Meme: 63 random questions

Copied from K.

1. The phone rings; who do you want it to be? Somebody with good news, I always feel guilty when my phone rings, I'm convinced it's going to be someone reminding me of a commitment I have missed.
2. When shopping at the grocery store, do you return your cart? Now' I'm in California, I return my cart, though usually I'm cart-less and using my own eco-warrior basket. In the UK I happily returned my trolley to the correct place.
3. In a social setting, are you more of a talker or a listener? I'm either very much one or the other, depending on who I'm talking to. I either end up telling my life story, or having a life story told to me.
4. Do you take compliments well? Not really, I'm trying to learn to believe them.
5. Do you play Sudoku? I keep intending to try.
6. If abandoned alone in the wildernedd, would you survive? If I had Matt with me, I think so, if I didn't...maybe, through thinking of what Matt would tell me to do. If I had a knife. I should start hiking with knife, maybe also GPS.
7. Do you like to ride horses? Yes, but I have very bad luck with them, I'm a complete beginner and I seem to get stuck with the wild one or the sleepy one, I broke my arm pony-trekking because the instructors didn't check that the girth was tight enough. I want to learn to ride properly some day.
8. Did you ever go to camp as a kid? Primary Seven camp, pretty similar to the US sixth grade camp experiences from what I've heard. I hated a lot of it, the gully scramble was exciting at first, but utterly miserable by the end, and some girls from another school decided to make me that week's Xtreme Bullying target for the week.
9. What was your favorite game as a kid? Dress-up, and solo make-believe in my garden.
10. If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was married, would you go for it? Hah! Nope. I find it pretty ridiculous that this is seen as a major moral conundrum. Spoken-for = not and option, therefore NOT SEXY. Sexiness depends a great deal on availability.
11. Could you date someone with different religious beliefs than you? Probably, if they were ok with me keeping my different opinions.
12. Do any songs make you cry? Yes, and films.
13. Are you continuing your education? As we speak. (type)
14. Do you know how to shoot a gun? Aim, squeeze trigger. Some guns I know how to check the safety, I once knew how to dismantle a military rifle (RAF Royal Officers Training Core), and I'm a good shot. I strenuously object to personal firearms, but am married to a man who aims to own a muzzle-loader (does that count as differing religion?).
15. If your house was on fire, what would be the first thing you grabbed? Husband, cats, photographs/negatives, box of "important documents", then I'd dither about my wedding dress and probably settle by grabbing my jewelry box and the William Morris tapestry I spent five months completing. Matt would have the same order, only add in guitars & kilts and delete wedding dress. I've had a chance to think about these things, with the wild fires etc.
16. How often do you read books? Most days, unless I'm working on back issues of New Scientist. Funny story: a chap once followed me into a book shop on Oxford Street to chat me up, his line was "so...you read a lot of books?". I took this as evidence that he did not read many books. He followed up with a comment on my being "built". I took this as further evidence that he was not a literary type.
17. Do you think more about the past, present or future? Yes. I think a lot.
18. What is your favorite children's book? White Rabbit's Wedding, and the Quangle Wangle Quee.
19. What color are your eyes? Bluegreygreen or greybluegreen.
20. How tall are you? 5'8"
21. Where is your dream house located? Impossible fantasy: somewhere walking distance from my entire family (variously located in SoCal, Pennsylvania, Edinburgh, Berlin, Barcelona, Aix en Provence & Sydney) with an ocean view and a nearby forest.
Potentially possible wishlist: Something historic in the Dean Village or Duddingston, Edinburgh, something colonial with big ancient trees in Pennsylvania, something Mission Style with a garden and a view, on the Westernish slopes of Mt Helix, near San Diego.
22. Do you have a secret fetish? It's a secret.
23. Have you tried sushi? Yes, but the best kind is tempura-fried, which makes it not exactly sushi.
24. Have you ever taken pictures in a photo booth? Yes, they're fun, but unflattering.
25. When was the last time you were at Olive Garden? Haven't been, I like my Italian food less chainy.
26. When was the last time you were at Church? Um. My sister-in-law's wedding in 2003.
27. Where was the furthest place you traveled today? Cafe & Farmer's market in La Mesa, 4 miles. It's Sunday, work is 22 miles away.
28. What was your favorite job? This one.
29. Do you like mustard? I have yet to meet a mustard I do not like.
30. Do you prefer to sleep or eat? What's on the menu?
31. Do you look like your mom or dad? Both. Looking more and more like my Mum.
32. How long does it take you in the shower. 10-15 minutes.
33. Can you do splits? Nope. I can touch my toes though.
34. What movie do you want to see right now? Prince Indiana Caspian Jones of the Crystal Skull
35. If you could fast forward your life, would you? No! I might be tempted if I were offered a selective rewind.
36. What did you do for New Year's? Fell asleep in my hallway. The carpet is quite comfortable there.
37. Do you think The Grudge was scary? Some disturbing images, which is why I left Matt to watch it and went to read in the bedroom. I couldn't be bothered being freaked out.
38. Could you relate to a character in Mean Girls? No.
39. Do you own a camera phone? Yes, but I haven't tried to figure out how to get the photos/videos onto my computer.
40. Do you have an "ex box" with pics and letters from past lovers? No, that would be a little strange.
41. Was your mom a cheerleader? Californian, yes, blond, yes, cheerleader, no.
42. What's the last letter of your middle name? e, e, and d
43. Do you like your middle name? Yes, all of 'em.
44. How many hours of sleep do you get a night? 6-8, with occasional catch-up epic 10-12 nights.
45. Do you like care bears? Meh.
46. What do you buy at the movies? Unsweetened iced tea, or nothing.
47. Do you know how to play poker? No.
48. Do you wear your seat belt? I can't imagine a reason NOT to.
49. What do you wear to sleep? Knit bottoms and a tank top, with optional long sleeved over top if it's chilly.
50. Anything big ever happen in your hometown? Since I've lived here there have been two enormous wildfires and several minor earthquakes. We've got a world famous zoo and a lot of films have been shot hereabouts. My original hometown is much older, and a capital city with castle, so lots of big political and battley things happened there, not to mention real-life grave-robbers, highwaymen, the inspiration for the characters Sherlock Holmes AND Dr Jekyll, and the invention of a little thing called Disinfectant.
51. How many meals do you eat a day? Three.
52. Is your tongue pierced? No.
53. Do you like funny or serious people better? Both, but it's better when people have both traits.
54. Ever been to L.A.? Several times, going there in two weeks. I have family there.
55. Did you eat a cookie today? No. I had chocolate-covered cheesecake on Friday, that's quite enough for a few days.
56. Do you steal or pay for your music downloads? I still buy CDs. I like owning the cover art.
57. Do you hate chocolate? Hah! I hate when it runs out...
58. What do you and your parents fight about the most? Not much now, when I was younger it pretty much always boiled down to a battle of wills.
59. Are you a gullible person? Not for facts, but I do tend to give people's characters the benefit of the doubt. This has sometimes led to being taken advantage of emotionally.
60. Do you need a boyfriend/girlfriend to be happy? No. Good friends are pretty essential though.
61. If you could have any job what would it be? If I could make a living as a potter, I would, but realistically: an Epidemiologist in a position to influence communities for the good.
62. Are you easy to get along with? Usually, some undergrads have found me intimidating, but I think that's because I'm training them and don't let them get away with being intellectually lazy.
63. What is your favourite time of day? Late afternoon/evening. Or moonlight nights.

Thus ends the randomness.

Acronymious

At work, DPN = Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy. In my head (and in knitting) DPN = Double Pointed Needles.

This leads to my reading a journal article sentence thus: "Pre-clinical studies in diabetic rodent models have shown that Double Pointed Needle is the result of a complex network of interrelated vascular, metabolic, and neurotrophic defects..."

Thank You Mr President

When I first heard that the government had decided to send a $600 check to every taxpayer within a certain income range to alleviate the economic situation I honestly thought that it was a satirical comment. Made up. Swiftian proposal-style. Putting the government into further debt just to give people about a month's rent is certainly not going to fix the lack of a livable minimum wage, the credit crunch, the deflating housing bubble, or the rising cost of living. The people who need help are in serious trouble, way more than $600 per adult and $300 per child. Nevertheless, $1,200 landed in our joint checking account last week. I momentarily contemplated all the lovely shiny things (or fluffy things: that's a lot of alpaca and silk) I could buy with it, then resolutely ignored my patriotic duty as an American Consumer to spend spend spend and paid down a student loan.

Of course, later this year Matt and I plan to use part of my student loan money to replace our carpet...but for the next few months thats a grand not accruing interest, and I am extremely glad that we are in a situation where the "Economic Stimulus Package" is a nice bonus, not an insulting droplet in an ocean of financial woes.

