home

i've been in hawaii for almost a week now. it feels amazing to be back if only for a short time. yes there is the whole sun and warmth bit (which don't get me wrong, is great), but i have been most excited to see the people. two of my good friends have also been here (one still lives here, the other is back visiting as well) and i have gotten to spend a lot of time with them. as we haven't all been together in over 6 months, all the really inappropriate jokes, witty commentary and drawn out analyses on movies have all been shared at once, which has made for a rather amusing past few days. i have been out eating lots of yummy food, shopped, swam at Kaiko's and Waimea, hiked Ka'au Crater and run Tantalus. a professor at UH also informed me of her scheme to have me come back as a professor in a couple years when i am done with my degree (which i am all for). monday night is a full moon, which means tonight and tomorrow night are fair game for night hiking, surfing and swimming (and maybe some skinny dipping?). it's good to be home.

and that is how it's done.

this semester finally drew to a close yesterday with a final...at 2pm on a saturday. maybe i've been spoiled the last few years, but prior to ut i only went to schools that had the decency to not make students take finals on a saturday. leading up to this final, i basically moved to san antonio so i could be at work for (on average) 10+ hours a day and not have to drive all the way back to austin. so, while i probably should have been studying all week, i was at work. there are a few good things that came out of this though. first, i found another use for my oceanography background in biomechanics. i took a physical oceanography statistics class one semester and i learned how to do spectral analyses on buoy data to determine whether or not there would be big wave events in waimea. this past week, i was looking at another dataset and realized i could use that same analysis to examine how people move when exposed to perturbations in a virtual reality system. it was pretty exciting to see how i could take the analytical technique and (successfully) apply it to something completely different. the other thing that happened this week was that i got to watch the stanford-usc game in the semifinal of the women's ncaa volleyball championships. i was staying with a co-worker while i was in san antonio who is an avid volleyball player. it was really nice to sit around on a very comfortable couch and watch sports. i realize that this may sound trivial, but with my semester as crazy as it was, this was actually a very nice break from the norm.

that i am now on winter break has not yet set in. tomorrow i will be off to honolulu. yeah for warm weather!

boston bound 2008

i ran the dallas marathon today in 3:28:34 (chip time). this was a pr and boston qualifying time, so i will be heading back to beantown again in 2008. in general, it was a pretty crappy day outside. it was cold and drizzling. about 3 miles into the race i started getting hot and thought about taking my long sleeve shirt off, but then we started running around white rock lake. the wind picked up and i couldn't feel my right hand and lower arm for the better part of 10 miles. i was glad i kept my shirt on! i started out with the 3:30 pace group and ran with them for the first 9 miles or so and then picked up the pace and just maintained. i think my splits were almost dead on for the first and second halves which was awesome. here are the stats: 450th place overall (446th based on gun time), 45th female overall (44th based on gun time) and 8th in the f25-29 age division (out of 252). for the gender and age division finishes I was in the top ~3% and overall I was in the top 11%.

see you in boston :)

things not to do

if you realize a couple steps into your run that the drawstring on your shorts no longer works, i do not recommend continuing to run. rather, turn around, go back home and put on a different pair and then start your run again. this is especially important when it is freezing outside and you can't feel your legs. if you can't feel your legs, you're not going to be able to feel your shorts sliding down a little too low (or just falling off) and that may lead to some general awkwardness. i avoided disaster this morning, but having to pull your shorts up every couple strides during a five mile run gets a little old after say the first block.

my entry for the bandera 50k went in this morning. trail running in january on the mainland--this should be a chilly, yet exciting adventure!

happy running :)

biking

I think the problem with Austin is that I have only be able to ride once since moving here...which is pretty crummy. This morning we had all the Tx4k-ers into Bicycle Sports Shop to be fit for their new rides. We will be getting Specialized Allez Elites. Check it out:

http://www.specialized.com/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?sid=08Allez

We're also getting a pretty good deal on mountain bike shoes and SPD pedals...getting these is my excuse for getting into mountain biking. Look out world.

globe trotting

Winter vacation is almost upon us and this means globe trotting! I will be in Honolulu 12/17-12/24 then in San Francisco for a few days and then it is on to NYC for new years and adventures with the East Coast crew. If you'll be in any of those places, let me know.

