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June 30, 2003
a fight you know I’ll never win
a guy in a tan backwards hat walks back and forth in front of my building on his cell phone.
i relent and put in my air conditioner as warmth is forecasted. izzy meows becuase it has taken one of her windows. i remind her how hot we were last week and how i miss sleeping under a blanket. the guy walks by.
i fill out a card, already committed, but sign my name anyway and lick the flap. the air conditioner blows cool air. my willpower wavers. the guy walks by.
i try imagine who he is talking to. an old friend? a new crush? a fading love? i wonder if he lives in my building, if he is a guy from school. each time he goes on past i wonder if he will back. only the guy walks by.
i don't bother to close the windows as i enjoy the dusk air. the sunset pinks color the clouds purple as they pass by. much slower than the guy. they shall not return in this form. but things never do. except the guy that walks by.
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Posted by christina at 8:29 PM | Comments (0)
June 29, 2003
take the moment of hope / and let it run
it is pride weekend in chicago. well, in a lot of places. we kicked it off in style on the top of my friend's roof for a bbq. (when i think of a bbq i think of phat matt's rib shack. but bbq up here means cook out. hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken, etc.) my friend and his boyfriend (whom i adore), live closer to downtown than me - conveniently close to boys town. the top of their roof has a deck and a grill and an amazing view of downtown. I also enjoy the other views of the rest of the city - the trees between the apartment buildings. the tall apartment buildings along the lake shore, the patch of lake shining in between. we ate, laughed, went dancing among the half naked guys in my favorite gay bar. it was a great ending to a fairly harsh day.
i saw far from heaven again. juilanne moore does such a terrific job. i totally recommend the movie. it is a total relationship movie. she plays the main character. her marriage fall apart as her husband likes boys and she falls for someone else she can't have. the most amazing part of this movie is that the audience knows very little about what she is thinking. Well, she doesn't come out and say what she is thinking julianne does an amazing job in conveying the complexity of feelings that you know the character must be feeling. it is nice. so many movies treat the audience as they are four and lay everything out there. this movie leaves a lot to your own interpretation while avoiding being totally random and purposely obscure (a la mulholland drive).
so courtney (my best friend from high school) got the cutest dog. she sent pictures today. here is ellie and here is courtney and ellie. court makes me laugh as she calls me as i lounge in bed saturday morning to tell me that she is driving up to get a dog. it was out of the blue, but not surprising. she has been wanting a dog for a while while. and though i usually think that a dog needs two people, i am excited for her. since she is a school teacher, her schedule is a tad more flexible and the dog is v. small. her parents have the same flavor of dog. her dad is very tall and one of my favorite sights last summer was seeing him with this dog the size of his hands. izzy has been particularly cute today, so i am all into pets today. ; )
mmmmm, it is a low key day to match my mood. i fill my apartment with this american life voices and i do laundry, clean, and write. i ran errands. i enjoy wandering into home depot in search of wood. i hate the long line at the grocery store. i love the long summer days.
oh yes, in case you are wondering (kentie) i didn't die on the deck collapse. but i shall be reminded not to cram on to a deck with fifty other people. it is very tragic. it sounds like they had a lot of people out there, but it is not uncommon (especially now that it is warm) for people to have parties that spill out on the back deck.
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Posted by christina at 6:48 PM | Comments (0)
June 26, 2003
[good day sunshine] dude. just
[good day sunshine]
dude. just when i thought it would never happen again to one of my friends, one of them is going out on a exceedingly normal first date. One which girl meets mom at workshop. mom says, oh, you would be perfect for my son, can i have your number. girl says, oooookkkay. boy calls girl. girl is going out with boy on friday night.
so normal. i love it.
i had lunch with my favorite person in chicago. it totally made my day. the weather has cooled off, the sun is shining, and the sky is blue. in this moment life is perfect.
crazy like me. i think it is the name of a book. it in nice to be remind of those people that are crazy like me.
