are always going to be some rejections and some offers- it's part of the game. I don't doubt that I will find gainful employment I can be happy with because education is a pretty big field.

Good morning!

2008-04-15T05:38:00.000-07:00

Figured I should try to post regularly and will try to pick out time whenever I can.

This week the weather has been a bit cool but definitely on the mild side. Spring is here and by golly it is beautiful. I planted some tulip and crocuses this past fall. SInce March, I tried to put down some grass seed to repair our very very sad looking lawn. Some of them are starting to sprout but right now it looks like a bald man, a few thin shoots here and there. I have to stop putting down grass seed because I found out that the new shoots won't have enough time to put down roots to survive the summer heat here. We have lots of clay and when it gets hot, if the roots are too small or thin, the ground just bakes it and cooks up the roots.
I also recently found out that due to our laziness we have killed quite a bit of the ivy. I didn't think that was physically possible- doesn't ivy outlive and conquer EVERYTHING? We have these five large old trees that drop a lot of leaves in the fall. We raked all the leaves on the lawn but thought to just leave the rest to compost. Well, a good chunk of them laid on top of the ivy that is along the driveway. The ivy patches are trying to grow back but they too resemble the lawn.

I did a job interview in March for a position at a really really sweet organization. I have still yet to hear from them. I've done everything I could to let them know that I really really would like to work there (well short of camping out in front of their building). Now it is just the wait for them to respond. Sigh. Not very good at waiting.

things change...

2008-04-07T08:19:00.001-07:00

Yes, we all know that things change. But it doesn't mean we have to like it. I came back to my hometown (NYC) and discovered that two things I found much joy in holding in my mind are gone.

My grandma died recently. Yes, the same grandma I wrote so lovingly about a few posts back. I came back to visit her grave site because it is the chinese holiday of Ancestor's remebrance. On the way up to her gravesite, I had to say goodbye to her garden and on the way back, I had to say goodbye to my favorite place in NYC.

She and my grandpa loved to garden. he had beautiful rose bushes in the front and she had beautiful zinnias, daffodils, and other dramatic flowers in the back. Now that both grandparents are dead, the family is going to rent out. For ease of management, they are going to pave over the gardens. Then they don't have to hire someone to take care of the garden and it is just a lot easier. My mom had her backyard paved over with green and red concrete because she didn't like bugs. The green was to abate my protests over the destruction of grass and green space. In their defense, the garden has gone fallow for a few years now but the soil is so rich everything wants to grow there. Returning it to its former glory would be very easy.

Upon returning from the cemetery, we were to pass one my favorite spots in NYC. It is a small concrete island on the southbound side of the FDR between exits 16 and 17. It is under the various ramps that shuttle people between highways and streets. On this island there are usually various pieces of junk lying around (e.g., old furniture, stuffed animals, thigh-masters, etc). The thing is, if you drive by a few times (e.g., a couple of weeks in a row), you will notice that the "junk" is displayed
is particular ways. Once I saw all the stuffed animals having tea together. Another time, things were set up like a workout gym. My favorite display, that I saw whilst speeding by at 40 miles an hour was a living room set up with a man in a sport coat sitting at a barcalounger reading the paper.

Well, as we neared that spot, there was a lot of construction equipment lining the highway. My heart sobbed no though I tried to keep it under wraps and hope that it wasn't gone too. As we drove past that concrete island, I saw a large dirt hill covering my beloved concrete island. That's gone too, probably permanently, since construction in NYC takes decades to finish.

sigh...

FINALLY!

2008-03-27T19:18:00.001-07:00

It has been over a year since I posted to this account. I think it is about high time I take this up again! For a long time I couldn't figure out how to post because I forgot my password. Then Blogger changed its login procedures and that just confused the high heck out of me.

So I am still in grad school but am determined to defend by the end of the summer. All last year I had been battling really really bad insomnia. Lack of sleep will do a huge number to one's mental health. Or maybe it was the other way around.

In any case, this year, my sleep is a lot less fragile AND my mental health is much better (am able to bounce back from the problems I encounter in the regular day to day part of life).

Had to deal with another death. This time it was my grandmother. Well, just as I was starting to be okay with the passing of two friends, a new one gets thrown in the mix. I guess the semi difference is that this time we had known for a long time now (maybe the past two years or so) that she would pass and it could be any day now (or actually then not now because she is dead now). I loved her a lot- still do actually. She was...is my role model in many things. I could see very much that she was human and quite flawed, or quite hurt really, but I still loved her and admired her. It makes me most sad to think that there are a lot of people in the world now (and will be in the world) that do not (will not) have the opportunity to know her. She was (is?) super super cool.

This year, my husband and I moved into a really nice house in a really nice neighborhood. A 1930's or 1940's style suburban neighborhood with really large trees all over the place. It is lovely but man, utilities are really high. I can't understand why Americans aren't more into energy efficiency and saving the environment! It would certainly mean a much smaller gas and electricity bill! And to say nothing of the savings in transportation and cleaner air!

the mind is a weird freaky thing

2006-12-10T15:32:00.000-08:00

I just read an article about prosopagnosia- a very rare disorder wherein the sufferer can't recognize faces, anyone's face. In some extreme cases, this includes the person's own face, their mother's face, their lover's face, anyone's face. Prosopagnosia isn't only restricted to folks with injuries and lesions to the brain. Some folks are born with it. For those folks who are born with it, it seems that is the only disorder that they have (well, besides the discomfort of not being able to socially interact with people very well because they simply can't remember faces well enough to greet them on the street- even people they see every single day).

