Life As An Outlier

Import Laws

2011-11-14T16:59:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you run up against something you just never thought would be an issue.

I called up a supplier today to order a 1kg bucket of fancy material. I had the part# from the website, and a quote for the price (a very fancy price, I might add), and my credit card was in hand to seal the deal.

"Oh I'm sorry," said the polite salesperson, "we can't ship that to you."

And why ever not?

"That material can't be shipped outside Germany because of conditions under the Missile Defense Treaty."

Say what?

Turns out if you coat this fancy material on, say, a warhead, it becomes invisible to radar.

Well I guess that could be a problem. So no 1kg buckets for Miss Outlier.

The only reason that product was on the website at all is for big industrial players who need giant amounts. In those cases the supplier company will go through the hoops of getting export certificates from Germany, the corresponding import certificates to the U.S., and all of the red tape in between. But for us tiny researchers requesting sample sizes (yes, 1kg is a sample size), it's just not worth it to go through the hassle.

Fine. Moving along...

Epic TearDown Day 1

2011-11-08T23:31:00.003-05:00

We had an old piece of equipment in our lab. A dinosaur. It was designed by grad students way before my time, and was a typical research project in that it was clunky, inefficient, hugely over-designed, smoked when it ran, had more than a few pieces of duct tape and baling wire - but IT WORKED. I know it worked because the students who built it are no longer here - so they did indeed graduate.

And yes, actual baling wire.

It needed to come down. It had served its purpose, it was taking up space, and the lab has moved on to new projects. So guess who got to take it apart?

MISS OUTLIER: DEMOLITION!

My favorite part of engineering. It took us two days to take apart this machine, and I just got such a kick out of it, I wanted to share with you.

Behold first, the original machine in all its strut channel glory:

Figure: The original

There's a heat exchanger hidden in there, a pump, lots of giant piping and valves, a control panel, and the whole thing is connected to an Instron. All sorts of mechanical engineering goodies.

Figure: The sizing up.

Any good engineer knows that half of the work of any project is the thinking that takes place ahead of time. The pondering, the contemplation, the method of attack. Never underestimate what looks like a nap - really the engineer is doing the heavy duty pre-planning... Here we see the men taking stock of the situation.

Figure: Helper #1 decides he needs gloves.

Figure: Really?

Here we see that Helper #1 in this attempt is donning lab gloves. Yep - you heard that right - somehow he thought that these blue nitrile gloves are going to make a difference in this giant, oily, grimy mess of a demolition project. Helper #1 attempts to defend himself, but Helper #2 and I subject him to merciless teasing. Personal protective equipment, and all that...

Figure: Drip pan. And drip bowl. And drip roasting platter.

The first order of business is to get out all the oil possible. The basic function of this equipment is to heat and cool a set of platens. The oil is the medium that does the heating and cooling - and the heat exchanger is to direct the heat where you want it, and the pump is to drive it all around. But an oil-cooled machine is also a pain (as opposed to water-cooled or air-cooled), because, well, OIL. It drips.

Figure: Yep, those lab gloves are really helping.

Oil is also considered a hazardous waste in Massachusetts, so you have to dispose of it carefully. So we drain as much as we can into barrels, and vacuum out whatever else we can reach with a designated vacuum.

Figure: Look at that grin.

Then we had to decide how to tackle the piping.

Figure: Giant pipe wrench, check. Lab gloves, check.

One person with a ridiculously large pipe wrench?

Figure: Show-off.

One person with two pipe wrenches who is convinced he has enough testosterone to do it himself?

Two people with two ridiculously large pipe wrenches?

Figure: Those faces! I die laughing.

Two people with two pipe wrenches putting some elbow grease into it?

Figure: All that effort for this.

Ah, success! Using the two-man method, the fittings finally come loose. And so they work their way around to the other joints.

And you know I couldn't let the boys have all the fun.

Figure: Miss Outlier jumps in.

Figure: Okay, maybe Miss Outlier will just be the reaction force and YOU pull...

Then we moved on to the smaller fittings, much easier.

Figure: Stripped down.

Finally we are left with just this. The bare bones of the strut, and only the piping directly connected to the heat exchanger and pump that we couldn't un-twist, because the heat exchanger and pump don't twist.

Figure: Old-school lift.

The Instron had been mounted originally on a standard metal computer desk, but the problem was that the desk was six inches too short to match the height of the giant strut and piping placement. So we had jacked the desk up on two-by-fours (that's right, let's just stick some wood under that $80k piece of precision equipment...), in order to get the right height. Now that the strut stuff was disconnected, the last job of the day was to finally hoist it down.

Figure: Mr. Lab Gloves is not allowed to pose with the giant pipe wrench, he gets demoted.

Elated with our success, we called it a day.

Figure: Wait, something's missing...

And had some fun climbing around on the equipment. In my defense, some of the fittings really did need you to sit on top. And removing the two holding canisters also required somebody sitting up there.

Figure: Ah, that's better. With tools in hand.

Figure: The post-contemplation

The post-project thinking is also important. Again, don't underestimate naps, because if it isn't pre-planning that's going on, it could be the post-project debriefing taking place...

All the discarded parts in piles in the hallway. The facilities people love us when we call for cleanup, I'm sure.

The final stages of the project to come...

Elevator Pitch Competition

2011-11-02T18:05:00.000-04:00

I have pitched my business idea in a type of business competition called an Elevator Pitch Competition, and I'm pleased to report I made it to the top 10 in my category - making me a semifinalist.

All semifinalists are invited to the finale event, but only the top 2 from each category are actually official Finalists who will compete again in tonight's finale.

I have to say that this whole event is definitely not run with an engineer's touch. To wit:

- all semifinalists have to show up to the finale, even though 48 out of 60 are wasting their time (inefficient)
- the 12 who DO compete as finalists don't know they are the finalists until their name is called (unnecessary suspense and stress)
- you have to check in to this event an hour before it starts, otherwise you are disqualified
- you have to have an official wristband
- your teammates are not guaranteed a seat
- if you ARE called up as a finalist, you have to sit in a designated chair on the front of the stage for the entire duration of the event (and it's long - two hours)

Now I realize the point of this event is not to be efficient and low stress - in fact I'm sure it's entirely the opposite. But it all irritates my libertarian sensibilities - unnecessary production and hoopla, that adds no value. But I have my best attitude on tonight, because I know my idea rocks, I present well, and I have a decent shot of winning some money.

It's much easier to have a good attitude when there's possible money on the line. :)

But I'm here now, waiting to check in at this ridiculous early hour, and I have to tell you - there is a red carpet. There are photographers. There is a designated paparazzi area with a branded (logo-ed?) background where important people will shake hands and the momentous occasion will be captured.

SO out of my element... where is my sister (the family's charismatic camera darling) for this sort of thing...? :)

3rd Place Poster Winner

2011-11-01T13:33:00.000-04:00

Last week we had my laboratory's annual Symposium. My lab is actually a cross-departmental lab, and my advisor is one of eight or so professors in the collaboration (each with their own students and individual lines of research). The Symposium is a day and a half of talks by professors from our own lab, guest speakers in our field, a poster session from all current students, and a celebration dinner.

We just had a poster session this spring, so instead of requiring students to make a new poster, the head of the lab said that students could just re-submit the posters from the spring.

But I was traveling this spring to a conference in Korea, so I wasn't around to make a poster.

I really didn't want to make a poster this time around, so I just kind of snuck under the radar and didn't remind anybody that I didn't have a poster from the spring... therefore, I assumed I just didn't have a poster in the display.

There are prizes for the student posters. The attendees of the symposium can vote for their favorite posters, and the top votes get first, second and third place cash prizes. But because our symposium is small, and nobody really has an incentive to vote, the joke around the office is that the prizes go to the only three students that can convince someone to turn in a ballot for them...

So one morning while procrastinating from work, my labmate pushed his chair back, spun around, and said to me, "Miss Outlier - did you even turn in a poster?"

"Nope," I said, looking at my hands, "Didn't do one this year."

He laughed and replied, "I was gonna give you $20 if you won the competition this year, because I knew you don't have results to show."

Now that was a bit of a low blow to begin with, but he teases a lot so I didn't take it personally.

And guess what.

Instead of NO poster for me, turns out some dedicated admin dug up my poster from LAST year's symposium, and put that on display.

Guess what AGAIN.

I won 3rd place. And I didn't even solicit votes - I didn't know I was in the running!

Can I collect that $20, please? :)

Stress Fracture Round II

2011-10-31T12:25:00.000-04:00

Bugger. I did it again.

Yep, my foot is broken. Not really, of course - that sounds more hardcore than it is. :) Just a stress fracture, and all it means is that my foot really hurts and I'm supposed to stay off it and wear an Ace bandage for comfort.

This didn't happy quickly, like I stepped the wrong way and something snapped. I just noticed my foot was sore, and then it kept getting worse and three weeks later by the end of the day I can't walk without limping.

I had to walk home from lab on tiptoes on my right foot because if I stepped flat, my foot cramped so hard my toes curled. Now THAT's an awkward way to waddle home - one tiptoe and one flat. Couldn't decide if it might have been less awkward to just walk both tippitoes!

I asked why this type of fracture happens, and I was told usually because of over-exercise, particularly in bad shoes. Strange thing is I have been so busy lately, I haven't really even had time to exercise. (I miss basketball! Very sad that I haven't played in a month.)

And I swear I don't wear crappy shoes - I have decided that I am too old to be wearing paper-thin Payless flats, and so most of my shoes are Naturalizer or Born or Clarks or some similar quality. This girl does love her shoes, so I do have a variety and I rotate what I wear.