My final grades are supposed to be posted in 5 days, I'm checking at least once a day just in case they get posted early. It's very nice to be able to go home after pilates, instead of rushing off to campus. I spent 20 minutes in the sauna after my workout on Tuesday, and today I will either do the same, or stick around for the turbo-kick class. It depends on how strong I feel after pilates. I need to get some intense cardiovascular stuff going, my muscles are improving, but my jeans are still tight, and it's uncomfortable. I originally typed "I'm sick of my jeans feeling tight" but you know what? it's not the end of the world, it's just unpleasant, and I can do something about it, in fact I am doing something about it: I joined SparkPeople, and I'm calorie counting again, so far it's not driving me batty, just keeping me from fooling myself that I really can have every cookie that's offered and beer with dinner and start to loose weight.

*Edited to add* Some grades are now up, I got A's in Biostatistics and Chronic Disease, now I'm just waiting to hear about the tricky one: Health Admin. Yay!

Nine Units Down (almost)

Last final today, in Health Administration, I am exhausted. I ended up calling in sick from work yesterday and today so I could rest up and fend off this sore throat/headache/migraine in time for this last exam. The biostatistics final exam was rather epic. It was straightforward enough to me, since it was open book there were not horrible formulae to memorize, and I was rather pleased with how I was able to pick the procedures without referring to the giant flowchart in the back of the textbook, but the exam started at 7pm, I'm normally a fast test-taker, and I left the room at 9.30. I was only about the third person to finish and leave. My study mate for that class called me the next day to say that many people stayed till 10.30pm! The professor evidently misjudged the length.

Tomorrow I've got a vacation day scheduled, and I will be visiting my friend Mike, who is also a massage therapist, and has a hot tub at his house. The genius man called me this morning to remind me to bring my suit so I can relax in the hot tub before he gives me a massage! Bliss!

Less stinking

I told the story to a couple of (young, female) coworkers, and they took much more exception to the response ("is that a prediction?") than to the initial statement. But they expressed concern at the whole exchange, and the general atmosphere (as reported by me) in that lab. This made me feel better: it's not just me being sensitive, and it's not just me thinking that I can't really call them on this incident.

The term "raped" is used in SoCal where I'm used to hearing "screwed" or "buggered", which, I suppose, technically have very similar meanings. I've heard people use it before, and always been very shocked, Mat even used it once when referring to to unpleasant financing terms on a car loan, but after seeing me turn green he never used it again.

I suppose the upshot of this little episode is that I have learned two things: I am hypersensitive due to my personal history, and it's worth it to tell a contemporary when I feel uncomfortable, chances are she'll agree with me, but reporting to supervisors doesn't always make a difference.

I am stinking mad

I was over in another lab picking up samples, which involved searching through three large disorganized freezers. I went through all three twice before I found everything I needed.

That's not why I'm mad.

The guy who works in that lab is a pig. I always thought he was a tolerable pig, the freezers are all named after porn stars, but he left me alone, only teased the girls who went along with his sexist jokes, and was pleasantly big-brotherly to a young woman he supervises. I'll call her X. As I was rooting through the freezers, conversation fell to fuel prices, how much we each pay to fill up our cars, and what mileage they get. X drives a German car, and gets TERRIBLE mileage, worse than any of us expected to hear from that car, we all paused to marvel at how much she must be spending on gas. Then the pig chuckles to himself and says to another guy in the room "Heh, X is getting raped". Pig #2 chuckles back and says "is that a prediction...?"

I don't know if X heard. She was on the other side of the room, and it's a noisy room. I heard.

Did I call them on it? Did I tell them to apologize to X and myself, and to imagine how they'd feel if they heard some guys joking about their sister, mother or partner being raped?

No. I bit my tongue and kept looking for my samples. I fought down a panic attack. I wanted to cry, I wanted to cry, to scream, to give him just an inkling of the level of pain caused by an offhand remark on that subject, but I could not let him see he'd actually affected me. I ran through scenarios in my head: could I complain to their boss? My boss? Would it change anything? I don't know. It's one isolated incident, it would mean creating a big stink when I don't even have to work around the pig. X does, she's exposed to misogynist girls-gone-wild crap all the time in that room, and evidently, the occasional jest about her potential violation.

These guys should be made to watch documentaries about survivors of sexual abuse. They need to realize that, with this behaviour, they are part of the machine that chews women up and spits them out all over the world. It makes me sick that for all my feminist viewpoints, when it came down to it, I bit my tongue and got on with my work. I'm honestly not sure if I'm picking my battles with this, or just chickening out on my principals.

Raising the Training Wheels

I recently graduated from biweekly to monthly counseling. After about a year, with the antidepressants working really well, and the emotional boost from successfully applying for my MPH program, I started to think that I wouldn't have much to talk about every two weeks, and it would help my schedule to scale back too. My counselor brought it up as I was preparing to start classes, and I agreed.

When I first sought counseling (well, the first time since moving to San Diego), I went only once a month, and it was useless. So much was going on in my life, and my emotions, that I'd have some crisis at the two-week point, struggle through it, and then be too distanced from it by the time I got back to see my counselor to figure out what had caused the emotional crash. My sessions would turn into "well, I was having a horrible time two weeks ago, but I'm FINE now..." So when I decided to approach counseling as a however-long-it-takes proposition, we started weekly, quickly found that was too often, and settled into a biweekly routine. My sessions would send me off in a positive frame of mind, set up well for the week, then as challenges presented themselves, my next meeting with the warm, ironic woman in the rainbow sweater was only (at worst) 10 days away, and I would picture myself telling her about what was going on, and it helped me get through without a meltdown. Often it got me through without even getting close to a meltdown.

Now the monthly cycle (not THAT monthly cycle) seems to be working, I am still getting a bit more harried at about the two-week point, my emotional stability must have a 14 day refractory period or something, but I am spotting problems in time, and while I am still able to force myself to take a look at what's really going on. I have to take a bit of time to myself to calm down and sort out the negative thoughts. I feel like the training wheels are still there, I can ( and do) wobble more but there's something there to prevent me from falling completely over, so I can stand the wobbling while I learn to balance by myself.

I am stressed out, but less depressed/anxious. I also know why I'm stressed out: I'm busy and working hard! I make more sense to myself than I did this time last year.

Job #1, Job #2

I'm in the process of lining up "fieldwork" for the summer for my Master's program. I know this conjures up images of wellington boots, butterfly nets, fishing rods, mud, and...fields, but in my case it's more likely to mean an office with a computer, a pile of reports, surveys, or case studies, and a big fat database into which I distill the important information contained in the pile. The prospect of the office having a real window is exciting, my current office is in the basement, and the lab is in the interior of the building, thus windowless.

Right now I'm hoping I end up in a County program addressing domestic violence, run by a DPH (Doctorate of Public Health) whom I have heard speak twice, as a guest lecturer on the epidemiology of violence. It won't be a lot of hours each week, probably two mornings, a little less than a full working day per week, but it will mean I start work work at about noon on those days, then head towards home about eight in the evening. This sounded crazy until I compared it to my current schedule, where I get home around nine two nights a week. On those days I head out the door in the morning carrying five bags: purse, small briefcase, gym bag, lunch bag, and second "lunch" bag, an insulated one with a cold pack in it, to preserve my evening meal until I arrive on campus after my workout.

This new schedule will have me home just before nine two nights a week, around 7 another two (after working out), and at about 5pm on Fridays, which will also be the day I carpool with my husband. Not to mention NO HOMEWORK for internships. Practically a summer vacation now I think of it.

Humans can talk themselves into anything.

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Marble Approves This Flooring

FloorProject, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Home improvement is good exercise.

We now have laminate floor in our bedroom. I have very sore thighs from kneeling and crouching all weekend installing it, I am impressed that I managed to clear most of the furniture out of the bedroom by myself on Friday, without putting my back out, and then put most of it back this afternoon, though I had to get Matt to handle the heaviest dresser drawers. This is the benefit of a five week habit of pilates twice a week.

The weekend had a nice finish, our good friends and neighbors L & G are clearing out their stash of crafts tools, we scored some calligraphy pens, a complete set of crochet hooks of every size, leather-tooling gadgets, and about an inch stack of Crane's writing paper. Plus, unexpected bonus hanging out with our friends for a drink and conversation while we prowled their stash like vultures.

Photos of the reflooring process to come, but considering we haven't downloaded from the camera since November...don't hold your breath. I know I'm not.

...fellow, well met

Hail!

It has hailed twice this afternoon, it came on very quickly, the first time mixed with rain, so it took us a while to realize what was making the *ping* noise on the BBQ, the second time, just dry hailstones the size of green peas or larger (almost 1cm across!). The kids in the flat across the green ran out, giggling, to experience it, then they pulled out bright yellow umbrellas with ducks faces painted on. We stood on our doormat, under the overhang of the balcony above, enjoying the novelty, and feeling the air drop temperature by the minute, until it dropped a little too much for sandals (Matt) and pajamas (me) and we retreated indoors for some spicy tea.

