penn

I've still got it

Christmas was wonderful. This year, for the first time ever, we had some extended family visit for the holidays. My foreign service aunt and uncle and their three kids are in town. We're headed to a cabin near Mt. Rainier for the next week for some good family rest and relaxation.

Yesterday, I achieved an extremely high level of productivity that is not normally seen in my daily life. In addition to attending three church services (regular Sunday morning + two Christmas eve services), I also vended the Seahawks football game. Despite the fact that they lost, I had a wonderful time. I'm still just as good at vending as I ever was. I think I even managed to beat my all time total for vending -- I sold $1032 of product, which is ~ $140 of commission. I also raked in $90 in tips for an all-time high total of $230 for one football game. And my grad-school friends scoffed at me working while I was home -- ha! Not too shabby for about 5 hours of work ($45 an hour for those playing along at home).

Christmas Eve was beautiful, as always. I love singing Christmas carols and watching faces solely illuminated by candles as we sing the final Silent Night. I love seeing my church family. Even though it was a rainy Christmas Eve, it was still wonderful.

I also received some nice presents. Tops of all was a completely unexpected digital photo frame. I've been eyeing them for quite some time, but I never told my mom about them. I'm quite excited to play with it. My presents also went over well. Except for my older brother, I gave everyone else DVDs (they travel easily and are really what my family likes anyway).

Hope all my readers have an excellent Christmas. I'll be back in awhile, but I'm going to enjoy my holidays with minimum 'net access.

Flying Home

on American Air. I'm flight 1321, so feel free to e-stalk my jet as I streak across the country to my dear, sweet west coast.

Utilizing Small Spaces

I'm pretty sure I'll be living in a small space of some sort next year, whether it be a rented studio or a condo. (Still not sure if I'm buying -- I really like the neighborhood I live in, and I like the flexibility of renting. Then again, I like the equity building of buying.)

I've been looking a lot at the smallest, coolest apartment contest. Lots of cool stuff there. Some of it obviously won't work, since I doubt I will find industrial spaces with tall ceilings in Ann Arbor (tho you never know, and I could be pleasantly surprised).

There are a couple studios on there that I really like. Lucy's Love Shack is awesome because they only used removable storage options (tho I'm not sure how the closet isn't built in). This is something good to consider if I end up renting.

I want a bed just like the one in Brady and Andrea's place. When I was in college, I had a bed that was just over 3 feet off the ground. I kept my dresser under the bed, and it really helped maximize the space in my room. It seems like a full size bed of this height would allow me to keep a dresser under the foot end and perhaps put bookshelves across the long part. If I could put the bookshelves on coasters, I could have a nice, hidden storage area underneath the bed with minimal pain. Not sure how I could build this bed without the help of my dad and his trusty radial arm saw, but I think the guys at Home Depot can cut lumber to specification. That might do the trick (if I can plan how to build the thing and somehow make it easy to take apart and put back together).

Of the several I've looked through so far, my favorite is James and Margaret's entry. They really use the space well. Of course, their changes were permanent, but they really made great changes.

The take home message here? Utilizing space well is possible. What seems to help is sketching out the place on paper. Then you can play around with furniture cut-outs, curtain placements, etc in order to figure out how to best divvy up the space.

We'll see when/if/how I implement these ideas. The studios around here seem to be quite a bit smaller (somewhere in the range of 150-300 square feet). The possibilities are exciting!

Open Letter to Students

Dear Students:

When submitting papers, please take care in naming your files. Something like lastname_papersubject_year is a good way to name. classtitle_papersubject is not so great. paper1? Even worse.

It's not just about standing out from the crowd. I'd also like to be able to download student papers without potentially overwriting ones that have been named the same.

thanks,

your GSI*

* at Michigan, we're called Grad Student Instructors. Snazzy and more professional, no?

Holiday Party + recipes

Tonight was the annual EEB (Ecology & Evolutionary Bio) holiday party. It was held in the Natural History Museum here at UM, and it was pretty snazzy. All the tables were set up in a wing of the museum, so we got to eat, sing, and be merry while surrounded by tons of prehistoric fossils. Pretty damn nifty. Sadly, I have no pictures; I left my camera charger in Pittsburgh when I went to visit a friend, and I won't get it back until Christmas.

The evening was a potluck, and I made two dishes (one of my friends was in the lab all day and couldn't cook, so I made a dish for her too). I promised April that I'd post the recipes if they turned out well. Fortunately for all of you, both my dishes were great, so the recipes will be after the cut. I made a baked eggplant Parmesan (no breading nor frying), and I also made pasta shells stuffed with spinach and cheese.

