We carved pumpkins this past week in McCormick, and I decided to use a drill. The question "Are you a MechE?" came up. For the first and probably last time, I suppose. But the pumpkin did turn out rather well:
(excuse the poor lighting...they want to keep us safe, which is understandable, but it makes it hard for pumpkin-based lighting to stand out).
I also went to a gathering at a friend's place on Saturday - some particular favorites were Pinky and the Brain, the cheerleader mouse animatronic robot from ChuckE Cheese, and the winner for most creepy went to the guy wearing the Burger King mask. Shudder.
Me? I was Jackie O but accused of being Nancy Reagen. And Queen Elizabeth. Ugh.
Today would have been my grandfather's 86th birthday.
And in his honor, I ate Whoppers. (candy, not burger). I snatched some from the Halloween party I attended last night, and I enjoyed them just as much as I used to enjoy stealing a few from the giant paper cartons. And then I made split pea soup.
My family visited his grave this weekend, and one left a horehound candy, and the other brought a picture of Hillary to show Pa...fitting tributes, I think.
Look at the shoulder pads! And it's Finnish! And, it was used in the American Cartoon Arthur (as in the aardvark) waaaay back in my babysitting days. Classy.
Obama visited campus last Friday, and boy oh boy was it quite the shakedown. Apparently some of the girls in McCormick got locked down for being in the Penthouse (=top floor) watching the motorcade come in from Memorial Drive. (Secret Service FTW?). Not being of the ruling energy elite here at MIT, I watched the simulcast in the completely-packed 26-100, one of the big physics lecture halls on campus. It was actually almost as interesting to see a cross-section of the MIT student body watch the speech; hear them groan at Obama saying "Innovation is in our DNA!" -- or hear them cheer (LOUD) that MIT was the most prestigious school in Cambridge --- or hear them laugh at the business card Angie Belcher gave him of the Periodic Table.
But---there is something to be said for the fact that people like the Dalai Lama and Obama come here not because we pay them, or because we have some sort of political alliance going on. It's because we are innovators, and even through our absolutely absurdity** we are going to discover and MacGyver our way to some pretty amazing things. That's why people come here.
**I got rid of my cardboard boxes from moving last night to someone I thought was moving at the end of the month. Nope, just building a cardboard replica of British Parliament to blow up on Guy Fawkes Day. Go MIT.
Additionally, he was pretty amazed by some of work I'll be teaching undergrads in a few short weeks - how to use viruses as a template for making batteries. It sounds space-age, but it is most definitely real.
The guy in the green is "Army John" and my contact in the Belcher Lab for the nanowires project that I'll be TAing. He's wonderful. And, no, labs don't really look like this. All flammable materials, gas cylinders, hazards, etc...were removed before he came, so it was basically like a windowless room with lots of shelves. Not science, but I guess that's what happens when you're afraid of terrorists.
Maybe it's frustrations with research, maybe it's missing people from home, maybe it's stress and changes, maybe it's all of the above, but I just want to be in some no-man's land for a week. A vanilla place where I can just sit and sleep without having to care so much about everything -- work, my family, friends, all of that (maybe a vanilla place, in, dare I say, the Bahamas? Or Iceland?). And no, two weeks of self-isolation for H1N1 doesn't accomplish this...I was hoping it would, but alas...
A friend mentioned to me some time ago, "It's wonderful that you care so much about others. Think of the alternative." I realize I have many things to be thankful for, and that's what I try to keep pushing into my head. My heart and soul need a break, and unfortunately, that's not covered by worker's comp or insurance. The best I can do right now is keep breathing and keep going.
So...I've mentioned my aversion to giving useless gifts before. The thought of giving someone else something they cannot use, are allergic to, would rather die than wear, all that...what's the point? I like giving gifts that make a person's day happier, that make them so excited to receive that package that they can't stop smiling for at least five minutes.
So is it kosher to send out a survey that asks about favorite colors, or if they'd wear a scarf or not, or if they are allergic to any foods, or have any particular favorites? Is that weird? I feel like I know many of my friends really well, but that doesn't mean that I've been able to remember which of my friends has pierced ears (twice that's happened to me! ugh), which one is allergic to nuts (and you'd think I'd be able to remember that one) and the fact that one never wears scarves but the reason she doesn't isn't because she doesn't have any...it's because she hates the feeling of things around her neck. So yes...am I nuts to think this is an okay idea?
from the artist Chris Jordan's "Midway message from the gyre" (he's the same guy who did the running the numbers project depicting things like the one hundred million toothpicks, equal to the number of trees cut in the U.S. yearly to make the paper for junk mail.)
or...it can help us save life in the times that we've really screwed up:
FINALLY back to work. Kids, get your H1N1 vaccine. Seriously.
Also, it's a lovely day here...gloomy in the morning as I walked to lab, but now not so chilly and there's a bit of blue sky peeking through. The tree outside my window is a stunning array of yellows and oranges, an unexpected and lucky thing, I think. It makes the 8 am Saturday morning construction not so deplorable.
So last night (12 hours, guys! 12 hours!) I dreamed about meeting this girl and her mom.
(she's wearing a vintage prom dress. my kinda girl!)
Now, Jane is about as far removed from my life as you can possibly be...but she has some pretty rad things going for, not in the least her AMAZING shoe collection. She's a high schooler that has some pretty great high fashion genes and somehow owns a plethora of reallly expensive designer articles that are just...wow. They're great.
But I suppose it speaks to my exhaustion that we didn't go shoe shopping or thrifting. Oh no...we went to a spa. Me and Jane and her mom. And they let me wear a pair of wonderful black platform boots for the trip (there was a train involved, I guess). And then somehow the color-coding of sea-cucumber organs came into play, but I don't really remember why. Ahh sickness-induced dreams...you are ever-so-confusing.
(excuse the poor lighting...they want to keep us safe, which is understandable, but it makes it hard for pumpkin-based lighting to stand out).
