Mastering the metro and other adventures in DC
I’m going to make a confession: in past visits to DC, the metro has been my nemesis. I’m a small-town girl, you know, and never having lived anywhere with a subway system, I found it a little intimidating (okay, probably more than a little). It’s big, crowded, noisy, and everyone is quick and pushy as they’re getting on the train. So for me, riding the metro was a stressful combo of trying not to get lost or wind up on the ‘wrong’ side of town, trying not to look like: a) a tourist, b) an easy target for a pickpocket, or c) a creeper magnet, and tolerating total strangers violating the boundary of my personal space bubble (or ‘Soviet Air Space’, as my mother calls it). Also, I don’t know what I thought would happen if I missed my stop–it’s easy enough to get on a train going back the other way–but I sure as heck was Not Going To Miss My Stop, prompting frequent, nervous, semi-compulsive checks of the next station (as though somehow it had changed, Harry Potter style, in the past minute or so).
In any case, over the weekend, the metro and I seemed to have made our peace, of which I was quite proud. Having a smartrip card is the way to go, the destinations are marked on the side of the platform where that train arrives, and as far as the other people go, you just pretend everyone else doesn’t exist (unless you’re forced to actually sit next to someone, in which case you might briefly acknowledge them as you sit down, but then you quickly resume Ignore Mode). I’m starting to feel like a local already! Though I suppose getting the impulse to scratch my initials on the station wall, Zorro-style, every time I get off at the correct stop continues to identify me as a newb… in any case, it’s not as scary as I thought it was, and it’s damn convenient!
As far as what I was actually up to in DC: my visit to MD/DC coincided with the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which celebrates the blossoming of the cherry trees planted along the waterfront and around the Monuments. In an interesting bit of history, the original cherry trees were gifted to the US by Tokyo during the presidency of Howard Taft (of bathtub fame). They were shipped via ocean liner and then train from Seattle, and planted along the Potomac in 1912 (an event slightly overshadowed in history by the sinking of the Titanic in April) in a ceremony overseen by First Lady Helen Taft and Viscountess Chinda, the Japanese ambassador’s wife (I suppose because cherry blossoms are flowers, arranging the trees was work for wiminfolk? Or maybe I’m just being critical. The First Lady had to have something to do, and I suppose President Taft had slightly more important things to be doing… like getting unstuck from said bathtub). The US responded in kind by sending a gift of flowering dogwood trees to Japan in 1915. Although the cherry trees were planted much earlier, the first cherry blossom festival wasn’t held until 1934 (perhaps they were looking for a cheap way to entertain people during the Depression?). Grafts from the DC trees were sent back to Japan in the 1950s to replenish stocks ‘lost’ (i.e. bombed/burned) during WWII. Additional trees were sent to DC from Japan in 1965.
In its current manifestation, the National Cherry Blossom Festival is a full two weeks, and comprises the sakura matsuri street fair on Pennsylvania Ave., concerts, art shows (including an ikebana flower arrangement show), martial arts demos, and a parade. Next year is the centennial celebration of the original gift of trees from Tokyo, and they’re planning an epic five-week celebration! You can bet your boots I’ll be there with bells on (and perhaps a kimono).
Sakura matsuri!
In any case, this year the actual cherry blossoms themselves seemed to have mostly faded by the time I visited, but the street fair was in full swing, so I set off downtown (sadly sans holiday wig, given that this was prior that particular discovery) to take a look about. I was expecting to see women in kimono, which I did. They actually have booths where you can rent kimono to wear, which is pretty awesome.
I asked if I could take their picture, and the mom replied, "that is what they have been waiting for!"
There were also lots of young people dressed in Harajuku-style outfits and Pokemon costumes, which, I’ll admit, I was not expecting.
Harajuku girls in DC!
