I Hate Airports In General But The Free Wireless is Helping

Happy Thanksgiving buddies! And I'm sorry I haven't been better about posting. It will be my December resolution to get my ass in gear and start commenting and writing more.

Life in St. Louis has been crazy, ultra, mega busy. It seemed like September went on for six thousand years and then I blinked and suddenly it's almost the new year. I'm trying to remember some October highlights.

A big thing that happened was that an experiment I'd been working on forever started working; and with it's working came the promise of collaboration with Pfizer, big papers for my boss and lots and lots of grant money. Also lots more work and stress for me. I'm taking it in stride, mostly, though now instead of trying to fill the hours between 9 and 5, I'm trying to plan my days so I can leave before the grocery store closes at 9.

My boss, Mary, and I are also becoming really good friends. We really seem to balance each other out and I think we make a good team. I can't tell you what a difference having a great boss makes. I just sent her a text message to the effect of, "I would hate this lab except that I love coming to work because I know we're going to sit around for two hours hiding from A. watching hilarious videos on youtube." I know, I know, you wouldn't think we would be that productive at all except that all that time spent fucking around on the internet has bonded me to her in such a way that I'm very motivated to be efficient at the bench. It's a weird relationship.

Speaking of bonding, I'm getting pretty attached to St. Louis. Even though there are things about the city that bother me, I am definitely coming to appreciate it for what it is; not Chicago; not the East Coast but a nevertheless beautiful place with pockets of culture and art, food and parks; and a really kickin' intellectual scene. In some ways it reminds me of Richmond. If you don't look, you won't find reasons to love it. It also helps that I've finally found a niche for myself in a really wonderful group of friends. I'm planning on moving in with two of them; into a much, much nicer apartment next year (wood floors! enormous kitchen! cabinetry! free espresso bar! (but not really because the rent is astronomical)). Last weekend we had a raucous birthday weekend for my two buddies, Erin and Ben, and I realized that these folks are making the place for me. Which I appreciate, given how miserable I was here for a long time, a lot.

Anyway, I was just in Bloomington a few days ago with Janna, Abby, Zeina and Mary Trinh. Even though I have a life that I like in STL, it was still nice to see some Earlham folks, hear some beautiful music (we saw the Magic Flute at the IU Jacob's school) and be reminded of how formative and important my semester in Vienna was for me. Let's see...we also went to the amazing Bloomington farmer's market and picked up fresh pumpkin bread and kale and apples and made a rockstar breakfast for Abby and her roomies. In the afternoon we watched a German WWII flick about Jewish lesbians (we've got a nack for picking these things out. I wonder why). It was a quick trip, I came back to STL on Sunday morning-ish. Now I'm headed to Chapel Hill for Thanksgiving. My parents and grandmother are picking me up at the airport and then we're getting 30 pounds of raw oysters for the famous Godwin-family Thanksgiving tradition: oysters in butter and champagne and bourbon for dessert. Other than that, I'll try and hang out with my brother a bit. He's already planning on taking me to the liquor store with his debit card and my ID. Oh, frat boys.

Alright, I'm headed to Starbucks to get one of those amazingly caloric and delicious pumpkin spice lattes. If I have to sit here...heh.

I love you guys so much and I think of you so often. I'm really grateful to have such wonderful friends.

November update

Pirates vs. Tsunamis has been the theme of my life lately, culminating in a presentation of the same name last week. School work is keeping my time occupied, but I've still found time to hike with my friends Lauren and Trevor (he's Lauren's bf, visits a lot from his school in california) and hit various bars with buddies. Mark and I broke up recently, sort of a mutual thing. We realized that after nearly six months of dating, we've gotten to a place where we're great friends, but not like we're soul mates and perfect for each other, and like it just wasn't going anywhere. We still hang out, but with a lot less of the sleeping together thing, lol. He's the best friend I have in Austin, and this is the best thing to do for now.

I just got back from Tuscon AZ, where I met up with my whole family for my grandpa's memorial service. It was an upsetting couple days (I learned that he killed himself, three years to the day my grandma died, in the canyon we scattered her ashes). But it was wonderful to see all my cousins, and to have everyone there, remembering him together. We stayed in cabins in Madera Canyon (Jess,your parents have been there for the great birding) and had a great time hiking, catching up, playing cards, drinking the remainder of my grandpa's liquor and beer stash (the aunts and uncles took all the good wine!) and having spirited discussions about eugenics, human evolution, science ethics, vegetarianism, crochet vs knitting, and many other things. My cousins are pretty much the coolest people I know. It was a hard weekend, but also came with a sense of rejuvenation and a clearer sense of what is important to me right now.

Purple pants..

