I keep meaning to get back to posting regularly, but life gets in the way!
First, immediately after we came back from Philadelphia I had a week-long summer course on XML (and DTDs, schema, XSLT, the works). This means that in addition to running around to internships and jobs, and I had class and homework each night. I prefer this intensive format of courses to semester-long wastes of time, but it does take a toll. Especially when you're an incurably eager beaver like me and spend five hours each night adding on to assignments when we were only 'supposed' to scratch the surface of the languages and throw something together in one. I watched nary an Asian drama all week...it was like being a grown up.
Then, over the weekend, Sweetie hauled me to Who's again. It was a short stay, since my class met on Saturday afternoon too, but it was still long enough to drain me of any extra energy I may have had for things like blogging. Who is feeling 100x better than I've ever seen him (according to Sweetie, he's approaching pre-2007 levels of hygiene and high spirits). This is great because he's fun to be around now, but it also means he wants to go out and do things. And us young'uns are going to do them with him whether we like it or not. So on Saturday evening you could find me on his lawn, with a bucket of marigolds in one hand and a trowel in the other. Sweetie got the big shovel for clearing out big chunks of sod for a fresh flower bed. And on Sunday morning, he was up bright and early and ready to take us to a picnic...but that didn't pan out because we had to get back so I could do chores and get in 20 minutes of "me time" before a full work day at Job #2 on Monday.
Oh, and it was our fourth year anniversary last week. Yay. We've already gotten to the point that we stopped paying attention to it, and I come up with excuses like "We celebrated by going to Philadelphia last week," because I don't want to tap into my energy reservoirs to celebrate properly. I never thought I'd be an old married woman by 23. I always thought I'd be, well, hiding in a lab somewhere swearing off men in favor of molecules.
I have backlogged pictures of food, but right now I have to zip to my internship and don't have time to process them. Geeze. Playing blog-catchup is like trying to pay off debts--the interest keeps piling up!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Philadelphia, Part 2
In the last episode, our hero and heroine were stuffing their faces with $14-a-piece Philly cheese steaks. In the great wisdom of youth, they had then donned swimsuits to splash around in a highly chlorinated, slightly heated pool. What will they do next?
Dadadun! The next morning (Thursday) we woke up at 6:30 to get to this building: Independence Hall. We tried to reserve tickets for the tour the night before, but all the slots were taken for the entire day. We were worried that we would miss the opportunity to see it, so we rushed to get to the Visitor's Center as the doors were opening at 8:30 to secure two of the tickets they hold in reserve for the walk-ups. It turns out we didn't need to stress so much, because despite the line of some hundred people who squeezed in before us, we were able to get two for the 9:15 tour.
Since we had a few minutes before crossing the street, Sweetie leafed through and selected a half dozen maps and brochures from the counter. Guess who got to carry them around aaaall day?
I'm ecstatic to be there.
In case you didn't notice, Independence Hall is under construction. The top part is all 200 year-old wood, and apparently it's been threatening to fall apart for a few years. But according to the tour guide, they tell the kids a different story.
Guide: "Did you see the movie National Treasure?"
Kids: "Yeah."
Guide: "You know the part where Nicolas Cage takes a brick out?"
Kids: "Yeah."
Guide: "Now we have to go in and fix it."
This is the first room we saw after the customary orientation: the main room for the Philadelphia court house, where many a criminal faced down a jury of rich white men.
And this is the aforementioned tour guide in the room, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.
He said he moves around a lot, so he ends up in a lot more pictures than he was supposed to be in. But in such a small room, with us on one side of the blockade and him on the other, it's kind of hard to keep him out of the frame. It looks much grander in the movies.
I have to include this picture because Sweetie is so proud of it. It's George Washington's chair...but he really doesn't give a damn whose chair it is. The important point is that he took a clear shot of that rising sun from aaaalll the way on the other side of the room.
After the standard tour, we waited in line to see the west wing as well. Right behind us came a large group of seniors on a cultural outing. So when we sat down in the cushy chairs of the first Congressional Hall, we got a good idea of what the government for the human colony on Antarea might look like.
"The representative from New York respectfully abstains."
Here's the big chair up front, with the original artifacts.
And upstairs, the meeting place of the first Senate.
These pictures are grainy partly because the windows filter out natural light for preservation, and partly because using the clarifying flash on the camera messed up the colors.
See? A lot clearer, but the first one is more accurate. For our obligatory smile-and-wave photos, Sweetie has taken to Photoshopping the in-focus version of us with flash onto the proper photo of the room without.
Yay compromise.
After that, we stepped in to see the working documents of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, which to a librarian-in-training like me is much more interesting than the actual thing. Then we did a short tour of the "Other Buildings," as literally labeled on the directional signs outside: the portrait gallery, the gift shop, Carpenter's Hall, the military museum, etc. For photos, you can see the gallery Sweetie put together here: http://bghq.com/photos/gallery.php?g=40; I'm too lazy to select and format them myself. I will, however, include this statue of a guy drinking the Constitution.