So who knows. Last time this happened, I was completely stressed out over quals. And now, I am completely stressed out because I am trying to do too many things at once. Maybe I just need to start taking calcium as my own personal way of handling LIFE. :P

"Hey Miss Outlier, why are you taking a vitamin supplement all of a sudden?"

"Oh, right, I'm just worried about a test coming up, and so I figured I'd better prevent my bones from breaking from anxiety..."

Uh-huh. Maybe that theory needs some work still!

Rooftop Garden

2011-10-30T21:01:00.003-04:00

In the summer of 2010, another RA and I started a garden on the rooftop of our dorm. The rooftop deck has over 80 planter boxes lining the edges - and in twenty years, nobody has used them. Such a shame! That summer, we only planted herbs, and we only planted the 20 boxes along the front row.

THIS summer, the plan was expansion. We decided to get into vegetables, and we planted almost all of the 80 planters with a combination of herbs and vegetables. Because the planter boxes had not been used in 20 years, they required some work to bring them into useable shape. Many thanks to my brother and my boyfriend, who helped me and the other RA during the gardening work day at the beginning of the summer!

I do really like plants, so this project was a lot of fun. It was lovely over the summer (made it a nice place to have people over), and it produced all the way up until a couple weeks ago when we cleaned it out for the winter. I thought I would share some photos from the height of the season (late August). First of all - don't I have a gorgeous view?

Figure: Come on, let me have one photo to gloat over the Boston skyline.,,

As an overview, the front row we planted with herbs (chairs convenient for enjoying tea and a book):

Right hand side with vegetables:

Left hand side with vegetables:

And the back row we didn't quite finish planting, but it was squashes and more greens:

And then some close up shots of the things we grew:

Chamomile (I wonder if just the flowers are for tea, or the whole plant?)

Sage

Chives

Chocolate mint

Carrots! The fuzziness!

Rosemary

Onions

Fennel

Radishes

Kale

Sorrell. I didn't even know what that was before this summer.

What happens when lettuce bolts... :)

Cucumbers!

They are all hiding...

Ooh - this one's ready for picking!

Kohlrabi

Squash! Striped!

Peppers. Unfortunately these took longer to grow, and I don't have a shot of the pretty red and purple peppers we eventually got.

More peppers - sweet bell variety, instead of hot ones.

Flop! Every experiment is gonna have a few failures... in our case, strawberries were a no-go.

Beets

Eggplant. The flowers were a really lovely purple, and then when I took these photos, the very first tiny eggplants were just starting to grow.

Parsely

Cabbage

Mexican marigold - a.k.a. tarragon

Spearmint

What happen when you let weeds take over one box, then decide they are pretty and let them stay...

Thyme

Peppermint

We thought about growing flowers as well, but that didn't make it very far into the plan this year (only two boxes). It'll be in the future work section - every good project needs room for growth (*snicker*)!

The whole project has been a great learning experience - cilantro is too hard to keep from bolting, basil is finnicky, strawberries don't grow at all, and vegetables in the squash family need to be planted close enough together to provide shade under the leaves. We learned it's not worth bothering to start the plants inside - best just to toss the seeds straight in the box! If they are not hardy enough to grow outside, we probably don't want them anyway...

The other RA and I ended up generating quite a bit of interest with this project, which I certainly hadn't expected. One group asked us how to replicate the garden at their school, we were featured in an article in the World's Best School weekly newsletter, and we attracted some notice from other dorms and community local food groups. Nothing we did was all that revolutionary, but as long as the girls in our dorm enjoy it, we consider it a success!

And as a final note, I will just say that it is incredibly satisfying to take a salad spinner up to the roof, spend a few minutes walking around with scissors, and come back down to your room with a salad for dinner. It's been a great year, and I'll hang on to the anticipation of next summer all through this long Boston winter...

Leadership Skills

2011-10-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

I got my butt handed to me today. I'm organizing a conference, and I'm one of two co-leads. I thought I was doing a good job being a leader, but I had one of the team come to me today and say... hey, Miss Outlier, I was talking with a few other people on the team the other day, and I wanted to share the feedback they gave me.

Basically the feedback was that my team doesn't feel a supportive atmosphere, don't feel like they are contributing, or owning any part of the process - don't feel like it's any fun. Like they are just cogs in the machine, there to execute rather than to be a creative force in the organization process.

Bugger.

I was trying to correct what I felt was wrong in previous years - I always felt that things were disorganized, and as part of the team I didn't know what was going on. So this year as lead organizer I tried a few new things - I send out meeting minutes after each meeting, and I try to keep meetings shorter and more efficient. But I think in trying to make things more structured, I may have squashed some of the good elements in how the organization functioned.

So somehow I have gone too far in the other direction, and people don't feel like discussion and brainstorming is encouraged. The camaraderie has apparently been lost.

Part of this is exacerbated by the fact that we have a very young, new team this year - so the veterans aren't there to shout out ideas and demonstrate that contributions are encouraged. And part of this is because the meeting where we did the most brainstorming - the one where I felt like the ideas were really flowing - was one where only four people attended.

Actually I felt much more comfortable with just the four people - I know how to lead a conversation with a small group, and perhaps I just feel lost with 15 people staring at me while I lead the meeting.

What to do now, then? Well, this weekend is the annual retreat. This retreat is supposed to be a time for the team to bond, to review high-level ideas, to think about the bigger picture. And this is an excellent time and place to build atmosphere - camaraderie, if you will.

So I am going to try my very hardest to let people know this weekend that their ideas are valuable and wanted, that everybody is part of the team, and that this is supposed to feel like a group of friends.

This conference has always been about the people, and the relationships formed - between the team members, and between the team and the international community. And maybe I've lost that in my quest to keep on top of the logistical details. Perhaps I have failed somewhat as a leader so far - but this I know: the real failure is only if I can't change and adapt. This is a chance for me to learn and to grow, and I will do my best.

I really appreciated that the team member who came to me was being honest with me, and that they shared the feelings of the team with me candidly. Because now I have a chance to make some adjustments.

But dammit, it hurts to know I've been trying my best and I'm still not doing the right thing. Being a leader is difficult - so many ways to screw it up!

RIP Laptop Case

2011-10-26T23:48:00.000-04:00

I have had my current MacBook laptop since I started grad school in 2007 (thanks, Dad!). It has served me very, very well. The only thing that has ever gone wrong is that the battery gave out after three years and I had to replace it.

But I take it with me EVERYWHERE. It is attached to my hip. Home, lab, office, class, I am never more than 15 feet away from my computer. It is the last thing I check at night, and the first thing I check in the morning (is that healthy? maybe not, but that's another post...).

I always keep the laptop in a hardsided case, to protect it. And the laptop has now officially outlasted the case. I figured the case had given up the ghost when it reached the point that I started finding bits of case peeled off and scattered around my bed and desk.

But you know what? All that damage to the case, means it was damage NOT done to my computer.

You know what I also found? Because the model MacBook I have was discontinued years ago, there are only a meager few options left for hardsided cases on Amazon. But hey, I found a replacement, and I dearly hope I can get a new laptop before another four years has gone by and the NEW case gives out. :)

Before and After Slide Design

2011-10-25T22:43:00.002-04:00

I do like designing things. It appeals to my creative side, and keeps whatever artsy inclinations I have from completely withering away... In fact, I try my hand at designing shirts, posters, and the occasional logo.

Today somebody asked me to send them a process schematic for a particular project I am working on. The details really aren't important, but what IS important is that while trying to locate a schematic - ANY schematic, I realized I didn't have a nice diagram of what's going on. The closest I could find was a slide buried in the backup section of a PowerPoint presentation I had given.

Figure: And in my defense, this wasn't even a slide that I originally made - it was a teammate's.

I decided that this was unacceptable, and I couldn't bear to send out something quite that unprofessional. And so in the 15 minutes I had before a conference call, I rearranged the slide.

It's still not great, but at least less cluttered, and perhaps a little clearer. It made me feel better to at least take a stab at it. Good figures are important.

What do you think - I know it's hard without understanding the context, but at first blush was this an improvement? Or no better?

English High Tea

2011-10-23T23:03:00.004-04:00

Fig: A MySpace picture to mark the occasion - Miss Outlier in pearls!

To my delight, a few weeks ago I got an email from a friend of mine, addressed thusly:

High Tea

Her Ladyship, the Duchess of
Woodsworth cordially requests your
presence for afternoon tea.

Sunday, 23 October, 2011
Three o'clock in the afternoon
Woodsworth Estate,
Cambridgeshire

Sartorial elegance required.

Kindly R.S.V.P. with your title
and availability.

I love it! And pretty soon the responses started rolling in:

Lady Anne's neighbour, the Baroness Wicker of Lower Woodsworth would be delighted to accept Lady Anne's invitation to afternoon tea. She also inquires, at the risk of indelicacy, if Lady Anne would wish her guests to bring with them some form of refreshment?
Most cordially yours,
Lady Wicker, Baroness of Lower Woodsworth

Or this one:

Writing at the behest of his Lordship, this is the valet of Brian Marshall, Earl of East Cambridge, Knight Companion of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Clotted Cream. It is his Lordship’s great pleasure to accept below-described invitation and kindly commend her Ladyship’s most exquisite handiwork in designing said invitation. His Lordship inquires after the relative successes and pitfalls of her Ladyship’s search for fresh clotted cream, and extends his apology for ultimately not being able to source any of the most delectable examples himself.