Well as some of you know the holy grail of my weight loss epic has long been my beloved PURPLE PANTS.. they fit me in the bygone days of high school but never again since.. until now!! All of my co-workers are teeeeeeeny tiny and their eating habits combined with really enjoying running and working hard at work have gotten me back into my faaaaabulous purple pants. Now I just gotta keep going in my running and I'll be ready for that half- or full marathon in the spring!


Life overall is wonderful. I love my job and my co-workers and Port Townsend. A few of us are even considering asking to stay an extra year at the Marine Science Center. If I didn't do that I'm not sure what I'd want to do... it might be nice to do another AmeriCorps position and pay off another good chunk of my loans while covered by health care. I know I'm not ready for grad school next year so it feel really right to not be applying right now.

The only sour part of my life right now? I miss you guys! Emily, I do believe you have dropped off the face of the planet.

tell me about your lives!
love you all!

PTMSC Blog!

Hey guys! I don't have much time right now but check out the blog I'll be writing in a few times a month for work:
http://ptmarinesciencecenter.blogspot.com/


I love you all and I'll write more when I have time!

-jess

Yes, yes that was my planter bed you saw in People magazine*

*(the title of this entry was originally going to be about how i finally got new sandals, which i thought you'd be very proud of. i also got shampoo all by myself, and it's going really well. (your baby is growing up, guys!) but then a few weeks ago the planter bed incident happened, and it kind of eclipsed the sandals. more on that later.)

My friends! i am sorry for being such a bad blogger - i promise, i have been thinking about this for ages, i just keep getting distracted before i finish the entry, and then something more exciting happens and i have to start over. anyway.

i don't know where i left off with you all - different places, i guess. here's a brief overview of my summer: i sold my soul to retail - albeit upstanding, quality retail - by taking a job at the new LL Bean in my town. mostly i was trying to make Jessica jealous and woo her to Boston with my employee discount. sadly, no dice on the wooing. the first few weeks of work were great - the store wasn't open yet, so we were doing a lot of merchandising, training, hanging kayaks, training, rehanging kayaks, training, being told that wasn't the kayak they wanted there at all, etc. (they spent more money training us than they have at any other LL Bean...pressure was on). i work in the Active department (boats, bikes, camping stuff, backpacks (we sold 6,000 in the week before school started!), fly fishing (shudder) - that kind of stuff) which is, of course, the best department and has the silliest and most ridiculous managers (Dave got a little loopy the other day and radioed us all "can i get a 'what what'", and the little girl i was ordering a backpack for looked a little sketched out). the best part of the summer was getting to work with some pretty cool outdoorsy guys, including a geologist who tried to get me excited about some fossils he found in upstate NY, and i was like ahem, i went to school in Richmond - that's Richmond, Indiana to you...HA, and then i brought him some Richmond rocks and blew him away (probably). there's another guy who looks kind of like Draco from Harry Potter except that his green eyes are EXACTLY the color of our uniform shirts, which makes for a very intense effect. at the beginning of the summer i met a guy named Cute Kayaking Instructor (he also goes by the name Tom); for those of you following that story, i sadly never worked up the courage to randomly facebook message him, but we did have a funny moment in which we thought that he had applied for a teaching job at Lauren's school (turns out there's ANOTHER teacher in the greater Boston area with exactly the same name who is also passionate about English, which is frightening). 

when, partway through the summer, business kind of dropped off (this is what happens when you're the only business open in a giant mall/construction site), they stopped giving of us many hours and i found alternative fun. my most exciting discovery was that the harbor islands ferry operators on the baby banana boat out of Hingham let me on for free if i said i was going to visit the rangers (this was after pretending to be related to them, which was riskier because i'm still very very bad at lying, and also clearly not red-haired), so i did a lot of that. again, some of you heard this story, but my friend Val (from last summer) decided rather quickly that her new co-ranger Elliot (female Elliot) and i would be great for each other, which got my and Elliot's relationship off to a RATHER awkward start. hehe. it was a nice thought, but probably very unlikely. funny, though. being around nice, marginally attractive male peers for the past few months i think is finally reversing dana hall's/earlham nerd boys' effect on my sexuality, thus proving that crazy convo speaker wrong about how people who are "questioning" are clearly gay. jerk :-P the extra time also gave me the chance to explore some other things, like MIT square dancing! who knew you could nerd out square dancing that much. it's like the polar opposite of dancing in Indiana (it requires a lot more thinking) but still great great fun. turns out i'm a big hit with middle aged men in utili-kilts (and i've been dancing the guys part...). i'm an official member there now.