I can't imagine what it must be like to walk around all day and be surrounded by a sea of unrecognizable heads only to go home. Or to only be able to recognize that it is oneself in the mirror because of one's hair or dress.

What is also very interesting about this is that some cognitive scientists say that this is evidence that the brain is less connected, and more compartmentalized than one thinks. I don't know how this fits with evidence of the plasticity of brains and the ability for the brain to overcome some disorders as a result of injury or lobotomy. Plasticity would suggest that the brain may be less compartmentalized than one thinks. Or maybe I am thinking about this wrong. Maybe the better analogy is that the brain is filled with a whole mess of highly skilled and adaptable workers who work in different departments but when one department closes down, those workers may move to another department.

Interesting. The mind is an incredibly weird and freaky thing.

winter season

2006-12-05T08:40:00.000-08:00

Am home with a cold today. Ahh...the joys of the winter season.
Another thing about the winter season is that it is linked with a lot of different kinds of holidays and festiviies.

In my family, we do things a bit old school and celebrate the winter solistice. It is an old Chinese tradition. Basically, it means we get together with extended family and have a nice dinner. I'm sure there are traditionally other things associated with it, but we can barely manage to get our act together enough to do dinner.

It is also the season to chop down evergreen needle trees, bring them indoors for the sole purpose of decorating them and putting them on display. My husband, of Eastern European Jewish background, with a rabbi grandfather, has his first ever pagan winter solstice tree (aka Christmas tree in the States and European countries). He seems okay with it. His brother, on the other hand, is very much not okay with it. I can understand his brother's unease with Christmas. I worry a little that I am taking my husband away from his culture. As a second generation Chinese-American, I grew up with Christmas as an American holiday, much like July 4th and Thanksgiving. So to me, it isn't much a religious thing as it is an American thing. Also, it doesn't feel like I am violating my sense of cultural identity by participating in it- it isn't celebrating the birth of some culture that traditionally has done much to destroy my culture.

I am tired.

2006-12-04T17:43:00.000-08:00

Last month was overwhelming. This month didn't start off too hot either.

I went away to California for a conference. I dislike business travel more and more as I get older. Found out that a conference proposal of mine was accepted (it was part of a symposium proposal). Great but it means a lot of work between now and April. A friend of mine, and also my old roomate, passed away. He died of bipolar disorder by committing suicide (it is still hard to type out those words). I had too many guests in for my two bedroom apartment. All that socializing sucked out what little energy I had left after dealing with jetlag and my friends death. Then found out that my husband was no longer going to be working come January (I misunderstood and thought it was end of January for some reason). On Nov 29th, I thought, how much more can we fit into this month?

A friend of mine told me that there is a southern American tradition of saying "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" first thing in the morning on the first day of the new month. I woke up and forgot. The first thing I said was something like, "Sorry, sweetie, did I wake you up?" to my husband. As I went through my day on Friday, Dec. 1st, I kept looking up at the sky to see if it would fall down. Well at about 1:45 in the afternoon, I found out that the father of a professor I work closely with had passed away. sigh.

I'll remember to say "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" next month. I think this month is shot. maybe since, it is the first day of the new year, the good luck will last all year!

snowy egret

2006-10-26T06:21:00.000-07:00

Happy news. I walked to the metro station the other day, having to pass over the creek by my neighborhood and saw this huge white thing standing in the water. It was a snowy egret hunting. Luckily for me, I had my digital camera with me. I'll try to post the pictures later. I was starting to get sad that the herons weren't around. They were around at about this time last year.

Run. (contains explicit content)

2006-10-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

Two nights ago, my spouse and I woke up in the middle of the night (sometime between 1 and 3) to a woman yelling, "Run, bitch. (pause) Run, bitch. (pause) Run, bitch" over and over again, presumably, to another woman in the courtyard outside my building. As we were both in the middle of some lovely warm sleep and it didn't sound like anyone wanted the police called, neither one of us got up to deal with it.

So this phrase has fascinated us. What was that yelling about? Was this just some hard core personal training program? We also began to wonder about the possibilities this phrasing could lead. "Eat, bitch." "Launder, bitch." (or as my spouse's suggestion for during intimate moments) "Circles, bitch!" I guess the term bitch doesn't necessarily have to be a derogatory term referring to a woman these days.

This opens up a whole new way to converse with people.

Mothballs in the woods

2006-10-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

When a mothball is alone in the woods, do the moths smell it??

So a friend of mine recently asked me this. Instead of getting ready for work, I am going to respond to this.

Mothballs, smell for no one. They smell for themselves, for the universe, for everyone and anyone. Alone or with other mothballs, the moth ball will smell- that is the beauty of the mothball. It is its own ball! We should all strive to be like the mothball, free and smelly, for no one in particular.

But that is not to say that mothballs do not know how to live with one another in community. They are very Zen in that way- whatever situation they find themselves in, they simply live to the fullest of what they are meant to be. In a community, they work in concert, happily supporting each other, combining their smells constructively, so that the result is smellier than the sum of their parts.

Profound thoughts lost

2006-10-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

Every so often some really interesting ideas and questions pop into my head and I think, "Oh, that would make a great blog post. Gotta remember that for when I get a chance to blog." The problem is that I am not disciplined enough to remember to post regularly and when I finally do get around to posting, I forget what I was going to post about. This has been happening recently. I distinctly recalled on two separate occassions saying those two exact statements (ones quoted a few lines ago). But now that I have the time to sit quietly and write, I forget what they were. sigh.

