=^.^=

 

I think there might be two-ish weeks left the quarter?? Maybe? I have no earthly idea if or when I might have a final in either my solar or defects class....probably should get on top of that. 

so much left to do.

anyways, here's to the extra day - it's been fun, February 29.

{apollo's angels}

Ballet...was a system of movement as rigorous and complex as any language. Like Latin or ancient Greek, it had rules, conjugation, declensions. Its laws, moreover, were not arbitrary; they corresponded to laws of nature. Getting it "right" was not a matter of opinion or taste: ballet was a hard science with demonstrable physical facts. It was also, and just as appealingly, full of emotions and the feelings that come with music and movement. It was blissfully mute, like reading. Above all, perhaps, there was the exhilarating sense of liberation that came when everything worked.


- a PhD graduate student in physics to the author of apollo's angels. 


probably one of my favorite descriptions of ballet.

{via ballerina project}

Imaginary Number

The mountain that remains when the universe is destroyed
is not big and is not small.
Big and small are

comparative categories, and to what
could the mountain that remains when the universe is destroyed
be compared?

Consciousness observes and is appeased.
The soul scrambles across the screes.
The soul,

like the square root of minus 1,
is an impossibility that has its uses.

{BY VIJAY SESHADRI}

single. and perfectly fine with it.

tomorrow may be valentines day, but tomorrow will just be another tuesday for me - most likely getting frustrated with my kids in lab (though this group seems promising, fingers crossed that they exponentially increase in preparedness by the time lab starts!) and tomorrow the first batch of the new prospective grad students come!

and right now, I'm single, and perfectly okay with it.

my family loves me,
my friends love me,
Jesus loves me,
and that's good enough for today.

I can focus on investing in all the wonderful relationships I already have with family/friends and stay focused on school/research stuff - as my grad school friend always says, "boys are bad for grades" and goodness knows I need all the focus I can get to pass this solar cells class! I'm not opposed to dating; I'm just not going to go out in search of someone right now.

however, I may stay off facebook for the rest of the day - I can only take so many "I love/am blessed by [insert name here] so much! love my hubby/wife!" status updates in one day. also side note - the term 'hubby' - can't stand it. at all.

I'll probably wear my awesome new red trousers in honor of the spirit of the day, but then again, red is just my favorite color, so maybe it doesn't count...

I do however, love these adorable kitties:

golf and climbing.

I am not a competitive person when it comes to sports. I think it's because I only trained in classical ballet until the last half of my senior year and the studio I trained with fostered a very positive non-competitive atmosphere. Granted, we still had 'auditions' for new ballets, but I highly doubt anything that happened that day drastically changed my teacher's casting. Once my studio closed, I took up golf and now I go rock climbing.

(I couldn't find any pictures of me/my golf team online, so you'll have to immagine me in a slightly weird green khaki capri pant and a slightly-too-short navy polo with a golf ball on fire embroidered on the left chest area. oh, and don't forget my sweet golf shoes with argyle details :) )

And I've come to the realization that the reason I think that the reason I enjoy both golf and climbing competitions is because even though there is a competitive end, both involve lots of walking/waiting and chatting pleasantly with your competitors. Rock climbing even involves total strangers/competitors helping you through bouldering problems. I know I may be the only one who views these sports in this light (and consequently why I'm not the greatest at either activity) but since I still enjoy playing golf and climbing rock walls, I'm okay with my non-competitiveness.

if you look at the above pic, you can clearly see that I don't fit the typical (short) hipster climber mold. it made the comp just more entertaining for people watching.

see? I'm wearing a shirt with sleeves and it's from NASA. yep yep.

time

so, for some strange reason, I have no homework right now and no research to work on because all the items I ordered have yet to come in. even solar cells class is currently without work (though I have this constant fear that I'll get an email in the next few minutes from the prof with homework attached). what does one do with spare time?

apparently:

- make dinner - the homemade pizza crust too large for my pizza stone = lots of crust!

- repaint my nails in 'eternal optimist' - which, while it took slightly less than 40 minutes this time, I went and messed up two nails right near the end :(

- climb!! climbing today, climbing tomorrow, comp on saturday at Western!

- catch up on all the TV shows I made myself not watch for two weeks - thanks solar cells class

- buy new slacks! yay GAP, thanks for making pants that fit my shape. red trousers are the best.