Conversation with a Californian Undergraduate

CalUG: Where are you from, you have an accent?
Me: Edinburgh, Scotland, and I went to university in London.
CalUG: Oh WOW, I've always wanted to travel there! I want to do a year abroad in the UK!
Me: You should, it's a great experience, my cousin did a semester in Florence, and really enjoyed it, I did a year abroad too!
CalUG: Really, where did you go?
Me: Here.
CalUG:...*blank look*
Me: *waiting for it to sink in*
CalUG: Oooooh! Here is "abroad" for you!
Me: Yup, odd isn't it?

Actually she was bright and fun to talk to, some people I've had the same conversation with never get there themselves, and don't quite get it even when I point out that I was one of the UK students being exchanged for a US student, hence "exchange student". It was such a classic moment of watching her world view expand just a little bit. I'm used to people viewing my home town as a place to visit, and to go to university, it's a major holiday and student exchange destination. I'm used to thinking of "abroad" and "foreign" as relative terms, entirely subjective, it still surprises me when I realize that to a large majority they are absolute terms. Though I suppose that absolute definition of "other" does explain a lot about what goes on in the world.

Experimental Quiche

I found a pie crust in the freezer, some sharp cheddar that had dried out a little, and blueberries that need to be eaten....and I remembered how good blueberry beer tastes with cheddar. So it's in the oven right now, I hope it comes together!

This is based on the cheese and scallion quiche in the Vegetarian Epicure:
Pre-bake the pie crust for 7 minutes at 450F, while it is cooling, saute a very small yellow onion in olive oil, add a pinch of baker's yeast, spread the cooked onion in the base of the crust, add a few ounces of sharp cheddar, cut into 1cm cubes, the contents of a 3oz punnet of blueberries, salt & pepper. Whisk six eggs and about 4fl.oz. of half-and-half (light whipping cream) with nutmeg, salt and pepper, pour it into the quiche and bake at 450F for 15min, then 350F for 15min. Finger crossing optional.

Master of all he surveys

For me?, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Not satisfied until reclining across my work space. Lets see if he can resist attacking my pen.

Small strokes of genius

not really a leftie, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

1 - Figure out a schedule that gets me to work with minimal traffic and leaves actual time for the gym between work and evening classes on Tues and Thurs.

2 - Find an independent cafe (not s*bucks) near home with wireless internet and a decent breakfast menu. Declare new weekend ritual of coffee house study time.

3 - Tidy desk. Remove mystery objects that have been cluttering it, stuff them into a cardboard box for later sorting. Focus on reclaiming work space.

On Thursday I made it to work earlier, as planned, then got from work to the gym, and got changed with a few minutes to spare before pilates. The class made my achy back feel much better, though my lowest abdominal muscles are still wondering what hit them. I was so pleased with myself, getting to class on time after a workout, and discovering the added benefit that I was more energized than usual and felt I was paying better attention. I hope this effect also works on my Tuesday Biostats class, It is very hard to stay focused on biostatistics from 7pm till 9.30.

Yesterday we tried out a cafe in the next neighborhood over, Matt and I claimed a squishy leather couch facing the window and worked on our respective studies for several hours. It was a nice treat having a slice of quiche for breakfast, and somehow much easier to focus on work in the cafe than at home, with the cats being cute and the chores looming. The only potential fly in the ointment is that the cafe is surrounded by antique shops, boutiques, a bead shop and a knitting shop. I bought hand dyed sock yarn after four hours of biostatistics problems. This cannot become part of the weekly routine.

As this photo shows, I also cleared off the desk, so it can be used for desk-like purposes. I'm not actually a leftie, photobooth does a mirror-image thing with it's photos, that's really my right hand brandishing the trusty bic ballpoint.

All of these little changes make it easier to integrate my studies with work, and still, hopefully, keep my life running. I have yet to discover a trick to getting the laundry folded and put away the same day that it's washed and dried. Unfortunately I think the "trick" to that is rather labour intensive and involves folding my own knickers. Horror.

How I learned to stop worrying and love to plan

Four weeks in and the cracks are starting to show. My back aches, my hips hurt, my shoulder is stiff, I had a migraine on and off all week last week, I'm irritable, stressed out, and having trouble concentrating on reading, homework, anything at all. I left my gym bag at the gym this afternoon.

I have not done any real exercise since I started classes in January, then I had a week of zoning out in front of the TV instead of getting to bed on time (by 10 - not too hard to achieve), Thursday I was off work because I woke up at 6.30 with a migraine, Friday I went in to work, but took it easy and left early. This weekend my parents have been visiting with us and I have taken it easy, no homework, taking full advantage of the unexpected two week extension on the larger assignment I currently have on the go. This afternoon we all (Matt, my parents ant I) went for a swim at our gym in Mission Beach and I got thinking that I need to make myself a schedule, and schedule in a workout class, or swim time, because this graduate school and work thing is starting to kick my ass, and I need, absolutely need, to be exercising to maintain my sanity and health.

So I have futzed about with iCal and, after blocking out my classes and work hours, blocked out the Tues/Thurs pilates session at my gym as totally doable. As long as I get to bed consistently and get my ass out of bed 8 hours later. You know what? I managed to get myself into a graduate program, I think it would be a little ridiculous if getting to bed, getting OUT of bed, and making it to a pilates class I've already paid for proved too complex for my abilities.

I have my little schedule printed out now. It includes approx drive times, 8 hour work days, class times, and the pilates classes. It's just like when I was in school. "High school" I mean, my homework diary in my pocket with the weekly schedule on the back, constantly consulted to tell my where my brain needed to go next...

Next, my brain needs to go back to the living room and hang out with my family. They just started talking about Dr Strangelove, I have to join in!

like falling off a...

As I type, there is a cat chasing his tail on the other side of the laptop screen. I give it about 40 seconds before he either gives up, or falls off the coffee table.

Marble is loving the table cloth on our dining table a little too much. She got so carried away lolling about on it that she rolled right off the edge of the table. The surprised look on her face was almost as priceless as the fact that it was a few seconds after I commented to Matt that it would be funny if she bought it.

Tali tailchaser has given up and is staring at me over the screen. Time for bed.

I can't work like this

I can't work like this, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Tali is demanding love. He is in my lap, flopped headlong across my right wrist as I try to type a discussion post for my Chronic Disease class. He didn't even twitch when I scooped him up to give the webcam a better view.

I did manage to get a decent first draft of the paper written, and research diabetes in adolescents for class tomorrow. Matt and I made a stew using the vegetables left over on a party platter from my birthday party yesterday, I even made progress on my sweater. I'm glad it's a cropped length one, I have real hopes of finishing it some day. I suspect there will be a lot of capture-the-moment photobooth shots of me on this couch, with the Holyrood Tartan blanket behind me, it's my favourite place to sit while working on my laptop, and I will be working on my laptop a lot until May. It's nice to also have Matt right next to me, working away on his laptop. There's a sort of camaraderie in sharing the work-plus-school boat.

Gah!

I must stop reading blogs and work on this paper on student health services! Marble is sleeping between me and Matt on the sofa while we both do uni assignments, her occasional snores are making me want to join her in a nap!

If I get my work done soon enough I'll actually be able to do some knitting tonight. That's a good incentive, I'd like to finish my first sweater before the weather's too warm to wear it.

Aaaaaaahhhh.

Back on my comfy sofa with a kitty making eyes at me after a whirlwind round trip to LA.

I headed North at four on Friday, miraculously missing both rain and traffic, and was letting myself in to Granny's house in time to catch a guilty pleasure called Ghost Whisperer on TV. It was odd being there on my own, Granny is staying with my Aunt while recovering from a hip replacement, and my parents were out to dinner with some people from UCLA.

Shiny face, shiny shoes

Today I bought a new pair of maryjanes for my first day of school. I have been orientated, registered for classes, paid my tuition (ouch) and received my student loan disbursement (yay).

My parents were here for the long weekend and yesterday Mum helped me fold laundry, and cleaned the bathroom while I overhauled a bookshelf to make room for new papers and text books. On Saturday, Dad came with me when I picked up my ridiculously expensive book on Health Administration, so he got to see a bit of the campus (and I bought him a new red pen for marking) the equally-overpriced-but-cheaper-online biostats text arrived last week. There's a giant pot of veggie-heavy beef chili simmering on the stove, and I'm typing this with Tali purring in my lap, using my arm as a head rest while I watch TV.

Tomorrow will be a long day: full day of work followed by my first class from 7-9.40pm, though I don't expect it to go that late, the class I took last year only went to the full scheduled time once.