oh oh oh. look what i just got -
The AVS is pleased to accept your contributed paper entitled:
Hydrogenated Carbon Films and Sulfur Stabilization: Synthesis and Tribiological Characterization
Abstract Number: 699
Program Number: TF-FrM10 (to be presented Friday November 7, 2003 11:20 AM)
Session Title: Mechanical Properties of Thin Films
Your paper has been accepted for a CONTRIBUTED ORAL presentation at the AVS 50th International Symposium, to be held November 2 through November 7, 2003 in Baltimore, MD, USA.
dude. my first abstract acceptance. cool, but scary. scary becuase it reminds me how new at this i am. how much i still don't know. the nice thing is it is a more short term goal than just graduating. plus i get to visit baltimore in the fall and i'll get to see some friends. there are few thing nicer than a free trip that including visiting some favorite friends.
and speaking on that subject - this article on the publication of scientific papers is really interesting. it is about changing the current publishing system to charge the researchers to publish. the publication would then be free to the readers. it works the opposite way now. the bill being introduced wants to require all federally funded research be published this way. most research is federally funded. i am all for it. it would solve two of my major problems with the scientific publishing culture. one, people publish a lot. if you had to pay each time you published, one would rethink practices like publishing multiple papers on the same topic, just on different parts, in order to get more publications. two, i hate when i cannot access a scientific paper i need. especially when the problem is northwestern being too cheap to subscribe to a journal. and to pay for the article is like paying twice.
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Posted by christina at 3:45 PM | Comments (0)
June 24, 2003
[he was a fugitive with
[he was a fugitive with a pseudo name]
izzy and i concede. it gets warm here. but it is going to get cool again come thrusday, so we wait out the sticky heat.
it puts me in a jimmy buffett mood. not the boxed set or the greatest hits, but the old school jimmy buffett that defined my jr high life. Floridays, i just put in. it is more of a ballady album. it has some of my favorite jimmy ballads. it also has one of my favorite bridges in "if it all falls down" -
If It all Falls Down falls down falls down
I can warm a crowd I can make them shout
I can juggle verbs adverbs and nouns
I can make them dance till they all fall down
We had plenty of doctors
We had plenty of lawyers
We had people to make us things
We had people to sell us those things
We didn't have enough room for those things
We build lots of self storage
Calypso poet shortage
Calypso poet shortage
this jimmy was the soundtrack of a different life, but i don't feel so different from that 13 year old girl swinging in the hammock in the woods of arkansas. i wonder where the time went, but then marvel at how all my adventures fit into the passing. those were the summmers which walking the mile round trip to the mailbox at the end of our drive for the mail was the highlight of the day and always took place after days of our lives. i would lay reading on a lounge chair on the deck with one of the speakers to the living room sound system out with me playing jimmy. lazy days of summer and the music that defined them.
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Posted by christina at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)
June 23, 2003
[she's gona drink the sun]
[she's gona drink the sun]
so in the sunday paper come the chicago magazine. it is a good little publication. Reminiscent of the new york times magazine (which i use to enjoy in the warm sunday sun with andrew in the deserts of washington), the trib's magazine contains featurey articles on politics, arts, entertainment, travel, and everything in between. a couple of weeks ago the issue's theme was chicago summer night activities. (i am just now getting around to reading this edition.) this captured me for a moment and i wanted to share.
Running south on Lake Shore Drive / heading into town / Just slicking on by on LSD / Friday night trouble bound. / And it's Friday night and you're looking clean / too early to start the rounds / A ten minute ride from the Gold Coast back / make sure you're pleasure bound / And it's four o'clock in the morning / and all the people have gone away / Just you and your mind and Lake Shore Drive / tomorrow is another day.
