The following things stand in between me and my Thanksgiving break:
Then I will be home! I can get through this, right? Right…
Sipping delicious coffee, outside on the front porch, in the sun. Does it really get any better than that on a Sunday morning? The weather has been so gracious this weekend, it’s been sunny and above 65 degrees for three days straight. It does amazing things to my mood.
Also, I just want to say that having a front porch is awesome. This is my first front porch. I’ve had front stoops, which are awesome in their own way, but man, a porch? It’s like a whole other room of the house, but outside. I think I’ve spent more time on our front porch than anywhere else. I love it out there, it is so peaceful.
This weekend has been restorative and restful. I got a lot of work done (although there’s still so much more to do), I went on long walks in the nice weather. I spent an afternoon hanging out with my housemates, and I went out and socialized with some nice people from my school. I’m shy and I can be a bit anti-social, so going out and having a good time with new people is a big accomplishment for me.
The rest of my Sunday will hopefully be spent on homework and then going for a long walk in the Arboretum. I feel recharged and I feel ready to start a new week.
So what to do your write about for Nablopomo? Should I have themed posts to make it easier to post something everyday? Should I write about my favorite memories? My childhood? Should I fill out those memes about myself? How do people do it? I’m currently looking through other blogs for inspiration, because I really don’t want to spend the rest of November writing about how much I miss home; and I can’t write about my day because I’m a student now and I spend all day in class.
Want to know what I did yesterday? I woke up early to try and get some homework done, but was not successful. Then I went to my biostatistics lab, then I went to work at the bird library, then got some Indian takeout for dinner. Then I went to my friend’s house where we did biostats homework until 11pm. After spending 4+ hours on homework, we met some friends at a German pub called Heidelberg and enjoyed a much-needed beer. Then I went home and passed out. Today is pretty much going to be a repeat of yesterday – do homework all day, maybe have a drink, sleep. Oh the life of a grad student is so glamorous and exciting.
In 1996 the Yankees won the World Series. It was a big deal, because they were pretty bad in the 80’s, and they had not won the World Series since 1978. I was in 6th grade in 1996, and the Yankees were hot, literally. Every girl in my school was in love with Derek Jeter. Everyone claimed that their older sister was actually dating him.
Since 1996, the Yankees have won many more World Series. But I remember ‘96, because that year, my dad let me and my siblings cut school (my mom DID NOT approve) and we went into city with my uncles and cousins to see the Yankee’s ticker tape parade. Which is interesting now that I think about it, because my dad is a Met’s fan.
The first ticker tape parade happened on Broadway in lower Manhattan in 1886 after the dedication of the Statue of Liberty. Ticker tape, which was once used on Wall Street to print out stock quotes, was thrown out of the office buildings that lined Broadway, like confetti in celebration. Since then, the city holds ticker tape parades on lower Broadway (that section of Broadway is now called the Canyon of Heros) for teams that win championships and astronauts coming back from important missions. Paper shreddings, entire sheets of paper, and the occasional roll of toilet paper are now used instead of ticker tape.
Let’s take a minute to acknowledge the sanitation guys and gals that have to clean up the massive mess of paper afterwards. Because that’s a tough job.
Ok, so going to a ticker tape parade is really freaking cool. It snows confetti. See?
I took these pictures from my office window last year during the Giant’s Superbowl victory ticker tape parade. My office building faced Broadway and we had a bird’s eye view of the whole thing. That was a fun day – spending the morning dumping the contents of our shredders out the windows. I’m jealous of my coworkers who get to watch the Yankee’s parade today. The Giants victory was cool, but New York is really a baseball town.
I love the graceful arch this roll of toilet paper made in the air, almost like a TP rainbow over the city. Way to make your city proud, Yanks.
So the school that I go to? It’s kind of a big deal. Big companies come to my school to recruit students for jobs and internships. I should be thrilled, right? People out there want to hire me! But I’m not. Big oil companies come here, and big energy companies. I just got back from a presentation from a big shot consulting firm. If I worked for one of these companies, my life would be set. I’d have an amazing salary, bonuses, and all those fancy corporate perks that corporate people get. But the problem is that I don’t want to work for one of those companies. I just don’t want to. The problem is that I’m an idealist. I am not naive enough to think that I can save the world, but I still would like to try and make a small positive change in the world. I just can’t see myself working for any of these companies. Based on the presentations I’ve seen, oil companies are starting to do a lot of interesting research on alternative energy sources, and that’s great, but it is just not for me.
I have to do a summer internship for my degree program, and all my classmates already have interviews lined up with the companies that recruit here, except for me of course. I’ll have to find an internship on my own. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.