and then life pretty much completely changed. i was incredibly apprehensive about starting City Year...all summer i looked for other jobs, but i kept feeling like i was cheating on City Year, and yet i was terrified that if i did do the program it would just be for lack of anything else. but August 25 came and i had nothing else to do, so it was off to the Bekenstein Family Headquarters for Idealism for Basic Training Academy, Week 1. it was great to meet people, but still nerve-wracking...for week 1, they placed us on "Crazy Teams" because we didn't have our real teams yet, and even just on my crazy team there were a few people (well, one in particular) that i honestly sincerely hoped i would never have to work with again. everything was a big question mark. first thing the next Monday morning, we found out our teams, but they didn't just TELL us, no, that would have been too logical....they took pictures that represented the teams, cut them up, and gave us each pieces of the puzzle, and we had to walk around the room and find people whose puzzle pieces matched ours (it was like being on a reality show, i swear). luckily, my slice said "ivi gage" so i was pretty sure i got what wanted. indeed, i am a proud member of the team with the longest and awesomest name: The Foundation to Be Named Later/John W. Henry Family Foundation Boston Civic Engagement Team (nothing simple, like the "Comcast City Heroes Team"...we do get the whole sponsor on our name tags, they just take out most of the vowels). my team is such a trip; they're crazy but i love them in the way that you love your family. we have two who just graduated from high school - TJ, who has the real bad ADHD/dyslexia/probably some of every kind of learning disability, smokes like a chimney, illegally spits in uniform, etc. he means so well, he just needs to work on his presentation a little. Mark looks like an ex-Beatle and is never entirely sure what's going on. Justin, Morgan, Jess and i all just graduate from college - Justin is the bad kid turned good kid who's oddly flirtatious sometimes (i like to think of it as "brotherly"), Jess is tiny but definitely the most forceful about actually getting things done, and Morgan is probably the one person who will never cause any conflicts; her dad's a diplomat and she's lived all over the world! and then Natalie just finished another AmeriCorps program, did some of her growing up in Italy (which made her very European) and is probably the single most pretentious know-it-all i've ever met (oh that was mean. i hope she never finds this blog). she's also the one i'm most likely to kill by the end of the year, but i do still like her and find her to be a very interesting person and am looking forward to learning from her and about working with people like her. and then our leadership team is three second-years (Senior Corps Members): Adolfo, our Service Leader, who does nothing, as far we know; Matt, our Team Leader, who does everything, plus some other things...at first glance he's sort of the strong and serious type, but he actually has the most interesting sense of humor (and he's an FSU grad - Jess, does that mean anything?!) and Mollie, our Program Manager, who of all of them would probably fit in the best at Earlham (well, she's technically staff and not an SCM because she'd already done Maine Conservation Corps before CY and got super-promoted! i'm also pretty sure that Emily Jones in totally platonically madly in love with her...it's funny). i'll stop there for now, because i'm sure you'll hear a million more stories about them before the end of the year.

here we are at BTR (haha see if you can guess who's who):

on our first week as teams, we went to Basic Training Retreat, which is CY's take on your typical leadership retreat. it was really fun and a great way to sort of break us into being teams - a lot of activities and a lot of sharing things about ourselves. after BTR the other teams continued merrily along with their training, but we had a service day to plan for the end of the next week (we kinda got thrown off the deep end; Mollie kept apologizing and then giggling a little). the service day was for staff members at the Boston Celtics and a local HMO. as we gathered up at the end of the day before, Mollie was like "oh, and you guys know about the Cameron Diaz thing, right?" and everyone except my co-project leader and i were like, oh yeah...but Mark and i were like whaaaa???!! 

yeah, so Cameron Diaz ended up working on my project. with the owner of the Celtics (who is kind of obnoxious). http://www.people.com/people/cameron_diaz/photos#20669149 - those are Mark's legs in the background. she was really into earthworms, and she gave me a hug before she left. needless to say, it was madness. i had, like, the entire news media around one of my planter beds. which kicked butt, by the way (the flower beds, not the news media).  

last week we as a team had to earn our boots by performing Physical Training on Copley Square (which we normally do as a whole Corps). it took us two tries, but we all donned safety sunglasses and passed on Wednesday. BTA is officially over as of yesterday (thank god - yesterday my whiny teammates declared that they'd rather have inhaled toxic paint fumes than sat through more workshops) and Opening Day is next Friday. i'm currently mired in the process of attempting to design a mural for a school in East Boston that will be painted during our all-Corps service day that afternoon after the ceremony. i also still have my job at Bean and work sometimes on weekends; we'll see how long that lasts before i go insane. it's even harder to sell people stuff when you've spent the rest of your week doing decent things for the world. 

so the short answer is that i'm feeling really good about CY - better than i usually do about things, in fact. after Earlham, it's a huge blessing for me to be in a organization that has as much structure as this does. i feel like i got a lot of big, philosophical tools at Earlham, but at CY i feel like i'm actually DOING something in ways i never felt during college, and it's great for me. the only thing i'm feeling even slightly negative about is that i'm part of this Corps and not last year's - there are some senior Corps members i really wish i could hang out with, but i can't because of our non-fraternization policy (i mean, it's good thing - it would be awkward to have an overly personal relationship with, like, your team leader) (don't worry, Em and i have a pre-existing relationship, so we get to hang out!). sometimes i think you guys would think that this program is ridiculous (no mocking the disclaimer i have to put on this entry!), but it's definitely the right thing for me right now.