I tried hard to get a good picture of a tough-looking high school guy in a Pikachu costume, complete with Keroppi umbrella, to no avail (his tanuki friend kept getting in the way. Apparently my sneaky photography skills need honing). I had a good time watching the people of DC be festive, and—at the festival and in the city at large—I was impressed with both the diversity and the youth of the population.
Given that I am a nerd and that I was in DC, I think I may have burst into flames had I left without visiting any of the Smithsonian venues. The Natural History museum had an excellent exhibit of orchids, and I loooooove their exhibit on Human Origins (I’ll give you a hint–there aren’t any dinosaurs in that exhibit, and they just might touch on evolution).
- If this orchid were a person, she would play roller derby.
Of course, I also paid homage to the Giant Squid. While I was there, I discovered the incredible crocheted coral reef display. According to the website, the “Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world”. This is something I can get behind. I think it’s time I learned to crochet.
Can you imagine how long this took?
I even made an effort and went to see the Hope Diamond, which, although I have been to the museum multiple times, I have never seen before. I understand that this makes me weird, but I really don’t get the appeal—it’s a big, shiny blue rock. Woot. Though considering the crowd of people around its case, my opinion is clearly in the minority. I was much more intrigued by the alexandrite display, which is a gemstone that changes color depending on the wavelength composition of the light shone upon it. Thus, in daylight it looks emerald green, but in incandescent light, it looks reddish-purple, making it a much more interesting thing to look at/wear than a diamond, in my opinion (sort of reminds me of the Horse of Many Colors).
On Saturday evening, I also spent some time with a friend walking around the National Monuments at night. It was a lovely evening for a stroll, and we startled more than one kissing couple down by the waterfront (in contrast, the Jefferson memorial was stuffed full of dressed-up fourteen year olds, including one with a ninja mask). The National Portrait Gallery was lit up with purple lights for some kind of gala, which was pretty awesome.
Being purple increases the awesome of anything at least 10x.
In any case, I had a great time exploring the sakura matsuri, the Natural History museum, and the national monuments. Each time I am in DC I think of more places I want to go—the Library of Congress, the National Botanical Gardens, the Folger Shakespeare Library. Not to mention places outside DC—Manassas, Williamsburg, Montecello, Mt. Vernon… Greedy, greedy, greedy. I think I’m going to have to start keeping a list!
‘Holiday Wigs’ and other Maryland Attractions
I flew to Maryland over the weekend to have a bit of a look about and to find housing. Thankfully, the housing search was successful, and I scored a room in an awesome house within 15 min (walking! So glad I won’t have to drive everyday) of the UMD campus. The house is owned by a UMD professor, not a rental company, which I think is a big plus. It has been recently remodeled, and it has a garage, a back yard, shiny hardwood floors, and a brand new washer and drier. Of course, one of my foremost housing search criteria was that I be able to bring my cat, which I can (yay! Roadtrip cross-country + ’98 Subaru Outback + small-but-opinionated feline: this is clearly a recipe for catastrophe adventure.) Aaaaaand I met my future roommate, also a grad student at UMD, who seems very nice, responsible, intelligent, and—big plus!—not batshit crazy (this will be something new and exciting for me; of all of the roommates I have lived with, there have only been two who haven’t been certifiable).
Given that I am a self-confessed tree-hugging dirt-worshipper, as soon as I realized I’ll have a bonified yard, dreams of compost piles and vegetable gardens began dancing in my head (far superior to sugarplums). Nevermind the fact that I have a notoriously black thumb (pfft, what do you mean, water my plants regularly? Photosynthesis means they produce their own everything, right?) I am the girl who managed to kill a cactus. My boyfriend of the time helpfully informed me that this means I am less nurturing than a desert. But humans have been practicing agriculture for thousands and thousands of years—it can’t be that hard, right?
My produce will look just like this.
