My sister starts chemotherapy tomorrow for advanced stomach cancer. My parents are there with her, I'm 6,000 miles away. We are all terrified.
I am living in limbo, waiting to hear more news. Hoping for good news after a month of bad to worse, hoping for an easy and effective course of chemo. Hoping for another year. Or five. Twenty would be even nicer.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Déjà vu
I have been using Google Documents a lot recently. We use it at work, and it reminded me what a handy tool it is. I've started creating the agenda for our Fellowship's Social Action Committee meetings as a Google Doc and now I don't have to remember where I left that slip of paper last month, I can just grab it from my email account and re-edit for the new month. This morning I was going through to see what else I had created, deleting obsolete files and making folders, tidying up my virtual desk. I came across this list of things to do from a few years ago.
We moved out of that flat in February of this year. We left behind spare planks of laminate flooring, and the uninstalled transition strips and baseboards for bedroom and dining area. Just add handyperson for a finished living area. We did caulk the baseboard/floor join in the living room, though probably not that ambitious weekend. The ornaments and tchotchkes were never thinned out, we do have a little more space for such things but a purge is still in order. After we actually unpack them.
My favourite is "what the hell is all that stuff and do we really need it?"
Amen sister.
Weekend Household Chores: a list made with all good intentions by yours truly, Nov 2008
- Install floor transition and last of baseboard in master bedroom
- Install remaining baseboards in hall & dining area
- Caulk Living Room
- Plastic Drawer Unit in Study
- Attack Master Bedroom closet shelves - what the hell is all that stuff and do we really need it?
- Organize underbed drawers- Same as closet. Reclaim space!
- Go through ornaments & tchotchkes - throw stuff out
- (Reorganize Rosie's Yarn stash)
My favourite is "what the hell is all that stuff and do we really need it?"
Amen sister.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Object Permanence
Our bed is positioned in the corner of the room with the foot against the wall so that we can have our dresser and reading lamps at the head of the bed and maximize the remaining floor space. An added bonus is the ability to lounge in bed and look straight out the window at the trees in the back garden. It means I have to clamber over Mr Riveter to get in and out of bed, since we're rather fond of each other the clambering isn't a problem. It also makes changing the bedding a little ungainly, but sometimes having a good view of the space between the wall and the foot of the bed has unexpected payoffs.
The day after moving I could not find my wallet. I had had it when we went out for dinner on moving day, but it wasn't in my handbag, nor on my dresser, nor under the bed, nor any other place I thought to look for it. I had been carefully hanging my handbag on the bedpost so I would not lose it's contents in the chaos of the move. Whoops.
I had a little cry about the $230 cash that had been in left in my wallet after the movers ended up costing a lot less than expected. I shed an extra tear for the nice wallet itself, a peacock blue fake-leather beaut I had taken a year to hunt down on sale. Then I remembered that I'd tucked my social security card in there for safe keeping and had another little cry. At least my passports were safely in a different pocket of my handbag, so I could identify myself as a citizen as long as nobody minded them still being in my maiden name.
Life moved on. I called banks and credit card companies and told them "I need to change my address and get a card reissued, I lost my wallet, yes it's really me, please don't send the cards to my old address". A smaller replacement wallet was bought to house the replacement cards. I got a replacement driver's license with the new address on it and even received the new Social Security card in time to get paid at my temporary job in March.
On Saturday morning I was making the bed, and as I tucked in the foot of the sheet I noticed sunlight glinting off a mysterious object wedged between the frame and the box springs. I reached down and pulled out...the beloved peacock blue wallet. Right where I'd left it. Sort of.
The day after moving I could not find my wallet. I had had it when we went out for dinner on moving day, but it wasn't in my handbag, nor on my dresser, nor under the bed, nor any other place I thought to look for it. I had been carefully hanging my handbag on the bedpost so I would not lose it's contents in the chaos of the move. Whoops.
I had a little cry about the $230 cash that had been in left in my wallet after the movers ended up costing a lot less than expected. I shed an extra tear for the nice wallet itself, a peacock blue fake-leather beaut I had taken a year to hunt down on sale. Then I remembered that I'd tucked my social security card in there for safe keeping and had another little cry. At least my passports were safely in a different pocket of my handbag, so I could identify myself as a citizen as long as nobody minded them still being in my maiden name.
Life moved on. I called banks and credit card companies and told them "I need to change my address and get a card reissued, I lost my wallet, yes it's really me, please don't send the cards to my old address". A smaller replacement wallet was bought to house the replacement cards. I got a replacement driver's license with the new address on it and even received the new Social Security card in time to get paid at my temporary job in March.
On Saturday morning I was making the bed, and as I tucked in the foot of the sheet I noticed sunlight glinting off a mysterious object wedged between the frame and the box springs. I reached down and pulled out...the beloved peacock blue wallet. Right where I'd left it. Sort of.
Monday, March 05, 2012
Adventures in homeownership.
Yesterday was the hottest day so far since we moved in, it was a little over 90ºF and the house stayed under 70ºF, even with a window open, and coming and going to the hot garage. This bodes well for the days over 100ºF in the summer!
We tried to hook our dishwasher up over the weekend, but after 3 trips to Home Depot we finally managed to find a long enough hose, but not the right valve. The valve labeled with the right size doesn't work, so it was either in the wrong box, or what we have isn't really a "half-half-three-eighths" valve. We even took the old valve with us to "make sure we got the right size". On Sunday afternoon I came back into the kitchen from starting a load of laundry in the garage and the doorknob came off in my hand. Cue 4th trip to Home Depot. At least doorknobs don't come in a plethora of sizes.
Meanwhile, the fridge is in the dining area, and will stay there till Matt gets home from Japan unless I decide to figure out the circular saw and cut a board to prop up it's back half to get it level. Even after that I'm not entirely sure I will be able to haul it up on to the board. So I will be going back to Home Depot for the 5th time in 3 days to get green paint. I might as well paint that wall while the fridge is pulled out. Should I have had my mail redirected to Home Depot instead of the house?
We tried to hook our dishwasher up over the weekend, but after 3 trips to Home Depot we finally managed to find a long enough hose, but not the right valve. The valve labeled with the right size doesn't work, so it was either in the wrong box, or what we have isn't really a "half-half-three-eighths" valve. We even took the old valve with us to "make sure we got the right size". On Sunday afternoon I came back into the kitchen from starting a load of laundry in the garage and the doorknob came off in my hand. Cue 4th trip to Home Depot. At least doorknobs don't come in a plethora of sizes.