funny story, the one guy from the Corps i've hung out with outside of work is this kid Reese (i keep almost accidently calling Reece House...) who has decided he wants to square dance with me. of course, now everyone is kind of making assumptions, which cracks me up because i don't think i've ever been less attracted to anyone in my life. he's a really nice guy, but SO painfully awkward (plus we must follow Sue Jones' "don't get your honey where you get your money" policy...but mostly it's the not being attracted to him thing). i may end up getting him and Katie Minetti together, though...

okay. this is long and so done by now. i love you all buckets and miss you tons. and i'd love to talk to any of you; we have free long distance now, so either i'll call you or give me a call and i'll call you back.

all my love, 

emilina

The contents of this website do not reflect in any way the positions of City Year or AmeriCorps. For official City Year policy see http://www.cityyear.org.

Hello ladies,

I know its been a while since I updated y'all. I've been crazy busy, and am learning the harsh lesson that 12 credit hours of graduate classes is far, far harder and more time consuming than 18 hours of classes at Earlham. I've reached a whole new level of overcommitted. In a recent time management workshop that I was forced to go to, we were asked to plot out our daily schedule on a chart with the goal of recognizing and better utilizing wasted time. Mine was booked solid, and other than sleep, there was very little fun time to cut out. Yikes.

So my plan now is to drop my engineering class to make time for all the independent research I should be doing. And to, you know, have a life. I'm waiting for my advisor to get back from Tonga so he can sign my drop form. Also, who goes to freaking Tonga without mentioning it to his grad student? I mean, really. He could have said "Oh, hey, I'm gonna go fly to the other side of the world for a couple weeks, is there anything you need me to sign before I leave?" but no.

Some of my closest friends here are Oberlin and Carleton grads, and it's great to have people around who are also having trouble getting used to this R1 world we're living in. I miss you guys a ludicrous amount, but it is nice to have some folks around who get where I'm coming from and also grew up on PBS, NPR, and granola. My friend (and officemate, and neighbor) Lauren is my new buddy to watch Bones with, we're excited for the new season to begin.

On the boyfriend front, things are going pretty well. Mark and I are still at the "we like each other and are just having fun stage" which works for me right now. I don't have the energy to deal with an emotionally draining serious relationship.

Austin City Limits is fast approaching, and I'm pretty excited, there are going to be a lot of great bands playing this year. It's been raining almost every day lately, and the summer heat has broken. I like Texas a lot more than I did in July. My new apartment is pretty awesome, and is finally furnished. I have a bed and tables and chairs and a desk and my sofa arrives tomorrow after a long wait. Now I never want to leave home, it's so cozy.

Last week I went to Houston for a job interview (for a summer internship) with ION Geophysical, a company that does a lot of the technical data processing for the oil and gas industry. It went pretty well, although I don't think I'd enjoy the job long-term. If I'm offered an internship, though, I think I'll take it. The pay is good and it would be a nice addition to my CV.

Feel free to give me a call any evening, if you've got the time. I'll answer if I'm not in class or at work.

xoxo,

katie

Air Force Reconciliation?

Hey Lovelies,
I have 8 days left at home before I take off like a bat outta hell for Washington and it's hard to believe this time has flown by so quickly. My big news:

1. I'll be living in an apartment with 2 other Port Townsend Marine Science Center peeps from AmeriCorps. They seem really great from what I know so far

2. I ran into Stephanie's mom at Panera's (yes the famed AFB's mom) and she was incredibly warm and sweet and said she missed me and urged me to contact Steph. Sooo in a big step of swallowing pride and facing old demons I sent Steph an email basically appologizing for all the arrogant and hateful things I said to her or around her during the course of our friendship. I've spent a lot of time thinking about my actions back then and I was remarkably intolerant and all around horrid. Soooo I think we're having coffee this weekend and I'm super nervous but I have good hopes for it. I don't in any way expect to start off like nothing happened but I would like to reconnect and perhaps repair a bit of that bridge that I burned down almost 4 years ago.

3. I've been running a lot and it's been really fantastic. Em, I just wish you were here to run with me!!!

love you all
-jess

hello?

anyone home? I miss you all! I want to hear about your LIIIIIIIIVIVVVVEEEESSS!
UNAWEZA write on the blooooogggggg! please.
xoxoxox

Photos

So lovelies, I put up some of our graduation photo shoot on facebook, including some photos I swiped from Em. I didn't feel like it was ok to put up all of your photos, Em so unless you tell me it's ok I'll wait for you to post the rest of them.

I'm soooo glad we did take the pictures though.. they're making me smile

PORT TOWNSEND!

