(Confession)

This week's Confession of Sin during services at Grace Seattle was quite apropos:

Almighty God, we want life. We want full life. We want life that satisfies
     our deepest longings:
     our longing to belong,
     our longing to be safe,
     our longing for comfort,
     our longing for purpose,
     our longing for relationship,
     our longing for life. 

Giver of life, you are the only source of life that satisfies these longings. 
     but we reject you. We are often ashamed of you. 
     We are more comfortable fighting for ourselves than trusting you.

We repent. We now turn to you
     and away from our lifeless, uncaring, and unsatisfying gods.
Forgive us and renew us. Amen.

I pray I will continually remember and reflect on this prayer.

spring in seattle

This last weekend is what keeps people living in Seattle. There is, in my humble opinon, no better place to live than in Seattle when it's sunny. If you haven't been here on a sunny day - you'll have to trust me on this one - and come visit sometime soon :) You can see the mountains, hear the water, and smell every single flowering plant. I love it.

I think spent ~80% of my waking hours this weekend outside. Yesterday, I spent all morning outside at the Tulip Festival and then came home and took a nap in the park by my home. Don't worry, I'm liberally applying sunscreen. Not that I'll ever get rid of my bike shorts line from last summer, but hopefully my ears stay a normal color! Today, I biked 13 miles around Mercer Island (though we didn't stop, so no pictures to share), played a game of Ultimate - where we pulled out a win after being down 7-2 at halftime - and went to church in a very sun-filled building.

I love the sun. It's a good thing I want a career in solar energy :)

apparently, I've been to Tulip Town before - when I was maybe 6? You can't tell, but that is a Minnie Mouse sweater underneath that awesome hot pink jacket. and don't forget the floral blue and pink pants with matching bow! Pretty sure my mom made those for me :)

Clearly, I am now significantly taller than the tulips. And it is awkward to try to stand amongst the tulips. (photo credit: Stephanie Rubesh)

Yep. Definitely the same Tulip Town. I have a pic somewhere of my parents and me with this same sign.

{mountains}

The longer I live in Washington, the more I love the mountains and the water. I don't visit either often, but I love knowing they are near.

recently, a friend posted this image she had taken when visiting Seattle and the poem along with it. I love both, so I am remembering by sharing. 

Sometimes the mountain
is hidden from me in veils
of cloud, sometimes
I am hidden from the mountain
in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue,
when I forget or refuse to go
down to the shore or a few yards
up the road, on a clear day,
to reconfirm
that witnessing presence.

-Denise Levertov

{written about mt. rainier}

{building} art

I should be in class right now, but thanks to the admin who showed up over 30 minutes late to our meeting regarding some fellowship application paperwork, I had to skip class :( Skipping grad courses makes me nervous, especially since this prof is new and there is not book for the course....

Anyways, as I walk from the bus stop to my building (~30% of my commute is spent walking) I pass by this fantastic building called Anderson Hall. Last night I noticed that one of the upper stories was lit up, revealing what appears to be a beautiful gothic-style hall. I'm not in the college of Forestry (clearly), so I'm going to try to explore the space without too many people noticing I'm there. I don't even know what the space is currently used for, so that complicates things a bit.

anderson hall {pre-giant-bus-stop now residing near it}

As I was looking up the building online, I stumbled across the UW's Digital Collections, full of historical photos and many original architectural drawings. Look at this incredible drawing I found of the Space Needle:

And the pictures come with interesting descriptions, including this about the Space Needle:

Set on the only section of the fair grounds that was not owned by the city, the site did not have the height restrictions of other exhibits/pavillions at the fair. The lot, 37-by-37 m, was purchased by private investors for $75,000 and is still privately owned.

and this was supposed to the be a bank at the World's Fair:

What a cool building! I haven't actually determined if this structure was ever built, but I'm think that it probably was not constructed, mainly because I can't find any info on it....but there is going to be some exhibitions this coming year to celebrate the 50 yr anniversary of the World's Fair, so maybe I can find out more later! (also, I've always secretly wanted a circular house...)

even the floor plan is something I would frame!

