christina

May 23, 2008

in closing...

so. jenny closed! with just a small amount little drama. we were at the title office for 2.5 hours, but it all worked out in the end. the realtor and broker ended up redeeming themselves. They never admitted they screwed up, but they worked really hard to make sure they closed today.

And they did. and it does make me want to use the realtor again, but i just know that i have to be real clear about making sure she communicates everything. and the broker was nice, and ended up driving out to downer grove to stand over the lender. that's nice and all, but why did that not happen on wednesday? and so if i was to use him again, i would just sit on him harder. but since i'll never move to another location in chicago, i doubt the opportunity will arise.

Posted by christina at 4:46 PM | Comments (0)

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May 19, 2008

lend me your ears

a perfect nap - sun and toy

• today, i have been very techy. i fixed our wireless router and redid the design on my blog.
• i am tired of perpetually feeling like i have to cough
• sunday we made ben's day by going to the baseball game. my friend tom went with us so I would have something to do. it was chilly, but i did not freeze. and the game was only 8.5 innings! the people sitting behind us were from northern LA. It was obvious, not by their heavy accents or the fact they told us they were from the south, but by their starting a conversation with us - "You folks from around here?" They had won the trip from their company (US Foods). They left in the 5th inning. Strange. They were nice, and amusing. It was good that they left for i think they would have talked to us the whole game.
• cracker jack prizes suck


• what happens to baseball uniforms with players' names that left the team?


• how can baseball be played in a dome? (Ben: it is HOT in houston. people would be dropping like flies if it was outside. the catcher would not be able to make it around the bases!)


• moveable type has some sort of annoying glitch that sometimes makes it unable to type in the entry box. obviously, i have also figured out this problem. but it makes me think about work press.


• Ben is a little too into the game right now. There has been jumping, raising of the arms, and pumping of the fist. FOR REALS? It isn't that close! Three runs is a big lead.

• He just pointed out that he has to engage in something since i have required that he STOP TALKING TO ME. Praise jesus, thank you for tv.


• opps, tv does not prevent useless questions/comments. sigh.


• filing complaint to jesus.

Posted by christina at 9:19 PM | Comments (0)

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May 18, 2008

kiss me once / kiss me twice

here's a phrase that bothers me:

"we are trying to identify women to hire."

this is insulting to women and men. it is demeaning to imply that women aren't qualified enough to get jobs on their own.

this, of course, is in relation to hiring in science and engineering academia.

I think that this is the wrong answer. The best person should be hired for a job.

The problem doesn't lie in hiring departments anymore. In my opinion, the problem lies in the environment. To get more women in this field, the field must change. Universities must provide good quality childcare, paid maternity leave, help with finding spouse jobs, and a slow down of tenure clock. In my personal opinion, the environment needs to stop expecting people to work 60 hours a week. When these things occur, I believe that the pool with include more women and therefore the best candidate 50% of the time will be a women.

Posted by christina at 9:28 PM | Comments (1)

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April 28, 2008

wake up call / caught you in the morning with another one in my bed

I cleaned out the fridge last week (see, i am really bored), and found that i had a lot of frozen banana bread bananas, so this weekend I made banana bread. so. freaking. good. I still have a bunch of frozen bananas left so I'm going to make some more for my friend Tom's defense. I am very excited for him.

So. I was thinking this morning about how there are some friends/acquaintances of mine that are very very passionate about Sen. Obama. I can see the attraction. I feel the attraction. I was moved by his speech at the DN Convention last election cycle. I am moved by his message of hope. Who wouldn't be after the past 8 years of hopelessness? These friends/acquaintances for the most part are women. And though I understand the draw of Sen. Obama, I have been amazed that these women weren't supporting Sen. Clinton. There policy positions are so close, wouldn't the draw of a women in the highest office swing your support that way it did mine?

I was pondering this today and realized that in general these friends/acquaintances were in fields that have women role models. They have worked for female bosses. Their organizations are/have been led by women. They do not see sexism in their work place (in general).

I realized that I support Sen. Clinton with almost a blind loyalty because I yearn for a female role model. My career goals in science, policy, or academia have not been inspired by existing female role models. There were TWO female professor in Mat Sci at NU. Was there any at GT? I don't remember any. There are two (i believe) at UC in PP. This is even more unbelievable to me since their student body is more than half female! I have experienced men who don't now how to deal with a smart female, much less a smart female scientist.

I must admit that the lack of female leaders does make me wonder about my own path of balancing child(ren) and career. It is seems hard since so few women seem to do it... (Not that this would detour me, but it just shows how I do yearn for a female leader.)

Posted by christina at 2:59 PM | Comments (0)

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April 22, 2008

show me where the sun comes through the sky

Happy Earth Day!

I was reading the Times Magazine and saw this:
"quarter of all car trips are now shorter than a mile"

I am really surprised. Not because people drive everywhere, but that people live the close to things. I picture most of the country in suburbs where grocery stores and work places are far away.

I do not judge, as when it is cold, I drive. But now that it warm (praise jesus), I try to walk to a lot more places. Sunday Ben, Aiden, and I walked over to Whole Food to do our grocery shopping. Yesterday, I walked with Aiden to the Jewel to complete the shopping. During both of these trips the sidewalks were busy because of cubs game.

NOT A FAN OF CUBS FANS. They are drunk and/or stupid.

I am a BIG FAN of my chicken salad. And walking.

NOT A FAN of the construction.
FAN of my alderman's office, who a wrote about fencing issues and shaking of my building issues. They wrote back like they cared. And, the fencing issues have gotten better, though not resolved. They have quit taking up the entire sidewalk with their fence, but their fence is on our property. AND when the front loader came today it did not shake our building as it went by. They are either driving slower or brought a smaller front loader.

I just updated MT as the buttons were working to upload pics here in firefox's newest update. They work now and i am a much bigger fan of the new entry screen. It isn't a pain to enter categories anymore! Big fan.

NOT A FAN of the car alarm going off. I am SURE it belongs to someone at the game, since it started going off just after the game started.

Posted by christina at 3:49 PM | Comments (0)

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April 14, 2008

somewhere a clock is ticking

i had a class last spring in which we read about and debated universal health care. Most people were for it, but we had a couple of people against it. No matter your position, you could be called on to argue for a specific side.

On the surface, I could understand the argument that people don't want to "pay" for the "laziness" of other. For example, why should I pay for your heart disease if you choose to eat a lot of donuts and never exercise when I eat healthy and exercise?

But as is illustrated in this times article, the treatments that cost far and away the majority of money are diseases that have nothing to do with people's habits and everything to do with their bad luck. As I argued in class on day, if I was to get sick, I would want to be taken care of without care of cost, therefore I am willing to pay for other people to be taken care of without care of cost.

See the fair argument swings both ways.

I hope we see universal care within my lifetime.
I pray we see universal care within my lifetime.

But until then, my only piece of advice when picking a health insurance plan is to make sure that there is an out of pocket cap. This is the most imporant thing, imo. It is more important than co-pays or percentages. If something was to happen, percentages can get huge quickly, so you always want an out of pocket cap. The story I always like to cite is a friend of a friend who had to get some treatments for an illness. His health insurance paid something like 90%, but each treatment cost $40,000. Ten percent meant $4,000 for each treatment! He did not have an out of pocket max, and therefore ended up owing a lot of money.

Posted by christina at 7:18 AM | Comments (0)

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February 17, 2008

never, never

Now that i am firmly entrenched in this motherhood, I have come to realize the people are judgmental when they are insecure in their decisions. I think this is true in general, but I can only for sure say that I am judgmental when I insecure in my decisions.