Meanwhile, the fridge is in the dining area, and will stay there till Matt gets home from Japan unless I decide to figure out the circular saw and cut a board to prop up it's back half to get it level. Even after that I'm not entirely sure I will be able to haul it up on to the board. So I will be going back to Home Depot for the 5th time in 3 days to get green paint. I might as well paint that wall while the fridge is pulled out. Should I have had my mail redirected to Home Depot instead of the house?
Friday, March 02, 2012
Happy Friday
I got the job! Clinical research project coordinator on a study related to Alzheimer's Disease. I'll be working in an office building very close to my old lab, so I can even meet my old workmates for a beer after work.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Yellow house on the hill
Moving day was two weeks ago, and if moving house wasn't excitement enough I have also had two job interviews and started a temporary position (one month of full time work at the very end of a contract). They contacted me with an email that arrived just after the movers departed, and I felt very accomplished to have moved house and lined up work all before 11am. Around noon on the same day I got a call asking me to come in and interview for a permanent position at the University, this particular job is in "dream job" territory for me, and little fireworks started going off in my brain. I was (barely) sensible enough to request that we interview on Monday, not the very next day, giving me the weekend to locate a suitable outfit in the boxes labeled "Rosie's clothes". At least we were sensible enough to mark the clothes boxes "his" and "hers".
The house:
Classic 1970's "ranch style" California house. I like the cheerful yellow and white. We are almost at the top of a hill, you can see the fence at the top of the neighbour's property, and our lot actually extends a tiny bit further and includes a sliver of the top of the hill. It's very steep and the soil is sandy loam so at present all we can do is slither up, admire the view of the valley, pick our way down carefully, then knock the sand out of our shoes. There will be terracing once we learn more about landscaping and come up with a plan. The front lawn has held up rather well for being neglected for a couple of months, if this had been summer it would be dead from lack of water. I have seen a gopher in his burrow (grrr) in the back yard, a bunny (no warren) in the front yard, geckos skittering across the tree branches, magpies and crows trying to nab a gecko, and lots of little sparrow-ish birds I have yet to identify. No hummingbirds though. I will have to plant some hummingbird-attractant plants, I love watching them zoom about.
We get morning sun for about an hour coming in the front windows, and a little evening sun through the kitchen window on the side of the house, but overall there is little direct sun. It's an adjustment from our flat, which got sun almost all day through the side windows, but the place is still bright because we're in California. I suspect a similar place in Edinburgh would be quite gloomy.
Here we see Marble (left) and Taliesin (right) checking out the view from the dining room window. This was on the first morning when they were still trying to figure out what on earth was going on.
They seem to have settled in quite well. Lots of cuddles and reassurance from their pet humans, a regular supply of kibble, and interesting bird life out the windows make for happy cats. Tali loves playing peekaboo through the decorative wooden screen that separates the dining room from the living room, and made a bonus discovery that he can perch in one of the gaps and get the benefit of the electric convection heater beneath him.
Smugness incarnate:
The fly in the ointment: discovering surprise! water damage (with bonus black mold) in the kitchen, which means installing the dishwasher we brought with us from the flat is going to end up costing $2,000 for wall repair and half a new kitchen. Of course, had we not brought the dishwasher with us, we'd have been ignorantly adding to the water damage every time we ran the older, poorly installed model that came with the house.
The house:
Classic 1970's "ranch style" California house. I like the cheerful yellow and white. We are almost at the top of a hill, you can see the fence at the top of the neighbour's property, and our lot actually extends a tiny bit further and includes a sliver of the top of the hill. It's very steep and the soil is sandy loam so at present all we can do is slither up, admire the view of the valley, pick our way down carefully, then knock the sand out of our shoes. There will be terracing once we learn more about landscaping and come up with a plan. The front lawn has held up rather well for being neglected for a couple of months, if this had been summer it would be dead from lack of water. I have seen a gopher in his burrow (grrr) in the back yard, a bunny (no warren) in the front yard, geckos skittering across the tree branches, magpies and crows trying to nab a gecko, and lots of little sparrow-ish birds I have yet to identify. No hummingbirds though. I will have to plant some hummingbird-attractant plants, I love watching them zoom about.
We get morning sun for about an hour coming in the front windows, and a little evening sun through the kitchen window on the side of the house, but overall there is little direct sun. It's an adjustment from our flat, which got sun almost all day through the side windows, but the place is still bright because we're in California. I suspect a similar place in Edinburgh would be quite gloomy.
Here we see Marble (left) and Taliesin (right) checking out the view from the dining room window. This was on the first morning when they were still trying to figure out what on earth was going on.
They seem to have settled in quite well. Lots of cuddles and reassurance from their pet humans, a regular supply of kibble, and interesting bird life out the windows make for happy cats. Tali loves playing peekaboo through the decorative wooden screen that separates the dining room from the living room, and made a bonus discovery that he can perch in one of the gaps and get the benefit of the electric convection heater beneath him.
Smugness incarnate:
The fly in the ointment: discovering surprise! water damage (with bonus black mold) in the kitchen, which means installing the dishwasher we brought with us from the flat is going to end up costing $2,000 for wall repair and half a new kitchen. Of course, had we not brought the dishwasher with us, we'd have been ignorantly adding to the water damage every time we ran the older, poorly installed model that came with the house.
Monday, February 06, 2012
Ambitious
Movers are scheduled to arrive first thing on Thursday, which means everything has to be in a box by the end of Wednesday.
I think it was a little ambitious to think I could prepare to move inside two weeks while recovering from bronchitis.
Monday, January 23, 2012
Escrow
es·crow [n. es-kroh, ih-skroh; v. ih-skroh, es-kroh]
1. noun: a contract, deed, bond, or other written agreement deposited with a third person, by whom it is to be delivered to the grantee or promisee on the fulfillment of some condition.
2. verb (used with object): to place in escrow: The home seller agrees to escrow the sum of $1000 with his attorney.
3. Idiom: in escrow, in the keeping of a third person for delivery to a given party upon the fulfillment of some condition.
4. Rosie Idiom: to be in limbo, unable to blog or broadcast news, while compulsively drawing floor plans for furniture arrangements, plotting terracing schemes, browsing washing machines and clothesline set-ups and simultaneously trying not to get too attached to the idea.
The idea in question being a house we put an offer on late last year, and we have been in escrow (contract negotiation) over the holidays. Last Thursday we signed all the closing paperwork, so now it's just up to the selling bank (it's a repossessed foreclosure) to process everything and fork over the keys. Until we got the closing paperwork we did not feel we could count on the sale going through. Now we feel we can tell people, and start packing. Or at least thinking about packing.
