|
|
|
February 3rd, 2007
09:13 am - eheh.
It's 5 degrees outside right now, and the wind chill is -16.
EDIT: Now it's -12, and tonight it will be -35.
aaaah
Current Location: chillsville
|
January 18th, 2007
06:22 pm - I guess you're just what I needed
Top eight things I absofuckinglutely love about my new internship:
8. Particle physics. I can't get over this shit. There's just so much, and it really flirts with philosophy. Muons and bosons and mesons and antimatter and dark energy and extra dimensions. After writing about this stuff, I can write about anything.
7. Fermilab. The folks here are my kind of people. Friendly and happy, eager to help, nitpicky to an absurd extreme, but surprisingly have a glimmer of social skill. Most of them, anyway. And the grounds are gorgeous. The founder was a brilliant physicist, but also had a thing or two to say about architecture.
6. My room. Big but cosy, full of nice wooden furniture and with two windows looking out on a pretty pond with pretty trees.
5. Chicagoland. The city is bustling, fun and beautiful, and the western suburbs near me are cute, homey and have great shopping.
4. Our administrative assistant. Not just because she told the rest of the office, after I'd been there a week, that they should let me have my boss's job when she leaves. Not because when a scientist tried to come to see me today while I was on the phone, she sternly told him that I'm a very busy woman and that I'd get back to him when I had time. But maybe because she makes the best oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookies since the Big Bang.
3. My boss. The big bright shining star of success at a job is liking your boss, and I adore her. I feel odd calling her my boss, even, since she's made it clear by her actions that aside from her actually publishing our newlsetter, we're peers. She gives me story ideas when I need/want them and lets me run with my own if I have them. We have margaritas together and talk about the stupid things we do. She's always giving me praise, not only just to me, but to everyone around.
2. My managing editor. A man I especially admire, since he's got a PhD in physics and abandoned primary research for writing and editing. A true role model for me. He's on top of his shit and gives me constructive criticism on both my writing and my understanding of the science. In terms of learning, a half hour with him is worth two weeks of working on my disseretation. Plus he invited me to play on his volleyball team, and we've already won our first game.
And the number one thing I love about this job:
1. Publishing every day.
Current Mood: inspired
|
December 20th, 2006
08:40 am - 3,388 miles later
My car with the Louisiana plates is sitting here in my parents' driveway after bouncing from southern California through Las Vegas, Denver, Omaha, Grand Rapids, Syracuse, and various points in Massachusetts. We only hit one bad snowstorm (albeit in the Rockies at night) and one bit of car trouble along the way, which was preventative anyway. Utah is the most breathtaking country: sweeping mesas, plains, craggy mountains, then do it all over again. Boulder, CO will be my next vacation destination. Hopefully I'll have pictures to post soon.
It's nice to be a northeasterner again. So far.
Current Music: james taylor christmas
|
December 4th, 2006
05:14 pm - you decide
Thanks, Liz!
|
November 7th, 2006
02:01 pm - we're halfway there
Today, upon acceptance of my second first-authored journal article, I have half of my dissertation "written."
And now we are so happy, we do the dance of joy.
|
October 30th, 2006
07:22 pm - Elastigirl!
Yes, I made it myself. : )
( Halloweeeeeen! )
Current Mood: badass
Current Music: tougher than the rest
|
October 20th, 2006
03:28 pm - upcoming events!
1. Cake or Death: Next Wednesday, I'm going to the Coronet theater to see the freaking funniest man alive, none other than the illustrious Eddie Izzard, live. By the grace of Ford, he decided to smile on us folks who got gypped out of his last run, and add five more shows. And man, I'm stoked.
2. Comin' around again here on the guitar: It seems like only yesterday that I was venturing to see Girlyman play with Dar Williams here in L.A., fresh from a tough breakup and needing touchy-feely harmonies to help me feel something. But it was in fact an entire year ago, and so it's only appropriate that in a few weeks said gender-bending supergroup will be performing in Santa Monica. Hopefully with lots of new stuff from the album they're recording! And I'm ironically going to see them with the new boy, whose masculinity is apparently not fazed by their title.