- Aliotta, Haybe and Jeremiah, "Lake Shore Drive"
it is warm now. my apartment very warm. it is amazing what i consider comfortable. my thermometer reads 88.3 in my living room. everyone i know would be so hot. but i am enjoying that sticky edge. it makes me want to slip naked into fresh sheets. to point the fan at my bed, and sleep in the breeze. to take a cool shower and drip dry. this is the perfect temperature to pretend you are in the topics. cool enough to be not be oppressing, but warm enough to exist without thought. why does heat make one not think? i think there will be only a few of these night on this edge before it gets too hot and humid. then i'll have to put in the window air conditioner (central air is pretty unheard of in city apartments). but until then i shall enjoy the warmth i've been seeking for so long.
and tomorrow is another day.
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Posted by christina at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)
June 22, 2003
[in the window that mirrors
[in the window that mirrors my skin]
a good weekend - a french film, a greek food festival, random shopping with a friend, and great weather.
it is finally warm here. blue skies. cool lake breezes. it has been nice to be out in about in. the greek fest was more in the city, but was in the evening, so the warm was good even if we didn't get the lake breezes. i tried to get our resident greek (well, greek-american), to dance, but she wouldn't do it alone. she does promise me video of past dancing of her. i love baklava. dude. honey and nuts and flaky pastry. yum.
L'Auberge Espagnole was the french film. it was good. i recommend it. the main character reminded me so much of someone i know. it was fairly uncanny. and random. i am so behind in my movie going, illustrated by the fact that i have yet to see the matrix reloaded. but the person i was going to the movies with on friday hadn't see the first one and felt they would be confused. oh well. i am always up for a good forgien film - especially if it is french.
we made it to the farmers market saturday morning. flowers are in season. nice, but i am way more excited when tomatoes, beans, and mushrooms are in season. (hmmm. do mushrooms come into season?)
steve and i just ran errands this afternoon in the sunshine. out to the burbs directly to our west. he was in search of an outfit for the conference he is going to this week. i was taking the occasion of being in niles to drag us both through the big W, only to be reminded how much i hate how busy wal-mart is. though, since i do own some wal-mart stock, it can be viewed as beneficial.
i struggle with the person i want to be and the person i feel pressured to be. it is a universal feeling (and one of the themes of the french movie). it is a universal feeling, but different to everyone. i definitely get off easy, i will be the first to admit. but it is something that i have been thinking about. i am lucky that i am very happy with my chosen career and feel very little pressure to stay here. i have such amazing parents that i know if i decided to quit this tomorrow to be a school teacher, they would support me in that decision. the pressure exists in being in my mid 20s in a big city surrounded by similarly situated people. i feel pressure to be ubersocail. to go out all the time. i know that i should feel lucky that i have these opportunities, but there are increasingly many a night when i just want something low key. and lately, i have been, luckily, getting that wished granted. i have no angst about my life, just about feeling this pressure to explain it. i guess it comes down to the need to make sure everyone is happy with me all the time. one night, in a bar in the middle of 20 something chicago, this guy told me, as i apologized for blowing him off at a previous party - never apologize. never explain. so this advice is not good for relationships, but he might have something there for this melodramatic, perspective-lacking, angst i am currently sharing here.
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Posted by christina at 7:27 PM | Comments (0)
June 19, 2003
[Better is one day in
[Better is one day in Your courts]
the best thing so far about work this summer, is ability to listen to npr all day long. just this week i have heard such interesting stuff. chicago public radio is awesome – especially because of some of the local shows. one is 848. yesterday they suggested some books. my goal is to get through some of them. (okay, knowing me i will get through all of them if they interest me.) from listening to the piece yesterday, i think i am going to start out with since the layoffs . it was described as an amusing book about a guy who falls into being hit man after being laid off and just needing money to feed his family. it turns out that he is really good at being a hit man and starts to work at a convenience store as a cover. turns out that he likes working at the convenience store, so he keeps hit manning until he has enough money to buy the convenience store.