{art + friends = balance}

it's been four really really long days. and it's the first four days of the quarter.

mostly, I've been dealing with my new TA assignment all week. Due to poorly written lab handouts, I've spent time going physically through the labs myself, trying to decipher what the instructor intended. Fortunately, my chemistry background has made this a bit easier, as my MSE lab is basically a chem lab. It's been really interesting seeing how much the students don't remember about chemistry. I've been giving them a bit of grace, remembering that they only have had two quarters of gen chem, two years ago, but I'm going to have them watch this video before coming into lab next....

It even has fun music!

But, today is Saturday - woke up to my alarm at 8:40am, freaked out for a moment, said "kali - it's 8:40!" thinking she was late to work, and then remembered it was saturday (sorry for waking you up...)

Today was SAM day with Sarah! She's off to Indonesia with the Peace Core soon and I'm trying to keep good balance in my life by taking time for non-school related activities, so we bussed downtown to the SAM to see the 'Art of Asia' exhibit.

I really enjoyed the art on display, as I love asian art. There was an interesting mix of cultures represented, though ironically, no Indonesian art. As I am both a font and textile geek, I loved all the tapestries and scrolls. Apparently the following is the most important important scroll in the SAM collection:

Most interesting was the description that the characters can show excitement, exuberance, and even be a small surprise as you're reading - that is definitely more emotion than can come across in this very straight and proper Arial font....even modern calligraphy doesn't convey much emotion.

The textiles were fascinating, including the summer robe above. The blue was rich in color, and the embroidery was all golden. Incredibly, the robe was in the pristine condition, including the mesh sections along the arms. I just love textiles. 

In other news, I finally broke down and bought a paper weekly planner. I tried so hard to be paperless and take advantage of all my various electronics, but it was surprisingly difficult to track everything. Still on the hunt for a good planner app that interfaces with both my computer and my phone in a simple manner. In the meantime, I'm going to use this Moleskine planner with some great cover art: 

I've also spent copious amount of hours installing linux on my baby tablet pc. windows XP was just too cumbersome. 2 re-installs later and many minutes on the internet, I finally got the screen resolution fixed. it's the small victories in life.

My wonderful day ended with a lovely gathering of friends around a crockpot of soup, some TJ's cornbread, and homemade pazooki :) 

Thanks for filing our home with love, warmth, and laughter.

Q2

Today marks the first day of my second quarter in grad school. wow.

I met all the students I'll be TA-ing for over the course of the quarter: 38 boys and 8 girls. I guess that is engineering for you. Interestingly, all the TAs are women. Hopefully I didn't scare/annoy them too much with my page-long email and extra work I just assigned....it's going to be a fun quarter.

I think, however, that the most interesting part of my quarter is going to be this intro/get-everyone-up-to-speed photovoltaics course I'm taking from the Chem E department. I realized as my prof was giving his intro lecture that I had already read and cited a paper he wrote in my quarter report and some of my fellowship applications. Pretty sure I wasn't aware that the author of that paper was at the UW. Mainly, I'm just more excited than ever to work in the renewable/alternative energy sector. Solar is a very viable technology for energy independence, good stewardship of our natural resources, etc, etc, etc. While sitting through this class, I was almost overwhelmed (that sounds more dramatic than reality) with excitement that I possibly get to spend my career researching solar energy conversion. Kind of nerdy, I know, but I'm slowly realizing that I'd be very okay with staying in the solar sector. There are just so many interesting aspects - from the materials, to the processing, the device design; even energy policy is something I've been looking into .

favorite picture from the intro lecture:

notice the color over seattle? yeah. I just laughed when this popped up.

probably going to have to move to do this solar energy career. 

not biking

has been harder than I expected. I keep wanting to ride my bike, but then I remember there is ice on the roads in my hometown. And that my bike is still in Seattle. I refuse to ride a stationary bike and I'm so tempted right now to get a trainer for my lovely road bike, but I think my roommates wouldn't be too happy with a bike in our living room :)

Anyways, here are some funny bike (and pedestrian) related haikus I stumbled upon while procrastinating on finishing my DOE fellowship application:

also. watch this video. it's strangely fascinating. and scary.

