Mmmmm...

My mom wanted me to put up a new post, so here goes.  Don't these cinnamon buns look delicious?

Merry Christmas, and I'll post more soon, I promise!

Apples and visits and games, oh my!

So we took some pictures of our apples when we got home from apple-picking, but it wasn't immediately after (there might or might not have been a pie made in the meantime...).  Anyway, we wanted to take a picture that looked like as many apples as we had originally picked, but with the number of apples that we had left.  Here is the amount of apples we had left:

Here's how we tried to make it look like more apples.  I would say it worked:

We had some friends over for a game night, during which we played 2 new games: Ticket to Ride, which we bought, and Dominion, which some friends brought.  Both of them were really fun!  Now I want to get Dominion, but I think we're going to put it on our wedding registry :)

Here's our feast from game night:

Note the apples that are pink on the inside!  How cool is that?  They taste pretty good, too (and that's coming from someone who doesn't really like apples):

We also had a visit from some of my fiance's family last weekend, which was nice.  We got to play with his cousin's kids, who are 1 and 3, so it was really cute.  We took them to the Boston Children's Museum, which is a great museum if you're ever in Boston with kids.  It's also pretty fun for adults!

We're having another game night tonight, but this one's not at our apartment.  We're about to head out for that, so I'll write more later!

Here's another thing I did

Pretty cool, huh?  I am sometimes scared of heights, particularly when it involves climbing things, but this was totally worth it!

We went apple-picking today

I went apple-picking today for the first time ever, if you can believe that.  It was much more fun than I thought it was going to be, despite the unfortunately cold temperatures.  I went with 7 of my friends, and after a morning of picking all different kinds of apples and testing some out to make sure we liked them, we had a delicious picnic.  On the drive back, I fell asleep in the car :)

Here are some apples from the orchard where we went today:

That's all for now, just a short update because I figure that's better than nothing, and I don't have time for a long post.

My 10th Veg-iversary

My next few posts might be a little out of order, time-wise, but this is the order I feel like writing about things in, so hopefully you'll bear with me.

This past weekend I marked the 10th anniversary of my becoming a vegetarian by having a vegetarian potluck picnic out in a plaza by our apartment.  Here are the stars of the show:

Israeli salad (cucumbers, tomatoes, red peppers, and parsley).

Fruit salad (kiwis, pineapple, grapes, and nectarines).

Caprese salad (tomatoes, mozzarella, and basil, drizzled with balsamic glaze).

 Guacamole.

Banana bread.

Zucchini cakes.

Key lime cookies.

Pasta salad number 1.

Quinoa salad with tomatoes.

French bread and cheese.

Bruschetta ingredients.

Pasta salad number 2.

Peanut butter chocolate ice cream.

It was great to have my friends celebrate with me and eat so much delicious food.  It made me want to have a veg-iversary every year!

Half marathon training is going well.  Yesterday my best friend and I ran 11.5 miles, which was a distance record for both of us.  We won't run that much again until the actual half marathon, which is in less than 2 weeks!  I got a blister on my toe, but other than that the run was really successful.  We ran along the Emerald Necklace, which is a string of pretty green areas with nice trails to run on.  We ran all the way from the beginning to Jamaica Pond and back.  The weather was perfect for running, and we were really proud of ourselves.  I'm excited for the half marathon!

Classes have started again, and so far, mostly so good.  I'm really excited about a couple of them, and I think I'm going to learn a lot of new things.  This is the first time I've ever taken any sort of economics, and the class I'm taking is not introductory level.  It should be a good challenge!

I'm going to go do laundry now.  I really need to get more running shorts.  Actually, I guess sooner than I'd like it will be pants season :(

Continuing with the updates

I left off with my family vacation in Maine at the beginning of August.  This post has a lot of pictures, since I really enjoy taking pictures in Maine.  This is the house we were staying in:

We've gone to Maine every year, but this was the first time we'd stayed in this cottage.  It was nice, and it had a great view.  My dad really liked how the trees framed the view from the front porch:

Check out that sunset!  Also, check out this delicious pizza, with Maine blueberries, gorgonzola cheese, and walnuts on the side.  Probably this is the most delicious pizza in the world:

We got this pizza for me and my fiance, and we went with my parents to a lobster place so that they could get lobster.  We ate our food in the lobster dining area, and it had this beautiful view:

Also, my dad and I did our annual kayak race.  Here's a picture of us practicing for it earlier in the week:

Don't we look cool?  The race went well.  We got 18th place out of more than 30 boats, with no serious mishaps.  Overall, Maine was great.  My parents, brother, and I were there for the first part of the week, then our family friend came up from Boston for a day, and then my brother went home and my fiance came up for the weekend.  We had a lot of ice cream, went to a movie, took some relaxing naps, and read books on the porch.