speaking of public radio, i think i forgot to mention one of my favorite parts of camping this weekend. we listened to this american life on the way up. it is a program also out of the chicago public radio that airs at 7 on fridays here. it is a collection of short stories on a theme. the theme friday was summer camp. perfect for camping. it also made me miss summer camp. made me reflect on that long ago desire to grow up and counsel camp every summer. i have tons of camp memories. there is really nothing like camp. even in the short week camps i did as a child (which really don’t compare to the month(s) of the story), there is some spectacular about being away from home, living with your friends, laughing, swimming, campfires, and singing. some of the very best times of my life have been at camp.
it is weird how sometimes in your life you thought would always stay constant. camp was always that constant. it was the highlight of my summers. by high school i was doing several camps (as a counselor and as a camper). i miss it…more than i think i let myself feel. for if i admit how much i miss it, it makes me question what i am doing with my life now and that, sometimes, is very precarious.
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Posted by christina at 9:31 PM | Comments (0)
June 18, 2003
[on the roof, it's peaceful
[on the roof, it's peaceful as can be]
I love summer thunderstorms. It is the thing I miss most about the weather in the south. Today has been a perfect summer day. It started off warm (ie I didn’t need a coat when I left for work) and humid. This afternoon thunderstorms rolls in. the air was heavy with the smell of rain and the skies gray. It started raining a little as I walked from spac to tech – big, fat, warm drops that I’ve never seen here. The smell of rain has permeated our building. Our lab is dim without the mid afternoon sun shining in our west windows. I love this smell of rain – the smell of water in the air, of great big thunderstorms rolling through the sky.
I have spent many hours in many places enjoying the rain. In our first house in hot spring, I use to lay and read in my walk in closet because it was the best place to hear the rain hitting the roof. (it also annoyed my mother, which was an added bonus) Last summer sara and I would sit on the porch of her house in the rain. It was one of the most perfect places. We would swing and talk while the rain fell around us, but not on us. We had lots of words – a function of our lives then.
The person that you want to be right now doesn’t have to be the person you are forever.
I ponder this thought as I struggle between my current desire to close myself up in just a few people and my life’s tendency to pull me in the direction of many people.
sigh. airplane tickets can be such a pain in my butt. i don't even like to fly. (though i am fascinated by airplanes. they amaze me with thier science (and the relative primativeness of that science.) their long silver bodies gliding through the air is art to me)
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Posted by christina at 11:02 PM | Comments (0)
June 17, 2003
[lose your load, leave your
[lose your load, leave your mind behind, baby james]
one of the details that comes with grad school is the feeling like you are still in college…that you are stuck in the weird stage of not a child, but not an adult. but there are some moments that sweep over me that make me feel so adult. this morning it was driving in the soft summer morning light to take my cat to the vet. i dropped her off for female surgery and a complete work up. it was strange to be called her “mom”. dude. most of the time i feel like i am just watching her. she hasn’t become that permanent in my life. it takes me a while to get use to things. i do adore her, though, so permanent she’ll probably become.
the new mech e in my lab introduced me to the northwestern classified site. with all these seniors moving, it is the perfect time to pick up some pieces of furniture to supplement my collection. i wish i had known about it in the fall when i was doing most of my shopping, but alas, i probably wouldn’t have done a lot of things differently.
mmmm…i forget how much i enjoy great conversations until i have another one.
i made some raspberry sorbet that was oh-so-yummy.
the curse (i guess) of being hypereducation in an obscure field with even more obscure career plans means that i have a very narrow path – though i don’t see it as that narrow. i will concede that it is a lot more complex than most people, as the majority of people in this county stay around their hometown and fit their career in their life. i am the opposite as i fit my life in my career. but in the end i live in major cities, therefore don’t feel that my life is that trapped. we, i think, see our future through our past. we can only imagine what we have experienced. our futures will, of course, turn out not exactly what we imagined, maybe not even close. but that is what makes it so exciting (and frustrating) – the not knowing.