Pretty different compared to last year, also really late as these things go

It is clear that this time last year I was determined to move on and get into graduate studies, since my brush with cancer delayed those plans. It's great to read the answers I wrote last January and realize that I did indeed take the GRE, and apply for a program, I even got in!

Looking back at that post also reminds me how up-in-the-air my job situation was from late 2006 until mid-2007. Coming back from Christmas break this year I felt very much that I was returning to the routine, that I knew where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing, pretty good indications that I've fully transitioned into the new lab.

1. Will you be looking for a new job? No! I like my job, and I do not want to be job-seeking while beginning a master's degree!

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship? No. Well, I'd like to have a new and improved relationship with my body and health. This is last year's answer, but it still applies, so it stays.

3. New house? We couldn't move if we wanted to, the market is still going backwards in our neck of the woods. Fortunately, we don't want to move, just rip out the carpet and do a bit of painting...

4. What will you do that is different in '08? I will have to have a much more organized approach to daily tasks, both at home and at work, in order to slot in the additional tasks of going to class, reading textbooks and doing homework. I think this year I will have my head down focusing on the job at hand, and spend less time thinking/fantasizing/fretting about the future.

5. New Years resolution? Maintain at least a B average in my classes, survive being a student without a negative effect on my health and/or sanity.

6. What will you not be doing in '08? Wasting time wondering if I'm good enough to get into graduate school.

7. Any trips planned? PA in the summer, maybe for the 4th of July.

8. Wedding plans? No weddings on the horizon.

9. Major thing on your calendar? Start of classes, finals, SUMMER BREAK (which may contain a pottery or belly dancing class as a reward).

10. What can't you wait for? Right now, the things I was impatient for are happening RIGHT NOW, I haven't thought of a new thing to be impatient for, I suppose I can't wait to get stuck in to my classes.

11. What would you like to see happen differently? The general election. No joke.

12. What about yourself will you be changing? The quantity of free time I have available, I think this year I will be squeezing every last drop of time out of my days.

13. What happened in 07 that you didn't think would ever happen? I went on antidepressants, and it was a really good decision. (Both seemed impossible)

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about? I certainly plan to knit them more things.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07? Not on purpose.

16. Will you start or quit drinking? Nope. I want to change my morning coffee to tea, save coffee for the weekends and put Baileys in it!

17. Will you better your relationship with your family? My relationship with my parents gets better every year.

18. Will you do charity work? Realistically? No, I won't have the time to give. I will continue to sign petitions for causes important to me, and keep working on reducing my carbon footprint.

19. Will you go to bars? I want to go to the San Diego House of Blues sometime this year.

20. Will you be nice to people you don't know? Yes.

21. Do you expect 08 to be a good year for you? Yes. Also a very busy one.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now? I feel a lot more stable and comfortable with my life.

23. Do you plan on having a child? Not this year!

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now? Yes, I hope to meet some new groovy people through classes too. At least good study mates.

25. Major lifestyle changes? Becoming one of those crazies who works full time and goes to university too.

26. Will you be moving? I hope not!

27. What will you make sure doesn't happen in 08 that happened in 07? In 2007 I did not see nearly enough of my husband, I want this year to be different.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans? Two weeks ago, I fell asleep on the living room floor.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight? I did. My husband. But I was asleep.

30. One wish for 08? Successful navigation of the whole work-plus-university thing.

creeeeeak

I rang in 2008 by getting a solid 12 hours of sleep.

After laughing when the neighbors asked if I was going to stay up for midnight, saying "of course, it's a big Scottish tradition!" I failed to pace myself on the bevvies, had three whiskeys, and then went to sleep on the living room floor at about 10pm. I vaguely remember making the decision to nap on the floor rather than going the extra three meters to my bed, because that way Matt would see me and know I'd decided to go to sleep, rather than wondering where I'd got to. Though his first thought was probably not that I'd made a conscious choice so much as, you know, collapsed. Heh. Logic and whiskey evidently don't coexist in one brain.

I did celebrate midnight Eastern Standard time, 9pm here, which is when all the kids got to blow their noisemakers and then go to bed. Our neighbor had set up a miniature Time Square ball, a football wrapped in fairy lights, on a flagpole, and he lowered it as we all counted down. Very cute. It's good to know I can at least keep up with all the under-8 party animals.

1.37am Sunday Morning

1.37am Sunday Morning, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

This is the face of a woman with a crick in her neck, a bad period, and spectacular bruising from laser treatments on a scar (the red line beside my nose).

This is the face of a woman who just had a lovely evening with her husband, taking the trolley to Old Town San Diego for dinner, a couple of margaritas and some shopping (we bought fossils and glass Christmas ornaments).

This is the face of a graduate student, who today received a letter of acceptance, and a notice to contact prof so-and-so about biostatistics background asap.

Holy crap I'm back in University.

Pick Meeeeeeeee!

Dietgirl photo competition, originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

Bored afternoon turned fun when Dietgirl's challenge inspired me to play with the photobooth on my new macbook. I hope you can read that the bottom one says "GO, DG GO!"

The individual photos are better viewed in the flickr set

Chuck Norris fears my father

In Edinburgh, in 1984 I was in the same nursery school, then the same primary school as K. We met briefly and hit it off, but were never in the same class. Then she moved schools.

In San Diego, in 2004 or 2005 I started commenting on the blog of an Edinburgher I'd noticed in comments on a few of my favourite blogs. We had a lot in common, and eventually figured out that we'd met at age 4.

This year, in Edinburgh again, I met her Mum, who also reads blogs (a rarity, my parents know I have one, and as far as I know have never visited it, it's not their thing).

So the mother of my nursery-schoolmate whom I re-met through the internet...alerts me to a news article on my father's retirement (before my father does), and the article mentions there's a Facebook group of his students, and "appreciation society". Of course I go to join it, he's my Dad after all. The first post I find on the group's home page contains a Chuck Norris joke about my dad.

The internet is a wonderful, bizarre place.

Hi Ho

Back to work I go.

It has been a lovely long weekend. We didn't get the magical stone shelter in the desert campground, because the campground was booked up with reservations. We ended up in a free camping area, with no amenities beyond dunnies, but it was great because we had the whole area to ourselves, under a funky tree for shade. Just us and the desert. A coyote came to check out our campground the first night, we heard him yip-yip-yipping, and the answering call from further away, he wasn't close enough that we heard his foot falls, but he was close! There were a lot of wild bunnies around our site, and a lot of coyote scat (poop), so I think we were invading a favourite coyote hunting ground.

Wednesday night we had our tent pitched, set a fire going in our fire pit, ate hot dogs, drank beer and hung out until we'd burned half the firewood we had with us, just chatting. Thursday morning, after breakfast and espresso, we went for a little hike along the dirt road that lead to our site. When we'd drunk half the water we were carrying, we turned around and went back to the site to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Roast turkey, potatoes cooked in garlic olive oil with a bit of bacon, mixed veggies in butter and herbs, corn bread (bought, then heated over the charcoal), and pecan pie (also bought and heated over the charcoal) and wine from our favourite winery. Yum.

Matt's on holiday from work all this week (though not from his online university courses), I'm only at work today and tomorrow. It is so hard to concentrate! I want to be on my break! Camping for Thanksgiving! I've just been told that Thanksgiving weekend is the official start of desert season (get out there and hunt you some desert boy!), so our genius plan of trying to get a choice camping spot out in the Borrego desert might be a bit optimistic. I'm sort of banking on the assumption that most people will do "the dinner" at home on Thursday THEN go camping, whereas we want to go out on Wednesday and spend the turkey day in the desert with fire-warmed pumpkin pie and fire-cooked turkey. No fancy place settings and centerpieces for us. If we can't get the favoured spot I hope we can at least camp in the same campground.

The spot we want has a little stone windbreak shelter with a fireplace and picnic table inside it, no roof, but it provides shelter from the strong winds at night while sitting by the fire. Friends of ours once took a bunch of tea light candles there and set them in the crevices of the walls, so they were surrounded by candle light.

Copies of what?

The university enrollments office wants me to stop by with my A-Level certificates, since they need to see the originals and keep copies. Sure, I keep 9 year old high school exam result certificates handy at all times.

I am saved by my Mum, who was able to put her hand on the certificates inside about 5 minutes (a rare feat of finding in their house, usually once something is lost it's lost to a black hole only to reappear 15 years later when you are looking for something else entirely). Even better, the office is fine with faxed copies for now, as long as I bring by the originals for inspection once they get to me. It's beyond me why they need documentation of high school exam results, though I suppose it's something about the US equivalent "AP" classes, counting for university credit.

This morning I went on a bit of a rampage after putting up a shelf in the kitchen, I scrubbed the kitchen floor, cabinet fronts and all the doors and door frames in the flat. This may have something to do with wanting to nest before my family comes to visit for Christmas. Can't have grimy door jambs!

