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April 25, 2004
'cause it's root! root! root! for the cubbies!
so. yesterday was my first Cubs game. I had a great time. We took my friends steve and jen. it turns out that today is steve's birthday. i had totally forgot. it was quite funny as jen and i walked she asked if i remember it was steve's b-day. i didn't. it made the day that much sweeter. the coincidence was cool.
it was cold, but an excellent game. i won a signed baseball - a dusty baker signed baseball. the guy behind us in the hot dog line tried to give me $20 for my card when i found out i had won. i said that my boyfriend would want it way more than $20 worth. and, of course, he is so way more excited about it than me. he didn't believe that i won at first, but then couldn't get over how me, probably the person in the park that could care the least, won one of the 500 of 40,000 cards. i said - i care because you care. and it is true. of course i gave it to my boy. i would have anyways, but he did (well, his dad did) take us to the game that day. it is now displayed on the mantel at ben's new place. yes, he now has a fireplace.
and hot water thanks to my dad. yesterday morning he didn't have hot water, and we found the pilot light out on the water heater. it had been out since he moved in a week or so ago, but didn't know it as his 50 gallon water tank lasted him all week. before the game we couldn't figure our how to light it. well, more like we couldn't figure out the place to light it. i called my dad who basically said that we should call the gas company and have them come light it so we didn't blow ourselves up. when i was home before the game he called back and said, yeah, i do remember the water heater in albuquerque having a really hard to get at pilot light. that he had to fashion a match on the end of a wire hanger contraption to light it. ben had talked to his dad who put in touch with the contractor that work on their house. he couldn't walk ben through it over the phone. so they made arrangements for him to come down this morning. when we got home form the game, armed with the new found knowledge from my dad, i was convince we could get the pilot light lit. i kept tell been that i have a degree in engineering, if i can't figure out how to do to this, no ordinary person can.
so we taped a match on the end of a pair of kitchen tongs, ben got down there and now and behold, we got the damn thing lit. and ben was sooo happy that he didn't have to come back down to meet the contractor early this morning. (we are housing sitting at his parents this weekend.)
between the ball and the pilot light, i'm thinking i earned my keep yesterday.
;-)
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Posted by christina at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2004
what doesn't bend breaks
so i love my advisor. i just spent an hour and half with him talking about my presentation and research idea and how to get a cork out of a bottle. and how we are going to take a couple of student in the fall. yay! though i do like the quiet of my lab (and my three desks) i'll be glad to have some help. i'm intrigued what they are going to do. i'm excited about my research plan. and that i talked over with my advisor what should go in my next abstract for the fall meeting of avs. back to California in november. now that will be sweet.
i went to old town yesterday. the weather is amazing. blue skies. dry sunshine. i got a cool ring. so much shopping. it is nice to have the time to stroll around and shop. life is perfect. really. i love these moments in which i love being me, bring with me. it is interesting to just be with yourself. i love it. it would get old. but i love these weeks to spend with myself. and science is interesting. i forget sometimes.
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Posted by christina at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2004
i'm 32 flavors and then some
note - i just post sunday's entry (with yesterday's date) and this is yesterday's entry (with today's date) la la la
this is the officially on of the most ridiculous places to have a conference. san diego is beautiful in its own right. the hotel/resort we are staying at is ridiculous. first. there are roses everywhere. it is a sprawling hotel campus. this many different building of room. there are roses and flowers and plants everyone. of course, palm trees. i walk between building to see a speaker and walk through rose gardens. crazy. beautiful. not to mention we are like a 100 yards from the mall in san diego. out door. any and every shop you can think of. a cinnabon. dude.
though no good place to run. i wond my way through the area a bit for my run. i wanted to run 40-45 minutes, but i kinda ran out of place to go at 35 mins. oh well, i'll make that left instead of right the next time. it is the perfect running weather. though chicago has also had great running weather lately.
here's the debate. the pool. they have a couple of them. at lunch i saw the girl laying out. i wouldn't have even thought that she was at the conference, except that she was reading a technical paper. yeah. i want to lay out, but do not want to run into people from the conference, much less my advisor. dude. the hotel is large, but there is quite the few people at the conference. i think i could get away with laying out after the afternoon seesions (~5), but lunch is just pressing it, but maybe toward the end of the week when the advisor is gonza, we'll chance. i love the sun. what can i saw.
i'm trying to gather the motivation to do the work i have to do. it is hard. sitting in talks all day is draining. they are easy days (and short) esp compared with my days the past couple of monthes. but they are more tedious. by far far far.
