« July 2003 | Main | September 2003 »
August 29, 2003
now the story's played out like this / just like a paperback novel
perspective. it is something that i find my generation lacking - me included. Though with me, i find that i am reminded of it pretty easily. i wish i could share that perspective. it isn't easy - like contentment it is hard to put into words. but every time i run - especially in my beautiful neighborhood - i am reminded of how lucky i am. i am lucky to be running. i am lucky to live in such a great city. i am lucky that it isn't too hot to run in my great city. i used to think that people who ran were somewhat crazy. (as leta and i agreed the other day that if one is not use to running it sucks.) but now i am one of those people that gets antsy if i don't get a daily run in. sigh. i love it though. the cadence of my feet on the sidewalk matching the music coming through my radio. the passing of people walking dogs. it is a lot of my will power to not stop and pet every dog i come across. yesterday i saw a scotty dog and a long hair wiener dog (along with the usual mix of goldens, etc.). i love all the dogs, and i love the glances you exchange with those people walking dogs - or just the people in general you come across.
on an lab note - my chamber works - kinda. i can strike a plasma around the carbon target - but at a higher pressure than i want. i want 5 mTorr. I am only able to get down to 20 mTorr and still achieve a plasma. i have been so unproductive lab wise this week because of the short course, but i feel guilty. oh well. i am working on monday (no random holiday of labor for me). though just as well as i have a million things to do it in the lab. and i miss my usual labor day activities of a pool in macon with doting parents that weren't mine. i love laying by the pool laughing with friends. we would sing in the evening. (who sings with their friends - beside karaoke? we would like gather around the piano and sing. who does that? my college friends - that's who.) we would sleep in the next day and gather in the kitchen in our pjs and chat about whatever was in the paper that day.
i'm currently waiting for my lunch plans to show up. my course got out early, but i had plans for lunch over here, so i had a precious hour to read e-mail, catch up on blogs, and the new york times. and to write here. i had been a fairly busy week. and today is no exception. but it really hasn't been work busy, and that is nice. and i have movie plans for this evening. its a good day.
--------
Posted by christina at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)
August 27, 2003
days go by
amusement from my advisor (on the subject of missing plasma) -
There are several reasons for little or no discharge:
1. No or poor electrical contact
2. High electrical resistance of the target (bulk or surface)
3. Loss of magnetic field (this happens when one forgets turning on cooling water or runs the target at high power)
4. Improper orientation of the magnet relative to the outer ring
5. Target too thick
6. Phases of the moon
7. Alignment of the stars
thanks to sara bara
--------
Posted by christina at 8:04 AM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2003
will you come with me?
the dusk settles. the warmth of the day has kept me from my run until late. the gym has been closed all day due to an annoying craft show. yes, craft show. don't ask me, but it has put a kink in my work out schedule. oh well, we make do.
creation is beautiful - God's and man's. (though, isn't God ultimately responsible for man's ability to create?) yesterday i watched in complete awe as a chick emerged from its egg. it was amazing. today i ran out along the beach in my neighborhood. (my hip would like to take a moment to complain about the sand. some how the movement in the sand annoys my hip.) good thing there was a nice path for the majority of the run. i ran along the blue water and back and then out on the pier and paused to admire the beautiful view of downtown i never knew i had. i admit, that i have lived here almost a year and hadn't made it out to my beach. families, groups, and couples spotted the sand, the grass, and the benches.
this morning on the way to church, i drove along the bike leg of a triathlon. (they had half of lakeshore drive blocked off. bikes on the inner two lanes, cars on the outer two lanes.) people in swimsuits rode along aside me - including a guy biking in a speedo. it was a sight. but mostly i was amazed at all these people up at 9:30 in the morning doing something grueling like a triatholon. yay for them! i wanted to roll down my window and cheer. on my way back from church, i did see two random people that looking like they just randomly stood on the middle median and where cheering on those that were still biking. it was sweet.