Last week i broke my golden rule of "if i don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all" re: people's decisions.

it seems that i hurt someone's feelings. i do not know this person. at the time i didn't realize how harsh i was. i guess i am hardened by reviewers comments. I guess i felt that i was trying to make this person better in some way. but in doing so i feel worse than i have felt about anything in recent memory.

it is strange, my reaction. I apologized. that is all i can do. it isn't like i did anything really that bad. the scale of my apology was proportional to the e-mail response i received, but probably not to the crime. in fact, ben commented that he hopes he would get an apology of that caliber at some point during our marriage.

ha.ha.

in this case, i recognize right off that i was in the wrong, not in what i wrote, but in the fact that there was no need for what i wrote. i should have kept my fingers shut. i had not right to be so defensive to this person.

i think i feel so bad because i was caught by surprise about how personally the recipient took my e-mail. i know that i didn't think my e-mail was that harsh. I know that it isn't how i mean things that matters as how they are received. i also feel bad because there was no reason in the whole world for me to write that e-mail. i know it was because i was fired up and directed it toward an innocent party.

the weird thing about it is it is fairly out of character. i get fired up about stuff, but usually don't go out of my way to direct it at a specific party.

i also don't really care about what other people do/say. I am not sure what prompted me this day to lash out. I know the context was that i am so tired of feeling judged. The nurse at the dr.'s office had just judged my decision to start aiden off on avocado instead of rice cereal. I feel like everyone thinks you should "cry-it-out" and if you aren't you aren't teaching your baby to "sooth himself". If you co-sleep your kid is never going to leave your bed! The baby food book was like MEAT IS EVIL! I am really really tired of the media (society) trying to make overweight people feel guilty. It is diet soda - don't drink it! it will make you fat! if you are fat you are going to die! you are lazy! you are ugly! if you are pregnant and drink coffee, soda, eat deli meat, raw eggs...your baby is going to die! or be born with horns!

and i read too much of the internet.

and this is why i am so annoyed at myself. really. i need to stop reading so much of the internet. i have a stack of books i want to read. i should be reading printed words. i have policy stuff to read. i have science stuff to read. i have good fiction to read. i default to the internet because it is easy and quick. but no more. i'm going to unsubscrube from all the random blogs I read (including the one that caused this existential crisis). I'll keep up with my friends, and the friends of friends. But the random people? A couple I will keep. One just had a new baby and write good long funny posts. I'll keep all my women in science blogs. But the random shit. Gone. In the end, this was good. This was what I needed. A symptom that makes me realize that I need to put down the internet. Live in the printed world of editors and reviewers.

This will be a good cleanse for my internet soul. It was due. i needed something to jar me lose from the internet back into the world of the living. I'll return to my bases - this blog is for my friends at al. and so i'll rant and rave but i'll stay focused on real life things for those real life people.

Posted by christina at 8:56 PM | Comments (0)

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July 27, 2007

radiation vibe

i hate how some people use statistics. okay. most people.

last night the instructor of pregnancy and beyond class cited a statistic that you are more likely to have a c-section when you are induced. OF COURSE you are more likely to have a c-section if you are induced. most doctors won't induce unless the baby is big, you are past your due date, or you have some other complication. All of these alone increase the likelihood that you will need a c-section so of course you are more likely to have a c-section if you are induced. the stat was presented as a reason why you shouldn't induce for convenience. of course, i totally want to induce for convenience. : )

anyways, people should NEVER believe any stat they are told unless they have read the study and have analyzed it for crap like this.

this is what i have learned from policy school. be skeptical.

Posted by christina at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)

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July 17, 2007

finer feelings

In my policy persuasions course, we talked about the difference between something being moral and something being right (or in line with the law or rules). Moral will always trump right in the court of public opinion. For example, it may be against the law to for gays to marry, but it is morally right to let two people who love each other wed. or it may be right to refuse treatment to someone because they can't pay, but is it moral? or it may be against the law to give a sick person weed, but it is moral if it helps them eat and live?

I find myself in one of those areas where I am definitely right, but the other side might trump mine with morality. Of course this is a story about the family downstairs whose mom has stage 4 breast cancer. she's had it for 19 months. she is stable, but of course, like elizabeth edwards, it is chronic. I have mentioned my problems with their stroller that still takes up the whole entry way among other things.

So i've given up on the stroller. It is just going to be there. I'd decided to quit worrying about it as we would just deal with the situtation in sept. I've basically tried to quit caring that the family leaves their crap alllllll over the entryway. until today. i was walking in with the dog and the groceries and tripped over a pair of small clogs that were right in the walk way between the door and the stairs (not over the the side with the rest of their crap). We have put up with the stroller, the red wagon, some type of bike push thing in the entry and in front of their door making it hard to get past. but as i (thankfully) caught myself, i got angry. At 32 weeks, i very prone to falling and falling is BAD. It can cause preterm labor which is very very bad. At this point the mess has ceased to be annoying and become dangerous to me and to sack.

so i e-mail them. here's what i wrote:

Hello -

Please make sure that shoes are not left in the entry way. I just tripped and almost fell over a small pair of clogs as I was bringing in groceries. The shoes are right in front on the stairs between the door and staircase, in a vary dangerous unexpected place even for non-pregnant people with their hands full.

Thanks,
Christina

Here's what i got back:

Hi

I'm sure _______ and the Kids didn't leave them there
intentionally...

As you'll soon find out...it isn't very easy bringing kids in and out of
strollers...condo's, etc..with your hands full

And once you've been doing chemo for 19 months along with having 2
kids...you sometimes get something called "Chemo Brain."

http://www.breastcancer.org/chemo_cognitive.html

That means that you get very forgetful...

So I would ask for your patience if you see something out of
place...again it's not done intentionally...

We'll be more careful and make sure we clean up after ourselves...

this was followed with another e-mail about how the wife is sick and how we should be more patient and blah blah blah.

it is such an irrational response that it hard to really take it seriously. did i say it was intentional? was i mad? was I aggressive? no. i just simply asked for you not leave shoes in the entry way as people can trip. is this unreasonable? am is just being a stickler for the bylaws (as his second e-mail said)? (I'm not posting the second e-mail, but suffice it to say it was all about how his wife isn't going to be able to see her kids grow up and how we should have patience and blah blah blah.)

The simple answer to my questions are no. thankfully, my excellent husband (who the dude cc on the e-mails back to me) stepped up and explained that the only reason i e-mailed was because i had a legitimate health concern.

the strangest part is how defensive the dude has been. and how his response wasn't, sure, we'll try hard in make sure that stuff is not in the path. it is strange how he really tried to make me feel unreasonable and bad about the situation.

unfortunately the first part unfolded right before i went for my awesome prenatal message (expensive, but sooooo excellent). as I laid there relaxing and trying to come to some conclusion to get it out of my head, i remembered that i really don't care what these people think of me. i don't think i am being unreasonable and I am not going to not say something when their actions endanger my well being. this isn't a who is "sicker" competition. this isn't even a who is right situation or moral.

i said to ben earlier that i really feel like there are two camps of people - considerate ones and inconsiderate ones. Both get sick. both have bad things happen to them. as "they" say - it is how you respond to life. considerate people are still considerate when sick. inconsiderate ones use sickness as an excuse. I've had a bad medical thing happen to me. and even as i laid in the icu not knowing wether i was going to live or walk i still care that i was inconveniencing all these people. that is just who i am. it was a choice. a choice to still say please and thank you and to not guilt those around you that did not have a broken neck.

unfortunately my shoe e-mail (about safety) may have ruined the opportunity to talk about the stroller in a month (about convenience). but so it goes. i'm not going to endanger the health of my child so that their children can leave their crap everywhere. nor am i going to feel guilty for doing so.

not only do i have the right to say something, i have a responsibility to say something for my own health. if i had not said something and then ended up tripping and falling and something bad happened, that would be a much worse situation then not getting along with our downstairs neighbors.

Posted by christina at 4:00 PM | Comments (3)

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May 23, 2007

the house wins

my bag.

the puppy ruined her first shoe today. my fault for letting her be unsupervised with access to the shoe room (our second room). it was my wedding shoes, down since court's wedding. oh well. they only were like $30 and i had worn them twice and couldn't think of when i would wear them again. it is hard to stay mad at the puppy.

the sack of organ has gathered quite amount of strength since Monday. it is like he knew he hit the 24 wk (6 mo) mark on that day and he was ready to be heard. well, felt. i might have to rename him sack of organs and kicks. he is also residing on the right side of my body, giving me (what i think) is a lopsided tummy. of course, ben says he can't see it, but I CAN. i definitely look pregnant now. people are trying to give me their seats on the el. i don't take them, of course. i don't know why. mostly b/c i don't need to yet. i am sure some day i'll take them up on the offer. I've also had by FAR the most growth this month. i guess when you don't grow that much for the first 5 mos, at some pt it does catch up with you.

The crazy neighbor pissed me off again this week. We had rachel and her friend jenny stay here for a couple of nights last week. They were down with pepper one day and the neighbor was out and gave jenny a 5 min lecture on why she should close our front gate. First, if neighbor has a problem with one of my guests, she needs to say something to me, not to the guest. Second, NO ONE, not even her, closes the gate consistently. I do most of the time, ben sometimes. but it is always open. and it isn't a big deal as it is decoration anyways. neighbor's "reason" was that it keeps the dogs and kids in. Okay, if you have let your kids run out your front door and then the front door to the building and still don't have control over then when the reach the sidewalk, then you need to get control of your children. The irony of this is that last fall i was down talking with her one day and she let her kids run back and forth across the alleyway without paying attention to them or making them stop and make sure no one was coming down the alley. i was sure i was going to watch one of them get run over that day as people aren't that careful coming out of the alley and even if they were, they probably won't see a three foot high child. but i didn't say anything b/c it isn't my place. as she should be lecturing MY guests in general, much less about something stupid.