I'm still very excited about my new bike.  And now I'm going to babysit, so I'll continue with this later.  Have a good day!

Caroline's bicycle emporium!

It's been ages since I last posted, but my latest news is that I got a new bike!  Currently I am in possession of 3, yes 3, bikes!  I'm calling it Caroline's bicycle emporium, and here's a picture:

And here's the star of the show, my new bike:

I sold my "old" bike on Craigslist (the person didn't want to take it home today in the rain, so he's coming to pick it up on Thursday if the weather is nicer, which is why I still have it) and my fiance found this new one at a yard sale around the corner from us.  It's probably 15 years newer, and much fancier and nicer.  It's lighter and shinier and the gear shifters are on the brakes instead of on the down tube, which makes it easier to shift.  And thanks to my serious bargaining skills, I managed to buy the new one for the same price I sold the old one for!  So basically a free upgrade, and everyone's happy.  And now I will be so fast!

In other news, I can't believe I haven't posted since my triathlon.  It went great, and I got 3rd place in my age group, and first place for women in the swim, second to only one guy!  Here I am getting numbered:

I definitely want to do another triathlon, but my schedule has turned out to be so busy since this one that I don't think I'm going to have time to do another one this summer, at least before it becomes wetsuit season (and I don't plan on buying a wetsuit anytime soon).  I'll probably try to do some more next summer, packed in between the 7 or so weddings that we're going to.  And with my new bike, I should be even better!

I remember what I've done and what I want to write about in my blog by looking through the pictures I've taken.  Here are some of those things:

-One of my close friends visited in July, and we went to the Boston Public Library.  It's a cool place to check out if you're visiting Boston.  There are two parts, the old part and the new part, and they're both really impressive, with an atrium in the middle with a fountain.
-Later that week, my lab went to see the Hubble 3D Imax.  I highly recommend it, if you can stomach Imax movies.  Personally, I don't think I've ever met an Imax movie that I didn't like.
-The next weekend I went to visit my fiance in New York City.  We stayed with two different couples that we're friends with, and saw the Broadway show American Idiot.  The performance was really good, but it didn't have much of a plot, to say the least.  But the singing was good, and we had front row seats thanks to winning the rush ticket lottery (you still have to pay for the tickets, but they're much cheaper and usually for excellent seats).  We also had a celebrity spotting - we saw Jennifer Garner at Chelsea Market!

Yes, that's my shoulder making a cameo on the right.
-We went to Minneapolis to visit my fiance's family.  While we were there, we checked out the new Twins stadium by biking there to watch a game.  Minneapolis has these cute bike paths with mini signs for stop and yield and such.  We had a really nice visit, and enjoyed this sign a lot:

The next week was my family vacation, but it's time to go to bed now, so I'll finish updating in a later post.  Good night, and leave me a comment!

It's been rainy here in Boston...

Last Saturday I went up to Peabody to do a day of Habitat for Humanity.  As we were driving back, it started raining really hard, and the roads were flooding.  We were in an SUV, but by the time we got back to drop some people off in the dorms, the water was so high that the car stalled!  We had to get out and push it!  Here's a picture from after we got it to a parking lot on higher ground:

After the build day, my fiance and I went with my friend's boyfriend to watch her play in the pit orchestra for a high school level production of The Producers.  It was a great show, especially considering the ages of the actors.  The next morning, we had blueberry pancakes for breakfast, and we marveled at the oddity that is this blueberry:

It has 2 stems!  One coming out of each end!  Incredible!  Well, I thought so, anyway.  It's life and glory ended in the usual way that blueberries go, which is to say it was eaten.  I can't personally vouch for its taste, but the rest of the batch was delicious. 