Hey Guys! I finally, at long last, know what I'll be doing this upcoming year! I got the call yesterday offering me a position and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center- which was my number one choice! I don't know the exact position I got yet (there are four and the specific assignments haven't been decided yet) so I can't tell you my sweet new job title but it'll be something along the lines of "Jess gets to play on the beach and handle squishy marine critters and clean up their tanks and rescue seals and clean stuff and teach people about awesome biology stuff". So yeah, I'm pretty flipping excited and relieved to FINALLY know what I'll be doing this upcoming year. I start on October 1st and I'll be there for 10 1/2 months. *super huge sigh of relief and nervous anticipation*. If you're interested this is their website: http://www.ptmsc.org/
THEY HAVE PUFFIN CRUISES! And a marine mammal stranding network! And Port Townsend itself seems like an incredible city; about 9,000 people and super artsy, environmental, biker friendly, and they get way better weather than most of Western Washington. I'm going to try to find a pottery studio I can throw in too. wahoo!

On the other news front my mom had her rotator cuff surgery yesterday and it went really well. They were able to do it arthroscopically (no slicing her open just using the cool probe thingies with a camera. Even though it went well she's in extreme pain. I'm so incredibly glad that I can be here to help her and to support my Dad in helping her too. It's been really draining to see her in such pain and to be able to do so little about it. She's on super-heavy duty narcotics but she's still really uncomfortable. She's still being such a good sport about it though- still being incredibly sweet and loving and grateful. She made herself dizzy when she got excited over my job though..hah. Anyways, I'm trying to breathe and stay centered so that I can be of the most use to her and my Dad.

I miss all of you bunches. Emily, I have no idea how your life is going! Write, friend, write! And everyone else too! It's so bizarre that we're not all going to be living at Earlham/ Richmond. I miss knowing about everyone's daily lives.
love you all

It is Not a Good Idea To Talk About Sensitive Religious Issues in the Breakroom Where the Serbian Roman Catholic ex-Milita Member Can Hear You

It all started because we were talking about a NYT op-ed which suggests, in so many words, that Obama's nomination of Francis Collins for NIH director was irresponsible and maybe a little too bipartisan.

I'm not going to lie. I don't like it. Sure, he's one of the founding members of the Human Genome Project and yes, he's obviously a fine manager of both people and money having served as the head of NHRGI but...he's also an evangelical Christian well documented for his belief in theistic evolution; not quite as absurd and insulting as intelligent design and creationism, but close. Obviously I'm not as tolerant about religion as I'd like, but this smells like Rick Warren opening the Obama-inaguaration except instead of pandering to the religious right over something as, relatively speaking in terms of substantive action, an inauguration, he's putting a conservative Christian in charge of the 28 billion dollar operating budget of the NIH, basically all the non-industry funding for every branch of biomedical sciences in the United States.

Anyway, one thing lead to another and we found ourselves having a good old time bashing bible thumping religious wackos with the same old, same old arguments about the complete insanity of taking the Bible that seriously.

"Have you read Relevations?! What do you mean take this shit seriously?"

"If Evangelicals can choose to ignore the Old Testament, then I'm skipping the part about sodomy. Peace out you homophobes!"

"I don't mind religion, I just don't want a bunch of crazies who think we should murder women on their periods because some Old Testament prophet said to running public policy."

"Religion and land are the most common causes of violent conflict in the world today."

"Um, have you seen Jesus camp?"

"George Tiller was just fucking murdered in a church for performing legal late-term abortions"

"The Holocaust. Point."


I enjoy judgmental as much as the next graduate of a liberal arts university, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but where is this so-called line between religion and science and government anyway? When I put aside my own ignorance, I can see why Obama did what he did. He ran on a platform of bipartisanship which I guess can mean either getting along with moderate Republicans on the "other side of the aisle" or actually trying to apease the hugely influential population of conservative Christians in this country. I see this, I do. But on the other hand, I wouldn't believe for one tenth of a second that Collins' views on the Bible didn't play into his nomination. Should one's belief that God created the Earth be a credential for directing the Nation's agency for health related research?

Discuss.

Oh Miriam, see this is why this blog was a great idea: so we can share the stuff that matters while also being sure to share the other stuff like how this computer I'm on used to belong to Fred Flinstone and how I'm keeping it powered by beaming positive energy waves toward it while spinning a foot wheel. Ok so that's a bit of an exageration. But yeah. It's old.
First off my news: I had my first Americorps job interview today- it's a job near Olympia, Washington that's kinda affliated with the Nature Conservancy. The basic job description: working in a native plant nursery growing thousands of lovely little native plants. I also would get to spend some time in the field collecting seeds, bossing around volunteers and students and planting the cute little plants that grow in the greenhouse. My would-be boss says "um" a lot and grew up in a hippie commune kinda thing. He has a Quaker friend who grows her own wheat and is married to a potter who sells his ceramics for bison meat. Hmmmm. I think the interview went well. It sounds like a cool job- a blend of horticulture, nursery stuff with ecology. Plus a lot of organizational computer stuff. We'll see- I should hear by this time next week. I've applied a bunch of other places too and should be getting interviews with them sometime soon as well.

