Not reconsidering, thanks.

Dear Car Insurance Lady,

Thank you for contacting me regarding my inquiry about insurance quotes from nearly two months ago. Since that time I have decided on a policy with another provider, because otherwise this Great State would not have allowed me to register my car here.

Also, even if I were to reconsider my decision, as per your suggestion in your most recent email, I would not go to you. Usually, if you are making a business contact for the first time, it is customary NOT to begin the email with "Hey Jenski". Just so you know.

Sincerely,
Jenski

Untitled

I really had no idea how to title this. It's about politics. I will be the first to admit I do not understand how politics are the way they are. Maybe I will just make a list. Some points may seem more philosophical than anything. [Disclaimers for which I am wholeheartedly apologizing for in advance: I did not watch the State of the Union address last night. I have listened to NPR several times today and heard clips and analyses from both sides.]

* Why do both (we will leave independents out of this) sides insist that they are not being difficult and that their "opponent" is the unreasonable one? Why would one refer to the other party as an "opponent" once you are elected?At that point aren't you supposed to be improving the lives of all Americans?

* Is affordable health care something people should be voting on or something that should be important to ensure all citizens have? If you claim your vocal constituency does not want other people to have health care, what about those who do not know how to voice their opinion or have the resources to do so? Also, if you receive government funding for unemployment or job training or whatever other kinds of government money a citizen may receive, are you required to have health insurance? I know of people who were receiving unemployment and did not have health insurance, so my guess is no. Is this something that is in the reform policies? Wouldn't required people to use their unemployment to also pay for basic affordable health care be a good policy?

* When people are talking about Scott Brown (the new MA senator in case you have been under a rock...also, he is a member of the Republican party) getting elected and how this will kill a healthcare bill, do people forget that Massachusetts already has implimented health care reform? How does this affect how a representative from MA approaches a national health care reform bill?

* I would really appreciate the government, not political analysts or political scientists or graduate students, to have a task force on what the role of the government and purpose should be. This is meant in a philosophical sense, not "big" versus "not big" government. When or how do you decide if something is important for the good of your country

* Is it truly reasonable to think a new president can solve the economic problems, create jobs for all the unemployed, successfully end any military involvement, improve international opinion of our country, reform healthcare, and any other gigantic task you can think of in one year?

So the thought about requiring those who are on unemployment to pay for health insurance was one of the lightbulbs that went off in my head today. They other was that I can see why people who know they should vote, don't vote. What the heck is the point sometimes? People are unhappy, so they vote for the "opposite". And you end up with people who may not vote for someone in whom they believe, but rather is just different.

Anyway, I am going to go have one more Tim Tam and go to bed.

[Pepperidge Farms has graced the U.S. with Tim Tams, a.k.a. "Australia's favorite cookie", only to be found at Target. Treat yourself next time you're at Target - you won't be disappointed.]

Lyrics and life

Two song-related stories that themselves are totally unrelated.

1. A friend I made studying abroad TEN YEARS AGO in Australia called last night to remind me today is Australia Day. So Happy Australia Day!I have lots of good memories (and lack there of) from semester there. PLUS I got a scanner/printer/copier for Christmas and scanned a few photos in last night to share.

Sunrise on an island on the Great Barrier Reef

Masters of the obvious, those Australians.
Me feeding a kangaroo!!!

While on the phone with that friend, I mentioned some lyrics from "Land Down Under":

I come from a land down under
Where beer does flow and men chunder

He did not realize these were some of the lyrics, nor did he know "chunder" means "vomit". You learn something new every day!

