Valentine's meme- Nearly 8 Years

The latest meme on Facebook, which is sure to hit full stride this weekend, is for people to put as their "status" how long they've been together. This of course elicits a series, of gushy comments from all your girl friends (haven't seen a lot of guys participating in this one). I won't indulge in this one- I don't like broadcasting that info in that format, and when I tallied up the numbers, I noticed Matt and I have been together a really long time- for people our age. The people we were when we first met seem so different from who we are now, it's embarrassing to think we were ever so sophomoric, or that being that young was so long ago. And it seems unfair to take all that and make it one little number.

Nearly 8 years ago, when Matt and I starting seeing each other, I was 18 years old, I thought I might never graduate high school (in a melodramatic teen kind of way), I got my first job, and was trying to learn how to be independent while I waited to head out to college. And Matt was this sweet guy who had funny stories, a quiet but joyful sense of humor and was really into crazy adventures. Well, they seemed crazy to the 18 yr old me. I felt really lucky to get to hang out with a guy like that, for just a little while. See, I didn't want to get to invested in the whole thing, because I knew I was going to WWU in the fall. And Matt was going to be transferring away from UAS then too. It was early in that first summer when we realized we would both be at Western.

When we moved to Bellingham, I was an energetic but clueless freshman, and Matt was happy to be my knowledgeable and experienced counterpart- he never got lost on campus, he knew about all these cool hang outs on and off campus and he wanted to share all this fun with me. Could a girl get so lucky? He had a house, with a proper kitchen where I could go and cook, or just not be around 20 girls. I like to think he benefited form having me around too- I dragged him through Calc 2, we would go on suburban adventures together and a loner like him really likes to attention.

We've actually been married for 3 and a half years- which also seems like I long time. I thought by now I'd be really good at it. Matt told someone over the phone yesterday that "my wife says the streets in Oakland are still bad." And I was a little surprised to find he was talking about me! Being married in grad school is hard- there are such demands on my time, I don't get to commit as much time as I would like to it. Matt is sleeping off a cold this morning, and I am about to head in to work for the afternoon, which breaks my heart a bit. But it is clear that being married is WAY better then being single, and that we can still find ways to be important for each other in our new life together.

Yesterday morning I got an email from Matt at work that he had stopped out in the suburbs, and bought a new set of winter wheels. He threw down towels over the slush to change out the tires , and carefully covered the back seat in an old sheet before piling in the old tires and heading off to work. So yes, he still has funny stories and crazy adventures, and I still feel really lucky to get to hang out with him. I still wonder about what kind of job I'll ever get, although now I am more confident that I won't end up somewhere I can't be happy.

We don't have plans to celebrate this weekend, but will probably do something fun together this week (my vote is for Ethiopian food), to celebrate Valentine's Day. For all the rest of you- Happy Valentine's Day!

Snowpocalypse III: Sleetmageddon

I am writing this update purely because I wanted to type that title.

We got some weather today. It's been pretty chilly, and today we actually got some sleet. It sounded really neat bouncing off the ground and all the leaves. Like a world filled with pop rocks.

We got our new, very pretty shower measured for glass. We're going with framed glass, all nice and clear, so it should look really nice. I'll put pictures up when the whole things is done.

Jess and I are hoping to vacation in Europe this year. It's looking like we'll go with a tour company, because there's a lot of places we want to see and figuring out how to navigate around so many different countries sounds pretty tricky. Anyone who thinks or knows differently should feel free to chime in.

-N

Snowpocalypse! Again!

The storm continues-Campus is still closed- due largely to a lack of plowing, and will be closed again tomorrow. The list of services closed this week goes on and on. And once I started looking at it- I got really ticked off. Sure, it is a hassle for me that Pitt is closed. But the Food Bank? Meals on Wheels can't deliver either. The National Guard as been here since the weekend, and only today have they been coordinating with emergency services and the mayors office to do things like deliver prescriptions and take people to dialysis. Sure, 18 inches is a lot of snow, especially here where we don't often get it. But the suburbs have been cleared since Saturday afternoon.

Really, this is getting old. There were 18 inches of snow on Saturday- we didn't see a snow plow until yesterday! And why did the city up its effort to deal with the snow? Because we are supposed to get 4-8 inches tonight! Matt hasn't been able to get to work- not an ideal use of limited vacation days. I went in for a few hours today, but scurried back home when the snow started. The buses make a very valiant effort to keep the city moving despite a poor recovery effort- but do you know how scary it is to be on a bus when its wheels start spinning?

Of course Matt and I are fine- we aren't any of the thousands of people without power. We've been acting hunkered down, eating high energy food like bread and nuts as if we were starving. But in truth, we've run out of things to shovel and have only made a dent in our Superbowl Party food. On Matt's last grocery store trip, he bought grapefruit. The main problem for us is not being able to drive, and being asked to keep off the roads "so they can get cleared." I hope City Hall has heard enough outrage to get us back to work by Thursday... grumble grumble.

