i've been listening to a new podcast that makes my commute to satellite campus feel remarkably short. i love the production on this show. the sound collage, the piecing together of words. the rhythm keeps me engaged, rather than drifting off into thought.
radiolab, from WNYC and NPR
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
23.9.10
21.9.10
protection
having just read this book, having just listened to the most recent episode of this very favourite podcast, a story from the author Joyce Maynard. the theme of love for and protection of children, the jumble between the two.
photo taken earlier this year in a late-afternoon playground.
20.9.10
end of summer
this weekend i ate the last of the strawberries i'd frozen for winter. they never last long.
at least there is still jam.
14.11.09
ow my most of me
so, earlier this summer i started rock climbing. this is not an activity that i would normally list on the "top 50 things to do in my life" roster, but one of my roommates was looking for a new climbing partner and she managed to convince me that there's nothing like the jolt of adrenaline when you fall off the wall 30 feet in the air (safely secured in your harness of course) to take your mind off things.
i comment on this now because i returned to the climbing gym on thursday after a 2 month hiatus. and man, i am aggressively reminded that this hanging on to tiny little protrusions from a tall vertical surface? this stuff takes muscles that i've never used before in my life. and being a dancer, i feel i can claim use of most of the muscles in my body.
allow me to borrow an image off the internet to elaborate.
(thank you http://www.andrewdiec.com/Anatomy/)
mmmmm finger pain.
but seriously, i do enjoy this climbing stuff. it has provided a situation in which i am repeatedly reminded of the fact that i can fail. and i do fail so often, in the sense of missing a hold and falling off the wall into my harness, that failing becomes not so frightening, not so alarming, not so bothersome. it's just inherent to the activity.
similarly, it's helped me get used to taking risks, since i know that my kind friendly climbing partner is sitting at the bottom of the course keeping my belay rope tight, watching to see whether i've had too much and need to be let down. attempting to propel my body weight up and to the right at a 45 degree angle in order to get the tips of my fingers around a shard of plastic becomes less scary. the outcomes are known. i will get it, or i will have to try again.
it's nice to remember this feeling back on the ground, when faced with more abstract decisions.
i comment on this now because i returned to the climbing gym on thursday after a 2 month hiatus. and man, i am aggressively reminded that this hanging on to tiny little protrusions from a tall vertical surface? this stuff takes muscles that i've never used before in my life. and being a dancer, i feel i can claim use of most of the muscles in my body.
allow me to borrow an image off the internet to elaborate.
(thank you http://www.andrewdiec.com/Anatomy/)
mmmmm finger pain.
but seriously, i do enjoy this climbing stuff. it has provided a situation in which i am repeatedly reminded of the fact that i can fail. and i do fail so often, in the sense of missing a hold and falling off the wall into my harness, that failing becomes not so frightening, not so alarming, not so bothersome. it's just inherent to the activity.
similarly, it's helped me get used to taking risks, since i know that my kind friendly climbing partner is sitting at the bottom of the course keeping my belay rope tight, watching to see whether i've had too much and need to be let down. attempting to propel my body weight up and to the right at a 45 degree angle in order to get the tips of my fingers around a shard of plastic becomes less scary. the outcomes are known. i will get it, or i will have to try again.
it's nice to remember this feeling back on the ground, when faced with more abstract decisions.
10.11.09
two windows
wow. it's been a while.
life since i last wrote is pretty much equivalent. still in grad school, though now a year closer to getting that Ph.D. and very much more looking forward to it. still in the same apartment.
here is the view from my dining room table, where i sit and check my email before going into the lab. the email checking has been somewhat prolonged today, mainly because it is so nice and quiet and serene looking out at the rusty golden leaves. the coffee here doesn't hurt either.
miss you all and think of you often.
life since i last wrote is pretty much equivalent. still in grad school, though now a year closer to getting that Ph.D. and very much more looking forward to it. still in the same apartment.
here is the view from my dining room table, where i sit and check my email before going into the lab. the email checking has been somewhat prolonged today, mainly because it is so nice and quiet and serene looking out at the rusty golden leaves. the coffee here doesn't hurt either.
miss you all and think of you often.