As Promised

See my Tabblo>

Slightly less active waiting

My application materials for the Master's program are now completely submitted. After applying online on October 4th, then sending in my essay on the 22nd, which was also the second day of the big fires and the beginning of a week when all the universities and some of the postal service were shut down for the duration, I found out in the last week of October that my home university had not yet sent the transcript of my BSc degree. Considering that the transcript serves as proof of possession of a bachelor's degree, and that the final application deadline was Nov 1st...I was a bit freaked out by this news. The transcript was "missing some information from the department", and the department had been contacted, but had not responded. For two weeks. There followed a few emails back and forth with the registrar's office in London (each with a one-day turnaround because of the time difference), some fingernail biting on my part, several slightly frantic calls to San Diego State to find out if they could at least LOOK at my application while waiting for the transcript to arrive, a short break to gnaw on the furniture in frustration and, finally, (after my mother offered to go to London and beat on the office doors herself) one phone call to my former department in London before it was fixed. Transcript mailed on November 1st, I am told the post mark is the important thing for the deadline, so I was under that wire by the smallest amount possible. I get the distinct impression the registrar's office never thought it important enough to phone for the missing information, just fired an email off into the ether. Once I called my department it was all fixed inside two days.

The day the transcript was mailed I found out that not all of my reference letters had arrived, but nobody could tell me which of the three was missing. The person in charge of those files was on holiday and "nobody else has access". Those tooth marks on the arm of the sofa? No, not Marble, too big, not fangy enough, those were made by an anxious female Homo sapiens sapiens wannabe graduate student. I was about to ask all three referees to re-send when I received a form letter telling me which reference was missing. I called my previous boss and she not only FedExed another copy of the reference, she faxed it and called the admissions office to tell them it was being re-sent. That type of overkill made me want to FedEx her cookies in return.

This morning my online application status page told me that my transcript arrived. Just when I was starting to think about lost-in-the-mail scenarios. The woman in charge of admissions returns next week, she of the magical one-woman access to the files. I don't know when I can reasonably expect to hear if I have been accepted or not, the session starts at the end of January next year, so it can't be that long before they send out acceptance letters...unless they like to keep things exciting and only notify students mere days before their graduate program begins. Which would fit with the way things have been going. So now I wait. At least now I am no longer waiting while expending my limited psychic powers willing strangers in offices in London to get off their arses and produce paperwork for me.

I hear massive cat battles going on in the living room, it must be dinner time for the felines. Tali has taken to chasing Marble about when he's hungry, she growls and makes a lot of noise when he does it, so it gets my attention. Little brat boy. He tried to run off with a half-knitted sock earlier this evening. He looked very cute hopping off the sofa with it in his mouth, needles and all, but I had to scold him, I don't want him thinking it's ok to nick my knitting.

Self Portrait #3 - We Can Do It!

IMG_4125
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

I am inordinately pleased with this photo, I've always got a kick out of sharing a name with an early feminist icon, Rosie the riveter. So this year I have dressed up in a pair of Navy coveralls and a polkadot headband to become the icon!

Red Wind

There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that comes down through the mountain passes and curls your hair and makes your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husband's necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge. ~Raymond Chandler, Red Wind.

On Wednesday last it was gray and rainy, chilly, even. For San Diego. On Thursday, blasts of hot dry air from the desert had made the thermometer climb, along with the barometric pressure. The humidity level plummeted and my sinuses began to stage a revolt. I spent two days with a splitting headache.

By Sunday, everything I touched gave me a static shock, the cats kept coming up to me for love and running away when they were rewarded with an electric spark on the nose or ear. Overnight the county caught fire.

The whole city is surrounded by encroaching brush fires. I have seldom been more glad to be living in a suburban apartment surrounded by roads and a lot of concrete, rather than a canyon view house. Everyone I know is safe, we will most likely not have to evacuate, since we're not too near any wilderness areas. I am so impressed by the emergency responses, this whole thing is so huge, and yet the authorities have very good plans in place because of lessons learned in the last big fire four years ago.

Tah Dah!

Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

Still blue, but now you can see that lovely green highlight on the back of my neck. We aliens take our skin-burnishing very seriously you know.

I have finished the first draft of my application essay, now it's being circulated for comments and I can go back to my knitting. Or sew the grim reaper costume I promised to construct for a friend for Halloween.

psychedelic mac fun

psychedelic mac fun
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

I wish macs weren't so expensive, I really want my own little ibook with it's own little photobooth, instead of surreptitiously snapping myself at work for Friday entertainment. The lab looks much more impressive in this colourized version than in the "normal" setting.

Sweet Susie

Fwd: Christmas Day II
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

My grandmother is having hip replacement surgery today, probably right now as I type this in fact. This morning I called Mum for a chat, being 8 hours ahead I knew she'd already been up for 8 hours worrying and hoping for news. I'm trying not to worry too much, we'll know how it went in a couple of hours, though if my general anesthetic experience last year is anything to go by, she might not wake up until a couple of hours after the surgery is finished. The recovery is going to be a hard slog for her, but Matt's grandma had a double hip replacement 2 years ago and says she feels better now than she did for years before she fell and needed the emergency replacement. My granny's surgery is not emergency replacement after a fall, it's been planned and carefully prepared for, and she's determined to get her mobility back so she can enjoy gardening again.


UPDATE: The surgery went very smoothly, so it's so far so good.

Powderpost dust on the carpet

It has been a nest-building week. On Wednesday I finally framed a poster that has been propped up in the back room, with it's frame, only wanting for some matting material. I realized that the desired shade of red would be difficult to find in big enough sheets of paper and took a look at the fabric remnants bin, finding just the right size and colour of stuff for $2. I went right home and framed the poster, feeling very smugly creative and domestic.

This weekend we painted our bedroom two shades of blue, a very pale sky blue called "raindrop" and a medium french blue with the odd name "liberty". Liberty is almost but not quite Saltire blue.

So we have been hauling half the furniture out of the room, discovering three whole cat's-worth of fuzz under and behind the furniture, sleeping in the living room because of the fresh paint fumes and lack of curtains, buying a new bedside lamp and, finally, discovering that my blanket box had become the home of a bunch of Anobiidae. Painting is always disruptive of course, but the woodworm were an added spanner in the works. I'm very glad it wasn't moths eating the contents of the blanket box, since the box was a cheapie from IKEA I've had for five years, but it contained a couple of nice woolen blankets and an expensive William Morris tapestry it took me four months to complete. It's convenient that Matt and I were eyeing up a rather nice trunk when we shopped for a new bedside lamp, and it's exactly the same size as the wormeaten number we just threw out.

We might even have enough money set aside for home improvement that we can replace the blanket box and not have to delay the next project, which is reflooring the bedroom with red cherry laminate.

Meme - taken from K

-----------10 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?: 17
2.) Where did you go to school?: Edinburgh Academy.
3) Where did you work?: Nowhere, I was a schoolgirl.
4) Where did you live?: Edinburgh.
5.) Where did you hang out?: Café Florentin.
6.) Did you wear glasses?: Yes, just to read the blackboard.
7.) Who was your best friend?: My boyfriend.
8.) How many tattoos did you have?: None.
9.) How many piercings did you have?: Ears (one left, two right) and navel.
10) What car did you drive?: None, buses only.
11.) Had you been to a real party?: Yes.
12.) Had you had your heart broken?: Yes. Only recently though.

-----------5 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?: 22.
2.) Where did you go to school?: Nowhere.
3.) Where did you work?: UCSD Whittier Institute for Diabetes.
4.) Where did you live?: North Park, San Diego California.
5.) Where did you hang out?: Pannikin, The Field, Bookshops, Claire du Lune, Julian.
6.) Did you wear glasses?: Yes, still only for distance.
7.) Who was your best friend?: Monica, Bob & Matt
8.) Did you party like hell?: Heh, no.
9.) How many tattoos did you have?: Two.
10.) How many piercings did you have?: Same as before: 3 ear, one belly button.
11.) What car did you drive?: 10-year old Ford Escort.
12.) Had your heart broken?: At least once since the previous time.
13.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Spoken for.

-----------2 years ago----------
1.) How old were you?: 25.
2.) Where did you go to school?: Online.
3.) Where did you work?: UCSD Experimental Neuropathology Lab.
4.) Where did you live?: El Cajon, California.
5.) Where did you hang out?: Home, Borego Desert, Idyllwild, Julian, Presidio Park.
6.) Did you wear glasses?: Yup, all the time.
7.) Who was your best friend?: Matt.
8.) How many tattoos did you have?: Two, still.
9.) How many piercings did you have?: No changes, not using "extra" earring much.
10.) What car did you drive?: New (to me) Nissan Sentra.
11.) Had your heart broken?: Not since the last timeframe.
12.) Were you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Just Married.

