Catch up day

I've said it before, but I really truly want to write in this every day.  Starting today.  Even if it's a boring day.

Events of this past week:

• Christmas (obviously). Got "Whiskypedia" and some (more) scotch rocks, as well as an awesome National Geographic North America road trip atlas from my sis.
• Watched Les Miserables with my family, which was pretty good.  I had seen it when I was younger but remembered not liking it, perhaps because it's quite historical and I probably wasn't old enough to be able to appreciate it.  Anne Hathaway has an astonishing voice.  Russell Crowe sang like a sock was stuffed down his throat.
• Ate at Madison Sourdough Company (formerly Bakery) twice, that place has phenomenal pastries
• Watched the entire first season of "Girls", undoubtedly a bit girly (as is to be expected) but also a show about 20-somethings that feels as real as any I've ever seen.
• Watched the last 6 episodes of "Burning Love", the spoof Bachelor with Ken Marino from Party Down as well as Michael Ian Black.  Easily the funniest hour I've had in a while, and I love the 10-minute episode format.
• Lovely dinner party at my undergrad advisor's house with many of the old faces.
• Caught up at the Vintage (and Ian's pizza) with a high school friend who I haven't seen in over a year.  Ian's pizza is still delicious
• Dinner last night at Pizza Bruta, which has phenomenal pizza.  We did one prosciutto pie and one cremini mushroom pie, the latter of which was just mind-blowingly good.  Mushrooms are amazing.
• Noodles & company. Yum.
• Bought some more clothes at another ridiculous banana republic sale.
• Worked a lot, as I try to finish up various aspects of my thesis science and move towards writing, as well as working hard on post-doc proposal applications.  It's been tough to stay motivated to work over the Christmas week, but I'd say on the whole I've certainly gotten a ton done.  So much more to do!
• Hangin out and chatting with my parents.
• Bread experimentation: first loaf was not nice and crispy enough on the outside.  second loaf came out much crispier, though still pretty dense on the inside.  Tomorrow night, we'll try white flour only, possibly in a baguette shape.
• 18-year Highland Park -- introducing my dad to mighty fine scotch

That should just about cover it.  So from now on, I write something about each and every day.  There's so much life that happens, and I drink too much scotch to remember anywhere near enough of it.

Christmas!

I arrived back in Madison on Monday afternoon, greeted at the airport by my parents and sister.  Its always nice to come back home for the holidays, even if this year I've got a thesis that will keep me worrying/working throughout the break.

It's also always a nice time to catch up with friends, even if that sometimes tends to add stress to an otherwise relaxing time.  Today I met up with an old high school friend who I haven't seen since we graduated -- nearly 10 years ago.  It was great to catch up, and it brought back all sorts of old memories from high school.  It was also admittedly a bit of a strange experience, as we were actually very close early on in high school, but by the end of high school we no longer were, and so because of it she fell of my radar of people that you might actively try to keep in touch with.  As a result, I effectively haven't thought about her since we parted ways, which also means that I've lost almost all memories of how close we used to be.

Uncovering lost memories and emotions can be fun but also a little terrifying, if for no other reason than that you become aware of how your memory plays tricks with how you remember (or don't remember) your past.

Defense dates, stress, and physical ailment

Whew, what a week.  Following the prodding of my advisor, I went ahead and set my thesis defense date with my Committee for Tuesday, April 30th.  I then proceeded to emotionally freak out about as much as I ever have in my life -- for three nights in a row, I couldn't fall asleep for hours (I usually am asleep within seconds; last night I was texting a friend and fell asleep during the intervening 4 minutes between my sent text and her response, which I only got this morning) and I was physically beleaguered (back and neck pains, weird headaches, loss of appetite, fatigue).

I had originally thought it was just fallout from 5 consecutive days of hard work and nights of partying culminating in the fry party and 5K, but I realized as I laid restlessly in my bed that at least as big of a part of it was that my brain literally couldn't go more than 5 seconds without thinking (stressing) about thesis-related items.  And with it, I was not breathing -- my breaths had become very short, and I realized that it wasn't implausible that all my strange headaches and body pains were literally due to a lack of oxygen.