23.11.08
service of magnets
i'm sitting working on my laptop in the kitchen, and i realized that when 3 grad students share an apartment, there is a shift in priorities of what to display on the refrigerator door. to wit:
- print out from farmer's market with recipes using sweet potatoes
- clipped column from the Globe with a response letter from roommate's boyfriend
- discount card from Canadian Tire
- business card from neighbourhood coffee place
- list of cooking times for grains and legumes
- postcard from Guinness brewery
- handwoven doll magnet from Guatemala
- poem written during recent game of Cranium
- publicity magnets from 2 scientific societies
- whiteboard with list of communal groceries needed
- pictures of 1 roommate's brain scanned by other roommate for pilot study
- print out from farmer's market with recipes using sweet potatoes
- clipped column from the Globe with a response letter from roommate's boyfriend
- discount card from Canadian Tire
- business card from neighbourhood coffee place
- list of cooking times for grains and legumes
- postcard from Guinness brewery
- handwoven doll magnet from Guatemala
- poem written during recent game of Cranium
- publicity magnets from 2 scientific societies
- whiteboard with list of communal groceries needed
- pictures of 1 roommate's brain scanned by other roommate for pilot study
12.11.08
studs
discovered a generous online archive of studs terkel today:
Conversations with America
i think i now understand what it means to be interviewed.
Conversations with America
i think i now understand what it means to be interviewed.
4.11.08
22.10.08
endurance babysitting
this weekend i got an email from my supervisor asking me if i could spend tonight at her house, hanging out with her two daughters while she and her husband went to a show. i'm all about babysitting. i can tell stories about princesses and oversized vegetables. i can feed 1-year old twins lunch while keeping a 4-year old entertained with a pipe cleaner. since i am not yet a mom, and don't plan on being one for some time yet, babysitting reminds me of the lengths that any person or creature would go to in order to make their offspring smile, giggle, be warm, be safe, and fall asleep soundly.
that is: the lengths which include standing, holding, and rocking a 16-month old for about two hours. my arms are so tired that i can hardly type, and i can't begin to imagine how tired they would be if i was doing this every single day, but the fact is that in the moment, swaying that little curly-haired girl back and forth while lightly bouncing around the house on my tiptoes was keeping her happy and magically enabling her to fall asleep against my shoulder. and in the moment, that was all that really mattered.
unfortunately, 5-year old sister thought this was pretty boring. but that's a lesson of parenting i'm not prepared to tackle this evening.
that is: the lengths which include standing, holding, and rocking a 16-month old for about two hours. my arms are so tired that i can hardly type, and i can't begin to imagine how tired they would be if i was doing this every single day, but the fact is that in the moment, swaying that little curly-haired girl back and forth while lightly bouncing around the house on my tiptoes was keeping her happy and magically enabling her to fall asleep against my shoulder. and in the moment, that was all that really mattered.
unfortunately, 5-year old sister thought this was pretty boring. but that's a lesson of parenting i'm not prepared to tackle this evening.
14.10.08
my thanksgiving
after spending a lot of september with friends, and taking a trip home to ottawa last week, i opted for a quiet weekend with some work and some media consumption. thought about making something thanksgiving-ey for dinner today, but the water supply to our kitchen tap abruptly cut out last night while i was doing my dishes. random dysfunction of kitchen appliances/utilities seems to have become a holiday tradition, as i remember the power going down on our section of the street last year just as i wanted to prepare my smoked turkey and wild rice with cranberries.
by consequence, i am thankful for my favourite thai delivery place.
this weekend i saw this company perform, read this book, and watched the final season of this show.
by consequence, i am thankful for my favourite thai delivery place.
this weekend i saw this company perform, read this book, and watched the final season of this show.