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Posted by christina at 10:53 PM | Comments (0)
June 16, 2003
[in a room draped in
[in a room draped in blue]
so i seemed to have lots of words this afternoon when i started this entry, but the calm of this evening with a clean kitchen, a cup of tea, fresh air, and good music i find myself of few words. and contemning those i did write. such are my moods. though i shall write for it though not necessary, is good, for my constant motion of the past two weeks makes me strive to fill all my spaces.
camping was good. it was everything i needed it to be. woods, clear skies, a big full moon, camp fires and smores, lazy day in the sun with my book, it was the perfect relaxation. randomness also abounded – falling objects off of trucks (events predicted by the foursome in my car), friends getting tickets, man playing bagpipes in a deserted parking lot in the state park, amish people on horseback with sombreros, mcdonald’s with a fireplace and couches. my feet are sunburned.
liz was in town for a wedding this past weekend. i went out there for dinner (mmmm, shrimp) with her and her family. we talk so much on the phone that it feels like we just saw each other though it has been 6 months. it was normal to curl up on her bed and catch up on the past couple of days– though in person vs on the phone. she is perpetually amused by the randomness in my life. we lead completely different lives – both in our social circles and in our dating habits. but we understand each other perfectly. on some level we get to experience both – her penchant for the long term, my history of the random, my crazy grad school circle, her professional workplace. i will actually be getting to see her next month and the next. so we are excited.
today was my first day sans class. of course i slept in and didn’t go until 10. (my advisor is in hong kong trying again to catch sars) some how it passed quickly as all the sudden it was 6 and steve and i were outta there. it was kinda like starting an internship but this time knowing everything and already having a lunch date.
i am currently rereading alice walker’s possessing the secret of joy. it is amazing how lucky i am to be born in a “civilized” world. whatever that means. but this book reminds me how damn lucky i am. i recommend it - it is well written and a great perspective adjustor.
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Posted by christina at 9:42 PM | Comments (0)
June 12, 2003
[maybe happiness is coming but
[maybe happiness is coming but you don’t know when]
ah. i am done. done with the busiest quarter of my life. well, at least done with classes. marina and i gave our last project presentation at 12 today. it went okay – as well as expected for the amount of time we had for it. i now know a lot about the mechanism of cdse mineralization. yum. i still have to go back for the second round of presentations. the presentations once again remind me how fascinated i am with science. which is good, because it has just been one of those weeks that i wonder why i am doing this.
so it hasn’t sunk in that i am done. like i mentioned i still have 90 mins of presentation to sit through in a bit. though we are going out afterward. a place famous for their margaritas downtown. we should have quite the group. one of the other first years is leaving tomorrow for an internship in detriot, so it is a combo send off for him and a celebration of the end of this quarter. i am also going camping this weekend, so now that i am done, i am busy thinking about what i need to do for that (like find my sleeping bag). all the other details have been worked out nicely. it will be nice to get out of the city. to lay in the sun. to be outside. to leave work behind. to just be.
i read this book a couple of weeks ago where the person telling the story was comparing himself to his friend. the friend, he said, was one of those people that concentrated fully on whatever they were doing. they completed the task and moved to the next. it made everything that much more elegant. the storyteller, on the other hand, was one of those people that always was trying to do too many things at once. always thinking about a million things, unable to focus. the storyteller wished he could be like his friend. i totally identify with him. i wish i could be one of those people that focused on whatever they were doing. i rarely do. i’m always at least thinking about a million different other things if not trying to do them all. maybe that is why i get calmer when i drink. i focus on whatever is at hand, not the million things that are usually competing for my attention.
some angie aparo for the title today. from gravity. i reminds me of the time i was bumming around hot spring waiting for my life to swing by and pick me back up. with a father's day card i sent today, i was reminded how lucky i am to have amazing parents.
