Introspection: By Kate

How are you?

2011-12-04T00:09:00.007-05:00

Hello world. I've been quiet for this past year working on my PhD and all. But there are a few things I wanted to catch you up on.

1) Hello, finances. How are you? Back in 2010 sometime, I talked about growing my emergency fund and issues with only having 6 transactions per month to move money between accounts with ING. Turns out that issue isn't specific to ING, alas. I tried my hand with Smarty Pig and the idea of having two direct deposits (one for either account) and then allocation rules within. That idea didn't work out, but eventually my institution allowed to updating direct deposit rules online. Hooray! I have since removed all of my allocation rules from ING and modified them to be direct deposit rules.

Dear readers, you should know that last tax season, I hit my $5k emergency fund goal. Further, this year, I increased my emergency car fund to above $4k. Woo hoo! I've moved in with my sister while I finish my PhD, so I am spending lots of energy in paying down my student loans. 35% of my paycheck each cycle moves into a 'student loan repayment' account and then I manually make the payments. It's a little tedious, but I don't qualify for automatic debiting until my status moves out of 'in school/deferred.'

I also am trying my had at using Smarty Pig's gift donation to help pay down my student loans. I made a widget that points to my goal and put it on the right hand side; if you press the "feed me" button, it sends to you to my personal goal. I'd like to have my private loans from undergrad paid off by the end of the 2015 calendar year. I had originally taken out $4k for tuition and books. Eight years later, I have $4k in interest on top of that. That's what happens when you go to school for 25 years continuously. SIGH!

For good measure, 1% goes into my emergency fund and another 1% into my car emergency fund. Kim is getting married in 11 months (to the day), so I am being more aggressive with my saving there (now $50 each cycle).

2) Gym stuff! I took up rock climbing (top rope) back in April/May and joined Boston Rock Gym at the end of August. The Kate of 12 years ago wouldn't recognize me now. I'm pretty excited about this new hobby because it forces me to concentrate and solve puzzles. Also, it's really fun to ask my body to do something and have it response. I am really liking climbs that involve a lot of balance and flexibility. Last week, I climbed my first 5.10- (having started at 5.6).

I hurt my hands a bit this week working on my robot (it has a million screws, I swear), so I need to take it easy. That's hard since I've been going twice per week this fall. It's a really great stress relieve. By the end of the winter, my goal was to be solidly climbing 5.9 level so that I could learn how to lead sport climbs. Hoping I can learn in January.

In addition to climbing, I've taken a liking to hiking. Particularly when excellent views and/or waterfalls are involved. I went on 3 hikes this late fall/early winter. Contemplating winter hiking by the ocean... (again, who is this Kate?)

3) It's been a year, a whole 12 months, since I started building my dissertation hardware. That realization made me a bit sad, but I am really proud of the system I augmented. It's a great little research platform and I think I can leverage it for at least the first 5 years of my future faculty job (yes, I am hopeful!).

My robot, Margo. She is the little sister of my prototype robot, Hugo.

Finishing my dissertation has been a bit of a bumpy path. I miss Mark like crazy, but we are spending Christmas together alone for the first time. Two week countdown until 3 uninterrupted weeks of blissful time together!

Rocking the super short hair still :)

2011-12-03T23:54:00.003-05:00

This is me rocking the super short hair back in June.

In September some time, my stylist Danielle and I added dimension with purple highlights that faded into an amazing copper. I just had a hair cut and color a few weeks ago (pictures soon I hope!).

Photos were taken my Kerrith of C'est Chic salon in Dracut, MA.

Robot user testing!

2011-05-06T13:36:00.002-05:00

Pass it on. We are looking for people in the greater Lowell MA area with no prior robot experience.

"We are conducting research on ways to measure a user's trust in a robot. As part of the study you will be asked to interact with our robot and complete surveys. The study takes less than 3 hours and will be conducted on campus at Olsen Hall.

If you complete the study, you will receive $10 as base compensation. There are two milestone payments, each up to $10, for a total compensation ranging from $10 to $30 (Amazon.com or Eggroll Cafe gift cards). The payments for the milestones will depend on how well you perform the task.

If you would like to participate in this study please email Munjal Desai (mdesai at cs.uml.edu) to reserve a time slot. You must be older than 18 years to participate in this study.

Thank you,

Munjal Desai

Robotics Lab

Department of Computer Science

University of Massachusetts Lowell

Web: http://robotics.cs.uml.edu/"

New hair!

2011-04-24T20:55:00.005-05:00

Psst! Hello. Check out my new Ginnifer Goodwin inspired haircut :)

Before

During

After

Shh! Happy New Year

2011-01-02T21:16:00.006-05:00

As forewarned, I've been off the radar. I can't wait to finish my dissertation!

Anyways, I thought you might like to see Mark and I's EggSquid stickering adventure. I have a Facebook photo album that is public, so you all can see it: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2203625&id=1012830&l=e6590b33a1

I've hidden five EggSquids in a geocache called "Keep on Truckin' Trail" which is located at the top of Mark's road here in Felton. I hope some kids find it soon; I can't wait to see where the stickers wind up.

I'm sure I made some 2010 New Year's resolutions. Being that I can't remember what they are, I wonder how I did...

Well, no it turns out that I did not make any 2010 resolutions. Instead, I'll tell you about my 2011 goals.

Graduate. That's right folks, I've put it out there in writing. To graduate, I need to defend my PhD proposal, conduct experiments, code, conduct more experiment, write the dissertation, defend the dissertation, and make any changes necessary.

Days 18 and 19

2010-11-26T21:27:00.004-05:00

I heart Cali!

So following up on Day 18, Mark and I drove through some amazing state parks (Big Basin and Castle Rock). There was a beautiful vista point off Rt 9 in Castle Rock and we followed a tiny mud trail (left hand side of the below image) down through the grasses until the meadow became thorny brush.

The view from the end of the trail.

Today, Mark and I had planned to walk up to the summit of the mountain we live on. However, we were intercepted by Hannah (next door neighbor with a bed and breakfast) and rerouted to trails that went down our mountain. We descended about 600 ft on Ecology Trail and found Camp Mount Cross at the bottom.

Then we followed Rt 9 back to our road, and then we ascended the 600 ft we came down. My poor little heart. It still does not like cardio! But it was beautiful and the mountain air smells so good (mixture of people with wood fires, pine, and eucalyptus)!

Tomorrow's workout will involve a trek through IKEA and lifting!

Days 13-18

2010-11-25T11:13:00.002-05:00

Walking. That's been my form of working out. Across airports; man, SFO is huge! Through Felton; we checked out the town center on Sunday while doing laundry. Across campuses at Mark's work. Around San Francisco's Mission Hill area yesterday.

Day 18 is most exciting because today we are planning to go to Big Basin which is about 20 minutes up the street. :) We'll see how much hiking I can do!

Days 10-12

2010-11-20T00:37:00.003-05:00

Yup, sorry I got quiet too. Lots to do, but I've been managing to do some home work out stuff. I love my yoga ball. More importantly, I've been deep stretching my shoulders with my physical therapy exercises and as a result, I think I've gained more range of motion. I think there is something to appropriately working your body every day.

Tomorrow, I leaf for Cali. I will squeeze in a quick workout, but most of the day will be spent sitting on a plane. Then the fun will kick in because our apartment in Felton is on the back side of Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park! I hope to get a few all terrain walks in (I hesitate to call them hikes!) If nothing else, the access road to the apartment is quite steep and I'll get a good workout climbing it daily.

Map from http://www.virtualparks.org/maps/files/henry-cowell-v32.pdf.

Day 9

2010-11-16T23:12:00.003-05:00

Low impact work out tonight. I pushed myself really hard yesterday and my body did not hate me today mostly. The only part of me that is sore are the backs of my legs, particularly behind my knees.

Stretching and core:

5 consecutive push ups,
1 set of 10 oblique ball arm drops with my small yoga ball,
1 set of 10 lower half scissors leg drops holding the ball between the ankles (works lower abs),
1 set of 10 leg rolls (roll ball towards butt and keep your core stable).

That's all I really had time for. Lots of work to do (I know; it's a weak argument!). Tomorrow is high school lab tours. Perhaps I can find my zen place at pilates.

Financial check up

2010-11-15T22:27:00.004-05:00

In April, I'd written about my financial health, so I thought I'd do a check up and ask for your help.

Each month, I am moving $175 into my emergency fund (which I still have not touched!). The current balance is $3,570.37. So needless to say, I won't make my $5k goal by the end of the year. Still I am happy that it is growing.

The problem I am having right now is that my ING Automatic Savings Plans are going over the allotted 6 transfers per month. I've done that twice this year and a third time means that ING will close my account. So I've stopped all of my monthly transfers except for the emergency fund.

I want to keep my Automatic Savings Plans, but I don't know how to get that back without asking my direct deposit to do it for me. The problem with that is that I can't dynamically change the savings amounts going into each fund. Thoughts?

Days 7 and 8

2010-11-15T21:59:00.004-05:00

Ok, so Day 7 didn't happen. On Sunday, I had a day long workshop and then I had dinner with my sister and her fiance. Unfortunately, as delicious as dinner was, it did not agree with my stomach and that was the end of my day.

So, today is Day 8 and I am feeling quite a bit better. After a very long and tiring day, I dragged myself to yoga. I heart yoga and I very glad that I went.

A week of working out has made my body wake up. The stretching as been great. My core is growing stronger. Tonight I was able to utilize my core better and longer before I started shaking. My particularly happy moments included:

Downward dog -> raise leg -> stack hips -> raise same arm. This basically makes you look like a star fish standing on two points (either right or left side). I really wasn't sure I was going to be able to do this position, but both sides!!!
Something called "bird of paradise." Warrior 2 -> forward fold -> bind arm with one behind back and the other under leg -> step back leg forward next to front leg -> lift and stretch original front leg. No, you cannot look graceful in this position. I didn't personally feel any extra stretching. It was just fun. I mostly looked like this Step 3 from ehow.com but with my leg stuck straight in front.
Triangle -> opposite arm on ground with front foot -> other arm raised. I had a particularly present and connected moments. The instructor told us to raise from the position following the raised arm.

We'll see how my body does tomorrow. I pushed it hard tonight and it was good :)

Day 6

2010-11-13T20:23:00.002-05:00

20 minutes on the treadmill at speed 3.4. Then I got a stitch in my side. So on to stretching (woot!). Then abs and more stretching.

For my floor work, I did realize today that I am self conscious with the exercises that I choose. I went back to some of my favorites from when Meghan was my trainer. I miss her. I miss having a trainer.

Oblique twists with 4 lb ball. Tap ball on floor of each side. 2 sets of 12.
Sit ups with 4 lb ball. Toss and catch ball at the top of each sit up. 2 sets of 12.
Bosu ball planks. Hold straight until felt abs shaking, then twist to sides. 1 set of 12.
Bosu side planks; 2 on each side. Hold side until felt abs shaking, then lower and raise. 1 set of 10.

Tomorrow will be a late afternoon gym work out. More cardio and legs I think. I am really looking forward to yoga on Monday.

Days 4 and 5

2010-11-12T23:09:00.002-05:00

I was a bit too ambitious with my start. So Days 4 and 5 have been small home workouts. Stretching and abs. Mostly stretching. I can't say enough how good the stretching feels.

Tonight's strength training was:
* 10 ab roll ups,
* 10 leg ball curls (abs),
* 10 leg ball switches (obliques), and
* 5 real pushups in a row.

I feel much more motivation when I am at the gym than when I am at home. So far my home workouts haven't used any videos though. Or maybe I am better with morning home workouts and night gym workouts.

I need to be careful with the number of hard workouts I do. I think yoga on Monday and Thursday next week will be my hard days. Stretch days to follow immediate afterwards. And cardio in between? I've yet to do a cardio day, but that needs to change!

Surprised

2010-11-11T10:50:00.002-05:00

Yesterday's post was a little more terse than expected. Sorry about that. I'm glad that Heather has been so motivated with follow through. For me, I find this new gym habit a chore and I want to fight it every step of the way. Or at least my body does.

It wasn't always like this! I did used to like going to the gym. It was my "me" time and helped me to de-stress. Like Heather, when I was a gymnast, I knew what it felt like to have a runner's high. It's been years (decades really), but I still remember that feeling.

Getting from lardball to running, well, that process is just downright painful. So my goal is a marathon. I had hoped to do the 2011 Big Sur marathon in May, but since I am at a walking stage only (a 20 mile hike this summer nearly killed me; I ached for days afterwards), I'll hold off until the year after.

Stretching is really the key and listening to how much my body can take. Yesterday's pilates actually helped to loosen my shoulders (and several hot compresses). I'll blog again tonight after I've done my Day 4 gym session.

Day 3

2010-11-10T20:53:00.002-05:00

Despite my shoulders feeling a little bit strained, I went to pilates tonight. Oh, I am such a weakling. The focus of the class tonight was arms and abs. But, I did the best I could and stayed the whole class. I put a heat compress on my left shoulder.

Tomorrow has to be lower body!

Day 2

2010-11-10T00:40:00.003-05:00

Unlike Heather, soreness set in bright and early today despite stretching and a steamy shower after yoga yesterday. I need to be more mindful of my body, particularly of my shoulders. In 2009, I pulled my left shoulder and wound up with tendinitis. Now I need to treat both my shoulders with more care.

No official time at the gym today. Instead a good deal of stretching and some core work. 2 sets of 10 crunches (regular and oblique). It's rather embarrassing how tight behind my knees are.

Tomorrow, the Rec Center has pilates at 5:30pm. Let's see how I am feeling in the morning as far as shoulder soreness goes. If not, I'll do some leg and cardio work.

Radio Silence

2010-11-08T23:30:00.003-05:00

This is my stake in the sand. I am eliminating my digital distractions. The first things to go are Buzz which I didn't really use, and Reader. For those of you who know me well, I love my Reader. Tonight I unsubscribed from all of my feeds (after exporting the subscription list). Facebook and Bejeweled are next. Please don't fret if I disappear from Facebook too.

Dissertation takes top priority over everything, including but not limited to:

blogging,
seeing friends and family,
cooking everyday,
puppies

I may occasionally vent here, but just know that my silence means I'm doing ok. I'll let you know when I am through the storm they call a PhD.

A Gym Habit: Day 1

2010-11-08T19:57:00.004-05:00

My friend Heather wrote a very moving note about getting back into a gym habit. It seems that I work best when I have others to keep me motivated. So I'm joining in too... The goal is 30 consecutive days of working out AND blogging about it afterwards.

Today is Day 1. I've not had a serious gym habit since my trainer Megan. Alas. I have done other things to keep me active but nothing serious since July of this year. I went to yoga tonight (75 minute class) because I love yoga. My core is extremely weak and my body isn't as flexible as it used to be. What I love yoga is doing what you are capable of. Tonight I thank my body for what it can do. The strength will return.

On the days that I don't go to the gym, I'll pop on a video or do crunches at home. I'll document that too.

For those that don't care to follow along, I'm putting on a "gym" tag. If there is anyone who wants to come along, leave a comment!

Kate and Kim go surfing

2010-07-15T23:42:00.008-05:00

Kim came to visit me last weekend. I gave her a tour of Google on Friday and we had a bit of retail therapy. Then we spent Saturday and Sunday in Santa Cruz (which incidentally is my new heaven!). Our friend Liz said it best, "Watch out Cali! Here come the Tsui sisters!"

Our vacation was wonderful. A nice drive from San Jose to Santa Cruz through the mountains. Lunch and shopping on Pacific Ave. in Downtown Santa Cruz. Then much needed facials! (No pictures of this exist, thank you very much!)

And then Saturday evening at the Boardwalk :)

Then Kim and I dipped our toes into the Pacific. It's as cold as the Atlantic!! (No pictures of toes this time!)

Then we had dinner on the pier. This was the view walking out onto the pier. Lovely!!!! We even heard sea lions.

Then after dinner, we saw a herd of sea lions on the kayak rental dock. Sadly, an adult sea lion pulled a dead pup from the water and was protecting it :(

Surfing was Sunday at 9am. No pictures of this either!! We pretty much looked like all the noob surfers with big foam boards, wet suits, and school shirts on. I took pictures of other first time surfers later when we had lunch on the pier.

They say that surfers will always remember their first wave. Totally. Yes. I caught my first wave on my very first time out. I stood and everything :) And now, I am hooked. For those of you who know me well --- like my tango addiction. I can't wait for my next free weekend to head back down.

This is Kim eating a clam.

This is *kawaii* me with my salty french braids still in. My hair was a total rats' nest. (Look, Mark! Your surf hoodie! No, you are not getting it back. I'm a surfer girl now, dontch know?)

Then we drove back to San Jose (1N to 92E) in a scenic fashion.We saw light houses, public beaches, cliffs and ocean views.

And local produce stands! We found the cutest organic strawberry stand. And we ate the most sweet strawberries I have ever tasted. And drank the most perfect strawberry lemonade!

I am so glad that Kim was able to visit me! Next epic adventure of the Tsui sisters: San Francisco, or Napa, or Redwoods...

My Fourth of July in Tucson, AZ

2010-07-05T23:51:00.004-05:00

Visiting with Mark's sister and family. Nephew Alex is now 17 months old. Wish I had more practice with the D300, but here are some of my favorite shots from this morning:

Image editing done in Picasa, FYI.

I spy in my cube farm...

2010-06-17T23:42:00.003-05:00

Dilbert riding a Pleo.

PS. Sorry for being so quiet. I've been really busy!!!

Odie

2010-05-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

I'm really winding down on time left here in MA. I'm heading out to CA this Thursday morning (cross country drive in ~4 days). Today, Kim and Mike put down their deposit on their wedding venue! So exciting. More pictures to come on this.

After we headed to the MSPCA in Haverhill, MA to visit the dog that they have an application in for. I, of course, couldn't help myself and looked around at the other dogs that need loving homes. Lots of pitt bulls and boxers. But this little guy caught my eye.

His name is Odie. He's a 1 year old yellow lab. He's sooooo friendly and just wants a family to love him.

"Hi, I just met you. I love you. Can I come home with you?"

"Please? Pretty please? Look! I sat pretty for you! Can I come home now?"

If there was anything in my power, I would have taken him home today. I love him, and he obviously love me. It kills me that I can't have a dog yet.

But...! As we were leaving, I saw Odie and a family (mom, dad, and two girls -- 7 years, 4 years) out in the side pen playing fetch with a tennis ball. Odie was clearly in heaven. I hope that Odie finds a forever home with this family.

*Sniff, tear, tear* I'm getting all choked up writing about this precious little guy.

Providence Tango will always be my home

2010-05-22T00:03:00.003-05:00

Providence Tango will always be my home, where my heart lives. Tonight, after not dancing a lick of Argentine Tango for nearly 4 years, I went back to tango at PT. It was a very fun night with my sister Kim and her fiance Mike.

To be honest, I was completely nervous. Like first blind date nervous. Not having danced in so long, I completely expected to have forgotten most of the dance (aside from walking to the beat). We went to the free beginner class and I have to say that I really liked tonight's teachers (James and Elaine, I think). Their teaching was very clear, but holy smokes they taught a lot of material! Weight shifting, forward step, side step, left rock step turn, and right rock step turn. All in 60 minutes.

I put on my purple Tara Tango Diosa shoes in the first time in forever. Nervous, scared, anxious, excited. I signed the roster. "How did you learn about PT?" one column asked. Kim wrote "previous dancer" and I dittoed.

Mike was my first leader and it was good to be in familiar hands. Kim went off all man like (no totally kidding). There weren't enough leaders in the class so Kim switched sides! I firmly stood my ground as a follower. Tonight, I wanted to see if anything persisted.

Once we got to left rock step turns, my tango neurons began to fire. My body followed the lead. I was remembering. For the rest of the class, I took it all in and smiled like a fool. "You've danced before," said the instructor James. I smiled and replied, "I learned here 4 years ago."

Four years; has it really been that long?

I've discovered thanks to the free beginner class that my leader side of the brain has all but died. To revive it, I will someday again have to take classes.

Now, the true test. The first hour of tonight's milonga was complementary with the beginner lesson. It's meant for practicing and seeing the more advanced dancers. I sat in the back of PT nervously waiting for a leader to ask me to dance.

My first tonight was the instructor Elaine. Please forgive my rustiness!!! My first two dances with her were decent. But my third tanked. Bleh. I missed crosses. I missed ochos. I missed giros. All rookie stuff. Still, it was nice to know I could still follow some stuff.

Then, Mike and I practiced. I practiced a little of my leading (lol, which was walking forward!).

I went over and said hello to Ellen (PT's owner) and saw many familiar faces. I chatted with Robin and saw her and Ramunas' new baby! Sooooo cute; I don't think it gets much cuter than babies and tango. I saw Bill and Ann, whose dancing is looking ever so lovely! I was very happy to see that PT is doing so well and has been growing.

I saw Lisa! Oh my goodness, it was so good to talk to a fellow grad student (master's student in social work) with no free time. I am jealous that she has been able to keep up with her dancing even just a little. I am very envious that she has a tango group in her backyard. It makes it a little easier to get out and practice. One of the reasons I put tango on a shelf was that it takes an hour to get to either Boston or Manchester, and another hour back. You have to make a whole night of a single lesson!!!

I really missed seeing Liz and Carolina. (Liz, I might be in Seattle this summer! I'll let you know!) I kept waiting for Thuy and Ben to come downstairs and chat. Thuy, I miss you!!!!

(The occasion, by the way, for the trip to PT was for me to brush up on my tango skills so that I don't kill all the leaders in San Francisco!!!)

And finally, David asked me to dance. David and I started at the same time in 2006. I was very, very happy to see that his leading skills have grown quite a bit. After apologizing in advance for my soon-to-be sloppiness, we took the floor. It was like my body recovered from amnesia. It was like taking years off the layers of rusty dancing. I began to allow my body to proportionally follow the leads. Softly starting and ending a step. Firmly grounding each foot. Softly bending the knees. Extending the leg back.

Muscle memory moved in and I crusada'd, backward and forward ocho'd, and ocho cortado'd. I pasada'd and sandwich'd. I even boleo'd and gancho'd, which surprised the living daylights out of me! We danced two tandas and I loved every moment of rediscovering tango. Thank you, David, for dusting off the years of rust from my tango vocabulary. My technique surely needs work, but I am very glad for tonight.