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Posted by christina at 2:16 PM | Comments (0)
April 19, 2004
i find it hard to take
i'm on a plane. well, as i write this i'm on a plane. i'm not exactly posting from the plane, though it is possible.
dude, i killed my right hand pinkie yesterday during a little run in with my back stairs. it hurts to press the enter key.
i'm on a plane to san diego. for a conference. yes, i know, hard life. i actually feel a whole lot better about this conference than about the last. mainly, i understand my research so much better. i have interesting results to present. i'm fairly happy with this project on the whole. i'm kinda excited to get back to school and make it better. and the conference is being held at a hotel and resort. the website makes it look beautiful. i'm hoping to get some time by the pool (but not run into other conferenees while i'm laying out in my two piece) and attend all the talks
it has been a fairly bumpy flight. i'm not a great dealer with massive bumpiness, especially during take off. i was lucky with my flights last month to california. they were both smooth and nice. it was/is so hot in chicago today. the forecast was for 87. 87!! it totally didn't get above 40 on monday. what kind of strange part of the world do i live in? i was running at 9:30 this morning and was hot in my unlined wind pants and sports bra. i was wishing i had worn my shorts.
it has been a strange week. not strange bad, or good. no value judgement here, but just different. ben moved to his new place. [the rockies are soooooo amazing.] [why the hell do i live some where where is flatter than a pancake?] he's been wanted to live alove for a while now, and the opportunity came up where a friend needed a place to live and so ben could move out early. i must say that i am going to miss seeing parker regularly. i really enjoy him. because of the move, and the need for quality roommate time combined with my preconference need of working 12+ hours a day. i didn't get to see ben for the mid part of the week. and then he was gone yesterday and today for a wedding and i left today for san diego. [dude. the rockies are beyond amazing.] so we haven't been spending that much time together - okay, as much as we usually do. i have nice quality christina time yesterday and this morning. i ran around my beautiful neighborhood in the beautiful spring bloomings. i ran errands. i finished stuff up. i was never in a hurry to do things. i was not stressed for lack of time. i cleaned my apartment a bunch. i did laundry. it was so nice. not that i don't love the craziness of my life when i am running from thing to thing, but, i do really appreciate the times where i lay on my couch and brush my cat.
it also makes me feel single again. okay, not single enough to go pick up boys, but single in that i feel stronger because i'm not worried about what someone else is thinking of me. i love love love ben. and i love love love dating ben. but in the end i'm a girl and over think and over analyze. it is nice to just be at peace.
i must share that ben now has a tv in his bedroom. i didn't think i was going to be a fan. but actually, as i laid there and watch the osburnes as i waited for him to come to bed, i really enjoyed it. he really enjoyed it as he got to watch baseball tonight as i curled up in his arms and went to sleep. utopia. he says. hmmm. i'm still not a fan of the principle of a tv in the bedroom, but it isn't my room, now is it. : )
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Posted by christina at 2:14 PM | Comments (0)
April 14, 2004
somethin' in your eyes / makes me wanna lose myself
it is strange what brings back memories.
i was putting on some lotion this morning and the scent took me back to warm april evenings in atlanta, end of my 4th year at tech. a boy. time by the shaft fountain. realizing that life is complicated. or that life is simple and love is complicated. or just that i am complicated. i actually can't say which. i just think that that time in my life i was just not ready to not have a million options in the venue of my love life, though i thought it was what i wanted. turned out not so much.
just as well, as i went all to taste all the options out there. and then break my neck and fall in love...all in the same year. love was complicated and life was simple. and now i'm in love with someone else. and life is complicated and love is simple.
that lotion will always remind me of a boy who i still regret hurting, as he was really amazing human being.
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Posted by christina at 5:48 PM | Comments (0)
April 13, 2004
an open road / and a whole lotta speed
so i've never really had a boss. i'm 25 and never had really had a boss...a true boss. a boss that has the power over you and acts like a boss. not that i really have a boss now, but my advisor comes close. mostly i really enjoy my advisor. he chats well. he is knowledgable. he is living in dc currently.
i am a pleaser. if i am not pleasing someone, i am taking it personally.
my advisor says on the phone, of my presentation i just sent him for comments, i don't like it.
well, i think, that's nice, though ilrelavant. i just kinda hurt my feelings. we then go on through my presentation. he gives me constructive criticism, the kinda i am learning to take and even desire as i prepare for this conference. never did he actually say specifically what he didn't like. nor were than any major things to fix. do i understand why he had to start out the conversation with i don't like it? no, i don't. when it was all said and done, there was nothing major wrong. i'm learning to appreciate his hard questioning as it makes me think things through before i send it to him and then before i present the thing.
i keep telling myself that he makes me a better everything - scientist, presentor, person in general. but i have to learn from him and not take him personally. it is funny, when we meet in person it is better. there is the component in his nonverbal speech that reminds you that it isn't personal. even on the phone it is there. it is his e-mails that can devastates me in one swoop.
yesterday i was wishing that i had someone in my life to proof read everything i wrote that mattered, that thought all my mistakes were cute and correct them with a smile. i need to marry a copy editor. definitely.