6.10.08
the oldest ones
very thankful that two weddings created an excuse to reunite with the 6 non-family people who have known me the longest. the past month has been a happy reminder of why i became friends with them all in the first place, and how well each of us are doing at finding our ways.
this photo was taken about 6 years ago:
and here are the other two of us, just last week:
love you all.
this photo was taken about 6 years ago:
and here are the other two of us, just last week:
love you all.
4.6.08
28.4.08
doc decadence
for the past week, my favourite of the many many toronto film festivals has been going on. hotdocs - all documentaries for 10 full days. luckily, the festival coincided with me being finished courses and having a flexible pre-summer-experiment schedule, and i managed to make it to 13 screenings. it was hard not to keep going, when every show before 6:00 pm is free for students, and when you show up for evening screenings and nice people happen to offer you their extra industry tickets out of the kindness of their movie-loving hearts.
2.4.08
neuron-gazing
oops, there went two months.
...
it's been a bit of a course work frenzy, all stats assignments and reaction papers and readings and seminars. but i will be finished all (save 1/2 a credit) of my PhD course requirements in exactly one week! this is undeniably exciting, as it means i can go back to doing actual research on a full time basis. which is, you know, what grad students are supposed to do.
i guess there are a few exciting things that have happened since february 4th. i found a new apartment into which i will be moving with 2 grad student friends at the beginning of may. it is the most beautiful apartment i have ever seen in toronto, almost as beautiful as some of the apartments i've seen in montreal. very cute old little walk-up, well-kept, new track lighting on ceilings, little glass-doored cabinets in pantry area between dining room and kitchen, front balcony, wood-burning fireplace. i could go on. counting down the days til move-in, as i sit here listening to the house mouse scurry around in the ceiling over my desk.
second excitement is that an undergrad student from my neuroanatomy lab in the fall has secured herself some funding to come and do research with me this summer. reasons for my excitement include: (1) my first experiences with research took place around the same time of my undergrad under the guidance of some very enthusiastic and fun grad students, and i am looking forward to picking up the supervisory torch, (2) one of my favourite parts of doing scientific research is sharing the process with other students, and hopefully getting them excited about spending hours in front of a microscope, and (3) i was not in a position to supervise undergrad students in my previous lab, since the departments with which i was affiliated didn't offer any undergrad programs. and i guess, admittedly, (4) it will be nice to have someone around to help out with all the menial day-to-day tasks that comprise the types of experiments that i do. i am interested to see how i evolve as a teacher and mentor in my first *official* supervisory role. will update on this as it happens.
for now, i will go back to writing the first of two term papers, while occasionally glancing out the window at the for-now-still bare trees behind the houses across the street. since i started studying neuronal morphology in earnest (think back to that trip to india), i can't look at bare branches without automatically tracing them out in my mind like this:
...
it's been a bit of a course work frenzy, all stats assignments and reaction papers and readings and seminars. but i will be finished all (save 1/2 a credit) of my PhD course requirements in exactly one week! this is undeniably exciting, as it means i can go back to doing actual research on a full time basis. which is, you know, what grad students are supposed to do.
i guess there are a few exciting things that have happened since february 4th. i found a new apartment into which i will be moving with 2 grad student friends at the beginning of may. it is the most beautiful apartment i have ever seen in toronto, almost as beautiful as some of the apartments i've seen in montreal. very cute old little walk-up, well-kept, new track lighting on ceilings, little glass-doored cabinets in pantry area between dining room and kitchen, front balcony, wood-burning fireplace. i could go on. counting down the days til move-in, as i sit here listening to the house mouse scurry around in the ceiling over my desk.
second excitement is that an undergrad student from my neuroanatomy lab in the fall has secured herself some funding to come and do research with me this summer. reasons for my excitement include: (1) my first experiences with research took place around the same time of my undergrad under the guidance of some very enthusiastic and fun grad students, and i am looking forward to picking up the supervisory torch, (2) one of my favourite parts of doing scientific research is sharing the process with other students, and hopefully getting them excited about spending hours in front of a microscope, and (3) i was not in a position to supervise undergrad students in my previous lab, since the departments with which i was affiliated didn't offer any undergrad programs. and i guess, admittedly, (4) it will be nice to have someone around to help out with all the menial day-to-day tasks that comprise the types of experiments that i do. i am interested to see how i evolve as a teacher and mentor in my first *official* supervisory role. will update on this as it happens.