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

I would also like to point out that in NYC, people stand in the street while waiting to cross. You could clearly pick me out as a non-new yorker when I was in the city a few week ago because I stood on the sidewalk. In seattle, our streets are too narrow to stand in the road! alas, I found myself the day after I returned to seattle waiting in the street more than once.....

*sigh*

I made it through the first quarter of grad school. I'm still in good standing GPA-wise - the only reason I care about my GPA is for fellowships and getting into the dual-degree Nanotech PhD program the UW offers. Otherwise, all I care about is learning. And learn I did, this past quarter. Nothing like trying to also learn everything possible about basic EE things/photovoltaics on top of learning all sorts of new topics because I switched from Chemistry to Materials. Interestingly, I found that my chemistry background was more helpful than I anticipated (I guess that's why it's called 'the central science'! :) ), serving as an intro to topics that we delved into more deeply/mathematically into throughout my courses.

I will say, however, that even though the quarter was full of stress, I love Materials Science and Engineering and definitely believe it is the right field for me. What I still don't know is what I want to do after graduation - work in industry, for a government lab, or in academia, but I'm willing to sit on that decision for a while, discerning the Lord's will for my career.

everyone says this quarter is the worst in our department (mainly thanks to the class my advisor teaches....) - so here's hoping that next quarter goes swimmingly!  

 {currently, I'm de-stressing in southern CA with my family, where there is plenty of sun and no alarm clocks}

Mainly, I want to thank the fantastic girls in my house for supporting me day-to-day as I figure out this grad school thing. I know that I'm frequently absent from the house community and you girls saw a bunch of low moments in the quarter, but I so so so appreciate you all and I wanted to let you know!

 {also. thank you for the frosting and cookies. you know how to fuel my sleepless and stressful nights.}

 

I should also thank my fellow SPU alums, Natalie Closner and Marissa Maharaj for releasing music this year - your albums were on perpetual repeat when I was scrambling to finish all my reports!

{marissa maharaj}

{natalie closner}

{you all should take a listen, if you haven't already!}

{city girl}

Apparently I'm more of a city girl than I thought.

Wandering through the deserted Cambridge, MA on the MIT campus Saturday morning was weird. (apparently MIT students don't get moving on a Saturday until ~11 am....) 

It was a city, but there was nobody outside. And the streets were so clean! There were joggers - lots and lots and lots of runners - but no one just out for a stroll with their family, enjoying the sunshine and fresh air. Maybe they're all just too used to the sun and fair weather? It really threw me off all day! I guess I expect Ellensburg to be quiet because it's a small college town, and I envisioned Boston as place thriving with people. Maybe it was the area we saw, maybe it was the time of day, I'm not sure. 

{we did find plenty of east-coast hipsters (not a flannel in sight!) in Flour, a delicious lunch spot!}

{not that hannah and adwoa are hipsters, but this picture was taken in Flour :) }

all I do know is that I felt incredibly more at ease with the lights, cars, and people wandering around when we got back to New York that I did the whole day in Boston. 

{view from the 13th floor in Columbia's engineering building - look at all that city!}

10000 Hours

Recently, I read Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. Since I don't have the most fantastic memory in the world, I don't actually remember it in too detail (and let's be honest, I've shoved a whole boatload of new grad school related information into my brain since I finished it....) but it was an interesting read. If you haven't read it, it revolved around analyzing the context of successful people in a variety of arenas, debunking our favorite American myth of the self-made man. I'm not sure I agree with everything he generalized, but it was fascinating to learn that Jan-March are the best months for a hockey player to born in and that June - Aug are the best for people who want to play baseball. Of course, your cultural context can also indicate how successful you can become, but it was interesting to see that idea applied in the case of Korean airline crashes. Before not-too-long-ago, your chances of crashing were drastically higher if your pilots were Korean, due to the hierarchical culture and communication issues it created.