the homily at church today was really good. i wish i had a copy. i didn't do a good job summarizing it earlier, but the gist was that the current version of the bible that we use is a conglomerate of lots and lots of sources - some that conflict with each other. It is dangerous to take a verse at face value without exploring the context - both of the words around it, of the time period it was written in, who it was written to, and who might have written it - and without reflecting on it ourselves. it was really interesting.
my cat, since i have gotten her, wouldn't eat anything but her cat food. she wasn't interested in the kitty treats i got her nor the tuna fish i put down. today, randomly, i'm talking on the phone eating a banana nut muffin, when she quasi climbs on me (which she really doesn't do either). i let her sniff the muffin, she has done this in the past with other things, but instead of turning away like she usually does, she takes a bite of the muffin. i was just amazed. and amused.
--------
Posted by christina at 8:59 PM | Comments (0)
August 22, 2003
magic in the way you move
mmmmm.
first. if you are in atlanta tonight and want something to do, an old friend's new band (what was tilden’s faith has morphed into passenger) is playing at the Riviera Club. check them out here and there. i wish i was in atlanta. i would totally go.
second. the heat and humidity has left chicago.
third. things are only scary when you don't know about them. somehow, reading the users manual makes me a whole lot less afraid of my plasma power sources.
fourth. ah. unproductiveness. i know i'v going to have to pay for you later.
--------
Posted by christina at 4:03 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2003
it shouldn’t be so hard to be inspired
~~things i've learned today~~
- ruthenium is a precious metal - precious like it is traded. current price is $30/oz.
- Gold occurs in sea water to the extent of 0.1 to 2 mg/ton, depending on the location where the sample is taken. As yet, no method has been found for recovering gold from sea water profitably.
-Nationally, the average age of women at their first marriage was 25.3 last year, the highest ever, according to the Census Bureau. - NYTimes.com [this number is interesting considering how many people i hear of getting married before they are 25, therefore just as many people are getting married that much after.]
- i have the weird problem (for lack of a better word) of loving to be alone. i am content to pass my days caught up in my own little world, so i need mornings like this one - coffee and conversation with a friend to remind myself that the world is more than just me.
- no matter how many times we ask or in how many different ways we ask it, the answer to the same basic question doesn't change. though as much as one might feel foolish for asking the same question, there is something optimistic in hoping for a change
- elevators and escalators kill about 30 and injure about 17,100 people each year!
- PMMA = polymethylmethacrylate
- i want to be inspired. oh boy, it is just one of those days. my body is unhappy. so it goes. it really just wanted to lay around in my bed all day and read. i don't cut it any slack, but it still made me unproductive today. which reminds of today's wish to be inspired.
- as usual, working out makes me sane.
--------
Posted by christina at 9:07 PM | Comments (0)
August 19, 2003
sink or swim you gotta give it a whirl
oh! i almost forgot. the most interesting thing i heard today. it was on the world (an npr show) and it was about synthetic diamonds being posed to enter the diamond market at a cheaper cost. the link is to the story the author (who was being interviewed on the world) wrote. now, this might make me withdraw my assertion of not wanting a diamond becuase of the diamond trade. though i do still believe one shouldn't spend that much money on something i'll probably loose anyway. there are just better things to spend money on (like the homeless.) you really should read the story. it is the most interesting thing i've read in a long long time. (granted i am a materials person and this is all right up my "alley". but i know that you guys would enjoy it.)
--------
Posted by christina at 9:00 PM | Comments (0)
so my advisor amuses me
so my advisor amuses me greatly. i have one of the more unique advisors on the planet. his current favorite thing to do is to come in and ask what is new. we get on some conversation and today's ended up in power output vs velocity curves for solar cars and airplanes. he also tells me about a new project he wants to do every day. it amuses me. i like to have projects, lots of them is okay dokay with me. it increases the chance that something is going to work. mmmm, grad school.