It's a south-facing single-story "ranch style" house built in 1970, which almost counts as old here. It's in a safer neighborhood than our current place, a more residential area and is on a street that is not a handy shortcut for people getting bored with waiting for traffic lights on the nearby parallel main road. We are gaining 2 bedrooms (4 total, all on the small side), a garage, and our own garden. Front and back! the front garden has a large long-needled pine tree, some decorative palms, and a lawn, the back yard is lawn and a fence, then a steep hill behind the fence with another large long-needled pine tree. We get the hill too, but it's going to be much more useable once we get a chance to terrace it. We'd really like to put a deck up at the top and make use of the view out over the valley.
We are very excited to have space to store and practice our hobbies, and to grow things. The weather here means we could have everything from guava and citrus fruits to lettuce and spinach. I think my parents are particularly excited that they will no longer be sleeping on the futon in the living room when they visit. Some days I'm most pleased about the prospect of a dedicated craft room, others it's the ability to install a washing line and take advantage of the giant natural dryer known as the Santa Ana winds. Condo complexes here don't allow drying of laundry out doors, it's seen as "trashy" to display one's freshly laundered underthings.
Here is a short video I took the first day I went to view the house. Matt was away on a business trip so I was filming it for him. Hence the emphasis on the existence of a coat closet. It was one of his criteria. The man in a black sweater is our Realtor.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
2011 Retrospective
Unfortunately, I think the best word to describe my year is "fugue". Looking back on the retrospective post for 2010 I feel as though 2011 barely happened. Most of the year is a blur. I'm still unemployed, struggling with chronic migraines and depression.
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Danced in a real "American Tribal Style" group: follow-the-leader-style improvisational bellydance. Filed for unemployment. Joined a church (still atheist - it's a Unitarian Universalist congregation)
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't think I made any resolutions for 2011.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, my cousins Jack & Nokomas had a baby boy named Kai'ani, Travis & Judi had a girl named Terra (and moved to Seattle), K & J had baby N, and Travis (different Travis) & Ali had a boy named Corbin. Many old school chums I'm friends with on facebook also had babies.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Cousin Dominique in January, Maternal Grandmother in April.
5. What places did you visit? Los Angeles, Seattle, Paris & Gif-sur-Yvette in France, Munich & Berlin in Germany (with a 30 minute bus detour through Austria), and Amsterdam, Netherlands.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A full time job! This year for sure. You hear that Universe?
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 7th. Granny.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Finishing a cabled blanket I've been knitting on and off for 3 years.
9. What was your biggest failure? Failure to get out of my rut.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? The headaches. Technically I don't have "chronic migraine" because that's 15 migraine days out of 30, and I only average 10. Feels pretty chronic to me. I also exacerbated some repetitive strain in my shoulder and ended up getting physical therapy for that.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Spinning wheel & tickets to Europe.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Matt & my lovely friends
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Many politicians.
14. Where did most of your money go? Travel & various healthcare/physical therapy professionals.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Some of the jobs I applied for. Unfortunately I only had one interview.
16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Pass.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Pass
b) thinner or fatter? Pass
c) richer or poorer? Pass
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Walking. Dancing.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Procrastination. Wallowing.
20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010? With my parents & husband in our flat, we ate Christmas dinner outside in the sun.
21. Did you fall in love in 2010? Frequently.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Still Dr Who. & Castle.
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2010? I don't remember! That's a little sad. I think M took the day off work, but I can't remember what we did.
24. What was the best book you read? Pass
25. What did you want and get? Spinning wheel, to visit family in Europe.
26. What did you want and not get? A job. A visit to Scotland.
27. What was your favorite film of this year? I don't think I saw any new releases this year.
28. Did you make some new friends this year? The ladies in the spinning class I took this past spring were lovely.
29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Getting the headaches sorted out. Getting a job.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? I don't have to dress up for work, but I still love my pinstripe trousers & will wear them anyway.
31. What kept you sane? Matt. The kitties. Friends. Yarn.
32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Pass.
33. What political issue stirred you the most? Poverty. Healthcare & health disparities.
34. Who did you miss? My family.
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. Nobody can do the work for you to look after yourself well & work on depression.
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Danced in a real "American Tribal Style" group: follow-the-leader-style improvisational bellydance. Filed for unemployment. Joined a church (still atheist - it's a Unitarian Universalist congregation)
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't think I made any resolutions for 2011.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Yes, my cousins Jack & Nokomas had a baby boy named Kai'ani, Travis & Judi had a girl named Terra (and moved to Seattle), K & J had baby N, and Travis (different Travis) & Ali had a boy named Corbin. Many old school chums I'm friends with on facebook also had babies.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Cousin Dominique in January, Maternal Grandmother in April.
5. What places did you visit? Los Angeles, Seattle, Paris & Gif-sur-Yvette in France, Munich & Berlin in Germany (with a 30 minute bus detour through Austria), and Amsterdam, Netherlands.
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A full time job! This year for sure. You hear that Universe?
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 7th. Granny.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Finishing a cabled blanket I've been knitting on and off for 3 years.
9. What was your biggest failure? Failure to get out of my rut.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? The headaches. Technically I don't have "chronic migraine" because that's 15 migraine days out of 30, and I only average 10. Feels pretty chronic to me. I also exacerbated some repetitive strain in my shoulder and ended up getting physical therapy for that.
11. What was the best thing you bought? Spinning wheel & tickets to Europe.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Matt & my lovely friends
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Many politicians.
14. Where did most of your money go? Travel & various healthcare/physical therapy professionals.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Some of the jobs I applied for. Unfortunately I only had one interview.
16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Pass.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Pass
b) thinner or fatter? Pass
c) richer or poorer? Pass
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Walking. Dancing.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Procrastination. Wallowing.
20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010? With my parents & husband in our flat, we ate Christmas dinner outside in the sun.
21. Did you fall in love in 2010? Frequently.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Still Dr Who. & Castle.
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2010? I don't remember! That's a little sad. I think M took the day off work, but I can't remember what we did.
24. What was the best book you read? Pass
25. What did you want and get? Spinning wheel, to visit family in Europe.
26. What did you want and not get? A job. A visit to Scotland.
27. What was your favorite film of this year? I don't think I saw any new releases this year.
28. Did you make some new friends this year? The ladies in the spinning class I took this past spring were lovely.
29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Getting the headaches sorted out. Getting a job.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? I don't have to dress up for work, but I still love my pinstripe trousers & will wear them anyway.
31. What kept you sane? Matt. The kitties. Friends. Yarn.
32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Pass.