Tonight my husband and I drove around in my neighborhood and we went by the field behind our apartment building. The floodlights were on and the fields were brightly lit in the unnatural white of the floodlights. There was a game going on and all these people were out by the fields either watching or just hanging around having a good time. It took me and my husband a little bit to figure out what game there were playing but then we saw these shiny heads bobbing up and down and knew- it was a football game. From the distance we were at, all you could really see were these little rectangular blobs with oversized shiny yellow or blue heads running along, so we decided to get closer and watch the game for a bit. As we got closer, the shiny heads got bigger but the bodies didn't. Then we realized that the kids who were playing were about elementary school aged kids. It was just too cute to see these little kids trying to play so seriously ("Hey, get up to the line!" "Go all the way out and line up with your guy!" "No, this way, THIS WAY! Hurry up!") but looking like anime cartoons of big headed aliens. Their heads underscored how tiny those little bodies were.

There weren't any serious tackling but every so often, there would be a little bit of a pile up before the ref could blow his whistle. It was so cute, they looked like they were having sooo much fun out there. It was a little odd though to see such little little kids playing such a rough and tumble sport. I've only seen tiny kids like that play baseball or soccer.

Gosh, they were soo li-ittle. I wondered if they could even see out of their helmuts.

My Neighborhood

2006-09-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

I looked over my last two posts and noticed that they just seem to really paint my neighborhood in a really bad light. So I thought I'd put up a post about the things I like about my neighborhood.

Every weekend so far, there seems to be some soccer game in the field near my apartment. There is some sort of Latino-immigrant soccer league and people come out with their kids and stuff to cheer on the teams that come out to play each other. Sometimes it gets pretty funny to watch because the fans not only rag on the opposing team (though there really isn't a "home" team and an "opposing" team) they also rag on the fans of the other team...all pretty light-heartedly.

I also like that there is the creek near me, though now that i live further from the metro station, i don't get to walk by it as much. Nonetheless, when I am sick of being at home (of which I am a lot these days as I try to pull together my dissertation proposal) I go out for a walk and there is enough natural scenery around here that it makes for some nice walking.

Speaking of walking, I can walk to the supermarket, some cool restaurants run by immigrants (which to me means really really good food! Immigrants who service immigrants have cultural food pride.) There is an ice cream shop near me. The metro station is not too terribly far (though the walk is now a nice 20 minutes). I found a super great farmers' market- sells only local farm stuff so types of veggies and fruits are a little limited to what's in the area but super yummy- that is only a 10 minute drive from me.

My neighbors all seem fairly nice, though they all do have a tendency to play really really really REALLY loud music. My upstairs neighbors pose more of a noise problem than my neighbors across the way. But the guys upstairs seem fairly receptive to turning down the music when it gets to be too loud. I once went up in my pajamas on a Saturday morning to try to make them feel bad about having loud music before 10 am on a Saturday. Hey, I think the guilt was deserved. They did disturb my lazy saturday morning!

So even with the recent gripes, I think I still like my neighborhood. It is especially easy to like it on nice cool sunny days like this.

domestic violence

2006-09-24T21:18:00.000-07:00

Tonight my spouse and I helped a neighbor with a domestic violence issue. We helped her call the cops, bring her to the commissioners office to file charges, and brought her to a relative's place to stay. The guy is running around my neighborhood somewhere. They had dated earlier in the year but he assaulted her, so she broke it off with the guy. She moved but he apparently found out where she moved to and basically stalked her for a bit. Then he acted all nice, apologizing, brought down her guard, she let him in so he could shower and eat, then demanded that she give him some money. When she wouldn't, he went on the rampage, assaulted her and then stole her keys to her new apartment. That was today. He wouldn't give back the keys and she was, understandably, upset about it. They were fighting in front of my window. I am glad that we and another neighbor were able to help her out a bit. (Oh, the nice thing that came out of this was that we met a new neighbor, she's been here for a few years and seems really nice.

So my neighborhood kind of scares me. All in all, I like my neighbors) the part that makes me scared is related to my last blog post. This adds to my fear. I don't understand human anger...well, I guess anger of any sort very much. I don't know its limits. Will this guy, out of his anger at us for stepping in like that, try to take out his anger on us? Anger that he was going to reserve only for that woman? Apparently he not only stole her keys and beat her, but raped her and stole her pay check (which she had just cashed).

Two years ago, a woman I knew from work was killed by her ex-boyfriend. She had broken up with him and had kicked him out of the apartment. I don't know how long they had been dating but I think for a long time (maybe 11 years? they have a kid together). In any case, he came over to her place one night. An argument ensued. The woman told her daughters to go into the bedroom while that guy was there. Essentially, the guy stabbed her several times in the abdomen. He was wearing gloves and so there were no prints on the weapon. It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving. One of her daughters had to call 911. She died before she got to the hospital. I worry at times about the child they had together ("my momma's dead because she was brutally killed by my poppa"). He got indicted for manslaughter. Prison time for manslaughter is less than prison time for being indicted for stealing a car here. I guess we know what our priorities are here.

So here is my plug. If you or anyone you know is in a domestic violence situation, here's the number to call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). Here is the website information: http://www.ndvh.org/ It is a national organization and they can put you in touch with the organization in your neighborhood. Domestic violence is not limited to particular age, ethnicity, socio-economic class, gender, or education levels. Emotional and physical abuse is considered domestic violence.