In addition to viewing the house, I spent some time driving around College Park (longer than I meant to, actually. How many people do you know who manage to get lost using a GPS?), but the city itself definitely warrants further investigation. A few of the shopping highlights I passed included ‘Holiday Wigs’ (as opposed to everyday wigs??) and a store called ‘Pollo Wow!’. Given that I was driving in their crazy Maryland traffic at the time (and being laughed and honked at for driving like the Oregonian I am), I didn’t have a lot of time to look at all the shopping venues, but it seems promising. At least I know I have somewhere to go for all of my holiday wig needs.
The UMD campus is lovely, too, in a knickers-and-white-powdered-wig, Scartlett’s-giant-hoop-skirt sort of way. Bricks are a definite theme on the east coast, as well as white clap-board shutters and driving like you’re on steroids. It’s nice in that everything looks historical (and probably is). The trees are nothing like the trees we have here in Oregon (no evergreens!), but overall the campus and the area are pleasant, and I look forward to further investigation. I also noticed they have some quaint east coast-isms (can I say the east coast is quaint?) that seem closer to our British roots, like signs that say ‘speed hump’ instead of ‘speed bump’, and ‘kiss-and-ride’ instead of ‘roundabout’.
I know its several hundred miles south, but all I can think is "The British are Coming!"
In any case, psychologically, knowing that I am not jumping into the Black Hole of the Unknown is such an enormous relief! One of my most comforting discoveries was a lovely tea shop next to campus (Really, I should’ve been born a Brit), so I know I won’t be starving for good tea. And now that I know where I’ll be living, I can start plotting what to bring! The amount of crapola that I have managed to squirrel away over my 24 years of existence is really rather astonishing, so I’ve made a pact with myself to get rid of 80% of it by the time I leave in August… there is really only so much I’ll be able to cram into my station wagon along with my yowling cat (sweet jesus, at least let her choose not to express her displeasure as my ex-boyfriend’s sister’s cats did—I still think her husband tolerating an eight hour drive of explosive feline diarrhea without throttling anyone is the single most profound act of love I’ve ever encountered). Of course, my biggest weakness is books… but even there, sacrifices will have to be made (the Horror). In any case, overall it was a good visit! I also had some time to go into DC and wander about on the Mall, but I think I’ll write about that next time.
Roller derby is taking over my life.
It’s true. I discovered this as I was crossing the street the other day. We’ve been learning how to fall properly at practice (this is a rather important skill in roller derby—ask the girl on our team who is now known as ‘Broken Ass’), and one of the things of which they are constantly reminding us is that if we want to keep our fingers, we need to keep our fingers tucked in—to make a loose fist, and resist the temptation, upon contact with the ground, to put our hands down with our fingers out (as you can imagine, having Helga von Juggernaut run over your fingers when you splay them haplessly on the track is not optimal). ‘Course, it’s a difficult habit to break, and when you’re throwing yourself at the track face-first (aw, you think I’m exaggerating), it all comes down to muscle memory. Because I am rather unreasonably attached to my fingers, I have resolved to keep fists the entire time I’m skating. The good part is that I’m starting to remember to do it. The bad part is that I’m starting to do it EVERYWHERE, even when I’m not skating. For example, as I was crossing the street the other day, I suddenly realized I had both hands balled up into fists, my shoulders hunched up to my ears, as if I might suddenly need to drop to all fours in the crosswalk to protect myself from the semi-comatose frat bro in the teal Toyota Corolla with tight rimz (god knows, if he’d have hit me, he wouldn’t have heard me screaming, given the volume at which he was blaring his hideous selection of pop/hip hop albums).