It was made in 1987. Super historical.
Skipping ahead to the good parts, we rounded off the day with a visit to the Liberty Bell. We did have some qualms about seeing it, as humans are not allowed in the building.
We made a beeline straight for the Bell, but on the way we spotted a shot of the Dalai Lama paying is respects:
His Holiness always knows how it should be done.
By the way--the tour guide who said he shows up in more photos than he was originally intended?
Yup. In a totally different building two hours later, too.
After this we walked a few blocks north to see what was at the Constitution Center, but it turned out to be a lame museum with hefty admission fees. So we took photos of us holding things in the gift shop instead.
No one has called me "Tammy" in about four years. And the font makes it look more like "Jammy." But what the hey.
Sweetie and I are weak, weak people, so our legs were already aching by 1pm. We decided not to push it, since we'd already fulfilled our obligations as natural-born citizens, and headed back to the train station. On the way, Sweetie took one last panorama of my behind.
Just because I criticized his behind-photographing habits, of course. I used to do that when my mother gave me disposable cameras on trips...at least modern digital cameras don't waste film when you take excessive pictures of your companions' backsides.
And then a sandwich shop called "Così" pried twenty hard-earned dollars from my hands for flatbreads that tasted pretty much like Subway, only really difficult to chew.
My $20 paid for hip waiters and hipper colors on the walls. And the superfluous grave accent on the letter "i."
For the rest of the day we were dead to the world, having expended the last of our Qi walking the half mile back from the train station to the hotel (I'd decided by our second day there that taking it all the way to the airport just to catch the complimentary shuttle wasted both time and money). On Friday, we undertook the long drive back to Bloomington, and by Saturday were more or less back in the rut. Except I had been paying a lot of money for very little food for an entire week, and it didn't hit me until the weekend that I was starved. So I ate a lot. But otherwise, it's been pretty easy to get back into things. I think we're leveling up as travelers.
As much fun as we had, I don't feel any particular pull to go back to Philadelphia any time soon. Sweetie and I have determined, without a doubt, that we are not city people. They're nice to visit, but we're much more comfortable here in the inconvenient, boring backwoods.
Dadadun! The next morning (Thursday) we woke up at 6:30 to get to this building: Independence Hall. We tried to reserve tickets for the tour the night before, but all the slots were taken for the entire day. We were worried that we would miss the opportunity to see it, so we rushed to get to the Visitor's Center as the doors were opening at 8:30 to secure two of the tickets they hold in reserve for the walk-ups. It turns out we didn't need to stress so much, because despite the line of some hundred people who squeezed in before us, we were able to get two for the 9:15 tour.
Since we had a few minutes before crossing the street, Sweetie leafed through and selected a half dozen maps and brochures from the counter. Guess who got to carry them around aaaall day?
I'm ecstatic to be there.
In case you didn't notice, Independence Hall is under construction. The top part is all 200 year-old wood, and apparently it's been threatening to fall apart for a few years. But according to the tour guide, they tell the kids a different story.
Guide: "Did you see the movie National Treasure?"
Kids: "Yeah."
Guide: "You know the part where Nicolas Cage takes a brick out?"
Kids: "Yeah."
Guide: "Now we have to go in and fix it."
This is the first room we saw after the customary orientation: the main room for the Philadelphia court house, where many a criminal faced down a jury of rich white men.
And this is the aforementioned tour guide in the room, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed.
He said he moves around a lot, so he ends up in a lot more pictures than he was supposed to be in. But in such a small room, with us on one side of the blockade and him on the other, it's kind of hard to keep him out of the frame. It looks much grander in the movies.
I have to include this picture because Sweetie is so proud of it. It's George Washington's chair...but he really doesn't give a damn whose chair it is. The important point is that he took a clear shot of that rising sun from aaaalll the way on the other side of the room.
After the standard tour, we waited in line to see the west wing as well. Right behind us came a large group of seniors on a cultural outing. So when we sat down in the cushy chairs of the first Congressional Hall, we got a good idea of what the government for the human colony on Antarea might look like.
"The representative from New York respectfully abstains."
Here's the big chair up front, with the original artifacts.
And upstairs, the meeting place of the first Senate.
These pictures are grainy partly because the windows filter out natural light for preservation, and partly because using the clarifying flash on the camera messed up the colors.
See? A lot clearer, but the first one is more accurate. For our obligatory smile-and-wave photos, Sweetie has taken to Photoshopping the in-focus version of us with flash onto the proper photo of the room without.
Yay compromise.
After that, we stepped in to see the working documents of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, which to a librarian-in-training like me is much more interesting than the actual thing. Then we did a short tour of the "Other Buildings," as literally labeled on the directional signs outside: the portrait gallery, the gift shop, Carpenter's Hall, the military museum, etc. For photos, you can see the gallery Sweetie put together here: http://bghq.com/photos/gallery.php?g=40; I'm too lazy to select and format them myself. I will, however, include this statue of a guy drinking the Constitution.