Though I like people, I don't always understand them

2006-09-13T09:56:00.000-07:00

So sometime in the past year, I posted about how my neighborhood makes me feel uncomfortable. Yesterday, walking home from the metro station, I crossed the street at a stop sign. I crossed because I saw a group of young men, in their late teens to early twenties I think, hanging around on the sidwalk trying to look cool, tough, what have you. As they covered the entire sidewalk area and the grassy area adjacent the walkway, I decided to cross the street. I am uncomfortable walking through the midst of a group of men. I admit it, I don't usually trust men in large groups...but then again, I am not sure I trust women in large groups either but that depends on where, when, and how old the group is.

As I crossed the street, I passed in front of a van. When I got to the other side of the street, I began to notice that someone in the van was yell out the window- something about a bitch and something about being run over, and maybe something about next time. I was pretty certain it was meant for me, though I didn't try to show signs of registering it. There were no other women around, as far as I could tell and I was the only person crossing the street.

So, what was it that makes people do things like that? These are acts of agression. They have a lasting impact on me. I have been violated as if they had punched me in the face. What are they angry at, what did I do to them? Why did they think that it was reasonable to do that? My spouse said that there are many reasons why people do that. Sometimes it is because they are angry. Sometimes, they are just sadistic assholes who want to posture in front of their friends and one just gets caught up in the power of being nasty to someone else. Are they taking out their frustrations of feeling a lack of power in their lives out on me? I can't help but associate acts of agression with anger. Somehow doing that makes it feel better to me...that somehow people aren't really sadistic, but that some emotion, something else took control of them and made them do it. Because if they had their wits about them, they wouldn't have chosen to do that. But I might be wrong...and this is the part that perplexes me and makes me sad. Maybe the guy who did that to me would have chosen to do it again, even if he did know me and knew what an impact it had on me and he wasn't angry, and he was by himself (well, my guess is that really, only a psychopath would do it by himself because one typically only attacks someone if one knew that they had back-up readily available)...and...and...That in the end, there is an element of sadism in human nature. That people do things just because people like to bully other people.

So, that is twice in two years in this neighborhood that this has happened. My husband tells me that this is can happen when you are one of the first few into a neighborhood. This isn't the only thing that has led me to feel unwelcomed in this neighborhood. I get stared at when I walk around here. The curiosity stares I am okay with. It is the glares that I get from people, the once-overs, the look me up and down and then the stare of aggression in the face that communicates" Yea, I stared at ya, whatcha gonna do about it? You do not belong here and you are invading my territory." This leads me to my next wondering. This wondering makes me angry and terrified. I don't want to move. I have a right to be here. But maybe I am being pig-headed. Maybe it really is unsafe for me and I am not paying attention to the signs. Maybe one day I will get beaten-up, raped, run-over, what have you because some one is in a bad mood, is with their friends, is just in the mood and wants to bully someone else. Then that bullying leads to something with terrifying results for me and they dont' care...even when they sober up and see my maimed mangled body on the ground. Humans are capable of this, look at Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda....it is possible for it to happen here too.

Am I misunderstanding people? Are they better than that? This is one of my deepest fears about people. I don't understand bullying and my imagination runs amuck.

I like people.

2006-09-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I have admitted it. I like people. I really like people and no matter how hard I try, I always end up liking people. I am such a sucker for a good story and ya know, people are just chock full of 'em. People live pretty darn interesting lives, have fascinating interests, peculiar takes on things and story-worthy events that occur in their lives. If you are patient enough, you can see the beauty in their lives or the wisdom they've gained about the world. It really doesn't matter how old they are nor where they are from.

Of course, sometimes people annoy me, do things I don't agree with and make me mad. Sometimes mad enough to want to hate them. But in the end, I get suckered into liking them when I really think about them as human beings and I just listen to them closely.

sigh...I am such a sucker for the human race and all the members of it.

something for everyone!

2006-09-01T20:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight, after waiting an entire summer, I finally saw Snakes on a Plane with my dear significant other. I am afraid of flying (well, it is the plummeting part I don't like) and my darling dear is afraid of snakes. My stomach has yet to uncoil. The snakes part really wasn't that scary to me.

I wonder what else could they put in that film that would touch on everyone's fears. In the movie, there was a hypochondriac on the plane and by golly, germs EVERYWHERE! At the end, the black man gets the white girl (hitting on white male fears of sexual incompetency; note, in the pelican brief, the romance that would have taken place between denzel washington and julia roberts was taken out of the movie- hmmm...) and there is even a guy they think is a homosexual (hitting on heterosexual male fears- reinforced by snakes chomping on male genetalia).

They could put in the following: a nuclear war, aliens, terrorist suicide bombers with a nuclear warhead attached to his or her body (hey, is that a nuclear warhead in your pocket or are you just really pissed to see me?), time, space and interdimensional warpholes, ghosts and lost or possessed beings, monsters, roaches (maybe that is just my fear), ebola virus (more scary than avian bird flu because it turns your insides into gooey black stuff, anthrax is not as contagious), killer bugs (like spiders gone wild, army ants or pissed-off killer bees), an economic depression with rampant starvation, psycho robots...anything else i forgot?

~@##7cakes

2006-08-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

So I was recently engaging in some auto-googling (I recently got turned on to this procrastination tool) and found a cool variant of my name in the internet world ~@##7cakes (if you haven't noticed by now, I am trying very hard to keep my identity a secret because this is my secret blog). At first, I thought, wow, that's such a cool name, and wondered if the bakery sold a t-shirt or something like that so I could wear it with pride. They didn't seem to have one on the website. But then it seems that name has also been taken up by many males, mostly between the ages of 16 ad 32. Then I was a bit bummed...the new variant on my name didn't sound so cool. I think I'd still like to get the t-shirt if it is available. But I also know that I run the risk of being associated with a bunch of meat head guys (because as we all know, guys are just meat heads- i am being facetious here fellas!). In all seriousness, I liked the idea that I had this special name and it was all mine. sigh...now I have to share it with a bunch of other people in the world.
sigh.

