New Years Resolution(-s)

I read somewhere that New Year's resolutions are bad for your health. Therefore, I didn't make any.

Or so goes my excuse. Honestly, I didn't make a single NY resolution. Is that bad?

Administrative assistant in the tropics

The New Year has taken off and looks set to be an interesting one. For starters, it's cold in Ithaca


and the ground is covered in snow. If that isn't a reason to party, I don't know what is!

As I may have mentioned before, my life as a grad student sometimes resembles that of a secretary or an administrative assistant more than anything. Sometimes I think that if I ever get this bloody degree, it should be in online shopping for airline deals (and dishwashing, let's not forget). I've spent most of today and yesterday shopping for airfares between Ithaca, Honolulu and Hilo, hunting down bargains on rental cars, and looking for hotels and applying for permits for lodgings in state parks. In between, I've been to the supermarket buying dishwashing gloves and brushes, so that I can continue the dish washing required for my research, and, erm, I also did some dish washing. Yes, science really is an uninterrupted string of landmark discoveries and intellectual bliss. Or not.

However, I'm not one to complain (ehemm...). From January 14th to 22nd, you'll find me on the Big Island of Hawaii. On the 22nd the dateline will be crossed, into the 23rd, on a Philippine Airlines flight to Manila. After three weeks of fieldwork on Luzon I'll return to Honolulu, spend 3 nights on O'ahu and then return to Ithaca on the 16th of February. This should be interesting. I'm especially excited about the days on O'ahu; they'll be all mine. North Shore, here I come!!

Yarn hike

As some of you may be aware, I'm a great fan of knitting and such. Yesterday I finally gathered the courage to make an inventory of my stash, i.e. my yarn collection. Guess what I found out: If all the yarn in my closet were strung out, one skein after the other, it would stretch for over 17 kilometers! I have a feeling I should be mildly embarrassed ;) but honestly, the more yarn in the apartment, the better I feel :)

In the upstate

Well well me, here I am in the upstate, having all but abandoned my loyal reader.

Where to begin? I'm downloading the second episode of the second season of Grey's Anatomy so you all will have to take second place once the download finishes. I have every intention of becoming a total GA fanatic and I think that some strategic planning might convert Shan too... he did watch 4 (yes, that's four!!!) episodes with me last night.

Anyhow. Christmas this year, spent in Delaware, was lovely. Highlights include a fancy Christmas party at the Whitham mansion (kind of a similar affair to the Lindal-clan get-togethers on Christmas Day that I like so much), Christmas Eve dinner at a steakhouse and an invigorating discussion about the death penalty and immigration with a staunch Republican over Christmas dinner. No, no one got hurt...

Coming back to Ithaca from Houston was also lovely, especially since a) I did not get thrown off an overbooked plane or fall victim to mindboggling delays and b) my luggage arrived safe and sound in Ithaca with me, all three pieces! I was flying US (Sc-)airways and therefore both a) and b) must be regarded as absolute miracles.

Gee, how exciting my life is! Stay tuned for the next installment!!

Heaven meets skyscrapers

Búin!

Phew. The presentation is done:


Am going home now, under strict orders to get some sleep:



Images shamelessly copied from here and here.

Polar news

The world's oldest polar bear was just found. Furthermore, my old buddy Jason Roberts was apparently involved in filming "The Golden Compass". Obviously, Svalbard (and everyone on it, dead or alive) still rocks!!

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain

Hah! Looks like I'll be able to sport my new wellies this week!!

Not resisting temptation

Why is there a Banana Republic store right next to my favorite (Starbucks) coffee shop?? This is what I came out with today...

And I hereby present...

... the worst-prepared presentation I've ever given!

Yesterday I gave a draft presentation to one of the groups I've been working with here at Shell. It was... to put things mildly... not well prepared. The reason: My project was changed a month into my internship and I completely (and utterly. And completely. And utterly) missed what was expected of me. In my naivité, I thought I was supposed to do and deliver one thing, whereas it turns out I was supposed to do and deliver that thing, and then all these other things as well. This is entirely my fault, for not communicating effectively with the people I'm working for and for not thinking carefully about things and asking myself questions such as: "Well, why would Shell be interested in this product if it's not accompanied by these other products?" But coming from academia, I'm trained to want to know all kinds of different things without always needing a solid reason for wanting to know them. Knowledge for knowledge's sake. I implicitly assumed that's what I was dealing with here. I wasn't expecting the Business Applicability to pop up. As I said, naive.

So. Now I have ... let me count... Saturday, Sunday and Monday to prepare for the Final Presentation. And a truckload of things to do before then, that I should have dedicated, say, 2 or 3 weeks to. And at the same time I'm so tired that I zombied around all yesterday afternoon and have spent most of today sleeping.

Well, what the hell. As my friend Paula says, you can't do any better than your best. And I'm too old for allnighters anyway :)

So, to kick off the flurry of activity that will surround me the next few days, I'm heading for a) Starbucks, for a coffee and a 5-pm lunch, and b) my LYS, where I'll meet the regulars over knitting and pizza for one last time. Mildly pathetic, that's me ;)

Dinner - exciting, huh?

Is this it???

One of many

On her way to work

Where the friggin' hell is that bus!?!

Downtown Houston from the bus stop

Booty from White Elephant part-ay

A different angle

Goin' to the Moon

It's bizarre to think that this thing took humans to the moon. Well, at least most of the way there:



According to reliable sources, when this thing took off it used 0.5% of all the power being generated on the entire planet at that particular moment:



Each of these engines is tall enough for me to stand inside it. Wow!

Long time...

.. no blogging here. Oh well, such is life.

So, what's been going on? First, my house has been Internet-deprived for the last week and I'm going nuts. Fortunately I can use my cell phone to read my gmail, but that's about the extent of my internet usage during the holidays.

Speaking of the holidays, I had a visitor over Thanksgiving week. My beloved boyfriend Shan came down from frosty Ithaca and we had a nice time. We went on a road trip to Austin where we had coffee at a sidewalk cafe while listening to a live country bluegrass band. We also went to the Johnson Space Center and visited the old mission control and almost froze our ears off in the cold (it was 11°C and windy in Houston that day). Last but not least we had a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with my friend and co-worker Paula and her husband and our friends Patricia and Pascale.

Shan escaped the worst weather of the year by heading back to Ithaca on Friday afternoon. On Saturday it didn't really get light until ~2 pm, such was the heaviness of the clouds. It rained cats and dogs all day and all plans for outings were cancelled in favor of snuggling up in bed with books and knitting. The same applied, more or less, for Sunday.

And now, the last weeks of being an intern. Better roll up them sleeves...