for now, i will go back to writing the first of two term papers, while occasionally glancing out the window at the for-now-still bare trees behind the houses across the street. since i started studying neuronal morphology in earnest (think back to that trip to india), i can't look at bare branches without automatically tracing them out in my mind like this:
29.1.08
and a yummy new sweater.
every time i've moved to a new city, i am reminded of how difficult it can be to make new friends. friends of the sort that you'll want to keep around forever.
i had a lunch date today with two of my fellow psych grad students, both of whom i had a class with last semester. then i ended up in one of those afternoons where you wander around and window-shop and chat, and forget to even think of looking at your watch, and all of a sudden it's past dinner time. oops! seems i have managed to find a few more precious and wonderful like-minded lady friends.
i had a lunch date today with two of my fellow psych grad students, both of whom i had a class with last semester. then i ended up in one of those afternoons where you wander around and window-shop and chat, and forget to even think of looking at your watch, and all of a sudden it's past dinner time. oops! seems i have managed to find a few more precious and wonderful like-minded lady friends.
22.1.08
fresh life
basking in the glow of that 100th post was so delightful that i had to keep on doing it for 5 months. i mean, the Roundness of that number is supremely satisfying. now i will have to quickly work my way up to 200. or 1000.
so... for any loyal family members who still have an honorary slot for me on their blogroll, i am back. i'm no longer in vancouver, but rather sitting in one of my favourite toronto starbucks, in the most hidden corner, watching the snow pound down on the roof of the U of T bookstore. i don't come to this starbucks very much anymore, now that i'm working out of a lab at the scarborough campus. i was thinking earlier this afternoon that i've been coming to this starbucks for almost 4 years. i remember writing the manuscript containing my honours thesis data here in the fall of 2004, sitting across from my (now ex-) boyfriend [ed. note: that paper was subsequently published in april 2006]. i have read textbooks and journal articles here for 4 different courses. i've had coffee with at least 8 of my friends and colleagues. i've had a few moments of inspiration, each of which spurred a jog back down the street to my former lab. i wrote several sections of my Master's thesis here. i attempted to put together the first and second incarnations of a manuscript describing my Master's data here. neither of those were completed, but the third version of this paper was recently submitted [and, unfortunately, rejected on the first round]. i think that i've actually sat at each and every table here, at various points in time.
it's kind of too bad that i've done all of these things in this starbucks and not in an independently owned establishment. i've recently started frequenting a Much Cooler, Independent, Fair-Trade Serving Coffee Place in a different neighbourhood. they serve you coffee at your table, bring you glasses of water without your having to ask, and have shelves full of books lining the walls instead of vaguely ugly wallpaper sent from corporate offices in the states. i like the new coffee place a lot. in fact, i would say that it is my new toronto-location crush. i feel that i shouldn't go there too often, for fear that we might tire of each other early in the relationship. i'm restricting myself to one afternoon a week. perhaps in another four years i'll write a similar post and talk about the inspirations i had and papers i finished while sitting at the little table in the back with the wobbly chair. i'm looking forward to getting to know Much Cooler Coffee Place over the course of my PhD.
yes, i'm well into my PhD in my new lab with my new supervisor in the new department. it has made me so happy to return to a more traditional academic environment, in which all of the grad students regularly convene at seminars and colloquia. i've TA'd for the first time in 3 years, and managed to inspire a couple of undergrads to apply to come and work with me on my science. i took a course about food. i danced in a show. i love my new PhD life here, but appreciate the old Master's one now that it's over.