Less than 4 days till my triathlon!  I'm very excited!  Perhaps I should be practicing my biking more, but I did get a fancy new pair of shorts for the bike/run and tinted goggles for the swim.  I checked the results from last year, and there were only 3 participants in my age/gender category.  I hope it's the same this year, since the top 3 get awards :)  We'll see.

Good night!

Happy 4th of July!

Some friends and I went out for brunch (pictured below), and then some other friends and I went to watch the fireworks. The Boston Pops play a concert before the fireworks, and hundreds of thousands of people show up to listen and watch. The fireworks show was great, as usual. From brunch, banana chocolate chip pancakes with patriotic sprinkles:

A cool shot of a pretty evening sky:

My best picture of fireworks:

I think these fireworks look like jellyfish:

And that's it for tonight!  A post of mostly pictures.  Wish me luck with sleeping in this heat!

Yesterday I biked to Salem

My cousin, her husband, and their 2 adorable kids live in Salem, and they were having a backyard party sort of thing yesterday with a bunch of their friends and their friends' kids.  I had been meaning to visit, and what better day than a day when they would feed me and I'd get to play outside with a bunch of cute kids?  Biking there was easier said than done, though.  It should have been about 18.5 miles, but considering how much I got lost, it was probably at least 20.  Every few miles, I'd have to call my fiance, tell him where I was, and ask for the next step so that I could get back onto the directions I'd written out beforehand.  I don't know if it's a Massachusetts thing or what, but there are an incredible number of intersections where none of the roads are labeled, or only one is, and you get to play the game of guessing what road you're on or crossing.  But in the end, I made it to Salem safe and sound, and just in time to put in my order for a veggie burger on their new grill :)

I hung around for the whole afternoon, including a brief rain shower.  I got to hold my 3-month-old first-cousin-once-removed for a good amount of the time, and he is so cute and snuggly!  On the down side, he did spit up on me at one point.  His older brother is 2 years old, and similarly adorable.  Unlike the stereotypical terrible twos, he was friendly, well-behaved, and excited to play with me.  I also got to see my cousins' new house, which they moved into less than 6 months ago.  It has some fun 1950's decor, which I like because I've been watching Mad Men.  Unfortunately, they don't have period furniture.  Well, one step at a time.

Getting home was much less of an adventure because I decided to take the commuter rail.  It's really convenient, even with a bike, since they have slot sorts of things to slide bikes into, and straps to secure them.

I figure this bike ride was good for me, though, since I've signed up for a triathlon that's coming up in less than 3 weeks.  I somewhat spontaneously joined the Triathlon Club here, and I've been to a couple of their swim practices now.  With my running for my half marathon in September, I should be ok to make it through a triathlon in 3 weeks, even if I don't leave my competitors in the dust.  I'm actually just planning to finish :)

On a surprising note, my research has been going a bit better lately.  In fact, we might even get to put some of it in the Science Museum!  I don't know how certain that is, so I won't describe it too much now, but I'm very excited and hopeful!

Leave me some comments if  you're still reading!  Good night!

I haven't posted in a while

It's been a while, but things are going well.  A lot has happened since I last wrote, including the end of crew and classes, the 5 Boro Bike Tour, an OK Go concert, 2 weddings, a weekend at the Cape, a trip to Vermont, and oh yeah, getting engaged!  That's right, my boyfriend (now fiance!) and I got engaged about 3 weeks ago!  We're starting to plan a wedding for next summer, and it's a lot more work than we thought it would be.  But don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a wedding blog.

I just got back from running 7 miles in preparation for the half marathon that my friend and I are doing at the end of September.  Now that crew is over, I am partly luxuriating in and partly lamenting the freedom/burden of determining my own workouts every day.  To counteract my occasional indecisiveness, I'm considering joining the triathlon team.  If you don't know me from real life, it might help to know that I've been swimming for my whole life, I bike everywhere I go, and clearly I run at least somewhat.  So triathlons are not completely out of the blue.  I went to my first triathlon swim practice yesterday, and it was a fun and interesting experience.  Unlike normal swimming, triathlon involves more than just swimming as fast as you can by yourself.  In the case of this practice, that meant practicing swimming in formation to take advantage of drafting off of other swimmers.  We also practiced coming around from behind and passing the rest of the formation.  I'd never done anything like that before, and it was fun!  I also felt hardcore when we were swimming in the diamond formation and to pass people we had to break through the front of the diamond.  So that's my athletics update.