- see my sister's last high school home game!

- help feed tent city 3 - though my friends did all the cooking, I just drove the food down there in my mom's giant suburban (my car is in the shop :( ) such good homemade pulled pork!!

that's about 50 lbs of pork shoulder, a bag of large onions, 20ish lbs of baked beans, 200 chocolate chip cookies, a hundred buns, 6 bags of salad, and many people fed. 

- make muffins (recipe is from my favorite bakery of all time, Macrina, found here)

- and find fun things on the internet:

in which I fix my girlfriends grandparents wifi and am hailed as a conquering hero
(used to happen frequently when I visited relatives...not so much anymore for some reason)

excerpts from the safety brochure
(for all of you who want to know about NASA's plans for space tourism and colonization, please read for your safety)

and this infographic
(have I ever mentioned how much I love infographics?! so many infographics....)

apparently, before this survey, it was assumed that religious = backwards. really?! umm, some of the christian people I most admire are smack dab in the middle of technology! favorite part of the infographic was reveling how much religious people use technology - a lot.

also, today I began contemplating starting a science tumblr, strictly for all the science-y things I find on the internet, so that the poor people who are my friends on fb don't get their feeds filled up with all my posts....like this sweet NASA air traffic video!

women, tech, and the superbowl

In the post-superbowl commercial analysis, there are a few terribly inappropriate commercials are on everyone's radar because their content so explicitly objectified women in a way that needs to stop happening. However, while pursuing the twitter hashtag #notbuyingit, started by the women of Miss Representation (a film that I recommend watching) I was caught off guard by the dislike of the best buy mobile commercial:

Maybe it was just because I was watching the commercials in a room full of women who had met one of the people featured (and were very excited about it every time, understandably so :)  - it was the guy who turned text in to voice) or because I'm so used to the male-dominated tech field, that I didn't have an issue with the fact that every single developer featured was a male. Some people thought that best buy was sending the message that while men can make apps, women can only sell them. While that conclusion can be drawn from the ad, I, somewhat surprisingly, don't have a large issue with the ad, because it is such a male-dominated industry right now and men have created great technological advances. (side note, I hope that guys don't feel like their tech advances are being completely discounted because they are men and not women, in this whole conversation about women in science/tech - that is not my intention. I just want to see women given more opportunities and told that they can succeed in a currently male-dominated industry. It can be quite intimidating to be the only women in a room if you don't have support and encouragement!)

An article on a site called Jezebel pulled together a list of females in the tech industry that the author felt best buy could have included in their ad. Click the link, read the list of women. Quite honestly, Amanda Wixted, the creator of Farmville, is the only women I feel would be well-know enough by the superbowl-watching crowd to merit real consideration by the marketing team at best buy. Would you recognize Emily Chang, the woman who created a company who designs user interfaces - recognizing her product in the 3 seconds she would have been on the screen? I can't even remember the faces of the men who made Words with Friends, but I connected with the ad because I saw the image of the app on the phone screens. Maybe it's because I've been on the flip side as well, as a member of the commercial-producing crew (my uncle makes commercials and I've worked for him in the past) that I understand why the men who appeared were featured. Do any of you know about the women Women are still making great strides in the tech industry, but I'm not ready to quit shopping best buy because of this commercial. Women were not objectified and we got to see some of the faces behind some of the most well-known and useful mobile technology. And anyways, there were both men and women in the mix at the end, I'm just glad the used a female to do the talking, as it easily could have been a male 'manager' - which is the role I mentally put the woman in because she was the spokesperson. (second side note - check out the racial diversity in that group of best buy sales people and note that not all of the male developers are white males.)

I'm curious, though, what my other feminist-minded friends thought of the commercial, did your radar pick up on the all-male developers vs women salesperson when you first saw it?