so... for any loyal family members who still have an honorary slot for me on their blogroll, i am back. i'm no longer in vancouver, but rather sitting in one of my favourite toronto starbucks, in the most hidden corner, watching the snow pound down on the roof of the U of T bookstore. i don't come to this starbucks very much anymore, now that i'm working out of a lab at the scarborough campus. i was thinking earlier this afternoon that i've been coming to this starbucks for almost 4 years. i remember writing the manuscript containing my honours thesis data here in the fall of 2004, sitting across from my (now ex-) boyfriend [ed. note: that paper was subsequently published in april 2006]. i have read textbooks and journal articles here for 4 different courses. i've had coffee with at least 8 of my friends and colleagues. i've had a few moments of inspiration, each of which spurred a jog back down the street to my former lab. i wrote several sections of my Master's thesis here. i attempted to put together the first and second incarnations of a manuscript describing my Master's data here. neither of those were completed, but the third version of this paper was recently submitted [and, unfortunately, rejected on the first round]. i think that i've actually sat at each and every table here, at various points in time.
it's kind of too bad that i've done all of these things in this starbucks and not in an independently owned establishment. i've recently started frequenting a Much Cooler, Independent, Fair-Trade Serving Coffee Place in a different neighbourhood. they serve you coffee at your table, bring you glasses of water without your having to ask, and have shelves full of books lining the walls instead of vaguely ugly wallpaper sent from corporate offices in the states. i like the new coffee place a lot. in fact, i would say that it is my new toronto-location crush. i feel that i shouldn't go there too often, for fear that we might tire of each other early in the relationship. i'm restricting myself to one afternoon a week. perhaps in another four years i'll write a similar post and talk about the inspirations i had and papers i finished while sitting at the little table in the back with the wobbly chair. i'm looking forward to getting to know Much Cooler Coffee Place over the course of my PhD.
yes, i'm well into my PhD in my new lab with my new supervisor in the new department. it has made me so happy to return to a more traditional academic environment, in which all of the grad students regularly convene at seminars and colloquia. i've TA'd for the first time in 3 years, and managed to inspire a couple of undergrads to apply to come and work with me on my science. i took a course about food. i danced in a show. i love my new PhD life here, but appreciate the old Master's one now that it's over.
8.8.07
18.7.07
into week 3
can't believe i've been here for three weeks already. after a very slow first weekend spent lounging on the beach, life got busy again and sped past. i've also started to get a feel for the city, so am enjoying getting out exploring when i'm not at work. this past week i managed to get to a couple of dance shows at the Dancing on the Edge festival. both were thought-provoking and beautiful, but for very different reasons. i plan on writing about them, but am feeling a little drained of words after working on a paper for the past 36 hours.
this week i am excited to meet up with a very treasured old friend who was a coordinator at the summer program i attended the last time i was in vancouver for an extended period of time (summer '99). he is now a professor at the university of windsor back in ontario, but in a lucky twist is here coordinating the same summer program at UBC right now! we are meeting at my favourite lunch spot on campus tomorrow. i can't wait to see him.
hoping to get that paper off to collaborators to read by friday, so that i don't have to bring my laptop while i'm away this weekend in tofino. somehow i was lucky enough to be here at the same time that a good friend had a trip planned with her girlfriends, so i will be heading to the pacific side of vancouver island with them. unfortunately, it looks like it's supposed to rain from now through monday. hoping they're wrong on that prediction.
this week i am excited to meet up with a very treasured old friend who was a coordinator at the summer program i attended the last time i was in vancouver for an extended period of time (summer '99). he is now a professor at the university of windsor back in ontario, but in a lucky twist is here coordinating the same summer program at UBC right now! we are meeting at my favourite lunch spot on campus tomorrow. i can't wait to see him.
hoping to get that paper off to collaborators to read by friday, so that i don't have to bring my laptop while i'm away this weekend in tofino. somehow i was lucky enough to be here at the same time that a good friend had a trip planned with her girlfriends, so i will be heading to the pacific side of vancouver island with them. unfortunately, it looks like it's supposed to rain from now through monday. hoping they're wrong on that prediction.
10.7.07
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