Derby is leaking into other areas of my life as well: I have to resist the temptation to drive like I skate (which is something a little too close to the Grand Theft Auto end of the spectrum for comfort, at least in my ’98 Subaru Outback), fishnets have become a viable fashion option, I suddenly have the urge to cut my hair and dye it unnatural color(s). I’ve heard stories about girls hip-checking people in the grocery line, so at least I haven’t done THAT. Yet. I have this ridiculous delusion notion that it’s almost like I’m leading a double life—by day I’m a reserved, sweater-wearing lab tech; by night I’m an ass-kicking, fishnet-wearing valkyrie-on-wheels, out to crush chauvinism (and skulls) wherever it might lurk (at least, to that I aspire. I’ll get there). The thing is, I’m loving every minute of it. In case you haven’t discovered this yet, life is better on wheels (except in the case of your house being on wheels. This is, generally speaking, not better). Now if you’ll excuse me, I must find a phone booth, whip on my fishnets and skates, and go make the world a better place, one hip-check at a time.
rawr!
What I do for a living
My mother has a long-lost cousin, apparently. Either that or someone is trying to case the house and steal our identities, but he’s been calling everyone, supposedly trying to arrange some kind of family reunion. So I answered the phone yesterday, and after discussing scheduling and things of that nature, he asked me a whole passel of personal questions, the most cringe-worthy of which was, “What do you do for a living?”
Now, that might not sound so bad. I love what I do for a living. I really do–that’s why I’m planning on studying it for the better part of a decade in graduate school. But the one thing I really don’t like about what I do is telling people about it.
What I mean is, if you ever walk into a room full of strangers and declare, “I am a neuroscientist!”, people look at you like you’ve grown a third eye (which, for the record, would be interesting but completely useless unless you grew the necessary neural pathways to go with it… but I’ll try to contain myself), or they think you’re a complete egomaniac. Seriously, try it sometime. I understand that it’s an unusual occupation, and I suppose I can’t blame people for being surprised—I guess I don’t particularly look the part (they finally convinced me to quit wearing my labcoat and pocket protector in public. The safety goggles are non-negotiable, though. SAFETY FIRST). What I don’t like about it is the connotation that comes with the popular idea of ‘a neuroscientist’. It’s like the slightly more obscure, slightly creepier version of ‘rocket scientist’ on the Nerd Spectrum—we do Science, we do Math, but instead of a sort of cozy, elementary school Science Fair connotation of Space And The Solar System, neuroscience brings to mind BRAINS (har har), and for that matter, probably disembodied brains in jars like something out of Frankenstein (or Harry Potter—I still haven’t gotten over the awesomeness of the part in Book 5 where they’re in the Department of Mysteries, there’s a tank full of brains, Ron shouts, “ACCIO BRAIN!”, and the brains leap out of the tank and go ‘zooming’ through the air). One plus is, I suppose, that if they know you’re a neuroscientist, people do expect you to be competent, which is nice. Of course, anytime I do something ditzy, my brother points at me and says, “ha, you’re a neuroscientist!” This is generally warranted.
Anyway, as soon as you wear that label, people see you differently, like you’re just not quite normal (arguable, in my case, but that’s not the point)—like somehow when you go to graduate school you learn a whole lot about science, and also magically stop doing normal things like laundry and sleeping and going to the grocery store (Grocery store? Pftt—I can make whatever I need with my handy Star Trek, wall-mounted food materializer). Just for once in my life I want to tell someone that I am a neuroscientist, and I want them to say, “Cool! What do you study?” rather than laughing awkwardly and speculating about my IQ.
Actually, in grad school I probably will stop doing normal things like sleeping and laundry and going to the grocery store, but not because I don’t need to, but because I literally won’t have time. Which brings me to my next topic: why a scientist needs minions. But as I need to reorganize my collection of Brains in Formaldehyde, my freeze ray gun requires maintenance, I should probably do something with those plutonium samples, and the tyrannosaur is getting hungry (he’s so damn cranky when he’s hungry), I suppose I’ll have to save that for another entry.
potential minions?
