The work of the Traveling Programs at MOS

Tomorrow we're going to be running Heartbreak Hill for the first time, which is a major hill in the Boston Marathon that comes up about 20 miles into the marathon.  We're running 8 miles for our long training run of the week, and it includes Heartbreak Hill.  As a present from my in-laws, I got a cool new running shirt that says "See you at the finish" and I'm planning to wear it to the training run tomorrow. 

We also got a team email this week about the recent work of the Traveling Programs at the Museum of Science.  Here are the things they've been working on lately:

• The team has taught programs for over 17,000 people in the past two months
• Currently prototyping demonstrations for their new multi-grade sound assembly Now Hear This: The Sounds of Science which will premiere in March (funded thanks to Marathon donations) 
• Premiering a new PreK-2 engineering program in January
• Purchase of a new van in January (funded thanks to Marathon donations)

If you want to help out with this wonderful program, please donate through my link on the Museum of Science website.  Thank you and Happy New Year!

P.S.  I should mention that I've been super hard core this week, running outside in Minnesota in the winter.  To be fair, the weather has been unseasonably warm, but still!

My friend Fiona is also running the Boston Marathon!

She's running to raise money for Community Servings, which is a fantastic organization.  Here's the link to her blog (if you want to donate, scroll down to the bottom): http://fionarunsboston.tumblr.com/


Happy Holidays!

Thanks to my donors so far!

Thank you so much to my MOS donors so far!  I'm up to $150, which is a great way to take the lead on my team for fundraising.  However, I would love to raise more this week!  This week we got a list of the things that different donation amounts will pay for in the Traveling Programs.  Here's the list:

Museum of Science Traveling Programs Marathon Donation Amounts

1. $10 - 100 balloons for shrinking in liquid nitrogen for our States of Matter school program
2. $25 - A dozen wine glasses to smash using resonance and a speaker (no opera singer needed) in our ‘Now Hear This: The Sounds of Science’ school program
3. $50 - A tank of gasoline for our small vans which will allow us to drive over 350 miles to serve schools and libraries
4. $75 - One night stay at a hotel in rural Maine for an overnight traveling program
5. $100 - 4 tanks of liquid oxygen that we can condense into rocket fuel for the finale of our Heat and Temperature school program
6. $250 - A full scholarship for a traveling program assembly to visit a library or community center
7. $500 - A full scholarship for a traveling program assembly to visit a school (serves up to 200 people)
8. $750 - A full scholarship for 2 traveling program assembly programs at a school (serves up to 400 people)
9. $1,000 - Scholarships for a full day of workshop programming at a school (serves up to 8 classes)
10. $2,000 - 100 hours of staff time in the Museum shop spent building equipment like a musical tesla coil for our school program on sound that we are currently developing

As you can see, the Traveling Programs do a lot of cool things and reach a ton of students.  If you haven't donated yet but are feeling the holiday spirit, you can donate here.  Thanks again!!!

In other news, I'm home in Pennsylvania now and I've been running in the surprisingly good December weather.  I ran 4 miles today and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I also just finished reading Born to Run, which was an excellent and inspiring book.  I would definitely recommend it if you have any interest in running.  It's not a book about the mechanics of running or evolution, which is what I thought it was after hearing about it from friends and my brother.  It's a true story about the author and ultradistance running, which is anything longer than a marathon.  Who knows what I'll get into next?

A training video!

We've been training for the marathon for 3 weeks now, and last week one of the other runners took a video of Alan and me running (while he was running himself, which is why it's a bit jumpy).  Alan and I are both running to support the Museum of Science Traveling Programs.  Here's the video.

I am also extremely proud to report that I'm currently leading the team in fundraising.  I've raised $150 already!  Please help me keep my lead!  Here's the link again.  Thanks so much to my first few donors!  You guys are great!

Please support me! (also Happy Birthday, Mom!)

As you hopefully read in my last post, I'm running the Boston Marathon in April to raise money for the Museum of Science Traveling Programs.  Since not all schools can get their students to the Museum of Science for field trips, the Traveling Programs take the museum to them!  They do all sorts of science programs at the K-9 grade level, and the programs are available on a scholarship basis to schools that can't afford them.  My husband's school has been one of the beneficiaries of this program.  Last year, they got to learn about heat and temperature in October, and motion, speed, velocity, and acceleration in November.

I'm really proud to be running for this program, and I would be honored and happy if you wanted to support me by donating to the Traveling Programs.  If you want to donate, the link is here.  If you were thinking of getting me a present this holiday season, this would be a great present!  You don't have to get me anything else!