I am not unique. I am not special. I am just a dot in the multi-dotted wallpaper of humanity. I am not even special enough to be a misshapened dot. Well, you know what, so are you! so there!

vacation

2006-08-10T08:16:00.000-07:00

I really need a vacation. Lucky for me, I am going away for 12 days. Eight of which with my husband to his high school reunion and to visit his father. Then four of which to visit my friend in Colorado. I am so looking forward to the excuse to NOT respond to emails and return phone calls. To limit the amount of work and academic reading I take because I simply can't fit it all in my luggage. sigh....
it will be so nice.

Taking on Harry and Sally

2006-07-28T12:30:00.000-07:00

When I first saw when Harry met Sally, I was soooo mad at that movie. The premise of that movie was that a woman and a man can not have an intellectually and emotionally intimate friendship. That in the end, the only way a woman and a man can relate is through a romantic relationship wherein they end up getting married and make babies.

I have thought about the nature of love, relationships, and the people in my life for a very long time now and have come to the conclusion that things are much more complicated and varied than what that movie (or others like it) present. I have very deep and intimate friendships with both MALES and FEMALES and I am married to only ONE of them. Also, even in the world of romantic relationships, one doesn't always want to get married and make babies with the other person- and that DOESN'T mean that the relationship is any less of a relationship.

Additionally, why are hugging, kissing and exhibiting physical contact such a weird thing for people! Why is physical intimacy with people you care about such a taboo thing? I love my husband, but I don't want all the meaningful hugs I can get to only come from him. When I was in undergrad, at a women's college, I used to get lots and lots of hugs and other physical contact from my friends. Now, it seems that the only kind i can get are from some really close female friends and males. Why are women so afraid of hugging each other? Are heterosexual men only doing it to cop a feel? I don't understand this whole gendered relationship thing.

I tried for a while hugging people that I was happy to see as my way to subvert the no-touching paradigm. But then I realize that some people were uncomfortable with having their physical space invaded and I needed to respect their discomfort. Sigh. I need a new approach to bringing about my touching revolution.

Maybe I should get a button that says, "hug me." Oh, if anyone knows how I can get the t-shirt that says "hugs not drugs" (or better yet, "hugs AND drugs"), I'd be very much indebt to you.

sleep deprivation

2006-07-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

There is a strong correlation between diabetes and sleep deprivation and obesity and sleep deprivation. Apparently sleep deprivation screws with your metabolism and sugar processing. It is common for those who don't sleep much to also eat lots and eat lots of junk food.

I didn't get enough sleep last night and can tell that I just want to eat more. Obesity I am not too worried about. I am a long ways off from bring obese but diabetes doesn't sound like fun. though severe cases of diabetes is linked with obesity too.

Okay, that's my public service announcement for the week.

midwestern cultural experience

2006-07-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July, I went home with a friend of mine for a bit of cultural education. Her parents live on a non-working farm in Ohio. I got to ride a motorcycle, drive a tractor, eat some jello-concoction that involved pretzels and pillsbury-dough wrapped milky-way bars, watched fireworks, sit by a bonfire, and pick lots of wildflowers. The digger/bulldozer was out of commission this week. Oh, and I have learned the all important rule "If you pass a yard sale, you must stop!"

I never really thought there was much to get excited about with regard to motorcycles. Tractors I can understand because they are big and noisy; motorcycles just seemed like death traps to me. But riding on one, well, once I got the hang of starting it and easing it into gear (I don't know how to drive a stick), it was super fun! It is a lot like flying. I was driving around in their front yard terrorizing the groundhogs that were popping up every so often. I have heard that about segways and am now really interested to check one out.

Side note: So it seems that the cops in DC have segways too...I saw a police officer on a segway chatting with another officer in an SUV. I guess the fad of cops on bikes has fallen by the wayside.

dinner?

2006-07-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to dinner with two fellas I knew from school. One was a pale skinned brunette from Arkansas and a blonde fella from England. The restaurant was an Saharan restaurant in my neighborhood that I had been meaning to check for a while now and we went with the intent of checking it out and getting a chance to gorge on a lot of meat (everything on the menu involved meat of some form).

When we walked in, the restaurant was pretty empty, except for two African males sitting at one table. The waitress came out from the kitchen and I said, "Three, please." She just stood there looking at me and so I said, "Three, for dinner, please. Can we just sit anywhere?" This prompted her to respond with a somewhat hesitant and confused look, "This is an African restaurant." I said,"Oh yes, I know that."

In any case, the food was great. We ate goat with various kinds of sauces and stuff on it. Some of it turned out to be super spicy. In the end, we were the only folks in that restaurant of non-African descent. In fact, I think that everyone in there was at least one or two degrees removed from Africa.

Isn't summer supposed to be fun?

2006-06-09T08:44:00.000-07:00

So I have been super swamped with work, and gobs of other stuff that is sitting on my mental plate that I didn't touch during the semester. Whatever happened to fun easy summers?

At work we are gearing up for a major research meeting with the teachers we work with. The meeting is in about a week and a half. there is still a lot for me to do- e.g. get videos together, slap together transcripts, etc. I have a presentation I have to prepare for that is in July- which means I actually need to get some more data. sigh...
I still have a paper I didn't write for a professor of mine from last semester. sigh...
all these things are just weighing in on me. So why hasn't this gotten done? well, it is a lot of work, I am tired and I have come to realize that having a romantic relationship with someone who lives 4 hours away is like holding down yet another job. So this is three jobs I am holding, being a student, my research job, and my relationships. Additionally, I have this problem with procrastination and burnout. when I don't want to do something, I really do almost everythign in my power NOT to do it- which is why this incomplete paper for that class is still hanging over me.