In the meantime, I am occupying myself with calculations concerning nonlinear dynamics of gait. Six-dimensional state spaces watch out! Now if only Matlab would stop crashing...

polar bear swim club

i'm thinking about starting one here in austin (although maybe there already is one?). i left my sunny home in the south for a fabulous thanksgiving day weekend in san francisco only to return to overcast skies, drizzle and temperatures slightly above freezing (literally). people tell me that this is the worst weather austin gets, but when i moved to texas in the first place they were amidst the 100 year rain season. am i unlucky?

one of the many good things i got out of my trip to sf was one of my friends saying he'd be interested in meeting me in alaska at the end of my ride next summer. anyone else interested? we could do some hiking at mt. mckinley? let me know!

mountain unicyclists

Yes, that's right...mountain unicyclists. They do exist. I was passed by a couple of them while I was running around Town Lake this morning. I am impressed that they can stay upright while going over all the rocks and general unevenness.

the office

i had not had a real job until i started my present contracting position. it's really fun to not do work with your coworkers. today was one of those days where no one felt productive and there were lots of conversations to be had. we lasted about 10-15 minutes on each topic of conversation and then moved onto the next. i think we should keep a hat full of conversation topics somewhere so if we ever run out, we can just reach into the hat, grab a slip of paper, read the word on it out loud...and then discuss. or maybe we should just have a random word generator sitting around.

i'll get you my pretty

look out world. there will be a partial reunion of the infamous wizard of oz road-to-hana relay team over turkey day weekend. we will be descending on san francisco from hawaii, new york and texas...but will the scarecrow and dorothy be able to make it?! keep your fingers crossed and stay tuned.

for those who have been waiting in suspense for an update on life, the application to biomedical engineering went in last week, my lab class from heck had its last meeting today (but gave us another assignment on top of the final project just to make sure we didn't slack off for the rest of the term), and no, i have still not been swept off my feet by a cowboy (the boots and texas drawl don't really do anything for me). my proposal for research with human subjects went in and was reviewed last week, and i should get to start collecting data soon...i was excited about this and eager to get started, and then my boss walked in and asked how feasible it would be to have all of my data collected before the end of the calendar year so that it could all be analyzed and used in a grant proposal he has going in by february 1. it's a good thing i didn't have plans to relax and not do any work, or something crazy like that, over my winter break. speaking of which, i will be heading to california (bay area) for a little bit and then to nyc for new year's. if anyone will be in either of those areas during those times, let me know!

congrats to my brother rob for moving up to the open team for creole. he will be travelling to atlanta with them for volleyball nationals over memorial day weekend 2008. i hope to make it to there to see all of the ridiculously tall, athletic guys...i mean...to be a supportive big sister. actually, my boss is a volleyball player too and told me earlier today he's planning on going to nationals with his team again this year...so i guess i'll get to see if he's any good.

riding through the rockies

i found out i will be riding through the rockies on my way up to alaska this summer as i was asked to be the director of the rockies route. while i don't study cycling, i have found a fun and interesting way to prepare for the route at work. we were testing the virtual reality system i work on the other day, and the vr environment designer, who is from colorado, made the mountains look like the rockies. now all we need to do is convince them to get us one of the scent machines to go with the system, and we could have a custom mountain smell made.

if anyone was watching cnn, yesterday morning, you may have seen where i work and a couple of my bosses. the president came to check out the facility and meet some of the patients. the spurs where there a couple weeks ago which was pretty neat because they played a game of wheelchair basketball with a bunch of the patients.

finding my people

i went for a 13 mile run this morning...and then went to go meet some of the other tx4k riders to ride. turns out though that we were meeting at the same place and time as the ut cycling team. as only 3 other tx4kers turned out, we rode with the cycling team. i haven't ridden like that since riding with the uh team...it was fantastic. i met a bunch of kindred spirits and got to see east austin and beyond. and it felt great to be really tired when i was done.