33. What political issue stirred you the most? Poverty. Healthcare & health disparities.
34. Who did you miss? My family.
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. Nobody can do the work for you to look after yourself well & work on depression.
Friday, September 09, 2011
Lights out across the county
Yesterday afternoon around 4pm my power went out. It's not unusual for a transformer to blow on our street on a hot day when every home is running it's air conditioning, but this was far more than that. All of San Diego county, parts of Orange County to the North, parts of Baja Mexico to the south, and parts of Arizona all lost power. 1.4 million households were without power, and it sounds like it can all be traced to an error made by one power company worker in Arizona. I feel sorry for that person.
Fortunately for me I was already home, so I read until it got too dim, lit the (usually purely decorative) candle sconce in the bathroom and took a tepid candle-lit shower. Then I collected an oil lamp, grabbed some food from my fridge as quickly as possible, and headed out to the communal lawn in front of my building to join my neighbors. There was already a roaring fire in a fire pit, someone had brought out a propane lantern, and the kids were playing with battery powered light sabers and running around having a blast. The moon was approaching full, and I could see stars. Stars! The light pollution here is normally so bad that the sky is dark blue with wispy clouds lit from beneath, and no stars visible at all.
Fortunately for me I was already home, so I read until it got too dim, lit the (usually purely decorative) candle sconce in the bathroom and took a tepid candle-lit shower. Then I collected an oil lamp, grabbed some food from my fridge as quickly as possible, and headed out to the communal lawn in front of my building to join my neighbors. There was already a roaring fire in a fire pit, someone had brought out a propane lantern, and the kids were playing with battery powered light sabers and running around having a blast. The moon was approaching full, and I could see stars. Stars! The light pollution here is normally so bad that the sky is dark blue with wispy clouds lit from beneath, and no stars visible at all.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
April 7th, 2011
On April 7th, my Grandmother Sue died. It was not completely unexpected. She was in the hospital recovering from a fall and the removal of a benign mass in her intestines. She was recovering well, and then all of a sudden she wasn't.
Her decline was rapid. My mother just made it to her bedside, flying from Scotland to LA, picked up by Matt and me at the airport and driving straight to the local hospital. After the gathering of the clan at her hospital bedside, Granny Sue was transported back home to my Aunt's house and laid in her own bed. She was gone within the hour.
This coming Sunday would have been her 95th birthday. Gardens and hummingbirds, and particularly forget-me-nots will always remind me of her sweet presence and sometimes wicked sense of humour. Wicked, but never mean. She embodied the spirit of loving kindness, and in her absence I am trying to carry a little more kindness and forgiveness in my heart.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Wordle - the past 12 months.
In San Diego State University colours. I think I'll see how my thesis translates to a wordle as well.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Ladybug, ladybug
This is a Schacht Ladybug spinning wheel. It is mine. I put it together last night and spun & plied a sample skein in about half the time it would have taken me with a spindle, and with no crick in the muscles between my shoulders from having my left arm raised for an hour or more. I think I am going to have a lot of fun with this gadget.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
The Fat One
I first found body acceptance/fat acceptance blogs and writers through diet blogs, like Diet Girl. It was '03 or '04 and I was looking for healthy eating / exercise ideas that didn't make me want to stab my own eyeballs out or smash everything in sight (and then eat it). I wrote the bulk of this post in 2004. I kept meaning to come back to it and finish it, but never have.
This week I started learning to eat with Michelle, otherwise known as The Fat Nutritionist. In 2004 I never would have though I'd end up consulting with a nutritional therapist, but in 2004 I was early enough on my journey towards trusting and respecting my body that I still was primarily focused on controlling my weight through diet and exercise. I had yet to realize that was a paradoxical combination and make the decision to follow a Health At Every Size approach. I had yet to have a panic attack in the grocery store because I was completely unable to make a decision about lunch. I had yet to yell at my husband that he needed to not talk to me about food because it was making me crazy. In 2004 I was at a stable weight of about 220, practicing karate and yoga, finally working in a busy lab where I felt respected and useful and feeling stronger and more confident in my body than I ever had.
Since then I got married, had melanoma, had facial surgery and a year of recovery and laser treatments, went on antidepressants, decided to pursue graduate school, applied for graduate school and was accepted, changed labs then quit lab work altogether, struggled to complete my thesis against a growing malaise that the antidepressant was not preventing...all the while gaining weight and having the unpleasant shock of not fitting into my clothes every 6 months or so. I'm heavier than I've ever been, the rapidity of my weight gain frightens me almost as much as my loss in stamina and the aches in my knees.
I am not going on a diet. What I am doing is tapering off the antidepressant, taking beta blockers to help with the 2-3 migraines a week the tapering off causes. I am doing some of the emotional work I was unable to do while studying for my Master's, and this has lead me to a point where I want to cut the food drama and have a healthy relationship with food and my body.
Below the line is the unpublished post from 2004. It's a bit of a ramble, but it's time to get it out of the draft folder.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't remember a time when I was not aware of being "big" or "fat", or some variant on that theme. My elementary school teacher counseled me that I should put my ten year old self on a diet, because it would make me happier, and people would like me more, so I'd be less of a target for the bullying that was making me hate school...
The more I think about it, the more I think I started out as a chunky kid, not medically overweight but taller and broader than those around me, plus some puppy fat. That's how I started, but the responses of people around me led me to believe that I was FAT, and that I needed to do something about it, which led me to worry about my body, and food, and what people thought of my body, and my food, and that's where the struggle started.
I was not a delicate waif of a little girl but dammit, I just looked at photos of myself at ages four through nine and found a chubby girl with a bad haircut and the unfortunate fashion statement of tucking my shirts in, which accentuated my short torso with a small belly roll before I had boobs to overshadow the whole shebang. From nine to twelve or so I became a bit more towards truly overweight I suppose, but the knowledge that it all came off (or redistributed) by age 16 because I grew vertically makes me assign it much more to puppy fat and puberty than to any real weight problem.
In that time period (nine-ish to 16) I was even more aware of being FAT because my mother had an obsession with loose fitting clothes: if you could distingush the shape of your body, it was too tight. This meant that any pants I tried on were all "too tight" because I have the familial large ass, and pants are sort of supposed to be fitted around the ass anyway. The tightness of the pants was not always worded as "those are too tight" it was fairly regularly called "those make your bum look too big", or "but they draw attention to your bum". The mantra of wear dark colours on your lower half so nobody notices your bum is still fairly well ingrained.