-----------Right Now----------
1.) How old are you? 27.
2.) Where do you go to school? Nowhere...Yet.
3.) Where do you work?: UCSD Peripheral Nerve Lab.
4.) Where do you live?: El Cajon.
5.) Do you wear glasses?: Yes, same presctription, wear 'em all the time.
6.) Where do you hang out?: Home, Borego Desert, Julian, Mission Beach.
7.) Do you talk to your old friends?: Have relocated a few recently.
8.) How many piercings do you have: Still ears + navel.
9.) How many tattoos?: 2, sometimes I contemplate #3, then spending the money on yarn instead.
10.) What kind of car do you have?: Same 2002 Nissan.
11.) Has your heart been broken?: That brush with cancer was a bit rough, but it didn't break my heart.
12.) Are you Single/Taken/Married/Divorced?: Married.

The timing of the snapshots completely pass over my 3 years of university living in London/La Jolla/London respectively. There were a LOT of changes between 1997 and 2002, by which point I was very much set up on the path to where I am now.

Three pixels outside the Bank Hotel

Picture 176
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace

While back in Edinburgh for a visit I managed to have a coffee with K and Shauna aka Dietgirl. It always feels a little strange sitting comfortably having a chat and realizing you met someone through the internet. Technically, only Shauna is "from the web", since K and I figured out that we went to nursery school together at age 4, but reconnected through both being readers of Shauna's.

I'm very happy to have been able to meet two such sweet and witty women in the flesh. It's a shame I live so far from them most of the time!

K and her mum, Isabelle were able to come over for an impromptu coffee that weekend, unfortunately Shauna had another mountain to conquer. My parents got a kick out of the whole scenario of the two kiddies bumping into each other online 20 years later, and even more of a kick this past Saturday when they ran into Isabelle again at a charity event. The world keeps shrinking, it's just a pity the airfare and travel times are not shrinking along with it.

All of the photos from our trip are still on the camera or the travel hard-drive, including the cow photo session. I plan to upload a lot to flickr, and post a few as blog posts, AND make a tabblo, but I have just found out that SDSU is accepting applicants to start the MPH program in January, so I have forms to fill out, references and transcripts to request, and an admission essay to write. Application deadline is Nov 1st, I also have to figure out a "retro sci-fi" halloween costume for a party.

Moo

I forgot to give K and her Mum a tour of the cow collection when they came by for coffee, so I decided to do a circuit of the house, recording the location and arrangement of the various Bovine-Themed Dairy-Product Containers. I thought it would be fun to snap a few shots and put together a Tabblo. I have taken ninety-seven photographs and I am not finished yet. I found one display cabinet with no visible cow presence, and three dedicated entirely to cows. There are brown cows and black cows and cows with no legs. Glossy black cows with gold horns, simple white cows with pretty blue flowers, Staffordshire cows with lids and bases, a tiny 50 ml disembodied head of a cow, one almost big enough to use as a teapot, and some with built-in milkmaids.

I am now upstairs, about to continue my photographic cowalog. Some day I want to make a complete album of the whole collection, as a coffee-table book.

Re-living my youth

The fireworks last night were fantastic, viewed from an encampment of picnic-munching, wine-drinking Edinburgers in Princes St Gardens. It was very gratifying seeing how impressed Matt was with the display.

Now we are going to climb Arthur's Seat. Well, Matt and my Dad are, I have a cold, and I wish the cold to go away, so I'm probably only going to climb part of Arthur's Seat.

We arrived safely, after several near-incidents, but no actual delays or misfortunes, even the guitar and both our bags made it with us. We only arrived yesterday, but we've had so much fun with my cousins, including a lovely posh dinner today at a hotel near Arthur's Seat, and hanging out at home sharing Laphroig and Aussie wine (and Spanish beer, and chorizo, peanut brittle, See's Candy, chocolate cake, guacamole, fresh salsa, home-made pizza, Dutch cheese, oatcakes, croissant, and even some wild strawberries from the garden.

The garden is still wonderfully overgrown, a bit short on daisies since my Dad just moved the lawn, but I managed to squeeze a daisy-chain crown out of it nonetheless. The house is still filled with randomly placed display cabinets full of cow creamers, ranging from lovely classic Staffordshire to horrendous cartoon numbers with painted on eyelashes and pouty red lips. This is the first time that I have found myself thinking that home is smaller than I remember it, not that the house is small, but that the scale of the hallway and staircase, the width of the lawn in the garden feel like a real sized house, not the giant things of my memory based in childhood

So now I'm sitting in the living room, using my sister's laptop on the wireless connection that Matt set up with three boy-cousins (they celebrated with beers all around, the Aussie boy-cousin has his own beer-cozie that he travels with). The guitar is being passed around, we just watched the student films of one cousin, and Matt's sharing the recordings of his music with everyone. Tomorrow we'll go into town and soak up some Festival atmo, and hopefully not too much rain.

Life is good.

Brace Yourself

All packed and ready to go, the airport shuttle cab picks us up at 8.30am tomorrow, a very civilized time to be departing on such a long trip. We JUST fit all our stuff into two large duffel bags, which seem to be under the weight limit, at least according to the relatively scientific method of weighing myself, then weighing myself holding the bag. For the larger of the two bags this involved Matt handing me the bag, held vertically as though I'm hugging a fat legless teddy bear, then he had to guide my feet onto the scale, since the bag obscured my view of the floor.

I am very glad that I resisted the lure of the super-efficient silver collapsible suitcase that tempted me last month, it was greatly discounted, but still expensive, and since then we've had to service the car, and not only tow Matt's bike, but replace the blown back tire. Perfect timing for these things to happen before a trip to Europe.

The cats are a little bemused by all the packing action, I will miss them a lot while we are gone, but I know our neighbors will take good care of them, G was talking about coming down to our apartment to study, so he will have a quiet space to read, and be company for the beasties at the same time. We are very fortunate to have such good friends living in the same building as us, and another eager potential cat-sitter who lives further away and was a little disappointed that he didn't get cat-guarding duty this time. His consolation prize is getting to pick us up at the airport when we get back.

By now everyone from my Dad's extended family has arrived at the house in Edinburgh, we're the last ones to roll up. Seventeen people total. Matt, Me, my parents and sister, four Aussies, three Catalan (near Barcelona), four French and one Englishwoman 30+ year transplant to Mauritius. Matt has met the Mauritian and French contingent, but not the rest. Poor lad. I think it's going to be utterly chaotic and great fun. Especially if the wine keeps flowing. Aunt Julia and I have a deal to keep each other's glasses full.

Tabblo collage of my cousin's wedding ceremony

See my Tabblo>

Hey!

Where did my flickr thingy go? It suddenly vanished from my side bar. Maybe this is punishment for not adding interesting new photographs for a loooong time.

I'll have to add it back again, I have some lovely photographs from my cousin's wedding yesterday.

*ETA: OK, new flickr flash badge added, and new template picked

Matt's back tire blew out on his way home from work last night, the back tire of his motorcycle that is. He's unharmed, and the bike's fine, which is pretty amazing since he was going highway speed when it happened. He called at 1am to tell me this (he works 4pm-midnight), and he got home a little after 3. I guess there aren't that many tow trucks on the clock in the middle of the night.

I'm about to go wake him up enough to stagger out to the car so we can drive up to LA to my Granny's house. My Dad is visiting, he just climbed Mt Whitney, and next weekend my cousin's getting married. There's going to be a lot of driving to LA County before we get on the plane to Edinburgh. Three weeks in Scotland! HOORAY. Giant family reunion, then five days in Stornoway, then a week of mostly having my parents to ourselves. Plus we have tickets to be in Princes St Gardens for the annual fireworks display.

It was a tough day at work, I de-stressed by wasting an hour browsing in a discount store (I had something to return, it gave me an excuse to browse), after picking up 4 dresses, a dress shirt, two t shirts and a pair of shorts, I ended up hanging the rest on a random rack and only getting the shorts (for Matt) and the t shirt (for me). I didn't realize I'd spent an hour zig-zagging the aisles until I looked at my watch while waiting to pay and realized how spaced-out and hungry I was. My lunch salad had worn off a little before quitting time.

After I got home I had an insanely delicious egg sandwich with chianti-flavoured salami and sat down to watch Universal Soldier with a tequila lemonade at my elbow. It sucked SO MUCH that I gave up after about 45min (or less) and wandered back to the computer room to look up sock yarn for my planned Christmas presents. Yes, I said sock yarn. Searching for sock yarn to go with my selected patterns is more interesting than Jeanne Claude Van Damme's butt and a bunch of gunfire. I am all in favour of movies that are so bad they end up being good, but this one has not made the cut. Give me a good cheesy Doris Day movie any day, I can keep track of the "action" without looking up frequently from my hands, which makes it perfect to combine my movie-watching hobby with my knitting hobby.