This was obviously a serious problem, and I needed to find a way to control my brain and fast.  Just recognizing this stress was a huge step though.  It was obvious that this wasn't healthy, and that there was no point in living a life as stressed out as that.  I stopped my brain and began just listening to my own breaths -- meditation -- focusing on taking long, deep inhales and exhales.  I did this over the span of perhaps 10-15 minutes, and gradually I could feel my entire body and brain relaxing, probably for the first time in days.  I stayed positive, imagining all those little oxygen molecules, entering my body through every ultra-deep breath I took, swimming through and restoring my muscles to their normal function.  And finally, I fell asleep, feeling much better the following day.

Continuing this process, I wrote up an outline of my thesis, as recommended by my advisor who would see the distress in my face as we discussed the prospect of a Spring graduation.  That was also a fantastic idea, as it allowed me to organize the ~3 years of work that was jumbled in my brain, never having been placed together in a coherent context.  For the first time, I could see where everything I had done -- which really was quite a bit -- related to one another.  And finally, the many elements of my thesis could be placed neatly on paper, and every subsequent topic/idea/thought that popped into my brain could be quietly added.

My brain was off the hook.  And with it, my stress level dropped, and my excitement level increased, as I'm finally approaching a milestone in my adult life.

Fry party

Epic weekend.

The highlight was our Saturday all-day deep frying party.  My roommate owns a deep fryer, and so we decided to deep fry... everything: potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, brussel sprouts, parsnips, peppers, pickles, avocadoes, apples, pineapples, bananas, plantains, cheddar cheese, steak tips, oysters, clams, shrimp, snickers, twix, oreos, marshmallows, cookie dough balls, and twinkies.

We also consumed, as a group, 6 lbs of bacon.

The party lasted a solid 7 hours, with a consistent group of approximately 30 people there to fry, eat, repeat.  It was pretty amazing.

Less wonderful was the awful corn oil smell that engulfed our entire kitchen and living room.  But it was well worth it in the end.

Then, on Sunday I proceeded to run the Jingle Bell Run 5K with many friends.  It was fun, and I ran hard (as always, my instinct to run hard and try to win kicks in after the first mile or so) despite having not eaten anything all morning.  We headed to one of the post-run celebration bars, Daddy Jones in Magoun Sq, for beer (I drank only a sip) and snacks.  It turns out that the pita I ate there would be the only thing I'd eat the rest of the day.  I got home, laid down on the couch, and basically didn't move, my body utterly exhausted from the run, the fry party, and the drinking/partying that had consumed the previous 5 days in a row.

This weekend was definitely a little overwhelming.

Whisk(e)y tasting

Last night, a friend hosted the second in what has become a new series of whiskey tastings.  The first was perhaps three months ago, but at the time I still had zero interest in virtually any liquor, and so attended without really paying attention to what we were drinking.

This time around, I'm three or so weeks into my new found love for whiskey.  I supplied the tasting with two fine 15-year scotches: Highland Park and Glenfiddich.  The former was far and away the best whiskey from among the 12-15 different types we had on hand.

Someday, I'll muster the courage to drop $115 for the 18-year Highland Park, which I had a taste of at a cigar bar in DC a couple weeks ago.  It was absolutely phenomenally delicious.  But very, very expensive.

Sick

Lesson learned: no more cold 2am bike rides home.  On Friday night, I left a bar in East Cambridge feeling fine, and when I got home after a miserably cold ride 15 minutes later, I could immediately feel my throat becoming sore.

Now I am sniffling, sneezing, aching, stuffy head, (no fever I dont think)... all those things that Nyquil says it fixes.  I'm hoping it'll get better enough by tomorrow morning that I'll be able to go to work.

Washington DC

On Wednesday I had the pleasure of attending a meeting on the very early stages of a new project that seeks to build a natural hazard Risk model for the United States via a broad public-private partnership.  My advisor sent me in his place, and when I arrived I realized that the meeting was full of quite prominent members of various federal agencies (NOAA, FEMA, DHS, DOT, DOE, etc.), presidents of two major catastrophe modeling companies, NGO leaders, and several scientists and engineers from academia.