Thoughts on the earthquake and tsunami in Japan
Unless you’re living in a bus in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness somewhere (yes, I am a Krakauer fan), you’ve probably heard about the enormous earthquake and tsunami that hit the northeastern coast of Honshu, Japan. Estimates of the death toll are in excess of 10,000. My family and I have been paying particular attention because we have strong ties to Japan—we lived in Asahikawa, Hokkaido (the northern-most island) for three months during the early ‘90s while my mother studied the indigenous Ainus’ musical tradition, and we have close friends there. Although most of our friends thankfully live away from the tsunami-struck region, one of my mother’s former students lost relatives to the tsunami, and her immediate family has been evacuated further north in light of the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. Even our friends in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, are feeling some residual effects of the catastrophe—everyone has been asked to conserve electricity in order to avoid overtaxing the country’s ailing power grid. Meanwhile, our friends in Tokyo are stocking up with food and water and battening down at home in case of a serious radiation leak, which would confine everyone to the indoors. All of this is occurring while serious aftershocks, over twenty of 6.0 or greater magnitude, shake the country. And, to add insult to injury, the Japanese stock market has plummeted significantly in recent days, raising fears about whether the Japanese economy, already struggling with a long recession, will ever recover. To call it a disaster would be to call Hurricane Katrina a patch of bad weather. The claim has been made that this is the worst state in which the country has been since WWII. Which, if you can’t quite recall, came to a close when we Americans dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
But that claim, in conjunction with a statement a friend from the Tokyo area recently made on facebook, got me thinking (you know, for once). It is possible that in the face of the appallingly-grim outlook for Japan, I am grasping at straws, trying to find something positive on which to focus. However, since this is my blog, I suppose you’ll have to humor me. What my friend had posted on facebook was a picture of one of the US aircraft carriers that were sent to aid in tsunami rescue and relief, with the caption “I LOVE AMERICA!!!”. Aside from the fact that this was one of the few times I have felt actual, serious pride about something our country has done, and that this was one of the only times I have ever heard anything positive about America’s recent actions abroad from a foreigner, it struck me that this is a country with which we were at war only three generations ago. A country against which we, the US, committed what I consider to be one of the most atrocious crimes of war in history (read John Hershey’s Hiroshima and then try to tell me you disagree). This isn’t to say I think Japan was guiltless; I am familiar with US history, and I know the story of Pearl Harbor. But that’s the point, then, isn’t it—both sides did things that were unforgivable, and it is a difficult thing to let go of such resentment (a very interesting book on the dynamics of the war in the Pacific is John Dower’s War Without Mercy). My grandfather was in the Navy in the Pacific during WWII, and although he was a kind and loving man with many admirable qualities, during the time that I knew him, I never heard him refer to the Japanese without using a racial slur. Of course, my story isn’t nearly as remarkable as that of two of my dearest friends, whose mother is American and whose father is Japanese. Their grandfathers were literally trying to kill each other during the war.
With that kind of history, fast-forward to the modern day, where Japanese citizens rejoice at the arrival of American aircraft carriers as they come to help with the worst catastrophe their country has faced since we fire- and atomic-bombed the bejeezus out of it during WWII. If that doesn’t say something about the human capacity to forgive and grow, I don’t know what does (stick with me here, I know, I’m a scientist—usually when someone mentions anything about the human spirit I get itchy for numbers and graphs). So I will foster the hope that this current catastrophe will turn out like the last one: the Japanese, carried by the strength of their resilience and their ability to learn and grow, astounded the world by recovering more quickly and stronger than anyone could have ever expected at the end of WWII. And in the meantime, we, the US, will be there to aid however we can. Because that is, after all, what friends do.