I am feeling quite positively about getting into the San Francisco tango scene. I am looking for recommendations for good teachers who enjoy neo/neuvo/alternative tango.

It was an awesome night with Kim and Mike. We went dancing. And then food! Of course food because I always get hungry! :) And now it is time for bed.

My beautiful bride-to-be sister

2010-05-20T19:41:00.005-05:00

I'm off to CA in one week (still coming to terms with this; I don't take change easily or well). So Kim and I decided to have one last hurrah before she has to go on wedding planning sabbatical. For giggles, we booked an appointment for both of us (I got to try on bride's maids' dresses) at Chantilly's in Lowell.

Now, let me begin with these pictures are *not* THE DRESS. But Kim looked so lovely that I just *had* to put them up -- with her permission of course!

Holy smokes. My little sister is getting married! *TEAR!* Look at her, the bride-to-be! (At least this time, I didn't cry at the bridal store! I did the first time. I was overwhelmed.)

This dress fit beautiful. The bodice and back details were just stunning. So glittery! It really complimented Kim's tattoo. The middle picture shows how the back beading detail echoed the lines of the fan.

Then for fun, there was this beautifully wispy textured dress. It really looked like Van Gogh's Starry Night. Totally not appropriate for their venue or wedding theme, but how could you honestly pass it up (trying it on, that is!)?

I can't believe she's getting married! It's life "Father of the Bride" when the Steve Martin hears the news and he pictures the words coming out of his 5 year old daughter's mouth.

These photos were shot with Kim's little point and shoot camera. I cropped, turned them sepia, and added a soft focus to them.

PW's Happiness

2010-05-19T19:29:00.003-05:00

The current Pioneer Woman's photography assignment is "happiness." I immediately thought of my nephew Alex. Mark and I spent three weeks this last Christmas in San Diego with his sister and family. I'm heading to Tucson this Fourth of July to visit them in their new location and I can't wait to get a new set of pictures!!!

Submission 1: Alex at the park, eating cheesy poofs. I love his little scrunched up nose!

Submission 2: Alex at the beach. Who doesn't loves shoulder rides??? He doesn't really like the wind blowing in his face so he makes little snorting sounds. It is *hysterical!*

Submission 3 (will post tomorrow night): Alex at the beach; same day. "Power walking" on the along the ocean shoreline. Power walking was developed by Mark. Basically, it entails Alex holding on to Mark's hands. Then Mark walks/leads/drags Alex just slightly faster than he can comfortably walk. In January, Alex had just really started to walk, but not yet with finesse (no knee compensation). He *loved* power walking.

As with most of my photos, I haven't edited or retouched them. Maybe someday I will find the time, but I like them well enough as they are. I love them in black and white too actually.

You should really see all of the submissions for this assignment. They really make your heart happy. Lots of babies and smiling kiddos. Dogs. Elderly couples. Wedding and engagement photos. *SIGH*

PS. I *loooooove* Picasa!!!! Look, Christy, my own watermark! I haven't decided if I love it yet or not, but it was an option in Picasa, so.... why not?!

Mother's Day: Part 2

2010-05-09T19:51:00.003-05:00

So the big day was a pamper Mom day. First up, pedicures! And what the heck, while we were there and the staff had time, we got our fingers polished too :) It was so nice to have our feet all nicely done and there were massaging chairs too.

Next, grilling dinner. Earlier this morning, I made a cake of sorts with plums and raspberries (based off of this Gourmet plum clafoutis and this Martha Stewart raspberry buckle). I used primarily the buckle recipe but macerate the fruit in sugar and rum; also added vanilla extract. No pictures, but it turned out decently. I think I would have liked it to be sweeter. Lots left over so I'll bring it to the lab to share. I imagine it would be great with vanilla ice cream, but I forgot to bring it home. Oh well!

We had a total grilling feast. Corn on the cob, asparagus skewers, portobello mushrooms skewers, chicken wings, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, macaroni salad, my cake, and my sister made a chocolate cake too. All for 6 people!!!!! My family just can't cook in small portions after having a restaurant for 15+ years. Dinner was accompanied by "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Two Weeks Notice."

After dinner, makeup! We got my mom Kirkland (Costco-brand) mineral makeup. Both the foundation pack and highlight pack together was $54 ($22 + $32). I am really impressed by the quality of this makeup and even more impressed by the price. The foundation pack comes with cream concealer, liquid foundation, powder foundation, and setting powder. The highlight pack comes with 3 shades of powder eye shadow, lip gloss, powder blush, a blush brush, a blending brush, and eyeshadow brushes. The brushes are a great quality and are worth the $25 alone. Bonus: one of the eyeshadow brushes is an angle brush and the darkest of the eye shadows can be used to fill in eyebrows (proven tonight) and I'm guessing also as eyeliner (pressed into the upper lash line).

A very good Mother's Day!

Mother's day fabric corsage

2010-05-08T19:44:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow is Mother's day and Kim and I have some major plans. But the icing on the cake is a little corsage that I whipped up tonight.

I happened to have some lovely pinky-purple cotton crinkle fabric that makes for a beautiful floppy flower. I based my design on this DIY dahlia tutorial and this poppy tutorial. The corsage (actually it's a lapel pin) is all hand cut and hand sewn. A button is the center. Two hours later, this is the result! Cost: $0

(Pardon the image quality. I took it with my cell phone!)

Request for help with search and rescue dogs; Sa 5/15 and Su 5/16 in Littleton, MA

2010-05-05T11:59:00.001-05:00

There is a search and rescue dog certification on Saturday, May 15 and Sunday, May 16 in Littleton, MA. There will be FEMA teams from across the country and their dogs. We need people to act as victims in the rubble pile.

Basically, the trainer will show you a place in the rubble pile and you will lay there silently. The dog will then try to find you and begin barking when it has located you. Then you get to play with the dog for a couple minutes! This is the dog's reward for finding you.

If you like dogs, I would definitely recommend helping out. Even if you can just help out for a couple hours, it means a lot. If there was another 9/11 tomorrow, these would be the dogs out there searching for people.

You can sign up at http://www.doodle.com/avsxbwbuuyhugdsx. We need volunteers for Saturday from 7-8:40 (2 people), 10:20-12:00 (3 people), and 5-6:20 (3 people), and Sunday from 12-1:40 (2 people) and 5-6:20 (3 people).

The event will be 149 Ayer Road, Littleton, MA. As we get closer to the date, I will be sending additional information on parking.

Please feel free to pass this opportunity along to other people who might be interested. People under the age of 18 are allowed, but must be accompanied the parent/guardian.

Thanks in advance!
Kate

Entry into thekitchn's 2010 Small Cool Kitchen Contest: Chocolate loft kitchen with custom built island for meal prep and dining

2010-05-03T20:39:00.007-05:00

UPDATE: Our entry has been accepted to the Small Cool Kitchen contest! Please vote for us!!!!

So in 2009, I entered into ApartmentTherapy's Small Cool photo contest for small living spaces. Those pictures are actually from when we first moved in (Christmas 2008). I wanted to shoot new pictures, but I didn't make the deadline. Fortunately, the call for Small Cool Kitchens follows just as the Small Cool Spaces contest is finishing up.

I am super proud of how Mark and I's home has turned out. Especially the kitchen! This is after assembling the island, but before painting:

thekitchn's Small Cool Kitchen contest asks you to describe a challenge and how you solved it. My answer:

"Our kitchen was renovated a few years ago with plain white cabinets and appliances. Oddly, the builders chose a dark blue laminate counter top.

Challenge #1: customizing the kitchen with paint! To make the kitchen feel cozier and like it's own space within an open loft, we painted the kitchen a chocolate brown to marry the white cabinets and blue counter top. It took one who three day weekend and three coats of paint to bring the kitchen to life! To prevent it from feeling too much like a cave, we left the ceiling white and installed under cabinet lighting. Total cost: $120

Challenge #2: not enough cabinet or counter space, and nowhere to eat! Solution: built an island. The base of the island is two Ikea cabinets (base Akurum cabinets in Applad white; 2x$105). We screwed the two cabinets together and replaced the legs with six casters ($60). The back side is simply 1/8" plywood painted flat white. One cabinet is used for pantry items. The other holds our recycling bins and garbage; we left the drawer fronts off for easy access. The island's surface is our main prep surface (Ikea Numerar in black-brown; $59). We also lofted a custom stainless steel shelf (interdynesystems.com; $300) with four Ikea Capita brackets ($20). We added two bar stools (Ikea Henriksdal; 2x$80), and this is our eating space. The eating area is complete with two small lights hanging over the island (two Hemma cord sets with red Fantsa shades). Total cost: $810"

Of course, now that I have finally documented it, I also want to post my Ikea hacked island to ikeahacker!

Here's a sneak peak!

I'll let you know if it get posted to either thekitchn or ikeahacker. :)

I spy: a tulip

2010-04-28T18:20:00.003-05:00

No, seriously. Every day since this tulip bloomed, I have thought about photographing it. I finally remembered to grab the camera, and then it rained. Oh well. I think it actually lends a level of detail that I happen to love. This would have been a good entry to Pioneer Woman's "Macro" assignment.

I also entered two photos in Pioneer Woman's "Landscapes" assignment. Neither made the cut, but I still like them. The first is somewhere in Kansas (September 2008), and the other is near San Diego, CA (December 2009).

First payment towards student loan

2010-04-25T19:19:00.004-05:00

I put my first payment towards my growing student loans today ($1k). On April 18, one of my CDs unlocked. Given the terrible interest rates, there was no way that I was going to outrun my 4.25% interest on my student loans. As my other CDs unlock, I'll be putting them also towards that particular student loan ($1750). I also have a scholarship coming hopefully before summer (Believe me, I really would like to spend the money on a nice Canon Rebel DSLR!!!). If I net anything this summer at my internship, I'll put it towards my student loans too. Pretty much any "extra" income is going towards this mess. (Yes, this is on top of growing my Emergency Fund to $5k and keeping active accounts for car repair, vacation, and my sister's wedding.)

I think that the debt snowball is the best way for me to tackle this. I am starting with my largest American Education Services (AES) loan which is $16k. Since 2004 when I opened it, it has gained $6k in interest. I am not exactly sure how the money that I put towards it is applied; that is, does it go directly against the principle or to the interest first until it is gone? I imagine it will take me quite a while to whittle this away (at least a year and half). If the interest is paid off first, once it is gone, I'll move to the smallest AES loan which is $8k + $6k interest (I opened that one during my undergrad a zillion years ago). Otherwise, I'll move to the next AES loan which is $12k + $3k interest.

The student loan system is just not made for people like me. That is, I took out loans for ugrad and early grad and I've been in school since and continually deferring. I've wracked up a whole lot of interest and it just keeps on going :(

Not exactly how I wanted to spend my weekend

2010-04-25T13:57:00.003-05:00

So I have in my possession my brother's music collection and my sister's netbook. While working on those, today I managed to seriously mess up my Macbook. Not sure if this is relevant or not, but I did do a security update this morning.

In any case, I had restarted into MacOS. After the usual launched (Skype, etc.), the machine was completely locked. I couldn't move the mouse, type, or force quit anything. So I held the power button until it turned off.

At the next start, I got stuck at the grey startup screen. The progress circle cycles forever (well, at least 10 minutes).

I had tried to use Disk Utility from the DVD to repair my disk, but it error'd out.

I reset PRAM (command + option + p + r) before the gong sound on start up. Nothing.

I pulled the battery out and let it sit for a few minutes. Nothing.

I tried to safe boot (press and hold shift after the gong and release when the progress circle comes up). Not exactly nothing, but not the right thing either. I have a Windows partition, and so the laptop now only wants to boot into that.

Pressing option before boot up shows "EFI Boot" (which used to be CandyApple HD), Windows, and if there is anything bootable in the DVD drive that too. Mark thinks that the "EFI Boot" shows up because I was working on my sister's netbook and when making a USB flash drive bootable, messed up where my boot drive points to. CandyApple HD still does exist thankfully!

At least target disk mode does something. I am now rsync'ing my data off. I have been backing up so there isn't much that isn't recoverable really.

SIGH. I am frustrated because I really didn't plan on redoing my machine this weekend. Actually, you should know that this was all triggered by my built in iSight camera not working again. I was rewarding myself by using it as a time lapse camera.

Now to back up the data, and then on to reinstalling my computer.

Robotics Labs Dinner Party

2010-04-14T22:27:00.004-05:00

:) Tonight I hosted a 12 person dinner party for my friend Cindy who is visiting for the week. She gave a colloquium talk and I wanted to facilitate "after talk" conversation. I got my cookin' on (which is almost as good as getting my blogging on :) ).

Menu:

* Appetizers:

-- Cheese (Gorgonzola, cheddar, provolone, brie), meat (pepperoni, salami, and prosciutto), and sweets spread (figs, honey)

-- Hummus and crackers

* Main course:

-- Spinach lasagna

-- Cheese ravioli with peas and asparagus in alfredo sauce

-- Lemon garlic chicken

* Dessert:

-- Strawberry shortcake with fresh hand-whipped cream

It all went really well and there are leftovers to spare! I am tired and totally happy.

Best of all, Mark did the dishes :) Thanks, Babe!

Asparagus obsession and Easter Weekend

2010-04-04T09:21:00.010-05:00

Friday afternoon was a really good start to the weekend. Mark and I went grocery shopping and all signs of spring have sprung in the produce section. *Heavenly trumpets sound* Asparagus is here. Now, I know last week that I blogged about an asparagus quiche. This week on my Reader, there have been so many interesting things to do with asparagus, and I couldn't help myself. I bought 2 pounds of big, tender asparagus.

Friday night, we made pizza on wheat wraps. It was a whole list of firsts. We tried Veggie Shreds non-dairy (soy) cheese. The mozzarella is actually pretty good; it has skim milk flavoring. The cheddar leaves a lot to be desired on its own. It's probably pretty good mixed into other things, like a quiche. They did both melt, which was more than I expected!

Mark made regular extra cheesy pizza and I made asparagus circles (1/4" thick) with mozzarella and creamy goat cheese. It was wonderful. Since I had the oven on already, I roasted the rest of the asparagus.

Continuing on with my asparagus obsession, I also bought artisan focaccia bread with rosemary. Lunch on Saturday was asparagus with creamy goat cheese sandwiches which was inspired by Shutterbean. I'm also eyeing poached eggs over asparagus from the Kitchn, and asparagus with polenta.

Mark and I have had some serious laptop troubles recently. My iSight camera stopped working some time in February. Yesterday afternoon, Mark's MacBook Pro's logic board went *kaput.* Off to the Apple store.

Yes, I forgot about the iPad release. It was absolutely insane at the Apple store. Seriously over staffed. People talking loudly about the uses for the iPad. My "favorite" was an employee telling a customer that "if you have a TV and an iPad, you don't even have to get up and go across the house to control the TV." *SIGH*

I think Mark quickly figured out that I was getting overloaded with people. We had 30 minutes before our Genius Bar appointments and Mark intervened. With food. :) More specifically with food from heaven!

It's call a Shot Cake. Which is a cupcake with soft serve ice cream injected like a cupcake filling would be. Too hard to decide so I got my favorite brownie sundae equivalent. I enjoyed the hot fudge part the most. The vanilla ice cream was ok. The brownie part however was meh. For my taste, I don't like my brownies cooked all the way through like a cake. I like them a tad undercooked, which you can do at home, but people in the food business of course won't sell them that way. Alas.

Verdict on the laptops: Mine required a reset of pprom (after the gong, press simultaneously option, command (AKA "open apple"), p, and r; you will hear two chimes; then boot normally). Mark on the other hand had mixed fortune. His logic board really is dead and the part is not something that is normally stocked. This is problematic because he has a business trip to Seattle this week and he needed his laptop to show a demo. Fortunately, the laptop is still under AppleCare and they have ordered the part.

Easter Sunday this weekend. I loose track of these things. My mom's mom is having a family gathering today and my mom has been tasked with dessert. I am happy to report that I got to spend yet another weekend in the kitchen! Today, with my extra pie crust and random fruits in my freezer and fridge, I made a fruit galette. Sounds fancy, I know! I based it on this Allrecipes.com recipe; http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Summer-Fruit-Galettes/Detail.aspx.

I used what I had in the house so my version has 1/2 cup (frozen) mixed berries, 1/2 cup (frozen) blueberries, 3 (fresh) Empire apples, and 6 (fresh) strawberries. The strawberries are massive and so delicious since it is strawberry season! I also added zest of one orange and 1/2 an orange worth of juice (ummm, I ate the rest!). Because we need to watch our sugar intake, I replaced 2 tbs of raw sugar with Stevia. I did wind up using 2 tbs raw sugar in the filling mix, and another ~1 tbs to sprinkle on the top. Let me just say that as I stand here waiting for the pie to finish, it smells wonderful.

And here is the result, still bubbling from the oven. The overlapping crust looks pretty fancy (to me). As you can see, I got a little ambitious with the amount of filling. On the top of the picture, the filling overflowed a bit. Ah well! It's homemade, so :) I hope my family enjoys it! I can't believe that now I have to two 2 hours to eat it so that it finishes setting up properly!!!!

P.S.: If you haven't started watching Jamie Oliver's "Food Revolution," I highly recommend it. I remember school food being terrible, and fortunately my mom was able to often pack us lunches. Between "Food Revolution" and Mrs. Q's blog "Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project," my mind has been completely blown away.

Learning GIMP

2010-03-31T21:50:00.006-05:00

Tonight, I attempted to make a panorama of Nijo Castle from photos I took in Kyoto, Japan. Didn't quite work out how I was hoping because the camera did quite a bit of automatic color adjustment. And well, I didn't quite snap pictures at all the same angles... I scratched that project.

However, I did previously make one of my parents on vacation in St. Augustine, FL. It is technically a panorama of two images. Really, I just overlapped the two and "colored" my mom into the picture with my dad already sitting there.

Before: Mom and Dad in separate shots.

After: Overlaying of the two images. You can see the mismatch color of the siding and the upper right corner where I needed to shift Mom's image down a bit.

Resulting picture! After some cropping, I decided that I liked the photo best in black and white. It looks much more timeless.

So on a whim, I decided to play with GIMP's filters. I particularly like the "oilify" filter. It makes it feel like an oil painting. In this smaller photo, the effect is subtle, but on the full sized image, it feels much more pronounced. This is Mark and myself this Christmas in San Diego with Mark's sister Natalie's son Alex (Mark's nephew).

The same technique I used with my parents' picture above, I had done with other photos of Alex to achieve the Kim Anderson effect (mostly black and white with a few key color areas).

Super cute "colorfied" fire truck on Alex's shirt.

Blue, blue, blue... baby blue eyes. They are actually an electric blue. My camera did its auto color correction thing again.

And perhaps my favorite! Look that the cool denim overalls. This is Alex hanging on Uncle Mark's fingers at the beach! Alex is such a cutie; just look at that face.

I am hoping to be able to print, frame, and ship these soon. I have a set for Natalie and I have a set for my mom to do and I hope I can find the time in the next few weeks.

Pioneer Woman Photography Assignments: Green

2010-03-29T23:21:00.004-05:00

Since I don't have a Yahoo account for Flicker, this would have been for my entry to Pioneer Woman Photography Assignments! The theme was green.

Picture taken at a Shinto shrine at Nara Deer Park.

Awesome start to the weekend

2010-03-28T10:27:00.004-05:00

I had an awesome start to the weekend. Friday night, Mark and I had a quite night in with a little bit of cleaning and mostly just lazing about.

Saturday was a very busy cooking day. We had a group of friends come over in the evening. I donned a city chic outfit and planted myself firmly in the kitchen. To give you an idea of how firmly planted, I spent about 6 hours in the kitchen and did 3 loads of dishes (Thank goodness for the dishwasher!!).

On the menu was:

Oatmeal cookies from scratch (golden raisin AND chocolate),
Chocolate-banana Jello pudding pie,
Asparagus quiche, and
Vegetable fried rice.

Hey, when I have to turn on the oven and/or dice onions, I am going to make batches of food.

The first oatmeal cookie attempt was thwarted by moldy homemade applesauce. I ditched it and hit up allrecipes.com for other oatmeal cookie recipes, and wasn't the result just grand?! This was the recipe I used (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Soft-Oatmeal-Cookies/Detail.aspx), only I didn't have any brown sugar, so I just used 2 cups of regular, white cane sugar.

Now let me tell you that I don't normally make super buttery, super sugary anythings in my household. However, these cookies are such a treat and the recipe makes easily 64 bit sized (adult bite) cookies. After making the plain dough, we had two mix ins. One batch used golden raisins because that's what I had in the pantry. And the other got a bit of special love from Japan! I used one of my dark chocolate Dars bars and ran my knife through it.

Mark rolled big (his-) palm-sized cookies from the chocolate batch (shown below); yield ~18. We kept eating them, so it was a little hard to count. I rolled tiny palm-sized cookies (which wound up being bite-sized) from the raisin batch; yield ~36. Our friends said that the cookies "were like heroine" which I think was a good thing because we didn't have any more by the end of the night. The center of the cookie was soft and chewy, but there was a crispiness to the outside of the cookies. MMmmmmmm.

With the applesauce out of the picture, I couldn't make the apple pie I was hoping to make. So with the pie crust, I decided to make an asparagus quiche with onion, radish, and spinach. This was the recipe I followed (http://www.mydailydiner.com/2010/03/asparagus-pie.html). I didn't have any cheese in the house, so I simply omitted it. The quiche didn't lack anything for flavor or texture, and *bonus* I didn't have to take a Lactaid pill. My bunch of asparagus yielded twice as much what was called for in the recipe, so I saved some of the vegetable mix for pasta later. I think the key to this yumminess was using the 2Tb butter to brown the onions and veggies.

I was so pleased with the result. This is my first quiche with a crust, and it was perfect! The filling puffed up and browned just slightly. Most of all, it is delicious and I had two slices last night while everyone else had Pizza Hut pizza.

The best part of entertaining last night was that I didn't spend a penny out of pocket for the food that I made AND I got to clean out some of my pantry! Seriously, I have 20 lbs of oatmeal in there, I swear!

abbrvnat-quote.bst

2010-03-25T07:52:00.004-05:00

This is a quick tech-y post. I was helping Mark last night with his thesis proposal references.

For people using natbib, I modified the abbrvnat.bst file to have quotations around the titles of papers. The file can be found at http://www.cs.uml.edu/~ktsui/abbrvnat-quote.bst. The functionality was borrowed from ieeetr.bst. However, the order of the references is still alphabetical by first author last name (like regular abbrvnat.bst) and not as order appearance (like regular ieeetr.bst).