The project is still up in the air, and it was fascinating to witness the process of debating and discussing the key proposed ideas, their merits, and the outlook for their implementation.  Following a morning session in which the project was largely introduced and (weakly) motivated, we broke out into smaller groups to address directly three questions regarding the details of the model, its organizational structure, and its governance.  Instead, though, the discussion retreated to the more fundamental questions of the merits of the project as a whole, in particular positing concerns regarding the enormous scope of the project and the lack of a clear defense of the need for this model in the first place.

Indeed, these concerns then emerged more prominently in the afternoon group session, at which point we were supposed to be determining the plan for concrete next steps moving forward.  Instead, several members of the community -- particularly private sector representatives, who demonstrated a much greater capacity to focus the discussion to the most salient points, a trait that I valued greatly -- stood up and asked quite bluntly, "I can't tell you whether I support 'this' until I understand what 'this' is!". Clearly, more work addressing the "business" case for the project is needed.

Overall, the experience gave me significantly greater respect for the private sector.  Earlier in the day, a fellow scientist who does hurricane risk work noted to me a key difference between science and private sector work: "In the private sector, they want an answer, regardless of how scientifically justified it is; meanwhile, in science, it's okay if your answer is 'I don't know'".  In my case, I realized that this mentality may be one reason why I struggle to love science and find myself often pulled strongly towards the private sector world: my own approach is very much one of problem-solving, in that my goal is to get an answer to a stated problem.  I don't like trying something out without knowing that it will give me a definitive answer in the end, and furthermore it always haunts the back of my mind that any answer that I do get will ultimately be proven wrong by additional science.  Even if I know that this is "how science works" -- that this isn't my fault! -- I still hate the thought.

Interesting the ways in which you learn about yourself.

Thanksgiving weekend (late!)

Time flies.  Seriously.

Last weekend was Thanksgiving weekend, and it was a jam-packed one.

Wednesday night, a couple friends and I hit up Green Street Lounge, where a quick drink and bite to eat turned into a full night of cocktails.

Thursday morning I pulled myself out of bed to meet friends for the annual Turkey Trot in Davis Sq. at 845am.  Following a lovely 4-mile run, we headed into the Burren for some 10am beers, then I headed home to relax for a bit and prep bread and popovers to bring to Thanksgiving dinner.  Dinner was hosted at a friend's place, where I an about 10 other friends chowed down, played informal group Family Feud, charades, and euchre, at which point we were all sufficiently intoxicated.

I and a friend then took Black Friday head-on, hitting the stores for a solid 7 hours, beginning at 2pm, downtown to fill out a new set of sweaters.  Most of my sweaters I've had since probably early undergrad, so it was high time to renew that collection.  Though it was quite busy, apart from the 30-minute wait in line at Express (there was a whole set of cash registers that were deliberately closed for some inexplicable reason), I'm not sure I would have known that the day was different from any random Saturday.  And with nearly every store having a big sale, including my favorite store, Banana Republic (40% off everything!), it was a no-brainer for me.

Saturday was full of culture.  I met friends at 11am at the Boston Aquarium, which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment since they are renovating the giant tank at the center and removed the penguins that swim beside it.  The big fur seals outdoors were very cute, and many of the smaller tanks inside had a lot of amazing aquatic life, but for a big-city aquarium it certainly felt a bit lacking.

Afterwards, we grabbed lunch at the Barking Crab and then a couple of us continued on to the ICA to check out their exhibit celebrating the 1980s.  It turns out that the ICA is free for MIT students... its a shame that I haven't taken advantage of this fact more in my time here!  In any case, in the 1.5 hours we spent there, I actually only managed to see the 1980s exhibit but hadn't realized that there was an additional 70% of the museum with many other exhibits that apparently were quite cool.

Finally, on Sunday I relaxed a bit and caught up with life.