in other news, i did give this presentation yesterday here at northwestern and it went well. i got some good feedback from a random visiting scholar. and i feel good enough about presenting it next week at AVS...like it is worth my trip out there. i actually feel good about my research. how's that for rare. : )
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Posted by christina at 4:11 PM | Comments (0)
April 9, 2004
shake it like a polaroid picture
picked up from a random blog i read-
--I read the following in The Next Fifty Years:
"In 2000 the Clay Mathematics Institute, in CAmbridge, Massachusetts, offered prizes of $1 million each for solutions to seven long-standing and intractable mathematical problems. One is the Riemann hypothesis. The others are the Poincare conjecture, a topological characterization of the three-dimensional sphere; the P/NP problem of theoretical computer science, which asks for a proof that difficult computations really exist; the Hodge conjecture and the Birch/Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture in algebraic geometry; the existence (or not) of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations of viscous fluid dynamics; and a proof of the "mass gap hypothesis" in quantum field theory. I suspect that by 2050 we will know a lot more about all seven problems, with mixed results.
---
how interesting is that! it makes me want to read this book...in fact, i should read this book.
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Posted by christina at 5:25 PM | Comments (0)
April 6, 2004
i like when my friends
i like when my friends are at beginning of relationships. it is all cute and stuff. now i know my steve enjoyed the beginning of ben and i so much - it reminds you of your beginning.
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Posted by christina at 2:11 PM | Comments (0)
April 5, 2004
blue moon / you saw me standing alone
and in one more of the more interesting things going on in my world -
Chicago PD, Feds eye illegal orders of drug-making materials
it seems that people here have be ordering and receiving chemicals that can be used to make drugs. and, in the story i read yesterday, it said that the chemicals hadn't been paid for. i would definitely recommend to make sure your illegal chemicals are paid for - if you don't pay for them, it is a good way to get discovered. random.
life is good. saturday i spent downtown with prespectives. tom and i, as usual, have a good time together and took our group up michigan ave to muliumum park and back (with the limited architecture knowledge of christina) and the up the hancock. it was a beautiful day and the view was, as usual, amazing. we had a pretty good group. we went to dinner at rock bottom brewy which is yummy. as the site of ben and i's first day, for you trivia buffs out there. for the record, we did try to go to espn zone for dinner and the game, but the wait was long and no one cared that much. the game was on the in the bar and so we kept tabs on it. though i missed the nail biting finish, i go to see clips later as i lazed on the couch and read as ben watch the uconn game. i had no idea it was so close at the end.
there is really no perfect evening after you've been on your feet all day then curled up on the couch with a book and a boyfriend.
on sunday, i loved the late sunset as we got an hour of daylight back. the full moon sat over the lake so beautifully.
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Posted by christina at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)
April 2, 2004
twinkle, twinkle little star
some time ago, i was lucky enough to see finale of average joe 2. (i actually watched a couple of episodes of average joe 1, as ben was into it.) as in the first one, the chick ended up choosing the hot guy over the average joe, proving all the stereotypes of pretty girls. The chick goes on vacation with the guy she chooses. they both seem to have a really good time frolicing in the tropics. the guy she choose was a typical pretty boy - blond, good looking guy. At the end of the vacation she says there is something the she should tell him before he heard it from someone else. it sounds serious...like she might have genital warts or cancer or something big that they will have to work though. it turns out that her ex-boyfriend is Fabio. to me, this something that should make a guy go, dude, i am dating Fabio's ex-g/f. i am cool. but this guy freaked out, had a hissyfit and broke it off with here. HOW STUPID IS THAT? it was the strangest thing. of course, he had to have wanted out anyways and saw it as his opportunity to get out.
anyways, just a story for you. people are stupid.
all of my patience was used up on the commute to work this morning. i came straight from ben, later than usual (~8). there is definitely something to be said about leaving at 6:45. no stupid people on the road. i think the main rule in the morning rush hour as you go as fast as you can (which is not really that fast) and you stay close to the car in front of you as to not make the people behind MISS THE LIGHT because you were driving 3-4 car length behind. good god. i really dislike those people. sometimes i honk. i am quick on the honk, my mother would be horrified.
the days pass quickly.
it is another recruitment weekend. i'm only doing half of the stuff i did last time. i am too busy, but it is going to be a beautiful day downtown saturday. and tom and i are going to take a group to watch the final four. it is an example of one of the two times i'll watch basketball - ga tech in the final four. (the other being watching one of my sisters play. i guess someday that might be my child(s), but shhhhh, don't tell them, but i hope not. : ))
i have a feeling if my life keeps on its current course, i'll be attending a lot of child sporting events...
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Posted by christina at 1:49 PM | Comments (0)