Please note that this is a customization and the punctuation following a format.title may not always come out correctly. blank.sep may need to be inserted at the format.title "title" and may need to replace a new.blank entirely. techreport, misc, inproceedings (and therefore conference), incollection, article have all been modified in this file. Additional types of entries may need to be modified.

URLs (formatl.url) were commented out from the different types of entries for style reasons.

As this is posted to my professional webpage which will expire when I graduate (anticipated 2011), I highly encourage people to download it and repost it elsewhere on the tubes. Wouldn't it be cool if the Wayback machine picked it up? :)

Break down of student loans

2010-02-17T11:04:00.004-05:00

Last year, I'd written about my overall financial health, and yesterday, I wrote about growing my emergency fund. So I am carrying student loans from three providers (maybe four if I have a Perkins Loan at UML) that total over $100K. Honestly, $100K is such a large number that it is surreal; I can't really understand how much money that really is.

First, my private loans are from KeyBank. I have three there. One is from undergrad, and two are from grad school (Brown). I can't believe how much I owe in interest alone. The current interest rate on all of them is 4.25%

In 2001, my undergrad loan amount was $8,064.50. I've accrued $3,826.56 in interest over the last nearly decade!! In 2003, my grad loan was for $16,483.50, which has accrued $7,090.17 in interest. In 2004, my grad loan was for $12,224.13, which accrued interest of $4,443.03. THAT'S $13,197.51 IN ACCRUED INTEREST! I am not feeling very good about myself right now. :(

Second, my government loans from Direct Loans are huge. My 2009 year end balance is $59,905.92. The interest THIS YEAR was $7,073.92; over $1k per quarter in interest. Worst of all, this is the lowest interest rate while in deferment (1.8%).

Third, I have a Perkins Loan from Brown which is supposedly low interest (5% I believe) and I have no idea how much the original loan was for. ** Update: I have $12K in principal. Guess this one must go first!! Fortunately for me, any payments I make on this loan while it is in deferment goes directly to the principal.

I honestly feel like I am drowning. I know that things are technically fine while I am in school, but I feel like there is this tsunami of student loan debt hanging above my head, just waiting for me to graduate.

Financial Organization

2010-02-15T14:51:00.003-05:00

Today I spent time organizing my finances. Largely, they are on auto-pilot (yeah for ING!). I have several specific savings accounts that I use to save for various things.

I have an account for auto repair because the last two years I've had to spend a sizable during inspection on maintenance. Not that my car didn't pass inspection! I just believe in preventative maintenance. Every month, I deposit $75 into this account. I will need to buy new tires next winter; I am thankful to have made it through this winter! I also need to have some body damage repaired (that's a long story).

I have an account for my upcoming trip to Japan. I knew about this trip last year, so this account has been opening for the last year accruing $100 per month. I've just converted them to yen. I'll be in Japan for ~2 weeks to this money will be used to cover my meals, hotel, and sight seeing!

But! Even though the trip is essentially paid for, I am NOT closing the account. Today, I renamed the account to help me save for my sister's wedding. I am her maid of honor. I've not been involved in planning a wedding before, but I know that there are a lot of expenses. I will need to buy my own dress, shoes, and under garments. I also want to buy my sister her shoes (tango dance shoes), which will likely be custom-made Jorge Nel's. I reduced my monthly deposit by half since the wedding is 2.5 years away.

Which left me $50 per month to do something with. I've been battling a lot lately with if I should start to repay my $100k student loans, or if I should be investing, or .... ? What do you think? I read a few finance blogs, such as Get Rich Slowly and I Will Teach You To Be Rich. My gut says that I should firmly establish my emergency fund.

My current emergency fund is a healthy $2000. I have $1500 that is liquid, and $500 in a 12-month CD with a 2.1% interest rate. This would cover my living expenses for a little over 2 months. However, everything that I have read says that I should be able to cover myself for 6 months. I've upped by monthly deposit to include the now available $50 and added an extra $25. By the end of this calendar year, I will have nearly doubled my emergency fund.

What this the right move? I still wonder about starting to pay down my student loans...

Next step, taxes. Joy. Or maybe that is too much financial stuff to do in one day! :)

Shadows

2010-01-17T00:00:00.004-05:00

Christy's homework assignment this week is shadows. This is one of my less frequently used tricks, but I have had on occasion though to use them. Usually, I use them as my self portrait (recall, I don't like being subject matter).

Two particular times where I've intentionally used shadowing (and not as a consequence of the setting) were my trip to Walden Pond (October 2009) and the zillion photos I took this Christmas of my nephew Alex in San Diego (late December 2009/early January 2010).

Aside from my self portrait, my Walden Pond photos showcase shadows as a layer of texture. I particularly liked the dark tone that the shadows added to the yellow maple leaf photo. I thought the shadow in the second photo made the baby evergreens appear soft to the touch (which they were not!).

World, please meet Alex! He's just the most wonderful baby in the whole wide world; chillax and never takes a bad picture. He was completely fascinated with everyone's camera! Christmas in San Diego was 70 degrees and sunny pretty much every day. The first photo I liked because it showed the scale of Mark and Alex again in shadow. That picture was taken in the back yard of Mark's sister and her husband's home close to Miramar.

I really also liked the photos we took at my first time touching the Pacific Ocean. The time was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and the sun was setting. I really like the last picture a lot. The subject matter was great, and the shadows provide a quite modern yet timeless feeling. I am working to colorize a black and white version of it as a present!

And I'm back

2010-01-15T18:17:00.009-05:00

Right, it's been a while since I've blogged. I'll soon be posting about levels of intimacy with respect to friendship and sometimes, not everyone should know everything. Just to remind everyone, this blog is no longer pushed to my Facebook account.

So I've been a little jealous of my friend, Miss Christy, who took a digital photography class last semester and is continuing this spring. Jealous, because, well, I've always wanted to do it! I do love photography and maybe some day I will make the time.

But in the mean time, Christy has openly challenged her readers to also take pictures according to her homework assignments.

Hell yes! I'll take that challenge on.

This week's homework is to photograph using reflection. Actual details have yet to be posted, but I can't wait, so here are some photos that I took at Walden Pond this fall. These, as most of my pictures, are shot with the lab's Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT.

These are from a recent visit from Mark's parents. We took a Duck Tour around Boston in June. If you ever get the chance, do it. Our particular con-duck-tor (ha ha; no seriously!) normally drives the Red Sox duck; he is hysterical!

(That is the Prudential Tower in the top left.)

(Trinity Church in the reflection.)

(This is the John Hancock Tower.)

These are some from last Christmas (2008). Mark was teaching me about waxing your car. Being a northern girl, I just thought cars were supposed to look... gritty? Mark took the first one, but I like the reflection of my vest; I don't generally like being subject matter. These were shot with our Nikon D300 (which no longer lives with us unfortunately).

I went to the Netherlands in June 2007. These are shot with my Sony Ericsson cell phone. I did not yet have access to a proper camera, but all things considered, the photos came out pretty well. The two photos of the canals are Amsterdam, and the two photos of the seashore is Nordwijk-ann-Zee (meaning "by the sea").

I have some great photos driving through Maine on our way back from Nova Scotia in May 2008. I'll dig through those too.

But for now, enjoy!

Homage to Women Throughout Time

2009-09-27T14:19:00.004-05:00

In my soul, I am an artist. Not a formally trained one, or perhaps even a good one. But I do feel the need to create and express.

In July, I auditioned for a dance and made the cut (yeah! Very exciting for a girl with no formal dance training!). This dance is the culmination of 2 months of hard work. We performed the dance publicly for the first time yesterday (Saturday, September 26) at the Lowell Open Studios 2009. I am so proud to be a part of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1_Qd9MJ1k&feature=email

More about the dance from the dance's creator, Julie Penta:

Homage

Lowell Open Studios 2009

This dance was inspired by the art piece "Homage to Women" by Mico Kaufman located in down town Lowell, Ma. The description on the statue reads: "A tribute to Lowell's 19th C 'mill girls,' the intertwined figures also represents struggles and aspirations of all women throughout time."

We danced on the brick pavement an added jeans, sneakers, and other garments to protect our feet, legs, and shoulders from the ground. This dance is in constant evolution.

music by The Dirty Three

Best

2009-08-04T11:08:00.002-05:00

Best. Numero uno. Primo. Primero. Better than all the rest. Dominator of the competition.

I'm back from Defcon and clearing my email and Reader. One article in particular caught my eye. Erin Doland from Unclutterer wrote about how "you don't have to be the best." It took me years to learn the difference between being THE best and being YOUR best (a lesson imparted to me by my mom in Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club).

Erin wrote about how she stops doing things when she figures out that she can't be the best. She gives the example of how when she was a teenager, after dancing ballet for 13 years with hundreds of hours of practice under her belt, she quit. Despite being technically proficient, Erin saw that there were two other girls who had more grace and talent than she had, thereby standing in her way of becoming a prima ballerina.

I have to say that this story and way of thinking really resonates with me. I think I also apply this philosophy somewhat knowingly. I think maybe this stopping when you know you can't be the best is maybe the underlying reason for why I switch hobbies when I no longer find them challenging.

Looking back on my life, this seems to apply to most things I've done and even people that I've met. In one chapter, I was a flautist; more to explore here in a moment. In another chapter, I worked for a large computer corporation. Argentine Tango was another chapter. Ex-boyfriends each have their own chapter. As phases end, I seem to close the chapter never to look back.

For example, playing the flute. Much like Erin, I spent years of my life devoted to playing a musical instrument. I began piano lessons at age 6. At age 10, I switched to the flute and played through my freshman year of undergrad. And then I stopped.

When I began, I wasn't good by any means. In fact, the band conductor held me back from playing in the school band until 6th grade. My goal then was to beat all of the other flautists in my grade. In 7th grade, I began taking private lessons. In 8th grade, I was the only flautist left; all of my peers dropped out. In 11th grade, I took first chair in the high school band beating out all of the flautists a year ahead of me.

When I got to college, I auditioned for the concert band and made the cut. Midway through the semester, our grades were due. The conductor asked us to submit an audio recording of ourselves playing one of the concert pieces. I tried and I tried, but all I could hear were the mistakes. I didn't make a tape.

It turns out that other students also didn't make a tape and instead we played live by sections for our grade. My heart pounded and I knew I just wasn't good enough. I stressed myself out so much that I nearly withdrew from the class.

When the semester was done, I took an internship for my Computer Science degree. I quit my part time job teaching flute to grade school and junior high school students. And I haven't picked up my flute since then. It's been 8 years. I no longer identify myself as a flautist. I've not tried to play since then. Part of me is scared that all of those hours and years of practice have simply vanished.

I've reached a point in my life where I am trying to be as simplistic as possible in my living, which means decluttering and getting rid of things. My flute sits on a shelf in my closet. For quite a while now, I've been trying to figure out why I keep it. Secretly, I think that if I sell it, I will have failed and if I keep it, someday I may be able to play again. I do believe that I can do anything I want to if I put my mind to it.

Sometimes I wish that my head and heart together knew to value more MY best instead of wanting to be THE best all the time.

The need to be challenged

2009-07-27T20:58:00.006-05:00

Recently my brother accused me of being into fads. Not meaning what's hip right now. No, more meaning that I go through phases of serious dedication to one thing or another. In high school, it was music; today I don't ever touch my flute and I sing mostly off key, unless I'm trying. In grad school, it was Argentine Tango; I haven't put my shoes on in over a year.

A friend of mine invited me to audition for a dance she has created from a sculpture of the Mill Girls (Lowell was a textile town back in the day). It had been at least two years since I seriously danced and I'd never been formally trained so it takes me a bit longer to pick up. I loved the feeling of learning a new dance and controlling my body to move in such a way. I'm very excited that I made the cut. I'll be performing in late September. Most of all, I can't wait for rehearsals to begin. I can't wait to be challenged and feel excited and nervous. I can't wait to instruct my body to flow here and pose there in ways that I've never been taught.

I've now completed two Bikram Yoga classes. While it's not the same as Ashatanga, I still enjoy the satisfaction of making myself into as perfect a pose as I can manage. I can feel the power and beauty when I make my body align. I can't begin to describe the happiness and satisfaction I feel at the end of the 90 minute session, laying in the final pose in the hot, humid, and dark studio and whispering "Namaste" back to the instructor.

I've also taken up cycling. I'll be doing a short 5 mile tour in Stow in mid-August and a 25 mile tour in mid-September. I can feel myself growing stronger with each time out on my bike. I'm thoroughly looking forward to crossing the finish lines.

When I get to Defcon in a few days, I can't wait to pick back up with my lock picking and hone my skills.

I believe that I can do anything I put my mind to, and so after a period of time when I no longer feel challenged, I switch. I feel that it helps me grow as a person. My brother would say that I'm fickle and it may be true that I'll never be a true master of anything that I've tried, but I enjoy a whole new challenge more than the mastery.

How to save Jonathan Haupt's life

2009-07-07T21:18:00.003-05:00

My friend Stan sent me the following email about his friend's brother-in-law to be:

My friend and colleague Brian has asked me to get the word out regarding bone marrow drives in the Boston area this weekend. All you need to do is "get swabbed and save a life." If you do not live in the area but know someone who does, please let them know about this. There are drives also in NYC and other areas. Please see teamhaupt.org for more details.

From Brian:

My future brother-in-law, Jonathan Haupt, was diagnosed with Acute Myelogenous Leukemia, an aggressive blood cancer, in March, 2009. He is in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant to save his life and there are currently NO matches on the worldwide registry. We are hosting three bone marrow drives in the Boston area that I encourage you to attend and to bring your friends and family to:

Worcester, MA:
Sunday, July 12 from 11AM to 3PM
Worcester JCC; 633 Salisbury St.; Worcester, MA 01609

Natick, MA:
Saturday, July 18 from 11AM to 3PM
Belkin Lookout Farm; 89 Pleasant St. South; South Natick, MA 01760

Boston, MA:
Sunday, July 19th from 10am to 4pm
Holiday Inn Brookline; 1200 Beacon St.; Brookline, MA 02446

The chances of finding a match for Jonathan are 1 in 30,000, so I urge you to please send this email along with the attached flyer to everyone you know and ask them to send it to everyone they know (colleagues, friends, and family) to encourage them to register as a bone marrow donor! We have drives going on in Boston, NYC, Northern VA, Baltimore, Albany, Worcester, and St. Louis (if you would like more details and flyers to send to your friends and family please let me know). Also, for those unable to attend a local drive, they can order a kit online free of charge at: http://www.dkmsamericas.org/marrow-donor-form.

Jonathan is of European Jewish descent and his best chance of a match is with someone of similar heritage, but we ask anyone and everyone to come out and register. The greater the turn-out at the drives, the better chance we have at finding Jonathan a perfect match or helping someone else like him.

There is absolutely no need to be a hospital inpatient for a donation. There are 2 methods hospitals use. 70% of the time donors are asked to do the method requiring 5 days of protean shots (1 at a clinic, and 4 done by a nurse sent to your home or place of work) and then a blood donation. This method may cause joint aches for 1 to 7 days similar to those felt with the flu. The other method, used 30% of the time (usually to save a child) requires a local anesthetic in your posterior and a hollow needle to extract bone marrow from the hip. This method is known to cause posterior pains similar to falling hard on ice.

To find out more about Jonathan and his battle with leukemia, please visit our website www.teamhaupt.org. If you are on Facebook, please join the group Team Haupt to see updates on the drives throughout the country, spread the word about the drives, and to leave your well-wishes to Jonathan.

With my sincere and deepest gratitude,
Brian J. Hoffman

Powers of social media, I call upon you. The world is a very, very small place. Being halfway around the world happens these days in only a matter of hours. Information travels faster. Social media sites like Facebook allow us to fully explore our "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon."

How to save a life? Take action. What if you were the one who was able to save this life? Would you knowingly walk away? If you knew this person, would you still be ambivalent? What if it were you who needed the transplant?

Hello World!

2009-06-22T20:29:00.006-05:00

Hello World!

Oh my, it really has been forever since I've had a chance to blog. Well over a month! As you already know, when my blog goes quiet, I am in frantic work mode.

On the research front, my robot arm has just been so temperamental. I had a meeting with my occupational therapist to make sure that the robot was doing when they expected. The meeting overall was very successful. Still, I walked away with a seemingly small list of to-dos. One of my action items required creating one additional module, which really was 3 separate things (on top of the >18 other things already going). In the process, I managed to make my robot RAM INTO THE BOOKSHELF REPEATEDLY. I scrapped those changes! Then trying a different way, my robot started doing this hypnotic circling thing and a stutter thing as well. In any case, that's mostly resolved. I still have a few things left, but there will always be room for improvement.

On the social side of the world, Mark and I have been hosting a bed and breakfast, I swear! Our friends K & K came to visit us from the mid- and west-coasts at the beginning of June. After a delicious dinner at Rendezvous in Central Square (in the people's republic of Cambridge, MA), we had second dessert at Tosci's (where another one of my friend's used to work). I had a mini-sundae and I have to say that the hot fudge topping was the best part. I love how the mini-sundae is just the right size for me (just a tasting).

Coming back from Boston, we needed to find a 24-hour Super Evilmart (Walmart) to get a blow-up mattress (ours is in DC currently). The nearest Super Evilmart is in Salem, NH which was well over 1.5 hours from where we were. We got to there at 12:01 am only to find out that Super Evilmarts are now open only 18 hours (6am - 12 midnight). Well, ok, so I had a lot of water to drink with dinner, so I really needed to use the little girl's room. I used my powers of cute Asian-ness to lure them to open the doors (that and the universal pee-pee dance). While inside, Mark calls my cell and says, "You're in! You had to get the mattress now!" So I run through Evilmart to Sporting Goods (which is in the furthest point from the store from where I am) in my 3-inch high heels. Hey, I'd just come back from a fancy dinner in Boston! I grabbed an air mattress and pump and scooted in line. I wasn't even the last person out. Meanwhile, Mark, K, & K are waiting for me in the parking lot which had a lot of very angry people in it!

The next day, we saw Up! in 3D. I totally recommend 3D for this movie; the next weekend we saw it with Mark's parents (who came up to visit) in 2D and it wasn't quite as nice. In the evening, K and I had an awesome Asian cook-fest. She made us jap-chae (Korean style lo-mein kinda with thin rice noodles) and spring rolls. I made banana wontons (bananas cooked in rum and sugar) topped with honey and sesame seeds. Yum! I totally hoarded the left-overs. :)

The following weekend, Mark's parents came up to visit us from FL. It was fun because Mark and I got to be tourists in Boston. I figure this is probably our last summer together here in Lowell, so we might as well take in all the sights. We did the Museum of Science (I still love it there), the Duck Tours, and Blueman at the Charles Playhouse. We also hung around the house and caught up.

On the gardening front, the UML Community Garden has really taken off. We have a 40 foot x 70 foot gardening space that we've tilled and planted. About half of the garden is for communal plants, which means that all members will get an equal share. The popular plants such as tomatoes, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, peas, and herbs were planted in the front half of the garden. So far we've had 2 work days. On the first day, we laid out the garden and planted the communal plants. On our second day, we installed the trellis supports and mesh trellises. I finally just planted my seedlings this past Saturday. I know it's really late! You can imagine just how busy I've been. Today I planted my cherry tomato plant (remember the one I started in the Aerogarden in January?) in a self-watering hanging basket and hung it outside my window. I got 5 little tomatoes from it today. I was very excited and made them into my dinner. :)

On the crafting front, I had a blitz last Thursday and Friday. My friend D is having a baby boy. She and her husband J are decorating in the Super Mario Brothers theme. So I decided to knit them a Goomba hat. And then I realized that I didn't have enough dark brown yarn. So Ifrogged that and learned how to 1) purl and 2) interchange colors. I solved the brown issue by making a blue background. I found a website that converts images into patterns, but they didn't let me say how big the piece was supposed to be. I'd intended to make a folded rectangle hat, but then the Goomba just got too big. Then I decided it was going to be a pillow. I've just realized that I didn't take ANY pictures of it (Update 8/9/09: Debbie posted a picture on Facebook, so I've put it below). SIGH, that makes me really sad because I was really proud of it. I used 5 colors!!! That was a lot of thread management (ahahahah; sorry that was a CS joke). I have D the present at her shower on Saturday and she loved it :)

My honey was wonderful this past weekend and switched desks with me. Now I have a large horizontal surface on which to craft. And by craft I mostly mean sew. I'm dying to make some skirts and dresses! I'm in the process of repurposing t-shirts. I'm working on an XL men's t-shirt (from my first Defcon) and turning it into a Trinity inspired (I think anyways) ladies shirt. I promise; this time I'll take pictures.

Ok, that's it for now. I will try to post to my blog more. For more of my daily stuff, follow me on Twitter (katemtsui).

My netbook has arrived; the garden is thriving; and I have a new hair cut!

2009-05-13T10:46:00.006-05:00

Here's my new baby; yes, I will name it. Came with Ubuntu, but I can't wait to Hackintosh it. The quarter in the picture is for scale.

In other news, my plants are growing out of control. I moved my cherry tomato and strawberry plants to soil (shown in sequence for those who aren't gardeners). The strawberry plant shown was started in the Aerogarden. The strawberry plant from the Eggling is much, much smaller.

"I'm growing big!"

And started lettuce in my Aerogarden a few weeks ago. It really is a weed, but a tasty one. This will likely be the first edible thing that comes from my apartment gardening.

I also have started Thai basil and mint in the Aerogarden. The mint had an unfortunate accident and let's just say that I've restarted it.

And lastly, check out my new hair cut!

Psst! I'm still alive

2009-04-28T18:50:00.006-05:00

Hello World! Sorry to have disappeared. I wanted to pop up an assure you that I really am alive.
The end of February, all of March, and all of April have just been absolutely crazy!

Briefly, towards the end of February, I was pushing to submit a paper to the IROS conference. It required many long days and nights, but finally I had the whole system working from the beginning to end. Notice I didn't say working well...

Which brings us to April where I have been frantically trying to finish up the zillion little things to make it work well. I'm still working on it... kinda. Actually at the moment, I'm up to my ears in final projects for my 2 classes. I can't wait for classes to be officially done! SIGH. One more semester of classes. Also in April, magically somehow, I made time to switch a good number of our incandescent light bulbs to dimmable CFLs, installed more X10 appliance modules for the non-dimmable X10 units, switched to rechargable batteries, and painted my bathroom.

