dream design

I've always been a fan of a modern, minimalist design when it can be acheived without losing warmth in a home. Recently I found one of my favorite spaces via a roommate's house sitting job, but as a 2.5 million dollar house is out of the question, I'll have to settle for creating my own space someday. Another friend passed along the following space (found on Apartment Therapy, but apparently she's met one of the people who live there, maybe)

I'm not a fan of the cluttered cottage look (though I'll be the first to admit that my personal room is perpetually messy) so this space was just beautiful to me. The warm woods, floor-to-celling bookcases, and the fantastic artwork - especially the origami tessellations - are some of my favorite aspects.

{more pictures here}

#tallgirlproblems

oh, how I love the internet. found this entire tumblr supporting tall women. granted, many of those who write in to the tumblr are shorter than I am, I completely identify with so many of the stories and 'tall girl problems'.

Ironically, I've always wanted to be 6', yet it has taken me a little while to be totally comfortable with my height. I'm sure that some of my height issues were compounded when I found out that I was passed over for a lead role in a ballet near the end of high school because there was no guy tall enough to partner me. (Kali - my dance history may be part of the reason I'm not willing to date guys shorter than me?)

 

between 6th and 7th grade, I had giant growth spurt - but first my feet grew from a 9-11. lets just say that the local shoe store did not have girls sketchers in my size. 

yep. done. 

story of last week. I really wanted a pair of the close-fitting, cropped running pants, yet every pair hit mid-knee, not below my knee :(

every. single. time. I visit NYC. so glad I live in a city where natives don't use umbrellas.

I wouldn't say I have no athletic capabilities...but yeah. hand-eye coordination is not my thing.

tights save everything / I make my own clothing that fits. 

true story: family road trip consisted of 62 hours in the back seat of a suburban and I messed up my right knee enough to require two sessions of PT.

unless I wear my awesome new heels that force me to walk in slow motion. It's a very strange sensation.

it's happend. more than once. this one is newer though, so I'm still not as used to it.

this one happens more than I'd like - it's one of my least favorite aspects of being tall / wearing heels.

and the exit row seats don't recline. #firstworldproblem for sure.

I could go on and on and on - so many appropriate #tallgirlproblems :)

stuck with sore feet

One of the trickiest parts of my daily decision making is what shoes to wear. You laugh? Sure. But truly, I often feel like shoes 'complete' an outfit and so I'm always frustrated with my somewhat limited shoe choices when I've worked so hard to pick out the rest of my outfit.

Limited shoes choices? again, I'm sure you laugh if you know me - yes, I own ~15 pairs of Nine West heels. (not sure how many I own in total) - but I don't own many good flats, appropriate for the lab. I don't like wearing jeans everyday, but I also don't have a ton of flat, closed-toe shoes that cover the entire top part of my foot. Toms come close, but generally I wear my poor pair of oxfords or my chucks when I'm headed to the lab. So, I've been on the hunt lately for a pair of tennis shoes that are low profile, give decent support for standing on my feet all day, but I can get away with wearing slacks with. i.e. - not a brightly colored nike tennis shoe.

I tried a puma shoe earlier this year that I ordered online, but that didn't work out so well :( This time I decided to go to Nordstroms, where I could get help from knowledgable shoe-people and have long/thin options (I have weird feet). I thought I had a great shoe with this Ecco Vibration II:

but after wearing it in this morning - it is not going to work. at all. 

let's just say that this post is a consequence of this shoes. I can't currently put shoes on. And as I don't keep flip flops and the like at school, I can't even walk to the bus, so I can't get home. My heels have lost large amounts of skin and even with bandaids I can't put any shoes on :( 

The worst part is that I was supposed to do work in the lab today, but as I can't put shoes on, I can't do that. And it was sunny out today, so I would have loved to go to a building with windows, but I can't since I can't put shoes on. Ugh. So now, I'm stuck at school waiting to be rescued by my sister.

Needless to say, these shoes are being returned ASAP. possibly tonight. 

blessings abounding

really I should be asleep at this point in the evening. but if I had gone to sleep 10 minutes ago, I wouldn't have seen one of the most exciting emails come in:

I was awarded an NSF Fellowship!!!!!!!!!

After waiting for over 4 months, finally got word that my proposal was reviewed favorably and that I have funding for at least the next three years. I'm still waiting on the other 7-ish fellowship programs to get back to me, but it is incredibly relieving to have a secure funding option. And it might solve my summer funding issues - apparently I can start receiving the grant money as early as June 1st. Need to discuss this with my advisor, of course :)

Getting this is so affirming in many aspects - that I can write a decent proposal, that my science is innovative, and that people other than me,  my advisor and my friends believe that investing in me as a scientist is a positive thing. (I'll be honest though, no scholarship/fellowship notification has yet to top my NASA MUST email. That was seriously one of the best moments ever. Could be that I'm just tired now and all my excitement chemicals are suppressed....)