Of course, I'd also love to have support on the day of the marathon, so if you can come to Boston for April 16, 2012, that would be wonderful!

I'm running the Boston Marathon!

I haven't posted in a while, have I?  Well, it's been a busy semester.  I've been a teaching assistant, taking a full class load, working on my technology and policy thesis, babysitting, and I started an internship at the Museum of Science at the beginning of October.  And I recently found out that I'm going to be running the Boston Marathon!  It's on April 16, 2012, and I'm really excited!  I'm going to be running to raise money for the Museum of Science Traveling Programs.  We had our first training run yesterday, which was 4 miles.  We'll be working our way up over the next 4.5 months, and I'm lucky enough to be running with 2 of my closest friends!  I just can't wait to finish up with classes and my thesis so that I can concentrate on my internship and running.  We'll see how this whole winter running thing goes - there's no chance I'll be running 18 miles on a treadmill, that's for sure!

Things are moving along

It's a few weeks into the semester now, and I'm happy with the classes I ended up with.  I'm taking a math requirement and a fun elective, and both classes are interesting with good instructors.  Unfortunately, the weather is starting to be fall, which I don't like.  It's getting cold :(

I'm also making some good progress on my thesis and it looks like I'll be publishing a paper soon, which makes me feel really cool.  I also did a podcast, but I learned that there's quite a backlog of podcasts for them to put up, so it could be another month or so before mine goes up. 

I am doing the Boston Half Marathon in a couple of weeks, and I'm excited but not feeling prepared.  I haven't been running as much as I'd like, but I'm getting back into a routine and I think I'll be ready by the time it gets here.  On a crazy note, I've wanted to do the Boston Marathon (not the Half) since I moved to Boston.  I know I'll never train enough to qualify, since the qualifying times are pretty fast and you have to do another marathon to qualify!  So my idea this year is to run the marathon for charity, which means I'll have to raise money for the charity and they will give me a race bib.  If I get a spot on a charity team, I'll be posting on here to ask for donations!  :)

Tomorrow is the career fair, and I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for.  There are a lot of moving pieces in my future, so I'm going to go with an open mind and see what I can find out. 

I can't believe that in less than 5 months I'll be done with school!  I have been in school my whole life!  I'm so excited to try out real life!

The semester is about to start

I'm about to start my (hopefully, most likely) last semester of school, and classes start on Wednesday.  I feel like I've been working really hard lately and school hasn't even started.  I did a podcast, I'm working on getting my thesis together, I'm working on getting a publishable version of my thesis together, and I'm trying to figure out what to do with  my life.  Plus going to 3 weddings in August, plus my family vacation, plus I did a triathlon yesterday!  Yep, I'm pretty busy.  And I'm going to be a teaching assistant (TA) this fall, rather than a research assistant.  It will be pretty different, and I hope I like it.  The instructors for the class are interesting and smart people, and I'm going to be giving a lecture in November, which is frightening.  I'm also thinking of trying to run the Boston Marathon for charity in April, so I emailed a few charities today to see if they might have space left for me to run for them.  If I get a spot, expect that I'll be asking for donations!  The organizations that I emailed all have really good missions, so it would feel good to raise money for them.

It's hot today and it's going to be hot again tomorrow, but later this week it is going to be surprisingly cold.  I'm not looking forward to winter, that's for sure!

Something yummy we ate

We had our friend/wedding photographer over for dinner on Monday night, and she suggested we try a recipe for vegan avocado pasta.  It was delicious!  And then we went out for non-vegan ice cream :)

Here's the pasta:

Yum!

We're off!

 

After an exhilarating wedding weekend, followed by a ton of packing and tying up loose ends (including figuring out what happened to our marriage license!), we're at the airport and about to head off on our honeymoon.  We'll be in Reykjavic, Iceland for 3 days, then in Copenhagen, Denmark for the rest of our 3 weeks.  We're extremely excited!  Look for more posts coming soon!

Thanks so much to everyone who helped make our wedding an incredible success!

Finishing up the last few details

It's been a crazy hectic time, and my thesis is a bit the worse for wear, but the wedding is finally coming up this weekend and I'm really excited.  There are a few last details to take care of, and our parents are arriving on Wednesday (we're so excited!).  Soon it will all be real!  We went to our friends' wedding this past weekend and had a blast.  This is really the summer of weddings for us - 1 in June, ours in July, 3 in August, 1 in September, and 1 in December - and those are only the ones we know about so far!  Next summer is already starting to fill up, believe it or not.  My fiance's brother got engaged last month and is starting to plan a wedding for next May, and there are a few others for next summer that haven't picked dates yet.  Anyone who wants us to come to their wedding should get married before the end of August 2012 though, because then we're going to be going abroad!  Another thing that I'm excited about :)

If only I didn't have this thesis to worry about, everything would be great :(  We're also keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, hopefully those isolated thunderstorms will hear all my wishing them away and they'll get the message and not happen.  Or at least not happen till the afternoon, after we're safely inside the reception.