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Posted by christina at 4:29 PM | Comments (0)
June 10, 2003
[i've cared so much i
[i've cared so much i don't care anymore]
i am offically burned out on classwork. last night instead of studying for today's 9 am final, i wandered around; i read white oleander; i talked with court. i went to bed on time. i got up as usual. i cramed as much as i could on my note sheet. but i just couldn't bring myself to care. i have no idea how i did on the exam. i answered everything - which sometimes is all you can hope for.
though i am so close, i was reminded about a end of the year report i need for my funding program. i was fairly in deneil about it, hoping that something i had to write a couple of weeks ago was actually it. nope, i have to write 3-5 pages on my research by tomorrow. i was kinda stressed (cuz i am supposed to be devoting this time to my final presentation in colloids - mmmm, more CdSe) but now i've settled down. of course the big debate is to go out tonight. tick tock. multi level.
i before e except after c
i found out that one of my friends moms is getting married. (her dad died when we were freshman or so in college.) i am so excited for her. usually when court says, guess who is getting married, i really don't want to know that someone from my high school class is getting married, but this announcement was warm and fuzzy. she met the guy at the drs office and they talked in the waiting room for a bit, then he went in for his appt and she though, oh well, if it is meant to be, then it is meant to be. then she saw him in wal-mart (dude. definately the place to pick up men in hot springs) and the rest, well, i have no idea, but i imagine someone worked up the guts to ask the other out and then the rest...well...we don't know the rest, so we'll leave it at they are now getting married.
see. it does happen.
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Posted by christina at 3:33 PM | Comments (0)
June 9, 2003
[i might go get me
[i might go get me a new tattoo]
printing. printing. printing. i am currently printing homework solutions for the class final i have tomorrow. yum. finals. i has been a long time this is my second exam this quarter. i forgot how much a hate studying. i do not have the attention span for it. working and doing problems, i am fine at because it keeps my attention. sigh. and i’m tired after three hours of presentation this morning in my famous nanotech class. we finished without string cheese incident. i know that you were on the edge of your seats. i did bake muffins for the class and marina brought pineapple juice. yes, we are mucho grande random. but it i how i exist, just on that side of random.
speaking of, the randomness returned from its spring quarter hiatus and reentered my life again. and i have really great (and v. amusing) friends.
go see bend it like beckman, it is a really great movie.
i got to spend a couple of hours on a roof (it was a party, I wasn’t thinking about jumping) with this amazing view of downtown chicago and of wrigley field, which they had lit up for some reason. it was actually warm enough that i was fine in my little fleece jacket and was fine for the party. the wind died down and it was v. nice.
print. print. it takes forever to print these pdfs. i’ve already complained to the management, but it was too late.
i’m dressed all in black today. and in flip flops again. my toes are freezing. but we ate lunch outside and it was so nice.
i’m too tired for a topical analysis, which is usually why i post. but instead i am just trying to not go completely crazy while waiting for my stuff to print. though mark and i just decided that lizards are really the best presentation prop (instead of the samples that he is going to use for his presentation).
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Posted by christina at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)
June 6, 2003
[and I still can breath]
[and I still can breath]
so it has been a really weird morning.
first, i didn’t sleep very well last night, so i woke up early (earlier than the original waking up early), so i had a little bit of time to putter around my apartment. i have been all about filling every spare moment that it was weird to have some down time and in which i didn’t cram something for my presentation in. (i was getting to school early as to prepare for that already). so i was early on my early
so, i had this presentation this morning in my nanotechnology class on making solar cells with inorganic nanotubes. (actually somewhat interesting, and now i know a bunch about both those topics. ah, the random knowledge i have accumulated by being in that class.) so i’m in a skirt and flip flops which is v. weird for me here as i have been living in jeans, tank tops, sweat shirt jackets, and running shoes with my hair in a ponytail. i am all dressed up and i think really took my labmate by surprise this morning. anyways, back to the weirdness. the project has kept me at a pretty high state of stress (for me at least) mostly because the working with other people. i am such a pleaser that i want everyone to be happy and therefore i get stressed trying to make other people not stress. (probably the single important reason i am not all about the group work.)