In terms of the kinds of things Miriam was talking about, you know- pondering those big life questions, I've been doing a lot of that while here. Many of the people in the program don't want a "traditional" life. They don't want to settle down and live in a house with a spouse and kids and a dog. It's actually kinda funny because somehow the few straight women in the group (by chance) ended up going out for dessert together and exclaiming about the rest of the group's resistance to settling down. I know I want to get married, I know I want a labrador to two. I know I want a house. And I'm almost 100% sure I want kids. I don't know... I have just really come to the conclusion that I need to have roots. I need to have a community that supports me and that I feel a part of. I also really think that it doesn't have to be this boring, conservative thing to start a family- it can actually be quite radical in that you are helping to bring progressive, open, little people into the world.

I mean, I think part of the difference between myself and some of these people is that I'm not led to be a social activist. I'm just not. I'm not a people person. I have my core group of people that I love dearly, but my cause is not the social justice cause. I'm not going to devote my life to helping the homeless. I had to really struggle with this- thinking that somehow I was "copping out" (is that how you spell it?) and not doing the right thing; being selfish. But that's just not the case. We all have our own interests, our own passions and as a result we all can take different paths toward "saving the world". I'll be working to make sure that the planet is ok (or at least one small square of it) while they'll be taking care of one species. OK that's harsh. But in all honesty, I'm really trying to be at peace with this decision of mine to take the ecology/horticulture/biology route instead of the one that I feel like I "should" take as a liberal, compassionate, responsible Quaker citizen. So yeah- that's one of my struggles at the moment.

The YALD program here ends on August 1st and I'll be driving home on the 2nd. It's going to be so strange to leave this place. It's such a bubble here and I've felt blessed to spend my summer in such a beautiful place- beautiful in many ways beyond the asethetic beauty of being a gorgeous campus. I'm going to keep in touch with people from the program so that I have people to hold me accountable, to be sure that I continue to work on wrestling with the big questions, with my spiritual questions, life, development, etc. But also, we've become a really loving, supporting community and I'm going to miss having such a warm, safe space that I can really relax into and be vulnerable. Oh boy, vulnerability. Not my strong suit.

Anyways, I miss you all so much. They make fresh bread a lot here and every time I eat it I think of all the times we made bread together and downed a loaf in one evening.

I'm off to glazing my pottery that came out of the kiln yesterday!

love you

Dear Workday, Please End

I swear to God, this has been the least productive day of my life. Well, except for all of middle school and every Saturday in college and I guess yesterday kind of and...YOU GET THE POINT.
What I mean to say is that it really sucks to not be able to do your experiments because you can't get your hands on the mice which is really to say that I wish I could again be spending my days k**lling mice which might in some contexts for some people be worrisome. But not me! Nope, Capt. desensitization, here.

Anyway, I wanted to share just about the juiciest tidbit of gossip to come through my ears in pretty much my entire life. Okay, it's not about Earlham which makes it less juicy but it still provides a perfectly good excuse to write on this blog which will hopefully make the next 35 minutes pass a little faster than they are currently.

Okay here goes:
A girl I used to row with (let's call her Kathy) IS DATING OUR CREW COACH. Let's discuss. She's 22, she met him when she was 15. When he was 30. Now he is close to 40.
EWWWWW GROSSSS.

I mean, right? I told my boss and she was unmoved. She commented that at least he waited until she graduated from college. Some people just do not recognize scandal when they see it.

This is Why All Twenty-Somethings Are Binge Drinkers

Sorry I've been missing in action these past few days. Did you know that I have no access to the Internet in my apartment? It is extremely tragic and going cold turkey off my gmail was like suddenly being denied access to cable television, espresso and high fructose corn syrup all in the same day. Of course I make up for lost time at work, especially on days when I can't do my experiments because a reagent is being held up somewhere between here and Sweden.

