Home for a week, then Florida!

This month has been quite busy with term wrapping up. Both of my main classes had big term papers, and it was a big push at the end to get them both done. But they are done now, and I am off on break! I'm home now, which is very nice, and on Tuesday I will be going to Florida for 9 days to train with the crew team. I just checked the weather, and it's going to be warm! I packed a bathing suit, so I hope I get to use it!

Today I got new running shoes, which is very exciting. The store I go to has people who know a ton about running and shoes, and it seems like everyone there runs at least 50-70 miles a week, and there are some that run way more. The guy that was helping me also had the cutest little dog (except Pita!), it looked like a pug but it was something else. Anyway, she was 11 weeks old and so soft! I have to say I got a little distracted from the shoes. But I ended up with a purple pair of sneakers that are very comfortable and almost make me hope that we go running in Florida so I can test them out :) Almost.

It's been pretty warm while I've been home, at least for December. It's been in the 50s the last few days, and raining instead of snowing. When I got home, everything was covered in snow from the storm last weekend, but now it's almost all gone.

I've decided that I'm applying for a dual master's degree with a more policy-flavored program. The application is due in early January, so I've got to get it finished up soon. But before that, I've got to get it started :P The only real hard part is the statement of purpose, as I know from applying to grad school last year. But it's hard to get started, and it's hard to tell when you're done. I'm really excited about this program though, so I will just have to buckle down and start writing.

And now it's time for dinner. Here's a picture of our Hanukkah menorah, my Christmas tree, our Kwanzaa flowers, and our atheist plant. Also some cereal and sugar, and our new curtains in the background, made by my mom! Happy holidays!

The semester's ending, and it's getting cold

I haven't been writing too much lately, but there have been a lot of things going on. This week is the last week of official crew practice until we go to Florida at the end of the month. We've been practicing inside since our last race, but inside sometimes means outside when we're running, so it can be kind of cold. I miss rowing on the water, so hopefully Florida will be a good way to get back into that. I'm not sure how this trip will compare to the swimming trips we've had to Puerto Rico, since the team dynamics are very different on the crew team and the swim team.

Other than crew, research is going all right. I've been working on a slightly different project, and I submitted a first cut at a piece of it to my advisor, so now I'm waiting for him to get back to me with his feedback. Things are going well in the lab, with our Lab Thanksgiving last week and a holiday party coming up in the next couple of weeks. We're also playing an online game called warfish, which is a pretty fun thing to play with 15 people. It provides a nice distraction from resesarch every once in a while.

I've been feeling a bit stressed with final papers/projects for my two classes, but a couple of weeks from now it will all be done and turned in, which I'm very excited for. I've enjoyed my classes this semester, and I'm hoping I can put together a schedule that I'll like as much for next semester. So far, I'm not sure how well that's going to work out. I'm going to be taking at least one more technical class, so hopefully that won't be too much of a shock after the slightly less technical term I've just had. Other than that, scheduling is turning out to be a bit of a problem. Grad school classes don't keep the 5-7 pm block open for sports the way undergrad classes do. I guess this makes sense, because most grad students aren't participating in varsity sports, but it works out to be a problem for me.

It was nice to go home for Thanksgiving and see my family and run in my high school cross country team's annual alumni race. My boyfriend and I drove this year, which didn't take as long as we expected and was much less stressful than taking the overcrowded bus or paying for the train or plane. We listened to some podcasts, which was fun.

There's always more to write about, but I'm going to stop for now. Here's a picture of our crew race, in which you can see how rainy it was:

My square made it into the blanket :)

You can see it on my friend Rebecca's blog: http://chemknits.blogspot.com/2009/11/knit-thon-tally.html.

Cool!

Halloween!

My lab went as the periodic table, and we won most creative at the department's costume contest! The prize was a $5 gift certificate for ice cream, so I guess we'll each get a bite of ice cream :)

Here we are:


And my knitting square is more than halfway done, and I'm going to work on it this evening. It's looking good!

I'm knitting a square

My friend Rebecca inspired me to write this post because she is knitting a blanket to donate to a homeless shelter in Boston and wrote some on her blog about it. The blanket is made up of 35 squares, and our other friend Jenn and I are each knitting a square to contribute to her blanket. We are alternating little squares of knitting and purling. I'm a little more than halfway done with my square at this point, but it's slow going. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it when I'm finished.

In other news, I rowed port yesterday at practice (I'm usually a starboard), and I got some new blisters on my right hand as a result. I'm getting what's known as "crew hands", which means basically a lot of blisters and/or calluses. We are racing in the Foot of the Charles on November 14th, and I'm looking forward to it. My parents and maybe my brother are going to come watch, which is very exciting. They haven't seen my new apartment or my office (except my brother), so that should be fun.

Research is going ok, but I wish I knew Python (a programming language) better. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do something using the pieces that I know, and then I ask someone for help on one little aspect of it, and they point out that there was a much easier way to do the exact same thing. Also, there is still a never-ending pile of background reading to do, which gets a bit tedious. On the other side, I'm thinking that I might apply for a dual degree in technology and policy, along with aero/astro. I have to run that by my advisor to make sure he's ok with that, which I'm nervous to do (on the chance that he'll say no).

The weather here is getting colder and yuckier, which isn't fun for crew or biking everywhere or just being outside or wearing skirts and dresses. It's raining today and it rained yesterday, but hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Oh! I can't believe I almost forgot to mention this, but President Obama was here on Friday to give a speech about clean energy! You can watch the speech from the link here. There was only room for 200 students in the entire auditorium (I think the capacity is over 1000), so most of the community was watching the speech from other rooms with projectors set up, including me. It was very exciting!

My brother is visiting!

He's the first one in either of our families to see our new apartment, and it's very exciting! Yesterday we went to the Boston Public Library, which I'd never been to. It's beautiful, and now that I've been, I'm definitely adding it to the list of places people have to see when they visit Boston. Here's a picture of the courtyard:

It seems like I start these posts and then don't get around to finishing them, but I guess it's better than not posting at all, even though it's short. Life is busy!

Sometimes we row by eights

And today we did! It's a lot harder to keep the boat balanced when there is no one to hold their oars flat on the water. But it's so much fun! We have two races this fall, both in November. I'm excited!

Here's an amusing picture to keep you entertained:

The new apartment is looking great, and it's finally starting to feel like we've moved in and unpacked. There's always a little more to do, but it's overall really coming together.

My classes are a swamp of reading, which is pretty different from previous semesters. I'm not taking any classes with problem sets, which is also unusual. I'm finding the material interesting, but I'm not used to doing this much reading and I'm sometimes finding it hard to get through it all.

This weekend we're going to Minneapolis to see my boyfriend's family. They don't subscribe to quite the same "busy-all-the-time-don't-stop-to-breathe" lifestyle that I do, so it's a nice place to go to relax. And maybe take a nap. And with that, I'm going to go to sleep tonight!

Sorry for not posting more!