{If you want a taste of what the book covers, you should head over to RadioLab and listen to their podcast interview with Gladwell covering some of this book (but it could also be this podcast, I can't remember exactly). It's the reason I picked it up. Plus, RadioLab is just plain awesome!}

Long story short, he also subscribes to the 10000 hour theory - that the greatest people are only great at what they do because they put in the physical work hours, inferring that anyone can be good at anything, as long as the put in the time (the benchmark being ~10,000 hours). I'm not sure that's entirely true, but lots of good/correct practice always seems to pay off in the long run.

(I also have related thoughts about the kind of less positive side of this idea, that it's really difficult to get out of the conditions you were born into, but they aren't formulated enough at this point in time to merit more words than this side note.)

Why bring this up at 1:30 in the morning? Because I needed a brain break. And because, right now, I'm hoping this time I'm putting into learning about photovoltaics, nanomaterials, and writing this report for my advisor counts towards my 10,000 hours.

Outliers  is one of the few books I actually have with me in Seattle, so let me know if anyone wants to borrow it for some fun reading!

And I always think a good blog post needs a picture, so here's one of my favorite Hubble pictures :)

blessed.

I'm currently sitting in what is probably a multi-million dollar house in Queen Anne that has the most breathtaking view of Seattle I've ever seen. With a view similar to that of Kerry Park, the house is designed with 3 stories of windows that face out towards the water, so whenever you look outwards - there sits Seattle. I just can't get over how incredible the city looks at night.

{this is legitimately what the view looks like, only everything appears even closer and larger....}

tonight, I was supposed to edit NSF fellowship essays, but instead I've been sitting in a tastefully designed house drinking tea from an Olivia the Pig mug and enjoying being in the same room as my roommates. not gonna lie - this house is a beautiful combination of everything I've dreamed about in a house - open, spacious, lots of windows + natural lighting, decidedly minimalist, but still incorporating lots of floor-to-celling bookshelves full of english, art, design, and scientific literature.

we read love poems from a slim red volume, started a game of scrabble (but only got as far as 'daft', thanks Steph :) ), played with a soft hamster, and I finished editing some photos of my newest skirt.

all in all a good evening. so blessed to live in this city, to live with these women, to be pursuing a research degree in a field that I love, and as I was reminded last night while reading through Colossians 1, I'm so blessed to be a part of the Kingdom of Christ, forgiven and redeemed.

one goal achieved [twice]

Remember my list of goals for the quarter? I'm checking one off my list!

-Find a new coffee shop-

I've actually completed this one twice, as I've now gone to both Bustle on Queen Anne and Star Life on the Oasis in the University district.

Bustle was a very fresh feeling cafe and stocked the wonderful Harney and Sons tea! I love how they package their tea in silk sachets, which allows for the tea to fully unfurl when it is steeping and there is no paper-y taste in your drink. They also have sweet flavors like pomegranate oolong, which will always remind me of Christmas. (Christmas break my freshman year, my dad bought me like 48 bags of that tea which I subsequently drank before Winter Quarter was done and I'll forever associate with that time of year). They also have sweet mosaic tile tables and other ginormous wooden tables - excellent for studying.

Delicious Harney and Sons Tea

The other new shop I traveled to was the Star Life on the Oasis - thanks Nate for prompting me to go there! I actually biked there from SPU, it was only about 4 miles each way, but the going there had a decent hill up through the university district. As much as I love biking, I hate hills!

This is a picture from Star Life - forgive the yellow-ness of the photo, the lighting was really warm in there! But the tea was really good and the atmosphere very cosy with a few wing back chairs and converted-seattle-home feel!

The interior of the cafe. Apparently, they have the best vegan chocolate chip cookies. The bite I had was pretty good!

I wonder - are they many cities in the US that have as many coffee shops (and shops in general) in converted homes as Seattle does? I love the character that each home gives to a shop!