Posted by christina at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)

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March 11, 2007

crazy crazy

i really should be studying from my econ final, but instead i am totally distracted by crazy people.

I have found in my old age, especially since i came down with the baby, that i really don't care what random people think of me. that has been a nice perk. i also really don't care what other people do, except when they live in my building. i love our condo building and we all get along quite well. Problems arise in condo building when you have a someone or two that aren't that busy. and one of them is sick. which i am sure makes her crazy.

she wrote a long rambling e-mail this morning about how she should get to keep her double stroller in our small common area b/c she buzzes the fedex and ups people in. despite the by-laws specifically prohibiting strollers being left in the common area, everyone has put up with the double stroller b/c she has cancer and can't get the stroller up and down the 5 stairs everyday. perfectly understandable.

now, i admit, i get annoyed by the stroller. it takes up a lot of the entry way. but because i understand the cancer thing, i've just let it go. at the last condo "board" meeting, her husband asked if he could clean out the storage closet that is right there to put the stroller in. i said that would be a great idea b/c technically the stroller isn't suppose to be in the common area. i only knew this because i had just read the by-laws to see how much the condo association was suppose to pay for a pipe problem in their apartment. i was just supporting his idea. i wasn't complaining, but some how the whole building gets a long rambling e-mail about how the previous tenants said they kept their stroller in the common area and no one care (first, they did not keep the stroller out there, and second, the building is full of totally different people). and how she does all these things like picks up advertisements and papers from in front of the building. and how she buzzes the package people in. because "this is the neighborly thing to do". sigh. the thing is that everyone does this. ups and fedex buzzes all the apartments when the person they want isn't home. i've let lots of packages in, including hers.

i know she is sick and so i vent here. i did write her back and tell her why i said something. i was nice and sweet, even though i just wanted to be rational with her. but i guess nice and sweet is the rational choice here. you can't be rational with crazy people.

Posted by christina at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)

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January 17, 2007

We could float among the stars together

one of the more interesting things i've read lately on people and jails

I am so tired today. It was the worst trying to get out of bed this morning. I am sure this is due to the fact that the dog's snoring and ben in the middle of the bed drove me to the couch. I could have made them both move - out of my side and to their other side to stop the snoring, but at 1 am, it seemed to make more sense to just relocate.

I think the bitter cold, which has finally arrived, is also making me tired.

The kitty, puppy, and I spent the afternoon on the couch. They napping, me reading my political institutions. Today's topic is minority representation. I'm pretty much convinced that our voting system where each person gets one vote in a single winner district and the majority winner wins sucks. It seems to me that cumulative voting is much better. This is where you get as many votes as seats say for your state and therefore you can self-segergate according to interest groups to get some sort of representation. The majority winner system usually provides the minority with little representation. And since I've been feeling especially unrepresentated lately as a women, I'm all for it.

Every story I read that lists why people don't like Hillary Clinton just pisses me off more and more. The traits that people list of why they don't like her are traits people love in men. This is not true just for her, but for ALL women in the country. Men and women just don't like strong, forceful women, but a strong, forceful man, people swoon over. Girls are socialized to please authority and boys. Boys are socialized to please other boys. Men and women expect women to be sweet and soft spoken.

Women are not elected in this country. From the times:
"Evaluations of men and women running for House seats in 2006 have turned up disturbing numbers. In the 42 top-tier ''Red-to-Blue'' races selected by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for intensive financing and support, 25 of the candidates were male and 17 were female. In those contests, male candidates batted .800: 20 victories to five defeats. The women faced higher barriers: three won and 14 lost, batting .176."

Posted by christina at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)

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September 25, 2006

becuase you're mine i walk the line

I am so angry now about the calc exam. I finally got it back. My main issue with the exam (before i even saw the exam) was that in the getting started information that the school sent us they said:

"Part one of the exam covers college algebra, including topics such as factoring, solving single
equations and systems of equations, sequences and summations, and logarithmic and
exponential functions. Part two of the exam covers univariate calculus, including calculus with
functions of a single variable, limits, unconstrained maximization and indefinite integrals."

23% of the calc exam covered multi-variable calculus. This was the last problem. I know how to do implicit differentiation (which i did correctly on the exam), but the problem wanted critical points, etc, which is just a formula, which i didn't know (not just setting it equal to zero). I did not review this materials due to the above statement.

Even including that problem, i was 4 pts away from passing. The other pts that I got counted off were really picky stuff and at least 4 of them I totally disagree with them taking off. I hated being picky about grading (i hated undergrads who were picky about grading), but at least 4 pts were because i did not regurgitate a definition he had told the OPTIONAL review course. I knew the answer and concept. I point blankly asked the lecturer if my exam showed that i have an understanding of calculus, he said yes. To which I said why isn't this passing. He didn't have a good answer.

If you throw out the last question (which should be done), I got a 77% on the exam, 7% above passing. (I was told wrong that the passing grade was 60%.)

The lecturer told me that I was to take it up with the dean of students.

I am not that angry that I failed. I'll retake the damn test. I certainly don't care. I'll memorize the stupid equation and retake the test. But it isn't fair to anyone who didn't go to the OPTIONAL math camp. The expectations were laid out and then we were tested on something different. This is an exercise in advocacy, which is one of my weakness. I dislike confrontation, so I have a tendency to shy away from confrontational situations in which I have every reason to advocate for myself. This is good.

Posted by christina at 5:43 PM | Comments (2)

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May 26, 2006

baby, i've got to catch a plane / leave without a trace

This is seriously how I feel about my research today – that it is slowness that eventually hits as wall.

Yesterday’s comments on women with child got me thinking about working and having children. The May Oprah magazine I found on a plane has an extensive story on mothers – including working mothers. It seems that people without children (or young children) don’t understand those (especially women) with young children. People complain about mothers not working late. This was a topic conversation years a go on the group blog. A girl who works in a process control engineering position complained on the blog about her co-worker who left at “quitting time” for her kids. The grumbler, I believe, is pregnant now. I wonder how her opinion has changed or will change.

People in the story also complained about people leaving for family stuff. I believe in flextime, at least for people like me. I am goal orientation, motivated, and self-disciplined. Most people, I have found in my small experience, are not like this. In my narrow experience, there seem to be people who need a “boss” breathing down their neck, setting deadlines, and requiring them to show up for work. I’ve been irritated by these people in my life, so I can identify with those people who complain about flextimers if the flextimers don’t do their work. It is a juggling act. I do not fear that I won’t be able to handle it, but fear having to deal with those that do.

Posted by christina at 4:31 PM | Comments (1)

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May 17, 2006

hurry up sky

I have ben motivationally challenged lately. I believe it is partly because I haven’t been sleeping well. Partly my machines are getting on my nerves. Partly because I’m stressed. I’ve back to the “thank izzy that I’m getting out of research” square.

I added a counter to the side of the blog. I like to watch the number decrease. In theory, it should motivate me. The number is quite large now, so it is hard to be motivated.

Ben and I seriously talking about a dog. It is more a timing issue now – I want to make sure we are in town constantly through the training period. Therefore this might be after our trip to Lake Geneva in October. I have a hard time being patient on days in which I see a puppy (this morning I saw a lab puppy) or a boston terrier (Saturday, ben and I saw one when we were out at dinner).

Patience. I have need for this trait in spades as I just hold my breathe and wait out this presidential administration. In a vacuum of leadership, isn’t a leader suppose to appear? McCain is catering to the religious right (speck at Jerry Farwell’s U). Where are our democratic leaders? The American public is finally opening their eyes to the Bush train wreck (low low low poll numbers). I worry that the republicans will remain in power on the god-appointed-me/anti-gays/anti-marriage platform.

Worrying makes patience hard.

I feel so powerless.

I know that I am marching down a career line, which will enable me to make a change…make a difference…in science, in policy, in life.

When I feel like I am helping maybe patience won’t be so hard.

Posted by christina at 4:07 PM | Comments (1)

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April 25, 2006

different names for the same things

Winter came back. Hopefully the cold will not damage project sod.