This living on my own business makes me feel simultaneously extremely old and extremely young. (Introduction fin).
Maybe I didn't mention this? My cousin and her family moved here at the end of June so her husband (my cousin-in-law, I guess) could take a position in the department of pathology here at WashU. Even though we're in the same department I don't see too much of him, though he's an attending and I'm a technician which could explain the lack of contact. Anyway, they have two young kids. D. is 5 and W. is 4 and they are just about as sweet, smart and sociable as kids (especially toddlers) come. I've seen a lot of the family, obviously, and although I love playing soccer with D. and Candyland* with W., I can't really imagine having a life that centers around children because, and this is seriously shocking given, as Jessica likes to report, I once coveted a family big enough to field an ultimate Frisbee team, I don't think I really like them.
I don't know why, but for some reason it suddenly feels like my life is on fast forward (or maybe a more 21st century simile would be the 2X button on the unduly and completely unnecessarily complicated DVD remote). Every time I meet a new person, I analyze them for "family elements." For example, if they are married, I wonder what their married life is like. Do they get tired of each other? Is their sex life dull? Do they have independent friends and interests? Do they even like independence? If they happen to be single, I wonder what our kids would look like. SERIOUSLY.
To be honest, I am a little bit freaked out by these thoughts of domesticity and I find them weirdly claustrophobic. Hence, why I now feel so old. And it's not just the children thing, either. Just the idea, in general, that in the post-college life, I don't want to be alone forever. But then I remember that I'm 21 and that my parents met when they were 34 which is more than 50% of the years in the future that I've already lived. Barely, but statistically significant, in the grand scheme of things.
It was a beautiful dawn this morning and I sat out at Starbucks watching the sun come up and psychoanalyzing myself. My conclusion is as follows: I've been really lucky in my life to have always been surrounded by a really strong group of friends. Even though I wasn't always super thrilled with the dynamics of my friend group in high school, there were so many of us. You were never alone; you couldn't be alone. It was impossible. If I wasn't at school, I was on AIM. If I wasn't on AIM, I lived in the exact center of a mile radius that included six girls I had known and been close with since the first grade. If it was the weekend, I was on a crew bus driving for nine hours to bumblefuck PA to race with a boat that was 75% my closest friends; not especially surprising given that we all chose to take up this time consuming sport as a group endeavor. Then, enter the cell phone. See what I mean? Then I came to college and pretty much found all the friendship and love and companionship anyone could want within a year. It probably didn't help that a few of my good friends became my lovers thus psychologically blurring the line between friend and girlfriend. This is going on ad infinitum, but the point is that for maybe the first time in my life, I'm not consumed in a big group of friends and therefore want a different kind of relationship. I don't know. I'm considering this a form of personal growth.

I didn't mean for this to come out sounding so melancholy because I'm in a really good mood today. I found hazelnut chocolates at the bookstore downstairs, I bought orchestra tickets this morning, Charlie has a puppy play date this afternoon and I'm in the middle of a fantastic book. I guess it's just been on my mind.

As usual and forever, I miss you all terribly.

Also, did you see this article about how short legged dogs are totally freaks of nature?

*I thought I remembered Candyland being fun, but it is seriously the most tedious board game in existence. Far worse than Monopoly.

come on people!

ALSO. I am campaigning that you all write posts more often because I want to hear about your lives.

So guys since I always feel the need to update my life plan on a monthly basis I thought I'd be sure to keep you up to date: the current plan is to attend grad school in horticulture- doing a combo of organic, sustainable agriculture and ecology. Where you may ask? Oh well, Cornell of course. http://hort.cals.cornell.edu/
When? Oh maybe next year?
Why? Because ecology is cool. Organic farming/gardening is cool. Science is cool. and Food is cool.
the end.

p.s. I love you all.

my backup plan? going to live with a wild herd of labradors. I won't discriminate on coat color- yellow, black and chocolate labs will all be accepted.

Gardening and Ceramics oh my!

Friendies! (and not capital Friends.. how unusual for me these days!). I'm sitting on the back porch of the building that houses the art studio and library plus a lot of staff apartments. Pendle Hill is just insanely gorgeous, let me tell you. The campus is an arboretum and there are flowers galore. There's also a really fantastic vegetable garden. They keep us super busy here- classes, meetings, Meeting, working at our volunteer service sites, etc. Overall it's been a really wonderful summer so far- very, very challenging in many ways growthful.

I've started to realize how intense my tunnel vision was coming out of school- I was hunkered down, nose to the grindstone and kinda expected that my life would follow a neat little track of rather tough, miserable grindstones. But damn the blinders came off and life is pretty bright these days. I've fallen in love with throwing pottery on the wheel- it's immensely satistfying even though it's quite difficult. I've also really been enjoying the menial tasks that I've been doing- dishes, pulling weeds, tilling the garden, various outdoors chores. It's been pretty suprising actually. I have major ADD though about life right now- oooohhh I could do pottery ooooh I want to grow food and learn about permaculture ooooh I want to do marine biology oooohh I want to garden oooohhh I want to be at home. So I'm working on centering down and reminding myself that I need to pick one or two passions to follow and I can work in the rest as my life chugs along.

Pendle Hill is a really interesting place- it's an intentional community and has a rather eclectic group of people that live, work or visit here. Our group in particular is only about half quaker- we have some catholics, and some other motley religions (kidding). Everyone helps out with chores, we all eat our meals together (YUM the food is fantastic- all organic, local and veggie), and everyone is impossibly nice and gracious. It's just so refreshing to be able to be myself and not worry about how I dress or acting in a particular way to please certain people. It's also incredibly nice to have direct, honest communication and space to process issues and thoughts that arise through living in close community. I thought it was going to be a hippie commune but it's really not- it's a well-oiled, Quaker, beautiful, loving machine of a community and retreat/study center.