I'm still waiting expectantly to hear back from some solar/tech companies I applied to for the summer (the one Seattle company turned me down), but this NSF news is just so wonderful.

because it's 1am and I don't have any 'excited face' pictures on my computer (though this might suffice), please enjoy this adorable kitty:

{usually my eyes get all squinty when I have a large smile....}

MORE exiting news from the past week - I was accepted into the UW Nanotechnology PhD program! Which, yes, means that I'll kind of have two doctorates at the end of the day :) I'll be honest - the program seems more like a 'certification' or 'specialization' than a whole second PhD - but who am I to complain?). My full degree will be a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering and Nanotechnology. Isn't that a mouthful?!

oh yes, and I passed my solar cells class with a way higher-than-expected grade! 

and my lab is basically now set up! (yay for lab work!)

and I get to go to a climbing comp saturday! 

wow wow wow. so blessed. 

dance. dance.

one week left until I get to take dance class again. though I've tried filling the space with rock climbing, cycling, golf, and now - ultimate frisbee (though my new teammates don't believe me when I say I have NO hand-eye coordination. Oh well, they'll find out soon enough, I guess) - nothing has yet to give me the satisfaction that find in dance.

dance is more than just art.

dance is more than just exercise.

dance is more than just performance.

dance is more than just pain.

dance is more than just structure.

dance is more than just expression.

dance is an experience.

{via}

photo from the PNB performance I saw last week. favorite piece I've seen so far in 2012.

inspiration

dreaming

This video has been floating around the internet lately, but I thought I'd post it here for all my friends who might not generally watch NASA/space-inspired videos. yes, I know that if you're in my g+ "NASA Friends" circle, you've probably already seen it :) (also, this is so I can remember it later...)

watch is as you prepare your taxes. watch it with anyone you know who is thinking about being a scientist. who wouldn't be inspired by that incredible imagery? even though my goal in life is to build solar cells for people here on earth, I still dream of exploring space.

the only thing missing in the video? more women in science. there was one, did you see her in the orange flight suit? 

pink and scented

earlier this week, I purchased some new razors. while this is not something I'd usually announce to world - really, who cares? - but I was struck by the fact that my only real options were a pink colored, raspberry-scented 4-pack or a single teal colored (probably scented as well) razor for roughly the same price.

I, of course, being the grad student that I am, opted for the less-expensive-per-unit pack of 4, but as I was walking to the register, I thought to myself, "why can't gillete make non-pink, non-scented razors for women?" I'm sure I'm paying extra for those 'features' and I really really really hate scented handles. I actually have to open the package and them them sit out for a few days before I'll use them. (probably could just buy guy's razors, but I have yet to investigated the differences between the engineering behind them - not sure I want razors made for men's faces for my legs...)

anyways, all this to say, that when this article, Sex Discrimination and Gender Bias - Why Do Women Pay More Than Men, popped up on my fb newsfeed, I found it quite appropriate to my feelings about gendered products. I always hear guys complain about having higher car insurance costs (but, lets be real, there is some decent science behind that), but you don't hear women complain about the costs of just being a woman. True, I could buy things like razors that are marketed to men, but I can't change the way a car salesman interacts with me (on average, women pay $200 more for the same car as a man) or the way I am treated at the dry cleaners (sometimes the shirt cleaning deals apparently only work for men's button downs, not women's).

really, go read the article. it's enlightening. and frustrating.

on a slightly related note, as I was reading the above article in Marie Claire magazine (which, by the way, I've watched to many episodes of project runway to say that title mentally without Heidi Klum's accent in my head) - I was struck by the 'what's hot right now' sidebar. Just look at the list of what people are reading:

granted, I know that marie claire is not geek girl, but still, it is slightly disheartening to to continually see that 90% of what people are looking at concerns appearance. The description in wikipedia seems to contrast sharply: 'the United States edition focuses on women around the world and several worldwide issues. The magazine also covers health, beauty, and fashion topics.' it would seem that the 'worldwide issues' should be prevalent, but instead the fashion, beauty and 'skinny' topics dominate. At least their tips for career-minded women were decent, but looking at their list of topics initially does not make me want to trust their way of advancing my career as woman. It looks like I should try to manage my perfectly-cut hair, diet correctly while weighing myself on my 'best' scale, and make myself over with the best beauty products of all time to make make myself 7 years younger even though I'm lazy about they way I look, just so I can succeed at the next job interview. I'm a fan of looking sharp at work and for interviews, etc, but I'm not fan of our culture's obsessive desire to change the way we look to fit a certain mold of unrealistic beauty and being judged severely based on the way we look. that kind of seems paradoxical, but oh well - I live in the real world where life can be muddy and my philosophies are not perfectly rational or explainable or complete...