so there we are – we being four girls, and we are presenting, there were some bumps, but nothing really to think twice about. one of my group members finished presenting her part, i had presented part of mine, and had handed it off to marina. i am standing next to the forementioned group member and she says to me – i feel like i am going to pass out. i look at here, not knowing what the signs of someone about to faint are, since i’ve never had someone faint on me, and ask her if she needs to sit down. she doesn’t really respond, but leans against the wall. then she is drifting forward and continues as she faints right there. it took me a split second to figure out that she was actually fainting and there i try to grab her as she falls into marina, who is presenting. i am just like, alyson, sweetie, sweetie. marina breaks her fall and therefore alyson didn’t hit her head or anything. but i was freaked out as she is unconscious for that moment. the professor (who is on the list now) makes it to the front as alyson comes to laying behind the podium. the look on here face was pure confusion as she looked up at us around her.
the prof had her stay down and had someone go get help. so as we waited for the police, he entertained us with stories of he own fainting tendencies and his hypochondriac nature. alyson slowly got up, feeling fine. the police came and made sure she didn’t want to be taken anywhere (ie the health center). she was very embarrassed, blamed on the stress of all her classes (not really that one because she had already went, that was the weird thing). needless to say, we didn’t finish our presentation (we were around 13 minutes in to a 30 min prez). she was fine; the prof entertained us with more stories including how in third grade he passed out in the lap of the girl he had a crush on and everyone thought it was on purpose to just get attention. i conceded that it probably was a great way to get attention.
i am in an extremely restless phase. it has been a while (more than a month) since i’ve been restless. but as it is, restlessness returns. it is weird because i am happy. and content. and at peace. and you would think that restlessness would come in the middle of a time like the past month when my life was fairly constant. but the quarter ending brings a pretty big change in my life and i guess i am restless because i don’t know how that change is going to affect stuff. there is this john mayer song that he says “the brightest thing i’ve got” – it is in the covered in rain song. and that what comes to mine here. the brightest thing i’ve got is about to change from the comfort of this year so far. i don’t know – it could be a change for the good, or for the bad, or for the indifferent. that is where my restlessness is coming from. i really like to have some idea what is going to happen. but i don’t really know what i want. so it goes.
so yes, it has just compound the weirdness of the day. and then my other class got out early. it is worth mentioning that that was my offical class, but i still have 2 sets of presentation next week and a final. oh, but i can see the light. and including laying around and reading on the beach.
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Posted by christina at 11:32 AM | Comments (0)
June 4, 2003
[how fast will it go]
[how fast will it go]
i am writing, well, currently lots of things, but one of them being a review of sorts of fatigue crack propagation (as forementioned here). one of the papers that i am including is from a guy out of the materials department of georgia tech. i have no idea who he is - he is a research associate. the prof that is second author is out of hong kong. it makes me all warm and fuzzy. and feeling a little weird. it is weird to think that real live research was coming out of the department that i grew up in. though all my crack propagation reading and analysis reminds me of my own personal crack propagation expert shelby. he does fatigue cracking and i wonder if he uses/subscribes to the theory i am analyzing. and i understand why he is doing research in it. it is still a hotly debated field. i get amused when traditional materials subjects - like fatigue crack growth - are hotly debated today. usually the more sexy new stuff is more hotly debated the old stogy stuff. but all it all, we still know nothing. and i am all about crack research as it is a very important factor in the airline industry. and turbines. both of which i depend on heavily.
of course, in my i really should be a science philosopher, i start thinking about the different experiments people are doing to prove or disprove this theory. i would like to study if they had an idea before had which one they agreed with and if their results supported that opinion. i wonder how much of science is just looking for what we want to find.