It was made in 1987. Super historical.
Skipping ahead to the good parts, we rounded off the day with a visit to the Liberty Bell. We did have some qualms about seeing it, as humans are not allowed in the building.
We made a beeline straight for the Bell, but on the way we spotted a shot of the Dalai Lama paying is respects:
His Holiness always knows how it should be done.
By the way--the tour guide who said he shows up in more photos than he was originally intended?
Yup. In a totally different building two hours later, too.
After this we walked a few blocks north to see what was at the Constitution Center, but it turned out to be a lame museum with hefty admission fees. So we took photos of us holding things in the gift shop instead.
No one has called me "Tammy" in about four years. And the font makes it look more like "Jammy." But what the hey.
Sweetie and I are weak, weak people, so our legs were already aching by 1pm. We decided not to push it, since we'd already fulfilled our obligations as natural-born citizens, and headed back to the train station. On the way, Sweetie took one last panorama of my behind.
Just because I criticized his behind-photographing habits, of course. I used to do that when my mother gave me disposable cameras on trips...at least modern digital cameras don't waste film when you take excessive pictures of your companions' backsides.
And then a sandwich shop called "Così" pried twenty hard-earned dollars from my hands for flatbreads that tasted pretty much like Subway, only really difficult to chew.
My $20 paid for hip waiters and hipper colors on the walls. And the superfluous grave accent on the letter "i."
For the rest of the day we were dead to the world, having expended the last of our Qi walking the half mile back from the train station to the hotel (I'd decided by our second day there that taking it all the way to the airport just to catch the complimentary shuttle wasted both time and money). On Friday, we undertook the long drive back to Bloomington, and by Saturday were more or less back in the rut. Except I had been paying a lot of money for very little food for an entire week, and it didn't hit me until the weekend that I was starved. So I ate a lot. But otherwise, it's been pretty easy to get back into things. I think we're leveling up as travelers.
As much fun as we had, I don't feel any particular pull to go back to Philadelphia any time soon. Sweetie and I have determined, without a doubt, that we are not city people. They're nice to visit, but we're much more comfortable here in the inconvenient, boring backwoods.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Philadelphia, Part 1
For the past week, Sweetie and I have been in Philadelphia. I didn't blog about it real-time because we've decided not to announce the apartment will be empty whenever we go out of town from now on...we don't have much to steal right now, but it's good practice.
So what prompted us to drive 700 miles with money scattering out the window again not half a year after New Years in NYC? Officially, the Special Libraries Association annual conference. Unofficially, another UNESCO World Heritage Site for Sweetie to tick off his list: Independence Hall. All in all, the trip was 1/3 official, 1/3 unofficial, and 1/3 travel.
On Sunday morning we loaded up a newly oiled Ellie and drove 700 miles to the City of Brotherly Love.
For lunch we stopped at a Wendy's. A bad Wendy's. A Wendy's with a dirty carpet, a dirtier bathroom, sullen employees and stone-cold fries. I ordered an apple pecan chicken salad, because you can't screw up a plastic box of vegetables, right? Well, the chicken wasn't bad, because all they had to do was microwave it. But (a) it was covered in a cheese-like substance that I'm pretty sure wasn't actual cheese, (b) it had about two slivers of apple total, and (c) the chain went out of its way to ensure that there would be no pecans in my apple pecan salad.
Since there is no rational reason to put lactose on my nuts, I swear, they must have done it on purpose. (Ironic Side Note: The slogan above the giant picture of salads adorning the wall read, "You know when it's real.")
The drive should have taken 12 hours, but just after crossing into Pennsylvania, I was cruising along surrounded by semis when a blown tire came bouncing down the highway and smacked Ellie head-on. We pulled over at the Visitor's Center and found some bits of her waaay lower than they should have been. Fortunately, there was a truck stop not a quarter mile ahead staffed by a very friendly mechanic who could give her a once-over. It turns out the tire ripped apart the plastic cover protecting Ellie's delicate parts from rocks and debris, but there was no major damage otherwise. The mechanic gave us the green light to continue on, and we'll have to look into replacing the cover when we get back to Indiana. Then, after another 5 hours, we discovered that I had written the directions incorrectly because I assumed the Pennsylvania Turnpike would remain I-76, and wrote down the wrong exit number. Thanks to our handy-dandy atlas, we were able to double back through the outskirts of Philadelphia and get back to where we were meant to be, but it added at least another hour of stress to the trip. Finally, we arrived around 11pm. We had just enough time to look around in awe at the cushiness of our pad at Embassy Suites before I crashed to get in enough ZZZ's for a 6:30 wake-up call the next morning.
Note: This hotel has ducks in the lobby. Why? Because they're ducks. In the lobby.