"What about March?" you ask. Excellent question. March was a horror of a month. Well, just part of it. I was in California twice and it was BEAUTIFUL!!!! But on both return flights, I caught some strain of the flu. The first laid me up in bed for 5 days straight. The second was 10 days before I was able to walk up a flight of stairs without being dizzy or terribly winded.

In the mean time, here's a flurry of pictures to show you what I've been up to!

I made vegan vanilla cupcakes for Kristen's birthday. Recipe from http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=327817

1/2 cup vanilla soy yogurt (I used soy pudding because that's what I had on hand; worked out fine)
2/3 cup fat free vanilla or plain soy milk
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 tbl canola oil
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbl cornstarch
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

The result:

Holly got me a cupcake at HRI. Can you guess which one's mine? (Yes, pink sprinkles! Very good.)

I flew to San Diego via Salt Lake City. This is Salt Lake City. Looks pretty nice; I'll have to find a way to get back there someday.

In March after the AAAI Spring Symposium Series, I met a wooden Keepon replica, had a chocolate lava cake (best I've ever had! Oh and cheese-y polenta!!), saw a robot plug itself into the wall to charge, and had Sprinkles cupcakes.

Last night coming home from class, I saw this beautiful night time scene.

Oh! And I've finished all 42 patches for the baby blanket! (Travel's great for getting projects done.) Now I just need to put them together and put edging on it.

Today was bright, beautiful, sunny, and 88 degrees! Maybe it's my turn for a summer of dresses!

I'm an Apartment Therapy's Small "Cool 2009" contest entrant

2009-04-14T10:36:00.005-05:00

Check it out! Mark and I's personal home movie theater apartment is now officially an entry in Apartment Therapy's 2009 Small Cool contest.

Vote for us! http://tinyurl.com/katemtsui-small-cool-vote

Lain-inspired haircut

2009-03-07T14:58:00.004-05:00

It's conference season again. So in preparation, I went to have my hair cut. I love it! It's a very Lain-inspired asymetrical precision cut. (Lain, as in the Serial Experiments).

These are photos of Lain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain, http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc311/jjpeebody/SerialExperimentsLain.jpg, and http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_iqENn2cxjc4/SF1pbaB9NiI/AAAAAAAAArI/xby6TOX0UTs/s400/SERIAL%2BEXPERIMENT%2BLAIN.jpg):

Here's my cut! My right hand side is longer than my left hand side. It's been highly texturized so it moves. I want to shake my head like Loreal commercial.

What does your high school year book say about you?

2009-03-05T15:41:00.003-05:00

Earlier I talked about my fear of not being able to escape the fate of being a "townie" in my Jack and Diane post. The other day while brushing my teeth, I was thinking about my high school year book, which is much like a snapshot of Facebook. We all had pictures and profiles. We had groups with which we associated.

So what does your high school year book say about you? Was it an accurate indicator of who would be come? How well does it still represent you?

I was an honors student and bandgeek. In my senior year, I was principle flautist, vice-president of Band Council, vice-president of the National Honor Society. I was on the varsity gymnastics team. I was involved with Show Choir, jazz band, flute choir, chorus, and foobar. In the year book, I was a superlative "most musical" (instrumental).

When I went to college, I basically stopped playing flute and singing. In fact, In my undergraduate career, I wasn't very involved at all. I was focused on classes and my career (internship). In this respect, my high school year book wasn't a very good indicator at all.

In my yearbook biography, I wanted to write something classic, timeless, and epic. I succeeded to do none of this. I wrote something to the effect of "shoot for the moon and even if you miss you'll land among the stars. So for now, I'll go with God."

The entry makes me giggle a bit. I remember having quite a battle when going through my Catholic confirmation during sophomore year. I didn't regularly go to church. I didn't fully believe. I had many conflicting issues about what the Bible said and things in the world. The creation. The stances of birth control and abortion. The views on homosexuality.

For a while, I explored Protestantism, but I didn't find the answers I was looking for there either. Somehow, I convinced myself that the confirmation was the correct thing for me to do. (Really, I think I went through it because I got to take on two male names, Michael Jude.) I am an agnostic and have been since I entered college. I'm currently investigating Buddhism. My profile wasn't a very good indicator of my religion either.

"Shoot for the moon and even if you miss you'll land among the stars." I look on this phrase as the cliche that it is. It makes me laugh to think how locally I thought then. I remember in high school that graduating with your bachelors was a big deal. A masters, wow! I'm now a doctoral candidate with aspirations of becoming a professor. The cliche is backwards. You shouldn't want to aim locally at the moon. You should be aiming for the stars.

No, I don't think that my high school year book is representative of me. I've change quite a lot since 2000. I escaped becoming a townie, but I don't know where I'll land in the end. I am glad that I don't have to look back on my high school year book and think that those were the best years of my life.

HOW do I stay focused on WHY I'm doing it all, and not get caught up in all the wires 'n code

2009-02-26T18:30:00.002-05:00

This blog post is a response to my friend Stan's twitter to me one day. Stan asked me how do I stay focused on why I'm doing it all without getting caught up in all the wires 'n code.

Really it comes down to a single word. Passion.

There was a point in my life where I worked in Corporate America. I really liked my teammates. And for a time, I liked my work. It was related to my studies. But after a few years, I knew that my heart wasn't in it like I thought it should've been.

I made the decision to go back to school full time. But what to do? I knew that I really liked working with robots. It was very satisfying to see the robot "do stuff" using my code. Fun as it was, I didn't really see Lego robot as my future.

I knew that I wanted to change the world and make it a better place. It wasn't enough for me to just make a good living (read: money). I knew that I wanted my work to make a difference, to change a life, to change the world.

When I reconnected with my advisor, we talked about the different projects. Her thesis had been an intelligent wheelchair robot. In the years when I first knew her, she was working in the field of search and rescue robots. But! She'd just received a grant in the area of assistive technology. Of all of her projects, this one sounded the most interesting to me. I would work on a robot which would help people with disabilities in their everyday life.

I've worked on the project for 3 years now and the project is drawing to a close. There have been many, many highs and many, many more lows. It took me a year to full understand the robot arm. At the end of the first year, I finally was able to interact with the rehabilitation center. Working with the patients and clinicians that first summer, I knew that I'd found my niche.

I found a special connection with P----, a woman in her 50s who had lived at the rehab center for a few years due to a traumatic brain injury. She was my inspiration and motivated me to really push through the first evaluation of the robot at the rehab center. She enjoyed working with the robot because she enjoyed the social interaction surrounding it.

Another young woman C------ has been an inspiration as well. She wants to be a dancer. She's participated in all of my evaluations. But more importantly, she talks to me about her life. I really feel like I've connected with P----- and C------. I may not be directly improving their lives, my work will make an impact and hopefully improve the life of someone else.

I've done another evaluation of the robot and I have another evaluation coming up in a few weeks. I've been working on an integration for the last six months. It's been a very, very long six months with lots of technical issues. But what gets me through is the thought of the enjoyment of people like P------ and C------- when using the robot.

I'll give you another example. I had a simple exercise for a class I'm taking. I needed to come up with a list of three collaborative pieces of software. Later in the semester, I'll need to do a 20 minute presentation on the software.

I could've taken the easy way out and listed software that I've used before. No, I wanted to make it relevant to my work as an assistive technologist. I looked for a piece of collaborative software used by people with disabilities to accomplish as task. Alas, I didn't find any and so I began to wonder "why doesn't this exist?"

Passion keeps me focused on the good of mankind.

It's not that I don't get caught up in all the wires 'n code. I do. Sometimes I can't even see my way out. But I know that somehow and some way, it'll all come together.

I also need to mention Mark. He's the one who really keeps me going, even when I don't want to. He pushes me the extra mile and he keeps me focused. Mark really is my better half.

Amish friendship bread fun

2009-02-08T15:53:00.005-05:00

Last Wednesday after Kristen and I went to Spin class, we baked our Amish breads. Kristen chose a sourdough variation, which she had left rising since that morning. I decided to make a lemon poppy seed quick bread.

I have to say that I've really enjoyed making this Amish friendship bread. It's pretty low maintenance; just squish it every day, feed in on Day 6, and bake on Day 10. There's lots and lots of variations. I recommend checking out Armchair World's variations. Well, we did have a sink-full-and-then-some of dishes, but they cleaned up pretty quickly...

The lemon poppy seed was a snap to make. To my starter, I added 1.5 cups of flour, soy milk, and light brown sugar each. Then I pulled out 3 cups of this mixture and poured it into 3 separate bags (1 cup per bag). I now have one bag as the starter which I've been squishing; it's now Day 5 for me and I'll feed it tomorrow.

The other two I put in my freezer. I've offered one to my sister Kim. But really my intention is to keep freezing the starters. Apparently, you can use the frozen bags of starter to have bread whenever you want. That is, remove the frozen bag, thaw (approximately 3 hours), and pretend it's Day 10, when you mix and bake. This is perfect for when I want to make pancakes, or waffles, or biscuits!

So after I pulled out my 3 cups of starter, I largely followed the instructions that were passed to me. I added 3 eggs, 1 cup oil (well, actually 1/2 and then 1/2 cup of applesauce to reduce the fat content), 1/2 cup (soy) milk, 1/2 cup (light brown) sugar, 1.5 tsps baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 cups flour, and 2 small boxes of instant pudding (I used one regular lemon which was 3.4 oz, and then one sugar-free lemon which was 1 oz). I didn't add the 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or the 2 tsps cinnamon, which would be used in the traditional Amish friendship bread. And you'd use vanilla pudding instead of lemon. I did add 1/4 cup poppy seeds since my goal was to make lemon poppy seed bread.

I didn't have loaf pans, so I used the Pyrex that I did have. I pour 1/3 of the mixture into an oiled and floured loaf pan, and the rest into a lasagna pan. The loaf pan contained batter roughly 2 inches thick, which took 50 minutes to bake at 350 degrees F. The lasagna pan was much thinner, roughly 1.25 inches thick, and took only 30 minutes to bake.

I have to say that I think I like the thinner ones better. It feels more like a breakfast cake to me.

Kristen's sourdough breads baked for 25 minutes (I think) and they seemed pretty done to us. The tops had turned a nice golden brown. We discovered that the center of the breads were still pretty moist. She later discovered that the way to tell if a bread is done is to tap the top with a utensil; if it sounds hollow, the bread is done and if the tap sounds like a dull thud, it is still moist inside.

We'd baked hers first and sampled it first as well. Oh my! It was so good. Not exactly a traditional sourdough. It had this beautiful sweetness to it, which we both enjoyed. Our friends at the lab later in the week also enjoyed the sweetness of this bread :)

My lemon poppy seed bread turned out well too. Not as lemon-y as I would've liked. Next time I'll remember to add the zest of a lemon. I could also use lemon extract (instead of vanilla) if I can find other recipes that use lemon extract. It seems silly to have it for this one variation.

I have some bananas that are nearly overripe and I'm seriously thinking about making banana nut bread this week. I also have a ton of apples left over from the Botball workshop which would be just wonderful. Can you imagine biting into a nice piece of apple Cinnamon bread with chunks of baked apples? Yum!

Happy Birthday, Alex Rayburn!

2009-02-03T17:16:00.008-05:00

Mark's sister Natalie gave birth to her son Alex early this morning. Happy birthday, Alex! He's 8 lbs 4 oz, which means that Natalie and Rhett can use the BumGenius cloth diapers that Mark and I gave them for Christmas.

Progress on Alex's Patches blanket is going along well. I've decided to make an 8x8 patch blanket. I got tired of knitting just a single color patch, so I wrote out the pattern: dark brown, light blue, navy blue, light brown, blue. As I finish each new square, I'm whip stitching it to the existing squares. I have the first color block done (it's actually photographed backwards!). Instead of Super Bowl, this was my Sunday as I was trying to thinking through a programming problem I'd been having since Saturday night.

Earlier in the week I finished up the booties for William (Vicki's son). I made the second pom-pom (so fun!) and now they're ready to be mailed off. I love the two colors. Hopefully I'll have enough of the blue skein left to make 11 more blue patches for Alex's baby blanket!

Speaking of babies, I don't have any, but my plants are my babies, so I'll talk about them. My strong tomato plant is growing big. There's a quarter in the picture for scale. The second tomato plant that I "saved" isn't growing very much, but it has some new leaves. Sorry it's so hard to see, but I wanted to leave them alone in the incubator. The new strawberry plants germinated in the Aerogarden have caught up to the size of the ones in the Eggling!

Today I discovered that you can make instant pudding with soy milk. The trick is to 1) use cold soy milk, and 2) use half the amount (to start) specified on the package.

Tomorrow, I'll be baking my Amish friendship bread. I used soy milk and light brown sugar to feed on Day 6 and the yeast is just fine. I have to let out the CO2 generated a couple times per day. I'm very excited to make a lemon poppy seed bread. I don't think it'll last long!

Tagged: Part 3

2009-01-31T11:12:00.010-05:00

This tagging thing is going around like a rash on Facebook! I'd just gotten done with my 9-16 in Part 2, when my friend Liz tagged me for 25 items! Like Part 2, I'm just going to give you the delta.

1-8. See Part 1.

9-16. See Part 2.

17. I have a "thinking face." This is the face I make when I'm concentrating on something in an intellectual capacity. Mark says that I make this face while I read, or when I'm working with my plants, or coding, or really any time that I need full concentration.

18. I flutter. Especially in the morning. Especially in the kitchen. Especially when I'm waiting for something. I find stuff to do. I'll do the dishes. I'll prep a meal. I'll pack lunch. I'll water my plants.

19. I've had 3 nicknames. My full name is Katherine. From birth through age 3, my parents called me Kathy. Then one day, as a precocious child, I announced that "I am not longer Kathy; I am now Katie." So for a while, as my parents acclimated, I was Kathy-Katie. From age 3 through age 18, I was Katie. Then when I got to college, Katie somehow became Kate. I think it was largely influenced by my first real job (at Sun Microsystems). My boss Paul called me Kate, filed my hiring paperwork as Kate, and it stuck. My family and high school friends still call me Katie, but it's weird to my ears. Interestingly, my Honey has also started to call me Katie as a term of endearment.

20. I have a hard time thinking about myself as a women. In my head, I'm still 19 years old and a girl. Seven years later, I am still in college (yes, now it's a doctoral program), but I still think of myself as a girl. Sometimes I feel like I missed out on something. I never got to live in the dorms, and I never had an apartment with my girlfriends. I don't nomally think of myself as a "young professional of her twenties." I also look very young and so I think of myself as young. Usually my younger sister (4 years my junior) is pegged as the older sister.

21. I'm an auditory learner. I do much, much better with material if the person teaching is a good lecturer. If I have to rely solely on a book, I have to read things 3 or so times before I start to get it. My reading comprehension is weak. This is true even of fiction books that I like. As a corrollary, I also have a hard time reading aloud. I can deliver a talk or lines like a play, but to read an unpreparred passage aloud it torcher for me and to those listening.

22. I don't have a Boston accent (anymore). Growing up in the greater Boston area, I did since everyone else around me did. When I first started grad school, I was teased so merciliessily about my accent that I purposefully lost it. My worst offender was "sure" pronounced as "shu-ah." :) Mark says that we wouldn't be together if I still had my accent. Can you imagine? "Hey Mahk... blah, blah, blah." Tee hee!

23. I am seriously allergic to cats. Their fur and dander... Ack! I puff yup and have a hard time breathing. My eyes get scratchy and watery. I first found this out when I went to a friend's birthday party in grade school. It was so bad that they called my mom as soon as she got home (just a few blocks) and she had to pick me up. I'm even allergic to the cats where the enzyme to which I am allergic has been bred out. I sampled an adult cat's hair sent to me in an envelope, and no go. To give you an idea as to HOW allergic I am, I got a fitness magazine from the freecycle area in my apartment complex and started getting puffy and watery-eyed from just reading a few pages. Claritin-D 24 hour seems to be the only thing that helps. Interestingly Mark is also very allergic to cats, which means that as cute as they are, we'll never have any. We're more dog people anyways.

24. Despite being agnostic, my favorite holiday is Christmas. I love the mood (it's the only time of year that New Englanders will look at each other while walking down a street). I love the music; I listen to it all year long (even in July) and especially when the marathons come out around Thanksgiving. Most of all, I love the lights. My mom and I used to pack hot chocolate and take rides out to see the lights at least once per year. I remember we used to drive home a particular way just to see certain houses. There was one house in Dracut that had a 3/4 life sized Santa, sleigh, and reindeer set with Rudolph. My brother, sister, and I used to clamour "But, Mom, Rudolph needs me!!!" I love Mark and I's Christmas tree and the decorations. This was the first year that we both had ornaments on it, which was very exciting for me.

25. I want to make a difference in this world. I want to leave the world a better place than when I entered it. I try to do this in multiple facets in my life. I left a lucrative software engineering position to go back to grad school and work in the area of assistive robotic technology. I became a vegetarian partially to make a political statement (It takes less resources to feed a vegetarian then a carnivore.) I recycle as much as I can now since my school has started a recycling program. I subscribe to the minimalist concept and have removed 3/4 of the clutter I had as of 3 years ago from my life (Craiglist is a wonderful thing). I try to have as small a carbon footprint as possible, which means being conscious of when I shop for food to choose locally (much less in terms of transportation costs), when I shop for item to make sure that they are high quality (so I don't have to replace it in the near future), as carbon friendly as possible, and/or made from organic and sustainable materials. I am actively trying to reduce our energy consumption and grow an indoor vegetable garden.

Tagged: Part 2

2009-01-27T12:39:00.010-05:00

I was unofficially tagged by Christy and I've been retagged by Jay, so I figured I'd do the delta. So here's 9 new things about me.

1-7. See Part 1.

8. I hate wet hair. I think wet hair touching me is the most disgusting feeling in the world. For that reason, I take only showers. I also dislike cleaning the bathroom for that reason and hand washing dishes.

9. When I was in high school, I was very, very embarrassed to eat in front of people. My mom used to pack lunches with sandwich, fruit, snacks, chips, and drink. But when lunchtime came, the only thing I ate was the sandwich and the drink. Really, I was embarrassed at HOW MUCH I can eat. My dainty girlfriends made me feel like I was a glutton. I still feel that way a little bit, but I know now that my body tells me exactly what it needs. If that means that I have to eat more in quantity and frequency, so be it.

10. I view my life as an eternal optimization problem. In English, that means that I like constraints. I like having options taken away from me and still having to solve a problem. For example, becoming vegetarian forced me to find new foods to cook. Having diabetes run in Mark and I's families means that I can't use sugar and wanting to eat more organically means then that I won't use synthetic sweeteners.

11. I have major trust issues. My high school/college sweetheart really pulled a doozey on me after being together almost 6 years. I am constantly afraid that the people closest to me will one day decide that I'm no longer worth being around and just leave. These trust issues are also why I started dancing tango. Tango forced me to be intimate with another person and to trust them during a dance.

12. I love to garden. I've been gardening since I was a kid. Mostly floral (irises, roses, pansies, lilies) in an outdoor garden. My dad's mom lay claim to the vegetable garden. When I was in college, I began to receive houseplants as presents. I used to have a horrible green thumb, but I somehow managed to learn to keep most of my houseplants alive. I have an orchid which has lived almost 9 years with me and has moved to 3 of my apartments. I loved it and kept it even when it didn't flower, which was the first 5 years. I consider my houseplants my babies.

13. I don't like being the center of attention. Thus, I have a really hard time at birthday parties and Christmas particularly when presents are being exchanged. I'm always afraid that I won't produce the correct reaction or with the correct magnitude. I've actually had a few Christmases where my ex had given me some outrageous jewelry and I apparently didn't react the way that he wanted. Also, I don't like being in front of the camera for the same reason (unless they are candid shot, which I adore!).

14. I have a major sweet tooth. Brownies and chocolate chip cookies are my weakness. I don't have any self-control. As a result, all sweets are banned from my house.

15. I am a tummy sleeper. Most mornings I wake up on my tummy, and that's usually how I fall asleep. Did you know they have special support pillows for us tummy sleepers? I saw one at Macy's before Christmas, but I didn't buy it because it was $60!

16. I'm not a very good sleeper. Apparently, my brain doesn't turn on the motor commands, so I kick, thrash, punch, grab, etc. all night long about every 5 minutes. I especially hate flat sheets and kick the crap out of them. I have a total Jekyll and Hyde thing going on. I'm about as cuddle-y as a black bear coming out of hibernation while I sleep, but before I fall asleep and when I wake up, I demand snuggles.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

2009-01-26T22:36:00.004-05:00

Happy Chinese New Years! Many good things happened yesterday and today.

Yesterday I did a little yak shaving -- I slayed some vampire electricity! Kristen and Colin let me borrow their Kill-A-Watt, which is a device that let's you see how much wattage and amperage a particular device draws. Mark and I have a bunch of X10 units (home automation stuff) that were sitting around, so I put them to use.

I found that my worst offender was the printer!! Followed by the microwave and my desk lamp; the cell phone and iPod chargers; and lastly our laptop power supplies. Consequently I rewired my desk. Now at night and when we're not home, I can shutdown all of the office equipment. Best of all, when we leave the house in the morning, we can turn it ALL off with the press of a single button. (It was a very satisfying activity for me!!! Don't judge!!!)

Today Holly gave my an Amish friendship bread starter. Think of it like carb-chain mail. I haven't read the instructions completely yet, but the first few days you "mush the bag." Then you add ingredients to grow the bread. My concern was with 1) the dairy since I'm lactose intolerant and I don't keep milk in the house and 2) the sugar.

Thank goodness for Google because I found this alteration from OnlineConversation.com:

"I think the bread recipe is too sweet. Also, my husband is gluten and dairy intolerant. So I've made a couple alterations which have worked well. First of all, I've used soy milk (light) instead of dairy, and it works just fine. Secondly on day 10, I reduce the oil to 3/4 c and increase the soy milk to 2/3 c. Then, in the dry ingredients, I use only 1/2 c. brown sugar, instead of 1 c. granulated sugar, and I use a small box of pudding mix (not the large one). Then if the consistency isn't quite right, I use applesauce or a mashed banana...depending on the flavor I'm going for to adjust it."

