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?