- Hokkaido on New Year’s
Roller Derby Name
Tree-hugging Dirt-worshipper
Okay, okay, I confess: I’m a tree-hugging dirt-worshipper. Not that this should be a surprise to anyone who knows me. I am notorious at my job for once shrieking at a co-worker after he put a cardboard box in the trash (to be fair, this wasn’t the first time he’d done it; I had actually pulled the box out of the trash several times already, and he, clearly missing the point, kept putting it back in. However, even those of us who work in a neuroscience lab are expected to have social graces a few basic social skills, and the general consensus seemed to be that literally screaming at the top of my lungs wasn’t necessarily the most effective way to express my feelings about recycling. On the bright side, he does seem to remember to recycle now, though). The thing is, my green leanings are far from unique here in Oregon, so I’ve grown accustomed to a certain kind of lifestyle—the kind of lifestyle where I take recycling receptacles, vegetarian options, and health food stores for granted (that’s right, I apparently have a lifestyle; the realization struck me this morning as I was pondering my imminent move across the country. My next thought was, sheesh, does that make me a real adult?).
Which brings me to the question of food (warning: out comes the soap box). Over the last few years, I have become extremely conscious of sustainable eating habits, and this inclination is probably the most influential factor in the way I live. I’m going to take a brief detour here to explain why (see, there it is again; we scientists are obsessed with why). One of the most memorable lectures from my intro Biology sequence was a talk about the amount of land/energy required to support tertiary consumers. We could go on and on about the circle of life or whatever (Lion King, anyone?), but the bottom line is that the amount of energy that is eventually transferred to tertiary consumers (the predators who eat the herbivores who eat the primary producers, plants) is 0.001% of the amount of sunlight energy that was required for the plants to grow. In other words, only 10% of the total energy is transferred from one trophic level to the next, meaning that as you ascend from herbivore to primary predator, you are significantly losing energy efficiency (Wikipedia article here. Though it pains me to cite wikipedia, it is a quick and dirty way to get a general idea about something, so go look if you haven’t heard about this!). Thus, it is much less efficient to raise cattle on an acre of land than it is to grow wheat or soybeans. This is one of the many reasons that I am vegetarian.
But becoming vegetarian isn’t the only thing you can do to make the way you eat more sustainable and environmentally-friendly. Eating organically is important because organic farmers do not use chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or genetically-modified seed stock, all of which have serious environmental impacts. Eating locally is important because it costs much less energy to transport the food to your table, and the money that you pay for the food winds up in the hands of farmers in your own community. Which is good for the economy, too. If you’re, you know, into that kind of thing.
Anyway, this is clearly an issue that is important to me. So, you see, one of the highlights of my week is picking up my order of local, organic produce (it warms the cockles of my green little environmentalist heart). There is a wonderful organization here in Oregon called Willamette Local Foods that calls itself an “online farmers market”; essentially local farmers can post whatever they have to sell each week, and people like me can put together an order of whatever strikes our fancy and pick it up at a local drop site. I feel virtuous by supporting local, organic farmers, I get to stick it to the Man (corporate farming), and the produce is gorgeous, so it’s good for everyone involved (especially me), and the environment (yay!).
In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot about how you choose what to take with you and where to live when you move across the country (having been born in the late 1980’s, this immediately made me think of the Oregon Trail computer game, the most memorable portion of which, aside from slaughtering obscene numbers of buffalo and any other creatures unfortunate enough to wander across my path, was purchasing supplies to pack into my tiny Conestoga for the long journey. I wonder how many barrels of pickles I’ll need for graduate school? One can never be too careful about scurvy). Yesterday I had this sudden, horrified image of shopping every week at the Midwest or East Coast equivalent of Safeway, and I immediately started compulsively googling farmers markets in Maryland and Wisconsin. Research is ongoing, but it seems safe to say that there is a sufficient farmers’ market presence in either place (such relief!), such that keeping my lifestyle will not be as difficult as I had feared. Choosing my graduate school based on its proximity to a farmers’ market and Trader Joe’s doesn’t seem unbalanced at all, does it?
- You know you want it!