2. Second unrelated but lyric-related story is that I think I have gotten more emotional in my old age in the sense that I am touched by things easily. Take this song I heard in the car this morning - it made me teary! I am pretty sure it is a dad singing it to his child after a divorce. The refrain is:

So I'll drive
And I'll think about my life
And wonder why, I'll slowly die inside
Everytime I turn that truck around, right at the Georgia line and I count the days and the miles back home to you on that Highway 20 ride

Not so vegan

Are pancakes my new thing? They are easy to make a batch to last a few mornings for breakfast.I tried this recipe from Victoria's site. I replaced the soy milk with regular milk and the was nervous about how liquidy the batter was and added a couple tablespoons of ground flax. Pretty good! I think I will have them with yogurt in the morning, thus making them even less vegan (not because I don't like vegan food, but because this is what I've got in the house).

In the kitchen

I made the blueberry-banana bread. I cannot find the recipe on cooks dot com now, but that's okay. I halved a recipe and it took 20 minutes longer to cook than the recipe said and it is a little soggy in the middle. So, if I had oats, I would have done this recipe. The one I made still tasted good though.
CF came over for most of the weekend, which was nice because I did stuff around the house instead of me wasting time online at his place...like bake and make a casserole for dinner. :-) Got curtains up, the last of the things hung on the wall, picked up, put up a bird feeder, had my first bird (blue jay), but it flew away before I could get a picture, and now am having a beer while watching the Jets vs. Chargers game, and then CF and I are supposed to go to the gym. He and the cat are currently taking up most of the couch napping.

Projects!

Thanks to Victoria Winters (soon to be at her new site), I browsed through Holly's blog, and have been re-inspired to refinish my bedroom furniture...this summer. My new place has a patio and a small shed out back, and I have a wood bed frame and two wood dressers that are blah - the dresser/bed set has stain that is all marked from getting wet or being rubbed, and the other dresser has that fake shiny finish. Previously living in a city, there was no good place to attempt this. Now I will be able to take the furniture out of the apartment to avoid too much stink. If any beginners have attempted this before and have advice, do let me know. Stay tuned!

[And just like the day I pierced my nose over 9 years ago, now that I have told so many people I am going to do it, I will have to!]

Letting go

Today, I was found myself pondering what "letting go" really means and how I can do it.

The situation: December 10th I printed out on nice paper for ~$150. They printed the entire 197-ish pages in black and white and about 30 pages in color separately. I went through each of 4 copies page-by-page pulling out the black and white figures and replacing it with the color figure. Then I went to a local binder and dropped of the 4 collated copies of my dissertation off to be bound for ~$150, two with the binding to be over sewn (and thus more sturdy) for me and two to be side sewn (less fancy and still fine) to be sent to my advisor and department. The receipt for this binding was necessary for my advisor to submit the paperwork to the graduate school stating that my requirements for my degree were complete (thus I would take it as a requirement of graduation, but whatever).

I emailed the binder yesterday to check in on the binding, what with the holidays and winter weather and all. Apparently the receipt they sent me December 19th in the mail also said the binding was done. Whoops. So I walk over, pick it up, it looks like real books, I bring home the over sewn and leave the side sewn at work (to be sent to my advisor). I flip through one over sewn copy and then notice that the other one is noticeably thinner and have a moment of panic. Only after flipping through the thinner copy, I notice all the pages are there in addition to about 6 randomly placed BLANK PAGES in the print out that I went through page-by-page. These 6 are not placed in any consistent manner - some are before figure pages, some are between text pages, so they are not related to me collating the figures.

I personally think that the weight of the paper for much of this copy is lighter than that I had it printed on as well. I head out today back to the binders and stop by the print place to ask them about the paper, only they think it is the same. Whatever. The guy gave me 24 and 32 lb paper to see the difference. Sure they are similar, but they feel as different as some of the pages of my bound dissertation?!

Then I head to the binders, on the way baffled that I am so worked up about this and slightly anxious. I seriously thought that I would pick up the bound copies send them off and be done with it, but noooo....More hassle to appease my miserable (to me and other grad students in the lab) advisor. I actually cried at the binders. The woman said that the first thing they do when they get a job is clamp and glue the books so that nothing will happen; I maintain that something HAD to have happened, but did not argue as I was already crying and she assured me they could just cut those pages out and you would never be able to see. I did not even bring up the weight of the paper thing. Oh, also, although I brought printed versions to be dropped off, I had previouslly given the binder an electronic version when I was evaluating my printing options. This means that if something had happened in the binding process, they would not have to contact me for a new copy.

