Karaoke...?!?....Suuuuuuuuure....

I've been against karaoke basically my entire life. I don't consider myself a good singer, and rarely if ever sing around other people. The one time I sang karaoke was at my high school after-graduation party, and it wasn't exactly my best performance ever.

However, last Saturday was a friend's birthday and she wanted to go to karaoke. So I gave in since it was her celebration and not mine. The karaoke place in town gives each group their own room, so you aren't singing in front of strangers. At first I was a little hesitant, but everyone was basically singing along with the people who had the mikes so I joined in as well. I even sang 2 songs with the mike, because they were songs I knew really well and most other people didn't know them! So I'm patting myself on the back for getting over my dislike of karaoke and having a good time. I'm actually a little excited about going again! Guess that goes to show that you should give things you don't like at least two chances.

Wow, I never thought that would happen to ME!

So I just experienced one of life's little ironies for the first time: I started being healthier and gained weight. I now weigh 10lb more than I ever have before; yes, 10lb is not that much, but it's a start to something I don't want to continue.

It's ironic because it coincides with the academic year where I've been trying to cut out corn syrup (especially high-fructose corn syrup) by not buying foods with it in the ingredients, eat more organic and natural foods, eat fewer unhealthy snacks (replaced with fruit), and actually exercise. In fact, since January I have been exercising exponentially more than I have since coming to grad school.

Of course despite my good intentions there were weeks where we were just so busy that there was no time to cook dinner and instead we ate out or ate processed food (although we did try to buy processed food that was less bad than most processed food). I was also so stressed out for a month or so that I probably ate when I wasn't hungry. But these types of events have been occurring since I started undergrad so they can't by themselves explain the sudden weight gain.

The good thing is that the weight is not particularly noticeable to anyone else (in fact, someone asked me about a month ago if I had lost weight). This gives me hope that at least some of it is muscle mass from my increased exercise (softball, volleyball, tennis). But although it annoys me, it amuses me as well since I always hear women complain about gaining weight despite their good eating or exercising habits (and sometimes both), and I could never relate....until now!

I guess this summer will be a good one to test my theories on healthier living occurring during the summer instead of the school year for graduate students.

The Legacy of the Block of Wood in my Car Door

"I'm sure someone my landlady knows has a table saw..."

Or at least something similar to the above statement is how the "fixing the car window" adventure of last summer began. The breaking of the car window occurred earlier that afternoon, when my officemate put down the rear right window on our way to lunch. As usual, the window hadn't worked well for a few months and I had put tape over the window switch to keep passengers from putting it down. By "hadn't worked well" I mean that you could put it down, but it would take at least a day or two until the motor would agree that the window should be allowed to go back up.

Of course it was entirely my fault that it happened: I didn't warn her not to put the window down, and when the problem had last happened I hadn't unplugged the switch from the window so that no amount of pushing the button would make it go down.

On the way back from lunch we stopped at 2 gas stations to get some WD-40 to try to lubricate the motor (the first gas station had NOTHING useful, and the second one only had a "WD-40 pen"). Richland apparently doesn't believe in these sorts of products.

We then worked on the window in our building's parking lot. I'm sure multiple people looked out their windows at some point and wondered what the heck we were doing taking a car door apart, but no one bothered us (hmm... is it a problem that no one cared about suspicious/odd behavior in the middle of a government lab's land?). We tried again later at my officemate's house.

Unfortunately, our efforts failed completely. Not to be out-smarted by a door, we came up with a plan: prop up the window with something. Our something became a piece of wood, but we needed a saw (and some wood). I bought some scrap wood for about a dollar at the home improvement store, and my officemate talked to the lady she was staying with about who she knew that might have a saw. Turns out someone just down the road did, so we went there after I returned with wood.

Well, the man down the street with a saw didn't like the block of wood I bought as it was a bit too big and needed to be cut (but a bit too big I mean about 5 times too wide). Luckily he had some other scraps and quickly cut them to size for me, along with a notch at the top to hold the window in place. We needed two separate pieces to be able to get it in the door, so I held the window up while he screwed them together. We then zip-tied the wood to the metal rod in the door. To put the inside of the door back on we had to trim the Styrofoam blocks attacked to it to fit around the wood.

This was supposed to be a temporary fix, since it was near the end of the summer and I would soon be driving across country to get back to New England. Well, until this morning the block of wood was still there, working every day and night to keep my window appearing to be normal.

About a month ago the window started to noticeably move down, such that a small opening appeared at the top of it. I opened up the door to check on my trusty block of wood. It was moldy! How gross. I assume the mold was eating up the wood enough to make it shrink or shift at the bottom of the door. Not having much time and a headache, I closed it all back up.

Today it was still relatively chilly in the morning, so I thought I'd see if I could get the motor to work. It has been finicky since around the time I bought the car (5 years ago...), so there is always a 50/50 chance on whether or not it will work on any given day. Amazingly, after plugging it back in the actual window support moved up when I tried the switch! Thus began about 20 minutes of taking out the moldy wood (with gloves) and putting the window back on its originally intended support. Another try, and window moved all the way up!