Roller derby
I am not the kind of person who does well with a lot of down-time. Which translates to, I get bored easily and I fidget a lot if I don’t have something to keep me occupied. This has been an interesting dilemma in light of my graduation and my rediscovery of actual, certifiable Free Time. Don’t get me wrong—the luxury of having the time to sit down and read a novel isn’t something I take lightly (oh, fiction, how I’ve missed you!). However, that doesn’t resolve the fact that, when June rolled around, I suddenly had a heck-of-a-lot of time on my hands. This kind of explains why, on a misguided campaign to ‘do something with myself’, I baffled every one of my close friends and family when I turned out for the local roller derby tryouts three weeks ago.
But let’s start at the beginning, shall we? It began at the end of August when I cajoled my brother and some friends into attending the local league’s championship bout. If you’ve never seen a roller derby bout, imagine ten women in skates and fishnet tights skating around a track while they try to knock each other down. Needless to say, I thought it was awesome, and in spite of the tattooed, be-studded, leather-clad gentleman with an eye-patch and a genuine hook (we’re talking a real HOOK here, a sharp one, as in Captain Hook’s hook, none of that pansy grippy-claw crap) who was sitting next to us, I decided this was a community I’d like to get involved in. So I bought a pair of rollerskates and started learning to skate. My parents thought I was off my rocker, of course, but as I had recently ended a long-term relationship, I think they had already been battening down their hatches for the oncoming onslaught of crazy. In any case, I’m fairly certain that no one believed I would go through with it until I actually went to the tryouts and made the team.
So now, to everyone’s (including my own) surprise, I am a member of the local JV derby team. Of course, this being roller derby, they don’t just call us the newbies or whatever; we are ‘fresh meat’ (this is not only intimidating but ironic to a vegetarian). One of the best things about roller derby is the diversity of women who are involved—you get a complete cross-section through age and socio-economic standing. I have been enjoying getting to know my fellow ‘fresh meat’; however, this diversity sometimes leads to some bizarre fascinating cultural interactions. Take, for example, the woman (there is a greater than 95% probability that this woman owns a Harley, just for the record) who decided to tell a story last practice about how her dog bit off part of her finger. Which was, apparently, just HILARIOUS. To get the full feel of the story, you have to imagine this woman waving her finger around in the air, wrapped in a huge, lumpy wad of gauze and purple vet wrap, as she tells us, “Yeah, he just took it right off there!” To my credit, although it may have had something to do with the mouthguard that I can’t talk around, I did not say, “HOLY FUCK!” Which was, you know, what I was thinking at the time. In any case, derby has thus far been an interesting experience. At the very least, I’ve managed to fill some of my free time, and a previously-unknown deficit of tough women in miniskirts yelling at me weekly to do more pushups. We’ll see how it goes. As a sidenote, I’m hoping sometime soon that my parents will quit asking me if I still have all my teeth.
Amphibious Mammals and Other Shenanigans
Because science is essentially the practice of asking ‘why?’ in as many new and creative ways as we can come up with, the question of why you should read my blog seems… well, pertinent. Given that as of this moment, the blog is a title and a pretty header, I don’t have much empirical evidence to back up my argument, but you’ll have to just trust me that things are going to get interesting. I promise. Cross my heart. Can’t you just see that going into a peer-reviewed research paper?
I suppose that I could at least tell you what I’ll be writing about. I’m a twenty-something research assistant at a lab that studies hearing in Oregon’s beautiful Willamette valley (that’s right, the Beaver state… with amphibious mammals involved, how could you not be intrigued yet?!). But not for long! As there is really only one career path available to people foolish enough to major in Biology, i.e. to go to graduate school, my cat and I will soon be making the trek across the greater continental US to one of two possible graduate school options: the University of Wisconsin, Madison, or the University of Maryland, College Park. Small-town girl on the east coast! Or possibly, tree-hugging, vegetarian west-coaster finds herself in the beer, cheese, and steak-loving Midwest! Either way, shenanigans are bound to ensue! And in the meantime, before they shackle me to my desk at graduate school and throw away the key, I’ll be taking some time to visit New Zealand. So, there will be science, and travel, and… cats! Honestly, how can you possibly resist?
It is futile to resist!