lots of people are heading back to school, but it is still summer for me. yay! though the days are getting shorter (i can tell. it doesn't make it any better than i am working later and then getting home later than ever.) it makes me sad to think of the time when it gets dark at four. see, now i am all happy with the 8:30 sunsets. it is warm, so i am happy. (though it is not warm in my lab. everyday i am dressed in a sweatshirt - it is that cold. ) it is also not warm in my apartment. mainly becuase i am having the issue of liking it cold when i sleep, but not when i am awake. but my air isn't that responsive, so i have to just keep my apartment at sleep temp (which is like 75. brrrrr.). ; )
i feel so full, but my body keep wanting to eat. stupid body. i did push it hard working out. but i am full! i think it is restless. i go and go all day at work, when i get home, my body doesn't know what to do with itself. it is like down time! let's eat! i say, but we just ate and you are full! but it says - wheat thins! yum! i shake my head at it. i'm kinda of a mixture of restlessness and contentness. i think that i am really content right now and am just waiting for something to kick me in the shin. (where, btw, i have this HUGE bruise on my leg from an incident involving rain + stairs + my inherent clumsiness = falling up the stairs and then, later, down the stairs saturday night.) i guess i take that back, there are some unknowns in my life right now. but i like unknowns - it means life could change. or it could not. but the experience of finding out is one of the things i love about life.
--------
Posted by christina at 8:33 PM | Comments (0)
August 18, 2003
say what your thinking right now
yeah. i've been a slacker. happens. time passes in a strange, strange way.
i'm currently in a fairly strange mood. the day plodded along at a reasonable pace. time passed, i noticed, but didn't dewell. focus ion beaming always takes longer than i think. i've run out of answers for my chamber, but so has my advisor, so i don't feel bad. it has been more the adventure for my summer student. she leaves friday and today we finally gave up on this target. we think the manufacturer sent us a bad target. bad manufacturer. i get the joy of calling them tomorrow and making them take it back. i am not looking forward to the phone call, as i am bad at standing firm. i will just have to gather all my bitchiness for the month and use it to make them take this target back. the target is bad, that is the only explanation within the guidelines that they told us. i'll spare you the technical details. (don't say i'm never kind. ; ))
the ride home was strange. steve rode with me. i was catching him up on a story and was trying to drive with the sun blinding me. i almost hit this truck that was parked in my lane. in the sun, i didn't see it. thank god steve did. i am kinda freaked out. i know that i didn't nor did anything else bad happen, but i am still just freaked out. the split second movement i had to do to avoid hitting the truck leaves me freaked. reasonably, i guess. but i don't like the feeling of feelings floating beneath the surface that i can't define. i am big on the defining. it is my way of controlling a situation (feeling being the situation) that i can't otherwise control. feelings are illogical, and one can't really control how one's feels. i feel in quasi-control of the situation by defining why i feel that way. it is important to me to always know why i feel that way. so it bothers me to not know why i feel this way.
ah, that's my college roommate, liz, in today's title.
--------
Posted by christina at 8:16 PM | Comments (0)
August 14, 2003
don't you know that why / is simply not good enough
mmmmm. happiness is conversation with a friend that when you return to your car (and therefore a clock) you can't believe it has been2.5 hours since you met for dinner.
dude. my cat rocks.
--------
Posted by christina at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2003
anyone who's ever had a heart
mmmmm. it is amazing what a good workout can do for one's soul. the days have been dragging as i've spent the majority of them in lecture. it is a really interesting short course, but lectures all day can be tedious. a very pleasant surprise was found in my mailbox today and that has also made my evening.
it is nice to be back in chicago. the weather is cool. it feels like fall. the temperature have been cool and dry. the wind blows the leaves and the waves. my cat survived without me. my cat sitters did an excellent job. i wish i had more time to catch up with them, but life has made that impossible so far. i haven't gotten to really talk to steve in forever. i have hopes for the weekend to catch up with all of my people and see steve and jen's new apartment.
so, this morning i was thinking about my current frustration with grad school. i always like to think of other things i can do and would rather do. they always seem much more fun. this morning i conceded that i could never do anything else as long as i have this opportunity to get my phd in this - if only becuase i would forever regret it if i stopped.
i have a tendency to move too fast in certain aspects of my life. it is really nice that God is making me take it slow for once. really nice.