One thing that has been super nice is how many friends and family members (and future family members!) have been so eager to offer their help with anything we need for the wedding.  I can't imagine how we would have managed without all the help, and it really makes us feel good that so many people are there for us.

Ok, back to work on the thesis.  I'll try to blog from the honeymoon in Europe!  It won't be Caroline in Barcelona, but it will be awesome!

One month till the wedding!

I can't believe it's coming up so soon!  We're getting really excited, and we're starting to see the light at the end of the planning.  Just a few more things to take care of!

As usual, here is a picture of something I ate.  This was a portabella mozzarella pesto sandwich from Flour, which we went to when my dad was here in early May.  It was delicious!

 

We also went to a Red Sox vs. Twins game at Fenway, and it had a 2 hour rain delay.  The guys had to keep putting out the tarp and putting it away, running it back and forth!  It was fun to watch, but probably the game would have been better.  Luckily, the Red Sox won the game, when they finally got back to playing!

MIT 150 Flash Mob

This was so much fun!  We spent hours learning this dance, then performed it in a flash mob for the MIT 150 celebration.  The first video is all from above, which is a pretty cool view.  The second video is the one that was done professionally, so it has a bit more context and shows what happened at the end when we went outside.  I'm so glad we came back early from the bike ride for this!





And now I have some cool dance moves!

The possibilities are endless!

This post is dedicated to my dad, who wanted to see some pictures of things I'm eating.  Here is some frozen yogurt with kiwi and passion fruit sauce that I've eaten twice now.  It's delicious!

Did I mention we're in Israel?  Yep, my fiance and I are here with his parents, and we're having a great time so far.  There are all sorts of things to buy at the open air market, so I took this (cliche, I know) picture of some spices that we didn't buy but were really pretty.

 

And now I'm going to fight jet lag and try to go to sleep!  Good night!

It's my birthday!

After a long day of classes and meetings, I was excited to come home and open cards from family and presents from my fiance and friends!  Things have been busy around here as usual, with 3 exciting weekends in a row: my parents visiting, my bridal shower with friends visiting, and a trip to NYC to visit another friend.  This weekend coming up will be a little break with nothing major scheduled, then the weekend after we're going to visit my fiance's family!  It's all fun, but exhausting!

Wedding planning is going pretty well lately, with most of the big decisions made.  We've got my dress, a location, a band, and food, plus an officiant.  That's all you need, right?  The rest will take care of itself, right Mom? :)

As you might have guessed, classes have started up again and I'm trying to get at least the first half of my dual thesis done by May (or June?).  Yesterday one of my good friends defended her PhD thesis, and now she's a Doctor!  I can't believe that, and I'm so proud of her.  I'm also so jealous that she's done!

Speaking of done, I am really ready for winter to be done.  It's been so cold, windy, and snowy lately, and I've had enough.  I'm about ready to move to Australia for the rest of the winter :)

Keep your fingers crossed for a warm spring starting soon!

My house has a new driveway

My house at home got a new driveway, and we held an opening ceremony when I was home for Thanksgiving.  Here it is, in all its glory:

I'll miss the old one, but the new one is very nice and smooth, as you can see.

I haven't been posting as much lately, which is because I've been very busy.  Lately, I've completed a couple of 2-day courses in bike mechanics.  I've done things like change my brake pads, adjust my derailleur, re-tape my handlebars, degrease and re-lube my chains, and watch a whole bike being built from just a frame.  It's been pretty cool, and I know a lot more about bikes now.

I've also started writing the background section of my thesis, which is hard to do.  It's hard to get started, it's hard to know what to write, it's hard to do all the research that is necessary, and so on.  But I've got some done now, and I'll keep going.  My advisor wants to see a preliminary version by Friday, so I've got a deadline.

Planning a wedding is similarly a lot of work.  Little by little, we're making progress.  From where we are now, it's hard to see how we'll get it all done, but I'm sure we will.

It looks like it's going to be a snow day tomorrow, with Boston getting 12-18 inches of snow, so I'm not going in to work and I'm going to stay home and stay warm!

Happy New Year!