Monday through Wednesday I took the train in to Center City to spend my days at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. My mission: to listen to the talks and watch the walks. Since I'm still a library student, my selected program was all over the place. Some sessions were useful, and some not-so-useful, but I think I accomplished my objectives.
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Other Highlights
After each day I made my way back to the hotel, and Sweetie and I spent the evenings lounging with cable. Cable is horrible. Why would people pay $50 every month for the privilege of watching hours of commercials? But we didn't have the Internet, because the hotel charged $10 per day for wireless, and sometimes it's nice to be mindless. Food was harder to come by than one would think, because all of the restaurants around the hotel were pretty terrible. On Monday we tried Popeye's Chicken: lots of grease, but not so bad. On Tuseday we picked up a thin-crust pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut.
Note the masterful cutting.
This pizza was cold and tough not 15 minutes after picking it up. We found out after the fact that this particular store as a 1.5 star rating on Google Businesses.
And on Wednesday, I was so tired from getting 6 hours of sleep each night and running around in heels all day that we just mustered up enough energy to get downstairs to the hotel restaurant. We were in Philadelphia, so we at least had to have one of these:
Enormous Philly Cheese Steaks. Mine was dinner on Wednesday and Thursday. One half was the size of my head:
We went swimming 20 minutes after eating these. The 100 grams of fat helped us float.
On Thursday we went out into the world. Details tomorrow at 8 (cue commercials).
So what prompted us to drive 700 miles with money scattering out the window again not half a year after New Years in NYC? Officially, the Special Libraries Association annual conference. Unofficially, another UNESCO World Heritage Site for Sweetie to tick off his list: Independence Hall. All in all, the trip was 1/3 official, 1/3 unofficial, and 1/3 travel.
On Sunday morning we loaded up a newly oiled Ellie and drove 700 miles to the City of Brotherly Love.
For lunch we stopped at a Wendy's. A bad Wendy's. A Wendy's with a dirty carpet, a dirtier bathroom, sullen employees and stone-cold fries. I ordered an apple pecan chicken salad, because you can't screw up a plastic box of vegetables, right? Well, the chicken wasn't bad, because all they had to do was microwave it. But (a) it was covered in a cheese-like substance that I'm pretty sure wasn't actual cheese, (b) it had about two slivers of apple total, and (c) the chain went out of its way to ensure that there would be no pecans in my apple pecan salad.
Since there is no rational reason to put lactose on my nuts, I swear, they must have done it on purpose. (Ironic Side Note: The slogan above the giant picture of salads adorning the wall read, "You know when it's real.")
The drive should have taken 12 hours, but just after crossing into Pennsylvania, I was cruising along surrounded by semis when a blown tire came bouncing down the highway and smacked Ellie head-on. We pulled over at the Visitor's Center and found some bits of her waaay lower than they should have been. Fortunately, there was a truck stop not a quarter mile ahead staffed by a very friendly mechanic who could give her a once-over. It turns out the tire ripped apart the plastic cover protecting Ellie's delicate parts from rocks and debris, but there was no major damage otherwise. The mechanic gave us the green light to continue on, and we'll have to look into replacing the cover when we get back to Indiana. Then, after another 5 hours, we discovered that I had written the directions incorrectly because I assumed the Pennsylvania Turnpike would remain I-76, and wrote down the wrong exit number. Thanks to our handy-dandy atlas, we were able to double back through the outskirts of Philadelphia and get back to where we were meant to be, but it added at least another hour of stress to the trip. Finally, we arrived around 11pm. We had just enough time to look around in awe at the cushiness of our pad at Embassy Suites before I crashed to get in enough ZZZ's for a 6:30 wake-up call the next morning.
Note: This hotel has ducks in the lobby. Why? Because they're ducks. In the lobby.
Monday through Wednesday I took the train in to Center City to spend my days at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. My mission: to listen to the talks and watch the walks. Since I'm still a library student, my selected program was all over the place. Some sessions were useful, and some not-so-useful, but I think I accomplished my objectives.
Monday
- Biomedical & Life Sciences Division Contributed Papers: I only caught the last one on disaster information in public libraries, and was not terribly impressed.
- CSI Philadelphia: Forensic Science Explained: I chose this one because I was interested in data/resource management in the FBI, but the other attendees were more interested in solving murders like they see on TV and monopolized the speaker's time.
- Military and Government Unconference: This "unconference" was basically a structured conversation with other attendees about trends in information/library science in government. I took away two things: (1) a lot of librarians are a tad unrealitsic about the Holy Grail that is Twitter, and (2) their perspective doesn't matter much anyway because administrators call all the shots in government entities.
- Visualizing Science: I was so tired that I couldn't concentrate during these talks, but they were mostly about existing tools for harvesting and mapping data. It's not really my area of interest.
Tuesday
- Military Libraries Division Networking Breakfast: Great. I got some names and some cards, and a ton of tips. If I hadn't already been considering military libraries, the attendees there would have "turned" me.