I'll be doing this!!! (Does anyone local to Lowell, MA want a starter?)

I visited my family tonight because it's Chinese New Years. Unlike years past, it was a quite night in. In the past, we've gone to Chinatown as a party of 20 and eaten all night long. I spent the night assembling a cardboard version of a Kiva rack, which I'll add to my desk toys since I have a small Kiva stress toy. (Dad works a Kiva. Ok, right, what's a Kiva? Check this out!)

Once assembled, the rack can hold a can of soda. Pretty strong little thing! I can't wait to put my office supplies in it. Can't you just imagine push-pins and paper clips in it??

And before I came to bed tonight, I realized that my strawberry Eggling has sprouted!!! It's tiny but can you see it??? I'm really excited! And my tomato plant is doing well. I'm eager for the fresh berries and fruit!

Weekend update: Feeding my tomato seedlings, hosting the Botball workshop, and knitting progress

2009-01-25T08:36:00.006-05:00

Botball:
It's been a very hectic end of the week and weekend. This weekend was the start of the New England Regional Botball program.

Botball's a robotics program designed for middle and high school students. No, it's not like BattleBots; robots are NOT intentionally destroyed. Instead, students are given Legos and Vex kits, iRobot Creates, Chumby controllers, and a bunch of sensors. Everything else is up to them! The students do all the building. And the students do all the programming. Yes, that's right; Botball is autonomous. They have 7 weeks to do all this, plus make a website and turn in documentation (What is code without comments????). The 2009 season culminates in a double elimination tournament, which will be held at Costello Gym at UMass Lowell on Saturday, March 28. It's free to the public, so if you want to see some cool robots, come on over.

So, Botball is a national program run by KIPR (KISS Institute for Practical Robotics). Thursday was dedicated to assembling the 16 team kits out of 17 boxes of stuff shipped to us. Just about everything was there... except the brains!! I didn't learn that until I took my kit back home and started going through the tutorial that I was going to assist with the next day. In a panic, I called the coordinator, who assured me that the box had arrived to the location after I left. I asked my friend for a favor and she dropped a brain (Chumby controller) down to me on her way home.

I soon found out that this wasn't the end of the drama. The tutorial made reference to a "download" button to move the code from the GUI environment on my laptop to the controller board... except the button didn't exist yet! (Really the functionality didn't exist, so the button was hidden.) SIGH. Thwarted, I went to bed. Turns out that you needed to copy your code to a thumb drive and the program name had to be robot.c in order to run.

Anyways, the tutorial ran all day Friday and Saturday. All things considered it went well. I'm an organization freak, so this event works well for me. Teams had to sign in each day. When we were distributing the parts, teams had to sign again. The return packaging process is amazing. They provide labels and instructions on where to ship things. I even got to put the return tracking labels on the sheet that got returned to KIPR (right, I'm a weirdo; it was very satisfying to me).

The tutorial format is a series of lessons and exercises. Basically, the instructor talks for 45 minutes on a topic and then teams implement whatever they just learned for 30 minutes. Having done this for years now (I can't believe that this is my fifth year of being involved with Botball!), I knew this, so I brought my knitting.

Knitting:
So I've discovered that I knit REALLY tight. There's a concept called gauge, which I'm starting to understand. Basically, for so many loops you're working with, you should have X inches of width. If you are short, you need bigger diameter knitting needles, and if you have too much width, you need smaller needles.

I'd made 1.5 patches for Natalie's baby blanket before checking gauge (Well, I didn't know about gauge until then.) I realized that I was going to be waaaaaay short. The pattern called for 20 stitches to cover 5 inches, or 4 stitches per inch. I knit 20 stitches and come to 3.5 inches. Which meant that I'd have to knit another 2 rows of patches to get the right width (14 patches), and 2 columns (16 patches) to get the right height.

Instead, I turned those into baby booties for my friend Vicki's new baby boy William. Thank goodness I'd been working in dark blue! Instead of using the ribbon I had for the last pair of baby booties, I made pom-poms (well, for right now, just one) with 2 types of yarn for the toes!! Too cute!!!

I then went to the local craft store (on Thursday) and got bigger needles (6.5mm) and yarn needles too.

During the tutorial, I made 1 patch on the first day and two on day 2 (I did a lot more working with the students on Day 1). Turns out that I still knit too tightly because my 20 stitches now have a width of 4.5 inches (recall that it's supposed to be 5 inches!). Guess I should've gotten even bigger needles (7.0mm)!!!!

It was cute because I'd thought to bring my craft on Day 1 and the other helpers Kristen and Amanda hadn't. But they brought theirs on Day 2 too. It really amused me to see 3 roboticists sitting in the back of the room knitting. :)

Tomato seedlings:
Since I haven't been home very much this weekend, I've been able to notice lots of growth in my tomato seedling! (Yes, I check on it normally multiple times per day and even talk to it.) Its leaves got so big that they touched the side of the dome. Time to take the dome off!

And today is Day 14 in my hydroponics project, which means... Time to feed the plants. I love the LED for this!

Bonus Picture:
The center that hosted the Botball workshop had electric car parking stations!!!

Tomato seedlings and the wrath of a goddess

2009-01-21T22:43:00.004-05:00

I planted my first pod of heirloom tomatoes on January 10th. And by plant, I mean inserted into the Aerogarden.

6 days later on January 16, I saw the little green of my seedling's leaves.

Today, it was time to play god (or in my case, goddess) and choose. Which of the 3 germinated seedlings would live? The instructions say to behead the weaker two.

In an effort to save the little seedlings, I emptied two other pods (yes, I saved the other seeds for later) and soaked them in preparation for their new transplants. My goal was to separate the 3 seedlings into each of their own pods.

I decided to move the smaller of the seedlings since logically they'd have less of a root "mass" to move. The first moved easily. I find it odd that I didn't encounter resistance at all. I'm curious to know if it will adapt to its new home.

The second transplant didn't go so well. This time I did feel some resistance. And then, POP! I snapped the poor little plant's leaves off!!! I felt sooooooooooooooo bad for it. :( Now I understand why you're supposed to cut them instead of pulling them out.

I have to keep reminding myself that the instructions told me that I needed to clip off the weaklings. I only hope now that I haven't damaged the strongest of the 3 seedlings!!

With the third pod now soaked and waiting emptily, I thought I'd check on my strawberry Eggling. Nope, nothing yet. But they do include a packet of extra seeds, so I put 2 into the pod. We'll see if they germinate. Apparently strawberrys had such an issue in the Aerogardens that they stopped producing the kits.

It snowed today

2009-01-18T19:43:00.010-05:00

The skies were grey and overcast. A chilling 19 degrees. It snowed today.

It flurried from the early morning hours until I awoke this morning at 11am. I'd forgotten how quiet falling snow makes the world. As we walked over to visit a friend, I enjoyed the "crunch, crunch" sound my boots made on the newly fallen snow over the compacted snow and ice.

In places that hadn't yet been shovel, the snow has drifted into banks which were as high as my knees. I sunk deeply into the banks as I trekked along in an effort to capture a photo of the beautiful train covered in snow.

Baby booties

2009-01-18T14:09:00.005-05:00

Knitting Project #1: Booties from the "Squares and Rectangles Baby Set" in Susan B. Anderson's "itty-bitty nursery" book.

Yarn used: less than 1 skein of Caron Simply Soft Eco in Wheat 0003 (I'll track this better in my next project! Promise!)

Needles used: 5.0mm (A Christmas present from Christy! Thank you!!!)

Time invested: ~20 hours (I know this seems like a lot, but I learned a lot during this first project.)

The basic idea is that you create two squares. I chose to make booties for a 6-12 month old, so I cast on 22 stitches and knitted for 5".

When I hit the 5" length, then I cut the working thread 36" and thread it through a yarn needle. I pulled the yarn needle through the stitches still on the knitting needle and pulled tight to form the toe (it makes a little circle). I did a decorative whip stitch to form the toe area (about 2.5-3"). I stitched up the back of the bootie with some "invisible" stitch that I made up (I could NOT figure out the garter stitch I was suppose to use!).

Then came the fun decorating part! I bought a pretty polyester ribbon with vertical stripes of orange, red, purple, yellow, white, and shades of green. I cut 24" for each bootie. I folded the ribbon into thirds to fit through the yarn needle. Then I pulled the ribbon through every other row of stitches. This forms the tie area, which I think actually keeps the bootie on the foot and not falling off.

The end result is super cute!

I think if I have time (after a few other projects I'm wanting to do first!) I might make the matching hat since I have lots more yarn left to this skein and lots more matching ribbon!

Recommendation: I would definitely make this project again!

Recipe Box

2009-01-16T09:47:00.002-05:00

For this past year, allrecipes.com has been my "go to"site for finding recipes. I love the comments and ratings. I love that you can adjust the number of people to feed and then the ingredients are automatically scaled for you. Their search is pretty good too. I love that you can search for recipes based on ingredients that you want and don't want.

Some of my favorite recipes have become staples in my repertoire. For example, I make Ma Po Tofu (if you don't think you like tofu, try this one! It really stands on its own as a protein.) once or twice in a two week period. I also happen to love a crust-less spinach-mushroom-and-tofu quiche, which was a combination of recipes (1 for the tofu -- I do one block of silky tofu and 6 eggs; and 2 for the crust-less inspiration). I made my own baked beans using Lima beans (to control the amount of sugar). Before I turned vegetarian, I made my own baked breaded chicken fingers and potato wedges.

More recently, I find myself subject to the recipes that come across my reader. I follow The Kitchn, which has great recipe round ups, and Smitten Kitchen, which has photography to die for! Two of my favorite pasta recipes came from The Kitchn. One is a mac-and-cheese styled spaghetti squash recipece called Spaghetti Sqush with Ricotta, Sage, and Pine Nuts. The other is a spinach and soft goat cheese puree called Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta (so I used spinach because that what I had on hand!).

I've been adding more and more food blogs to my reader. When I like an article, I usually find the source and add that. Alltop.com is great for finding the best of a topic and I wandered down the vegan recipe path. Last night I came upon The Post Punk Kitchen and their recipes look so yummy! I can't wait to try. I must've spent at least 30 minutes scoping out the site.

My friend Kristen also threw me a pointer to UMich's Cancer Center which has a great recipe box where you can check of the fruits and vegetables that you like and any dietary rescrictions you may have (e.g., no nuts, daiy free, vegetarian, vegan, low sodium, high protien, low fat, etc.). Click on recipe search to get to that page.

Seems like cookbooks are mostly a thing of the past. What do you think? Do you have a staple cookbook or recipe site?

Banana Case and Eigen-Bananas?

2009-01-08T20:29:00.005-05:00

For Christmas, Mark got me Hello Kitty bento stuff from Japan (more on this in a future post when I actually create a bento!) and a banana case. I must complain a lot about my bananas being squished on the way to school!

As a scientist, I wondered how did they decide the size and curve of the banana case. It's probably an arbitrary decision. But I like to think that it's based on the average banana. Maybe they did a principle components analysis (PCA) (or singular value decomposition (SVD)) on bananas to figure this out. I giggle at the though of eigen-bananas!! (Sorry, that's a little computer vision humor. I'm a geek!)

In any case, thank you Honey!!! I love it! I can't wait to use it!

Knitting: My first projects

2009-01-08T20:10:00.005-05:00

Thank you, thank you to Christy for teaching me how to knit! I'm a very algorithmic person, but I also find the process of knitting very soothing. Well, at least I do now!

These were my first creations! I learned how to both knit and purl.

Here's my first creation on my Christmas tree (as promised!). I need to find something more permanent for them to do.

My first projects are for soon-to-be born babies. Mark's sister Natalie is due at the end of January, so I'm going to make a "patchwork" quilt. It's composed of 49 4" squares. I have 5 colors of yarn; shades of blue and brown for her little boy Alex. Needless to say, it's a little intimidating.

I spent some time on my flight home on Monday working on the first patch. Clearly my algorithm was broken because I started with 20 stitches and wound up with 36 after a few rows! The square was also very trapezoidal looking.

I found out early this afternoon that my friend Liz in Seattle is 5 months along with a little girl, Paxton Oliva. I'm making her some baby booties. So tonight I started over and pulled off all the work I did for Natalie's blanket (a very sad moment! Yes, Christy, you were right. My first square could never be perfect!)

I Google'd "garter stitch" because I was doing some horribly wrong. Wikihow set me straight. Turns out that I'd been pulling my working thread back over and creating an "extra"ish loop, which I then counted as a regular stitch! No wonder!!

After I figured that out, I spent a while working on the booties. 21 stitches wide by 5 inches for each bootie. I have 2 inches currently!

Natalie's baby blanket is really looking daunting now, but I'll send it along when I'm done. (Maybe I should make it bigger than infant size since it'll be a while before I send it!)

PS. Christy, the soap is simply devine!!! Thank you!

My 2009 Financial Health

2009-01-06T14:52:00.003-05:00

One of my 2008 resolutions was to "do better" with my financial tracking. ING and Mint.com really helped with that. Mark's sister Natalie's husband Rhett (did you catch all that?) helped me with understanding my financial situation.

Consequently, I put money into ING CDs. It's not much, but I saw that my "long term" one (meaning, 1 year) had $2.56 interest. Yeah!!

I spent some time looking through Mint.com yesterday. Our paychecks go mostly to "living expenses" including rent (which went up $25 this year), utilities, and groceries. We only pay electricity for our utilities. Thank goodness we don't have to deal with gas!! Still the electric bill averages $130 per month, which is nothing to sneeze at. We need to get hold of where those costly electrons are being used.

The grocery bill is mostly me. We're up over $250 per month. It's hard to get control of this one given that I am also trying to keep our family natural and organic as much as possible. The biggest area of spending that we can get back is the eating out. I'm pretty good about making dinners. Cooking relaxes me. However, lunches are usually eaten out either at Eggroll Cafe (Yum! They have great curry soup!) or at the commuter cafe on campus. Either way, it's $6-$10 per person. You do the math!

I spent some time this morning looking at the monthly recurring expenses: cell phone, Survey Monkey (for work), Audible.com (for my audio books). There's not much I can do about my cell phone until June. I canceled my paying Survey Monkey account ($20/month). And I'm currently in the process of saving my audiobooks; then I'll cancel Audible.com too ($15/month). (Aside, I don't really want to, but I'm having a hard time justifying this monthly recurrance. After all, I can borrow audiobooks from the library too.)

Given that I'll have an "extra" $35/month, I've decided to take charge of my student loans.

INSERT EVIL MOVIE SOUND HERE.

Yes, my student loans. The ones that I've been deferring (read: ignoring) for 8 long years. I honestly don't have any idea how much student loan I've accrued. My parents didn't save for my college education, so I have it all out on federal on private loans from undergrad and my master's work at Brown. Overall, I'd guess that I have ~$100K in student loans.

I'm going to plug (at least) my private loans into Mint.com. My cute, small positive net worth will disappear for a long, long time, but at least I will know.

I do know that the early payments I send won't constitute the start of repayment. Thank goodness. I figure that every little bit I can throw at my hole-o-debt will help.

Then the question becomes, when my CDs unlock, do I put that money towards my student loans or do I put them back into CDs? The CDs were ~4% and the interest on the student loans are at least 1%+prime. Maybe it'd make more sense to put the money towards the loans. On the other hand, the CDs are relatively liquid and are kind of like a second string emergency fund. (Yes, I have a $1K emergency fund already, which grows by $5/week with 2.5% interest.)

J.D. really got my brain going with his "9 Methods for Mastering Your Money in 2009" post.

Robots have cupcake preferences too!

2009-01-06T11:27:00.002-05:00

The AI magazine (Winter 2009, Vol 29, No 4) shows a humanoid robot choosing cupcakes!

Behold! Mossman has scale

2009-01-05T12:55:00.003-05:00

Mossman stands over 6 feet tall. It was kinda hard to tell scale from the other picture, unless you knew he had a 5 gallon bucket for a hat! Tennis balls for eyes and oranges for buttons, all skewered into place.

My green Christmas

2008-12-29T21:58:00.004-05:00

Yeah!!! For Christmas, Mark's sister Natalie and her husband Rhett got me Egglings. His parents got me an Aerogarden3. Thank you, thank you!

I'm so excited to be able to grow my own produce in our loft apartment. I have the seed kit for cherry tomatoes for the Aerogarden, and I can't wait to start the mint and strawberry Egglings.

I need to do a cost analysis, but here are some hacks I've found to keep costs down for the Aerogarden:

Michael commented at Fridrix Del Sud that you can put cotton balls into the seed baskets to re-use them. Mel commented at Tree Hugger that refill sponges for the "original 60-cell planting block" also work.
Michael commented at Fridrix Del Sud that i nstead of the fertilizing tablets, you can use a liquid fertilizer (e.g. MiracleGro) in a small amount, such as a 1/4 teaspoon. Mel commented at Tree Hugger that B.C. Hydroponic Nutrients can also work in place of the tablets.
PVtx showed at aerogardengrowers.com that if you loose the spacers, Starbucks lids are just the right size. The spacers stop algae growth and evaporation, I would imagine.
Mike at aerogardenreviews.com says that you can still grow strawberries even though the kit has been discontinued. Here's how.

Over this next year, I will take pictures and keep a log of how my indoor garden develops. I'm also contemplating some indoor Square Foot Gardening; I just need to figure out how to make it aesthetically pleasing too!

Assessing this last year and making resolutions for the next!

2008-12-23T09:18:00.002-05:00

Tis the season to reflect on how quickly the last year has passed by!

Indeed! I can't believe it's just days before Christmas. This last year was a blur. I've had a super stellar year professionally. I wrote and defended my master's thesis last spring. I hosted a workshop at ICRA. I proposed a workshop for AAAI-SSS, which was accepted. I spent the summer at Yale working with Ugobe's Pleo dinosaur robot and learning about the world of Autism spectrum disorders. I had an HRI paper accepted based on my summer Yale work. (Mark spent the summer at NASA Ames.) I had a performance metrics paper accepted to PerMIS, which has resulted in a Springer book chapter. (I became vegetarian.) I went to the Grace Hopper Celebration in CO. I submitted my MS thesis as journal paper. I reviewed for IROS'09 and T-RO Rehab Robotics. I assisted on two NSF grant proposals. And, best of all, Mark and I became doctoral candidates (meaning, we're finishing up our degrees!). And a partridge in a pear tree, right? It's been a busy year!

Resolution-wise, I'm pretty satisfied with how my 2008 resolutions went down:

1.) Organizing my finances. Mint.com and ING have really helped get my finances in order. I still need to learn more about investing! A big thank you to Rhett too for help in this area.

2.) Going to the gym on my own. I haven't been great about the gym lately, but overall it's been a good year. I worked with my personal trainer Meaghan through August. Now I'm gym buddies with my friend Kristen. This goal will continue on through 2009.

3.) Better work-life balance. I've discovered the my day is actually finite, I can't do it all, and there will always be stuff due "tomorrow." Thus, I have been working hard every day, and most days I do actually make time for myself. This year, I can count less than 12 times in which I've been super stressed out about work to the point of anxiety. As you can see from this last year, it's been busy. However, recently over the last semester, I haven't had any truly anxious days!

4.) Sustaining my makeover. Moderate success here. I have changed my wardrobe to clothes that are more appropriate and fit me correctly. I still need to work on wearing more jewel tones to down-play how young I look. And I really need to work on the makeup thing. I am able to pull it all together when I need to at conferences, etc. but my daily routine is well... a moisturizer and lip balm?

Tis the season to make new resolutions and promises!

So what's up for this next year? A lot, but nothing's yet set in stone. Perhaps a trip to Japan if a paper's accepted. Perhaps an internship with Google.

What I do know are my 2009 resolutions:

Increasing my physical exercise. This includes going to the gym on a schedule, being motivated enough to go to the gym on my own, and training for a half-marathon in May or September (13 miles).
Learning to knit. I need an artistic outlet and I think knitting will provide that as a stress-release. Not to mention, it's economical. I can serve as a place where I can create fashion and gifts. (Christy, if you're reading this, maybe you can teach me!)
Learning Cantonese. I have the verbal capacity of a seven year old. There's a great podcast called Naked Cantonese that does 10 minute lessons of real world things. I'm subscribed, but I never remember to listen. I want to make this a habit and not loose those neural connections, since I don't see my family as much anymore and we don't have the restaurant anymore.
Communicating better verbally. I've become pretty self conscious about how I speak this past year. I feel like I don't have any content to add in a conversation. I'm also self conscious about how I leave sentences dangling when I can't find the right words. I have a hard time starting and sustaining conversations both of small talk and more weighty topics. I'm not sure what the first step would be to fix this. I'm contemplating a speech coach. Thoughts and suggestions would be very much appreciated!!!

I'm sure I'll blog again before 2008 is out, but happy holidays and have a great 2009, everyone!

Snowman is to New England as what is to Florida?

2008-12-22T11:03:00.003-05:00

In New England, it snows. Thus, we can build snowmen.

In Florida, it rarely snows. Mark's dad, John, sends me this:

John writes, "no snow, 79 degrees, had to improvise (a good marine)."

Yes, folks, it's a mossman.

Happy holidays!!!!

Cleaning out the sporting goods: Ski equipment

2008-12-07T08:57:00.003-05:00

I swear my closet is a black hole. I've moved stuff from Dracut to Providence to Cranston to Lowell to Downtown Lowell. At each beginning step, I've tried to create a home. After moving two times, I began to pair down my stuff. Here in my beautiful loft apartment, there's a lot of open space, which means not a lot of room for clutter... except in my mega walk-in closet (8' wide x 12' deep x 10' high; that's a lot of volume people!!!).

So while getting my Christmas stuff down to decorate, I found my old ski gear. My parents bought me a used set when I was in high school. I'd bought myself new boots after the winter season one year when I was an undergradute in college.

For years, I've promised myself that I'd buy a ski pass, that I'd take time off to go skiing. Then I promised myself that a local moutain like Gunstock would work better because it's closer (45 minutes North). Then I promised myself that night skiing at the local hills (Nashoba) would be better than nothing.

I haven't really been skiing since high school. I've gone a couple times when I was an undergrad in college, but stuck to the bunny hill and beginner trails because an Ex was just learning to ski.

Last night, I was going through my ornaments to help my sister start her first Christmas tree. We had hot chocolate with booze and mini-marshmallows, and dinner later. We, of course, got to talking about things. She was talking about her cancelled ski weekend in January. Her friend Melissa was going to borrow my ski equipment, since I don't use it much anymore. I wondered why she'd want to borrow my ski equipment anyways since renting is much more convienent for the occaisional skiier. I said that I'd grown tired of storing my ski equipment.