Stephen Colbert meets the NYT

Stephen Colbert, you are awesome. Check out his appearance as a guest columnist in the NYTimes: article

the sky is falling

I was walking to a meeting this evening and passed under a tree as I did so. Either there are some very aggressive squirrels around here or the sky really is falling.

On another tree related note, I had the opportunity to travel to Pittsburgh, PA this past weekend to see Dan and Eloisa tie the knot (Congratulations again!). One of the best things about traveling to the midwest or northeast in the fall is seeing the leaves. When you're preparing to land, you can see colorful leaves for miles. The world looks like it is on fire.

it's a beautiful day!

i have been singing the chorus to 'it's a beautiful day' (u2) all day because i think it aptly sums up the weather. remember those commercials a bunch of years ago that talked about 'cloud watch' in arizona? today was one of those days that would make someone start a cloud watch. there were no clouds in the sky and it was an awesome shade of blue. this morning was perfect marathon conditions, but alas, there was not a marathon to run. hopefully we get weather like this for dallas in december!

a figuring-out-what-do-with-your-life retreat

that was what i went on last weekend. i came back to the real world and decided i had no idea what i was doing in texas. this feeling was likely exacerbated by a few factors including, but not limited to, a drastic drop in temperature in the austin area, talking to a friend from hawaii, being generally under stress from work and not enjoying my three hours/day of commuting two days/week. a mentor of mine kindly threatened to track down every email i had ever sent her which expressed any frustration with what i had been studying in oceanography and the suggested i go to medical school. i'm not quite ready to give up on research though. i think i just have to find my niche. or at least that's what i keep telling myself. it would be quite nice though to not be in school this spring, work part time and help plan the ride to alaska the rest of the time...and maybe then i'd actually have time to go on a bike ride *gasp*

one of my labmates is also a triathlete. she came to grad school to study biomechanics because she thought it would be really cool because she was an athlete and despite all the warnings she got from people not to do it. i'm not sure i had as many warnings as she did but i can appreciate the comment. she's antsy to graduate asap now and is kind of losing interest in the school thing. i think i make things worse sometimes by thinking that i'm the only one who has no idea what i want to do. then i talk to a few people and realize that i'm in good company most of the time. while this doesn't solve the problem, it's nice to know other people don't know either.

to digress to the aforementioned cold weather comment, i have been wearing at least two shirts at any given point of the day for the last two days (at least one being long sleeved) and jeans. this feels weird. take today, for example, the sun was shining, but when you walked outside, it was rather brisk making one walk a little faster to class. and i walked into the kitchen the other day to find one of my roommates there sporting a polar fleece vest and wearing a wool hat. i laughed, but appreciate that i'm not the only one here that's cold.

terrible life choices

One of my housemates sent around this bit of wisdom from the Simpson's season 16 episode 20:

(after exiting an avant-garde movie theater)

Bart: I was so bored I cut the pony tail off the guy sitting in front of us. Look at me, I'm a grad student! I'm 30 years old and I made $600 last year!

Marge: Bart, don't make fun of grad students, they just made a terrible life choice...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sseQRIF8K6g

labyrinth

Where is Ben Smith when you need him? I was participating in pagan activities last night (for real this time) and he was not even in the country to tease me about it. I did a labyrinth. These are different from mazes as there is only one path on which you can travel once you enter. Back in the day, they were used as a spiritual exercise, and if you travel to some of the really old churches in Europe, you can see a labyrinth on the floor when you walk in the door. There are 40 turns and 12 layers and all sorts of other special numbers referred to in the bible. However, once the pagan origins of the labyrinth were realized (and people stopped building really big churches that could house them), people stopped making them. There is a church in downtown Austin (Episcopal, I believe) that built one in their garden. Some people use it for prayer, and others use it as a meditation tool. Either way, it is pretty neat.

i know what i'll be doing next summer

I will be riding my bike from Austin, TX to Anchorage, Alaska. I got a phone call today from the Texas 4000 organizers inviting me to be a rider for Summer 2008. Yeah!