Okay, as my spouse tells me, I need to focus on the positives and not the negatives if I actually want to get things done. Well, I recently did my laundry and now I have clean underwear! I did some major organization of my research notes and know what I need to do next year, what I am missing, what I have, etc! Organization is a key thing to beign able to do research. Okay, so I will celebrate what i can and continue doing so I can continue to celebrate.

Commitment Issues

2006-05-13T20:21:00.000-07:00

A colleague of mine came into the gym locker on Tuesday and proudly announced that she had discovered that she was an exercise slut. She used to run a lot, then when she developed a knee problem and realized that it was good for her body to run every single day, she decided to pick up swimming on her off-running days. Pretty soon after that, she stopped running for a while and stayed with just swimming. More recently, she decided to pick up on weightlifting as well. And, she said, it isn't as if she has given up on running all together, she'll get back to it after a while. It is just that for now, she wanted to try out other exercise relationships. Oh, and she still has a thing with swimming. I can imagine that she'll stay at weightlifting for a while because there are just so many toys for her to play with that there will still be that exciting "just getting to know something new" feeling for a while. Though as the weather gets warmer, that makes running more and more attractive. Oh, this could get complicated, she might feel drawn to starting up with running again. I wonder if she can maintain a three-exercise relationship.

I could never maintain polyexercise or poly-any kinds of relationships. I like to focus intensely on one thing at a time, give it all my attention for a while. Right now, swimming and I have developed a really great routine where we see each other three times a week and I get a great workout in half an hour. Oh, it is not as if everything is all mechanized right now. I try really hard to be mindful of the time I spend swimming. I think it is more that I keep trying to fine-tune my relationship with swimming. I did that with rugby for a while, then it was running. Now swimming.

Oh no, I have to come clean. I did just start up this flirtation with soccer and oh, it is so much fun. Is this cheating? Swimming still has the three mornings a week. I only play soccer once a week at night. They never even overlap. Do they really need to know about each other? I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with swimming, especially since it has finally gotten good. But at the same time, I have to admit, I really lust after soccer. But more than lust after it, I think we could develop something really good in a different way than swimming. Am I a slut too?

Spider Bites

2006-05-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

This is a pretty gross post. Don't read unless you are ready for something quite disgusting.

A huge boil occupied my roomate's leg for the last week. We couldn't figure out what it was and it just kept getting bigger. The poor guy, a few days before the boil showed up, he was diagnosed with Strep throat. I think this is just not his month. In any case, he being with out insurance, didn't want to go to the doctor because it would cost too much money. We were hoping it was just a bug bite that would go away in time. It finally got so big that it interfered with him bending his leg and so he went to a clinic to get it checked out. The doctor there though it might have been a staph infection of sorts (basically a skin infection) and prescribed him antibiotics- stronger powered ones than his strep antibiotics- and told him that if it didn't look like it was getting better in 24 hours, he should go to the emergency room. So he has been (and as a result, I have been too) obsessing about whether or not the boil was getting bigger or smaller, changing color, healing or not. In a matter of 72 hours, it turned from covering the entire lower part of his leg (below his knee) to a tight red nipple that was about two inches in diameter and a good half to one inch high. We were both weirded out but he decided to ride it out until his antibiotics were finished. Well, on Sunday, as he bent down in the bathroom to pick up something, his boil exploded and this greenish brown liquid just ooooooooozzzzzzzzzzzed out of his leg.

So, yesterday (Monday) he promptly went to the doctor's again to check it out. Upon looking at it, she told him that he needed to go see this surgeon that she knew so he could extract the material (meaning cut the stuff out of his leg). It turns out that he had a spider bite and that the poison had destroyed some of the tissue (or flesh for those of more gruesome persuasions). It needed to be let out of the body or else it would do more damage. The surgeon not only squeezed out all the liquid that had gathered there, but did some major scoopage of damaged tissue. He then showed my roomate this squishy mass and told him that the mass was his rotting tissue and that spider poison will typically do that to organic material.

My roomate now has a hole in his leg that has been stuffed up with some iodine soaked gauze. He has been instructed to not only replace that gauze once a day (which involves extracting it and restuffing it) but to stand in the shower and flush out the hole with water. One of his dancers said she got a spider bite once and had to do that too. She said in her lovely deep South drawl, "Oh, that's gonna hurt like a bitch."

a much better day..achoo!

2006-05-04T20:46:00.000-07:00

The police needed my help getting information about the purchases the person who stole my wallet made on my card. After much phone chasing, and though in the end it was incomplete, I was able to get some useful information for the police. I am happy to be helpful, but then part of me wonders if I just shouldn't let the guy go. Did he steal because he needed the money? Most likely. But will sending him to jail really help mitigate his problems? Well, if he has social or psychological problems, what kind of help would he get in going to jail? If it is financial, though he will be fed, housed, clothed and have medical care provided, he most certainly won't get those things once he is out of jail. I am NOT saying that we should disregard rule of law, but what does that rule of law mean in reality if the penitentiary system doesn't have a very good track record with rehabilitation. This may be getting a bit too serious for some.