- Health Care Reform--How Is It Affecting Life Science Companies and Consumers?: This speaker, a lawyer who oversees the formation of managed care groups, was scary smart. Most of his talk flew a mile over my head. However, now I can sound mildly intelligent at parties if the subject of health care and/or REMS ever comes up.
- Designing a Physical Space in a Digital Age: I had high hopes for this one, but was sorely disappointed. The presenters were invited to describe the fancy new facilities they'd built. There were pretty pictures, but they were speaking from the perspective of having a bottomless pit of money to throw around. How many libraries have plump enough budgets to devote half the basement to giant HD TVs and gaming consoles for the students?
Wednesday
- Specify 6: Museums Specimen Database: This was one long advertisement for an open-source software developed by the University of Kansas. An interesting example of the types of boxed software people are developing for resource management, but I doubt I would ever use it.
- Data: The Next Generation--Sci-Tech Division Contributed Papers: This session was prompted by the new requirement for NSF grant recipients to provide data management plans. The speakers had conducted studies of their faculties on the library support required to help...it was interesting, but since I don't plan on staying in academia I didn't find it very useful to me personally.
Other Highlights
- Coming back to the hotel on Tuesday, I was waiting for the hotel shuttle next to a man who was at the SLA conference as a vendor representative. He was one of those types who can't stand silence, so he was eager to give me tips on how to live it up in Philly, and on life in general. He asked what type of work I was interested in after graduation. When I said that after the networking session, I was leaning towards a career with the military, he said, in all seriousness, "Are you a Nazi?"
- While eating lunch outside the Convention Center on Wednesday, a lady asked to sit across from me at my tiny patio table. She said she started out as a medical librarian, but after joining the SLA learned about all the other (better paying) careers available and wanted to get over her librarians-must-be-academics bias. Now she's with a financial company in New York, managing product licenses and contracts.
After each day I made my way back to the hotel, and Sweetie and I spent the evenings lounging with cable. Cable is horrible. Why would people pay $50 every month for the privilege of watching hours of commercials? But we didn't have the Internet, because the hotel charged $10 per day for wireless, and sometimes it's nice to be mindless. Food was harder to come by than one would think, because all of the restaurants around the hotel were pretty terrible. On Monday we tried Popeye's Chicken: lots of grease, but not so bad. On Tuseday we picked up a thin-crust pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut.
Note the masterful cutting.
This pizza was cold and tough not 15 minutes after picking it up. We found out after the fact that this particular store as a 1.5 star rating on Google Businesses.
And on Wednesday, I was so tired from getting 6 hours of sleep each night and running around in heels all day that we just mustered up enough energy to get downstairs to the hotel restaurant. We were in Philadelphia, so we at least had to have one of these:
Enormous Philly Cheese Steaks. Mine was dinner on Wednesday and Thursday. One half was the size of my head:
We went swimming 20 minutes after eating these. The 100 grams of fat helped us float.
On Thursday we went out into the world. Details tomorrow at 8 (cue commercials).
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Daddy's Turn
It's Father's Day.
Father's Day has always been a little awkward. First, it's only one month after Mother's Day, when people exhaust all of their proclamations of affection and brunch menus for the year. Second, your gift options are necessarily limited to what's culturally accepted as masculine. For the past week, you couldn't turn on any electronic media for two seconds before being blasted with advertisements for Droids and Lowes gift cards. Heaven forbid you have a father who's uninterested in either shiny gadgets or hunks of wood, or who does not wear ties or golf. What's left? An e-card?
One of the advantages of living halfway across the country from your parents is that, come these holidays, you're discouraged from presenting physical gifts. I can't come up with better alternatives to a construction-paper glasses case with a picture of my father in crayon cleaning a fish tank (my fourth-grade accomplishment of the year), but I can write a blog post. There are plenty of things I can write about my dad (and it's free!)
(1) My Dad is a Lawyer
My dad hates being a lawyer. Next to cops, taxi drivers, and restaurant servers, lawyers deal with the worst kinds of people. They get the low-lifes and the pompous jerks. For years he was an insurance lawyer, and drove four hours every day for the privilege of sifting through unscrupulous (or dumb) people's lies. Then he did research for the county courts, rubbing elbows with disgruntled bureaucrats and politicians more concerned with statistics than due process. He did this for decades to pay for the house, my flute lessons, and my brother's game consoles. Recently he's put off a well-deserved retirement for our college educations.
(2) My Dad Spoiled Me
While my mother was the cautious one instilling values, my father was the one who would go all out when the kids wanted something. When I wanted pets, he became a husbandry enthusiast, meticulously caring for giant aquariums and literally building finch aviaries from scratch. When I wanted dance lessons, he constructed a custom wooden floor for me to practice on. My bout in sports was fueled by trips to equipment stores, game days, and a freshly poured and painted concrete basketball court in the backyard.
