Expectations

I keep wanting to write about a lot of different things all in one post with some coherent theme. I have the word 'expectations' stuck in my head for some reason, but I am not really sure how this will bring everything together. Let's see how this goes.

An obvious place to start is with the Red Sox. I love them. They are currently playing what could be the last game of the World Series if they win. I am staying up for the whole game, which they are cruising through right now.

Running. I mentioned that I told my friend I would run a half marathon a year from now. He is running it next weekend. It is in Disney World, at night, and there is a big food and wine party at the finish line. I dislike running, but figure if I am going to do it, it might as well be at the happiest/most magical place on earth. Anyway. I looked up Disney's running training and realized that I do not have to actually run the whole race. This may seem obvious, but I guess that if I do something, I want to DO IT. You have to finish the race in 3 1/2 hours, and I could walk it in that, so I will finish. Now to figure out how fast I will be able to finish it. I have been running a couple of days a week to get in shape, but hope I can take advantage of the year to pull off a somewhat respectable time.

BIL guy and I hang out regularly. I guess I should stop saying they are "non-dates", but it still makes me feel more relaxed about it, and we have actually just been hanging out. He is a nice guy, we always have stuff to talk about, and I just upped my text plan because we text a lot.

There were a couple of Halloween events on campus this week. My department won the costume contests at each, as we went as an ecosystem. I was a deer (as in a primary consumer, a.k.a an herbivore). I was just going to put some antlers on a headband.

Then I decided I would whip up some fleece pants. It was an imperfect sewing project in which I just used a pair of fleece pants I love as a template.

The costume worked out pretty well though - I put a big white circle on my shirt today to round out the costume.

What else? My students have generally been great. (Which I forgot that I just wrote about, but it must be true if I wanted to write about it again.) It may not seem like a college professor would say this, but even at this age I feel like they are my 'kids'. I am sad that a couple of them in particular have dropped the course, but understand why. Others who are failing are driving me crazy because they are not trying enough. One who improved amazingly on her last exam gave me a hug. One who is really smart finally pulled off a passing exam score with a 90 (yay!) and then proceeded to not hand in a lab report. He is driving me crazy?!

I cooked up some squash tonight and decided to roast the delicata squash seeds with no particular expectations of them. They were DELICIOUS. I have not tried the squash yet.

Oh! I also went up to my parents' a few weeks ago. I show up after dark on a Friday night, and my mother informs me that "All the leaves have fallen off the trees already." I seriously went to bed sad thinking that I missed all of Vermont's foliage this year. Good thing my mom is crazy. Exhibit A:

I still cannot set up a key part of my lab, which is hugely frustrating but I know it will happen. The plus side is that I am definitely expected to do research and involve undergraduates (and I am looking forward to it), but teaching is what is REALLY important (and thus teaching in the lab). I have been trying to use my time wisely to plan for next semester and think about grant writing because the lab stuff is dragging out a bit.

I guess I also want to throw out there that I think I am happy. Well, I am happy. Considering my only post in August was about how my life sucked, this is a nice change. ;-) Other little things have happened that are not great, but they are fine. They are life. In August these little things would have been awful. I guess I had enough time to feel sorry for myself back then, and now I can roll with the punches. Keep it up, Life!

Holiday?

My sister put it pretty much the way I guess I am to - I am a Patriots fan, and not necessarily a fan of football in general. I am not really that competitive, but I always want to want someone in the game to win. There are few teams outside of my New England teams that I care about, win-loss wise. Today is the Superbowl, and there are always supposed to be funny/clever/witty/catchy/unique commercials for those who are watching and care less about the game.

I remember reading once that the day after the Superbowl is the most-called-in-sick day of the year. Kinda makes sense - people eat and drink a lot during that game and do not get the day after off like for New Year's. I mean, whose idea was it to have a big football game on a Sunday night?

Always nice to get a break.

I had the best intentions to get some work done at home this weekend, like updating my lab notebook contents page, reading, thinking about how I would spend my last day before heading to Montana. Instead, I did not do any work.