{size six}

recently, I discovered that I'm not really a size 8 anymore in pants and skirts - I'm closer to a 4/6. While most people, I'm sure, would be happy about that, I've spent the past 4+ years building a wardrobe and developing patterns based on a body shape that hadn't changed for awhile. I discovered this change when making this skirt: 

Don't worry, the decrease in size is not due to a diet, I was perfectly happy with the way I looked - I can only assume that grad school stress, not-super-great eating habits (cereal for dinner more than once in the past month, though I do try to make dinner at least 5 times a week), but it's probably mostly due to my increased exercising with cycling and rock climbing. I love biking to school - not so much the hill on the way home - and apparently cycling slims your hips, dramatically. 

anyways, I'm slightly frustrated right now with how all my slacks fit - they all look at least a size or two too large - but I'm not sure I want to invest in many pieces in a smaller size, as I can't guarantee that I'll be this size forever :(  Unintentionally, I think I've been wearing more skirts and dresses because of this change, but as I get more into lab work, I have to wear pants more often. I guess it was good that GAP changed all their jean sizing recently, as the new 8 fits more like a 6, but I don't like wearing jeans every day (ironic, seeing as I probably own a dozen + pairs). Maybe this calls for a trip to goodwill? I've found some great pants there in the past, maybe I'll get lucky once again. Pants are tricky to tailor around the hips, so I don't want to try to take my current slacks in.

and yes, I know this should totally be classified with #firstworldproblems...

sunshine of a different sort

while all my friends have been enjoying the sunshine that decided to grace Seattle this weekend, the sunshine in florida has been fantastic - parially because it comes with 80+ degrees of heat. and it's not too humid right now!

note that all my photos are from my phone, which while it has a decent camera, is nothing compared to my dslr, but I don't trust my dslr near a beach. sand and water are not my best friends.

Hannah at the first beach - overcast but warm (not the water - it was cold!)

requisite toes in the sand picture (look at all the shells!)

beach day 2 - dog beach with Piper! so much fun. so much sun.

weird tree/clump of trees in a park in St. Pete.

blue water and blue sky as we left St. Pete this evening - I like the shape and the colors of the building on the pier.

overall, sun and sleep and friends have won out over solar cells test studying....but tomorrow will be all studying until the unsuperbowl party at my friend's apartment. we're watching the puppy bowl and super bowl commercials, but not the actual game itself :) 

{also - click on any of the pictures for a larger version}

suitcase in my hand.

tonight, I leave for a weekend in Florida. Yay for a large network of NASA Ames friends!

last night, while filling out application after application for summer internships/jobs - thanks, thesis project with no real funding - this song popped up on my mix:



my friends don't seem to know me / without my suitcase in my hand. 

though I'm not really a lyrics person (not an auditory learner), the opening line seemed especially appropriate seeing as in the past 13 months, I have been in WA, NY (2x), AZ, CA (3x-ish), GA, MD (2x), TX, NJ, PA, MA and I have driven through or had a layover in IL, NC, CT, CO, OR (and probably a few other east coast states that I slept through).

Wow. So many states and so much time on planes! Ironically, I have yet to get a frequent flyer ticket - but that is what you get when you go for cheap prices over loyalty to one airlines....

life in a lab coat.

yesterday, as I was getting frustrated with the kids in the lab that I TA, I realized just how many hours of my life I've lived in my lab coat. I should probably wash my lab coat, but I'm afraid I spilled something a long time ago that doesn't like water. Realistically, I probably haven't, but I don't want to accidentally destroy the laundry machine....

In contemplating the state of my lab coat, I realized that there are a large number of pictures of me in a lab coat floating around the internet, including this lovely image:

note - that is dry ice....I tried so hard to convince the photographer that we should represent 'real chemistry' (not that dry ice in water is not 'real chemistry,' but it feels like cheating...alas, we also had to use food coloring (!!!) he did not like my tiny bottle of blue azulene that I had worked for more than two quarters to synthesize :(

this was my expression in response to the photographer prompting: this is the coolest the reaction you've ever seen! yeah, right. food coloring in water - coolest thing ever.

(more pics here)

drawing on windows while sporting my lab coat is always fun - this was the azulene project as well.

finally, I'm so glad NASA Ames switch to more professional headshots (see my google+ prof pic), since this was my 'action shot' one year:

and yep, it now resides on the NASA website, for all the world to see....

In some ways, this lab coat is my 'suit' while at work in the lab (which, somewhat unfortunately, also requires wearing pants and flat, closed-toe shoes), and clearly, not made for a female figure. But, as men probably developed the lab coat, it fits their shape, not mine. I can't complain too much, because I'm not willing to take my coat in to be more fitted due to a safety issue - I want the lab coat material as far away from my skin as possible if I spill something on it. A narrowly cut coat could hold the chemical close to my skin, which could just cause larger problems than me having to wear a baggy lab coat!

gogglelinesforlife