My fiance (!) and I made blueberry muffins last night because blueberries were on an excellent sale at the grocery store (buy 1 container, get 2 free!).  They turned out delicious, even though we substituted applesauce for some of the butter. 

One of my friends offered to take engagement photos for us, so last week we went around Boston and Cambridge and took some pictures.  She's a really talented photographer, and we had a great time.  In the end, we ended up with some professional-quality shots, which you can bet will be on our wedding website!  Here's one, just for fun:

Ok, so even after all that time, I don't feel like writing any more, plus I could really use a shower after running.  I hope you enjoyed the update!

I saw Bill Gates!

On Wednesday, Bill Gates came here to give a talk called "Giving Back: Finding the Best Way to Make A Difference."  There was a lottery for tickets, and even though I never win anything, I won a ticket!  The talk was really interesting, since it addressed an issue I've been thinking about a lot lately.  Unfortunately, he didn't give any concrete suggestions for recent or upcoming graduates.  So I went up at the end for the question and answer part to try to get his advice, but there were too many people before me and the time ran out just before my turn :(  I tried to find him afterwards to ask him in person, but my search was unsuccessful.  I guess he's a pretty busy guy.

Today I babysat again for the first time in over a month.  I really missed the little boy I've been babysitting, and it was fun to see him again today and play outside together.  Speaking of kids stuff, on Friday my boyfriend and I saw the kids' movie "How to Train Your Dragon" in 3D.  It was really good!  I definitely recommend it. 

And in camera news, I ordered a new camera and the memory card arrived on Friday, but the camera hasn't arrived yet.  I am very excited to get it, though.  Hopefully it is better than the old one!  I will be relieved to have a way to take pictures again, and then I can get back to the important business of posting pictures of things I eat.  This time it's a Panasonic, so we'll see if it is better than the Sony.

Last week my boyfriend and I went out to dinner with his uncle and his uncle's girlfriend.  We went for sushi, and it was really delicious.  Also, we had a great time spending time with them and having delicious dessert afterward.  It's really fun to have people visit, even if the visits are short.  If you're thinking of coming to visit me, you should!

Academically, our lab had a dessert bake-off a couple weeks ago.  I made chocolate chip cookies, and I wish I could post a picture of them - they were very tasty!  Other competitors were super-chocolate brownies, pear and key lime pies, cookies and cream mixture, dirt (pudding with gummies and oreos), cupcakes, a Portuguese egg custard dessert, and maybe some more that I'm forgetting.  We didn't end up voting, but I'm sure that my cookies would have won.  Right?

Our last home crew race is this Saturday, and my dad is coming to watch.  Then on Sunday, we're riding in the New York City 5 Boro Bike Tour .  It should be a fun, busy weekend!  The only problem is figuring out how to get my bike to and from New York.  But I'm sure I am up to the challenge.

And that's it for tonight!

It's so windy!

We're in New Jersey now for crew, and it's so windy!  We had a really hard time getting our boat into the dock because we kept being blown off course.  We almost crashed into another boat on our way in, which was scary.  Hopefully tomorrow will be calmer, but I'm not optimistic.

Being at races makes me feel like I really need to get a new camera.  I returned the one I got not too long ago because it was so bad, but I haven't replaced it yet.  I miss taking pictures!  Especially of things I eat.  But picture this, if you can: bananas, white cheddar rice cakes, bagels with cream cheese, and clementines.  I know that wasn't 1000 words, but hopefully they were worth a small picture :)

In other exciting news, I got a share certificate, or certificate of deposit, this week.  It gets a teeny bit more interest than my savings account, so this is pretty big news.

I guess I don't have much to say if I'm talking about my share certificate, so I'll call it a night.  Keep your fingers crossed for good weather!

Today was a beautiful day!

