Once in awhile, you wake up on the right side of bed, and are completely happy with your life. I woke up on the punchy/feisty side of bed, which is always a good way to start. The best is when there is nothing in particular that makes the day this way; on days like this, I feel like I wake up and put on a different pair of glasses and just see my life a different way.
I had a wonderfully productive day, got things written, went out on a limb with my ideas and it went well. The days are longer, and Mel and I went for a 7:00 PM run in the redwoods behind campus; it reminded me of the after-dinner runs I'd take between trips at camp. Everything smells great, and the air has just a touch of cool weather but is still warm. Then I rode down the hill from campus, and remembered as I rode through the meadow and looked out on Monterey Bay, that someone pays me to work on a PhD in this place. It is also biking season so I get excited to ride everywhere, just because it smells good outside, and the night isn't so cold, so I enjoy the night time rides home when the stars are out. I finished off the day at Sora's house for a giant dumpling dinner. Nothing beats riding into the driveway of a friend's house, seeing a kitchen full of friendly faces and smelling Dai's fried Japanese dumplings wafting out of the windows. He is taking off this weekend for 3 months of field work, so the house was bustling, making dumplings and sushi with lots of eating and drinking and laughing. Home now, fat and happy and ready for sleep.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
The bartering system
So, now that I travel as a student, I've become entangled in the whole black market underworld of grad school.
The grad student black market (for me this has happened because of the whole instrument/sample collection/field work monkey business) has grown from the fact that grad students barter time, car rides (mostly to the airport), couch space, and, well, anything (within reason) that isn't money, since we don't have any of that. This black market goes on rampantly within departments but extends to other schools as well. However, geology is a small world, so these connections usually send me home with a new, freakish list of small world connections stories.
Case in point is the arrangement I have for my Pasadena visits. A Caltech student stayed with my labmate Kena while looking for a place to live while she took a science writing class at UCSC. So Kena arranged for me to stay with this woman the first time I went to Caltech.
Anyway, eight days later, I would say she had amply repaid her debt to Kena. However, I am rapidly accumulating debt to the Caltechians since I typically stay with them when head down there. I'm sure the day I try to hand in my dissertation, some Guido-esque character will hunt me down for my outstanding debt. He probably hangs out with the same woman who checks the margins on your manuscript and tells you that you are not, in fact, a doctor yet because your margins are an 1/8" too wide.
So, if you need a couch to sleep on, or know someone who needs a couch in Santa Cruz, send them my way......
The grad student black market (for me this has happened because of the whole instrument/sample collection/field work monkey business) has grown from the fact that grad students barter time, car rides (mostly to the airport), couch space, and, well, anything (within reason) that isn't money, since we don't have any of that. This black market goes on rampantly within departments but extends to other schools as well. However, geology is a small world, so these connections usually send me home with a new, freakish list of small world connections stories.
Case in point is the arrangement I have for my Pasadena visits. A Caltech student stayed with my labmate Kena while looking for a place to live while she took a science writing class at UCSC. So Kena arranged for me to stay with this woman the first time I went to Caltech.
Anyway, eight days later, I would say she had amply repaid her debt to Kena. However, I am rapidly accumulating debt to the Caltechians since I typically stay with them when head down there. I'm sure the day I try to hand in my dissertation, some Guido-esque character will hunt me down for my outstanding debt. He probably hangs out with the same woman who checks the margins on your manuscript and tells you that you are not, in fact, a doctor yet because your margins are an 1/8" too wide.
So, if you need a couch to sleep on, or know someone who needs a couch in Santa Cruz, send them my way......
Saturday, April 14, 2007
Intro, I guess
The immediate goal for this blog is to keep track of the next five months or so; I've got a lot of travel and field work, so I thought I'd try this out as an alternate option to mass emails that I usually don't end up sending. After that, I guess we'll see.
I've discovered I like keeping track of my friends through their blogs (a very handy procrastination tool), so maybe this will help me reciprocate some.
So, to start with, I got back from Alaska a few days ago, where I was a part of a group of six doing an Easter ski traverse. The original goal was to get to the top of White Princess, a peak in the Delta Range, which apparently is in the easternmost part of the Alaska Range. We didn't make it; strong winds and some snow took the peak out of reach, but we laughed a lot, had chocolate easter bunnies and managed a fun day ski in the area, up a gully and down an alder grove.
I came home with a very tan face (to which I get the frequent response: "wait, I thought you went to Alaska..."), and poison oak (?). I'm still a little puzzled about that last one. The most likely option is some of the evil itching oil traveled with me from Santa Cruz, but the alternate idea is I'm just allergic to alders.
Next up on the calendar is Pasadena; I leave tomorrow to run some samples and if all goes well, I'll take those results to Germany at the end of August.
I've discovered I like keeping track of my friends through their blogs (a very handy procrastination tool), so maybe this will help me reciprocate some.
So, to start with, I got back from Alaska a few days ago, where I was a part of a group of six doing an Easter ski traverse. The original goal was to get to the top of White Princess, a peak in the Delta Range, which apparently is in the easternmost part of the Alaska Range. We didn't make it; strong winds and some snow took the peak out of reach, but we laughed a lot, had chocolate easter bunnies and managed a fun day ski in the area, up a gully and down an alder grove.
I came home with a very tan face (to which I get the frequent response: "wait, I thought you went to Alaska..."), and poison oak (?). I'm still a little puzzled about that last one. The most likely option is some of the evil itching oil traveled with me from Santa Cruz, but the alternate idea is I'm just allergic to alders.
Next up on the calendar is Pasadena; I leave tomorrow to run some samples and if all goes well, I'll take those results to Germany at the end of August.
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