BUT, I did have a good weekend, and that makes it a little easier to actually go back to work. The good deals I got shopping, spending time on the phone last night with a couple of friends catching up, having brunch with the Groomsman (yup, we are still seeing each other as regularly as possible for two people with busy schedules), Pats Training camp with my sister...sorta...because it poured. We kept calling and they were not canceling it. They (and I suppose we) should have figured out this would happen. I think you can tell how much it poured in this picture...
As a result, their practice was moved inside and we could sit in the stadium and watch it this way...They were sure to put up a message to visit the Pro Shop though. "Come to practice and we will cancel it right when you are waiting in line and then go spend your money to buy clothes!"

My sister and I left and got dinner instead.

Proof

See, I really did go to the game the other day.That is the mascot, Wally. The park is pushing the green thing, and Poland Springs has people come around to collect water bottles.

Too bad I don't have a picture of my sweaty back to show you. I'm sure you are all sad.

One social night down (a spa night that a friend won who has a small apartment so we did it here). Tomorrow, it is dinner for 7. I hope I have enough food.

Four for Four

So far, I seem to be good luck for the Red Sox. I have been to four games, all of which they have won, and during none of which it rained. They should maybe consider having me at all the games? I'm just sayin'...

Of course tonight was soooooo ridiculously hot that I did not take a picture of my sister and I enjoying the game 'cuz we were gross. I sweat so much I had sweat stains in many places. Blech. I hate sweating for no reason and this weather is exactly the type I do NOT like at all. I need a shower and bed. Gotta rest up for date #2!

I can't get enough of this place

Check out that butt and those thighs?!
Check out that face. :-)
I went to my third Red Sox game last night. As I was showing my sister pictures on my camera, she asked me why I had pictures of my shoes. I said it might be because I posted something about shoes on my blog...She knew I had one because my roommate outed me when we visited my parents. So, I gave her the web address. Hey Sis (if you actually decided to read). :-)

Shoes!

If I had a large disposable income, I would probably go crazy buying a few things. Whenever I have a need for several of an item, I feel the addiction. Just this month I bought three new, good pairs of shoes. This type of spending is generally unheard of for me. I am a grad student after all. :-)
I got these great navy sandals to wear with my navy bridesmaid's dress for the end of June. They came with a felt bag.

In addition to having done something to my left shoulder, my left foot has been bothering me. It started when I was doing some walking in NYC, I think, in my old sneakers. Even though they were new sneakers from Christmas, I have been wearing them a LOT for the gym. I figured I should get a new pair and dedicate them to walking and running. [Technically I should probably have a pair for the gym, for walking, and for running. That would would be the shopping addiction creeping in that I try to keep at bay!] I bough new sneakers Sunday. I have had the same style, Brooks Adrenaline, for about 4 years now, but the new upgrades in their design felt funny and led me to these Asics.
THEN, I invested in some good close-toed summer shoes I could wear to lab. These are the ones I felt guilty about buying for the winter, but I wore them ALL THE TIME, so I figured investing in the summer equivalent was worth it.
My Crocs are getting a little worn, so I thought maybe I should replace those as my summer shoes. Lest you think all Crocs must be big and ugly like this (although I admit I loved these too),that is not the case. I have two pairs of Crocs ballet flats, for example. Brown and black. A Wild Oats grocery store was going out of business near me and they were only $10. Turns out they are too narrow for my sister, so I got to keep both pairs.
And my new Crocs just came in the mail yesterday! I wore them today and they definitely rubbed some places on my feet raw. Too bad, because I love them (the way they look) and will continue to subject my feet to the rubbing until they callus up a bit.
Aren't they great? :-)

The box was waiting for me last night, and I had to open them before I headed to the Red Sox game with my roommate and company. I love Fenway. As one of the radio stations here puts it, Fenway is the best bar in Boston.

A happy place.

In Boston, when people offer you Red Sox tickets, you take them.

That's what I did tonight.

Photos to come when my own computer is on.

Good times.

I love your colored printers!

While over 25,000 people were doing this:
including Lance Armstrong (in yellow on the right)!I was eating this:
That is a deep-fried turkey people, and it is not even Thanksgiving. YUM.