Still there or care about the whole point of my rambling?

So back to the letting go thing. On the walk back to work from the binder I started composing this post in my head and titled it 'Letting go and hatred'. Hate is a strong word, but I think applicable in many cases. I do not like being angry, but I would rather be angry than crying in public for the umpteenth time about something grad-school related.

So is distancing yourself from, being done with, and generally avoiding something letting go?

How are you supposed to "deal with", and thus "let go", of something that will forever be a part of you? I do not mean in the sense that it has made you who you are, but in the sense that it is part of your professional training and people will always see that on your CV and the world of science is quite small...

Does "not thinking about" constitute letting go? Because I used to not think about school when I was still a student when I was home or out with friends or visiting family, but I was certainly not able to let go yet!

I feel like the situation is ridiculous. I can see people wondering why I got upset today. All I can say is don't knock it unless you or someone you know had an unpleasant graduate/PhD experience overall (and I mean basically for the period of grad school, not a couple unpleasant experiences here and there).

The woman at the bindery offered me some advice:

Grow another skin.

I informed her I had the extra skin and this is how much grad school affected me on a personal level. And now, I am sending a mental F-you to her.

Off to my new "indoor cycling" class. I figure this must me the midwestern way of saying "spinning". It should be a good workout if I can focus this frustration.

Leftover ingredients

I made lasagna a little bit ago and wanted to use up the ricotta before it went bad. I tend to try to bake with leftover ingredients. I also have a couple of bananas ripe past eating and bought frozen blueberries. I tried to find a ricotta-banana-blueberry bread recipe to no avail. I was not sure if ricotta would replace sour cream well in a recipe that I did find. I had seen this recipe today for lemon ricotta pancakes. I went ahead and tried it, figuring they would last a couple of days for breakfast.

One person commented on the recipe that they were too fluffy, and this is almost true. The batter did not hold together like your average pancake, so flipping was difficult. A griddle would probably be easier than the fry pan I used. The recipe also calls for lemon curd and fresh berries for topping. Those I do not have, but I probably will add some thawed frozen berries to the pancakes for breakfast.

I also think that pancakes do not photograph well, so you are stuck with proof of my cooking (note: the dark one on the plate is not as dark as it looks in the picture!):I will just have to use the left over lemon from the pancakes, blueberries, and bananas to make bread!

Sounds of the seasons

I moved from the northeast to the northern midwest almost two months ago (holy crap?!?!). This week was the first snow storm after which I had an appreciable amount of snow around my house. I would say I got about six inches. There have been storms that have left enough snow to make the roads treacherous, so I was excited for actual snow. And to be fair, CF has had snow for a while and he lives about 25 miles west of me.

Anyway, I was leaving work and walking across campus and listening to my boots squeak in the snow under sounds of traffic and undergrads that were muted thanks to the still falling snow, and I realized I had missed that sound. Then I got to thinking about what I would consider seasonal sounds and smells...

Winter: boots squeaking in the snow and the smell of cold and balsam trees
Spring: birds chirping* and the smell of rain and lilacs
Summer: the sound of the ocean and the smell of sunscreen and campfires
Fall: the sounds of dry leaves and frosted grass crunching and the smell of an apple orchard or apple things baking
And any time of year I am up for the smell of rain coming or the sound of a good rain storm.

Anything in particular you associate with the seasons?

* Did you know that male birds regrow the part of their brain they need to make mating songs during the spring? Then that part of the brain goes away so they can focus their energy on molting and migrating. I would argue that this concept should be studied in males of other species, such as mammals. ;-)