Of course, in the early adolescent era there was a new factor growing among peers, that of attractiveness, the ability to snag a boyfriend. I was possibly fortunate that I went to an all girl's school for that part of my life. Possibly. I don't know what it would have been like to be around boys then, if it would have made us all more competative or if we would have banded together in the face of a common enemy. No doubt a bit of both. In my little group of friends at school I was branded the fat one, even though I was one of two girls of a very similar level of chubbiness, I was the fat one for some reason. Probably because by that point I had been told so long that I was fat that I thought of myself that way and included it in my self depricating brand of humour. This trend of being The Fat One, either as something assigned to me by a group, or simply in my own mind, didn't even start to dissipate until I was in my 20's, when being a Brit at a California university changed my distinguishing feature to "the Brit".
I think that the general theme I'm chasing is that I was blissfully body un-aware, and that other people suddenly thrust before me a magic mirror with a picture of a Fat Girl, and told me that the Fat Girl was not a good thing to be. Still more people compounded and supported the argument and before I even hit puberty I had some nice self esteem issues going on the back burner. My memories of how I thought about my body center around having the unpleasant realization that I wasn't the shape I was supposed to be, and that everyone assumed that I would be so much happier if only I'd loose weight. I remember being 12, crying in a changing room when trying to buy clothes for gym class because I was so afraid of the comments I would get if I wore anything other than sweat pants and a gigantic t-shirt. I remember, at 16, being told by a friend that they wanted to set me up with a guy, and not to worry because "he really likes BIG girls!", the only nice part about that incident was the guy himself looking puzzled and saying "you're way skinny for me, I don't know why A. said you were fat..."
I probably had more padding than those girls, I certainly had bigger boobs and wider hips. But I had a waist in the middle, I was hourglass and had no idea how to dress for it, that made me look fatter. Fatter than them at any rate. Why did I have to be stamped with the fat label though? Why did ANYONE have to be "The Fat One". How about "that's Rosie" as a way of distinguishing me from the group? How about something personality based, or a physical attibute that lacks the negative implications? Unfortunately I wasn't the tallest (or shortest) in the group, nor the only one with fair hair, and we all had long hair, so lucky me got to be Piggy.
We had the little one, the tall one (sometime known as: the one with black hair), I guess maybe one girl was the rich one, but if we're sticking to physical assignations she was the one with frizzy hair, and then me, the fat one. We could just as easily have gone with K. is very ticklish, A. has a quick temper, C. knows far too many Monty Python songs and Rosie is disturbingly bouncy in the mornings. There's this unpleasant burning need in so many people or groups of people to point at someone and show how much better they are than that person. In the absence of the ability to use a racial slur without getting into trouble, and since "you're American!" "you're a smartypants" "you're one of those damn morning people" and other such distinguishing features don't come out as particularly good insults... they resort to Fat. Calling someone fat is the only physical comment I can think of that has such wide ranging implications about the target's character and behaviour. Ugly, short, bad hair, smelly...They are all insults, but they don't also imply laziness, gluttony, lack of will power AND an absence of attractiveness, the worst implication I can think of is that "your hair sucks" is also partially a comment on the taste and styling ability of the unfortunate bad-hair victim.
I had a respite from the role of The Fat One when I went to school in Australia and was just one of many passing-through foreign kids at the local elementary school, I didn't stand out there for being a bookworm, or for being foreign, I quickly made friends and fell in love with my new school. There was still a Fat One though: she was called Nyla, and she was sort of annoying and whiny, so she became the target. Everyone called her Fat Nyla, which confused me because she wasn't fat at all, she was the same as everyone else. I found myself joining in when others mocked her, until I saw that I had been Nyla at my old school, and that we were only picking on her because she was the designated kid to tease, then I stopped joining in and made an effort to get to know her. That incident was my first realization that fat (and annoying-ness) is in the eye of the beholder. Not only that, but it taught me that fat is what you call someone you don't like, fatness is bad, so bad that someone you dislike can be referred to as fat, just to summarize their awfulness into one convenient insult that everyone will understand. "Ugly" doesn't cover it, because ugliness is a more ephemeral concept.
Fat is an excellent tool for putting people down because as a category it is hard to break out of. Someone who is called fat is likely to believe the comment, and go away and beat themselves up about it. There will always be someone skinnier, or just about the same frame but with a way smaller ass, or taller and closely resembling a beanpole, but a cute beanpole with a pretty face and legs that look great in shorts. There will always be someone who has a positive feature in a place where you have a flaw, and we notice that far more often than we notice the flip side, the version where we have some enviable physical features they might lack. Neither way of looking at people is particularly helpful, someone always has to loose when there is a comparison involved.
I have largely broken the habit of thinking of myself as The Fat One, which is especially fortunate considering I work around a lot of women who are shorter, lighter, and have more conventionally attractive body shapes (meaning: slim but with enough curves to be clearly female). I'm even taller than most of the guys in the lab, and I'm only 5'8". Now, when I think of it at all, I think of it more as "I'm bigger than you", meaning both taller and bigger around, tempered with the knowledge that I'm pretty physically strong by comparison too. Admittedly, it's not the most healthy place to be, mentally speaking, because there are days when I feel like a lumbering giant, and the phrase "she's a BIG GIRL" pops into my mind. Most days it's the strength I feel, and any fleeting envy I feel for someone else's lovely compact form is tempered by the fact that I like being as tall as I am, I like being able to reach things on shelves and I imagine I'd feel much more vulnerable if I were shorter.
Eating more healthily and trying to work out regularly helps me focus on what my body can do rather than what it looks like and what body says about me as a person, but it still haunts me: The Fat Thing. At a conference, or going to a party where there will be new people, I imagine being mentally categorized as The Fat One when I'm introduced, I feel sure that at least one person will look at me as I walk by and think "Jesus woman, STOP EATING PIES, and don't come out in public until your ass is smaller". When I have job interviews I'm afraid the first thought of my interviewer will be "she's fat" or "she shouldn't be wearing that, she's too fat". I'm afraid of being judged on my appearance, but that isn't because of what shape and size I am, it's because I have spent my whole life being told I'm fat, seeing people call others fat, and realizing what implications come with that label. I worry about being The Fat One because that would mean I am not a person in their eyes, it is the label that burns me, not the adipose tissue deposits on my thighs. Fat doesn't make you feel bad about yourself, assholes make you feel bad.
Unfortunately that means that our culture, as a whole, is an asshole.