Half the fun of this was just reading these Reply All threads! After some consideration while trying to compose my own reply, I decided that some Googling of English titles was in order. I quickly discovered that I was only dipping my toe in the waters - there is an entire FIELD of "peerage," and the rules and regulations concerning how to properly address each other are intricate and highly important. Social death awaits at every turn.

So I decided to go as a commoner. Fits me, anyway. :)

Miss Outlier finds Lady Wadsworth most gracious in extending this invitation, and thanks Her Grace for allowing an apprentice from the blacksmithery to attend.

Miss Outlier will bring either refreshments, or a steel name plate for the Woodsworth estate as an exemplar of my work, whichever Her Grace wishes.

Sincerely Yours,
Miss Outlier

I'm not sure if Lady Anne believed that I could bring a nameplate for her apartment - although I thought it would be kind of fun to waterjet a thin steel sheet with some sort of historically accurate design. I didn't end up getting around to it, but if she has tea again, I will come back to that idea.

As it was, it was an excellent Sunday afternoon of fun and friends. The food, of course, was excellent as well. Cucumber sandwiches! Clotted cream and scones! Hot tea toddies! Oh my, oh my.

I snapped a picture of me in my getup before I left - and in the spirit of the event, all of the other women came wearing dresses as well, and two also wore pearls! Very proper of us.

Fig: Not bad for Miss Outlier, the blacksmith's apprentice.

Email of the Day

2011-10-06T14:50:00.001-04:00

I got an email from a friend of mine, informing me of a conversation she had with a mutual friend, concerning me. It tickled me pink, so I'm sharing it here. The email was as follows:

The conversation went like this

START CONVO
Danielle: You know who is awesome? Miss Outlier...she is awesome
Melissa: You know what is more awesome than Miss Outlier? Two Miss Outliers
Danielle: Three is even better!
Melissa: Well, in theory yes....but then our ceiling would be covered in Wisk Laundry detergent.
Danielle: Good point...two Miss Outliers it is
END CONVO

Thus Miss Outlier...promptly clone yourself...Good Day.

So clearly, I need to change my research promptly to the field of cloning! :) But why the Wisk reference?

These two friends of mine are roommates, and they threw a Halloween party last year that I attended. As part of the festivities, all guests were provided with small cups of Wisk laundry soap. Turns out, Wisk soap glows in blacklight. So everyone was encouraged to draw on the walls, the room was lit with blacklight, and this is what engineers do for fun.

I was having trouble finding somewhere to draw on the wall, so I decided to get a chair and draw my name on the ceiling. I was quite proud of my handiwork.

Turns out nobody else followed my lead (story of my life, ahem). Everybody else confined themsleves to the walls, so my name was the only one up there, prominently displayed in the middle of the ceiling.

My two friends of course cleaned up later and washed the walls (there's soap there already, so why not, and things probably ended up cleaner than before the party!). But they forgot about my outlier piece of artwork while they were cleaning, then even later when they realized it they never got around to wiping it off, and so my name has stayed proudly up there all year. It's still there. Of course soap is clear, but if you look carefully you can see it.

I suspect if I ever want anybody to follow my lead, I'd HAVE to clone myself. :) But perhaps my friends are right - one Outlier, and one cup of Wisk, is enough!

I Want Out

2011-10-05T16:36:00.000-04:00

I have been aiming in my head for graduation next June, in 2012. When I tell this to old grad students, they nod at me sagely and say, "Is that your FIRST target?"

I had my first committee meeting in February this year, and my target was to have the second one in August. I tried to work hard this summer, and not to wander, although I made some progress I didn't get as much done as I wanted (story of grad school, right?). Moral of the story is, I didn't have a committee meeting in August. I'm afraid my target graduation date may well slip to August next year, but even that is not the end of the world.

What I've heard whispered in the hallway, and what I am coming to believe is absolutely true, is this:

You graduate when you feel like you MUST get out.

If you are being cynical, this means that you graduate when you hit the desperation point - doesn't matter how much actual work you have done. Slightly more pragmatically, I take it as meaning that when you feel absolutely certain that you are "done with this", then you are ready to leave.

Well, here's the thing.

I want out.

Out, out, out. I am starting to work on projects for post-graduation, thinking about my career beyond school, and looking forward to things I won't be able to do until I'm out of school. It is so much more exciting to work on THOSE things, instead of research.

It's kind of funny, I feel like a switch has flipped. I am laser focused on graduation. Unfortunately I can't be laser focused on research, as I have other things that take up my time, but I am highly efficient and directed as I do my work - always striving toward the end goal. I am ready to be done with this - this must happen. I have been a student for a long time, and I am itching to move on. It is a new season in life - I wrote here back in February that I could start to feel the seasons changing, but I wasn't quite "SO past that" yet.

In other words, I am now SO past this.

If It Does Not Serve You

2011-09-27T16:32:00.002-04:00

I am not particularly dedicated yoga person. I have been to a handful of yoga classes this year, either because I was going with various friends, or because I got the hair-brained idea that I would ENJOY the class, despite all anecdotal evidence to the contrary. I own a mat and towel and tote for carrying the above supplies (have the right tools, right?). But in general, I am not the bright-eyed, 6:30am, lets-do-this yoga person.

I have to admit I appreciate the exercise, and the hot yoga classes where the room is heated to 100 degrees (also called Power Yoga, of which a particular subset class is Bikram Yoga) in particular are excellent workouts. But the humming before class? The directive to open the heart's eye and similar instructions? Doesn't do much for me, because I don't subscribe to the spiritual side of the practice.

I do, however, really enjoy the connection between mind and body that is developed during class. You have to breathe, you have to notice all the feelings and sensations in your body, and you have to mindfully carry out the postures and moves in order to complete the various choreography. It's rare in my life dedicated to developing a highly educated brain that I get to step back and focus on the physical instead of the intellectual, and I think there is value there.

I have a Groupon for five classes to the yoga studio just up the street, so for the past three Sundays I have hoisted myself over there and taken a class. And one thing the instructor said this past week has really stuck with me, coming back to mind over and over.

"Get rid of," she said, "everything that does not serve you."

Emotional and mental hangups is what she was referring to - jealousy, spite, worrying, anxiety, etc.

But I like thinking about things this way, and I think it applies to more than just mental states. If something in your life does not serve you - has no purpose - does not bring you joy, or help you learn, or do a useful job, then why are you keeping it? So as well as applying to gossip, procrastination, etc, I think it applies to physical objects, and activities too.

Even dumb stuff. I had old vegetables in the fridge which I was keeping to try and make soup, even though I really don't want to eat them. So why keep food you really don't want to eat? Because it might be worth all of two dollars? Come on. It does not serve me, and I'm wasting mental energy worrying about whether I should cook it, or what I should make, or feeling bad because I shouldn't have let the food go to waste.

So I tossed it, took out the trash, and focused on the fresh beautiful farm produce that I actually WANT to prepare and eat. No regrets.

I have a sweatshirt that is a little too small for me, but I keep it because I feel bad about throwing it away, because there's nothing wrong with it. I have a Tshirt I really don't like wearing, because I think it makes me look like a funny shape. I keep it because there's nothing wrong with the shirt, and I bought it at the store and paid money for it.

But I don't like wearing them, it does not bring me joy, so I gave them to Goodwill. My closet is less full, and I am left with clothes I enjoy.

I had a small side project that I was working on because I felt I had to, or that I should, or that it would be a good idea. But you know what? My time is limited enough, that if the projects I am working on do not truly interest me, I am not going to participate. So I've decided to stop that activity, and even though it didn't take much time from my week, it leaves me feeling mentally more free.

So this week my goal is to get rid of the things which do not serve me. Mentally and physically - both the thoughts in my head, the things that I own, and the activities I choose to participate in.

Perhaps you readers as well might benefit from at least thinking about it - does what's in your life serve you?

Engineer Blogs, End of August and September

2011-09-26T14:29:00.001-04:00

I've been posting regularly (almost! I try!) at Engineer Blogs, so if you haven't checked it out, go take a look at:

The clothes and accessories I see around campus that express the nerd perspective...

Trying to wrap your mind around the reflections and inversions used in lithography...

A trick for wrapping Teflon tape, and great discussion in the comments on the uses (proper and improper) of Teflon tape...

And a description of how to measure the contact angle of a droplet using a goniometer.

Also have to point out my personal favorite post this month at Engineer Blogs (by Chris Gammell, not me), simply for the volume of comments - Would You Marry an Engineer?

Salmon Asparagus Wraps

2011-09-15T14:45:00.001-04:00

I have been enjoying cooking lots of meat lately. I got tired of vegetables all the time, and just got a hankering for MEAT. I came home from the grocery store with sausage for breakfast, chicken for lunches, and salmon on special for dinner.

Very similar to this recipe, I tossed mayo, mustard, seasonings, and a bit of Worcestershire sauce for a dressing.

Look at those beautiful white and green asparagus spears, from my farm share!

Meat. Protein. Oh yes.

Assemble ingredients and wrap each filet up in parchment paper packets, roast in the oven until the whole room smells delicious.

When the fish flakes with a fork, it's done. And enjoy!

Professional Sports: Lacrosse

2011-09-09T12:03:00.001-04:00

Boston is a fantastic place to be a sports fan. We've got professional teams winning things right and left, it seems. I got here in 2007, and that year the Red Sox won the World Series, and then in 2008 the Patriots went to the Super Bowl and the Celtics won the World Championship, and most recently in 2011 the Bruins won the Stanley Cup.

There are many things I want to do in Boston during my time here - because why not take advantage of everything life and the city you are in has to offer? One of my goals is to go to at least one of every professional team's sports games. I've been to basketball, baseball, football, and lacrosse. And just today, I bought a ticket to see the Bruins, so now I've added hockey. I think that completes my mission - unless there are any I'm missing?