--------
Posted by christina at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
August 11, 2003
well the first days are the hardest days
once again, i'm intrigued by the male/female rolls in science. i'm in the short course all week on nanomechanical properties filled with profs and grad students sprinkled with a couple industry people. there are 7 women - 1 industry, 1 resarch u prof, 1 teaching college prof, and 4 grad students. This is out of 60+ people.
i used to not pay any attention to the girl factor. tech is 75% guys - which made my world very male. i didn't notice it much except to enjoy it. my mat sci class here at nwu has a fair amount of girls (more than 35%). my closest friends up here are half boys, half girls. i have gotten use to more girls in my life, but this doesn't really explain this new sensitivity.
i think it might be a relatively recent admittance on my part that girls are different than boys in science (besides in general). in my undergrad years, i held steadfast to the opinion that there was no difference in how they should be dealt with. i think my thing has always been expectations. expectations should always be the same. undergrad is mostly classwork, therefore all the expectation are clearly laid out. i, personally, have trouble in situation where expectations exist, but are not specified.
from my experience (and from conversation with other girls), i've found that they need lots of feedback (in general). i need lots of feedback - both encouragement and criticism. i think a lot of guys operate under the assumption they are meeting expectations unless told otherwise.
anyways, what brought this train of though was my amazement at the lack of women in this course - actually, not really that, as much as the difference in the careers between the few women and the men. ignoring the grad students - of the 3 women - only one is at a research university. most of the nongrad student men are from research universities. sometimes in this line of thought, i blame it on time-line issues. 20 years ago (when men this age were in school) women were not common and therefore just age wise, there would be few. but i wonder how many dropped out of tenure track research positions becuase of family or just the atmosphere of research science.
i was talking with a friend this weekend and we agreed we both have problems with overt competitions. we can handle competing, but really can't handle overt competing. the research tenure track is overt competition - especially in this economy. i wonder how many of the girls in my class are going to go into academia.
one interesting point is that i've never received/felt any message that i can't do research science becuase i am a women. and no part of me thinks that women can't do research science - i know that they are just as capable of succeeding. i just wonder if the climate of research science (or engineering) causes them to give it up. i've now had my first female friend give up engineering for something more flexible. i wonder how many more there are going to be.
--------
Posted by christina at 9:43 PM | Comments (0)
August 5, 2003
i don’t need no proof / when it comes to God and truth
i have three great girl friends from high school. the four of us have known each other for a long, long time. i only keep up with one on a weekly basis, but the four of us always get together when we are back in town. when we do get together it is like no time has passed. tera and amanda still live in hot springs. courtney lives in fort smith, arkansas. we have the best time when we are out. we have such a different experience now than we did when we were in high school, or even early college. tera likes to refer to us as the sex in the city girls. maybe. i think in any group of four girls you could probably find some parallels. courtney is definitely charlotte. other than that is is hard to make any connections. we had a great time last night. as usual with my life, i can’t got out without something random happening. not that i was interested, but both of the guys that tried to pick me up last night got amusedly flustered at my engineering degree. ah, hot springs guys amuse me.
home continues to be beautiful. work continues to be a thorn in my side. though an e-mail from my advisor today settles my worries and gave me the official okay to settle down and relax. my family continues to give me stuff – mostly in the form of food. i have eaten so much today. it is like christmas when i come home. my mom always has some baked good (ie cookies) waiting on the counter. and we went for frozen custard tonight. i got to have lunch with amanda today. i found so great deals at the mall – for the second day in a row. it is amazing how many old people are out during the day. once again, my moments in hot springs remind me how utterly lucky i am.