I'm very busy with work right now, but I couldn't help commenting on what a beautiful day it was today!  The rest of the week has been and will be a pretty normal week for early April, but today it hit 90 degrees, with a lot of sun and a nice breeze.  It was perfect for taking my computer outside to do some work while sitting on a bench under a tree in a courtyard that I think of as the "Secret Garden".  It's really pretty, and I don't think many people here know it exists.  Anyway, for most of the two hours or so that I was out there, I had it all to myself.  So peaceful, and surprisingly conducive to getting work done.  I was working on figuring out which cognitive tests for executive function we're going to use, and there are more than we had originally thought.  It's probably going to come down to the Stroop test, just because we have easy access to it.  But there's another test, called the letter-number task (creative, I know), which I think might be better.  I won't bore you with the details, but I think it's a cool test.

Anyway, back to work!  We're going to New Jersey again this weekend for crew, so I won't have much time for work on the weekend.  Depending on how things go, we might have to race 4 times in 2 days! Yikes!

P.S.  I'll be happy if you leave me a comment!

Spring break

It's currently halfway through spring break, and I'm procrastinating working on my homework by writing in my blog. We're having two-a-day practices for crew, and we have our first spring race this Saturday. It will be nice because my parents are coming, and afterwards I'm going home with them. Other than that, I'm being a grad student between practices and going to bed early since I'm so tired, which is unusual for me. I'm also trying not to eat as much as I want to, since I have to make weight for crew!

This past Saturday was quite an athletic day for me, with 2 crew practices, about 45 minutes of bike riding, and about an hour of tennis. Needless to say, I slept well that night! I feel very hardcore for having so many practices.

Tomorrow we have a meeting with the people from the hospital side of our study, who are responsible for the sleep side of things. They're really nice people, and their areas of expertise are very different from ours. It's interesting to work with them. I've prepared a spreadsheet of some cognitive tests and robotics tasks that I think would be good to have our subjects do. Depending on what happens tomorrow, we might have a lot of coding in our futures!

Next week will be back to classes, but it's about halfway through the semester already. Put another way, we're only halfway through the semester?! Sometimes it feels one way, sometimes the other. But I'm very much looking forward to warmer weather, and summer especially. I haven't been in Boston for the summer since the summer after my freshman year, and I'm excited. It is a much more friendly place when everything's green and the weather is warm.

Ok, maybe I should work on my homework now. Wish me luck!

I'm going to run a half marathon!

My best friend and I have signed up for a half marathon for this September! We're running the Wicked Half Marathon, which will give us a good reason to train hard this summer. The course looks like it will be really pretty, and it's near where my cousin's family lives, so that will be nice too. I'm pretty excited about this, because I've wanted to do a run like this for a while, and we think the t-shirts will be cool-looking. I've only got 2 months left of crew, so it's time to start thinking about what I'll do next. I'm also considering triathlons, and I wouldn't be surprised if I find myself doing some of those, as well.

In other news, I got a new computer, which is really awesome. It's so much faster than my old one, and it has so much more hard drive space! The only thing I don't like is that it's widescreen, but it seems like all new computers are that way, so I guess I don't really have a choice. It also came with a cool thing that lets us watch things on the TV wirelessly from my computer.

I also got a new camera, which was not so awesome. I think something was wrong with it, because all of the pictures came out really yellow, even after messing with the settings. Luckily, Amazon has a really great return policy, so after a quick phone call, they emailed me a return label and I sent it back for a full refund. I'm going to get a new camera soon, but I have to figure out what to get. I think I might want to get something a little nicer, because it turns out that photo quality is more important to me than I thought, based on this experience.

Other things that have happened since my last post, which was far too long ago: my birthday, our big indoor crew race (on ergs), Valentine's Day, for which my boyfriend got me the largest flower arrangement I've ever seen, and which we both thought was a little absurd, a novice crew team dinner, a concert by my boyfriend's band, a friend's birthday party, my best friend's swimming championships, the Jewish holiday of Purim, a visit from my boyfriend's sister, and a bit more work on my research. Oh, and I got admitted to the policy program I applied to!

Here is the flower arrangement, which is more than a meter tall, by my estimation:


The little blue thing in the left side of the picture is my new computer. It's a Toshiba, and so far so good. I hope it has as long and successful a life as my old one did.

I went to the Open House of the policy program on Monday, and I think it's going to be a fun and interesting group to be a part of. People's interests range over all different areas, but a lot of them are focused on energy and sustainability. The people who run the program also seem really nice, so I'm excited to start. I won't start classes with that program until the fall, but it will take me at least another semester, and likely another year, to finish the two master's degrees. I might start thinking about how to tie policy into my research this semester, though.