I’ve had a rental car since last Monday as my car has been in the shop getting repainted from when that lady clipped me in the parking lot. I have been annoyed that it has taken so long. I feel like they are not taking the most efficient route (totally replacing the body panels). It has taken them longer to repair less damage than when the bus hit me.

Sigh.

I hate driving rentals. The current intensity comes from driving one last summer right after the bus incident. Someone caught the edge of the back bumper while it was parked. After some freaking out as I didn’t want to report another thing to my insurance company, we got all the paint off. Good as new.

The incident made me swear I would from then on I buy the optional body insurance with the rental car. It is $10/day for my peace of mind. It is totally worth it. Where I park, obviously, it quite messy. People clipping cars is not rare. And from the incident of people running into the back of me (and into me in general), I worry. Rental companies don’t blow off those little nicks and bumps like people do.

The worst thing about the car is the placement of the pedals. The brake is on another plane then the gas. It take a lot of movement to go between. This movement is killing my SI joint. Stupid car.

But my car is ready, yay! I’m off soon to retrieve it.

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April 13, 2006

gotta dance till your diva is through

Pete and Ben from last June. Ben with long hair (it is now shorter). Peter with short hair (it is now long).

In my running podcast this morning was an interview from Fresh Air. Michael Pollan talked about where food comes from. The part I’ve heard so far was on corn production in this country. Corn has become very cheap. Like gas, the true cost is not included in the price of purchase.

Corn has become very cheap because the yield per acre has risen drastically. This rise is due to technology. Fertilizers are the main reason. Farmers over fertilize their fields; the fertilizer runs off in the spring rains to the rivers. The nitrates kill fish. The nitrates end up in drinking water and can cause blue baby syndrome where the nitrites prevent babies from getting enough oxygen.

The environmental cost (of health and clean-up) is the cost that is not reflected in the cost of corn (or other industrial farm products). The environmental and national security cost of gas is not reflected at the pump. The cost of cheap help (at the fast food place, as janitors, as gardeners) is not reflected in how much we pay at the restaurant or in wages. The hidden cost of their lack of health insurance leads them to use the ER, which is high cost. They can’t pay for it, so the debt is written off. Our fees to use hospitals is subsidizing this bad debt. If people are given health insurance, they could use cheaper care at doctor’s offices.

Hidden costs.

People in the policy arena like to take the easy way out. It is easier to say – you should work so you can get your own health insurance – than to fully understand the situation. Providing all people health insurance is good for everyone. I believe that companies (and hence the republicans) are going to push nationalized health care. According to the story I heard on the Mass. plan, it was business leaders that pushed for the health insurance reform. It is not a partisan issues, it is a national issue. Hidden costs are what pushed it over the edge.

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April 6, 2006

with eight seconds left in overtime / she's on your mind

Chipper and I.

Sometimes I get all offended by people who rail against affirmative action. I am not for affirmative action – I firmly believe that the best person for the job should get the job. I am offended by the lack of acknowledgement in the speech. I want people to acknowledge that women and minorties still lag behind in surprising ways (see Becca’s link to the sciguy).

Acknowledgement.

I want people to say, yes, we have very few women and minorities in high positions (especially ellected) in the government, and this is a problem. By acknowleding the problem, I would hope we could continue on to the future. One burden, I believe, to women’s advancment is the lack of flexible hours and on-site child care. Unlike affirmative action, which penalizes those in the majority, providing support to women for their children does not penalize anyone. Instead of getting caught up in the debate over affirmative action, why does we focus on helping women and minorites in other parts of their lifes?

People (political parties) get fixated on who is right, they do not focus on what can really help.

For example, the immigration bill that passed the house is really harsh. It is focused on telling immigrants – you are wrong. The bill is not going to actually help people. I’m not sure what could really help. It is a complex issue. Turning a large percentage of this country’s population into felons is not helping.

“Pro-lifers” are focused on you are wrong, instead of helping. If people were really anti-abortion, would it not make the most sense to prevent girls from becoming pregnant in the first place? Most “pro-lifers” are against contrecption being taught or handed out in school. Helping is teaching about condoms, protesting outside a clinic is telling someone they are wrong.

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March 22, 2006

I'm coasting on potential towards a wall at a hundred miles an hour

I am truly convinced that my car has a big sign on it that says hit me.

Since I’ve moved in with Ben, it has been hit (hard or taped) 4 times. FOUR TIMES. This is four times as many times as before. I think this relationship is bad for my car. Seriously.

Yesterday I was rushing to leave. Ben and I had dinner plans with Ben and Julie who are moving to New York this weekend. I got to my car with barely enough time to get home and change. As I got close, I saw a piece of paper in my door. I hoped that it was an advertisement, but it was exactly what I had suspected. Someone had swiped my car during the day. Thankfully, the person reported it to the police, which was the business card in my door. I gave the number a call. They drove the motorist report over to me. I’m thankful the women reported it. I was annoyed that they didn’t fill out the incident report. No where on the paper says what happened. I went by the police office to get a copy (as the sheet of paper said to), and they refused to give it to me. Very scetckty. They said they would release it to my insurance company if the insurance company requests it in writing with a $5 check. Sooooo shady. It is also shady that they did not call me. What is the point of registering my car on campus if they are not going to call me when something happens?

The most interesting thing about the accident sheet is that she had to get her car towed. My car is scratch and the bumper is bent, but not bad enough that the other car would have had to be towed.

After talking to my insurance company, they told me to first follow up with the other person’s insurance company. I called the women. She was quite apologetic. I was nice and said these things happen and commented on her having to be towed. She said, yeah, I tore the bumper enough that it was dragging on the ground. This just reinforces the question of why did she keep going? The back half of my car is scratched pretty good. It seems that on first contact you should stop (hence the only damage would be to the back door). She kept going enough to catch her bumper on mine and went until her bumper was hanging off. I’m not sure how they are going to fix my bumper. The door and fender will at least have to be repainted (plastic doesn’t dent). The bumper though is bent out a bit from the car. Annoyance, but life happens.

I am way more annoyed that I lost a sample today in the XPS chamber. The machine is incredible easy to mess up. I was happy that I had gotten that far without messing up, and BOOM there went the sample. This machine is badly designed for many reason.

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March 3, 2006

and from the first, to the last time, the signs / said stop / but we went on whole-hearted

Swimsuit issue issue.

I never considered myself a feminist. (Though, how could I not be? Feminism is defined as the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.) As it is well known, my undergraduate school was 75% male. I choose a field (engineering) that was predominately male. Since entering college, I’ve thrived in a male heavy world. During college, I was quite against anything that defined me as different, for example – society of women engineers. I believe strongly that everyone was the same. This was in an atmosphere in which (1) everything academics-wise was defined. Expectations were clear and feedback was structured and immediate. And (2) where females were rare and so you were prized for being female, not necessarily for your abilities (this, by the way, is where I think we are in the females in historically male job environments, but that is another post).

I got to graduate school. Expectations were not so clearly defined. I struggled with that as did my close girl friend. I started to see that women were different and that different is not bad (as I’d previously believed). I’ll never say women should be given an advantage, but I’ll definitely say that women (in general) need a different sort of support system that is in place now.

Along the way, I found myself getting really annoyed with how people (society in general) treated women. There are very very few women in the Senate. We’ve yet to even have a women seriously run for president. Reality shows feature women as beauties and men as brains. I found myself being offended when women are objectified under the guise of something else (entertainment, etc.).

On Sunday (Monday?), I flipped open the Sport Illustrated Swimsuit issue. I’ve, of course, heard about it all my life, but really never looked at it. I was shocked when it showed up with women who were only in swimsuit bottoms on the cover (hands carefully covering their breasts). I flipped through to find page after page of women – usually in just binki bottoms. There are women just covered in paint. I would take no pause if I was looking at a magazine that people buy to see these images, but I was looking at sports illustrated, a magazine for sports. There was little to no sport anything in those page. Why are the pages of a sport magazine filled with mostly naked women who are neither playing sports nor have played sports?

It offends me, this objectification of women.

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February 15, 2006

what's my age again

chris with the deer head he proudly displays on top of his piano.

Well, well, it turns out that I was right. I do have a kidney infection. Well, to be exact, I was more convinced I didn’t have a UTI. I was right. I saw my awesome doctor yesterday. She scoffed at the ER doctor’s analysis. She poked around and got at my right kidney from under my rib, which did hurt more than the left, so alas, kidney infection for me. It totally explains why I still had no appetite (despite on day 3 of antibiotics, uti symptoms usually clear up with the first dose). I also was still really out of it. I couldn’t focus on anything and kept forgetting things.