This week I started learning to eat with Michelle, otherwise known as The Fat Nutritionist. In 2004 I never would have though I'd end up consulting with a nutritional therapist, but in 2004 I was early enough on my journey towards trusting and respecting my body that I still was primarily focused on controlling my weight through diet and exercise. I had yet to realize that was a paradoxical combination and make the decision to follow a Health At Every Size approach. I had yet to have a panic attack in the grocery store because I was completely unable to make a decision about lunch. I had yet to yell at my husband that he needed to not talk to me about food because it was making me crazy. In 2004 I was at a stable weight of about 220, practicing karate and yoga, finally working in a busy lab where I felt respected and useful and feeling stronger and more confident in my body than I ever had.
Since then I got married, had melanoma, had facial surgery and a year of recovery and laser treatments, went on antidepressants, decided to pursue graduate school, applied for graduate school and was accepted, changed labs then quit lab work altogether, struggled to complete my thesis against a growing malaise that the antidepressant was not preventing...all the while gaining weight and having the unpleasant shock of not fitting into my clothes every 6 months or so. I'm heavier than I've ever been, the rapidity of my weight gain frightens me almost as much as my loss in stamina and the aches in my knees.
I am not going on a diet. What I am doing is tapering off the antidepressant, taking beta blockers to help with the 2-3 migraines a week the tapering off causes. I am doing some of the emotional work I was unable to do while studying for my Master's, and this has lead me to a point where I want to cut the food drama and have a healthy relationship with food and my body.
Below the line is the unpublished post from 2004. It's a bit of a ramble, but it's time to get it out of the draft folder.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't remember a time when I was not aware of being "big" or "fat", or some variant on that theme. My elementary school teacher counseled me that I should put my ten year old self on a diet, because it would make me happier, and people would like me more, so I'd be less of a target for the bullying that was making me hate school...
The more I think about it, the more I think I started out as a chunky kid, not medically overweight but taller and broader than those around me, plus some puppy fat. That's how I started, but the responses of people around me led me to believe that I was FAT, and that I needed to do something about it, which led me to worry about my body, and food, and what people thought of my body, and my food, and that's where the struggle started.
I was not a delicate waif of a little girl but dammit, I just looked at photos of myself at ages four through nine and found a chubby girl with a bad haircut and the unfortunate fashion statement of tucking my shirts in, which accentuated my short torso with a small belly roll before I had boobs to overshadow the whole shebang. From nine to twelve or so I became a bit more towards truly overweight I suppose, but the knowledge that it all came off (or redistributed) by age 16 because I grew vertically makes me assign it much more to puppy fat and puberty than to any real weight problem.
In that time period (nine-ish to 16) I was even more aware of being FAT because my mother had an obsession with loose fitting clothes: if you could distingush the shape of your body, it was too tight. This meant that any pants I tried on were all "too tight" because I have the familial large ass, and pants are sort of supposed to be fitted around the ass anyway. The tightness of the pants was not always worded as "those are too tight" it was fairly regularly called "those make your bum look too big", or "but they draw attention to your bum". The mantra of wear dark colours on your lower half so nobody notices your bum is still fairly well ingrained.
Of course, in the early adolescent era there was a new factor growing among peers, that of attractiveness, the ability to snag a boyfriend. I was possibly fortunate that I went to an all girl's school for that part of my life. Possibly. I don't know what it would have been like to be around boys then, if it would have made us all more competative or if we would have banded together in the face of a common enemy. No doubt a bit of both. In my little group of friends at school I was branded the fat one, even though I was one of two girls of a very similar level of chubbiness, I was the fat one for some reason. Probably because by that point I had been told so long that I was fat that I thought of myself that way and included it in my self depricating brand of humour. This trend of being The Fat One, either as something assigned to me by a group, or simply in my own mind, didn't even start to dissipate until I was in my 20's, when being a Brit at a California university changed my distinguishing feature to "the Brit".
I think that the general theme I'm chasing is that I was blissfully body un-aware, and that other people suddenly thrust before me a magic mirror with a picture of a Fat Girl, and told me that the Fat Girl was not a good thing to be. Still more people compounded and supported the argument and before I even hit puberty I had some nice self esteem issues going on the back burner. My memories of how I thought about my body center around having the unpleasant realization that I wasn't the shape I was supposed to be, and that everyone assumed that I would be so much happier if only I'd loose weight. I remember being 12, crying in a changing room when trying to buy clothes for gym class because I was so afraid of the comments I would get if I wore anything other than sweat pants and a gigantic t-shirt. I remember, at 16, being told by a friend that they wanted to set me up with a guy, and not to worry because "he really likes BIG girls!", the only nice part about that incident was the guy himself looking puzzled and saying "you're way skinny for me, I don't know why A. said you were fat..."
I probably had more padding than those girls, I certainly had bigger boobs and wider hips. But I had a waist in the middle, I was hourglass and had no idea how to dress for it, that made me look fatter. Fatter than them at any rate. Why did I have to be stamped with the fat label though? Why did ANYONE have to be "The Fat One". How about "that's Rosie" as a way of distinguishing me from the group? How about something personality based, or a physical attibute that lacks the negative implications? Unfortunately I wasn't the tallest (or shortest) in the group, nor the only one with fair hair, and we all had long hair, so lucky me got to be Piggy.
We had the little one, the tall one (sometime known as: the one with black hair), I guess maybe one girl was the rich one, but if we're sticking to physical assignations she was the one with frizzy hair, and then me, the fat one. We could just as easily have gone with K. is very ticklish, A. has a quick temper, C. knows far too many Monty Python songs and Rosie is disturbingly bouncy in the mornings. There's this unpleasant burning need in so many people or groups of people to point at someone and show how much better they are than that person. In the absence of the ability to use a racial slur without getting into trouble, and since "you're American!" "you're a smartypants" "you're one of those damn morning people" and other such distinguishing features don't come out as particularly good insults... they resort to Fat. Calling someone fat is the only physical comment I can think of that has such wide ranging implications about the target's character and behaviour. Ugly, short, bad hair, smelly...They are all insults, but they don't also imply laziness, gluttony, lack of will power AND an absence of attractiveness, the worst implication I can think of is that "your hair sucks" is also partially a comment on the taste and styling ability of the unfortunate bad-hair victim.
I had a respite from the role of The Fat One when I went to school in Australia and was just one of many passing-through foreign kids at the local elementary school, I didn't stand out there for being a bookworm, or for being foreign, I quickly made friends and fell in love with my new school. There was still a Fat One though: she was called Nyla, and she was sort of annoying and whiny, so she became the target. Everyone called her Fat Nyla, which confused me because she wasn't fat at all, she was the same as everyone else. I found myself joining in when others mocked her, until I saw that I had been Nyla at my old school, and that we were only picking on her because she was the designated kid to tease, then I stopped joining in and made an effort to get to know her. That incident was my first realization that fat (and annoying-ness) is in the eye of the beholder. Not only that, but it taught me that fat is what you call someone you don't like, fatness is bad, so bad that someone you dislike can be referred to as fat, just to summarize their awfulness into one convenient insult that everyone will understand. "Ugly" doesn't cover it, because ugliness is a more ephemeral concept.