My classes are going pretty well, I think, but they are a TON of work. My space policy class requires a ton of reading, plus writing memos, preparing for role plays, and a group term project. My other class, human supervisory control, also has a lot of reading and a series of projects. The upside is that I have no tests and no finals, but it's a lot of work in the meantime.

Research is also going well, but I'm starting to feel antsy about when we're actually going to get started running our experiment. I've tried out some of the cognitive tests we're thinking of using, and I have to propose a battery (aka a series) of tests that we will use. We also have to come up with a series of robotics tasks, and at some point we will have to write the code for the tasks. That will be pretty challenging, I expect.

The river finally unfroze a couple of weeks ago, and it's been really nice getting back out on the water. Yesterday and today have been beautiful days, so it's a pleasure to go out, especially now that it's light all the way through practice because of daylight savings time. Next week, for spring break, we have 2 practices per day. It's going to be tough. On Friday, we leave for a race in New Jersey. After that, I'm going to go home for the weekend to hang out with my friend who is getting married in June. I'm missing her bridal shower because of the crew race, but I thought it would be nice to see her even if it's not at the shower.

Since I know a lot of you like to see pictures of what I eat, here's a picture of the vegetarian chili we made for the novice crew team dinner:


So things have been busy. But now it's time for me to go to practice, so I guess I'll have to wrap up this monster post. I'll try to post more frequently, but no guarantees. Check back every once in a while, though!

Happy Spring!

Term starts tomorrow

I can't believe January has gone by so quickly. It's been a lot of hard training for crew, but I'm feeling like I'm in pretty good shape. Classes start tomorrow, and I'm taking two in addition to Journal Club. My officemate is taking both of them with me, at least for now. So that should be fun, since we'll get to work together. My other officemate is about to start running her experiments. We're all pretty excited about it. And that's about it! A short post this time.

I went skiing last weekend...

And my parents are coming to visit this weekend! January has mostly been pretty low key, since there are no classes and I'm just doing more research stuff. I'm working on helping my officemate get her material ready for the experiment she's running at the end of the month. I'm researching handedness now, specifically tests for handedness. It's not as straightforward as you might think, especially if you're like me and almost 100% right-handed. For example, which hand do you use to open a jar? Which hand is on top when you use a broom? So that's what I'm working on. Also, today I gave a tour of the lab to a prospective student.

Last weekend I went skiing at Mount Sunapee in New Hampshire. It was my second time skiing ever, and I had a pretty good time. I fell down once at the end and got a bruise, but overall I did pretty well, especially considering I had only ever skied once before and that was 2 years ago. Still, I think it might be another 2 years before I ski again. I went with my boyfriend and two of our friends, and we had to get up really early to get there. Getting up early is not my strong suit :)

And this weekend my parents are coming to visit! It's my dad's birthday on Friday (happy birthday, Dad!) and we are thinking of going to see a free Imax at the Museum of Science, thanks to a donation by the Mathworks. I love going to see Imax shows. Earlier this month, my boyfriend and I saw Antarctica. I was worried it was going to be targeted at a much younger audience, but it was really good. In fact, I can't really think of any Imax I've ever seen that hasn't been fantastic. One of my favorites is Adrenaline Rush, but I don't think my mom would like that one.

I also finally finished my application to the other program that I mentioned a while ago. I don't know exactly when I'll hear from them, but it should be within the next 2 months for sure.

I'll end with a brief crew update. We've been practicing pretty hard since we got back from Florida, and our first competition is on Valentine's Day, at the CRASH-B erg event. Obviously our outdoor races can't start until the river unfreezes. In the meantime, we've been erging a lot, running more than I'd like in the icy conditions, and doing a lot of circuits. Every once in a while, we also row in the tank. I'll be glad when we can row outside again, except that I'm sure I'll be freezing.

Oh, and I ordered a new digital camera! If I ever get back to posting pictures of my food (and maybe other things), they'll probably be from my new camera!

And that's really it for now. Lunchtime!

Hello from Florida, and Happy New Year!

I have so many blisters! And bugbites! But we're having a fun time, with lots of team dinners and hard workouts and bonding. The internet is intermittent, though, and unreliable. This is just a small post, but I'll write more later. I have to go to sleep soon!