Mike (my sister's boyfriend) mentioned Play It Again Sports, a set of stores that buys and sells used sporting and fitness equipment (skiis, snowboards, treadmills, weight sets, golf clubs, baseball, equipment, lacross equipment, football equipment, hockey equipment, etc.). They have trade up programs for kids that outgrow their equipments. They also trade adult hobbiest equipment, since we all like to try different things over time and/or hone skills. I think Play It Again Sports also take donations; I don't know the details, so you'll need to check with them.

Play It Again Sports is where my parents had bought my ski equipment back in the day. Their Salem, NH location closed years ago, so I'd completely forgotten about it. I thought it was only that one store. I checked out Play It Again Sports online. While there's not one that conviently close to me, I found out that they will do pick ups. I'll give them a call this week. I doubt I'll get much, but worst case scenario is that I put it up on Craiglist for free.

Hopefully, my ski equipment will end up under someone's Christmas tree!

Selling my Comme Il Fauts

2008-12-06T23:27:00.004-05:00

For sale.

These Black satin Comme Il Faut shoes will boost your confident and make you feel like a sex kitten. Just in time for the holiday milongas, especially the New Year's Eve milongas!

Details: Black satin Comme Il Faut shoes. Metallic copper detail and copper heel. Open toe. Closed heel with ankle strap. Layered satin creates a feather detail on the heel. Beautiful high heel; at least 3" heel. Layered satin creates a 3 layered bow on the toe, accented with a metallic copper bow detail. Hard leather soles. Acquired at the Providence Tango New Year's Eve 2.5 day milonga event on 12/31/2006. Worn ~12 times. Light wear on the shoes, as seen in DSC00809.JPG. They have not stretched in the toe area. I wear a 6.5/7 and have a wide foot; these shoes fit me very well. Bought for $175; asking $100.

Pictures posted to http://www.cs.uml.edu/~ktsui/comme-il-faut.
DSC00806.JPG shows the pair of shoes, protective bag, and carry bag.
DSC00807.JPG shows a closer view of the shoes from the front.
DSC00808.JPG shows a closer view of the shoes from the back.
DSC00809.JPG shows the bottoms of the shoes.
DSC00810.JPG shows the toe detail up-close.
DSC00811.JPG shows the heel detail up-close.

Please email me directly (katemtsui at gmail.com) if interested! Thanks for looking!

Supplemental sources of income: Paid market research

2008-12-03T12:00:00.003-05:00

In October/November, I began selling my books as a supplemental source of income. I'm even going to sell my tango shoes!

Today I was forwarded email about paid market research for ACM. I didn't qualify, but I did discover an independent market research firm (Schlesinger Associates) in Boston. I was told about some upcoming studies, but unfortunately I didn't qualify. So I joined their database.

They asked me about everything! Age, gender, sexuality, pets, income, job type, car, insurance, prescription medications (present and past), medical conditions (present and past), nationality, etc. Hopefully I'll qualify for some studies soon!

To join their database as an English-speaking consumer (and refer me!), go to http://tinyurl.com/market-research-english.

I've always wondered if participating in focus groups, doing online surveys, etc. is worth it. Not to mention privacy issues and selling of information. I'll let you know how it goes!

Just the start of hard times

2008-11-20T16:45:00.002-05:00

Today I realized how hard things are going to get economically. And it's just the start.

First, I went to Sovereign Bank to deposit my rolled changed. One of the tellers was at the door handing out flyers about the bank's credit card; 0% APR, so on. Then when depositing, another teller pushed literature on me about their CDs and how their rates are great right now (4.25% APY) and that they're going to decrease next week. What nearly killed me is that she asked if she could call me later in the week to discuss my decision.

Coinstar is offering an incentive right now. If you "wrap" >$40, you can get $10 FREE.

Linens'N'Things is closing. So are Circuit City and some Home Depots. A chain harware store?? People alway need assorted nuts, bolts, lightbulbs, and things!!

Sun Microsystems, my former employer, is reducing its labor force -- again, again, again.

Just a little while ago, my sister Kim called me. While she was at work today (at COSTCO!!!), her car was broken into. Her CD player/radio was stolen; it was a Christmas present from her boyfriend Mike a few years ago. It was not exactly an inexpensive item.

Talking to a friend of mine, he mentioned that he was glad to still have a job. I agreed and I'm lucky that I'm still in grad school. I'm very thankful for my meager stipend; at least it's constant.

Taking charge of my finances

2008-11-14T19:34:00.002-05:00

For those who follow me on Twitter and Facebook, you know that last month I paid off my Capital One credit card. This month I finished off my Amex and my car insurance through July. No, I didn't change jobs. But I'm taking charge of my finances.

At the beginning of this year, I made a few resolutions:

Organizing my finances.
Going to the gym on my own.
Better work-life balance.
Sustain my makeover (this one wasn't on my original list).

Today's post is all about my financial situation. My first step was at least to track my spending. I employed Mint.com to do this. It takes a lot of trust, but it was worth it. When I first started, Mint.com only did savings accounts type stuff. Now they can do loans, but I haven't played yet with this functionality.

My second step was to start a little Nest Egg with $25/week. ING had the best rate; I get 2.75% APY.

I talked with Rhett (Mark's sister Natalie's husband) to see what I should do now that I've taken care of the credit cards. (Thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening to me!!!) The bottom line is that I need to see where my student loans are.

In an effort to grow my Nest Egg, I took another step tonight and created a CD ladder through ING. I have a short term (6 months) at 3.5%, a slightly "longer term" (9 months) at 3.75%, and a "long term" (12 months) at 4.25%. Like I say, baby steps. But I think this will get me going in the right direction as far as habit goes. At the end of 6, 9, and 12 months, I can lock them down again, if I don't need to cash right then.

I'm also looking at my current bank (Sovereign) and questioning my saving strategies thus far. I have an emergency fund, a separate savings account, and my checking account there. I tried really hard to find my APY, and I actually had to find my most recent statement.

Ready? 0.35%

My jaw hit the floor. What about inflation (~2%)? I'm technically loosing money over time!! Sovereign, you're fired. I didn't expect to earn anything on my checking, but my savings I did. I might as well have been saving in a shoe box.

So now I'm shopping around. I'm contemplating Bank of America, or switching types of accounts within Sovereign Bank. I'm also considering going to ING exclusively. My money wouldn't be quite as liquid as it would be with a bank where I can go to a teller, but it is a pretty good option. Has anyone gone this route?

I'd like online banking ideally, but most things automatically draw from my checking account. I'd like to have interest accruing on *both* my checking and savings accounts (better than inflation). Does this exist? Am I asking for too much?

Tagged by Christy

2008-11-02T21:14:00.009-05:00

I was tagged by my friend Christy. So here are 7 random obscure things about me:

I'm a ninja in my sleep. Apparently my brain doesn't shut off my physical movements when I dream. Oh, and I dream action sequences. Usually it's like Jackie Chan and James Bond super sexy spy mystery stuff. Sometimes I'm weird things like caterpillars though!
I'm a vegetarian. Not so random, but kinda obscure since I'm new to vegetarianism.
One of my favorite dishes as a kid was baloney-fahn (Cantonese for rice). That's right. White Jasmine rice with cut up squares of Oscar-Meyer baloney.
I don't like to be photographed. Believe it or not, I'm super self conscious. Being in front of the camera makes me really uncomfortable.
I got a D once. I was in 6th grade and we were reading Sherlock Holmes. My reading comprehension skills of Sir Author Conan Doyle were poor. I came home crying that day.
I'm hard of hearing. No really, I think that I'm partially deaf. I have a hard time in phone conversations, unless they're really loud. I need to lip read when talking to people.
When I was a baby, I had lots of hair that stood on end, like a dandelion. My parents used to call me the "little punk rocker."

Seven people that I'd like to hear from are:

Mark Micire
Jay Penney
Stan Dankoski
Betty Yang
Adam Fraser
Cindy Bethel
Fritz Heckle

Rules:
1. Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Does "loosing" my stuff equate to loosing my identity?

2008-11-02T19:06:00.005-05:00

I'm growing up. I'm taking financial responsibility, inspired by Mark. I received a scholarship in recognition for my research at the university last year. With those funds, I've paid off my Capital One credit card, and have made a large dent in my Amex. With the next deposit to the bank, I think I'll clear my Amex too.

This past week, Mark and I have listed a good portion of our books on Amazon.com. I love my books. I've spent many hours with them. They are my good friends. But... they take up space. They're heavy and every time I move, I'm reminded of this. Wherever Mark and I end up next in a couple years, they'd have to come along too. I don't imagine they're very happy on our dusty shelves so we're giving them better homes. Thus far, I've sold 5 books, and Mark many more than I.

I look around our house at the "stuff" that we have. This upcoming week, I plan on selling all of the jewelery my ex-s had given me. My mom cleaned her room and found all the stuff that she was holding for me. I can let go now.

The question is "does loosing my stuff equate to loosing my identity?" I used to call myself a book worm, but can I still when I'm selling my books?

Can I call myself a tango dancer still when I sell my dance shoes?

Tango was a big part of my life. I invested a lot of time and money into tango. $130 for one pair of practice shoes. $190 for a pair of Comme Il Fauts. Hundreds of dollars on lessons and milongas. I've mentioned before that tango served its purpose for helping me to trust again after the end of a very broken relationship. I've let go of tango, but not of the shoes. Can I bring myself to sell my beautiful Comme Il Fauts? I haven't used them in well over 2.5 years. A price comparison on Ebay shows another pair being sold for $140.

What defines you in a "previous life?" Could you sell it or give it away? Could you sell it to help your current and future self?

I am not your dream girl

2008-10-22T23:40:00.002-05:00

My apologies for this emo post in advance. It's been a very long and trying day. I had 2 blasts-from-the-past show up in my life today: one in person, and one in conversation.

Dear XYZ,

I am not your dream girl. I am not perfect. Do no put me on a pedestal. Do not wait years, your entire life, on the off chance that one day I will be single and choose you. Do not discuss your personal life with me. Do not discuss your sex life with me. I will not give you details about mine.

I am in a closed relationship. I have a significant other. I am taken. I am so very taken, as in, I have been living with a man for the last 2 years and we've talked about having children together. I am loved. I am treated like a princess, a girl, a belle, everything I've ever hoped for. I am in love.

Kate

I am sorry for venting this to all of my friends, but I need to say it to someone. Thank you for listening.

Presidential candidates' views on science and engineering and women's roles

2008-10-19T14:53:00.002-05:00

AWIS/SWE asked Obama and McCain several questions relating to women's roles in science and engineering. Topics included federal funding of research, Title IX, etc.

I pulled these 2 clips from different answers, but NSF funding will directly impact me over the next 4 years. Especially when I start to write NSF proposals on my own as I begin the faculty search and/or as a new professor.

Obama: "Joe Biden and I, however, are strongly committed to doubling basic research budgets over ten years at federal agencies that include the NSF, the Office of Science in the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Science and Technology."

McCain: "In the first year of my administration, I will conduct an indepth review of nearly all federal discretionary spending, evaluating programs for effectiveness and cost. Programs run by the National Science Foundation will be part of that review process. I will support programs that increase the representation of women in science fields in a costeffective manner without resort to preferences on the basis of sex."

Jay Penney also wrote about a very cool link:

Glassbooth - Quiz to help you choose best 2008 presidential candidate
Glassboth lets you see where each candidate stands in relation to the issues that matter to you through the used of a weighted quiz. Slick interface that I found very easy to use and understand. Even if you’ve alredy made up your mind I recommend you check it out.

I played with it a tad. Interesting that Obama came in as my #2.

Giving $5?

2008-10-19T09:38:00.002-05:00

Have you guys seen the Apartment Therapy Challenge 2008? Basically, for the month of October, AT readers are donating to help fund public school classrooms. All donations are tax-deductible. What is appealing about DonorsChoose.org is that you get to choose where your donation is going.

For example, notebooks for first graders in Northern CA; art room projector for an inner city class in NYC. AT Challenge 2008 shows how many donors have been involved, how much money has been donated, and best of all... how many students have been reached!

What has been very cool to see is that several of my favorite blogs have taken the challenge:

Unpluggd wants to sponsor the art project.
The Kitchn wants to fund a classroom kitchen.
AT wants to fund desks for a classroom.
Re-Nest wants to fund a mural.
Sciencewoman is also an advocate.

It's been interesting to see the "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon" effect going on here.

Lastly, I know that having enough school supplies is near and dear to all teachers' hearts, especially Mark's mom, Rosemary. Many teachers buy supplies out of their own pockets, even when they can't afford to.

Will you take the challenge and give $5?

Grace Hopper: Day 3

2008-10-03T12:52:00.002-05:00

This morning's keynote was awesome. We heard from Mary Lou Jepson, a former OLPC person. She was in charge of the screen, driving the cost down and the refreshing of the screen only when active. Mary Lou talked about her business relationships with companies in Asia, how women are underestimated therefore can produce surprising results. She talked about the mesh network that exists on the laptops; each laptop is also a router so that one laptop can connect to the internet and then all other laptops connected to it are also then on the internet. Mary Lou also talked about how theft can be an issue, since the laptop can be 2 or 3 times a country's GDP. The laptops must be first powered on with a trusted USB key, and then they are bound to a server. If the laptop doesn't connect to the server once every X days, then it powers off and cannot be powered back up.

Following up in the first session was two pilot studies of using the OLPC in classrooms in Ghana. What I found interesting about the talk was that the speaker didn't just praise and gush over using the OLPCs. She also talked about any cons: price, provability of goodness, etc. It was amazing to think of how different life is for people not in the 1B richest (that's most of us). Villages without electricity are looking to have OLPCs with alternative power sources (e.g., solar power, car batteries, hand crank, cows walking in circles, etc).

The follow up questions were great in this session. One issue was that dissemination of the OLPCs aren't really in the business models. Governments buy them in bulk and then it's up to them to disseminate them. However, there aren't a lot of technical people to teach about the technical specs of the laptop, how to repair them, how to set up and maintain the common server, etc. Another project called "Powering Potential" is looking for people to go to Tanzania for some time in the summer of 2009 to help with issues like these. Want, want. It'd be so cool.

In between these sessions, I've really been trying to exert myself in finding an internship at a research lab for summer 2009. I talked with Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, SAP, and CA, all who do have research labs. I also talked with Amazon and Bloomberg, who do not. (However, Amazon is looking to create a central research lab in 2 or 3 years, so I'm told.) What I find most interesting is that the companies are looking for software engineers, people to code, which means mostly undergrads. On another note, there are quite a few universities here recruiting for grad school as well. I think it's a brilliant idea, and I wonder how UMass Lowell can take advantage of this talent pool.

Related to my search for an appropriate internship, I attended a panel about the value of internships. I have to say that it's stuff that I've already heard. For example, find a mentor and get out of your office. People looking at your resume for an internship are looking at your desire to learn and your ability to learn demonstrated in the past. They're looking to motivation because the standard internship is 3 months. The company is looking for a win-win, meaning a project that they want and something that's good for you too.

Lunch was a special reception for the GHC scholarship recipients. We divided into several groups: grad students going to academia, grad students going to industry, women groups, research areas, non-traditional students. I moved to the academic group. I have to say how surprised I was that there were so many women interested in pursuing academia. The average age was 3rd years. After introductions, we split into 2 groups. We touched on topics of who's actually started looking, going straight into a faculty position or heading for a post-doc, the pros and cons of a post-doc, the perceptions of doing a post-doc, have you been involved in a faculty search, have you written grants, your thoughts on tenure-track, what's it like going through tenure, how do kids play into your career, when do you have kids. I think the discussion could've gone on for much, much longer, but alas out time ended. I did manage to meet one woman from Tufts who is looking to do a women's dinner in Boston. I also met another woman who is 28 years old and just coming back to academia from industry and also trying to figure out when to have a kid.

After lunch, I attended a session discussion "what do you do with a PhD?" The panel was nicely split with 3 industry and 2 academia. The ones who went into industry felt that they were given "street cred" in their jobs. One had 5 internships and she felt that that alone made her marketable.

The later afternoon I indulged in personal issues. The first was a confidential discussion group on junior faculty issues. I won't talk about them here. Next was the Imposter Panel, which was packed to the brim. Not a spare seat in the house and people sitting on the floor and standing along the back and sides. It featured 5 really prominent women and their confessions about when they've felt like an impostor. (The impostor syndrome is when you feel like a fake and that someone is going to point you out.) It was interesting to hear when the ladies felt like impostors. There was a general consensus of when they took on a new position, when they dealt with people with more experience, expertise, or money than they, etc. They also talked about how they worked around it. Basically, you must "treat the symptoms" because there isn't a cure.

My last talk was about maternity leave. The women all introduced themselves and briefly talked about what they were hoping to get out of the session. People were interested in when is the best time to have a baby, how long to take off from work, how to deal with raising the child with 2 different ethnic backgrounds, should you have a child, breast feeding, how to deal with both parents having high power careers. It was very informative and I met three lovely ladies whom I hope to say in touch with.

It's now time for the GHC reception, which means 1400 intelligent technical ladies busting a groove on the dance floor.

It's been a very good conference. I would high recommend it, at least once.

P.S. I have lots of swag.

Grace Hopper: Day 2

2008-10-02T14:05:00.006-05:00

I had a really hard time sleeping last night because my throat and sinuses kept drying out. I'm drinking a whole lot of water. Thank goodness I brought my water bottle. I was up at 6:40am. Even though I'm technically 2 hours behind my normal body clock, it still felt early. I was out the door to breakfast by 7:30am.

The breakfast buffet this morning was quite nice. Fruit, oatmeal, juice, and empty carbs galore (e.g., donuts, cakes, etc.). Yeah, I grabbed a chocolate honey dipped donut; don't judge me. I also had fruit, oatmeal with raisins, and apple juice.

The keynote this morning was amazing. First of all, the venue setup is like something Steve Jobs would have. Two central podiums, ambient lighting, plants, and finally projection screens on either side. It's all professional. There's lighting pointing to the Grace Hopper conference banners from this and past years. Before getting started, there was ambient up-tempo music. There was also Academy Award style music between speakers, complete with fades. I have to say, it's actually very nice. In fact, the nicest I've ever seen.

The keynote started with warnings of altitude sickness, whose effects should wear off in a couple days. Um, I'm only here a couple days. The suggestions: drink lots of water and abstain from alcohol, if possible. I'm glad that there are water containers everywhere. I am keeping hydrated. I don't drink much anyways, so that wasn't much of a sacrifice. The effect of alcohol is 2:1 at 10,000 feet, so I'd be drunk in 2 sips of a Corona!!

The conference chair welcomed us (again, again, again, so she says!). Then two women sailors from the USS Hopper addressed the crowd. The chair of the Anita Borg institute spoke and introduced the funding source from NSF. Then Fran Allen spoke.

Fran Allen is a pioneer in computing, before computer science was computer science. She began her career as a teacher, and moved to IBM in 1957 where she began her career in high performance computing starting with the new language FORTAN and associated projects. She then spoke a bit about her Turning award notification and how it affected her. BTW, she's the first woman to have this award bestowed upon her. She talked about the major challenges being now parallel computing to utilize the multi-core processors. What I found most interesting was her observation of that the decline of women in computing coincides with the establishment and formalization of computer science out of the male dominated engineering schools. I was very inspired by Fran.

After the keynote and before the first multi-track session, I sought a ladies' restroom. Because there are over 1400 women here, the main bathrooms have been converted to women only. Makes sense. But did you know that despite these measures, you still had to wait in a line? Yes, a line of women to use the men's bathroom. It made me giggle.

The first session that I saw dealt with life events and how they impact your career. I think I was looking for a magic answer and it was not to be had. Instead the panelists had sound advice to offer, which I'd heard other people say over the time. For example, the cliche "be true to yourself." One woman gave the advice to "make life changing decisions and don't look back;" she was a breast-cancer survivor. Another who went through menopause early and whose parents recently died said simply "be happy."

Then the floor was opened to the audience. One women, who was the mother of four and pursuing her second doctorate, said that you need to prioritize and it's ok not the have the PhD as your #1 (meaning, family may sensibly take preference). Another comment was that voicing personal issues at work can make you stronger, not weaker, because you're no longer keeping it inside. This made me think of summer 2007 when my dad's mom was dying of colon cancer. I didn't share that information until a few days before she passed away. Consequently people couldn't understand why I wasn't producing much work-wise.

The one nugget that I took away from this talk was that your personal-professional life isn't a constant ratio (e.g., 40-60). It changes over time. You must put time into the areas that need it. This makes both more satisfying and productive.

The second talk was more on the technical side. I learned about Google Sketch-Up. The workshop was supposed to be interactive, but there was an issue about getting computers in the room. In any case, I had my laptop and I already had Google Sketch-Up downloaded. I followed along as 2D rectangles which formed the foundation of buildings were brought into 3D using the powerful "push/pull" tool. I learned that the goal is to have a 3D world in Google Earth with the constraints of being as real as possible, but in the simplest form. For example, creating a 3D rectangle and texture mapping a photo of the facades on it.

Next, lunch. I have to say that Grace Hopper really has been the most vegetarian friendly conference I've been to. Everything for lunch, except one chicken dish, was vegetarian!

A second plenary followed lunch. CTOs from Xerox, Sun, Intel, and one other formed a panel. I learned that the "t" stands for many more things that just "technology." It stands for talking, communicating with many different groups of people (technical, press, etc). It stands from travel. One CTO visited India 5 times this year. She would fly out on Monday and travel all day Tuesday. Meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. Travel on Friday and would go back to the office when she arrived home. Phew! And I thought I travelled a lot!

I learned that there's no "typical" day for a CTO, but each day is 1 of 2 things. Either the day is focused intensely on 1 topic, or it's a marathon of many different things. However, the female CTOs emphasized that physical excericse is key.

One of the questions posed to the CTOs was "have you taken significant time off from your careers?" One women took 2 years off when she had a child in grad school. Sun's CTO said no, but he wished that paternity leave had existed when his kids were born. Intel's CTO spoke of 8 week sabbaticals every 7 years. He used sabbaticals as intense family time; once, as a sabbatical was just getting started, his daughter (now 25) was born. The Xerox CTO was a single mother when she had her third child and didn't take time off. Instead she negotiated to work 1 week per month in the office, and the other 3 from home.