--------
Posted by christina at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)
August 3, 2003
there's only now / there's only here / give in to love / or live in fear
i love chicago. friday night i went out with some friends for dinner and dancing. i love that we could walk from my friends apartment to the restaurant to the bar. the night was perfect – warm enough for just a tank top, jeans, and flip flops, but cool enough that you enjoyed being outside. i love the random people you meet out. saturday morning was clear and bright as i drove down the shore and out of town. the sun was glinting off the blue lake and the tall buildings of downtown. and i loved the city.
i love hot springs. the farms change to tree filled hills as you approach little rock. the air gets heavy with water. i made great time down the middle of the country, filling the car with music and words. i listened to the disc one of the rent soundtrack. i bet it has been at least a year since i listen to it. i was reminded how much i love that musical. i enjoy the theme of how your friends become your family. i have some amazing friends that are like family. their love is unconditional. they are amazing.
i also have an amazing family. home welcomes me with lots of food and lots of love. it kinda wierds me out to have someone cook for me and clean up after me. my parents amuse me so much as they try to give me random things like the 8 pack of aa batteries, the digital camera, the workout radio. i laugh as i decline. my mom offers to make me food. she is so funny. as always, after being so use to doing everything myself, it is hard to get use to some else wanting to do it for you. though that is definitely not a bad thing. : )
today my middle sister, jenny, came home for the day to hang. the three of us have a great time. we pawed through my younger sister, rachel,’s cast off jeans. i inherited like 5 pairs of jean. i doubled my current jean collecting. it rocked. we went to wal-mart (a.k.a the big w) after dinner. i hadn’t showered in a while as i laid around the house all day in my pjs. i threw on a pair of my new jeans and we were off. we were running wal-mart errands for rachel, ran into one of her ex-b/fs. he came and talked to us as we played dance dance revolution. dude. i love me some dance dance revolution. the big w here has an arcade at the front. (cool, but not as cool as the auntie em’s in the fort smith big w.) it was empty and i made us go in a do dance dance. jenny had never done it. we each did it. i want to do more. it is addicting. leta has a knock off in her apartment. i’m going to have to dance me some when i get back to chicago. it was so amusing, though, for the three of us to be doing it in the random arcade on a random sunday night. the three of have a good time out. it is nice. jenny had to go back to school tonight. so it goes.
today’s things i love about home:
- my puppy (who feels the need to take up way way more than her fair share of the twin bed. i have to curl myself around her. she is so cute, though, she can get away with it.)
- the kool-aid pitcher refills itself automatically
- free laundry (and the laundry machine not down two flights of stairs)
- mom’s popcorn
- shopping in the sista’s closets
- wireless internet. yes, my parents have a hub. it is actually really convenient and makes a lot of sense for our house. it amuses me though, as last time i was home we were still dialing in
- hills. trees. humidity. (though the hills and humidity make my run hard, hot, and harder to breath.)
--------
Posted by christina at 10:48 PM | Comments (0)
August 1, 2003
maybe happiness is coming / but you don’t know when
so. busy. lots of things are held by skinny threads, and i feel that they are unraveling one by one.
it is a function of me going out of town (murphy's law) that my chamber took a swift nose dive and broke yesterday. it was just sick before, but in the mist of trying to make it better, i broke something unrelated. though i do have to say that i fixed it (with some patrick help) and i felt like a real grad student as i puttered around the lab looking for spare parts for my vacuum chamber. but ed, the chamber is still sick, but it is not broken. (which means that i am just back to my original problem - my plasma not sparking.) but at this point i am giving up and swearing not to worry about it during my vacation. it sucks for my summer student as we had hoped she could deposit while i am game. but alas, there is nothing i can do. it isn't like i can move my vacation. (i can't, cuz jenny's already tried.) this time off is precariously balanced between several things.
i feel bad that i had to cancel my lunch plans, especially since i have time now. i just didn't have time before two, as i was trying to get my chamber back up asap (and didn't know how long that was going to take - cuz i was here until 9 last night dealing with it) and then had to train patrick before blood guy came at two to use the afm. sigh, it will pass. it always does.
i have been so happy this week, i knew that i was going to have to come down at some point, you know. and i'm not unhappy, i'm just tired of things not being simple. why can't things be simple?
i am looking forward to curling up in my childhood bed tomorrow night with my puppy dog. how can i wish more anything more than that simple joy? i can't. bad days come and bad days go, but it is nice when a simple memory can make me smile.
vacation! yay!
--------
Posted by christina at 2:17 PM | Comments (0)