Seriously, I did have a good day. I did a pretty decent presentation on my dissertation proposal to my class. That helped me rethink my proposal a little bit and also pointed out some things i really need to press on and hone. Found out that I might not have to get my masters and fill in all the stupid requirements for that and just skip to GO (my doctorate dissertation stuff). Found my cellphone and my car keys (thought I lost both). Saw a really cool presentation on the website http://www.childrenslibrary.org/ It is an international children's digital library. Over 5000 books digitized and stored on-line. It is a non-profit organization. The way books are organized there makes so much sense for the user. You can do the traditional searches that you would do at a library. IN ADDITION, you can search for kids books by how they make you feel, the color of the book cover, the size of the book, the kinds of characters (magical or real) that are in the book, all sorts of ways that actually make sense of how people might try to search for a book if they know nothing about it (or in kids cases, how to search in the traditional categorization that libraries use). It is a really cool website, you should check it out. Kids also right reviews of the books. Here is the website address again: http://www.childrenslibrary.org/

Okay, so the only bummer thing is that the weather has been absolutely beautiful but the pollen count is so high that i can barely breathe without sneezing. It is very hard to live like this and I have been living like this for a month. I can't seem to remember what life was like before maniac sneezing fits entered my life.

The aftermath

2006-05-02T20:21:00.000-07:00

I kept hoping that i was just scatterbrainy and misplaced my wallet. Well, today, I got confirmation that I was very wrong. It was most definitely stolen and the person who stole it had a really fun time going shopping with my card yesterday. So it seems that this person really had a lot of things to buy at the gas stations. Seven charges to different gas stations and one $100 charge to the supermarket. I can't really tell if I am all that mad- evne though I was ranting yesterday. Even if I could tell, I don't think I know what I am really mad about. I am not sure I am still mad about it, I think I am more in shock that this happened. In the long run, as long as the thief doesn't also try to borrow my identity to do a bunch of things, I am not too worried. I dunno, maybe this is what PTS (post traumatic syndrome) is like. You don't really know what to feel.

Horrible, no good, very bad day!

2006-05-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

I am having a horrible no good very bad day! I got on the bus this morning and was promptly handed a piece of paper detailing the route changes to my shuttle service. My University has deemed it necessary to chop out about 85% of my bus route. Next year, I no longer have a campus shuttle bus to school. This made me very mad. Since it is neigh impossible to find affordable and decent housing near my university, it is in effect a commuter campus. Parking is a major problem on campus. In addition, traffic and pollution issues are terrible in the DC metro area. What kind of message do they (the powers that be in my university) think they are sending? That they want us to add to congestion and pollution? That we ought to be encourage to continue our addiction to fossil fuels and be extravagant in our energy use? This isn't the first time a bus route of mine was to be axed. In my previous residence, they did the same. It was worse there. There wasn't any viable public transportation alternative for me and so I was forced to drive to school everyday.

So then the next really bad thing that happened was that my wallet was stolen- from my office area! I am so mad! I am so mad that someone would think that it was okay to steal someone else's stuff! That someone would think it would be okay to inflict this kind of pain, anger and frustration on another human being. Simply because they wanted something and it was easy to do it. It seems to me to be an issue of poor upbringing! If someone along the way had taught this poor soul properly, this would not have happened. I am not just blaming it on poor parenting or poor teaching, but also his friends/peers/role models. They let or encouraged this person think it was okay to inflict this kind of pain on me! I am also blaming our society for allowing the kinds of situations that would lead one to accept such messages (e.g. making it practically impossible for this person to gain enough social or financial capital to feel secure in pursuing more legitimate employment practices). AND I am blaming that person for buying into those messages and for not considering that another HUMAN being will be hurt in the process. And yes, I am hurt. I am hurt because I trust people a little less right now.

Soccer!

2006-04-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

Soccer entered my life on Wednesday. I played with a bunch of fellas from my university- they do low key pick-up games on Wednesdays. I can't say my life has never been the same, but I can certainly say that it has left its mark on my body. My legs were sore for three days straight; my shoulders still hurt; I've got bruises on my legs from when I bounced off someone from the opposing team. AND! And I decided to look up the women's soccer league in my area to see if I could join them. That was certainly an eye-opening experience. I am thinking of joining the thirty and over women's team in the fall. I am now in the old-fuddy duddy category of "30 and over". Yeah, once past thirty, their bodies are so shot that there is no difference between and eighty year old and a thirty one year old. I am being facetious here. In all seriousness, I am planning on continuing with the pick-up games during the summer to build up my endurance and help me learn how to play soccer. Then I will be ready in the fall to play in the "30 and over" category. Either that or I run a half marathon in the fall. I think my partner is rooting for soccer. My partner used to be a big soccer buff.

Fortune cookies

2006-04-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

This posting was inspired by a posting from another blogger, Dave Alpert. Though the title states fortune cookies, this is really about things I want to do when I have kids one day.

I had toyed with thoughts of making my own "fortune" cookies if I had kids to serve up to their friends. Here are some fortunes I had thought up:

1. You will die one day.
2. You will astonish others with your tremendous display of flatulence.
3. The sun will come out, but it might not be tomorrow.
4. First you broke my heart, why must you also break me? (Okay, this isn't exactly a fortune, but I always felt bad about the cookie and wanted to give it a voice).
5. Someone will like you one day.

I had also wanted to have toilet paper that had messages on it. So that those who forget to bring reading material don't have to feel so lonely and bored on the throne. Things like:

Hi. How are you? Enjoying your stay? How's the weather outside? I wish I could go outside...sigh. Haven't been outside since I left the store. It was such a lovely day, that day. So, have you read any good books lately? If you plan on coming back next time for a longer stay, might I suggest some Kierkegaard? Then we can sit and chat about it for a while.