I feel a lot better today. I had my first good workout. Due to the illness, I’ve confined myself to the elliptical machine and did lower intensity workouts for Monday and Tuesday. I’m still ellipticaling, but today was a heck of a lot better. And per Dr. Jenny (physical therapist), I’m all about the stretching of my upper legs to stop my SI pain. I feel a lot better also – able to focus, etc.

Speaking of health care, I am horrified by this article in the Times about how much companies charge for cancer treatments. I understand how much money goes into research and how the company wants to recover that cost. This makes a good case for governments to pay for research. The cost for developing health care advances should be shared by everyone, not just the people unlucky enough to go cancer.

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February 12, 2006

but what you've done here / is put yourself between a bullet and a target

kentie, the model

Since getting back, I had two busy days at work and then woke up Friday morning nauseous. I thought it would pass with my run. I managed the 5 miles, but it was a combo of running and walking and thinking I was going to hurl. I got back home and after much effort and resting went to school for a meeting. It was all I could manage. I had a temp before I left, I was afraid it was the flu and didn’t want to spread my germs. Plus I felt so horrible. I have to feel really bad to not go to work. This was porch boy’s first clue something was really wrong. I went to my meeting and came home to be sick all afternoon. My temp rose and I couldn’t keep anything down. About 4, just late enough to not make it back up to Evanston before the health center close, it dawned on me that I might have a kidney infection. My SI joints have been hurting really bad lately. The pain comes and goes. I just assumed that I had hurt my back. The pain had certainly gotten worse during Friday. As I contemplated the misfortune of my back pain and my stomach flu, I decided to call the on call doc who said it could be a kidney infection and that I should go to the ER, not even wait until the morning for the health center to open.

So porch boy and I spent our evening at the lovely er down that street. It was funny. I don’t have a kidney infection, but just a UTI, which just didn’t present this time with the normal symptoms. I was dehydrated (because I couldn’t keep anything down), so they gave me an iv (uck).

Saturday I felt better. I was (and am) not happy with having to stay on the couch all day for my SI joint. I want it to get better so I am staying (somewhat) put. Fever is gone, so I guess the dr. was right and it was an infection.

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January 30, 2006

when i was down on the road / with the wind when it blowed

When I went to Japan, I was replacing a guy who could not go. He did not tell me why he could not go when he asked me if I wanted to go. I just knew he could not go any more.

On the trip, I discovered the reason. He was to be on Beauty and the Geek (a reality tv show). It might have been taping during the time when he was to be in Japan, and therefore pulled out of the Japan trip. I found it quite amusing that he declined a chance to go to Japan to be on Beauty and the Geek.

I did not really think about it again until it premiered a couple weeks ago. Due to the Chicago representation, it got some press. He was given the first two episodes as promotional tools. He happened to be scheduled to present during our weekly seminar on the day of the second episode. He elected to show, after a shorter than normal presentation, the first episode.

I left.

More because it was a waste of my time. I have a million things to do, and not enough time, and would rather be getting my stuff done then watching anything.

The more I thought about it, though, the more upset I became as I watch his research presentation. I looked around at the make-up of the room. Three were two other women in a room of 30. The more I thought about the show, the more uncomfortable I felt. How was it acceptable to show a TV show that objectifies women? The whole show concept is demoralizing to women. The women are selected for their beauty; the men for the brains. It saddens me that we still live in a society that reinforces this stereotype. It is demonstrative that we feel like it is an acceptable thing to reinforce this stereotype in an environment that is historically unwelcoming to women. Do the students and the professors at this meeting (my advisor was not in attendance) feel this way about women? That they are valued for their beauty over brains? Do they feel like this is an acceptable way to view women?

I’ve never been that big on “political correctness”. I’ve never found myself in this uncomfortable position until this point. I didn’t not care enough to speak up. I just left.

I have to be honest and say, yes, that message made me feel like I am "less than" because I am not a “beauty” (beauty being defined and small wasted large chested women, which are the kind of women I saw in the commercials for the show). On this show, these women are valued for their beauty, not their brains. This was a show being shown in my workplace. In the workplace, especially a science and engineering ph.d program, I should feel that women are valued for their work, not valued for their beauty. I did not feel this way. This is why we have rules. You might not understand them. Heck, even I make fun of them, but there are there for a reason – to prevent this.

I presented this past week. I did a great job. I do great work, especially compared to other people in the program. I know that I am valuable, as everyone in in their own way, even those girls on tv. Here, though, everyone should feel valued for their work, not unvalued for their unbeauty.

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January 25, 2006

eight miles high and falling fast

I pretty much watched the west wing since the first second, therefore am a tad bittersweet with its ending. I have to admit that I am not surprised. The storyline have gotten more and more out there. I have enjoyed Jimmy Smit’s character and plotline this season. I am happy, in a way, to see it go, as it had been starting to annoy me with its random plot lines. For example, this past week was a nuclear reactor incident. I’m just going to say that a pipe that normally carries hot water is not going to crack if it is used to carry cold water (which was the reason why they had to send the second team in). Pipes crack in cold weather due to water expansion due to freezing (one of the only (if not the only) material that expands upon freezing). They would not crack if water was flowing through them, stupid tv writers. This, of course, is why if it is really really cold outside and your pipes are not insulated correctly, you should leave the water running a little – to prevent freezing of the water.

The nuclear energy topic brought up in the show, is most interesting to me. I am pro-nuclear power. I think it is a clean way to produce energy. Way more people die in oil rig accidents, refinery accidents, and coal mines, and from asthma and lung disease from air pollution, than who die in the generation of nuclear power. Yes, there are long-term issues with the storage of nuclear waste. There are also long term issues with the air pollution causing global warming and mercury contamination of fish, and with the environmental destruction caused by removing oil and coal from the ground. Solar cells are really dirty to make (I’ve read somewhere it take 50 years to recoup the energy – both in power and raw materials – used in the manufacturing of solar cells).

Of course, I am for reducing our energy consumption as our top priority. It is what my research revolves around. I am not specifically for nuclear power. I would like to see alternative energies flourish. I am for a logical acceptance of risk. People assume the risk of coal and oil production every time they breathe in. They have always known this risk. Nuclear power is the scary, unknown risk. Nuclear power is safe. We have not had an incident in a long time. Of course, the question people always ask to people who support nuclear energy is would you raise your kids by a power plant. Yes. I would. People get way more radiation from the sun (especially if they tan) or naturally occurring radon from the ground than from a well run nuclear plant. Of course, there needs to be safety inspections. The government needs to support existing regulations. As illustrated by the mining disasters, regulations exist, but they must enforced with teeth. If an accident happens, well, accident happens. It is WAY more dangerous to get into a car than to live by a nuclear power plant.

Nuclear energy can be safer and cleaner than coal and oil. Research into long term fuel storage must be supported to enhance the long term safety fuel storage. People need to learn about risks. We are killing ourselves with CO2, obesity, and cars quicker than anyone is willing to admit.

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January 12, 2006

say you would, say you could / say you'd come and stop the rain

This morning, I was having a nice drive to work, enjoying the rare sunshine and blue skies. Traffic was light. I'm driving up a street at the speed limit of 30 (actually i was going 32, but shhh don’t tell anyone) in Evanston. There is really no other traffic around except for the women riding my tail. I ignore her as I put my cruise control on. I get to a light where you can only turn right (that how the street goes). It is red. I stop, then move up a little to see around the parked cars to see if I can turn right on red. I see that I cannot as a car is coming, so I stop and tailer chick runs right into the back of me. I am so annoyed. I make her follow me around the corner, where we exchange information - name, phone, and license plate #. There is no damage, so I don't call the police. I just tell her that (1) she doesn't need to tail people at all, much less people going the speed limit and (2) that she needs to watch. The light was RED.

And of course, I'm stressing out over the event - i.e. should I have called the police? (No, cuz the damage would be under $500 and there was no contesting whose fault it was.) Though, according to the back of my insurance card, I did the right thing...except that I am not going to call them. There is no damage, my trunk is fine. I feel like I get much worse bumps from people paralleling around me on the street. Some day, I remind myself, living in this crazy town, some is going to hit me hard enough and I'm going to have to get it replaced.