Tagged?

I'm embarrassed to say that I was tagged to do a little meme over a month and a half ago. That's what I get for catching up on my blog reading (I'm only just now loading all my old RSS feeds back into firefox. I'm such a lazy new computer owner).

So, five things that my blog readers (excluding my mom and dad) probably don't know about me:

1. I'm a horrible procrastinator. Absolutely terrible. I'd rather clean than work on something I have due. I don't know why I do this; once I sit down and get into the swing of things, I usually work just fine. Somehow, I just have a hard time getting started. Right now, in my shared office at work, there is an almost completed puzzle that was just started this week. It's testament to my great ability to procrastinate.

2. I have a thing for real estate. I blame it on my parents; they always check out houses for sale when we're driving by. I've toured a lot of houses in my life, and we mostly just tour houses for fun. I'm going to go visit a real estate agent here in January or February to begin looking for something that is perhaps remotely in my price range (which seems to be somewhere around $70-100,000, best I can figure, which doesn't buy a whole lot in Ann Arbor).

3. I love to take photographs. Okay, yes, everyone knows that. Um, let's see -- I didn't get into photography as a hobby until I was almost 17. My first boyfriend introduced me to a camera, and my dad critiqued my first photos to help me learn focusing and composition. I shot a lot of film in those first few years.

4. When I was a little kid, I was in a few community theater shows. Three, to be precise(one art house independent thing, a stage rendition of "Are You My Mother?", and Wizard of Oz). I really enjoyed it, and I've wanted to do acting ever since, but I usually don't have the time. Someday, I hope to be in a community theater production again.

5. When I'm stressed out, I clean things. I'm normally a sort of scattered person, so people don't believe me when I say I enjoy cleanliness and order. But, honestly, I do. I get a lot of satisfaction out of clean kitchens and bathrooms. When my bedroom doesn't have much clutter, I get a lot of satisfaction out of cleaning that too. My apartment in Gold Beach was always clean. I hope to live by myself next year; if I am so fortunate, I expect to keep a neat, tidy place once again. Order makes me feel calmer; I can't relax in a messy room.

In penance for being so late, I won't tag anyone new. Now, off to put in some more work on my population/community ecology final before I head to bed.

RIP James Kim

I've meant to write a post for several days now on the saga of missing Californians James and Kati Kim and their two daughters. I read several different tech-oriented sites, so I've heard about the missing Kim family for quite a number of days (James Kim was an editor at CNET, a techie user site). I've paid particular interest because the Kim family was lost in Southern Oregon, an area where I loved living.

In the articles, media reported that the Kim family was returning to San Francisco from Seattle over the Thanksgiving holidays. They were supposed to stay in Gold Beach, Oregon (where I used to live). At first, the only news was that they were lost. My immediate though? "I hope to God they didn't take that horrible back road from Gold Beach through Agness."

Unfortunately, that's just what they did.

Handel's Messiah

I finally went to go see Handel's Messiah tonight. Yes, shocking that I've made it 24 years without actually seeing this epic choral piece in action. Once I heard it, I realized that bits and pieces of it must be on the Christmas albums that are currently on non-stop repeat at my parents' house (Christmas music starts during the Thanksgiving dishwashing ritual and ends sometime around New Year's dayish).

I enjoyed the piece. The soprano singing was absolutely stunning (both in voice and appearance). She wore an emerald green dress, and she stood out quite well from all the black-clad instrumentalists and the choir.

I'd really like to start attending more cultural events. I like going to dance pieces, theater, and music concerts. I don't even mind going by myself (in fact, maybe it's a bit easier -- by myself, I don't have to worry about being too fidgety and annoying my date).

Strangely, many people in the audience left after the first portion of the evening (Messiah is split into 3 parts). Five people from my row left after the intermission. What's the point of going to a show just to leave after one-third of it? Part of it may have been the cheap tickets. Once a month, UM does a $12 pizza dinner, mini-lecture, and concert ticket night, and a lot of people took advantage of that tonight.

Now I'm off to bed to sleep so I can work on a paper tomorrow. School is progressing along. I'm looking forward to next semester; I'm taking some really interesting classes (statistics, Evolution, and Community Ecology). Plus, that's one step closer to summer research!

Last note for the night: A ninja catapult! Who doesn't need more ninjas in their life?