If you weren't watching Ironman World Championships yesterday, it turned out to be a very exciting race. Both of last year's winners dropped out. Macca won the men's race and Chrissie Wellington won the women's. Rachel Ross won the women's 30-34 age group again and Bree Wee one the women's 25-29 age group--go Hawaii competitors! I was watching the online coverage as Chrissie crossed the line and it brought tears to my eyes. I'm not really a crier but watching people finish that race turns me into a big ball of mush.

Maybe the even more emotional aspect of it was seeing Hawaii. I was reading an interview with the author of 'The Reluctant Fundamentalist' in the NYTimes the other day (the book is supposed to be very good) and the author at one point said people don't pick places, but rather places pick people. I think Hawaii chose me, and family members and friends have commented on that at various points on their own accord. Austin is a nice city and will be a nice place to spend the next few years. I'm meeting a lot of cool and interesting people and think there are some great opportunities here, but it is not home. While this may seem like a rash judgement, I give you the examples of living in Boston and then in Hawaii. Within a month or two of moving to either, I referred to them as home. I've been in Texas for about three months now, and that same feeling is not here, which speaks rather loudly to me. Somehow I'm okay with this.

I'm thinking about looking into tickets to Hawaii for New Years to come back for a visit. Anyone going to be in town?

cancer research

The lack of transparency on what happens to your private health information (PHI) if you have and/or survive cancer really grinds my gears. Now if only the rest of the hospitals in this country would learn something from the VA about protecting patients' private health information (see link below). And thank you Senator Akaka. I'm glad I voted for you.

NYTimes article

brrrrrrrrr

Yep, that's right. It dropped into the upper 70's this morning. I wore a sweatshirt on my walk to work. It felt amazing. There are also dead leaves on the ground--not enough to crunch yet though. One would almost think that fall is starting, and having not had a proper "fall" for the last several years, this is not a trivial thing.

In case anyone was unsure whether or not prayers are actually answered, I can hereby assure you that praying does, in fact, work. My lab equipment (for my class) broke last Thursday and thus, I had no data to analyze over the weekend. I almost didn't know what to do with myself. It's nice to be able to sleep and read and do laundry and fix things (or bring them to other people to fix) and watch a movie...and do all the other homework that I had been meaning to, but couldn't because I had always been working on my lab homework. Having time to get the "other" essentials done is just so nice.

skin like leather

One of my grandfathers was a carpenter and spent a lot of time working outside. My mom always told me the skin on his forearms was like leather from all the sun exposure, and I, in turn, always thought the description was figurative. That is until this morning. A saw a woman while I was running this morning whose skin looked like leather. She was running in a sports bra, and all the skin that was exposed was an unnatural shade of brown and looked like a leather jacket. It even moved like leather when she twisted her upper body from side to side as she swung her arms. I was seriously disturbed by this. What made it even more amazing was that she wasn't old. She looked in her 30s or early 40s. The moral of this story is that you should wear sunscreen. Being "sun-kissed" is great, but looking like a cowhide is pretty gross.

bubble tea

i have decided that there is a direct correlation of stress level (independent variable) and bubble tea consumed (dependent variable). now, you might not see this in your average person who doesn't a) know what bubble tea is or b) does not have a bubble tea shop nearby. if, however, there are at least three venues at which to obtain bubble tea within a short walking distance of one's abode, you will observe these two variables have a strong, positive correlation. if stress level and number of venues are both high, one might conduct a study on the taste, consistency, temperature and flavor selection of bubble tea served at the various locations.