Celtics vs. Detroit Pistons: March 5th 2008

Patriots vs. Denver Broncos: Oct 20th 2008

Celtics vs. Detroit Pistons (second annual!): March 1st 2009

Red Sox vs. Texas Rangers: Jun 5th 2009

Blazers (lacrosse): April 3rd 2010

I realized I hadn't shared the photos from any of these. Too avoid completely boring you with old stories and pictures, I'd just like to say a few words about the lacrosse game.

Figure: First of all, aren't these great seats?

The Blazers play indoor lacrosse for the National Lacrosse League, which I had barely even heard of. But they were selling discounted tickets at World's Best School, so I bought a pair and went with a friend. I expected the attendance to be pretty low, given that's it's not as popular of a sport as baseball, football, etc. But when I got there, I was surprised to find that there was a pretty rowdy crowd in attendance.

Why were all these people so excited? I had no idea. Usually people only get this hyped for homecoming college football, or after the fifth inning in baseball when they are pretty tipsy from the beer...

But then halfway through the game, I found out why everybody was so excited.

Lacrosse players FIGHT. Not like football, where some guys will shove at each other, and then the refs come running over and break it up. There are RULES to the fighting. You can only fight each other if the helmets are off, or something, and I think there's an actual throwing down of a glove that starts a fight. I didn't quite understand all the etiquette, but I do know that guys were hanging onto each other's jerseys (so they can't get away) and just whaling on each other, while the refs stood watching with folded arms. And the crowd went wild.

Figure: Crowd also went wild for the cheerleaders, I should mention.

I will also say, that lacrosse players STINK. You can smell them coming from thirty feet away. SHEESH. I guess I understand it - they are sweating hard in those hot uniforms, and all that gear is expensive and tedious to wash, so I'm sure it only gets cleaned at intervals. Their noses must get used to it. I pity them if not....

All in all, it was a great experience. The game was fascinating, fast-paced, and competitive. Our seats were fantastic - only a few rows back from the front row, and right next to the entrance where the players run in and out (refer back to: they stink.) I'm particularly glad that I went when I did in 2010, because now they are moving to a new city.

Take the experiences as they come, I say. I'm looking forward to the Bruins game, coming up later this year - both for the game itself, and to complete the set!

Name Cards Pt. II

2011-09-07T13:47:00.000-04:00

The goal of this particular project (because every project should start with a goal): to make balsa wood name cards, for my dorm residents to hang on their doors.

The process:

First, design name cards. I used Adobe Illustrator, because I am familiar with it, and it makes nice vector graphics that port well to the laser cutter. The nice thing about laser cutting wood, is that gradations in tone and pattern will show up as gradations in the engraving on the wood. As an example, a gentle three-tone design like this:

Will show up on wood like this:

Maybe it's a little hard to see, but the light gray parts are a lighter shade of brown on the wood. This also works with color, and works better the more differentiation you have. So also note this color design:

Which turns out like this, where you can more clearly see the range of tones:

Second, cut strips of balsa wood.

Figure: Actually a wafer-dicing scalpel, but we can repurpose.

Mistakes are common. Even with a straight edge.

Figure: What good project doesn't end up with an extra screw, or spare scraps of stock?

Third, prepare the workspace. I had my laptop for designing and changes, the desktop compute that runs the laser cutter, and then the laser cutter with attached vacuum pump.

Figure: Where the magic happens.

Of course there is an oscilloscope in the background. You never know when that might come in handy, for any project. Duck tape, oscilloscope, calipers and coffee should be mandatory at the beginning of every endeavor.

Figure: Note old-school oscilloscope behind computer, on standby like an ambulance at a football game.

Fourth, test the settings of the laser cutter. You have two main variables to adjust - power and speed. The variables are interconnected, as common sense tells you that a high power and fast speed can give you the same results as low power and slow speed - it's all about the amount of energy the laser imparts to the wood. But given a choice between two equivalent power/speed combinations, you might like to minimize the total processing time needed.

In the top example, the speed was too fast, so the whole thing turned out too light - the complete depth of tones was not achieved, and there are no truly dark areas. Bottom example is what I settled on.

Finally, laser cut away!

Figure: Magic is underway.

The finished stack of 26 name cards took me two afternoons to complete, but I am so pleased with how they turned out.

Figure: Success!

In conclusion, here are the finished projects, names blacked out (to protect the innocent, or for security, or for privacy, or something....).

Any favorites, readers?

Name Cards Part I

2011-09-05T19:00:00.000-04:00

So I have finally - FINALLY - finished a project that has been languishing on my To-Do list for way too long. I have a lot of side projects, and I've talked about how some projects you have to let die, and some you set aside, but this one was important.

It is a tradition in World's Best School dorms (fairly common in most college dorms, actually) that the residents all have name tags on their doors. This is both nostalgic and pratical. Practical, because you know who lives there. Nostalgic, because the name tags symbolize the different communities the residents are a part of - many residents have multiple name tags. For girls in sororities, I think it is the big sister's job to make their little sister a nametag. Sometimes sports teams will have matching name tags. And, as an RA, often we make name tags for the freshmen to welcome them to the dorm community.

Last year as an RA, I fully intended to make ALL of my residents name tags - not just the freshmen. If name tags symbolize the community, all of my girls are part of the community, right?

The RA before me could paint - and so she custom painted each new resident's door sign.

I'm not so good with the watercolors.

But I DO have a lasercutter. :)

My idea was to buy 4" strips of balsa wood (it's cheap stuff, and I know it comes in standard 4" widths - I used a lot of it when I was building remote control planes), and cut it down to 8"x4" stock pieces. Then I would design name cards in Adobe Illustrator, port it over to the laser cutter, and raster away.

The cool thing using about wood instead of plastic, which I also considered, is that you can get gradations in the final product while using the laser's engraving setting. In plastic, laser engraving looks about the same no matter how fast the laser goes. The plastic just turns white, or opaque. But in wood, applying a laser actually burns the wood. So you can have a range, from "slightly golden" to "toasted" to "completely burnt," depending on how long the laser lingers over each section of the wood.

So if you DESIGN something with gradations in the pattern, you can get some really pretty results.

So last year, I bought the balsa wood, cut up a handful of stock pieces, and started designing. I designed 17 designs, which wasn't as many girls as I had, but I figured a good start. I had 10 pieces of balsa cut up, which wasn't as much as I needed, but I figured a good start. It took me forever to figure out all the appropriate file formatting and adapting needed to get the patterns from Adobe Illustrator, to Corel, to the laser cutter - and to do testing to figure out the appropriate settings for the "golden-toasted-black" range to work correctly. And so you know where this is heading... after all that work, I ended up making three name cards. Three.

"I'll come back and finish this on a weekend," I thought, "and now that I figured out the file formatting, it'll be a breeze."

Did I ever get around to it? Shamefully, no. Those three name cards were the only ones I did. And all year long, they taunted me when I would walk by those girl's doors. None of my girls complained, but I felt like I had failed. So this year, I was determined.

I decided that since I was having enough trouble finishing this project, I would leave it at 17 unique designs and not worry about coming up with all original designs. Besides, I have girls on two floors, so it doesn't matter so much to repeat on different floors. Right? Right. In the spirit of picking your battles wisely, I just ended up with some doubles.

Coming tomorrow, pictures of the process and final products.

RA, Third Year

2011-09-02T14:51:00.000-04:00

Oh, it is that time of year again. No longer can I wander freely the halls of the dorm, like the ghost of an old professor, just me and the draft and my billowing white bathrobe. All the girls are moving back into the dorm, and my role as an RA is ramping up again.

It seems so long ago that I started my first year as an RA in an undergrad dorm at World's Best School. And yet, I survived my first year, set up my room, and even managed to run a few events, large and small. And then I headed into my second year, feeling much more confident than the first.

And now - well, now I'm an old hand.

I have seven new freshmen, and some shuffling among the older girls. The biggest change this year is that the dining plan has become mandatory - so all the girls will be paying for all-you-can-eat food in the dining hall. I'm pretty sure this will drive a lot less cooking in the floor kitchens. So maybe, it will be easier for them to keep the kitchens clean? One can dream. :)

And the change in dining also drives a change in the way I run events. Normally I would just put out food, send an email, and girls would show up at my door. But food might not be such a big draw anymore, if they already have food available in the dining hall for every meal. But this is also exciting - it means I can do more creative things. It has always been very hard to do "outing" type events. I.e., girls are used to just walking down the hall for cookies, and aren't motivated to go off-campus. But if the girls become used to events being non-food-based, maybe the turnout will be higher for things like: going to museums, going to the premier of a movie (which we actually did for Harry Potter last year, and that went well), perhaps a picnic by the river. Maybe go out for dim sum on the weekends in Chinatown, or attend one of the many festivals in the Boston area.

The other RAs in my dorm have had good success in the past with doing weekly TV-watching events. If the majority of girls on the floor are fans of Glee, or Bones, or NCIS, then you can designate that as the floor TV show, host a viewing party each week, and provide munchies. The girls talk to each other during commercial breaks, and it's a low-stress, cheap way to run events. So that's a possibility as well.

In any case, I am looking forward to the year, but I am missing the quiet. Plus, my toothpaste got swiped. Who swipes toothpaste out of somebody's bathroom kit? I mean, really. And already there was an angry email (to the entire, dorm-wide email list, no less) about food being stolen. Sigh...