This is after Tuesday morning in which two exceptionally crazy drivers freaked me out. One passed me on a double yellow curve. It was stupid. People do insane stuff like that all the time. I just let them be, until they hit me. Where are these people in such a hurry to? Don’t they understand that in general speeding is going to save you like 2 minutes – which is way less that you are going to spend with the police officer. I am less afraid of getting a ticket and way more afraid of hitting a pedestrian or a biker. There are a lot of bodies on the streets of Chicago. I follow speed limits and traffic laws in hopes of not hurting on of these people. I would feel horrible if I hurt someone and it was their fault. It think it was destroy me to hurt someone and it be my fault.

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January 10, 2006

like it was written in my soul from me to you / tangled up in blue

The Supreme Court confirmation hearings have taken over NPR. I heard the very beginning of them as I got ready this morning. Of course, the first discussion point was abortion and precedent. I wonder how different the debate would be if men were the ones who got pregnant. I also think it would be a different debate if women were not discriminated against when they get pregnant in the workplace. Getting pregnant really does mess up a women's immediate plans, as it does not have to have the same disruption in a man's plans.

Anyone who doesn't think that this is a bias against women (and minorities) just needs to look at the make-up of congress, of the supreme court.

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January 9, 2006

what you got in the box / only Gracie knows

During my morning jogs, I think about pretty much everything to take my mind off the fact that I am running. At least once a month, I ponder how fitness and good health is a privilege of the well off. I use to think of it weekly, when I ran in my old neighborhood. I would pass women on their way to work that appeared to not be in good health. I knew though that they were poor and probably single moms who couldn't afford to even put fresh veggies on the table, much less find time to exercise for 30 mins a day.

This morning I pondered how skinny meredith grey is in grey’s anatomy and how toned I would be if it was my job. It is interesting to me how preferred body shape has changed over history. Of course, hundreds of years ago, a plump figure showed that you had enough to eat and did not have to work in the fields. This was, of course, the preferred way of life. Now, it seems at least from the media, that super skinning is preferred. I would bet that the actress that plays Meredith is technically underweight. The same goes for Courtney Cox, especially her. Courtney started Friends at a normal weight and ended it looking anorexic. It is sad.

The Times has a story about diabetes today. It is long, but quite interesting. My father has Type 2 diabetes. I am genetically predisposed to Type 2 diabetes. I am convinced that I must be very careful to avoid it, especially because developing diabetics during pregnancy can happen and is not good for the child.

So, this new year’s, I’m trying to cut down on refined carbohydrates (white sugar, white flour, white rice). Dark chocolate is my treat of choice, and good dark chocolate can be good for you.

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December 28, 2005

filled for porch boy, who hates to see this space empty

so interesting

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December 7, 2005

Oh hush hush, darling, she might overhear

rock. warm rock. rock on volcano.

This morning was I was driving to the gym the NPR station reported that the temperature was zero (ZERO!!!) with a wind chill of -13. (THAT IS 13 BELOW ZERO).

Of course this is why I was driving to the gym this morning. It was too damn cold to run outside. Even when I am use to running in the cold, this was be my limit (I’ll run as long as the temperature is not below zero). Because this weather just came, I am not use to running in the cold. Usually I get eased into it. I get use to running in the 20s, then the 10s, and then below. This is crazy. Though I did suspect we were going to pay pay pay for the warm fall.

I am kinda on a gym kick right now. I like going backwards on the elliptical. I like reading the entire Time magazine during my workout. My hip does not like not getting iced. So it goes hip. It always hurt more when it get cold anyways. So it goes.

I seems that I should have attributed yesterday’s post. I was writing an e-mail to a high school that I’ve recently become reacquainted with, and though of that poem. It is by William Carlos Williams. I love it. It is so simple, yet rings so true. So much does depend on one simple detail.

I am currently on a big tirade about participating in the legal act of marriage in this country. I am having angst about participating an event that we are only allow to (legally) participate in because we happened to fall in love with people of the opposite sex? It does make me uncomfortable to participate in event in which two people of our wedding party couldn’t do with their significant others. I want people to remember, as they celebrate in our love, those that are unable to do the same. Jewish weddings remember those in their happiness who are not happy. I just want a simple statement somewhere that says something along the lines of “we remember today those that are unable to participate in the legal act of marriage with those they love”. I don’t want to make people uncomfortable, but really, would it? or should I care? It is our wedding and if we believe it, I don't understand why it would people uncomfortable. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable to remember the suffering of the Jewish people. I truly believe that we are treating members of our country as second-class citizens. I cannot stand by and calmly support it (by participating in it) without standing up for other’s rights. It reminds me of a quotation:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out -- because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

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November 23, 2005

i'm writing you this letter

Dear Mr. Person-in-charge-of-Chicago-weather,

Whew, you really had me fooled there with the warm fall. I had gotten use to running in the temperate temperatures. I had forgotten that usually there is a ease in to the winter running conditions. This year that obviously wasn’t your plan. After months of warm (for Chicago) weather, you hit us with a quick freeze last week and then a nice snow shower this morning. I awoke this morning to white everywhere – the trees, the grass, the air. I really didn’t mind the snowflakes in the eye during my run. I did mind the small hail balls you pelted me with just as I reach the half way point, hence furtherest from home.

Thanks.
me

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November 11, 2005

oh it's so funny to be seeing you after so long, girl.

marble quarry, vermont - June 05

A chance search has reconnected me with a high school friend by virtue of a note in his friendster profile that one of his favorite books is The Confessions of Max Tivoli. I randomly read this book a couple weeks ago while in Japan. It was a crazy book. I didn’t think much more of it then, but now, as I write this friend, I am taking the time to think about it.

It starts out with:

“We are each the love of someone's life.”

It may sound optimistic, but really I think there is something pessimistic (and limiting) about believing that there is only one. Maybe not limiting, but destructive, in a way.

I believe the concept of the “one” is destructive. I believe there are a few people out there I could love love. I think when you think of there only being “one” that when relationships get hard, you aren’t “the one” is an excuse to get out.

I believe that there are few few few people that I could spend the time with like I do hunk o’ man. Love is a feeling, but also a commitment. I know that there will also be temptation, people that seem new and exciting and better than. But really, that is no better than, just grass is greener than.

It is interesting to look at how marriage has evolved. For most of history, few people married for “love”. They married for economic or social or geographical reasons. In the past 50 years, people have married for love. I am all for marrying for love (and am marrying for love). But I believe some people believed too much in love. It is more than love, maybe it is what grows out of love – commitment – for the good times and the bad. I believe in commitment.

The book is good; I do recommend it. It is an interesting exploration of metaphors, secrets, love, dependence, and life.

(Here’s a question. When did we stop putting that last comma? I keep seeing that comma missing. The comma should only be missing if the two words joined by the and are one entity in the list.)

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October 28, 2005

driving slow on Sunday morning / and I never want to leave

Richard Smalley died today after a lengthy battle with cancer. Internationally renowned for his work in nanotechnology, Smalley was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1996 for co-discovering buckminster fullerenes, a new form of carbon.
Smalley was a professor at Rice University and a founder of Carbon Nanotechnologies Inc., a Texas-based company that produces carbon nanotubes.
More on Richard Smalley’s achievements can be found on SmallTimes.com.

I’ve been quite busy this week trying to get ready for my conference next week. I only have 3 days as today and yesterday I’ve been in the Golden Jubilee Symposia of my Mat Sci & Eng department. It has been was more interesting that I expected. That have been some really amazing speakers over a wide wide wide range of topics. One forgets how much mat sci and eng covers. We’ll just say there is nothing you touch that doesn’t involve a materials scientist. Some talks have also given be a good bunch of information for a personal statement that is on my plate to write.

Crazy day in a crazy week for the news as Libby got indicted. The cover-up is always the problem. I am undecided if the reveling of “Flame”’s name was a crime. I am glad, though, to see that the Bush Administration is being held accountable for thinking they are above the law. I can respect a difference in politics of mine and the Bush administration; what has always bothered me was the moral superiority of the Bush administration. They have routinely acted like they are accountable to no one. I am glad that someone is finally holding them accountable.

And yesterday, as I got ready, Meirs was a nominee, as I got in my car, no long a nominee.

Ah, this symposia makes me want to stay in research, but only in the romantic sense. I love the feel of discovery, but hate the lack of it. I know that my skills will be best used in my current plan (the funding/management side). I say that I just don’t have the heart for research, but I do, or I wouldn’t have gotten this far. I just want to do more than just research. I want to enable other people to do valuable research. I sit here and thing, ooooohhhh, the is cool. I want to do that. I forgot that these people are showing years of data. Thesis of data. It is the in between times that are tough.