if there are any bubble tea shop readers, i would like to make a few suggestions. first, warm boba and cold beverages do not go well together. if i order juice, it should not be warmed by the boba in the bottom. second, beverages made from real fruit will have your customers coming back for more. let me recommend the mango smoothie with pearl at tapioca house on guadalupe (made with fresh mango!). third, blue straws are key. i can't tell you why because i'm not sure. i do know, however, that everything tastes better when you drink it through blue straws. hopefully these suggestions will get you started. in the meantime, my roommates and i will continue the quest to try all the fruit flavors.

disc golfers

Due to a lab report for the previously discussed lab class, I altered my usual Tuesday running schedule. My route this afternoon took me along a disc golf course. I've only played disc golf at night at MIT on Michael and Daniel's homemade course with normal frisbees. The disc golfers that I saw today were hard core though. They had special packs they wore as they walked from hole to hole. I noticed that most carried several disc golfs. Is there such a thing as a putting disc? Or a driving disc? Or a wood? And how closely is the latter related to a boomerang?

Lab class from hell

I hereby formally apologize for not showing enough sympathy to people when they said they had a rough, time consuming lab class. I now know your pain. This weekend, I thought that maybe my brain had just been fried from too many weekends of work and that that was why the numbers just didn't make any sense. Today though, I finally emailed my labmates to see if anyone else was encountering the same problem. Turns out, my brain wasn't fried, the numbers really do not make sense. Nothing is more fun then spending part of your weekend feeling like you're banging your head up against a wall.

On a slightly more interesting note, I may be switching departments. My labmates told me that I should switch to biomedical engineering (BME), and when I ran this by my advisor, he agreed without a moment's hesitation. I was surprised that he approved of this plan so quickly. I have to find out exact logistics of this on Tuesday, so hopefully I will know more soon.

AND I got an email saying that they would like to interview me to participate in Texas 4000. The interviews will be held next week and I should know shortly after that whether or not I am selected to participate. Here's the website for the organization: http://www.texas4000.org/t4k/

Drivers...ugh

To the guy going 65 mph in the left lane: We, the drivers behind you, are not riding your tail to get a better look at your rusty bumper. We are trying to give you a hint. But, alas, you are too self involved to notice what is going on around you. The left lane is for passing, not being passed. I'm afraid you must have misunderstood the instructor when you went to driver's ed. Oh you didn't go? Well, now you know. I believe the right lane was made for people like you. I bet you would fit in over there quite nicely. Don't be afraid.

i heart oceans

It's things like this that make me really question if I did the right thing when I left oceanography:

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070924/full/070924-8.html

The link is to a news article in Nature that came out today. Only two works are cited in it: James Lovelock's and mine (actually mine and my lab's--I'm the lead author on the paper). I have read a lot of Lovelock's work and he is one of my role models as far as ecological research goes. He was one of the people who proposed Gaia theory. This particular article is discussing ocean fertilization which is a controversial topic amongst oceanographers and ecologists (among others).

And for those I haven't already emailed this link to, here is the link to the oceanography YouTube video "Cruise, cruise, baby." I was impressed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjTbPtv88sI

Men (and women) in black

Hypothetical situation: You're alarm goes off at 6am and you roll out of bed to go for your run. What goes through your head as you put your clothes on?

In Texas, people's thought processes go something like this: Well, it's 6am and it's still going to be dark for more than an hour (and I'm going to be running for less than that), so I should dress all in black/navy blue/dark green. And I know I run the same route everyday, but that unlit trail is just so gosh darn fun.

Why people think this way, I'm not exactly sure, but I see people who clearly think this way every morning. The sun is not up people! No one can see you! And even if it was light out, why would you think it is a good idea to wear all dark colors? It's late September, sunny most days and temperatures are still in the 90's.