I try to keep my door open when I'm home, but it takes mental energy for me to be social. In the summers, I know that once I get home, I don't have to interact with anyone else that day if I don't want to. Now I have to be prepared for interruptions when girls stop by. But, I have a good group of girls, so the interruptions should be pleasant ones. I just have to switch gears and be sociable and friendly... come on, Miss Outlier, it's not that hard to mingle a little bit... :)

Highlights from the freshmen so far? One couldn't decipher how to turn on the showers, one couldn't figure out how to open her door with the room key. Three haven't ever seen snow. And, one has never seen a pumpkin.

So, bring on school, snow, and pumpkins!

Snow Leopard

2011-08-30T11:41:00.000-04:00

Back earlier this summer - maybe June or so - I was sitting with my advisor in our weekly meeting, and he leaned over and asked, "So Miss Outlier, how is your computer running?"

Gently patting my original MacBook baby, I replied "She's still going strong - even though I got her way back in 2007 when I started grad school."

Well okay, fine, I didn't really say "she." But I do feel attached to my laptop. Not only was it a gift from my father at the start of my career as a grad student, but it's been pretty much fused to my fingertips for over 12 hours a day for the past four years.

I use it a lot.

"The reason I asked," continued my advisor, "is that my daughter also has a Mac, and it's been giving her problems - and I was wondering how much to sink into it before I get a new one."

I considered a moment, and told him that the hardware has always been excellent on every Mac I owned. "But," I said, "you know what's really starting to hold me back? Having an old operating system." I still was using the OS X version that the laptop came with (10.4), and enough new releases and time had gone by that the newest versions of the most of the software I use is no longer supported. And some software that I would LIKE to have, wasn't compatible. What I really wished I had was OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard.

Figure: Girl can dream, right?

"Oh, well that's easy!" said my advisor. "Buy yourself the upgraded OS X, and put it on the lab account. We can't have you held up over THAT."

Reason #863 I love my advisor.

Figure: So pretty....

So you see that picture right there? That beautiful, sexy picture? That's my desktop right now.

I have just upgraded to OSX 10.6, from 10.4. It's gorgeous. Snow leopard, I have arrived.

Last night I eagerly dove into installing the newest versions of all the software I need/want. I updated Microsoft Office to the latest version, and iTunes to the most recent release. I've installed Papers 2 (now I can reference media types other than just journal papers - like textbooks, patents, websites, etc.). And I've had my eye on EverNote for a while - now I have it!

But then I went to upgrade to the newest version of Safari - and it told me, "must have OSX 10.6.8 or 10.7."

Wait a minute - hold on. There's a 10.7? I could have sworn I got the latest OS. I mean, who bothers paying for an old version?

So I did some Googling, and guess what happened in July.

Figure: Ah, Jobs, we will miss you.

They announced OSX Lion, which is 10.7.

CLEARLY I have not been reading enough Mac fan sites. I did not realize this was coming - and if I had, I would have held off a few more weeks.

But you know what, I will take 10.6.8. It's a whole lot slicker than what I had, and of course, you never want to be too early of an adopter (right? work with me here). Because, you know, they haven't had a chance to work out all the bugs yet.

Yep. I did this on PURPOSE, I tell you. :)

Hosting Pub Trivia

2011-08-29T11:55:00.001-04:00

It takes me a long time to make friends, and settle into social circles. I have talked about this before, how it's about a year to get fully situated in a new place. But then by the time I've settled in, I really enjoy developing the friendships I've worked so hard to create. And life is good. I've never actually been in one setting past the three year mark, so now that I'm heading into my fifth year of grad school, I feel like I'm moving into uncharted waters. On the one hand, I'm restless, and all around me people are moving on, but on the other hand, I really love the comfortable grooves I've worn doing the things I enjoy.

And, my goodness, at times I even feel popular. After five years of being really involved with a lot of activities, a lot of people know me (for better or worse, I suppose...). Who knew? I was in a situation recently where I actually felt like I had - believe it or not - some level of street cred.

A few weeks ago I hosted the weekly pub trivia.

Now, trivia at the bar is a common activity nationwide. There are a lot of bars around Boston that hold weekly trivia, all run by Stump Trivia. (In fact, the bars hold them on different nights, so if you are sneaky you can go to a Tuesday trivia, learn all the answers, and then clean up at a bar holding trivia on Thursdays... But that takes a certain combination of dedication and deviousness that is generally just not worth it. Especially just for a $20 prize.)

World's Best School has two bars on campus (this is a majority grad school, after all), and one of the bars runs trivia on Wednesdays. I used to go quite often with a set of friends who were really good at trivia (I wasn't, but I'm good for moral support). Those friends graduated, so now I don't go as often - maybe once every month or six weeks, when I have friends that invite me. But I have always really enjoyed the laid-back, trash-talking type of atmosphere. Trivia is sort of a whole experience unto itself.

For instance, a big part of the trivia experience is the choice of team name. The team names are read over the microphone several times during the night by the trivia host as they report the scores of the teams. So it's a bit of team pride to come up with a name that is either a) funny, b) relevant to current political news, or c) a historically significant name for your team. So for instance, a funny name might be "My Couch Pulls Out But I Don't" (yes, it's a classic, but I've heard it used, and yes, the funny names are usually dirty...), or "Drinks Are On the House Tonight" (imagine that one read out loud). A political name might be "Client #9" (when the Spitzer story was big), or "8 Lost Miners" (when the rescue of the trapped Chilean miners was happening). There were lots of riffs on Charlie Sheen when that happened, Lindsey Lohan, the hurricane... you get the idea. Historical names are used by teams that come back every week, and like to have a reputation built on the name. At our pub, one of the historic teams is the "MechE Warriors." Lots of my friends on that team. A friend of mine told me his team is always known as the "Cracked Windshields." Whatever works...

The trivia at World's Best School is not standard trivia, though - nope, in reason #1361 that I love World's Best School, the trivia here has a flavor all its own.

Instead of a professional running the show, the pub trivia is hosted every week by two grad students. The students are paid $30 between the two of them as a thanks, and are usually either bartenders on their night off, or trivia regulars, or just anybody close enough with friends in that social circle to be asked (say, me). So you get an incredibly entertaining range of hosts - the hosts will respond to hecklers from the audience, make rulings on questionable calls, and generally set the tone for the night.

Instead of the standard categories, and standard number of questions per category, the style runs the gamut. Usually there is a Sports category, a Music category, and almost always a TV/Movies category (all of those are taken from standard national trivia), but you might also get a Math category, or a Technology category. Sometimes you get a Boston History category, and once there was a category dedicated to World's Best School Insider Knowledge. Everybody's favorite is always the Picture category, though. And the number of questions per category also varies - most of the time you get the normal six, but sometimes you get multi-part questions, or twelve tiny questions. Up to the discretion of the host!

Instead of getting the questions from a standardized national database, the students are in charge of making up the questions. That, I think, is my favorite part of the World's Best School trivia - the pure randomness of what you might get hit with. One time the picture round was a map of Africa - label as many countries as you can. Or once it was maps of the subway systems in major cities around the world - name the cities. One time we had a British host, and there was a question on snooker - how much is the pink ball worth? I think the whole bar just laughed and scratched their heads on that one.

Instead of typical bar music, the music is run from the iPod of the host. So some weeks you get classic rock, some weeks you get hiphop/R&B, and some weeks you get Korean pop.

Anyway, my friend and I were the two hosts a few weeks ago, and I really felt like I was part of that elusive "cool crowd" that every highschool kid dreams of being included in. I had a whole lot of fun making up the questions, and a whole lot of fun reading answers, scoring, and just all 'round running the show. It felt very Cheers-like. I know all of the bartenders (they are all students, and more than half are MechE students), I know all of the trivia regulars, and people would banter with me as they brought up their answer sheets. It was a good night.

The World's Best School pub trivia is so popular that even though it starts at 9pm, you have to show up 8:15-8:30 to get a table in the bar. It's a part of the popular culture here at World's Best School, and I am so pleased to be a part of it during my time here. So the best way for me to conclude this post, I think, is to share with you the basic truth that all trivia players knowingly whisper amongst themselves at the end of each week... My friends, it all comes down to the wager round.

Figure: Grading trivia answer sheets. Red pen, oh yes indeed.

Basketball Perseverance

2011-08-24T16:36:00.000-04:00

Editor's Note: I have returned safely from vacation, and had a great time with family! After digging out from a pile of emails, I hope to settle back in refreshed and invigorated.

One of the things I am most proud of myself for doing in grad school is, oddly enough, playing basketball once a week with a group of labmates/friends. My family does tend toward basketball as the sport of choice, but I've never been very good (home schooling doesn't afford much chance for team sports...). And since I get frustrated when I can't immediately excel at something, particularly sports, I was hesitant to play with the group. The rest of them are all pretty good, and I just knew I wasn't going to enjoy it.

But I played anyway. Even though I wasn't good. Even though everybody else played circles around me. Even though yes, I did get frustrated because I couldn't make the plays or hit the shots I wanted to (that mind-body coordination is a little tenuous when you spend all your time hitting the books!). I kept playing even though I didn't enjoy it at all at first.

But I was determined to live the lesson that you don't have to be perfect. And that dedication and practice can indeed lead to improvement. So I kept at it, and eventually I got better.

I've been playing once a week, or close to it, for maybe two and a half or three years now. And you know what? I'm pretty good now.

I went to a BBQ last weekend, at a lovely spot on Cape Cod with a beach and sports areas. A bunch of kids started a kickball game, and a few guys were tossing around basketballs on the court. I didn't know anybody, but I walked up and introduced myself, and asked if I could play.