Fat is an excellent tool for putting people down because as a category it is hard to break out of. Someone who is called fat is likely to believe the comment, and go away and beat themselves up about it. There will always be someone skinnier, or just about the same frame but with a way smaller ass, or taller and closely resembling a beanpole, but a cute beanpole with a pretty face and legs that look great in shorts. There will always be someone who has a positive feature in a place where you have a flaw, and we notice that far more often than we notice the flip side, the version where we have some enviable physical features they might lack. Neither way of looking at people is particularly helpful, someone always has to loose when there is a comparison involved.
I have largely broken the habit of thinking of myself as The Fat One, which is especially fortunate considering I work around a lot of women who are shorter, lighter, and have more conventionally attractive body shapes (meaning: slim but with enough curves to be clearly female). I'm even taller than most of the guys in the lab, and I'm only 5'8". Now, when I think of it at all, I think of it more as "I'm bigger than you", meaning both taller and bigger around, tempered with the knowledge that I'm pretty physically strong by comparison too. Admittedly, it's not the most healthy place to be, mentally speaking, because there are days when I feel like a lumbering giant, and the phrase "she's a BIG GIRL" pops into my mind. Most days it's the strength I feel, and any fleeting envy I feel for someone else's lovely compact form is tempered by the fact that I like being as tall as I am, I like being able to reach things on shelves and I imagine I'd feel much more vulnerable if I were shorter.
Eating more healthily and trying to work out regularly helps me focus on what my body can do rather than what it looks like and what body says about me as a person, but it still haunts me: The Fat Thing. At a conference, or going to a party where there will be new people, I imagine being mentally categorized as The Fat One when I'm introduced, I feel sure that at least one person will look at me as I walk by and think "Jesus woman, STOP EATING PIES, and don't come out in public until your ass is smaller". When I have job interviews I'm afraid the first thought of my interviewer will be "she's fat" or "she shouldn't be wearing that, she's too fat". I'm afraid of being judged on my appearance, but that isn't because of what shape and size I am, it's because I have spent my whole life being told I'm fat, seeing people call others fat, and realizing what implications come with that label. I worry about being The Fat One because that would mean I am not a person in their eyes, it is the label that burns me, not the adipose tissue deposits on my thighs. Fat doesn't make you feel bad about yourself, assholes make you feel bad.
Unfortunately that means that our culture, as a whole, is an asshole.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
2010 Retrospective
1. What did you do in 2010 that you’d never done before? Wrote a master's thesis & defended it. "Walked" in an American graduation ceremony. Flamenco danced. Learned to spin yarn with a spindle. Helped brew cider & mead.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I think my only resolutions were to keep up the 1x weekly exercise habit I formed in 2009, attempt to add to it, and to stop using paper cups for coffee purchases. None of these worked out as I'd hoped. Stress and an ill-advised month of flamenco classes wreaked some havoc with my body that I have spent the second half of 2010 struggling with. Nothing permanent, but aches & pains and chronic tension headaches make Rosie a grumpy woman. I was sporadic with the re-useable bags & travel mug, but sporadic use still reduces wastefulness better than not bothering at all.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but a slew of friends (and one cousin) are currently pregnant & will deliver in 2011.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Not in 2010, but my cousin died Jan 3 after over a year battling metastasized lung cancer.
5. What places did you visit? Philadelphia, PA, Washington DC (including Alexandria and Mt Vernon), Williamsport, PA, Oxnard CA (surprisingly cute wee town).
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A full time job! Of course I lacked this in 2010 because I was in graduate school with a part time internship, a very good reason.
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? November 11th I handed in my thesis for final formatting. June 12th Matt graduated with his Bachelors degree.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Thesis (detect a theme yet?)
9. What was your biggest failure? Hm. I don't think I really failed at anything, but I struggled with motivation and self-esteem all year.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? The flamenco played merry hell with my knees, I quit after a month and am still feeling it. I tweaked my lower back in October. Nothing that a little time & careful yoga type activity won't heal.
11. What was the best thing you bought? My spindles & loom.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Matt & my lovely friends
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Many politicians.
14. Where did most of your money go? Tuition, the trip to PA, and yarny crafts.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Diarrhea (my thesis topic was Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea).
16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Pass.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Pass
b) thinner or fatter? Pass
c) richer or poorer? Pass
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Walking. Dancing (anything less stampy than flamenco).
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Procrastination.
20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010? With family at Granny's house in Los Angeles and NOBODY IN THE HOSPITAL. (Mum had a ruptured appendix just in time for Christmas 2009).
21. Did you fall in love in 2010? Frequently.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Dr Who. Castle. I also rediscovered the joy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2010? Matt threw me a surprise party for my 30th!
24. What was the best book you read? Cryoburn by Lois McMasters Bujold.
25. What did you want and get? Publishable data for my thesis. Lots of little luxuries like travel, craft supplies and delicious foods.
26. What did you want and not get? My diploma (it will be issued May 2011)
27. What was your favorite film of this year? Coraline.
28. Did you make some new friends this year? Lots of SCA friends are now "real life" friends.
29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Getting everything submitted in time to ahve my diploma in hand. Having a job lined up, though I am enjoying having some free time while job seeking.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? Half my clothes don't fit so I'm going to distract you from my limited wardrobe with this stunning handmade scarf.
31. What kept you sane? Matt. The kitties. Friends. Yarn.
32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Pass.
33. What political issue stirred you the most? Poverty. Healthcare & health disparities.
34. Who did you miss? My family.
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. Graduate school is truly rewarding, but you really have to want it, and know why you are there.
2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I think my only resolutions were to keep up the 1x weekly exercise habit I formed in 2009, attempt to add to it, and to stop using paper cups for coffee purchases. None of these worked out as I'd hoped. Stress and an ill-advised month of flamenco classes wreaked some havoc with my body that I have spent the second half of 2010 struggling with. Nothing permanent, but aches & pains and chronic tension headaches make Rosie a grumpy woman. I was sporadic with the re-useable bags & travel mug, but sporadic use still reduces wastefulness better than not bothering at all.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No, but a slew of friends (and one cousin) are currently pregnant & will deliver in 2011.