(3) My Dad Taught Me Things
...Things I didn't necessarily want to know at the time. For example, the other day Sweetie and I flipped on an episode of Cash Cab--a quiz show on the Discovery channel--and one of the questions was to identify the stringed instrument with movable frets popularized by Ravi Shankar. I could one-up Sweetie by yelling "sitar" thanks only to my father's global musical tastes. While my mother was dedicated to establishing my literary baseline, my father took care of the music and movies side so I can hold conversations with both English majors and artsier-than-thou types. Also, like any stereotypically good father, he demonstrated that it's ridiculous to pay someone else to change your oil or tune up your bike. Now I get Sweetie's father to do it instead :D
So Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I'm sure this five-paragraph blog post is sufficient to thank you for 23 years of hard work.
Father's Day has always been a little awkward. First, it's only one month after Mother's Day, when people exhaust all of their proclamations of affection and brunch menus for the year. Second, your gift options are necessarily limited to what's culturally accepted as masculine. For the past week, you couldn't turn on any electronic media for two seconds before being blasted with advertisements for Droids and Lowes gift cards. Heaven forbid you have a father who's uninterested in either shiny gadgets or hunks of wood, or who does not wear ties or golf. What's left? An e-card?
One of the advantages of living halfway across the country from your parents is that, come these holidays, you're discouraged from presenting physical gifts. I can't come up with better alternatives to a construction-paper glasses case with a picture of my father in crayon cleaning a fish tank (my fourth-grade accomplishment of the year), but I can write a blog post. There are plenty of things I can write about my dad (and it's free!)
(1) My Dad is a Lawyer
My dad hates being a lawyer. Next to cops, taxi drivers, and restaurant servers, lawyers deal with the worst kinds of people. They get the low-lifes and the pompous jerks. For years he was an insurance lawyer, and drove four hours every day for the privilege of sifting through unscrupulous (or dumb) people's lies. Then he did research for the county courts, rubbing elbows with disgruntled bureaucrats and politicians more concerned with statistics than due process. He did this for decades to pay for the house, my flute lessons, and my brother's game consoles. Recently he's put off a well-deserved retirement for our college educations.
(2) My Dad Spoiled Me
While my mother was the cautious one instilling values, my father was the one who would go all out when the kids wanted something. When I wanted pets, he became a husbandry enthusiast, meticulously caring for giant aquariums and literally building finch aviaries from scratch. When I wanted dance lessons, he constructed a custom wooden floor for me to practice on. My bout in sports was fueled by trips to equipment stores, game days, and a freshly poured and painted concrete basketball court in the backyard.
(3) My Dad Taught Me Things
...Things I didn't necessarily want to know at the time. For example, the other day Sweetie and I flipped on an episode of Cash Cab--a quiz show on the Discovery channel--and one of the questions was to identify the stringed instrument with movable frets popularized by Ravi Shankar. I could one-up Sweetie by yelling "sitar" thanks only to my father's global musical tastes. While my mother was dedicated to establishing my literary baseline, my father took care of the music and movies side so I can hold conversations with both English majors and artsier-than-thou types. Also, like any stereotypically good father, he demonstrated that it's ridiculous to pay someone else to change your oil or tune up your bike. Now I get Sweetie's father to do it instead :D
So Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I'm sure this five-paragraph blog post is sufficient to thank you for 23 years of hard work.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Pulling Out Gracefully
I'm in that awkward position again--time to leave another job.
Since starting my new position at Sweetie's old workplace (ITG), I've found that they have a lot more for me to do than I originally anticipated. They hired me on the premise that I'd spend the summer on a couple of professor's websites, maybe a little photography...but the projects are much bigger than they thought and miscellaneous jobs pop up every day. In my first couple of days, I sewed up a security hole, made an application for faculty to modify web content, took and put up new photos of conference rooms, and met with a professor to redesign his laboratory website.
I'm happy to be needed, especially after spending the past year and a half begging the staff at Lilly to pretty, pretty please look at your own website. The problem is, I still have my internship and the position at the Lilly, which only leaves two days of the week free to devote to ITG. Not only does that schedule short-change my supervisor at the ITG, who has to schedule meetings for the days I'm there and keep track of the tasks piling up for me, but it's stressful on me, too. There are too many projects crowding the space in my brain, and I haven't had a proper lunch break (or any break, for that matter) since Sweetie and I went out on my first day of work.
The solution is simple: leave the Lilly. My supervisor there has to strain to find things for me to do, anyway; they pay more than a dollar less per hour and have such little interest in their website (and an excess of concern for others' opinions) that applications I completed months ago are still gathering dust in the test environment "pending approval." Sweetie has been urging me to quit for months, and now that I have a more lucrative source of income it's difficult to come up with reasons why I shouldn't. The only thing stopping me is guilt for giving the impression that I'd be around for years during my masters program. Frankly, that's a weak reason too, because there's a plethora of wannabe web monkeys walking around campus who would jump at the chance to put links on pages for a little above minimum wage.