Rainy day in my neck of the woods

2006-04-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

It has been raining all day. Rainy days used to bum me out because I hated getting cold and wet. I don't mind it so much now when it rains because the water level in the small river (or big stream) right by my apartment rises. When that happens, the water also runs a bit more quickly. I walked home from the metro tonight and it is thrilling to watch rushing waters in the dark.

I never had much opportunity to connect to nature this way so this is all fascinating to me- to experience the seasonal changes in animal population (my spouse has convinced me that the herons I saw earlier in the year have gone north for the summer), that rivers swell and shrink, and that greenery will take over if left unchecked. The river, the bike path and all the unchecked flora and fauna in my neighborhood makes me feel so much better about where I am living.

I was thinking today, on the metro back from DC, that I was creeped out and unhappy about DC. It amade me sad to think that it is possible for me to live in a place and not grow to love it simply because I always felt unsafe there. I felt like such a wimp for feeling scared. I also felt like I was a discredit to my sex. I was weak and was reinforcing gender stereotypes. Feeling safe and unscared, isn't that just a matter of attitude? I don't know.

In the last month, a woman got "sexually assaulted" by a guy who masqueraded as the cable repair guy. (What does sexually assaulted mean?) I frequently hear helicopters in my neighborhood flying low in order to do spotlight searches. Sirens are part of the background noise. I was in a car at a stoplight today and witnessed a bicyclist punching the heck out of a driver. I just read in the City Paper about a phenomenon that has been occuring in the city lately. There is this neighborhood in DC that is starting to slowly gentrify. Some of the original residents of that economically depressed neighborhood have been assaulting the bicyclists who have been riding in that neighborhood, e.g. throwing bricks at them from rooftops or out and out gangs assaulting a cyclist when the cyclist is stopped at a red light. The City Paper said that the assaulters were kids and it was a kind of turf war. The cyclists represented gentrification. The funny thing is that in my neighborhood, most of the cyclists are the po' folk or young po' folk who can't afford a car.

When I first moved here, some guy made some creepy derogatory comment to me as I walked home from the metro station about my ethnic background and gender. I was freaked out for a week and considered purchasing a can of mace. Maybe I should still. I am physically slight and must be honest with myself about my ability to physically dominate another human being.

It makes me mad that I can't enjoy this city, this area, because I don't feel safe, don't feel accepted, don't feel like I am allowed to belong...especially in my neighborhood. I'm not a black american, a latino immigrant or a white american- the three main groups in my neighborhood. For me, the feeling of unsafety doesn't arise from the latino immigrants. It's the americans that I don't trust. I know this is not based on a lot of data but on generalizations and stereotypes. It makes me sad to think that I can't wait to move back to NYC where I can feel safe again because non-americans outnumber americans.

Then, I walk by the river with rushing waters, see geese, instead of herons, paddling in the waters, step on ground covered with pink petals from a cherry tree, hear the bird family outside my window and feel okay about being here.

Leaking from every orifice

2006-04-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

Spring is here! It is lovely. It is sunny, breezy, warm, beautiful, snot-filled, teary, cough-inducing. Gosh, don't you love the season where the tip of your nose is rubbed raw by the tissues. That with every breath you take in you run the risk of sneezing so hard, your brain might be sent to the next county?

And as my husband says about spring- it's all shameless! I went out to my car the other day and it had this green tint to it. It was a dark blue car at one point in time, until all the trees and plants decided to spew out their gametes on my car. Really, that is what pollen is, the emissions of the male reproductive parts of plants. And the females parts aren't any better. They flip open their skirts, wave their private parts in the air in hopes of catching some of the flying gametes. They take exhibitionism to the extreme!

And the more demure ones aren't any better. Though they have covered their private bits with petals, they discreetly lure unwitting insects to them with the sweet nectar. Then once these insects crawl in, they are trapped until they participate some sordid three way copulation act. First the insect is lured into one plant's chamber, rubbing up against the male parts of the plant. Then the same insect is lured into another plant's chamber only to rub up against the female parts of that plant. Such depravity!

I think that all those who are gravely concerned about family values and decency issues in the current day have missed the biggest offenders of them all- NATURE! She puts on the biggest pornography show every year in the spring time. People ought to lock those plants up for their abhorrent behavior.

Doing a dissertation: Advice #36

2006-04-11T19:50:00.000-07:00

So right now I am supposed to stay focused and write my dissertation proposal. This is hard! The ideas that float around in my head are easy, but writing them down on paper/computer is hard. I just have to remind myself that this is my initial stab at something that isn't even my first draft yet. It is okay if it seems silly, inarticulate, incoherent, redundant and pointless. Gosh, even if it is my final draft, it is okay if it seems like all those things. Right? Right! What is the worse that will happen? They (the committe) tells me my dissertation sucks, tells me what needs to be fixed and I go back and fix it. It isn't like they have high hopes for me and I am going to disappoint them with a crappy dissertation.

Oh, so here is some advice for all those who are planning on pursuing a career that involves using one's creativity. In the beginning, try out everything and anything (so long as it doesn't cause damage) and screw up lots and lots. So, if you are a performer, just go on out there and make a fool out of yourself! If you are a writer, send out your writing frequently- the more rejection notices, the better! This is very important. Assuming you learn from all your screw-ups, you also have the added benefit of helping everyone lower their standards about you. Then no matter what you do next, it will just look real good in comparision AND you don't have to worry about disappointing people!

Manage distracting thoughts in whatever way you can. Otherwise, you never get things done. If anyone has other suggestions, please share.