After the second keynote, the third multi-track session began. I chose a talk on challenges and recommendations for teaching in academia. (I think this would've been right up your alley, Dan!) The panel featured 4 women with 4 different "faculty" positions. One was a "professor of practice," one was a senior lecturer, one was a tenured faculty. I learned that only 20% of faculty are tenure-track, and the other 80% are contingents (with full or part time contracts). The majority of these panelists talked about computer science education and teaching, which are secondary priorities to me. I've learned that I would like to be research faculty.

In the fourth multi-track session, I chose an outreach workshop. The coordinators gave us ideas about how to break the ice, how to do pencil and paper CS activities. I played with a snap circuit set. For $20, I can see how this is an attractive outreach activity.

My last talk of the day was a Birds of a Feather talk. I went to the "ABC's for ABDs" (all-but-dissertation). I think the majority of people in the room were doctoral students. The usual topics of choosing an advisor and time management were talked about. One interesting tool I learned about was the Importance vs Urgancy exercise. First, make a list of all your TODOs. Second, draw a square, and divide it into quadrants. The upper right is "urgent, important." The upper left is "urgent, not important." The lower left is "not important, not urgent." Finally, the lower right is "not urgent, important." Third, place all of your tasks into those 4 bins. The goal is to spend your time working on "not urgent, important" tasks (well, at least in research for the dissertation). There was another interesting tool that I learned about relating to mental health (gradMentalMakeover.org).

The best part was the Shannon Duvall was one of the panelists. (I'd written a blog post about an article she wrote, and she found it and commented!) I got to meet her in person and talk to her a little bit about struggling to admit I was depressed my first years of grad school and that the school counselors didn't help me much. I admitted that when they said that anti-depressants were the next stage, I made a life change, packed up, and left. It was cool telling her some of my story, knowing that she understands. I like that Shannon is willing to talk about the subjects that no one else even wants to admit exist.

Dinner was fabulously all vegetarian!

The awards ceremony was like the Academy Awards. There were so many people who were instrumental in making GHC a success. NSF provided scholarships, as did Google and universities. One award was the social impact award which went to blogHer.com. blogHer.com was created as a forum for women bloggers and they have a growing annual conference. I need to find out more details about this group. There was an artist who painted portraits of Grace Hopper and Anita Borg to music; he delivered a beautiful speech and I teared up.

I am grateful to be here. I am learning that I want to be an academic. I'm finding that industry doesn't feel like the correct fit, even a research lab. It's empowering to be surrounded by 1400 intelligent technical women. I can't wait for tomorrow. Time for bed; I'm exhausted.

Grace Hopper: Day 1

2008-10-01T23:04:00.002-05:00

Tuesday I missed my flight to Denver. I looked at the arrival time thinking it was my departure time. Drama! (I'm doing too much, in case you can't tell by my radio silence.) Determined to get this morning's first flight out, I was up at 3am and out the door by 3:15am. I landed in Denver after a "layover" (read bathroom break) in JFK at 9:40am. Then there was more drama about the shuttles going to the conferences; I guess more people showed up than they anticipated despite having reservations. 90 minutes later, I arrived in Keystone.

The shuttle ride from Denver to Keystone was beautiful. (Mark, we really need to do this trip for me!) The Rockies are breath-taking. The deciduous trees are yellow, which are small pops of color against the green evergreens. I have a few pictures that I'll upload later. We drove through some very cute clusters of towns. One was a gravel town, another a gold town, and another a saw mill town. We were moving too fast for me to take pictures.

The composition of the van was very interesting. It was dominated by Sun employees. I met 3 women who are currently employed by Sun, myself who worked there for 5 years, and a woman whose brother worked for Sun. The networking began immediately as soon as we got in the van.

When we arrived in Keystone, I checked in and had lunch with 2 of the Sun women. Then I went to find my condo. My scholarship put me in a ski condo with 2 other students. The condo is huge and has great views. Then I crashed for 2.5 hours.

I headed over to the conference registration site and grabbed my badge. I don't think I've ever been given so much free stuff to start! I'm going to need to check my clothing bag on the flight home. Then it was off to the newcomers event.

I learned that GHC has expanded to include computer engineers. I learned that there are ~1500 technical women at this conference, and that 50% are students!! There are a ton of ugrads here, which I don't see many at the conferences I attend. I learned that over 50% of the conference attended identify themselves as shy or introverts. Yet! The main point of GHC is networking. Despite recovering from a cold, I turned on my Kate personality and networked tonight, all night, at the poster session.

The poster session had an interesting variety of topics. For example, using Brooks' subsumption architecture in team-player games. There were a lot of CS outreach of elementry and middle school posters. This will be good background for STEM pipeline research, which is a secondary research priority. There was a PhD student from NY who also works with the Manus robot arm that I have. I also met up with a few girls that I'd met at the CRA-W Grad Cohort 2007.

It's been a very long day, and I'm ready for bed. Alas, I first had some video to cut, render, encode, and upload. My laptop battery is nearly dead.

But! I did manage to pick out interesting sessions for the next couple day:

How to manage your career when "life gets in the way" (life, meaning life events; e.g., death, breast cancer, divorce, etc.)
Building the earth in 3D (which is Google SketchUp and I have been dying to try this!)
Findings, challenges, and recommendations for teaching in academia
Inspiring girls in technology: how to make every outreach a success
The ABC's for ABD's: tips for working your way through dissertations to PhD
Experiences with OLPC technology in Ghana, West Africa
Build a better future with creating ACM-W chapter in the United Arab Emierates to help the peace in the Persian Gulf
Engaging students in the free open source movements through civic engagements
Multi-robot intelligence (Manuela Veloso and Herbert Simon)
What is a PhD really good for? Thoughts from new grads
Confidential advice for junior faculty (this is the whol reason why I wanted to come)
The imposter panel (the "imposter" syndrome -- meaning, "don't look at me too hard because you might see that I'm a fake" confidence crisis)
How to get your dream job after grad school
Experiences with maternity leave and returning to work

I also have a reception invitation for Friday night for Sun. Friday night there'll be a social. I'm glad to be here and hope to take lots of knowledge and ideas home. :)

Driving from Denver, CO to Lowell, MA: Somewhere in Ohio

2008-08-31T22:45:00.003-05:00

Tonight is the end of Day 2 in Mark and I's quest to cross the country back to Lowell, MA.

On Day 0, I flew from Boston to Denver in a late evening flight. I landed in Denver near midnight. The flight was rather unpleasant due to a inebriated fellow in the row ahead of me. He kept pestering the girl beside him to buy him a drink. This follows after the flight attendants determined that he was sober enough to fly, and made him understand that they couldn't sell him any alcohol. That poor girl. He would not leave her alone. He kept leaning into to her to talk in her ear. I fell asleep for a couple hours, but I suspect that he pestered her the whole time.

I discovered that Denver airport is huge. Coming in to the airport, there is a choice of the north road and south road. It took Mark 15 minutes to get to me once he crossed on the airport property. We then drove past Denver to stay the night with a friend of Mark's. On the way, I noted that Denver looked like a generic city. Hard to say for sure, since I didn't spend any proper time in it. We did however pass by a Purina factory and my keen sense of smell noted it immediately.

Day 1. I was exhausted and slept in until Mark woke me at 9:30 MST, which would be 11:30am EST. Phew! I'm still pretty tired and I need to rest up before the semester starts in 2 days. Anyways, we chit chat for a bit with Mark's friend and then hit the road. I got to see a very little bit of the Rockies. Very impressive. There were some very steep slopes covered with evergreen trees. We descended from 7000ish feet to 5000ish feet as we entered the Great Plains.

Driving Colorado eastwards revealed the Bread Basket of America. Lots of grains. Corn. Hay. Lots of hay, gathered into spools. It reminded me a lot of a Van Gogh painting I saw while in Amsterdam in June 2007. There were happy cows too. Mothers and their calves, grazing and meandering in fields. Did you know that they walk in lines, one after another? I don't know if these cows were as happy as, or more happy than CA cows, since I didn't get to see any CA cows in daylight. They did seem very happy.

I shot lots and lots of photos of Colorado and Kansas. I wish I could've captured the beauty of the fields. We were driving too fast for me to properly take those pictures, so they'll just have to reside in my head. Mark chose 70E so that I could see the giant windmills in Kansas. I took some lovely pictures contrasting the cows and the high tech windmills. I hope those turn out well.

I drove through a storm and dark clouds. Then the sun came back out and it was a lovely dark sky against golden fields. Breath-taking. Also, I saw a full rainbow before driving into the storm. I hope we caught pictures of that too.

Kansas is the never ending state and Mark and I stopped for the night in Topeka at the most bizarre Holiday Inn. There was a water park and tons of children. Young up through high school. There was a cheer leading troop that was also there. Sigh. Yeah.

Day 2. More of Kansas. The late morning was spent trying to find a Subway for early lunch. It's been interesting trying to stay vegetarian while eating at fast food places on the highway. So far, I'm not doing to badly, less one slip up. Today was very carb heavy so for dinner, I also grabbed a V8. Oh, yuck might I add. I chugged it and chased it with Mark's iced tea. I won't be buying V8 for pleasure consumption when we're back in Lowell.

Anyways, after Kansas was Missouri, which was more like Kansas. Yawn. Fortunately, it did not go on forever. We've started to listen to "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (We listened to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" yesterday.) We talked some about the mod made to the Miata and those on the to-do list. I have to say, for a girl who knows nothing about cars, I learned quite a lot!

I was pretty lax today about taking pictures since most of the scenery was like Kansas. After MO, IA, and now OH. There were some cities along the way, but by then it was too dark to take pictures. I didn't see as many cows as I'd like or cute farm houses. Oh well. Tomorrow the map is putting us through PA, which hopefully means that I'll get to see some of the Amish area.

End of Day 2. Goodnight!

http://tinyurl.com/6jssk9 to follow our trip.

Green domesticity meets my inner fashion designer

2008-08-28T13:18:00.002-05:00

This has been a summer full of change and might I say positive change towards green domesticity. I am actively looking at new vegetarian entree options. I feel the need to purge more when Mark and I are home in Lowell after the long weekend.

My latest thought, and I'm not sure how feasible it is, is to start sewing our clothing. I was at Evil-Mart yesterday picking up lab supplies. I needed some fabric, so I headed over to that section. I noticed some very pretty white eyelet fabric on the clearance rack; I immediately thought of making a peasant blouse, which I've always wanted. (I didn't buy it because it'd be for me personally and it's from Evil-Mart.) I glanced at some of the projects they suggested. Then I meandered over to the pattern racks while my fabric was cut. I saw some beautiful patterns that are very much in line with the styles I currently wear. The patterns are ~$5.

Now, here's the green part. I'd be using my own labor to construct the garments, so no need to worry about labor from 3rd world countries. Also, I'd be able to use organic, sustainable materials. This inspiration comes from the summer season of Project Runway; I think the challenge was 2 or 3 weeks ago. I concede that I'll still have to buy personal items, outer wear, and jeans. But I think this way, I'll be able to create my own dresses, tops, and skirts.

(P.S. This is the fashion designer wannabe inside me trying to come out.)

Change takes a village

2008-08-26T07:45:00.002-05:00

Cameron Schaefer from Brazen Careerist writes about "changing yourself for real takes that village you've heard about." Cameron was inspired by a sermon which pointed out that "real change takes a community." Cameron pointed out that we all want to think that we have the power within ourselves because that's what self-help books and talk shows tell us. It isn't true however. Well, not completely. Cameron said that "we are the strongest when we are connected to others." (Likely true, even for introverts like me.)

I look at the last 5 years of my life and think about the amount of change that I have undergone. Recovering from clinical depression was not something I could do or did on my own. I have a good friend (Dan) who helped with that. Learning to let go and trust was due to my Argentine Tango friends (Thuy, Ben, Carolina, Ramunes, Liz, Morgan, Jamie, Lisa, Julian). Self confidence in my research and academic careers stemmed from my advisor (Holly) and labmates (Mark, Munjal, Phil, Dan). Learning how to release stress by channeling it into time for me at the gym was due to my trainer (Meaghan). Learning to dress in an age appropriate fashion was due largely to the Micire family (Natalie, Mark, Rosemary, John) and my sister (Kim). This in turn has helped inspire personal self confidence, which again has been fostered by Mark. Most recently, undertaking the vegetarian lifestyle has been through the encouragement of Mark.

In these instances, it's not that I didn't want the change. I did. I just didn't know how to go about beginning and sustaining the change. I am so thankful for my family and friends.

Fighting terrorism with education

2008-08-25T20:17:00.003-05:00

I've just finished Greg Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea." Wow.

I would recommend it to everyone. I am amazed what one man was able to accomplish in Pakistan and Afghanistan -- braving cultural barriers, language, weather, extreme geography. For $12,000 US dollars, an elementary school can be built. A teacher can be employed for $40/month.

The Central Asia Institute was founded with a 1 million dollar trust. A Parade article provided a surge of income from the American people of another 1 million dollars. I hope that the proceeds of the book and donations from those who have read "Three Cups of Tea" (including mine) will build many, many more schools.

I wish I'd read "Three Cups of Tea" a long time ago and could've taken advantage of Greg's speaking schedule. I would love to see his moving pictures of Pakistan and Afghanistan. I feel like I know Greg through the book.

(Images courtesy Central Asia Institute)

Dating and living together expenses

2008-08-24T07:15:00.003-05:00

As I am not yet married, I'm not sure that these claims can be applied to marriage and/or raising children. However, this is the current state of my life, and a bonus idea from my sister.

FB from Fabulously Broke in the City wrote an article about how dating and living together expenses are broken down. One reader (female) earns double the income of her boyfriend, therefore spends twice as much money in the relationship. She resents it. "Paying more than your fair share" looks at the historical and current trends, where typically the man is the provider and the women in the caregiver. These days, it's more acceptable for a man to take care of the house and family, and also for a man to fully support the woman and family. Practically in a relationship (that has not yet reached the point of marriage), FB advises that dating and living together expenses should be split 50/50, so that each person has an equal weight.

Mark and I have subscribed to this philosophy since we moved into our own apartment in July 2007. He initially pays the landlord and parking for our 3 cars each month. I take care of the ulities. At the end of each month, I then Paypal a "settle up" to Mark. Magic. I might add that this works currently because we are both poor grad students (~$20k annually). If living expenses weren't split 50/50, neither of us could afford the apartment in which we currently live.

Beyond the rent, parking, and utlities, we each have evolved in roles. That is, I am the primary cook in the household. Thus, I am also the primary person to take care of a market. This is not (yet) a shared expense. However, Mark is the primary IT/AV person in the household. When technical equipment is needed, typically he pays for whatever is needed (within reason).

We each have personal expenses too -- cell phone bills, gas for cars, insurance for cars, maintance for cars, clothing, personal maintance. Debt is also our own. I have >$80k in student loans from undergrad and masters education. (I'm working to combat this.)

Kim has come up with a pretty brilliant approach to expenses. She and her boyfriend Mike have a joint checking account and joint savings account. The theory is that each month, they will equally contribute to the checking account. Expenses like groceries will come from that account. At the end of each month, whatever has not been used in the checking account moves to the savings account, which will be used for things like vacations.

Yes, I said vegetarian. No, that doesn't include poultry.

2008-08-23T19:37:00.003-05:00

I have to say that I'm a little disappointed with my support group. I seem to have caught them off-guard with Mark and I'd decision to go vegetarian. I know that we're doing this just for us, and not for anyone else. I thought people might be a little more encouraging, that's all. (I'd previously written about the anxiety I felt about the importance of meat in my extended family -- bro, sis, mom, dad.) No matter, the game plan is still on!

What I've noticed so far is an increase in my consumption of eggs, cheese, and breads/pastas. Dinner last night was particularly fantastic. I had a grande burrito from Fresh City which contained Spanish rice, black beans, salsa, shredded cheese, and guacamole. Lunch earlier in the day was wonderful too. A chevre and walnut sandwich on wheat bread with a strawberry and banana smoothie from Judies here in New Haven.

I need to work on keeping my cheese consumption in check because my body doesn't normally like lactose anyways. I think I can mostly combat this by not adding cheeses to sandwiches, unless that's the main feature like a tomato and mozzarella caprese. Eggs I need to keep to 5 per week. I will likely use eggs for dinner because breakfast can be a smoothie, parfait, or bowl of cereal. Breads and pastas are difficult because well, they're so good and we love them. But! We must manage them because in the diabetic world, carbs == sugar, and that's not great.

I know that this move to vegetarianism will require some creativity for meal planning. The idea is to lead a more healthful lifestyle (combating the onset of diabetes) and to decrease the cost of our groceries. Beans after all cost less than meat.

Thus, I will be permanantly borrowing a blender/food processer from my parents, which is FREE. I'm also toying with the idea of sustainable, bento style lunch boxes (non-plastic) for both of us. Recommendations anyone? I'm contemplating a pizza stone as well. I'd like a windowsill herb garden too.

Kim's helping me out with a Costco membership. (She's now working there as a pharmacy tech; yeah, woot!) This means I'll be able to bulk shop once a month-ish and also Trader Joe's is right down the street. The local Market Basket is geared towards minorities, and the Latin and Asian communities each have their own aisle. I think more and more of the meals Mark and I eat will be (close to) from scratch.

I really do love to cook. It relaxes me. This will give me a whole new world to try. Advice and comments on turning vegetarian are welcome!

Lazy speeling

2008-08-19T17:49:00.002-05:00

I am having a love hate relationship with auto-correcting spelling. Just about every application I have on my laptop will underline a word if it is spelled wrong. Simple fix. Just "right click" (or equivalent) and 90% of the time, the word that you meant to spell is there. Choose it and presto! I love it so much. Really I do. In fact, when I don't have it (e.g. sometimes when I write posts in Blogger), I get really, really annoyed.

But... this comfort. What has it cost me? Actually, a lot. The frequency in which I mistype words has gone up dramatically. I find myself using this auto-underlining misspelled words crutch all too frequency. I've become lazy and I hate it.

When is auto-help and technology too much?

(P.S. In this short post, I think I have used the backspace >25 times. Make that >28.)

Full on vegetarian?

2008-08-17T22:02:00.002-05:00

I must've talked about removing meat from our diet a lot when my Honey and I were in Vegas. I only remember the one night at Quark's bar where I pondered getting the prime rib sandwich and Mark steered be towards the seafood alfredo when I told him about my predicament. I guess I talked it more than just that instance.

My Honey listens to me (and I am the luckiest girl on the planet) :) On his own, he confessed that this past week he's tried for meatless food choices. Beans have been the main replacement. Thank goodness he likes Mexican!

With that, we're both ready to try vegetarianism! I'm super excited. When we get home in September, I'll restock our pantry, fridge, and freezer with Trader Joe's. I imagine dinners of some of our known favorites: grilled cheese and tomato soup, huevos rancheros, baked potato with broccoli and onion, vegetable fried rice. Also some new, like squash and egg noodle soup. I anticipate a huge asian surge in our cooking.

If anyone has vegetarian cookbook recommendations, please let me know. Note that in addition to the meat restriction, I am also conscious of diabetes. I'll need to balance sugar and carbs carefully as we try out this new lifestyle.

Bubble troubles

2008-08-17T11:58:00.002-05:00

I took my bubble (Toyota Echo) for its inspection sticker yesterday. It failed. Ummm... what?

Turns out that the bolts on the tie rods came loose and the threading was trashed. I trust the shop that I'd brought my car to. They work on Mark's cars. So I told them to order the parts and I'd be back next week.

What makes me angry is that I'll be out $300+ dollars for something that I could not have done. I'd lent my car to be a demonstration vehicle at a mechanic school in greater Boston months ago. There was a wearing sound coming from the passenger's side front wheel. I thought it was the bearings. My dad thought, no not the bearings, it's the tires. Right, it was the tires, but the front end was out of alignment.

When my bubble came back from the mechanic school, it had a front end alignment done (which my dad had deemed impossible to do on my car). Turns out that they either 1.) didn't tighten the bolts on the tie rods, or 2.) didn't put the coder pin in to keep the bolt from turning.

I wasn't going to say anything, damnit, to my dad or my sister's boyfriend who also works on cars. I'm a big girl. I can pay for things to be done which are out of my expertise. This situation would be one of them.

I came home yesterday and my sister's boyfriend asked. So I told him. He asked how much and I told him the quote price. He thought for part and labor that it was fair. That's what I thought too.

My dad found the failed inspection sticker this morning and started questioning me. After I told him what happened and that I was taking care of it, he still had to poke. He looked at the supposed area and also poked through the paperwork in my console to find the inspection paperwork, which said exactly what I told him. He told me that there was no way it was anything that he did because the school wasn't even near that part of the car. (How did you do a front end alignment then?) He also said that he could do it cheaper, for $100. No, I told him that I took care of it and I trusted my guys. Now, silence.

I hate this tension. I hate feeling like I'm 18 years old again and that I can't do anything for myself. I'm 26. I've been self-sufficient for at least 4 years now, longer depending on how you define it. I trust Mark, ergo I trust his mechanics. I feel like I'm in a battle between my dad and Mark. This is stupid and I hate it.

I remember 2 years ago when I moved home from Providence. In August, I started going crazy living with my parents again. I spent all my time in the lab. In late September, I moved back out. Yeah, it's kinda like that right now. I'm only with them for the weekends, but damn am I getting anxious. I can't wait for September to come. Mark and I will be home and back to our usual family unit.

Are you who you are all the time?

2008-08-15T13:51:00.002-05:00

IT Pilgrim at Brazen Careerist writes:

My point is, you are who you are all the time. People put on one face in public, and one in private, and often another under stress. So if you really want to see who you might one day have to live with, just turn up the heat, they will eventually show you who they really are. Once they do, then you can decide, is this person really someone I want to spend a significant amount of time with?

I'm not sure I agree with IT Pilgrim's claim that "you are who you are all the time." I would agree that each person has different faces which reflect their roles and moods.

IT Pilgrim suggests things like waiting in a long line at an amusement park on a hot summer day in order to see what kind of person he/she is. Patient? Likes kids? Complains about the sun?

I wouldn't say that this one test of waiting in a long line on a hot day is a sufficient test of the other person. In a relationship, I happen to be of the opinion that the first 3-6 months are all pretend, the honeymoon phase. After that, then reality kicks in. Want real? Move in together.