Our New Shower

I've been super busy this weekend, homeowner activities mostly. But I thought I'd take a moment to throw up some pictures of the process for fixing up our shower, in case anyone was interested. Are you interested? Yeah, I thought you were.

So here's the 'before' picture. The plan was to take down the wall and expand the shower. So let's go through and see how it all worked, out.








Day 1: demolition. This is what happens when you let some contractors take out a wall. That tall copper stuff in the middle, that's the old plumbing for the old shower, just sticking out of the ground. All done nice and neat.






Day 2: Plumbing. Here you can see where they opened a hole in the floor and moved some pipes around. The drain, primarily, and also some pipes running up into the new wall. They also went in through the ceiling on the first floor to get to some extra pipes.




Day 3: Less impressive today, mostly patching up the holes they made after running plumbing the day before.





Day 5: The shower pan has been put in and the valves put on the wall. Big, manly valves, too, nothing like the piddly little mixer we had before. BEEFY!



Day 6: They started putting the 'hardy backer' on the wall. It's a cross between drywall and concrete. They also started building the bench.











Day 7: More hardy backer, and you can see the shower boxes up in the wall, and the completion of the benches.






Day 8: Tile! Our guy stayed extra long today and look at the progress. It's actually starting to look like a shower, eh?






Day 9: Finishing the tile and putting in the grout. Good stuff. Very pretty.






One last picture. I took this after telling Jessie not to turn on the water. She then turned on the water anyway. It worked for a while, but then we couldn't turn it off. I had to hold the showerhead to divert the water down into the drain. It made a bit of a mess. Eventually, we got it off, but it took some finessing.

The next day we went off to go hiking, and on the way there we got a call from the contractor. They wanted to make sure we knew that they were missing a shim to properly attach the handle to the valve. We shouldn't turn on the shower because it would be really hard to turn off. Jess had to pull over because she was laughing too hard. So, yeah, I get to tease her about that a lot.

Micro-News: We went hiking this weekend, just to get out and get some exercise. Very pretty hike along a river, all swollen from the recent rain. I also had a bout of extreme productivity. I made a list of stuff to do that was 20 items long and got at least half of them crossed off, including replacing the flapper plugs for two different toilets so they don't leak anymore. Also some yard work. We're feeling better after being sick, too. I went to a fighter training studio to see what it was like now that I'm not doing Wing Tsun anymore. Lots of hard training, which was good, but the sparring was real boxing-style fighting, with real, proper hits and everything. I'm not sure if I liked it or not.

And that's enough for now. I'm tired.

-N

State of Emergency- We are survivors

Yesterday's recruiting weekend awkwardly coincided with a major Snow Storm. They are calling it the Snowpocalypse. We've got 18 inches on the ground, choking streets and crumbling trees. A state of emergency has been declared in our county, and the news says the National Guard has been deployed. Obviously, Matt and I are capable of handling ourselves in inclement weather, so please don't worry. On our street, we've been battling the snow and enjoying the change in scenery. We walked up the hill to see that the grocery store and not much else was open. We did have time to stop in and get some cupcakes from Dozens- which should sustain us through the worst of this.

While this put a major cramp on our recruiting plans (ie, no one was able to get TO the recruits today, as far as I know, and we many of them hand to push start cars to get back to the hotel last night), now that we don't have anything important to do we are having a lot of fun. Matt took some photos this morning, so you can also see the wonderland. If you are scanning headlines with anxiety, we are warm, we've got power and we're safe.

Here is the view of Forbes and Murray (major intersection) this morning. People were cross country skiing, and dragging kids in sleds up the middle of the street.

Does this change things?

It's recruiting season at school! Tomorrow starts the first interview weekend, everyone is always excited to meet the recruits, reminisce about their own interview experiences, and most importantly soak up some of the free food that is foisted on recruits. Their schedule is always the same for all three weekends- breakfast with the chair of the department, interview with faculty, student seminar over lunch, more faculty then happy hour, dinner and drinks (except at our school drinks = chocolate fondue at the Melting Pot). Most grad students get called in to help with at least one of these weekends in some way or another. This weekend I am a student liaison, which hypothetically means reaching out to the student to answer any questions before, during or after their visit, but practically means giving them one face to look for in the fuss and making sure they get places by the buddy system.

And I just found out today that I'll be called to service again in two weeks- I'll be giving the student seminar. It's not like the interviews were planned based on the seminar schedule, but I am flattered that they'll be seeing me talk regardless. And a little terrified, how do I explain my work in a way that would inspire someone else to join our department? I am not sure this is any different then giving the same seminar I would normally give- I've done a lot of work, some of it worked, I had a lot of help from a lot of people. What would make the school seem more appealing anyway?