Standing there in my flip flops and sun dress (it was a BBQ at the beach, after all), I'm sure I didn't look like much. But they were short a player to make it five on five, so they took me anyway.

I had the foresight to bring my water shoes, so I quickly changed into my sneakers, grabbed a water bottle, wedged my sunglasses firmly onto my nose, and joined the game.

We were playing man-to-man, and the other team put their weakest player on me. It quickly became apparent that most of these guys were really good (better than me), but not all. No indeed, not all - they had underestimated me with the choice to guard me with a guy six inches shorter. I used the height advantage to post up on the defender, grab rebounds, and surprised even myself by getting several good cuts in a row, with lay-ups to finish.

When the game reached a pause, the captain for the other team stood at the top of the key, ball clamped under one arm, and pointed with a sweaty finger at his teammates - "You there, switch with him." The defense obligingly switched up who was guarding me. Now I faced a guy four inches taller than me, and a much better shot than the defender who just left.

"And watch that girl," the captain called out, "she's FEISTY."

Yes, dear readers, I moved myself up the totem pole. For the homeschooled nerdy kid, I'll take "feisty". :)

After that game was over, we lined up to shoot for new teams. Now, when I play with my normal group, we shoot for teams from the free-throw line. But these guys? They shoot from the three-point line.

Now, sometimes when my normal group shoots for teams, we have to go through the lineup several times before enough people make their shot to fill out the teams. I guarantee if we shot from the three-point line, we'd be there all day!

So I thought to myself, "Oh gees... there is no way I can make a three point shot." I never even try during games. I figure if my shooting percentage is as low as it is from close to the basket, why attempt from so far away?

So I steeled myself to try a three-point shot, just praying I got close enough to not be embarrassed. And you know what? I hit the rim. "Well hey! Not bad", I thought.

We had to go around once more to get enough people for each team, so I had a second chance to shoot. I hiked up my skirt, bounced the ball twice, and...

SWISH.

I made my shot.

Feisty girl with a three point shot.

I smiled to myself and walked proudly to the "make" team, and I was so grateful that three years ago I stuck with the weekly frustrating game. You don't have to be perfect, you just have to keep at it.

Engineer Blogs, August First Half

2011-08-15T23:41:00.000-04:00

Editor's Note: I am off to see my sister graduate with her Master's degree (congrats sis!) and travel around a bit with my sister and brother. Posting will be resumed later - enjoy the end of summer!

In August over at Engineer Blogs, we have a week with the theme of deadlines, so I talk about the long-term deadlines in my life. Then I discuss a professional development course I took, and ask - have you ever had management training? Has it ever been offered to you?

Check it out, and see you after vacation!

Story of School IDs

2011-08-11T12:54:00.000-04:00

I have always had a problem hanging onto my school IDs. I did three years of community college, at two separate colleges, and then I did three years at university, and now I'm in my fourth year in grad school. I've had a school ID in some permutation for many, many years.

And I've learned that my personal "burn rate" is about one a year. I have just come to accept that I will, at some point, misplace my ID every year. So instead of getting upset about it now, I just budget in the $15 replacement fee as part of my school expenses. :)

I don't know why I've always had problems with this - I know students who go their entire four years in undergrad and never misplace their ID. My theory is that it's because I use my ID as an access card to get into various labs and machine shops, as well as my office and my dorm. I don't want to carry my whole purse around while I go about my day, so I put the card in my pocket. Much easier to lose something from your pocket than from inside your wallet inside your purse.

The funny thing is, I had a total of three IDs in undergrad (I was there three years, so just about right). I then moved to Boston to go to grad school. In my years here, I have slowly uncovered all three IDs. What was lost has now been found! One missing ID was tucked inside a pocket inside my tool bag I used to take back and forth to the undergrad machine shop. The other missing ID was in the hoodie pocket of a sweatshirt I used to wear to football games. No football games here, so that one took a while to uncover. But now I have my full set back!

Last week my current ID stopped working.

It's been over a year, so actually I was doing pretty well by not losing it - so I figured, well, that might just be my $15 fee for the year. So I went in to the card office.

"Hi," I said, "I'm here because my ID card has stopped working. My guess is that I have de-magnetized it, since I work with magnets in my lab." The friendly guy behind the counter said, "Sure, let me check that for you." He proceeded to swipe my card through the little testing slot, and he checked his screen - "Strange, it seems to be working here. What was the problem exactly?"

I explained that swiping my card wouldn't let me into the gym, and that swiping the card didn't register at the student center for lunch. But the RFID chip still worked, so I suspected it was demagnetized. "It's definitely not demagnetized," my helpful guy told me, "because if so I wouldn't be able to read it at all."

He peered closely at my ID, checking the little strip on the back. Understanding dawned on his face - "Ohhhh," he said, "There appears to be some, um, damage on the corners..." I looked where he was pointing, and yes indeed - at both edges of the magnetic strip, there were little divits in the card.

I realized quickly what had happened - I have a bad habit of chewing on things, like pens and pencils (not my nails, thank goodness). So sometimes if I'm holding my card, I bite on the corners. And if I have run out of hands, and need my ID (holding stacks of parts and going to the machine shop, or having gloved hands and accessing the clean room, for instance), then I'll just hold onto it in my mouth for convenience.

"Yep," said the guy, "there's enough... ah.. well, imperfections on the strip, that it no longer reads correctly." He quite obviously knew I was chewing on my ID, but he was trying to be nice to me and not point it out.

"Okay," I said, "Well can I get a new one?"

"Unfortunately, since the damage is not under normal wear and tear, I'll have to charge you for a new one. This one isn't even that old, you know."

Yeah, I know! But it's older than a year, don't I get credit for that? Ha!

"But just to make sure," he said, "let me ask my supervisor."

So the supervisor comes over - a little tiny Chinese woman. She inspects my ID, as the guy explains the situation. He ends up with, "So can we give her a new one without charging her?"

She looks up at me, waves the ID in front of me, and said, "No replace! You can SEE the TEETH MARKS!"

Laugh! No such subtlety ("er, appears to be some sort of damage...") from the small Asian lady - she was calling it like she saw it!

What they didn't know is that I also know the trick. I politely took my ID back, and then the next day I peeled up the corner of the laminate with my fingernail. So now the magnetic strip is peeling off the card. I took it back to the card office in a couple days, with a different helpful face behind the counter.

"My card is peeling," I said sweetly, "so the magnetic strip isn't working. Can I get a new one?"

"Of course!" was the reply, "So sorry about that." And because the problem was now the laminate, nobody even commented on the teeth marks (oh, sorry, imperfections...) And a few minutes later, I was in possession of a shiny new ID.

So what this really means, is I still haven't lost my ID or otherwise used up my $15 ID expense allotment for this year. Fingers crossed I can hang onto it!

Epiphany - I'm Doing Things Backwards

2011-08-10T17:43:00.000-04:00

So because my stamping experiments weren't working, I went back to the literature. I did another set of searches to see if there were any papers I missed, and I rounded up the ones I had referenced before. I looked carefully at all the papers that I had collected that listed specific protocols for stamping the ink onto a substrate. And I noticed something odd - they were all using oxygen plasma, not air plasma (as I was doing.)

Could this be it? Simple change of gas in the plasma mix?

Excitedly, I rushed to the clean room, and tried a few lightning experiments.

Sadly, no. That was not my problem.

I went back to the literature, and stumbled across a review paper that just came out in June this year. The paper reviewed a field called "adhesive lithography" which is a term I hadn't heard of. But basically, this paper said, look, when you are transferring a FILM, not a liquid, things are different, and here's how people are doing it. And I had just learned from my microscope photos, that I was indeed transferring a film.

Well now I might be on to something.

I already knew that this stamping process is all about the surface energies. You want the ink to stick to the stamp, but stick to the substrate better, so it's all about tuning the parameters of the surfaces to get things to release and stick how you choose. It turns out - get this - GET THIS - that with my particular material, it's easier to make a film stick to the stamp, than the substrate. So instead of coating the stamp with ink, and transferring it, people instead coat the substrate with ink, stick the stamp down, and use the stamp to PEEL away the ink from areas you don't want it.

It's like telling the ink: "If you like sticking to the stamp so much, well then by golly, STICK to it why don't you!"

*faceplam* I'm doing things backwards. I'm stamping the wrong direction. Instead of doing additive stamping, where the stamp transfers ink to the substrate, I need to do lift-off, where the stamp removes the ink from the substrate.

Fine. So I did.

And look!

I get lines! They are ugly, but they are not strings! Give me a week, I'll make them pretty, just you watch...

Machine Parts, Two Versions

2011-08-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

I am working on building a machine for my PhD, which is designed to hold a glass slide, and stamp it very carefully against a rubber stamp with ink on it. But it was not working - the ink was not transferring from the stamp to the slide like it was supposed to. So I did my best to look at what WAS happening, and try some quick experiments to test the process.

I was not sure if my machine was the problem, or whether it was the basic process that was the problem. To try and figure out what was causing the issue, I tried doing some experiments by hand without my machine, and then the same experiments with my machine. Those "by-hand" experiments were pretty bad, but at least I got some results. I was getting NO results with my machine. So how to figure out what is wrong with the machine? Well, there is a problem.

See, here is what the holder for the slide looks like:

Figure: Note, solid metal construction.

The three holes are vacuum holes to hold the slide while it is upside down during stamping. The outside ring is to provide a good seal with the round stamp. The problem here is that after I put the stamp over the vacuum holes, and turn this thing upside down on top of the stamp, I can't SEE anything.

Figure: The holder, pretending to stamp something.