So yeah- I have to go write up a lesson that I'm teaching with one of my program buddies at our service site tomorrow. Last week it was on soil structure and the nitrogen cycle and this week...wetlands! The environmental education center we're working at is grossly mismanaged and many of the teachers are fairly unprepared to teach science of any sort, let alone ecological or environmental topics. SO- Liv and I are doing our best to help them however we can.

I miss you guys bunches and I'm sorry to be fairly out of reach/contact- not only am I super super busy but I am spending a lot of time processing, doing pottery and having random philosophical discussions with other program members. Oh and sleeping. That too.
love you all and hope you're all doing fabulously.

Charlie Update

Perhaps you all have been aching to find out how Charlie is doing and what sort of wonderfully not-inconvenient things you've been missing. Well, let me update you. In the past two weeks Chuckles has successfully destroyed the following:

1.) My grandfather's first edition of Franny and Zooey
2.) The insulation underneath the carpet
3.) The carpet (wall-to-wall)
4.) My futon
5.) 6 weeks worth of recycling including steel cans

Here are some photos of him recently so we can, as it were, take a trip through time and reminisce on the long transition from fun comps procrastinatory tool to puppy destructo, this time, for reals.


I came home one day and found Charlie just chilling out in the bathtub, lapping up the Softsoap bubbles left there from my morning shower. No big deal, whatever.

also, can we move the banner with the quote? it's a little creepy how it's over everyone's faces!

Acids Feel Strange When You Drop Them On Your Feet

Isn't it sort of cool to have this? Jess and I were recently noting how our conversations tend toward a popcorn aesthetic so this is kind of perfect for that. Right?! RIGHT?!

Um, the lab is getting way less scary which is good. I mean, at first I was super freaked out that every time I diluted SDS in PBS the lab was going to explode, but I'm getting over it. I can even use the big honking centrifuges (the ones that spin Nalgene bottles at 40,000 RPM) without having to weigh everything to the .00000001 grams first. It's great!

So, yeah, the lab is okay. I work with a bunch of people I like a lot. I've got two projects going right now. One is trying to isolate and purify glomeruli and then figuring out what immune cells are hanging out in them, both in general and then after we give the mice nephrotoxic serum (it's supposed to be a model for diabetic nephropathy but eh). Anyway, it's going okay. I'm trying a couple of different things right now and naturally, none of them are working. My other project is cloning a cell line which goes like this:

1. Digest DNA
2. Run gel to see if digestion worked. If yes, move on to 3. If no, repeat.
3. Repeat 487,986,346,345,875 times
4. Ligate
5. Isolate DNA
6. Run gel to see if ligation worked
7. Repeat 1,342,672,345 times
8. Grow up small cultures
9. Wait
10. Grow up big cultures
11. Repeat

Then you transfect a cell line (which doesn't ever work, or works with like, 1% efficiency) and then you do the same thing over and over again until (a) you can perform an experiment and get a paper or (b) you quit science and get a degree in policy.

Also, St. Louis is full of catholics. It's the most catholic city in America. I went to the bar the other night and had a long, involved conversation about if the Vatican endorses exorcisms (yes).
Also, Panera is not Panera. It's the St. Louis bread company but, Katie in case you were worried, the asiago bread is still good.

Well, I guess I should get back to this "work" of which you speak. Did you know that, like, they expect you to keep up with the current literature? What is this, an Amy Mul class?!

Mimsy is the smartest!

This is a really good idea! I hate doing generic email updates to multiple people, but I'm bad at keeping up with everyone otherwise. This makes so much sense.

So, lets see. I'm really enjoying Austin so far, but it is really far too hot. It's been hovering around 105 with full sun and 80% humidity for the past month, which I just do not appreciate. My office is really cold, though, so I have to be ready for both extremes each day.

My coworkers all seem really cool, but it is strange to be around so many marine geophysicists, they have almost no interest in rocks, only the forces that act upon them in the oceanic crust. The whole grad student life is all right, I have a computer and a blow up mattress on the floor, but I can't afford much else to furnish my apartment. I'm moving to my own apartment in mid August, which I'm thankful for. Right now, I live right by Frat Row, and even though it's summer, there is never a lack of drunk frat kids stumbling around the neighborhood, being annoying.

For the 4th of July, I went to a BBQ at another grad student's house, had fun and made some new friends when we bonded over geology, checking out this cute guy, and setting off illegal fireworks. I've been on a couple dates, the first was pretty bad, and the second guy was much more interesting. I'm going kayaking with him later today, we'll see what happens.

I should get back to work, but I love you guys!!!