This time I unplugged the switch from the motor so that no one can put the window down. I left the tape on to help remind people not to bother trying, but at least now no one will erroneously feel bad about putting down the window.

You may want to ask why I just don't take it to a repair shop to get it fixed; well, I did that about 4 years ago when it first became a big problem, and about 6 months later it broke again. So I'd rather not waste my money.

Motion Detectors don't like Paper Airplanes

On a related note to my recent Lights up my World post, we have a motion detector in our lab that turns off some of the overhead lights when no motion has been detected for about 15 minutes. Unfortunately for me, it only detects movement in half the room, with my desk being on the far end of the other half. So if I'm in there by myself, it gets really annoying, really quickly. Luckily, I have that new desk lamp that I can sit with as my primary light source (assuming most of the overhead lights are on) for a little while. Usually that little while is just long enough before I want to move anyway, meaning I can go set off the motion detector. I used to get up every 15 minutes, walk halfway across the room, and then go sit back down, and repeat....

Another one of my lab mates is also in the uncovered area of the lab, and we've been the only ones in the lab a number of times in the past two weeks. We started devising mechanisms to trigger the motion detector without having to move from our cubicles. I created a fabulous paper airplane that flew into the detected zone...and then did not activate the motion detector. We tried waving around my poster carrier tube as well. We also seriously considered tying something to the ceiling tiles with a rope ending at my labmate's cube so that if he pulled on it the movement of the object would turn the lights back on. Alas, we had not rope. So we just made any visitors walk in and out of the other door instead of the one closest to our cubes, causing them to set off the motion detector each time.

See, grad school can be entertaining! Really!

Purple peacocks, he's got 53!

On Tuesday night I watched Disney's Aladdin for the first time in years (well, probably decades), thanks to having a housemate with a substantial movie collection. This was one of my absolute favorite Disney movies as a child, along with Aladdin 2, Snow White, and Sword in the Stone. In middle school I had the sheet music for all of the songs (I probably memorized it all as well), I knew all the words by heart (for the songs and dialog), and I really wanted to dress like Jasmine (is that really healthy?).

It's amazing how different Disney movies seem when you see them for the first time as an adult. There were things I noticed that I hadn't really noticed before, and I even understood something new! For instance, there were references that I hadn't really paid attention to in the movie before, such as the sultan praising "Ala" when Jasmine chooses a suitor and other good things happen. As a child I didn't know much about other religions, so I don't think I really understood. There were also sexual innuendos that I had understood on some basic level as a child, but understand much better now. There is also so little plot explanation and true character development, but yet the story is so lovable! It's like one of my housemates said: you don't see much of Rajah, but she is still one of the most beloved characters. Not to mention all of the references to other Disney movies, including Fantasia!

Although I think the biggest difference is my opinion of Iago, the parrot. He's so annoying! As a kid I just thought of him as an annoying parrot, and an interesting character for that very reason. However, now that I know who Gilbert Gottfried is and can recognize his voice a mile away, all I could think about was how annoying he is! Yes, he annoys me on many levels and probably always will. But now I can't even think of Iago as being a obnoxious parrot, all I can think about is Gilbert Gottfried having an annoying voice and how I wish he wasn't the voice of Iago! It totally ruins the ability to be drawn into the world on any level. I think this of all things may ruin my enjoyment of Aladdin for the rest of my life.

I still can't wait to watch Aladdin 2 again though, and I still miss the Aladdin TV series (although I was probably above the chosen viewing age when it was on).

neVer forgeT

Today turned out not to be as bad as I expected. As the 1 year anniversary of the Virginia Tech shootings, I expected to relive all the sadness and emotional instability of the week that started with April 16, 2007. I've had today on my mind for the past week, remembering all of the sadness I experienced myself as well as all of the grief I saw friends experience from afar. Thinking about how the university community was forever tarnished, and how so many people lost their lives, will always make me sad.

However, today I felt renewed. It almost felt like a fresh start, like a day to celebrate that yes, we made it. I really believe that today represents an important milestone in the healing process. That we made it to today helps to signify that we can make it to next year, and the year after that, and so on, without losing our minds, wallowing in grief, or forgetting to live ourselves. Granted, it is much harder for those who lost loved ones or dear friends, but I hope that reaching this point is helping them as well.

I wore an orange shirt today, and yesterday I encouraged other students and faculty through our social mailing list to consider wearing maroon or orange. I didn't see very many people in the department today since I was in my lab most of the time, but I did see people wearing those colors. It was nice to think that people were silently showing support. As I was thinking about things this past week I was worried that people might ask me questions about the shootings, especially people that weren't here last year but do know I went to VT. Thankfully no one did, as I think I may have fallen apart being asked much of anything.