Two suggestions: reflective tape and head lamp.

yawns are contagious

You know how when you see someone yawn, you start yawning too? I think talking about being tired and sleeping in class might also be contagious. My labmates and I were comparing stories of boring classes. Well, maybe the classes are not really boring, but you just find yourself nodding off in them most of the time. They told me about a class that I'll have to talk in about a year. Neither one of them has made it through a single day of this particular class without starting to fall asleep. Shortly after this discussion, I head into my 2pm class. Sometimes this class can be a challenge because it is immediately following another 1.5 hr class and is held roughly during the time one would like to take an afternoon nap. I was struggling through class today, and then someone started snoring. I had a lot of sympathy for that guy.

The comic I posted is from PhD comics (www.phdcomics.com). My officemate and I were in charge of the grad student organization for our department one year, and we started a snack fridge downstairs in the lounge. Oh wait, it wasn't the lounge. I forgot you can't call it that. The grad student common room....no...collaboration parlor? Euphemisms are great. Either way, I'm not sure we have one here...maybe people just sit in the stadium.

Ah, to be an engineer

From www.xkcd.com



If you're not scared or angry at the thought of a human brain being controlled remotely, then it could be this prototype of mine is finally starting to work.
- John Alejandro King

Wars, etc

I'm sure some (or maybe most!) would disagree my thoughts today, but if you have opinions on this, I'd love to hear them. I went to a retirement ceremony today for someone sort of high up at work today. It was a very nice ceremony, but there were a couple things that bothered me. First, it started with a prayer. Now, I have nothing against religion. It fascinates me. However, this ceremony starting with a prayer bothered me because it was a very Christian prayer...and I work for the government. I think people should be free to choose whatever religion they want, but why should the government be promoting specific religions? I wonder if I was the only one there who this bothered (probably). I was relating my experience to one of my roommates (who is from France) and she told me that in France it's against the law to pray in public like that because it's basically a way of forcing your religion on other people. I'm not sure, but I think the French government may be onto something!

The other thing that bothered me was that they gave the wife of the guy who was retiring a certificate of honor (or something like that) for supporting her husband's career. It's sitting through things like this that make me realize that I am, in fact, a bit of a feminist. I feel like the act of giving that woman the certificate was like saying "thanks for giving up the things you wanted in life, being told to move every three years, having and taking care of the kids, and putting up with your 'partner' being gone for long periods of time" and that makes me want to scream "why did you do it?!" To which, I'm sure someone would say something mushy and I'd still be sitting here wondering why. It just rings with the idea that women should stay home with the kids. If you choose to, fine, but for some reason (maybe because it's the military) I think that this is not a choice for some women. And as an aside, if there was a woman retiring, do you think they would've given her husband a certificate of honor? I'd be surprised.


In other wars, check out this one about the good, the bad and the blue:
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/tpa/409930561.html

the magic song

Ever been stressed out or tired and hear a song that speaks to you? Or at least makes you pick your heels up and keep charging forward? Matt Kearney's One Man is presently moving me forward. I haven't done an in depth analysis of the words, so it is entirely possible that they're not applicable, but at this point, that is okay. To my stat's take-home exam: you're going down!

I bowled a 122 for those who were curious (in real bowling, not Wii or candlepin--we have a bowling alley on campus here!).

It's not one thing. It's the combination.

If there is one thing I have learned in my 26 years, it is that I can handle a lot (I may not always be happy about this, but I digress). The problem is that it is never just one thing. I'm pretty sure the professors get together over the summer and decide what weeks to give exams and what semesters to offer certain classes (all the hard and/or time consuming ones are in the fall because it is football season) and how best to assign 20 hours worth of homework per week for a three unit. While sometimes my brain may feel like a sponge, after spending those 20 hours on a lab report for that three unit class, I think it morphs into something closer to tapioca pudding--no one is really sure what texture it is, but it is definitely not porous. On the plus side though, I have happily slipped back into that state of being in which one can basically fall asleep instantaneously and sleep through just about anything.