The holder is all metal, with a heater in there, and a ceramic block to deflect heat from the handle. But with all those opaque layers, I can't see what's going on while I'm trying to stamp. So what to do? Well, off to the machine shop!

Figure: Thing 1 and Thing 2

I made a clear version of the original holder. It doesn't have a heater in it for two reasons - one, the heater is ceramic and not clear, and second the plastic can't handle high temperatures. But it will allow me to see what's going on.

If you look closely, the vertical cloudy line is where I drilled, and the drilled surface is not perfectly clear. But I had to get access to the vacuum holes somehow. The outer ring is also visible, as in the metal version.

And look! One can see through it! So now, I should be able to actually watch as the slide contacts the stamp, and the ink does (or does not) transfer.

Crossing fingers...

Mass Exodus

2011-08-04T14:32:00.000-04:00

The big drama around the office recently has been that three students, under the same advisor, have all quit in the last week.

It is inevitable that sometimes student/advisor relationships don't match up well. Graduate school is much different than undergrad, in that the professor you work for determines a huge amount of what your experience in grad school is going to be like. It's not so much that there are bad advisors and good advisors (although that certainly may be), but more like different people have different styles of management and methods of working.

The biggest piece of advice that I give incoming grad students, or those preparing to apply for grad school, is that you should absolutely find an advisor you enjoy working with. The school you go to matters a little bit (name recognition can be nice later in life), the specific project you work on matters a little bit (nice to work on something you enjoy, and if you plan on academia the research will be important), but the absolutely critical thing is the advisor. If you are applying to grad school, you already get excited about research in general, so surely you can find something in almost any project that is interesting to work on. Talk to students in potential labs - they will give you straight answers when you ask what life is like. Ask students you meet what the reputation of professors are, and they will dish on the department gossip.

If you work best when left alone to pursue your ideas, find a professor who prefers self-directed students. If you like lots of feedback on your work, find a professor who will meet with you once a week, and has a lab that encourages collaboration between students. If you don't plan on academia, you would rather find a professor who graduates students quickly, than one who pushes students to stay and amass a larger publication record. If you DO plan on academia, you want to find a professor who is a rockstar in your field, and might let you help write grants if you so desire.

Each student has different needs, and every advisor has different expectations and styles of managing their students. It's worth spending the time to find a good fit. Much ink has been spilled on the internet blogs on this topic, so I'll leave it at that.

So now, pondering the situation where several students decide to quit the same lab and switch advisors at once. The general mood was that the students did a good thing, and were looking out for themselves, and obviously the advisor was terrible.

But I'm not so sure. I feel bad for the advisor, honestly - he's a new guy, without tenure, got a rockstar amount of funding, and is growing his lab like crazy. That's got to be a tough situation, with a lot of pressure, and having several of your students leave at once is a pretty harsh critique of your mentoring techniques.

I have no idea what the issues were between the advisor and students, and I have no idea how/if attempts were made to change the situation before it got to the point it did. I just know for myself, I would have tried everything I could to work things out with my professor before leaving. But if I thought there was no chance to make things better, is it better to leave after one year, and basically start over in another lab, or to tough it out for a Master's degree and then switch to a new lab for a PhD? Oh, such tough choices. No wonder those three students have been walking around twitchy for a couple weeks now, pre- and post- leaving.

Hopefully the advisor also learned something from this experience, and can make adjustments in how he deals with students, and can find more students for the fall.

Mostly, the whole thing just makes me very grateful for the advisor I have, who I get along with fantastically. I am very blessed to be in a good situation - I like my advisor, my labmates, the work I'm doing (or trying to do), the department I'm in, and the school I'm at. I may stress myself out about trying to graduate next June - but the reality is, even if I don't graduate next June, the question is just whether it will be August or December next year. Neither option is the end of the world, and life is pretty good while I'm here.

Strange Eats

2011-08-03T22:56:00.000-04:00

I was discussing food with friends the other day, and in particular the adventurous foods we'd tried. I realized I have some photos I've never shared on this blog that are relevant to that topic, so today is a recap of an old story.

While I was in Iceland, I did some sightseeing. I saw a volcano, the Blue Lagoon, and the President. I also had some excellent food. We asked the locals what the regional specialties were, so we could be on the lookout - and at first we found it fairly comical. "Oh," they cried, "You must try the seafood and the hot dogs!" Since we are all from New England, home of excellent lobster and Boston Red Sox hot dog stands, we were a bit amused...

But turns out, we were not dissapointed. The lobster was excellent, and the "hot dog" turned out to be an excellent sausage-like affair, which really shouldn't have been translated into an English word for a cheap food.

We couldn't leave without trying something at least a little more exotic, though. So one night we went to a tapas bar, where you order lots of little dishes - an excellent venue for trying many types of food. We tried lots of seafood (fish, crustaceans, a couple types of mollusks), a couple vegetarian dishes (roasted stuffed peppers for the win), and one or two chicken/beef options. But then - there was debate. Also listed on the menu were various options containing shark, horse, and puffin. PUFFIN.

The debate was short. How could we not get the puffin?

Figure: Behold, the puffin.

Figure: And, horse. Which looks a lot like puffin.

The puffin was delicious - and purple colored, although it's hard to see in the photo. A little salty, but good I thought. The horse, though, I didn't care for - chewy and a strong flavor.

When we excitedly told our hosts this story the next day ("We ate, like, a WHOLE puffin, and MOST of a horse, so aren't we adventurous and cool like real locals?") they looked at us, and kind of snickered. Snickering is almost never good.

Suspicious, we inquired - why, why the sidelong glances at each other? Well, turns out puffin is seasonal. The reason they hadn't recommended puffin to us is because it wasn't in season. In order to keep it, they either freeze or preserve it (ah, the saltiness...)

So, not only have I eaten puffin, I've eaten LAST YEAR'S puffin.

Good times, good times... :) What adventurous foods have you tried?

Engineer Blogs, July Second Half

2011-08-01T11:19:00.000-04:00

Over at Engineer Blogs, for the end of July I talk about the differences in opinion that can come up between engineers, and which ones matter. And, I give a quick overview of the concept of sensitivity in an engineering system. Check it out!

I Decide

2011-07-31T21:55:00.000-04:00

I absolutely do not like feeling as if I do not have a handle on my life. Maybe it's a character flaw, but I like to have my work, my thoughts, and my feelings in line. I've always been a student, and my success or failure has historically been based on my own actions, which I can control. I like to succeed (don't we all?) so I like to control. If some part of my life is not how I want, I do my best to figure out why things are going wrong, and then to fix it. What absolutely grinds me to pieces is when I know something isn't working, and I can't do anything about it.

But as I get deeper and deeper into research (the unknown), and closer and closer to real life (unpredictable people and teams), there becomes more and more I cannot control. I would like to grow and become better at accepting that there are things I cannot control. In the meantime, there are things I can ALWAYS decide. To remind myself, I've made a list:

I decide that I am more important than my research, and there is more to life than work.

I decide that I am beautiful, even if there's nobody around to tell me so.

I decide that I am intelligent, and I will not compete with nor judge others on their intelligence.

I decide that I am worth taking care of, and I will eat, sleep, exercise, and be kind to my body.

I decide that I am allowed to feel any emotion that may come along, and will not accept secondary emotions of shame or denial or guilt for having feelings.

I decide that I will find ways to deal with every situation in life in "real-time," and not just ignore and hope that time will pass and make it go away.

I decide that I can not control how other people act, or how other people feel, and that I do not need to.

And with a nod to a good friend of mine I am trying to learn from, I decide to work as hard and as diligently as I can, and then to live my life with no regrets.

Bring on Monday.

Setting Aside Piloting, Not Giving Up

2011-07-28T14:44:00.000-04:00

Back at the beginning of the year, I took a ground school class in preparation for getting my pilot's license. I want to learn to fly, and I was planning to do the class portion of the work in the spring, and the flying part with an instructor in the summer.

And as it turns out, this spring semester the World's Best School Flying Club also got a donation. An alum of the Aerospace school just up and gave his small Cessna 150 plane to the club, as he was too old to fly it anymore himself. "Ah, perfect timing!" I thought. The biggest expense of getting a pilot's license is hiring the plane and the instructor. The Flying Club was planning to make this plane available to club members at a discounted price, along with Flying Club instructors. As in, $80 an hour instead of $130. That makes a big difference when you are talking about a minimum of 50-60 hours...

But, as with many projects, the devil is in the details. It turns out that the plane had significant damage (it's been parked next to the ocean and has been barely used in ten years). The club doesn't have the kind of cash up front to pay for such repairs - so instead of just accepting the donation, they are on holding on until they can raise the money to make the repairs.

By the time this was discovered, we were into June (I was waiting to start training until the plane had been acquired). So I couldn't get the cheap option - but hey, I had saved up the money for this at full price already (being an RA with free rent does have its perks). But then, I started calculating the time cost as well as the financial cost.

You can't fly as a student out of Boston Logan (quite logical, really). The most common airport for student pilots is not accessible on the subway - you have to take a bus. The bus takes an hour to an hour and a half, and only runs at certain times. If I was to rent a car, it takes 45 minutes to drive there. Now, a typical flight lesson will be an hour in the air, but figure a half hour before and after for briefing with the instructor, getting set up, and properly securing the airplane after the flight. So two hours. Add in the two 45 minute commute legs, and we're at 3.5-4 hours I would need to rent a car for. ZipCars are minimum $7 an hour, so $28 per lesson, times 50-60 lessons (at an hour per lesson). Yeesh.