It was an emotional day, but for the most part the emotion stayed inside and in the back of my mind. It came to the forefront only as I watched the commemoration speech webcast on the VT website. Hearing the names of each victim and a few sentences about them only served to remind me how real people died that die, real people with hopes and dreams, family and friends, plans for the future that will now never happen. It only served to remind me that they never had the chance to say "goodbye." It was enough that I had to pause the webcast a few times to keep from being overwhelmed. It was enough that just thinking about it is affecting me now.

As was said before, we will prevail. Although parts of this day were rough, making it to the end is a sign that we will indeed prevail, even it will take time. I hope that everyone else thinking about the Hokies today were also able to find strength for the future, and that everyone will be OK. I truly believe that we will be.

Grad Student Eating Habits (summer vs semester)

I find that different times of the year bring about vastly different health choices, at least for me. This change was exceptionally noticeable between last summer and this past fall, as I was on an internship during the summer. Unlike most internships, I was not paid any more than during the regular school year, so money was not the main issue. However, I somehow worked out more, ate more fruit, cooked more at home, ate leftovers or "real" food for lunch, watched less TV, surfed less Internet, and saw more daylight.

Many of these changes are probably due to having more time in the evenings (although of course I had research to do during many of them), such as cooking enough dinner to eat for a lunch or two as well, and finding time for tennis in the evenings. I saw more daylight because my desk was actually in a room with a window (amazing!), and because daylight lasted at least until 9PM. I surfed less Internet and watched less TV because I spent more time on the phone with people who were not there, I read a few books (including the entire Harry Potter series....again), and I had to go to bed at a reasonable time.

Of course once I returned to grad school, I started eating instant lunch food again, sitting in front of the TV with dinner, not exercising as frequently, and sitting in a windowless room. I think somehow grad school just drains the will to put effort into this sort of thing.

I have been better this spring semester though. I'm on an intramural volleyball team (last summer was my first game of volleyball in about a decade!), I have weights and exercises to do at home, and I plan to bike into school once it warms up more. I've been better about eating fruit for snack instead of junk food as well! It seems like once you resign yourself to putting the little extra time here and there to keeping healthy, it's not really so hard. It's still hard for me to convince myself to exercise for the sake of it, but soon I'll have softball as well as tennis, so it should be a great summer again. Even without the internship definition of a work day!

Lights up my world!

I just barely missed the month mark, but as of 2 days ago it has been 1 month since I blogged about the new light on my desk at school!

Yes, I know you were hoping for something more exciting. But really, it's riveting! My headaches seem to be completely gone (nothing short of a miracle), and I feel happier whenever I'm sitting at my desk. This has been true ever since I received that lamp. The difference is remarkable. I think I'm starting to sound a lot like an advertisement...but I really do love it!

It's amazing how something little like that can make being at work so wonderful. I was there until after midnight multiple nights last week (due to a deadline), and I think having such bright white light actually tricked me into thinking it was earlier in the day each time. If I thought my advisor was more likely to trick us, I would think that she'd paid for the lights just to con us into working longer hours in the lab.

I love books, but libraries don't love me!

I've loved books since I was a kid. I actually got in trouble often for reading for too long at a time, as my optometrist had said that reading for hours and hours on end was one of the factors causing my bad eyesight. I remember reading with a flashlight in my bed in elementary and middle school since there was always more I wanted to read of the book.

So what does this have to do with my adult life? It would seem to have no correlation, as it's hard to find time to read for fun. I mostly read articles online (news, self-help, short interesting stories) that I can finish in 30 minutes. I also read online comics, which give me the nice fantasy world. But none of this is the same as reading a great book from start to finish (although I did read an entire trilogy last summer, as well as re-reading the entire Harry Potter series!). I've gotten halfway through a fiction book on audiotape (yes, tape) this schoolyear, but I haven't listed to that in 2 months now.

No, what my life has come to now is reading for research and classes. I read technical articles, textbooks, library books. And thus we get to the crux of my problem: library books. I'm like Hermione in the sense that I believe the answers to all of my academic problems lie in library books, only my library is not nearly as reliable as her library! Quite often our online library search does not find a book that does actually exist, a book I need is checked out for the next 5 months, or the book I need is at one of the other area colleges and will take multiple days to get to me. It seems that if you want a library book from a university library, you better check it out at the beginning of the semester, otherwise it will not be there! There are thousands of books in our library system, but yet the ones I really need are always checked out. Probabilistically, this should not happen to me as often as it does. I must conclude that the library does not love me as much as I love it.

I'm not sure what makes me sadder: that I never read for fun, that I now rely on a university library and am happy about it, or that something that should be so useful has failed me so many times and tends to fail at the crucial time period.

A great speech

Usually political speeches drive me a little batty, but Barrack Obama gave one this week that I thought was actually really good. He brought up a lot of things that usually hide on the sidelines, some of which was related to both race and gender discrimination.



Whether you are republican, democrat, independent, foreign, or any other category, you should really listen to what he has to say. Much of his speech is devoted to why he will not denounce his pastor for comments that were made that Obama disagrees with, and I think everything was completely valid. Much of what he says is not particularly partisan, so I'm not trying to sway your political views but am instead encouraging you to hear a really great speech.