So the question is, how does one pull out gracefully? For one thing, I have to corner my supervisor in person, who even when I was there almost every day was only "cornerable" once a week. For another, we don't have the friendliest relationship. It's not antagonistic, but I do get the impression that I intimidate her. I tend to intimidate a lot of people, which would be great if I was in the position of power, but isn't so great when I'm trying to get them to like and/or trust me. My personality is also good for doing a job, but terrible for dealing with sensitive situations like quitting one. I'm inclined to be honest, which wouldn't be good at all. Example:
"Hi, E. I'm fine, thanks. How was your meeting? [Pleasantries, pleasantries.] So, um, I think it would be best for you to find someone else come fall. Someone with an undeveloped skill set and low expectations. See, when you hired me I was stupid, and I thought all I was capable of was fixing up some text with HTML tags and putting it on the website. But I went out of my way to learn a lot, and now I'm too smart for this. I'm under-appreciated and under-paid. Someone else is going to give me more opportunities AND more moolah. So, sorry, but goodbye."
Imagine the response when a future boss calls for references, eh? But glossing over it leaves a bad taste in my mouth too:
"Hi, E. I'm fine, thanks. How was your meeting? [Pleasantries, pleasantries.] So, um, I think it would be best for you to find someone else come fall. I have this other job now, and I'm taking classes and have a zillion other obligations. I'm just not strong or mature enough to handle it all. And I have these bills, you know, and my poor aging parents are supporting my two brothers through school and won't be able to retire at this rate [*tears up*]. Other people need me. I'll be so sad to leave because the staff is like my family and I love it here, but fate has other plans. Goodbye, my sweet Lilly."
Of course, I could always do what I did when leaving the worst job of my life last summer: send a two-line email.
"Hi, E. Thanks for employing me for the past year, but I won't be coming in after next week. I'm grateful for the opportunities you gave me, but this library isn't the best environment for me anymore. Sorry for being too chicken to look you in the face to say this. Yours, Tamara."
Have you ever had to quit a job nicely? How did you approach your boss?
Since starting my new position at Sweetie's old workplace (ITG), I've found that they have a lot more for me to do than I originally anticipated. They hired me on the premise that I'd spend the summer on a couple of professor's websites, maybe a little photography...but the projects are much bigger than they thought and miscellaneous jobs pop up every day. In my first couple of days, I sewed up a security hole, made an application for faculty to modify web content, took and put up new photos of conference rooms, and met with a professor to redesign his laboratory website.
I'm happy to be needed, especially after spending the past year and a half begging the staff at Lilly to pretty, pretty please look at your own website. The problem is, I still have my internship and the position at the Lilly, which only leaves two days of the week free to devote to ITG. Not only does that schedule short-change my supervisor at the ITG, who has to schedule meetings for the days I'm there and keep track of the tasks piling up for me, but it's stressful on me, too. There are too many projects crowding the space in my brain, and I haven't had a proper lunch break (or any break, for that matter) since Sweetie and I went out on my first day of work.
The solution is simple: leave the Lilly. My supervisor there has to strain to find things for me to do, anyway; they pay more than a dollar less per hour and have such little interest in their website (and an excess of concern for others' opinions) that applications I completed months ago are still gathering dust in the test environment "pending approval." Sweetie has been urging me to quit for months, and now that I have a more lucrative source of income it's difficult to come up with reasons why I shouldn't. The only thing stopping me is guilt for giving the impression that I'd be around for years during my masters program. Frankly, that's a weak reason too, because there's a plethora of wannabe web monkeys walking around campus who would jump at the chance to put links on pages for a little above minimum wage.
So the question is, how does one pull out gracefully? For one thing, I have to corner my supervisor in person, who even when I was there almost every day was only "cornerable" once a week. For another, we don't have the friendliest relationship. It's not antagonistic, but I do get the impression that I intimidate her. I tend to intimidate a lot of people, which would be great if I was in the position of power, but isn't so great when I'm trying to get them to like and/or trust me. My personality is also good for doing a job, but terrible for dealing with sensitive situations like quitting one. I'm inclined to be honest, which wouldn't be good at all. Example:
"Hi, E. I'm fine, thanks. How was your meeting? [Pleasantries, pleasantries.] So, um, I think it would be best for you to find someone else come fall. Someone with an undeveloped skill set and low expectations. See, when you hired me I was stupid, and I thought all I was capable of was fixing up some text with HTML tags and putting it on the website. But I went out of my way to learn a lot, and now I'm too smart for this. I'm under-appreciated and under-paid. Someone else is going to give me more opportunities AND more moolah. So, sorry, but goodbye."