My first pair of socks turned out to be sock-shaped and wearable, though a little small for my wide feet, so I gave them away. Now my plan is to follow up last year's basic scarves for everyone, with socks for everyone, with the addition of my Granny, who has no need for a scarf, but wears socks daily. I am realizing that growing up in a cold-ish climate has made me inordinately fond of warm fuzzy things, good jackets and pretty sweaters. Matt also comes from a cold climate, colder than Scotland in the winter, we have an impressive and seldom-worn wardrobe of jackets.

Butterball

Marble the bowling-ball-belly is on a diet. She just had a checkup and has gained another pound, almost two, and finally the vet has said "enough".We can't feed both cats the same food any more, the stuff that's great for the boy is making the girl tubby and a little unhealthy. So now when we feed them we have to stay nearby to supervise, keep them each to their own bowl, and remove any leftovers after 15min or so. Last night Tali was so excited to see a new different-smelling type of food arrive, then he was completely bemused when I kept my hand between him and the dish with the new interesting stuff, and kept redirecting him back to his boring old variety. He didn't give me any dirty looks, which was surprising, just sat and stared dejectedly at his dish, and finally ate some once I held the bowl up for him. Spoiled boy.

This morning I think he'd got the message, he made only a few attempts to get into Marble's bowl before eating his own, he was probably hungry too, which will always help with eating what's in front of you. It's a great shame that we can't find a single food that keeps them both healthy and vital, hopefully Marble will feel better pretty soon and that will make up for the hassle. She's very fun to cuddle with her squishyness, but she has to prop her shoulder against a wall to clean her side!

Please note that this photographs is from February, she's at least 10% bigger now. Also note that my index finger has completely vanished in her chest ruffle, the blue ring is on my middle finger, no pointer in sight, her fluff ate it.

GRE-AT!

Tah-dah!

Combined score 1390 (690 verbal, 700 quant)! The average score of people accepted to my Masters program of choice is 1100. HOORAY! Now I can start in my new lab without worrying about studying, all I have to do is write my personal statement and gather references and transcripts (which is still quite a lot), I might even be able to get my application in sometime in August.

unlucky/lucky

Today turned into one of those everything-going-just-a-little-wrong days, lots of tiny annoyances and inconveniences piling up, till I finally said "enough, I am going to get groceries, which will include a beer each for me and Matt, and the crapness will stop". It did too, though trying to buy gas on the way to Trader Joes was a comedy of errors in it's own right: pumps all full but one, much maneuvering to get lined up by it, only to find it's broken, then much further maneuvering to get in line for a different pump.

When I got back, the news was full of cutesy stuff that people are doing because tomorrow is 07-07-07, lots of weddings, people scheduling cesarean sections to pick their baby's birthday (um...shouldn't that be dictated by health reasons, not cuteness?)and I realized that I've scheduled to sit the GRE on The Luckiest Day Of The Decade [TM]. Sweet!

I think that my past week of cramming and mathematics practice will probably make a bigger difference than the accidental alignment of a bunch of sevens on the calendar. I've gone from getting only 15-20% of the maths right, with about 5 questions unanswered, to getting 80-plus% correct, and managing to answer them all, though with little time to spare. I am going to do more of the practice maths sections on my studying software this evening. Exam is at 8.30am, which means hopping on a trolley to the test center at about 7.30. I just hope that the real thing is quite similar to all the practice questions I've been doing!

On Advisement

I think I must hurry up my current "big" knitting project of a shawl and start on my first sweater, in time to wear it in Scotland in August, because the weather, she is sucking this year. Of course, I can always pull out of storage the sweaters that I never get to wear in California.

This does not necessarily bode well for our plans to make our official honeymoon a week in Stornaway. We want to visit the stone circle, and the ancient seat of the Morrisons (Dun Eistein), I suspect it is going to be atmospherically windy and wet.

Lancastrianisms

Are almost impossible to express through text, it's all about the accent and delivery, and I'm not very adept at phonetic approximations. It helps if you know that my family lived in Lancaster (England, not Pennsylvania) from the time my sister was 6 months to 9 years old, so she had a pretty strong vernacular built up. Most of the Lancastrianisms are really little in-jokes in my family, referring to stories told by my parents about time they spent living in there. They take too much explanation to be funny. The most transferable one is when my sister had been told several times by my father to clean up her mess from some 6-year-old art project or other, and he kept noticing that she had NOT cleaned up at all. So. After the final warning had been given, it was time to check on her progress. He walked very slowly and theatrically down the hall, making his steps clearly heard to give her a chance to hear him and start to tidy up. He found: a perfectly tidy kitchen. With my sister sitting at the table. She looked up at him and said "was you stampin' about the house thinkin' I hadn't doone it?".

Whoah Dude!

Five comments! (ok, one was me responding). All posted from the vicinity of my hometown. I feel so popular!

I'd be getting homesick, but we're going to be there in two month's time. August 20th to Sept 10th we'll be in Scotland, I'm so excited, I haven't been home since 2004. The first week of our visit will also be a grand family reunion of my Dad's side of the family. The last time everyone was together was Christmas 2002 in the south of France, and Matt was left behind in San Diego for that. He's met about half of the people, the Frenchies came to our wedding, the Aussie/Catalan family and the Aussie/Aussie family didn't make it, so he will get to meet those cousins for the first time. Everyone in my Dad's family married someone from a different country, and their children continued the trend, I am the first "repeat" by marrying a Yank. This international romancing has resulted in me having French, Spanish (well, Catalan) an Australian cousins, not to mention an Aunt living in Mauritius, and one living in New Zealand. All on my Dad's side, the American side is all Californian. The best part of all of this is they are all really nice, so family get-togethers have been tremendously good fun. Everyone is very talkative, but mostly share politics and general philosophy, so the worst thing that happens is not being able to get a word in edgeways. At the Christmas bash in '02 I figured out it was much more fun to sit back a bit and observe all the other conversations rather than fretting about not being able to get my oar in. Aunt Julia and I kept each other's wine glasses refilled and basked in the glow of it all.

I just remembered that I took black and white photos of people sitting around the Christmas Eve dinner table that night, and the film is still languishing in my camera bag! I must dig it out and get it developed before we travel.

Garbage

A few weeks ago we had a massive clear-out of the accumulated paperwork in our flat. I had been putting off dealing with our rudimentary filing system for a while, I didn't realize until we got started that "a while" really meant almost a year. Important things, like new credit cards that needed to be activated, or the insurance card you're supposed to have with you in your car were carefully crammed into magazine files "to be dealt with later". You know, a year later.

There was a 10" high stack of mail on the kitchen table, all opened, with the real crap shredded or thrown out, but somehow still there was this stack that needed to be dealt with further. Both our file drawers were packed to the gills, and the fire-proof box we bought sometime in early 2006 to contain and protect our passports and mortgage documents...was still empty in the back of our closet.

We spent all day, first going through the magazine files and the stacks out in the livingroom, sorting into "trash" "shred" "keep" with a little pile for each potential file category of the things we needed to keep. We ran out of floor pretty fast. We were both sitting there surrounded by sheets of paper, finding gems like the renters insurance policy from Matt's last solo abode, back in spring 2003, which was somehow out and about in the livingroom of this, the third home we've shared together. The shred pile was the biggest, I don't know quite how high it would have been in total, since we started to shred as we went, but we emptied the shredder can three times, and we still have almost a foot-high pile left to go. I'm going to guess that it was a good two feet of paperwork full of personal information, but no longer necessary to keep hold of. We were convinced that at the end of it all we'd need to buy a little file cabinet, we started with so much, and the file drawers already full. But no, by the end of the day we had vital papers in the fireproof box, which is only one third full, everything thrown out or next to the shredder, or re-organized and back in the file drawers WITH ROOM TO SPARE. All this with no arguments or cats creating havoc by turning all the papers into a playground. We even survived the 20 minute panicked search for both my passports, which were in none of the 3 places I thought they might be in. Turns out they were filed under "Random Documents", not to be confused with "Random Stuff" or "Important Documents", all three of which were categories in the original filing (ahem) system.

Now I'm doing the same at work. Yesterday I felt incredibly naughty as I flung out samples and expired growth factors that have accumulated over the years I've worked here, some of it even predated me. There were sample boxes in the freezer that I have never needed to go into, I always thought nobody would care if I threw them out, but I was afraid to in case the next week my boss decided to start a project using those very reagents. Tossing out the old stuff felt good, it felt a bit weird to also dispose of samples I harvested just last week for a final experiment. Many hours of work go into making those samples, they are very precious (until you use them up generating data), and to throw them out seemed a little sad. They didn't get to fulfill their purpose and become data, I have all the data I'm going to extract from them already.