4. Did anyone close to you die? Not in 2010, but my cousin died Jan 3 after over a year battling metastasized lung cancer.
5. What places did you visit? Philadelphia, PA, Washington DC (including Alexandria and Mt Vernon), Williamsport, PA, Oxnard CA (surprisingly cute wee town).
6. What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? A full time job! Of course I lacked this in 2010 because I was in graduate school with a part time internship, a very good reason.
7. What dates from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? November 11th I handed in my thesis for final formatting. June 12th Matt graduated with his Bachelors degree.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Thesis (detect a theme yet?)
9. What was your biggest failure? Hm. I don't think I really failed at anything, but I struggled with motivation and self-esteem all year.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? The flamenco played merry hell with my knees, I quit after a month and am still feeling it. I tweaked my lower back in October. Nothing that a little time & careful yoga type activity won't heal.
11. What was the best thing you bought? My spindles & loom.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Matt & my lovely friends
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Many politicians.
14. Where did most of your money go? Tuition, the trip to PA, and yarny crafts.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Diarrhea (my thesis topic was Clostridium difficile associated diarrhea).
16. What song will always remind you of 2010? Pass.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Pass
b) thinner or fatter? Pass
c) richer or poorer? Pass
18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Walking. Dancing (anything less stampy than flamenco).
19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Procrastination.
20. How did you spend Christmas in 2010? With family at Granny's house in Los Angeles and NOBODY IN THE HOSPITAL. (Mum had a ruptured appendix just in time for Christmas 2009).
21. Did you fall in love in 2010? Frequently.
22. What was your favorite TV program? Dr Who. Castle. I also rediscovered the joy of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
23. What did you do for your birthday in 2010? Matt threw me a surprise party for my 30th!
24. What was the best book you read? Cryoburn by Lois McMasters Bujold.
25. What did you want and get? Publishable data for my thesis. Lots of little luxuries like travel, craft supplies and delicious foods.
26. What did you want and not get? My diploma (it will be issued May 2011)
27. What was your favorite film of this year? Coraline.
28. Did you make some new friends this year? Lots of SCA friends are now "real life" friends.
29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Getting everything submitted in time to ahve my diploma in hand. Having a job lined up, though I am enjoying having some free time while job seeking.
30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2010? Half my clothes don't fit so I'm going to distract you from my limited wardrobe with this stunning handmade scarf.
31. What kept you sane? Matt. The kitties. Friends. Yarn.
32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Pass.
33. What political issue stirred you the most? Poverty. Healthcare & health disparities.
34. Who did you miss? My family.
35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2010. Graduate school is truly rewarding, but you really have to want it, and know why you are there.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Cottage Industry
I warped my little rigid heddle loom for this scarf on Monday. Now, on wednesday evening, it's hanging to dry. All it needs is some kind of finishing on the fringe. I am thinking teeny braids. See the little droplets of water hanging off the fringe? That's after running it through the mighty centrifugal forces of Granny's washing machine!
Following a rainy 120 mile drive and a sing-along Messiah in the Walt Disney Symphony Hall I have been ensconced with my family at my Granny's townhouse in the San Fernando Valley since Sunday night. Matt is coming up by motorcycle tomorrow. I think it's becoming his Christmas tradition to ride his motorbike up here. We have been watching the impressive rain storms all week but it looks like it's clearing up now. I hope he arrives dry. Or at least mostly dry.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Yesterday I Defended My Master's Thesis
Mum and Matt were there, Mum's spending October in LA with her mum, and took the train down to attend. I presented the essential points of my project in about 30 minutes, with a 21 slide powerpoint, to two infectious disease physicians, a nursing professor, and a statistics professor. My cheering squad of two were the only other people in the room without the title "Dr.". I felt like I was babbling somewhat, but the committee and my family all said I presented very well. Good to know Mrs Heath's standard grade English class, and the Edinburgh Academy public speaking club paid off.
After the presentation and "public" discussion, the committee asked us to leave the room. Mum & Matt went for a coffee, I waited in the hallway to be called back in. After about 15 minutes my chair called me back in, and I was told it's very close to done, I need to expand a few sections and make a detailed table of studies on C. difficile and acid suppression. (That's the topic of my thesis). My chair also mentioned she'd like me to present to her infectious disease class, and I'm going to present the data at the hospital where the study is based. We (my on-site advisor and the team at the hospital) are putting together a paper based on this analysis and will be submitting it for publication. If it gets through it will be my first first-authorship on a paper.
Today I am doing no work. I put Mum on a train to LA, bought myself a couple of scented candles, and had a delicious sandwich, and now I'm catching up on free on-demand tv shows. Yay for Castle!
Tomorrow I begin with the revisions. I want to get this sucker finished and submitted so I can really celebrate.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Graceful they ain't
Friends of ours have a 1-year-old corgi (this isn't him). I kind of want one too.
Monday, September 20, 2010
Champagne tastes
Marble is always interested in my knitting and yarn, but she is in love with this violet Wollmeise German sock yarn. She maneuvers herself to keep her nose close to the ball at all times, and frequently earns herself an eviction from my lap by trying to chomp on a strand as it passes her face.
That sound made by deadlines as they fly past
Summer has been and gone (officially, though it's still 80'F and sunny here) and I am getting closer to finished with the interminable thesis, though it does seem to keep expanding and needing more bits added no matter how much I write. Which is not enough most days. Chapters 1-4 are largely done, I have some feedback on them to go through. Chapter 5, the discussion, has bits done and bits missing. I sent the existing bits off for feedback so I could pat myself on the back for sending something.
My internship has finished up, so I am currently an unemployed graduate student. I've applied for three different federal jobs suitable for my post-graduate self, civil service hiring processes are very slow so it's worth getting in applications even though I'm not done yet.
In other news, Matt and I started visiting the local Unitarian Universalist fellowship. I have never been part of a church community except for the obligatory Presbyterian leanings of my schooling. A couple of the songs sung in fellowship meeting are actually songs I learned in assembly in primary school, but it's otherwise a quite different experience. The symbols above the lectern are multi-faith and secular humanist/atheist folks (with an interest in pagan traditions) like myself are welcome. As are pagan/atheist folks like Matt. The community is very welcoming, and there is a focus on volunteerism and "helping hands". I'm going to track down someone involved in the knitting ministry to see what type of things they knit for charity, and we both spent some time this past Sunday chatting with members of the small "earth-based spirituality" group. Most of them are Wiccan, and there was a marvelous moment when Matt pointed out the pentacle dream-catcher tattoo on his calf, and three other people pulled out pentacle necklaces or finger-rings and one of the three simply said "welcome!".
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