3. Quark, said the duck: In January I'll go to Batavia, IL to spend three months writing for the Fermilab publication, symmetry, as an intern in the public affairs office. I've only spoken to her on the phone twice, but I already adore my boss. Plus, I can continue being a student at UMass while I'm there, and my department at UMass doesn't hate me for having interests outside research.
4. What dreams may come: I have a tentative date of graduation. May 2008.
*reverent silence*
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) excited
Current Music: ol' 55
|
October 11th, 2006
12:39 pm - sd;iofns;fn!
I've just been offered a science writing internship at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago.
!!
Current Mood: ecstatic
|
September 19th, 2006
03:28 pm - cure for the common cold
Home sick with a sore throat, etc. today, and feeling quite bored. The following amused me. Thanks to murdergeisha, from whom I ripped this off. I thought for sure I was more neurotic than this. Guess I've mellowed in my old age.
My Personality
| | Neuroticism | | Extraversion | | Openness To Experience | | Agreeableness | | Conscientiousness | |
Current Mood: stuffy
Current Music: not enough time - inxs
|
September 4th, 2006
12:25 pm - crikey.
Yes, he was intense. Yes, he was reckless. Yes, he pushed the envelope. But he was probably the most well-known zoologist in the world, and while his antics won him fans and critics alike, his causes and conservation efforts were heartfelt and determined.
This morning, Steve Irwin was killed by stingray's barb while filming off the Barrier Reef. Stingray barbs are painful, and can cause severe illness, but are rarely fatal because the toxin just isn't strong enough to kill a full-sized human. But the barb apparently pierced the Crocodile Hunter's heart, and he died instantly.
I feel a lot more sad about this than I'd expect. I don't think I ever watched any of his shows. Maybe there's some unspoken herpetologist bond tugging at my heart strings, just as much as the fact that he left behind two young children.
Poor guy. People can wag their fingers at his habits all they want, but he was a good guy. And man, but it's too bad it was a stingray. Goes without saying, pretty much: should have been a croc or a venomous snake.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) sad
Current Music: Stoney - Soap in the Bathtub
|
August 29th, 2006
08:03 pm - love love love
I just feel like today is a good day to send a big wave of love out to the world. Love to everyone.
I know what it means to miss New Orleans, especially today.
Current Mood: wistful
|
July 29th, 2006
11:45 pm - midnight brackish musing
It's seventy-four degrees
And a gentle warm breeze
Is bending the trees like a painting by Matisse
And everyone's all freaked out 'cause they didn't plan vacations accordingly
I am in bed
Making a list in red
Of everything I said I'm gonna do before I'm dead
The clock just won't wait, it's up against fate, and so are we
I started volunteering at the Long Beach aquarium today. It seems like a nice place, despite some holes in staff knowledge. Not that I like to be miss smarty-pants, but I couldn't let our tour guide get away with telling the group that the red-spotted newt is a reptile. I'm already pissed off enough at the Geico people for calling geckos amphibians in their ad campaigns. Anyhow, I really shouldn't talk, because I realized that my knowledge of fish is practically useless -- literally. There is no practical use for my knowledge of fish, which is of families and evolutionary relationships. I hardly know any common names or biogeography, so I've got a lot to learn. That's what the 5-session "Critter College" training is for! Sounds cheesy, but I'm looking forward to it.
I was thinking, while sitting in bed (not making a list in red, but) looking over my materials for membership in the National Association of Science Writers, that practical knowledge is really far more interesting, anyway. It's nice to know that other stuff, but it doesn't get grant money to start up species survival plans and ecosystem restoration efforts.
A gentle warm voice
Calls down from the sky
To ask for repentance but I just can't lie
So I'm driving to Cali so I can drop off the earth quickly
I park by the ocean
I swim out to sea
And halfway to drowning it dawns upon me
In the damn car, amidst the excitement I locked my keys
Current Mood: meditatory ?
Current Music: The Weight Of The Ocean
|
July 26th, 2006
08:12 pm - California Sierra Nevada high
This week, I hiked higher than I ever have before, and I did it with a 40-lb. backpack. We camped lower than we had originally planned because one of the lakes was simply too beautiful to pass up. There were marmots and wildflowers everywhere, and the mountain meadows made me waffle between gasping with inaudible joy and bursting into John Denver at the top of my lungs. There’s nothing like the Sierras to make me want to spend the rest of my waking moments in northern California.