it is the nsf site visit week for our nanotechnology center. one of my calls grps likes to meet over there (the building is connected to mine and it is new and nice). as we were coming back this afternoon we got on the elevator and pushing the button for the bridge to my building. we were too busy chatting to notice the elevator didn't go anywhere until the door opened and we were still on the 4th floor and this man got on. our grp + man quickly deduced that the bridge button, though lit up, did not make the elevator a go-go. so i pushed the floor the half below the bridge and it went and we just took the stair to the bridge all while laughing about the brand new elevator being broken (this is also a building with a v. nice top for - with wood panelling! dude. i so make fun of the waste of money i think it is all the time) anyways, the forementioned man turned out to be the dean of engineering. i was amused.
of course the nsf site visit - which i have no part in (but will when my program has its site visit in the fall) - reminds me of my goals. which is very nice as i am so busy i think that my cat has forgotten what i look like. finals are next week (thank god) and therefore there will be much celebration (sushi and sake bombs) (v. excited) and my return to my research, which is what i actually, truly enjoy.
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Posted by christina at 9:37 PM | Comments (0)
June 2, 2003
Word of the Day for
Word of the Day for Sunday June 1, 2003
ephemeron \ih-FEM-uh-ron\, noun;
plural ephemera \ih-FEM-uh-ruh\:
1. Something short-lived or of no lasting significance.
---this is probably my favorite word ever (though i can never, ever spell it off the top of my head). becuase of one of my favorite books - the little prince. i just got the e-mail (the word of the day people are a tad behind) and was very excited that my favorite word was word of the day and therefore i thought that i would share.
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Posted by christina at 12:20 PM | Comments (0)
June 1, 2003
[Maybe one of them souped
[Maybe one of them souped up muscle cars]
there is this guy i work with that is so random. random in that truly random way. random in that way that floats just outside my understanding. first, he has taken to wearing shorts. it is not that warm here. liz tells me it was 99 in houston on friday. dude. i bet it didn't even get to 55 here on friday. or yesterday. just a juxtaposition. not to complain about the cold again, but dude. this is now ridiculous. it is june 1. (btw how is it june 1?) (another question - am i going to spend the rest of my list marveled at how fast time passes?) (cuz that's kinda lame).
anyways, back to keith. he runs. a lot. he runs a lot. he runs these ultramarathons in which he runs for more than 8 hours. i asked him what he thinks about. he shrugged. "stuff." some research, of course, he added. and no music. i can't work out for an hour without music without going crazy.
and that isn't even my favorite thing about him. my favorite thing is that he hiked the Appalachian Trail. all. of. it. it took him 5.5 months. oh, and i didn't mention that he did it alone. alone that is amazing. needless to say that i am impressed with him.
so it got me thinking. i actually found this out a while back in the fall. but he just put up the webpage and it made me think about it again. would i be about to do that? to be alone with only the occasional stranger's company - for a week, not to mention 5 months.
inherently i am an introvert. i have to have alone time - or at least down time. at some points in my life i would say that i was an extrovert. i think it is what you are just to. like last summer in atlanta - i spent every evening with someone. and i love it. but i guess usually i came home to my bed alone. and i worked alone usually. okay, so i take it back, i was just as far from an introvert that i ever had been. but that said, i don't think i could go a week without human contact. without a real conversation about how someone was feeling or how i was feeling. i can't remember i time in my life that i wasn't social in some ways. like when i first moved here. i craved that random conversation at school with my classmates. even though i spent a lot of time on the phone (which is a conservative estimate), it did not replace that in person human contact - even if it was trivial. i wonder what that craving is. i wonder if it is the fact that it makes you feel a little more alive to been seen and responded to nonverbally. maybe that is - when i had most of my conversation on the phone, i missed all the nonverbal stuff you pick up subconsciously. not that i don't enjoy my phone conversations. it is just different. i can't just have phone. therefore i can't hike the AT by myself (even if i had a cell phone and a solar powered recharger).
this not so small tangent is brought to you by the avoidance of "A review of crack closure, fatigue crack threshold and related phenomena". send it a thank you note. i am sure it will appreciate it becuase it isn't getting any attention from me. it is feeling llllooonnnneeellllyyyy.
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Posted by christina at 8:54 PM | Comments (0)