Today I'm clearing off my desk, and having similar experiences to when I cleared papers at home. Evidently my filing system has largely consisted of leaving things on a shelf for a year, or however long it takes for them to not be important any more, then throw them out. Simple, but not particularly efficient.

I win!

Monday marks our 2nd wedding anniversary. We have celebrated this weekend by driving up to the mountains and visiting the winery we bought our wedding wine from, and spending the day together window shopping and buying a few nice things for our house. We've been going to that winery's tasting room since we were first together, for five years (and a couple of months) now. We've been living together for 4 years since the 5th of June.

Earlier today I asked Matt if it was odd that I viewed this year's marking of five years together as much more significant that having been married for two years. This means I've been with him longer than I was in university, longer than my longest other relationship (2.5 years). We've been together longer than he was in the US Navy, THAT is significant to me. He said "yeah, 5 years is a good landmark, this is a lot more fun that being in the Navy."

I WIN! More fun than the armed services. I think I'll add that to my business card.

fluff!

Yesterday I got to bottle-feed a 6 week old kitten who is being hand-reared by a friend. Teeny crazy fluffy grey thing with pointy tufts on her ears just like a lynx, she was rescued at one day old and the shelter passed her along to my friend for bottle feeding and much TLC. She kept ten adults completely entertained for hours just by running about, chasing a toy and batting at our hands and feet.

In other furry-things related news, I am now on the foot part of my first ever sock. After I complete it, I will either make another one as like it as I can manage (maybe minus the small hole where the heel flap meets the foot), or I will find a one-legged person to give it to. A friend of mine has taken up spinning, I have told him that if he spins the wool, I'll knit him socks out of it.

Done for

The final exam of my epidemiology class was on Monday, I think it went well; though the article review assignment dragged my A- down to a B, the final might boost it back up to the land of A. Everybody did poorly in the article review. The online grades posting tells me my scores, and the averages for the class, and I'm above average on all but one assignment, though not spectacularly above average. Either way, it's DONE, I have made it through my first university class since 2001, next stop GRE review and writing the personal statement for my application.

Meanwhile, on the job front, I think I can now clarify the to-and-fro I've been hinting at for months, which will probably also help explain the DEF CON 4 stress levels over the past year. My supervisor/boss is relocating to a university in Philadelphia, where she will get her own lab space and extra money for grad students and staff members like me. I was offered a position there, but neither Matt nor I want to move this year. Oddly, Philly is on my list of potential cities to live in for the future, but I was thinking 10+ years kind of future, like after grad school, with a kid or two, wanting a house with a yard and to be close to the in-laws. So, I had to figure out what to do to keep me in cat food and hand-dyed yarn in the interim. The university I work for is pretty good about finding positions for staff members left without a lab group, but there are a lot of research groups here, and I was concerned I wouldn't be able to find one that worked on stuff that interested me, or, worse, that I'd end up stuck in a group with unpleasant interpersonal dynamics. Scientists can be a bit of a mixed bag, and NONE of us get people-management training, not even the supervisors. I lucked out, I will be working with a bunch of very bright and straightforward people, the whole group is very low on drama, as the two professors in charge of it wouldn't stand for interpersonal nonsense and ego wars. They know about my plans to pursue an MPH, and will be supportive of my taking classes, which is essential as some of the MPH classes are in the middle of the day, so creative rescheduling will be required.

My current group wraps up the very last week of June, so we're in the last few weeks of experiments, focusing on finishing up a couple of projects before my boss and the grad student head off to Philly and start setting up there. It is hectic. I'm making a lot of to-do lists so that I don't miss anything I have to do each day. It's especially hectic because I'm taking this Friday off, and the next Friday, for a group trip to Idyllwild, and then May War in Potrero, the only condition for me being able to take this time off is that I have to get 5 days work done in 4 each week so my absence doesn't set us back. Whew.

So far the antidepressants seem to be a big force for good. The first week, on a half dose, I had a pretty bad sore throat, but that went away as soon as I went up to the full dose. I have been calmer, I have so much more mental and physical energy, and no nausea or crazy appetite stuff like the other AD I was on in 2001. I have still gotten stressed out periodically, but it's just so much less than before, and it's been a stressful couple of weeks, so it would be odd if I hadn't got upset at any point. Plus, I recovered fast from each upset. I think this is going to work out that they do just what I want them to do: take the edge off and enable me to take actions that will help my mental well being naturally, actions I was struggling to even begin because I was struggling to overcome the depression and anxiety in the first place. It's harder to take good care of yourself when you really don't see the point. It's harder to concentrate at work and do a good job when you're convinced it'll all fail anyway.

Speaking of work, I think my 40 little samples of homogenized brain have now thawed, so it's time for me to start doing my thing.

You will awake...

Hypnocat
Originally uploaded by Rosemary Grace.

...Feeling perfectly refreshed, and remember nothing of this conversation.

Things have been up-and-down and back-and-forth a lot the past couple of weeks. Last week I had a doctor's appointment with a new general practitioner, I was going to ask about trying a different migraine med, since I stopped taking the one I had when I realized the medicine made me feel worse for the first 45 minutes after taking it (the migraine would then go away, but it wasn't worth the price of feeling stoned and unable to breathe for 45 min while the drug did it's thing). I also asked about some kind of anxiolytic. Otherwise known as anti-anxiety med. Otherwise known as antidepressant. You know: Prozac.

This does not mean that my depression/anxiety has got worse, it's more that it's not getting any better, I'm out of the falling apart crisis place, but I have spent the past year having a great week or two, where I'm well rested, getting some exercise, productive at work, not having to waste energy fighting the negativity, but all it takes is a night or two of disturbed sleep, or my period, and it knocks me into nearly month of just trying to get back on top of things. I'm not even talking getting my chores done, even on the good weeks I don't put away the laundry or hoover the rug as often as it needs. I'm talking about getting through my day without feeling hopeless and useless, without beating myself up, without having to struggle with myself over every tiny decision as though my entire future depends on what I have for breakfast or if I take route A or route B to work this morning.

What I really need is more time and less stress, a shorter commute, maybe working 75% time, maybe not taking a graduate level class, but none of those things are options. We can't afford to move, working 75% is not an option in my job, dropping the class would make me MORE depressed: I really want to move forward with graduate studies. I am thinking about taking a few days vacation for sanity time, but it's not enough. So I'm taking an antidepressant in lieu of actually relaxing and getting a holiday. How modern! I feel like such a well assimilated Californian.

More seriously, I decided to try this out again (I took an SSRI at the end of university) because there is an awful lot going on, at work and at home, and I want as much help as I can get to sail through the rest of the year without going kersplooey. Going kersplooey would include messing up the GRE and/or failing to get my application put together and submitted for the Masters program I want. Going kersplooey would also include getting those things done OK, but at the cost of frequent sick days from work just to keep my head together. It would also include dealing with grad school and work ok, but being miserable throughout and unable to enjoy time spent with my husband. Three balls: work, education, home. I do not want to drop any of them, they are all three very important. I hope that this new medication will make it a little easier to keep juggling.

Classic Taupe

I did well on my midterm: 94 out of 100, I can definitely live with that. I think it's interesting that the questions a lot of people would have treated as "gimme" points, I skipped over because I focused more on memorizing the scientific terms than the acronyms for various medical associations and sources of information. Largely because the scientific terms are more interesting, therefore easier for me to remember. I think I should get extra bonus points for choosing the harder ones in the sections where we got to pick which bits we answered. (Of course I think that, I want a good grade, I want extra credit just for being fabulous. And British, definitely extra credit for being British).

Since I was cramming for my exam, the newly laminated floor of the back room has remained unfinished around the edges, sporting little edges of plastic sheeting and blue masking tape instead of an attractive skirting board. We made up for that this weekend by not only installing skirting board, but painting the room first. Mental note: next time paint BEFORE installing lovely new floor. Though we were lucky, we only got a few tiny spatters, which clean up easily when it's latex paint on laminate. For the painting Matt and I both wore coveralls from his days in the Navy. The ones he wore most days to work on the ships. We were very cute in our matching blue jumpsuits with the name on one side of the chest, and U.S. NAVY on the other. Next time we paint we'll have to get photos of the coveralls.

The room looks lovely now, it had been kind of sad with it's uninspiring carpet and dinged up walls with furniture smudges marking up the cheap white paint that came with the place. Now it is classic taupe with red cherry floor and the skirting boards are the same laminate colour as the floor. Hopefully this will inspire us to treat it as a real room, not just the storage shed with the computers in it. Next big project we are saving up for will be the same laminate floors in our bedroom, which is bigger, but a simpler shape, so hopefully will feel easier to do.

Matt is in NorCal on a business trip from today until Friday evening. With luck he'll make it in to San Francisco for dinner at least one evening, I wish that I could have gone up with him and made a little vacation of it, I love San Francisco. It's definitely a long weekend trip I want to do with him sometime.