( P.S. The stream that girl is crossing in the last photo is snowmelt. )
Current Music: angel flying too close to the ground
|
July 20th, 2006
09:18 pm - observations
Today my roommate Pam's best friend and her son, Nick, who is seven, moved into the house with us. This evening, Nick was sitting on the couch and gorging himself on an overlarge bar of chocolate while Pam looked on.
Pam: He's addicted to that chocolate. (rolls eyes)
Nick (to Pam): Yeah, but you're addicted to you-know-what. And I'm addicted to chocolate. So there.
Pam is a smoker. Nicholas 1, world 0.
Current Mood: reflective
Current Music: Anne-Sophie Mutter
|
July 9th, 2006
12:24 pm - Italy 1, France 1, 15 minutes left. plus, meme
It's long, but it was fun. Thanks, mg. It was super doubleplus great to see you last week, by the by.
(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)
| ✓ I miss somebody right now. |
✓ I don't watch much TV these days. (I never really have) |
× I own lots of books. (not a lot compared to the crowds I run with) |
| ✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses. |
× I love to play video games. |
✓ I've tried marijuana. (meh) |
| ✓ I've watched porn movies. (and enjoyed them) |
× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship. (at least I hope not) |
✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy. (usually) |
| ✓ I curse sometimes. |
✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year. |
× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me. |
( it goes on... )
Current Location: Berlin
Current Mood: complacent
Current Music: fifa world cup
|
June 28th, 2006
07:54 pm - Since, as you know, I change career plans twice a minute
Career Inventory Test Results | Extroversion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| | 86% | | Emotional Stability | |||||||||||| | 40% | | Orderliness | |||||||||||||||||||||||| | 73% | | Altruism | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| | 83% | | Inquisitiveness | ||||||||||||||||||||| | 70% | | You are a Persuader, possible professions include - entertainer, recruiter, artist, newscaster, writer/journalist, recreation director, librarian, facilitator, politician, psychologist, housing director, career counselor, sales trainer, travel agent, program designer, corporate/team trainer, child welfare worker, social worker (elderly services), interpreter/translator, occupational therapist, executive | | Take Free Career Test personality tests by similarminds.com
I would love to see other people's results for this test! Methinks in the LJ world this is called tagging. So you're it.
Pop quiz: If I wasn't a student/scientist, what would YOU see me doing with my life?
Current Mood: headache
Current Music: the rocky road to dubba-lin
|
May 23rd, 2006
05:28 pm - faculty?!
I just attended a meeting for the summer research students and their mentors here at Harvey Mudd. I’m kind of somewhere in between, since the students working for me are technically under the supervision of Steve, my collaborator here, but he’s on sabbatical in Ithaca, NY until the end of the summer. So I’m pretty much solely in charge. Anyway, I’ve taught before, but never my own course (I’ve always been a teaching assistant or a co-teacher), and so today was the first time that I actually fell into the “faculty” instead of “student” category. Let me just say it was WEIRD. I had to stifle my laughter when the stuffy dean said something silly, and all the students laughed, but me, I shouldn’t. When the kid came by passing out questionnaires for the students, I had to give it back to him and tell him that I don’t get one. Ha! Plus I’m going to be getting these e-mails about teaching and research goals and attending faculty meetings with the other professors. If you’ve ever been a graduate student, faculty meetings are like a black box that you’re never going to be privy to.
On one hand it’s not that big a deal, but on the other hand, it’s responsibility like I’ve never had before. A roomful of college students is one thing, but two students who design, carry out and write up their own research projects under your sole supervision is quite another.