Imagine the response when a future boss calls for references, eh? But glossing over it leaves a bad taste in my mouth too:
"Hi, E. I'm fine, thanks. How was your meeting? [Pleasantries, pleasantries.] So, um, I think it would be best for you to find someone else come fall. I have this other job now, and I'm taking classes and have a zillion other obligations. I'm just not strong or mature enough to handle it all. And I have these bills, you know, and my poor aging parents are supporting my two brothers through school and won't be able to retire at this rate [*tears up*]. Other people need me. I'll be so sad to leave because the staff is like my family and I love it here, but fate has other plans. Goodbye, my sweet Lilly."
Of course, I could always do what I did when leaving the worst job of my life last summer: send a two-line email.
"Hi, E. Thanks for employing me for the past year, but I won't be coming in after next week. I'm grateful for the opportunities you gave me, but this library isn't the best environment for me anymore. Sorry for being too chicken to look you in the face to say this. Yours, Tamara."
Have you ever had to quit a job nicely? How did you approach your boss?
Friday, June 3, 2011
"Greek" Pasta Salad
On Wednesday, I started my second (third?) job at Sweetie's old workplace: the Chemistry department. Starting a new position with new people is always awkward, but it's especially so when everyone in the office has seen your vacation photos :o Plus sides: it pays a dollar more per hour than my spot at the Lilly; they actually trust me to do things; and after spending the past few years in libraries with shrinking violets, the staff there are refreshingly (if a tad intimidatingly) extroverted and straight-forward.
At 1, Sweetie came tosnoop around his old haunts and cop a free meal "celebrate my first day." I chose The Trojan Horse, half a mile walk away in 90° weather, because if it was easy to get to it wouldn't be special. I blogged about our last visit just around this time last year, which apparently was just after an interview for a job that, if I could comment on my own blog posts to inform my past self, I would tell myself to run away from before I got trapped in a summer of micro-managed hell. But anyway, Sweetie chose the same dish as last time (surprise surprise) and I just ordered the first thing that looked good: a spiral pasta salad with spinach, feta, olives, tomatoes, grilled chicken, and herbed oil on the side.
The salad was amazing. However, they gave me way too much to eat in one sitting, but not enough to bother taking home the leftovers, so I had to abandon some feta cubes and olives. Sadness. But the next day, I set out to the store determined to recreate it for my lunches, now that I'm pretty much employed 9-5 M-F and can't be spending $3 every day on soggy tuna sandwiches at the library cafeteria.
Some of these ingredients are expeeensive, but it's much cheaper than those sandwiches (or the $9 the Trojan Horse wanted for the salad!)
Americanized "Greek" Pasta Salad
(Makes 4 servings)
-1 box spiral pasta for salads (this Rotini Garden Delight with vitamins was on sale for less than the generic!)
-1 tub crumbled feta cheese. Or an honest-to-goodness cube of the real stuff, if you have the $$$ and time for it.
-1/2 a can black olives, or proper green ones if your palate is stronger than mine.
-balsamic vinaigrette
-spinach
After cooking the pasta, I threw it together with everything but the spinach. Done. Much easier than walking half a mile in 90°, no?
Before I leave this morning, I will line a tub with spinach leaves and top it with the salad. The room I'll be working in is freezing because it's where the department servers are stored, so there's no need to refrigerate :x
Now I have to get ready. I'm used to dallying in the mornings because I have the luxury of a car, but the building is on the opposite side of campus from my usual parking spot. And I just paid tons in transportation fees, so I might as well be socially responsible and get my money's worth on the bus.
At 1, Sweetie came to
The salad was amazing. However, they gave me way too much to eat in one sitting, but not enough to bother taking home the leftovers, so I had to abandon some feta cubes and olives. Sadness. But the next day, I set out to the store determined to recreate it for my lunches, now that I'm pretty much employed 9-5 M-F and can't be spending $3 every day on soggy tuna sandwiches at the library cafeteria.
Some of these ingredients are expeeensive, but it's much cheaper than those sandwiches (or the $9 the Trojan Horse wanted for the salad!)
Americanized "Greek" Pasta Salad
(Makes 4 servings)
-1 box spiral pasta for salads (this Rotini Garden Delight with vitamins was on sale for less than the generic!)
-1 tub crumbled feta cheese. Or an honest-to-goodness cube of the real stuff, if you have the $$$ and time for it.
-1/2 a can black olives, or proper green ones if your palate is stronger than mine.
-balsamic vinaigrette
-spinach
After cooking the pasta, I threw it together with everything but the spinach. Done. Much easier than walking half a mile in 90°, no?
Before I leave this morning, I will line a tub with spinach leaves and top it with the salad. The room I'll be working in is freezing because it's where the department servers are stored, so there's no need to refrigerate :x
Now I have to get ready. I'm used to dallying in the mornings because I have the luxury of a car, but the building is on the opposite side of campus from my usual parking spot. And I just paid tons in transportation fees, so I might as well be socially responsible and get my money's worth on the bus.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
(
Posts