It was fun cheering people on and seeing exhausted people smile, or people who were walking start running again in response. Having done a 50-mile (3-day) fundraising walk, I totally understand what physical exhaustion means and how uplifting it is to have people cheering you on. If you ever run a marathon, write your name in large visible letters so that people who do not know you can cheer for you! Otherwise the following takes place:

KHC's friend: GO H.P.! I LOVE YOUR COLORED PRINTERS!
H.P.-sponsored runner: {smile and thumbs up}

So many things, so little time

In no particular order, here are probably the last few pictures of the game that I will post...I swear. Just be glad I am not posting all 107. :-)
Members of the Boston Pops.Bill Buckner.
Ortiz - check out my 16x zoom! :)
Steven Tyler singing God Bless America. He is a strange man...
Playing with my camera's color settings...
So what do people know about computers? I think I'll be looking into a laptop sooner than later. My keyboard is working fine now, but only after I let my computer do a system check on start up. Plus then there were two Windows errors right after startup. I am a little concerned. LUCKILY I just bought an 8gb flash drive (for $40 - I love a deal) and backed up all my photos. I do NOT want my computer to crash in the middle of writing my dissertation though!

I may have almost convinced my advisor to "let" me go to the meeting I want to go to. I went into her office today and said, "I know you're probably sick of me talking about the meeting, but guess who is going to be there???" A very well known researcher who works on the same chemical I do is going to be there. I really want to go now. I heard through the grape-vine that today was the deadline to get a travel award but I do not see it anywhere on the web site. If I can find the money, I can go. Cross your fingers!

Tomorrow I visit my nephew's kindergarten class. Hopefully I have cute stories! Last weekend, playing a game didn't provide as much cute kid quips as I had hoped. I tried playing The Game of Things with them, where there are cards with Thing prompts.
Things that are magic? My niece said that "if there is an empty cupboard and someone opens it and pulls a bunny out that was not in there before, but then there is a bunny, and they pull it out. THAT is magic."
Things that you forget? My nephew had a hard time remembering anything he forgets. He did finally say that sometimes he forgets to pick up his toys. Anyone surprised that a 6-year old forgets to pick up toys?

My sewing machine is ready to pick up from its cleaning. Then I'll finish a couple of projects. Then I'll show you everything I've sewn recently!

It was 70 degrees (F) here today! The second my roommate got home, we went and got ice cream. That was my dinner. Then I came home and had a beer. I need to be more careful about what I eat. I have lost nearly 10 pounds since December though, even though I have not really been watching what I eat!

If I tell enough random stories, maybe I can tag this post with EACH of the tags I have so far. That would be great. But I won't. And I will count this as a Jen story...or many Jen stories.

K, I have a lot I want to do before bed, so, um, that is all...

This may be tricky

I just tried writing an email to my brother and sister and the keyboard was all weird. But it was also yahoo mail and that has been very sketchy the past couple of days.
Nope,A myl keyboardr isi doingg this.NOTCOOL.

Alright. Here are more great pictures of the game:Here's more about the committee meeting. I brought up things like outside committee members (I listed out a few possiblities), meetings I could go to (my advisor does not want me to go to one in particular, but I REALLY want to go), an outline of what I forsee going into my dissertation and progress on those chapters (one is done, YAY!), Now my keyboard is acting funny again so pictures are all you get.
:)
P.S. This is the 101st post for Blog365! :)

5-0, 107

The Red Sox won 5-0 tonight, and I took 108 pictures. I maxed out my 4x optical/4x digital zooms and some of those photos are not half bad. Only about 10 of the photos were playing around. I am sure you will be subjected to a couple more here over the next couple of days.

My friend's parents were sitting next to Steven Tyler who sang God Bless America in the 8th inning. Her Dad also went over to say hi to a friend who was sitting next to Wes Welker and Matt Castle. This is my friend who brought me and her parents had two tickets over the Green Monster (the seats above where all these banners are), and we were, well, in left field (from where I took all these pictures). I should really hang out with this friend more. ;)

I will probably post about my committee meeting tomorrow. It was not good or bad. It was good because I said a lot about my intentions and goals to my committee so my advisor can not ignore them; it was bad because there is a conference I am really going to fight my advisor to go to. Oh, well.