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October 25, 2005

wisemen say / only fools rush in

Me. in Nikko. Doing what I did the WHOLE trip, reading the guide to toyko/japan to try to get us where we were going. From Justin.

While I was away fall arrived. The trees that line both my jogging route and my drive to work at all shades of red, orange, and brown. Before I left, fall wasn’t even in the air. Now I have pulled out my winter jacket and am running in gloves.

I am in full fledge research gear as I try to gather some last minute results for my conference appearance next week. Yeah, I should have done some of this stuff way earlier, but they have just been a footnote. They are some basic tests that my advisor has never been interested in, but that I get a lot of question about at conferences. Isn’t how you always look back and say, why haven’t I been doing this all along? Such is research.

In another chapter of such is research, one of my synthesis chamber totally broke. Broke in I can’t fix it. Broke in the manufacturer can’t tell me what is wrong. I figured out that major problem, isolated it to one wire, but can’t get to the problem. I wonder if they can get to the problem. I packed it up all nicely and have sent it along. I’m hope hope hoping that it will be back when I return from Boston next week. Though I doubt it. It is more of a frustration than a crisis. The bulk of the work left for my thesis (!) and for the spring conference is on my other chamber, which is not perfect, but at least power is going where power should be going. Whether my magnets are strong enough or no is a whole other story. And is I have a small leak somewhere, this also puzzles me. I can’t find it, but I think it is there.

It has become quite difficult to return to work after being gone. Being gone use to entergize me. I would return all about returning to the lab. Now it is the opposite. I think that I am close enough that it seems real, but far enough that it seems unreachable.

I’m tired. I want to go home, but stuff must be done.

Posted by christina at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)

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October 6, 2005

and days / thought endless / lose more / light and heat

Many times I have remarked that I wish I was back in undergrad. Undergrad seems like a paradise of sleeping in and just going to class.

As I watched a classmate of mine nod off during colloquium Tuesday, I realized how much better my life in terms of being tired during the day. I remember routinely fighting sleep in classes in undergrad. I wasn’t getting enough sleep (who does in undergrad), but I had no incentive to change because you only have to last for the couple of classes before you could take a nap.

I recognized Thursday how different my days are then in undergrad. I work pretty much continuously while I am at school. Yeah, I check my e-mail, blogs, and write, but as I do other things. I have to watch my oxygen signal for on eof my synthesis, so I am a pro at typing while alternative looking at the other computer screen. I have a lot of 5 min snippets as I wait for something to pump down or start up or stabilize so I can be off to the next place. Most days I like the continual motion – the past couple of days have all fell into that category. Today was a welcome relief with my calendar clear until 6.45, I was able to do a bunch of data analysis that has been on my to do list. I had a peaceful afternoon watching a deposition (another one that doesn’t need constant attention, just every once in a while. I listened to past episodes of this American life (which I adore and might be coming to showtime) as I analysis corrosion data. Mmmm, corrosion. Corrosion is the number one topic I get asked about from people in my life, btw.

Once again, I ask why Bush nominated someone who has never been a Judge.

Lately, I’ve been wondering intensely how the health care topic is going to work itself out in my lifetime. I just to not worry about it as I always thought I would have a job that would cover me. Lately, though, I become acutely aware that as much as you plan, health care is one of those things that you have no control over. You can have savings in case you don’t have a job, but if I don’t have a job (or am married to someone who does) I would not be covered by anyone. Because of the whole broken neck thing, I will never be approved for bridge (independent) coverage. I will always have to be part of a group plan. That means if I lose my job and am not married, than I am out of luck. I will have no health coverage. If something happened to me, then I will be paying it off for the rest of my life.

So, those who are against government (socialized) health care, really look at what you are against. Some things cannot be planned for. No matter how hard I work, I will never be free from this worry. (Okay, actually, I don’t worry cuz once I marry porch boy then there are two of us that can work, but what if I didn’t have a husband.) Countries with socialized health care spend less per person than our privatized system and there standard of care is the same (if not better compared to some parts of this country). It is better in terms of the health of poor – lower middle class people.

Posted by christina at 3:58 PM | Comments (0)

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September 27, 2005

thinking....

someone please explain to me how one can ask the public to conserve gas and cut out unnecessary trips while you keep making trips all over the country in your gas guzzeling not-efficient-at-all, only carrying 50 people monster of an airplane.

Posted by christina at 1:02 PM | Comments (0)

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September 20, 2005

Where the rivers unwind, rust and in the rain endure.

Articles like this bother me on a couple of levels.

The first being that I focuses on women from Yale. Women who go to Yale are way more likely to either be from the upper class or marry into the upper class than the rest of the generation. The stay-at-home mom debate bothers me because no one bothers to mention all those women who have to work for economic reason, not just because they value their career over family. I tire of this debate for this very reason. Most women don’t choose to work because they value their career; they choose to work because you need money in this society. In most cities, it is impossible to raise a family on one person’s salary, especially if you want to be in the middle class-upper middle class range. We all want our luxuries growing up, and usually it takes to salaries to provide those.

Some people say, oh, my mom worked and I respect her decision to focus on her career. Other people say, oh my mom didn’t work and it really made the difference that she stayed at home. Really, most people who do not reside in the upper middle class or above should say, you know, my mom did the best she could and that included going to work so I could you know, eat, and live in a nice neighborhood with nice schools.

I also tire of the implication that men are more into their careers than women, just because more of them work. No more men are more into their career than women. Most men, if asked, would like an excuse to quit their job for any reason. I read something last year that same most women quit their jobs not to raise children, but use children as a good excuse to quit their jobs.

I certainly am tired of work. I would like to have porch boy days of sleep in, painting, cleaning, bathing the cat, vacuuming, and in general making my life much better. He’ll enjoy it until he goes back to full-time student life in a couple of weeks. And someday, I will happily do it also, and it isn’t because I don’t value my career, but because a change of pace is nice.

Posted by christina at 2:59 PM | Comments (2)

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September 13, 2005

you read my mind

exactly what i have been saying

Posted by christina at 11:22 AM | Comments (0)

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September 12, 2005

i get all the news i need from the weather report

From the nytimes.com, the caption for a picture of Mr. Brown.

"Michael D. Brown is a lawyer who came to the agency with political connections but little emergency management experience."

This caption can also be used for someone else: insert John Roberts and judging experience

Posted by christina at 5:04 PM | Comments (0)

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September 9, 2005

so you think / you can hold the world up by a string

My major problem with the John Roberts nomination is not that his politics disagree with mine, but that it appears that he is getting the job not because he is a great, wise judge, but because he knows the right people. It makes me sick. How is a man that has not sat for more than a couple years as a judge going to be Supreme Court Chief Justice? Where is Congress to point this out? Is it not their duty to make sure this very thing does not happen – that the president doesn’t get to appoint whomever he feels like, but that they make sure he is appoint the right person for the job.

unlike hunk o’ man’s blog, mine in not Katrina news free. Here Barbara Bush comments that evacuees are much better off now that before. I don’t even no where to start to being to counter that claim. Yes, I guess if you consider having your living situation washed away, not knowing where at least all your friends are, if not where all your family is, having spent days in shelters fill with lawlessness, being exposed to air borne diseases, GI disease, not know if, when, or where you will get a jo, being basically trapped in Houston which has basically no public transportation, better off then I guess they are better off. Just because she doesn’t consider the conditions they were living in before ideal, at least the majority of them had some sort of support system of family and friends, and now that has been disrupted, if not destroyed. I, like many people, drive through poor neighborhoods and feel pity for the condition poverty provides. I am sure most people would like better surroundings, but they do the best they can, and many are happy, if not proud of what they’ve managed to do in the situation life gave them. Who is she to judge that they are better off now, in a shelter, instead of in their homes. I am sure most of them would have rathered Katrina didn’t happen. I doubt more than a couple are saying, thank god for Katrina. Why do well off people do this? They judge those less fortunate; they think they know what is best for them.

Well said.

Posted by christina at 12:28 PM | Comments (0)

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September 4, 2005

now listen closely to the verse I lay

Porch boy and I are home for the Labor Day weekend. For the first time in the past week, I’ve spent a lot of time watching cnn, etc. I spent the week looking at the Katrina victums on the times website, but it is different to see them on tv. It is so depressing. Between the news, and the day spent listening to NPR while driving down, I heard such interesting and thought provoking comments.