I also saw this alligator lizard today in the field. They have really large jaws and can inflict a nasty bite. Also, when they’re babies, they’re brownish-red, but then they get yellower as they age. They also give birth to live young! There's not much scale in this photo, but this one was about a foot, nose to tip of tail. He was probably bigger at one point, though, because he's got a regenerated tail. : )
Current Mood: grimy
Current Music: The Walk - the cure
|
May 21st, 2006
11:57 pm - When boys can't take rejection, + diner love
I had a date last week. An adult date: a meet at a restaurant, possibility of getting a drink after, walk me to my car and maybe you'll get a kiss goodnight kind of date. This cgi engineer boy and I had a ridiculous number of things in common, and we were never at a loss of things to talk about. But he was, for lack of a better word, just too dorky. And don't get me wrong, I usually like dorky. But when your first date peeks over her menu and asks if you like seafood, you don't reply, "I see food, I eat it." This poor boy and I had a very good time, but there was just nothing there. Different senses of humor, different natural pauses in our speech, just different wavelengths. Unfortunately, though, when the date was through, I *didn't* say, "Sorry, I had a great time, but you're not my type." I just couldn't bring myself to do it. He asked what I was doing Saturday, I said I'd get in touch with him. Then when I sent him a message (yes, spineless, I know, but we did most of our conversing via e-mail anyway) saying I didn't feel a spark with him, he sent me back a nasty e-mail, asking, among other things, what in the world I was expecting to figure out on a first date, and saying that "no spark" was too vague to mean anything anyway.
Now, I don't expect him to be dancing rings around his computer graphics cubicle, but I felt offended by his retort. I agonized over having to reject this boy, because I did like him, just not, y'know, like that. And he just made it fifty times worse by lashing out at me. Not fair, I think. Bluh.
On a completely unrelated note, Liz, these lyrics are for you! I'm going to burn and send to you this cd: Martin Sexton, Black Sheep. P.S., I was born in the show-me state!
Diner
You might have seen one out in Minnesota
Or maybe down by the sea in Sarasota
But they were made back in Worcester Mass
Of aluminum and bakalite and glass
Like a locomotive they were streamlines
And the blue prints were drawn up from a dream of mine
Slap 'em up put 'em on the train
Out to Michigan up to Maine
You may find a diner down in Georgia or
Carolina off the twenty by the piggly wiggly
In the country out of Waynsboro
Or when it's getting late and rainy out in New York State
You hang a louie off the thru-way
And you go and grab yourself a cheeseburger
At the little gem diner off the six niner
Diner my shiny shiny love
In the night you're all I'm thinking of
Diner my shiny shiny love
The cruiser pulls in where the troopers always stop
As we dine over the chrome and formica table top
The cashier she always squints
By the gum and the bowl of mints
She's tapping her toe
To the Dean Martin on the consolette
Booth service and a cigarette we're loving it so
Side of fries a dollar
Or the haddock plate two ninety five
A rootbeer float a pepsi
And be sure to save some room for some apple pie
Better make it a-la-mode
Dean Martin god rest his soul
Talkin' to me from the cereal bowl
There's a couple from the show me state
Knockin' back a little meatloaf plate
Diner my shiny shiny love.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/shock.gif) distressed
Current Music: Martin Sexton - Caught in the Rain
|
May 5th, 2006
10:59 pm - Spent last night in the arms of a girl in Louisiana
Hi again. : )
I feel like it was only a few minutes ago that I was writing on Livejournal about moving to CA for the first time. Now I’m back, and I’m missing Louisiana terribly. Living in the “war zone,” as my grandfather was calling it, is the only situation I’ve ever experienced that actually lives up to the phrase “put things in perspective.” I’m still getting used to the fact that mail comes on time, instead of weeks late, the garbage gets picked up twice (!) a week, and the grocery store is open until the incredible hour of midnight. I have also been pleasantly surprised at the more than one person who has noticed my Louisiana driver’s license and asked me how everything is going for me. Although I plan to change my license and registration to CA (establishing residency for reasons I’ll elaborate on at another time), I am consciously stalling. I still want that badge that represents even the tiny, tiny little struggle that I had in comparison to so many others.
I salute you, Louisiana.
( Salute. )
Current Music: Callin' Baton Rouge
|
February 13th, 2006
11:19 pm - V is for Vampirism
| Your Candy Heart Says "Hug Me" | 
A total sweetheart, you always have a lot of love to give out.
Your heart is open to wherever love takes you!
Your ideal Valentine's Day date: a surprise romantic evening that you've planned out
Your flirting style: lots of listening and talking
What turns you off: fighting and conflict
Why you're hot: you're fearless about falling in love |
Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: The Night That Never Ends
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
zirconite's journal