Also, there’s this neat website called Futurity that publishes reports on research studies going on at universities around the country. The other day they had a story confirming what I already suspected: Does Mother Nature Teach Us Kindness? Are you also having a crappy week? Go for a walk in the park, you will feel better.
A few months ago, my lovely friend Ada emailed me this great article from the New York Times about subway readers.
These days, among the tattered covers may be the occasional Kindle, but since most trains are still devoid of Internet access and cellphone reception, the subway ride remains a rare low-tech interlude in a city of inveterate multitasking workaholics. And so, we read.
Even without a seat, even while pressed with strangers into human panini, even as someone plays a keyboard harmonica and rattles a cup of change, even when stumbling home after a party.
The subway is my favorite place to read in the whole world. It didn’t matter how many people were around me, if I had a seat or not. Opening a book provided me with my own private space in the busiest of places.
Here in Michigan my commute is a 10-15 minute walk to my classes, plus a 5 minute walk over the bird library most afternoons for work. While I enjoy walking, I often find myself missing my 45 minute – each way commute on the subway. Its kind of crazy, how many people actually miss commuting 90 minutes a day on a crowded smelly old underground train? But I do. It was my special alone reading time. It was the one time of day where I did not have any distractions. I always got off the train feeling refreshed, renewed, and prepared (except for those days when the R train seemed to inch down 4th ave ever so slowly and you just feel like screaming.) Even if I was feeling miserable about going to work, all I had to do was look around the train and realize that at least I wasn’t alone; we all commuting to our miserable jobs together.
I don’t know. Sometimes I think I was crazy to leave everything I had in NY to come to school out here. Its one of those days. I just wish I was home. Because if I was, I’d be on the train right now coming home from work, cozied up in the front corner seat of the conductor’s car, reading a book.
It is only the second day of NaBloPoMo and I have no clue what to write about. So how about I tell you about the homework assignment I’m working on?
I have to design a ventilation hood that will reduce dust in a food processing plant that produces cake mixes, brownie mixes, muffin mixes and other dry food mixes.
The most common form of occupational asthma does not come from nasty fumes or vapors or noxious gases; or from asbestos or fiberglass or other carcinogenic particulates. The most common form of occupational asthma comes from food; mostly from dry baking ingredients such as flour, powdered egg, milk powder, flavor additives and yeast. ”Baker’s asthma” has been around for centuries, basically for as long as people have been baking bread. The single-most effective way of reducing workplace illnesses, whether in a factory or in an office, is to have a good ventilation system. Fresh air makes everything better; recirculated air is bad. Remember that.
The key to a good ventilation hood is being able to suck up the containment very close to the source, so that it never goes near the worker’s face and breathing zone. Large hoods that suck up containments from across a room are not effective; neither are large clumsy hoods that are attached directly to the machinery. I am (trying) to design a slot hood, which is able to draw containments out of the air without a large loss due to friction, thus minimizing energy waste. So that’s the goal. I have to finish tonight, wish me luck.
I signed up for NaBloPoMo. I’ve never done it before and always admired those that did. We’ll see how it works out. I really don’t need another thing to distract me from my schoolwork, but, what the hell.
I have been in grad school for a little over two months, and have been struggling with the following things:
Here we go, NaBloPoMo
. . . but I’ve checked out some books from the library anyway. The University of Michigan has the best. library. ever.
I have work-study job at the bird library in the university’s Museum of Natural History, where I can geek out and read all the bird books I want, or look at stuffed dead birds from around the world, or look through the telescope that points to the top of the bell tower where a pair of peregrine falcons often hang out. Sometimes I have to do work, for example go through boxes of books donated to the bird library from bird scientists from around the world to see if the library already owns them. And I realized, we have everything. A Field Guide to Birds of Manitoba published in 1903? We have that. The Incubation Period of the American Coot published 1891? We have that too. People, if you need any bird-related book or journal article from any year from any country, I can totally hook you up.
I took out some books related to my program, even though I won’t have to time read them. I just like having them around. I leave them in the dining room and when I have spare moment during breakfast or dinner I like to randomly open up to a page and read for a little. It’s odd but I really miss taking public transportation. Walking and driving everywhere feels so isolating. Plus I have no more designated reading time. Anyway, here are the books I checked out and hopefully will one day read:
Hazardous Waste Sites: The Credibility Gap by Michael Greenburg
Dangerous Premises: An Insider’s View of OSHA Enforcement by Don J. Lofgren
Health and Work Productivity: Making the Business Case for Quality Health edited by Ronald Kessier and Paul E. Stang
Blue-Green Coalitions: Fighting for Safe Workplaces and Healthy Communities by Brian Mayer (I’m really excited about this one)
In other news, my midterms are coming up. Please pray for me.