This is just the current thing I am sinking time into that isn't "doing science." I stuck in some kind of interminal rut- and there is no way I am still huffing over not getting the AAAS fellowship. The whole nature of the fellowship is that is gives me a reason to leave and a focus for my aspirations, so the idea of not being eligible doesn't seem acceptable. After I wrote that blog post, I stole my courage and my info and went to talk to Dr. Boss. Tuesday I told him that this fellowship would move up my graduation schedule, and is it possible for me to graduate before Dec 15 2010? (but stay in the lab until the program starts in Fall 2011) He seemed a bit taken aback, no, 10 months is too soon (which I expected but was disappointing to hear anyway).

I should pause here to say that I didn't sleep more then 2 hours the night before, I was so sick nervous about having this conversation. It also took me all day to decide what I would say, and even then, I wanted to bring a puke bucket. See, I don't get a lot of direct or general feedback from my boss. It's possible he thinks I need 4 more years and remedial school before graduation, and that asking him about graduating might be the catalyst for him to detail all my failings. I really have no idea how he feels about my work.

But thanks to this WISC stuff we've talked about, I felt organized and I knew what I needed to get out of this conversation, besides rejection. I pressed him a little further- it is feasible for me to be looking for fellowships that start in Fall 2011? Will I be graduated before then? Well, yes actually. A few more months is a lot once you've been in the lab that long so that seems very do-able and right on schedule. *celebratory moonwalk* So chances are my undergrad will still graduate before me, but at least I won't have to carry on long without him.

Cooks Illustrated = Date Night

Seems like I've been spending a lot of time away from home these days. We have a standing Tuesday date with our most favorite friends, Wednesday I've been going to "Study Hall" (aka waffle/ice cream shop) to spend a couple hours working on writing, and this Thursday was WISC. Fridays I often get swept into an after work Happy Hour/ Dinner, so it can seem like ages go past before I get to hang out with just Matt. Which seems weird, since he is my favorite. For some reason this week felt especially busy- or maybe just bouncing back from being sick still- and I didn't feel like going out for a big to do, which suited Matt just fine.

Since I spent most of Saturday catching up on the latest Cooks Illustrated, we decided a good way to share the evening would be to make Cacio e Pepe and Brownie Sundaes. We've got access to things like imported cheese, and indulged in trying to find the Cooks Recommended brands for everything. Even though we had what amounts to cheese on noodles, Matt declared it the best meal we've made it ages, and I'll tend to agree. And it made us feel like real wizards too.
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Another project that has come together recently is a new scratching post for Raoul. It's time to give him a more serious option then the cardboard scratcher- and rather then shell out the Petco prices, Matt hypothesized (correctly) that he could make something just as good for cheaper. What he has now is a 6 foot tall post, with two shelves and sisal wrapping, hooks to hang dangly ribbons and carpet up to the top. It gives Raoul a new vantage on the kitchen, a new window and is the new highest place in the apartment, so you can imagine he is quite fond of it. So, yes, the cat is certainly spoiled. It is a bit of a monstrosity, but it's not as if our apartment is crowded- and frankly he spends the most time here. I am hoping this will lead to a ceasefire with the furniture, or at least lay the groundwork for those negotiations.

And Matt enjoyed designing and building it. I helped a very little with the whole process. Seems I don't have much patience for this sort of thing, and my slipshod attitude was designing an eyesore. So, extra kudos to Mom and Dad for sticking to their bathroom project for significantly more then the 12 hours it took this to come together- the proof is surely in the pudding.

Other news, most recent WISC was a great success, we talked about management- with two main outcomes for me. One, I am trying to be a more empathetic manager to my undergrad (whose foot is in a boot to protect a broken toe, and decided to use this week to work on summer fellowships- since I got to surprise him with another application last week), and two, I am trying to see myself as the manager for my project. Next up, we are going to try negotiation. I may end up hosting this one... I also taught again, for the last time, last week. This week I am going to let these students assess the content, and me, and the course, and get some good feedback from them. I am spending a lot of time pondering how to elicit this.

Which is silly, because I should be spending a lot of time pondering my annual seminar! And my thesis committee meeting! But I am feeling so jaded since before Christmas, I can't really connect "working really hard" with "impressing my committee so they want me to graduate." And it's hard to talk to Dr. Boss for more then 5 minutes at a time these days and.... I just don't want to keep working for more years.... ugh. Winter is a hard enough time, without trying to muster up enthusiasm for something like one's thesis. Actually, I think I am in mourning, I can't seem to find a solution where I graduate in time to get to the 2011 AAAS Policy Fellowship. Sigh. The seminar is the 19th, so think of me fondly then.