I know it sounds cynical, and yes it really is. My point is that I'd like people to be real all the time. I don't want to have to waste that 3 or 6 months of my time waiting for the other person to reveal themselves.

Also, if people were more genuine, then tactics like tests of standing in long lines, wouldn't be necessary. How would you like to find out that you'd be tested outright? Does that mean then if you're testing someone, you're manipulative.

"A new way to figure out who that other person really is" just rubbed me the wrong way.

Going x-red-meat-tarian? And other food choices

2008-08-13T21:33:00.001-05:00

I read "Skinny Bitch" a few months ago and wasn't really affected by it. My parents worked for many years (think >25) in the Chinese restaurant business. I have known for a long time what the food industry looked like, at least from an "accepting delivery" standpoint.

When I moved out on my own in Fall 2004 (man, that was a long time ago!), my markets cost ~$30-40 per week. It didn't allow me to buy much in the way of red meat products. I ate a lot of poultry, some fish, too many carbs. But my body did feel the effect of not eating red meat, especially during girl-y times. I would feel really, really tired if I didn't eat red meat once per week. (Thanks to my dad for usually providing the beef!) Over time though (and I can't remember when), I stopped my mandatory once per week meal of red meat. My poultry consumption increased as my primary protein.

Being at Brown also had an effect. One of my good friends was vegetarian (for moral reasons). When I would hang out with him, inevitably over a meal, we'd find a vegetarian option. I love a good grilled cheese and tomato sandwich, so I wasn't missing anything!!

When Mark and I moved in together in July 2007, we were able to cut our living expenses. Well, mostly. Our markets are consistently >$80. (I'm working on other ways to start saving; e.g., coupon clipping and a well stocked pantry). We also ate out a good deal. Mostly Wendy's, our favorite burger place. I am in love with the baconator. Well, was, before the summer.

I spent this summer at Yale in New Haven, CT (and have one more month left to spend). I'm not sure what happened, but I'm having a hard time dealing with the thought of red meat anymore. Most of my meals are either 1.) Subway $5 subs (chicken or tuna, sometimes meatball), 2.) Thai cart food (like MIT!), or 3.) pizza (apparently there is a pizza turf war that New Haven in famous for).

Over the last month, I've found myself consciously choosing a red meat alternative. Then last week, I found myself consciously choosing a red meat alternative. One of my labmates got a steamed burger from the burger truck. The next day, I went seeking the burger. It smelled soooo good. When I got there, I was pleasantly surprised to find they offered a turkey burger, which then became my lunch. While in Vegas at Defcon this past weekend, at a Philly Cheesesteak shop, I got grilled chicken and at Quark's Bar, I got a seafood alfredo instead of the prime rib sandwich that I had last year (and loved!). When driving from Vegas to Mountain View, at Burger King, I got a fish sandwich for lunch and for dinner at Arby's chicken nuggets instead of their roast beef melt that I loved.

I think now that I've vocalized my aversion (at Quark's) I now crave red meat more than I had when I told myself that I could choose red meat *if* I could afford it. It's an interesting psychological effect that I want what I've told myself that I can't have. (Aren't people, including me, funny?)

Part of it is social. When with my immediate family (parents, Nick, and Kim), my dad's always been the cook. Any time that I've tried to change my diet (even now when spending the weekends this summer with them), I get mad fun of. When I spent the first weekend with them, Mark had just left for California. Natalie came up from DC to drive out with him. So I stocked up on a few things: milk, sandwich meat, etc. When I brought the food over to my parents' house, they teased me about my choices. Organic milk, Thin'n'Trim sandwich meat, whole grain bread, etc. My dad went off on this diatribe about how when we (the kids) were kids, we used to hate the stuff that came our of our grandmother's garden. At age, what?, 7, how was I supposed to know that natural and home grown was the best way to go?

I have a hard time eating at home with my family and have to essentially shut off my mind. I look in the refrigerator and see all the things that Mark and I have eliminated: 1.) high fructose corn syrup, 2.) sugar, 3.) bleached grains. My parents are proud of themselves for consuming more salads (and I am too!), but then I spot the gallon sized container of salad dressing, which contains high fructose corn syrup.

The other factor is that my immediately family has always eaten meat. When my dad's dad worked on the docks in Hong Kong during WWII, food was a commodity. Therefore, any food since then has always been eaten. When my immediate family saw "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," we all loved the line "You don't eat no meat? ... That's ok. I make lamb." We thought it was hysterical. My parents understand that right now, as a grad student, I can't afford to buy red meat. I can't imagine what they'd say if I told them that I didn't *want* to eat red meat.

I watch a lot of Food Network and other cooking show programming (well, record with Mythbuntu really). The majority of the hosts do cook meat; it's the centerpiece. In the "Top Chef" competition, the progression of plates during a formal dinner includes a red meat plate specifically. While I can appreciate the artistry, I don't find myself necessarily salivating of the dishes.

I think the key to removing (red) meat from my diet is to create flavorful, satisfying dishes regardless: rice, pasta, chicken, tofu, fish, vegetables, fruits. There's still a lot of options. I'm not sure if over time I will also give up chicken and fish. I don't normally consume fish, but it is also an issue of expense. I <3 sushi and sashimi though, and probably too much to give up. Poultry is a daily staple, especially at lunch time. Assuming I could give up the fish and poultry, could I be a vegan? I've come to use eggs as a staple in my diet, as breakfast (hard boiled), lunch (egg salad), and dinner (juevos rancheros). That'd be really tricky to give up. Things lactose-based already don't love me, but I do adore them.

I always keep in mind that although I am the primary chef in the household, Mark also must eat. Not only am I examining my own meat preferences and keeping in my family cholesterol and high blood pressure issues, Mark's family (and mine) are at high risk for diabetes. This probably explains why I've swapped mostly for whole grain options (except Jasmine rice... sigh, I just can't kick it) and reduced the sugar. In the spring, I mostly cooked with honey and applesauce as sweeteners. I'm also looking at Stevia (which I learned about from "Skinny Bitch") and agave nectar.

I need a cooking show that addresses flavorful cooking for people with diabetes that does not emphasize meat. Any recipe recommendations?

Productivity and frugality are logarithmic functions

2008-08-13T21:09:00.002-05:00

I think that functions were learned sometime in high school, and were probably last used then too. But! Try to remember what a logarithmic function looks like:

(Image from http://luna.cas.usf.edu/)

Productivity and frugality I believe follow this function -- the levels asymptotically approach some level. If you're not doing any optimization, then doing something makes a big difference. But... if you're already doing a lot, it doesn't make much of a difference. In fact, do the laws of economics really warrant you taking that extra step? That is, does the gain warrant the cost of time and energy?

I'll be specific with 2 points in my life. First, productivity. For as long as I can remember, I've been a planner. I've always had an agenda book and to do lists. It must've started in grade school with the lists of homework assignments. However, I also remember in grade school sneaking to do some of my homework during recess. I knew that if I could just finish the homework then before I went home, then I'd have more time to play. I also knew that if I saved my homework passes, and then forgot to bring some workbook home that I'd still be ok.

This agenda book and to do list are still my tools of choice. I use Google Calendar. Literally, if the event is not on my calendar, then it does not happen. Yes, digital media has made life more complicated, so I do believe that there is some value in productivity philosophies like GTD. For example, using my inbox as my to do list. It's a brilliant idea. What does my inbox look like? Very disorganized. However, I have taken that concept and now I use my drafts for scribble notes and things to do.

I still search for something that will make me even more efficient. I think though that at this point, I'm about as effecient as I'm going to be without a professional assistant. I could try to be even more efficient but I doubt if the investment would be worth the outcome.

Similarly for frugality. When I was a kid (about age 8), my family went through a hard time. I remember eating my parents' complementry dinner after they worked a double shift at a Chinese restaurant. (This is why I hate Chinese food.) My mom showed me how to make a dollar stretch. We shopped at Goodwill and Salvation Army. My first communion dress was on loan from the church. We shopped generic and wholesale. We rare bought anything if it wasn't on sale.

As I grew older, the financial hardships ceased, but I never forgot the lesson. To this day, if I can't get a good deal on it, I am unlikely to buy it. I'm very resistant to informercials, which is why I love to watch them.

Now, for my Honey and myself, I continue in this manner. As 2 broke grad students, it's hard to make ends meet. We live together so we share expenses. This helps a lot. I'm usually the one to go grocery shopping. I am desperately learning the art of grocery coupon clipping. (I've always known how to stock a pantry.) I already cook a lot at home and pack lunches. I will be walking and biking to school more to reduce the gas consumption. I've serisouly considered giving my car back to my dad to 1.) not have to pay the $160/mo insurance and 2.) pay him the remaining loan I have on the car.

What do you think? Am I wrong about productivity and frugality being logarithmic functions?

Defcon 2009: Details of Kate's trip

2008-08-13T11:12:00.005-05:00

Friday, August 8:

I was so excited that Defcon was this weekend. I finished up as much work as I could possibly get done, which only lasted me until 1:30pm. I packed in the morning, so after I walked home, I got in the car and headed out on my 2 hour drive to Logan. Overall, it was an easy ride. Thank god for the Mass Pike now going directly into Logan. I made a quick stop at the last rest stop on the Pike for fuel (gas) and fuel (cash!).

At 5:30pm, I was checked in, bag dropped, and past security. Nice and early considering that last year, it was a mad dash to catch the flight. I had ~2 hours before my flight boarded. Then as luck would have it, a lightening storm tore up Boston. Apparently the lightening storms had been intermittently causing issues at Logan. My gate was listed with 2 other flights. The other flights had been severely delayed. One flight was to JFK and I think they were 2 hours delayed. The most recent lighting storm that eventually delayed my flight, also delayed theirs again. Apparently they'd missed the window of opportunity to take off. The second flight was super delayed. They were headed to Ft. Lauderdal and had been delayed since the morning. Yipe!

My flight was first delayed 25 minutes, and then another 30. I figured, "Well, worst case scenario, I fly out tomorrow morning." For once, I was pretty relaxed about making my flight, although I was very anxious to reconnect with my Honey, whom I hadn't seen since the last week of May!

Once up in the air, it was a smooth flight. I slept for ~2/3 of the trip. I had a really hard time with 2 particular children on the flight. They were Francophone brats, who would *not* shut up. (I first had issues with them when their mom played the "I need to sit with my child" card and I got bumped from my chosen aisle seat to a middle seat. Rar, I hate middle seats!)

I got to Vegas at 12 midnight local time and Mark picked me up in the Miata with the top down. I can't put into words how excited I was to see him (and I won't bore you with the mushy stuff either). Despite sleeping on the plane, I was still tired and slept like a rock until 5:30am local time the next day, when my body clock told me to get up.

Saturday, August 9:

Well, apparently I missed the interesting talks I'd wanted to see. The first was "The making of the badge" and the second dealt with breached HIPPA information (relevant to my research). That'll teach me to fly in late to the conference next year. SIGH!

Mark blessed me with my badge and the new Nikon D300. I was the official photographer for our group of 9. Last year's crew had breakfast at 11am at Kady's because of course, I was hungry (I'm always hungry. Right now, I'm hungry.). Let me just say that 1.) poached eggs should not be fully cooked through and I expect runniness, and 2.) black olives and tomatoes do not go well with poached eggs, avocado, English muffins, and holandaise sauce (I picked them off. Oh, and the olives made my poached eggs look like boobs.). Over breakfast, I got a quick lesson about the camera and the 5 of us caught up with our usual teasting.

Then off to the first talk: biosensing feedback in video games -- or neuro-hacking. The speaker (Neonrain, alpha-numericiszed) talked about what is biofeedback, the circuit she used, some of the Python code, and then gave a demo. I learned that heart rate variability is a better biosensing measure than heart rate straight up. I learned that pennies can be used to capture EEG signals. The demo, while first rigged with a planted participant in the audience, was a rendition of Space Invaders. Sweet. When you get too stressed out, the game pauses. At the end of the talk, we were told that the MIT talk about the Charlie cards was cancelled.

After the talk, we headed for the Skybox over looking the common room. I got to try my hand at the bzillion settings the camera has. Then I got seriously yelled at by a Goon (Defcon security) for taking pictures. Apparently no pictures of the crowd were allowed. (But they were last year!) Another Goon came up and talked to all the Skyboxes. I was upset for being yelled at and my passion to take more pictures kinda died. I don't have many Defcon pictures this year consequently.

Tangent: What annoyed us is that no where on the website do they say "no pictures" nor on the entrance of the room (unlike Capture the Flag, which did explicitly prohibit pictures). In fact, the website solicited for uploads of your photos to share. Other conferences that I've gone to, when you buy a registration, you give your permission to be part of their photographic documentation. Apparently there were people in the crowd who had major issues with being photographed. Any one in photos had to give explicit consent to be in them and because you couldn't consent the whole crowd, then you couldn't do it.

So we left the Skybox and went to the really sweet suite. I was a little people'd out and wanted some quiet. Also, I wanted to learn to pick locks, but didn't want to have to compete with the other people at LPCon (a mini-con held in the Skyboxes). I got the MIT tutorial so that I had a visual representation inside my head of the theory. I popped the 2 simple locks twice each before dinner. My left wrist started to ache from the tensioning, and the fingers on my right hand started to hurt from the metal of the tools rubbing. Dinner was a good excuse to stop.

7 of the 9 went to Quark's for dinner. Defcon and the Star Trek convention overlapped this year. We had quite a wait. It was really interesting to people watch. Many of the Trekkies were dressed in costume. Let's just say that many of the people in costume were not attractive in their lycra-spandex outfits. This last time at Quark's was a "moral imperative" as Star Trek will be leaving the Hilton Hotel and Casino "fall 2008." They're looking for a new home. One would think that the revenue generated by the Star Trek convention would be enough alone to keep the exhibit and restaurant going...

Then a race to the room to grab the badges and hit up Hacker Jeopardy. I missed the first night, and only semi-paid attention to the second night. There was a category on robots, which unfortunately was mostly movie robots. I spent most of my time working on locks and people watching. The row of people in front of us were from Arizona (I think?) and they kept offering us home brew apple cider. My momma taught me not to accept food or drinks from strangers. The majority of the group also turned it down and we were labeled "un-fun." (The entire Defcon I didn't have a single drink. Mostly because I don't need to drink to have fun, and partly because I wanted a white russion, but my body was hating lactose -- again!) We escaped ended the night with a few night with a few hands of poker.

Sunday, August 10:

First talk of the morning was about HAM radio stuff. Very cool and I could follow despite not being hard core. After the talk, we tried to get into Dan Kaminsky's talk, but they apparently cleared the room empty and only let people standing in the queue in. Needless to say, we didn't make it in. There was some drama then about Room #1 checking out and needing to move the luggage to Room #2. The talk was extended from 50 minutes to 110 minutes. Long story short, 3 of us shuttled the bags from one room to the other.

Then Mark went off to take the amateur-radio license test and I made my way to LP Village. I scoped out the different tables and sat at the most accessible one, pad locks. I was happy that I wasn't the most inexperienced person there. I actually made my way through 6 locks, with 2 of them being commercial grade Master. I sat through a quick tutorial about shimming a combination lock with a soda/beer can and how to reverse engineer the combination. I grabbed a pink combo lock (of course pink) and tried my hand at the algorithm. 15 minutes later, I popped it open. :) People who were able to decipher the combination got to keep the locks, so now it's in my trophy collection. After the tutorial, an obstacle course contest was seeking participants, but alas my skills are young. Now for a lock smith license.

A quick tour of the vendor area. We picked up 2 capture cards for our robots. Very cool. I unfortunately have discovered, yet again, that I was too small to fit in some of the girl-y apparel. Alas. Maybe next year they'll choose smaller sizes.

Closing ceremonies were total pandemonium. Tons and tons of people. All the contests gave their rankings. Debrief the conference. Lights out and flashing IR on the badges. The end of Defcon 2009.

Dinner at PF Changs before the 9 split into 6. Dessert looked amazing, but alas we ate too much! 3 then left for the airport.

Monday, August 11:

2 left early morning to drive back to CA. 2 left for the airport. I was the very last one to leave and my flight was at 11pm. What on earth was I to do with myself all day *alone* in Vegas? Let's just say that it's not really my type of town.

I called jetBlue and swapped my flight for a Tuesday morning flight from Oakland to Boston. Then I packed up and drove the 10 hours back with Mark in the Miata. It was beautiful. I saw first hand the bizarreness of Vegas' existence -- a town in the middle of a desert valley. The Mojave desert was beautiful in its own barren way. I saw cactus and dried river beds. I saw the banks of once soil cracked due to lack of moisture in the arid region. We attempted to see a real ghost town, but they wanted $6/adult. Thanks, but I didn't want to see it that much. There were all sorts of random, small (I mean tiny) towns along the highway. In Mojave itself, we saw a deserted airport, where planes are decommissioned.

Then only a few hours later, we drove through the barrier mountain pass which had so many windmills on it. The size and type were so amazingly different. Then, it was no longer desert (though by no means lush). A train poking through the mountain side. Fields of all sorts of crops: oranges, almonds, pecans, corn, grapes. And cows :) We saw a crop dusting plane.

I watched the amazing sunset, and it lasted forever, disappearing over the mountain ridge. Seriously, it was like 90 minutes of sunset. During the last hour, we put the top down and I stared at the night sky. With the heat blasting, it was perfect. I think I even saw a shooting start.

A quick tour of the base and then to Mark's motel-like room. :) Really, like a motel room from the early 80s. It was cute because it was like meeting bachelor-Mark again for the first time. Easy-Mac and cereal. Then again, here in New Haven, I'm also living like bachelorette-Kate!

Sleep.

Tuesday, August 12:

I slept like a rock. So tired from all the excitement of Vegas and the trip to CA. My alarm went off at 7am, and I thoroughly despised its existence. I heard the traffic outside and the asian housecleaning women, chatting and cackling. I quick shower from the most low placed shower head I've ever seen! I'm 5'2" and it was at my collar bone height.

Packed up, the rest of the quick tour, and off to Oakland airport. Traffic wasn't terrible, although it was heavy. Oakland was further than expected. I was anxious because I hate getting to the airport late. I made it into the ticket area with an hour before the flight departed. But the line! Gasp! It was miles long. I waited 20 minutes just to drop off my bag. (No, there was no curbside checkin and I would've gladly paid the $2/bag fee!) Security was long as well. 15 minutes. They were calling my row block as I entered my gate area. Phew! That was tight.

4.5 hours later (and all watching Bravo empty-carb shows) and I landed in Dulles, 30 minutes early. I couldn't get a wireless connection at Dulles, rar. So instead I watched episodes of "Good Eats" that I'd downloaded to my laptop from the MythTV box at home. Thank goodness I planned ahead! 1 hour to Boston, and then the drive back to New Haven, which had heavy road construction traffic. My head hit the pillow at 2am.

So that was my Vegas trip in a nutshell. For once, I feel relaxed!

There, I said it

2008-08-07T15:42:00.003-05:00

Last weekend I was helping my mom split the bulbs in her garden. It was long overdue and the garden had become too much work for just on person, since I moved out nearly 4 years ago. My dad was working on the lawnmower, listening to Oldies 103.3. A commercial came on about some anti-depressant. My mom started huffing about how it's all in that person's head, blah, blah, blah.

I had enough.

I turned to her and said, "No, Mom. Depression is real. In fact, those years I was at Brown, I was clinically depressed."

I expected her to be taken aback or shocked into silence. Instead, she just said, "Well, of course you were. You just moved from home." Then she went on about how these days people don't have anyone to talk to anymore, the neighbors are so different, blah, blah blah.

I interjected again and told her that I'd seen the psychologists, and had an appointment to see a psychiatrist and considered medications to help. The conversation turned away from the topic.

But, there, I said it. I told my mom that I suffered from clinical depression for 2 years. I don't think she quite understands what that means, or the fact that I still battle with it.

This bubbles to the surface because my IEEE Potentials July/August magazine came today. There's a story in there called "A mental makeover for the graduate student." Shannon Duvall writes,

As a graduate student in computer science, I found myself tired, depressed, and unmotivated. I sat through meetings with my advisor with my hear pounding, afraid of what he would say about my work that week. I withdrew from family and friends not associated with school to avoid the dreaded questions, "How's your research coming? When will you be done?" I found myself wondering who I had become. What happened to the straight-A undergraduate who loved to program? How as I lost my passion and drive? Where did my confidence go?

I was Shannon 4 years ago. I can talk about it now and I try to help others when I come across it. It would've helped me if someone like Shannon's resource to pull through sooner, but I didn't. Instead I moved schools and started over.

Maybe someday I'll be able to tell my dad.

Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane": My interpretation

2008-08-07T10:32:00.003-05:00

When's the last time you head Mellencamp's "Jack and Diane"? When's the last time you really listened to the lyrics? That song for me scared me to death and motivated me to do something with my life out of high school.

I grew up in a fairly small town. My parents knew lots and lots of people. After high school, many people have kids and stay in the same town.

I listen to "Jack and Diane" and think it's just a depressing song. The best years of your life happen at 16 and there's nothing great that happens after that. The best years of your life happen when you're the star high school jock and when you're his best girl.

I remember once my mom picking me up from school (junior high, so I must've been 14?). She noted some Junior Varsity cheerleaders and said that those were the best years of their life. That moment had a big impression. I knew that she was a Varsity cheerleader when she was in high school. Was life like that for her? Is that how she still remembers?

I remember junior high. I remember how malicious the popular girls were to me. I remember hating it so much that I applied to private high schools to get away from them. (I turned down my acceptances because my family couldn't afford to send me.)

High school was better and I dabbled my first year in several social groups. I established myself in the honors/AP, band geek circle. The years weren't horrible because I did have friends. But never did I think once "this is as good as it gets." (Interestingly, I have maybe a couple of people that I'll talk to from high school. The 10 year reunion will be interesting. Doubt if I'll go.)

I'm now 26. I would have to say that this past year has been the best year I've had so far, and next year is very, very promising. According to "Jack and Diane," I am a decade past prime and I should be clinging to my 16 year old self. (No. In fact, you couldn't pay me enough to go back to that 16 year old girl.) According to a large part of my family, I should have been married and had a few (~8) kids by now.

I feel like living in the past stifles the potential to become a new, better version of yourself. I'm not saying to never look back. (I don't very often, but that's me.) Look to the future and carpe diem!