I finally started training for the Dallas Marathon which will be held on 12/9/07. After four hours of sleep last night, I got up to go running. I think I forgot to wash my hair during the shower I took afterwards, and when I returned home from class today, I looked down to discover that I had been wearing my running shoes all day (as opposed to the retired pair I normally wear to class). I was proud of myself for staying up working on my lab until 2a and then getting up to go for a run, but the loss of short-term memory this lack of sleep seems to have brought on may indicate that I am getting old. I choose to ignore this small tidbit for now.

And now for some bowling...

Packages

I love coming home from a long day at work to find that I have received a package in the mail...especially when said package is full of stuff I have possessed for years. Everything is new to me again because I haven't seen it since packing it to move. I had a heartfelt reunion this evening with my comforter. The neon orange and fuchsia mix nicely with the bright blue window trim and neon green sheets already occupying my room. The colors have brightened my day.

Shana tova veh metookah

(That means 'a happy and sweet new year' in Hebrew) Today is the start of Rosh Hashana (the Jewish New Year holiday) and Ramadan (the Muslim holy month). My house is surrounded by all of the UT religious groups' buildings. On the eight blocks touching the one my house is on, you can find: the Chabat house (next door), the Hillel building, the Mormons (Institute of Religion), the Islamic mosque, the Baptists, the International Society of Friends (Quakers), the Catholics, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the Scientologists, the Methodists and apparently some other small Christian sect (who own the house across the street). If I ever wanted to escape thinking about religion, this is not a good neighborhood in which to try! Hopefully I will pick up a few things in the next few years from all my neighbors. I have recently been introduced to kugel, which is a Jewish food that a friend informs me is usually not that tasty. My roommate seems to be a good cook though (or his mom gave him a really good recipe) as his was quite yummy (pineapple flavored!). Kugel is made around Rosh Hashana apparently.

And speaking of cooking, have you ever cooked for a house full of college students? I am cooking dinner for my house this coming Sunday and have to give the shoppers a list of ingredients. This requires me to request quantities such as 10 cups of mozzarella cheese, five boxes of pasta shells and "enough" lettuce for salad for 26 people. I have suddenly become very fond of simple recipes.

Rain!

I am still getting used to the weather here in Austin. This morning, I went out for a run. It was lightly drizzling, but I didn't think much of it, so I kept going. Less than 10 minutes later, it starts pouring, and I mean pouring, rain. In Hawaii, whenever I would get ready to leave my house for campus, it would start raining, so I had to ignore it and go anyways. When it started raining harder this morning, I thought, boy, do I wish I had my hat to keep the rain out of my face, but oh well, I'll keep running. Not two minutes after this it starts lightning and thundering, and I decided that maybe it was, in fact, time for me to turn around and go home. At this point, because it has been pouring for about 10 minutes, the trail is completely flooded and there is a waterfall coming down the street I now have to run up. It continues to thunder and lightning all the way home. Lessons learned: (1) Texas rain is not like Hawaii rain. (2) People will drive in the flooding right-hand lane and spray water all over the sidewalk...and the runner who happens to be running on it.

And then there were five

Today I learned that one of my labmates is leaving the lab and going to work with a professor in another department. One of the reasons he told us (the other students) is that he hasn't gotten paid in a year (on a TA, but that doesn't count in this department). Yikes. I know funds are tight, but should I be more concerned about this? Technically, I don't really work for my adviser, or the university for that matter, so maybe that's a good thing. Its sad though because there are a lot of really cool people in the lab (him included). And "just moving across campus" does not explain the magnitude of separation. How many grad students do you know that regularly see people who work in other buildings or departments?

Labor Day, a day of labor

Three day weekends are a great thing...even if you end up doing work the whole time. I spent Saturday doing house clean up for the co-op in which I live. We do this once a semester and it basically involves cleaning everything. I spent all day doing yard work. Mowing the lawn after it has rained all summer is a bit daunting. We have one of the old school push mowers, and I basically had to go over every bit twice. I have successfully learned how to fix a weedwhacker. And there aren't any weeds in the flower beds. It was a nice change of pace from the usual grind...and of course the yard looks great :)