Go Sox! :)

"Boring" day

Well, today I skipped the gym, went to work, did some work, listened to a job talk, went to a meeting, went to another meeting, came home. Exciting, huh?

Wanna know something that actually is exciting? Tomorrow morning I have a committee meeting to talk about my future...or just stuff like whether my timeline is realistic, meetings I would like to go to, potential outside committee members, etc. THEN, immediately after my committee meeting, I need to RUSH home to go here:...for a ring ceremony and opening day.

NOW THAT IS EXCITING!

Once a year

I only make it skiing about once a year right now. A friend convinced me I needed to go today, and I had not been this year. I am glad I skipped out on something else I thought I was obligated to do to ski instead. :)

There's always next year

Oh, well. I still like the Patriots. I'm just sad. Did you see the last 5 minutes of the game? Awful. If only...

Can't wait for the "woe is me" New England attitude to permeate the news reports.

There are many reasons, here are a few.

First, my Dad grew up in Massachusetts, so by default I am a fan of New England sports teams. Second, my Mom enjoys watching sports, so growing up, games were always on.

Third, the year after college, I went to teach English in China for a year. I got terribly homesick the first few weeks there. It didn't help that my sister had her first baby (and my first nephew!) less than a week after I left, and I had only been there a few weeks before planes took down the World Trade Center. By the time November rolled around, I was thinking about how I was going to miss Christmas and asked my parents if they would buy me a ticket to come home in January during the intersession. KHC, Molly and I spent Christmas together (thanks, ladies!), then came finals; then I was back in the U.S. for a couple of weeks.

My last weekend before my Dad came back to China with me was Brady's first Superbowl win. I was so happy, that I was looking forward to going back to China for the rest of the school year (and the imminent boyfriend there, but that's probably a good story for another time). So a big Thank You goes out to the Patriots of 2001-2002 for winning the Superbowl that year and making my visit home from China end on a great note.

And good luck to this year's team tonight!

The lead-up

In addition to all the talk about how the two Superbowl teams match up, there's also some fun stuff out there. Take "If they weren't Patriots" from the Globe, for instance.

The only one I think is rather dumb is the Randy Moss one. Seriously, the guy is invaluable and they think he could be an underwater archeologist? My boyfriend Tom Brady's is pretty hilarious...and Belichick's is good...and really all of them except Moss's as far as I'm concerned.

Still undefeated!

Belichick tried not to smile until the snap.
The Pats won and now hold the only undefeated record in the NFL.
Brady and Vinatieri hugged.
In that order.

Twice in a lifetime...so far

Last night was amazing.

I stayed up and awake for the whole game...and the Red Sox did great too.

Danielle is keeping me on the ball with the whole Red Sox thing! :) I went to a couple of the Pats celebratory parades when I was working in the city. Unfortunately, just like in 2004, I am supposed to be TAing tomorrow, so the timing of the Rolling Rally does not work out for me. Sad!

In 2004, I was home alone grading lab reports when they won (the ex said he did not 'feel like' coming over that night). This year I guilted my roommate in to staying up with me by telling her she could not go to bed halfway through the final game of the World Series. It is a good thing I was right or she would have killed me. I do not really know what to say. I love that my grandmother has now seen the Sox win two World Series in the past few years. I love that my parents brought us to games when we were little (and the tickets were still affordable), because I know that although I have not had to be as patient as my Gramma, I have still been a fan through the bad as well as the good. I love watching the bullpen drumming away during the games, the looks on the batters' faces when they realize their hit is over the fence, and seeing the team be so happy after their wins.

However, I do not respect their choice in beer for the celebrations. Bud light? Really? :)

Now for the off-season trading.

I am a lame fan.

Now that the Sox are up 13 to 1, I feel it is safe to go to bed even though there are still four full innings left. Is that wrong?