- This was predicted, has been predicted for many years.
- 32% of the New Orleans population lives below the poverty line
- Imagine if there wasn’t the warning, if most people (with cars) didn’t have a chance to get out – if it is was terrorist attack, how would the government have handled that?
- On The World, the BBC commented on the difference between covering the tradey here and covering tradigies else where. He said that the difference was that this was the richest country in the world. In poor countries, victums doesn’t have the expectation that they are going to receive help. Here, people do. I do. This is the richest country, I pay a lot of taxes, I would expect if something was to happen to Chicago that the federal government would evacuate me.
- It makes me so angry to hear people say "people should have gotten out, there was warning". With 33% of the population below the poverty line, many of the people didn't have cars, if they did, they didn't have money for gas, or money for hotels. The evcuation plan was for the well off with cars. The city, the government should have had a plan for transporting those without cars out of the city. There was enough warning (since friday before the storm) to get bus down there and start getting people out of there.

Anyways, just a lot of time to think about things, watch a lot of movies, and hang out…and love my puppy.

Posted by christina at 11:39 AM | Comments (3)

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August 18, 2005

rain, rain, don't go away / we need you this dry and dusty day

In the first two days of this week back to normal life and by normal life I mean life that does not involving lying in the sun all day reading and going down the water slide, two people walked right out in front of my car and some dude backed into porch boy in the middle of the street. I didn’t hit either person, though came too close for comfort as the dude step out from between parked cars as he looked to the right. Did he think he was in England? The following day, in the middle of a busy intersection, some dude backed up to get out of the way of a turning truck. He didn’t look nor pay attention to ben’s honks, and backed right up into his car. The dent is in the hood and looks minor, and by minor i mean $700-1000 to fix it. Crazy. I'm sure back-up dude is going to be quite surprised.

Porch boy is going to vegas today to marry a stripper, at least that is what I told my parents. I was thinking, this morning, that vegas represents everything I despise about “civilized society”. The buildings, concrete, and lights remind me of how we destroy natural habitats. The strippers, topless dancers, and hookers remind me of how poverty (greed?) drives people to sell their bodies. The gambling is false hope to those without an understanding of odds. The people who lose the most usually are the one who can afford to the least. Desperation (or greed) leads one to not stop in effort to “win it all back”.

On a personal level I don’t understand gambling at all. People defend it as being entertainment. They equate it with spending a lot of money on a show or a nice dinner. I just don’t agree. With a show or a nice dinner, you know what you are getting when you pay for it. With gambling, you have no idea what the reward will be. Gambling, I read once, is the most addicting type of situation – random response, random reward.

Of course, one might infere that I would like to do away with gambling. On the contrary, I have libertarian streaks in me. People should be allowed to do what they want to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. What I do want is to live in a society where a large section of the population does not struggle to earn a living everyday. I want a society that is more equal on a socioeconomic field. I want a society that takes care of the poor and the sick, so people don’t find themselves in such desperate situations in which they must sell their bodies or gamble with the rent money to buy food for the next week or pay for healthcare.

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July 19, 2005

when we're driving in the car / it makes my baby seem so far

i hate chicago traffic. I don't understand why cops don't enforce traffic laws. A couple of things really bug the hell out of me about chicago drivers:
(1) People will pull up to the right of me at traffic lights in the right turn lane. When the light turns, they do not turn left, they speed through the intersection to get in front of me. It frightens me as they are more worried about beating me through the intersection than not running over pedistrains.
(2) People enter the intersection when they cannot go through it all the way. There is this specific intersection that it always happens. It happens most evenings. I hate it. People are so stupid. I have seen a cop sit there and watch this stupidity.
(3) Trucks park in the right lane like it is legal or something. Everyday there is a truck in the right lane somewhere. This evening it was a little debbie truck that made traffic so bad all the way down sheridan in rogers park. I leave after rush hour, so I don't usually hit traffic, which make it annoying when i do. If it was just traffic, it would be okay. But traffic cause by the stupidity of truck parking in the right lane annoys me doubly. I really just want to sit behind them and beep until they move.

Posted by christina at 9:42 PM | Comments (0)

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July 17, 2005

the only one for me is you / and you for me

Today I heard a couple stories on sunday all things considered.

First was about a teammate of Lance Armstrong won the day's race. As much as I admire Lance's fight to overcome cancer, I have to admit it really annoys me all the media focus on him. The Tour de France is a team sport. I do not claim to follow the tour closely, but I have heard enough NPR stories to understand that it is a team sport. Lance's teammates push the pace and tire other riders as Lance rides behind until the end when he pushed ahead. I want the media to focus on the team. I understand that people sign up for "his team" knowing that they will give it all for his win. Why doesn't team discovery channel win the Tour de France? Why does the win only go to Lance? Why is there only one yellow jersey? It seems to wrong that the same guy wins year after year becuase of, yes, his hard work, but also the hard work of a lot of riders that I don't hear about everyday on the news. I understand the concept of a team captain who everyone else strives to work under, but becuase one one people see his name in light, shouldn't that captain change year to year?

The second story was about a very very cute hippo-turtle relationship.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4754996

Posted by christina at 9:35 PM | Comments (1)

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June 17, 2005

everything will be alright

You know, when things suck, they can really suck. I'm an big optimist, but have a bit of paranoia mixed in. I always imagine the worst case scenario and then work from there. I think, at least yesterday more for sure, that it would be nice not to the that person. Of course, that person makes sure I don't miss flights and that I don't break lots of stuff in the lab.

A city bus side swiped me on the way to work yesterday. It was a tight intersection. I was watching the guy to my right as he was swinging my way to make a hard turn and all the sudden my side mirror casing shatters on the left side and i look to see a bus driving past me making the turn in the left lane. The bus made the left and was gone.

I was in shock. I had to be at school to start the second day of the fore mention conference. I was the only one who knew anything that was going to be there and so had to be there. That was all I could consider in my shocked state and so went on to school. Once I got everyone settled in, I went and filed the police report at the station nearest to the accident (and my house actually). The cop spent 20 minutes trying to convince me not to file and basically made me feel like an idiot for insisting on following the law and filing a report. As I expected, since I did not get a bus number, they could not do anything. The cop upset me more about the situation as he acted like I was just a stupid women.

Seriously, he is the thing I am most pissed about. A run in with a bus was bound to happen considering how often in the past they have come really close to hitting me. I didn't need this cop lecturing me about how insurance companies are just out to make money out of you and me and how if i report this my premiums are going to go up. And how if next time i put people in the hospital that they are really going to go up if i report this. Considering the fact that I have never hit anything or gotten a ticket since my one speeding ticket in high school, this was a total ludicrous idea. But he really had NO PLACE telling me any of this or trying to convince me not to follow the law. He also asked me who pays my premiums, insinuating that I should talk to that person before I file a report. Once he finally let me file, he tried to give me a hard time about not having an Illinois drivers license and so had to show him my student id.

My insurance company (usaa) was amazing. Well, they might still yell at me for not getting the bus number. (Had it been any other morning and had i not been in complete shock than i totally would have. This is the first time i've ever been involved in anything like this, and so I had no idea what to do and turned stupid. Live and learn.) The insurance lady was so nice and helpful and set up a repair shop just down the street and a rental car just down another street.

Though all of the ups and down of this past week and a half, the nicest thing has been knowing that there is always someone on your side. Someone you can call even though you know he is trying to get ready and you are totally going to make him late to tell him a bus took off your mirror. Someone to rub your back when you can't shut off the voices in your head reliving what you should have done. That's been the best.

and this spell check on the new google toolbar totally rocks my world

Posted by christina at 10:30 AM | Comments (2)

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June 12, 2005

will you hold me sacred / will you hold me tight?

dude. i am so sick. it sucks. though i feel a heck of a lot better now than I did a couple hours ago when i was so nauseous I couldn't stand up. Oh me and the trusting that my stomach is made of steel and taking a pill on an empty stomach. I didn't remember the warnings on the bottle about taking it with food. I've taken this medicine many times and never had this problem. Though, now that i think about it, i have had the nausea problem, but always attributed it to the antibiotics that accompany this pill. Moral of the story - always read the the pill container and take with food if it says take with food.

The northwestern health center is my favorite thing today. After some 5 am research about urgent care center and my insurance, it dawns on me, the second time I wake up today, that I should call the on call doc for the health center and see what their advice is. The doc on call is one i've seen before (i've seen most of them). I doubt he remembered me, but was quite nice and understanding. This illness is easily diagnosed over the phone if you are prone to them and so after a couple of questions, he phoned in a script. If the symptoms don't get better in a couple of days, of course, i should come in.

The great thing about this situation is that I have been super stressed since the symptoms s