miðvikudagur, október 31, 2007

Halloween and Hula

picture courtesy of about.com

My gated community is swarming with little princesses and Mickey Mouses and pirates and ladybugs and whatnot tonight. It's so CUTE!

I just signed up for a class in Hula and Tahitian dancing. Yay!!!! For an earlier hula-post (in Icelandic), see April 2nd 2005.

picture courtesy of Randy Jay Brown

þriðjudagur, október 30, 2007

Tonic and lime, please

This afternoon the group I belong to here at Shell had a little celebration, to which I was, naturally, invited. It was nice to get out of the office for a while and meet people in a relaxed setting. I had to go back to the office after this so I asked for tonic water with lime. My refill came from a different waiter and I think he may not have realized I originally only had tonic in there... after almost finishing the second drink I started to feel as if there was something stronger in there as well. Oh whatever. A free drink never hurt anyone. Ermmm....

Am at home, looking at and for data. How come that out of 35,000 data points, only 5 are relevant to what I am interested in??? It's not fair!

laugardagur, október 27, 2007

The sheriff and other downtown tales

Last night I worked until 7 pm, as I sometimes do. When I arrived at the parking garage to get my car, a sheriff sat on a chair in the elevator lobby, reading the evening paper. He got up as I was about to enter the elevator and joined me, explaining that he was there to protect people like me from whatever might happen in a downtown Houston parking garage on an early Friday night. He walked me to my car, made sure that I got safely under way, and then presumably returned to his post to wait for the next person to protect. Remarkable, huh?

On the way to the car I asked him about the crime rate in downtown Houston. He said that in the last few years it had improved dramatically, since the authorities had relocated most of the homeless people to south of downtown. I live south of downtown and I can attest that he's right, that's where the homeless hang out. So, the problem hasn't been solved, it has only been moved places. Beautiful governance, right?

I don't drive to work every day. I am lucky that the bus stops at the nearest corner from my house (well, the gated community in which I live these days) and it takes me to within a short distance of work. Of all the hundreds of people I have seen in the bus, only two were white and they didn't look like they had a comfy bed to rest in at night. The rest are overwhelmingly black, with some Asians and Hispanics thrown in the mix. Most of them don't look like they hold profitable jobs and some look like they haven't held any kind of a job in years. Quite a few give me surprised stares, as in "what's a white, well dressed woman doing here??".

This is all pretty mind-boggling. While I do know that the US aren't exactly setting the world standard for social equality, I don't know that I was prepared to find myself living in a fancy house in a fancy community where the inhabitants need gates and security guards to protect themselves from the poverty of the people around. Or that I would need police escort to get my car at night. Or that I'd be in a racially segregated bus. This reminds me a smidgen of what I've read and heard of Bogotá, what I've seen in Manila, even apartheid. It's disturbing, to say the least.

fimmtudagur, október 25, 2007

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Via Laggablogg

mánudagur, október 22, 2007

Winter comes crashing in

The hard drive in my work computer crashed today. And winter came to Houston:

It rained all morning and the wind picked up during the afternoon, so much so that my fellow elevator travelers were discussing where on the 21st floor was the best place to feel the building swinging back and forth. On my way to the bus stop I sorely missed my new woolen coat. To keep warm I decided to walk to a bus stop two blocks further away than my regular one, and by doing so I almost missed the bus.

Then, there's Facebook. Instead of reading up some more on the biochemistry of biomarkers tonight, or even processing a set of raw data straight off the ion chromatograph which I've been putting off for a month now (no, it's really not that hard, I'm just colossally lazy when it comes to my Ph.D. project), I spent the evening on Facebook. Sad, really.

miðvikudagur, október 17, 2007

Houstonians

Houstonians ar the most friendly and easy-going lot I've met in a long while. I wonder if it is because most of them are Europeans?

*muhawhawhaw*

See, I'm evil. Anyway, my colleagues here in this massive, sprawling city are so nice! They make sure I don't have to eat my lunches alone. They come over and introduce themselves and offer help and assistance (and sound like they mean it). They invite me to their housewarming parties. They have lovely friends who invite me out to meet their friends. And the list goes on. Even on the bus, people are friendly and ready to chat.

I find all this rather wonderful, I have to say.

fimmtudagur, október 11, 2007

föstudagur, október 05, 2007

Houston cont.

Wanna see the building I work in? Here it is, in as good a rendition as my cellphone camera can muster:

Then to the domestic sphere. Meet my new house mate, Rosie (Rosie does not like to sit still when someone is aiming a bizarre flat plastic object at her. She'd much prefer grabbing a taste of the plastic object):

Aren't they both adorable??

þriðjudagur, október 02, 2007

mánudagur, október 01, 2007

Houston, TX

Yep, I'm here. Spent the weekend acclimatizing with my lovely boyfriend by my side. Started work today. Got stuck in traffic and the whole nine yards. This is amazing!

More later. A book on basin modeling is waiting to put me to sleep. I am tired... zzzzz.... zzz... zzz.. .. z. . zzzzzzzz