And if I take the bus, then it's more like 5 hours per lesson, depending on when the bus runs. Now the best way to do the training is to fly often, so you keep your skills fresh. So I'd ideally like to fly two or three times a week.

I found that I didn't have 10-15 extra hours per week. Not EVEN counting the significant prep time required the day before, in order to get the most out of the lesson (and you want to be efficient - refer back to $130 per hour...). And even if I could squeeze out that time, I'd have to be coordinating with the weather and the availability of the instructor - so try working a bus schedule or ZipCar rental around all THAT.

Yeesh again.

So reluctantly, I have decide to shelve the project. Have to know when to fold 'em, right? I'm hoping to come back around to this one, though - maybe someday when I have the right combination of money, time, and proximity to an airport. I'm hanging on to my little pilot kit, to remind me I'm not giving up yet.

Lightning Empiricism

2011-07-27T17:43:00.000-04:00

My advisor is a huge, huge fan of "lightning empiricism." It's a term I haven't heard anywhere else, and my advisor says he got it from HIS advisor. Basically, it's a more-scientific-sounding way of saying, "go try it and see." Physically parking your butt at a lab bench and trying something, usually as simply and easily as you can, has huge benefits. Often you'll find out something you never would have anticipated without getting your hands on it.

You can also think about it like this: When you apply the principle of "just try something simple" to doing analysis, you call it back-of-the-envelope calculations. When you apply the principle to doing experiments, you call it lightning empiricism.

The point is, sometimes it's not worth spending hours poring over theory and simulations, if there's something you can do to test the basic concept. If the basic, quick-and-dirty tests are successful, or teach you something by their failure, then you can move forward with that new knowledge. I really like that my advisor pushes the hands-on learning; a lot of professors I know rely much more heavily on the theory.

I have to share a story here, which you can skip if engineering isn't your field: For instance, I was having trouble with a basic op-amp circuit I had built that was not behaving correctly - it was supposed to double the input voltage, but it wasn't working over the whole range. I asked one of my friends about it, and he dove right into circuit calculations and Kirchoff's rules to see if we could figure out what to change. But when I asked my advisor, the first thing he said was, "Did you put an oscilloscope on it?" Well, no, I hadn't - I just used a multimeter, since it was a DC signal. So he wouldn't talk to me until I trotted back to lab, and took a look at the actual analog signal. Lo-and-behold, my cheap power supply was fluctuating. Well THAT would never come up in the theory.

Anyway, I've been doing this lightning empiricism stuff for my research all summer. I found the papers in literature that showed something really cool, and I've been trying to replicate or improve on the same technique. But I've tried LOTS of different parameters, and it's still not working. Step 1, apply ink to stamp. Step 2, stamp pattern onto substrate. Endless variations on those two steps, and I still haven't come up with something halfway decent, even though I think I'm doing everything exactly as I find in literature.

So this is where lightning empiricism reaches its limits. Simply throwing darts at the problem isn't working, and I don't have time to keep flailing around until I happen to hit on something that works. If I've tried everything I know to try, and I still don't understand what's going on - then that's exactly what I'm left with. I don't understand what's happening.

And that is where I have to go back to theory. Back-of-the-envelope is no longer good enough, I need to have a deeper understanding of the fundamental concepts.

So I'm going back to the literature, learning more about the physical process of fluid transfer, surface-chemical interactions, and the work of adhesion. Simply dipping my toes into this world of literature has already maxed out my knowledge of chemistry, so it's going to be a mental stretch for me.

But let's face it, it wouldn't be much of a PhD if all I had was lightning empiricism - kind of the whole point is to have a deep understanding, right?

Keeping International Hours

2011-07-26T00:43:00.000-04:00

So remember that entrepreneurship conference that I help organize? Two years ago it was in Iceland, and this year it was in Korea. Well I'm pleased to announce that next year, I'm one of the two lead organizers.

I've already been working hard setting the stage for next year's conference. It's all been behind-the-scenes so far, but now we're going public.

Tonight I was woken up at 1am by a cell phone call from my co-lead-organizer. Before I could even clear my throat (and gees... need to go pee, people...) I found myself on a three-way Skype call with our website designer, who is currently in Delhi. After working through some final details, in the middle of the night we launched an updated website for the 2012 conference. And at 3am, sent out an official press release announcing the location of next year's upcoming conference.

Some people brag about what they can do before lunch - I'll see that, and raise you what I can do before I even get up in the morning. :)

All I'm saying is, it's just a good thing I slept in PJ's tonight - not a forgone conclusion, given how hot it is these days...

Let's See What We've Got

2011-07-25T17:07:00.000-04:00

I wrote recently about how my research has hit a bit of a snag - I am able to put ink on a stamp, but I'm not able to transfer the pattern of ink to a glass slide.

But what exactly is going wrong? I feel a bit dumb showing up to a weekly meeting, and just stammering "But... but... it's not working!?" I need to have more helpful information than that. WHAT is not working? Is some of the pattern transferring, but not all of it? Is the ink puddling on the slide? Is the ink not coming off the stamp at all? WHAT'S GOING ON?

Ref: http://draw.joshmillard.com/

I need to see what I've got. I need to apply eyeballs to the situation. So I spent an afternoon taking pictures of all the various ways my stamp is, well, not stamping.

First of all, what is it supposed to look like? Well, I'm trying to stamp a pattern of lines. A couple good lines would look like this:

Figure: Very simple. 50 um lines, spaced 100 um apart.

And what am I getting instead? Oh, lots of things. Sometimes when I peel the slide off the stamp, I can feel the slide stick to the stamp. And when I look at a "stuck" slide, you can see little pieces of stamp where they ripped off and stuck to the slide.

Figure: Bits of stamp. Stuck to slide. Very sad.

I think what is happening there, is that I didn't get the ink to coat the stamp very well. And the places where there was no ink, the stamp just bonded directly to the slide. Need ink, need ink...

Sometimes I can feel that when I press the stamp down onto the slide, I smudge it a little bit (apparently, my fingers are not calibrated down to microns...). And on the "smudged" slides, the lines look like this:

Looks pretty smudged, a fairly obvious conclusion. Most likely the ink was liquid, and beaded up into droplets when it shifted before it was dry.

I also get some funny areas where I see "clear" lines. It's supposed to be solid light-blue colored lines, but here you can just faintly see the outlines where the lines are supposed to be.

Let's zoom in, shall we?

Yep, looks pretty much like nothing is there. So what's going on? Turns out, if you color over those "clear" lines with Sharpie, it looks like SOMETHING is there.

Figure: Sharpie reveals all.

Huh. So when you paint over the slide with marker, it bleeds into lines - but it looks like there is nothing on the slide. The nothing must be something, right? Let's look at another Sharpied part of the slide.

Here we see a lot going on. We see the Sharpie bleeding into the clear lines, and then we see a couple solid lines that almost look like they are supposed to. And then we see these little wiggly things.

For the slides that I think should be "good results," (meaning no smudging, I didn't feel it stick, nothing else obvious went wrong), most of the slide is filled with these wiggly lines.

Wiggles, wiggles. You wouldn't know this unless I told you (which I am now doing), but those lines are way thinner than they are supposed to be. About 10 microns wide, instead of 50 microns wide.

And they are everywhere! Let's zoom in:

Hmm. Hard to focus.

In fact, the reason it's hard to focus is because those little wiggles are very tall. 10 microns tall, instead of a thin layer of 80 nanometers.

And what is this? Now this wiggles aren't even in lines anymore!

Wait - wait - let's think about this. Instead of flat, wide, thin lines in a logical order, we are getting tall, skinny, wiggly things that move around.

Aha! I think I know! The ink has become a FILM, instead of a LIQUID, and it's rolling into strings. We're making very tiny ropes! Ropes that then detach and wiggle around the slide. And in fact, we can catch one in the process of rolling:

Yep, yep. My nice pattern of liquid ink drops is not that at all. I'm getting film transfer, and the film is curling up under induced stresses. I'm making strings!

Well THAT'S fun.

All of the literature background research on transfer mechanisms that I did was involved with liquid transfer. But now that I know it's a film, that's a whole different ballgame.

Back to the drawing board...

Cooking Day

2011-07-23T18:00:00.000-04:00

Today was dedicated to cooking, and absolutely no research. I have recently discovered gojee.com, and I love it. LOVE it. It's a recipe site that suggests recipes for you, based on what you have in your kitchen already, what you are in the mood for, and taking into account the foods you don't like.

Awesome.

There are other sites that do this, and I've tried them before. But they all have fatal flaws - most commonly, the website is painful to list out all the ingredients you already own, and laborious to delete ingredients once you've used them up. And if not that, then the recipes suggested I don't like. For instance - I will never make anything that requires a box brownie mix. Or marshmallow fluff. That's just heresay. And I also don't do casseroles that call for hot dogs or cream-of-anything soup. And on the other extreme, I'm also not going to cook with caviar, liver, duck, or anything on the half-shell. And if it requires smoking a tomato? Not gonna happen. And even if the website manages both of those things, the interface is just ugly.

But gojee? None of those things. Simple, gorgeous, and serves up recipes that I can't wait to make. I die.

Today I was on a tear to use up all the produce in my fridge that is nearing its shelf life - I hate to have good food go bad! So I made:

Nectarine and Fennel Salad
Mustard-Maple Chicken with Quinoa-Cucumber Salad
Chicken Tagine with Fennel, Preserved Lemons, and Green Olives
- modified, because I only have fresh lemons, and I'm not even sure what a preserved lemon is...
Bread Pudding
- modified by adding currants, walnuts, and nutmeg

My kitchen smelled wonderful all day. And I have leftovers a-plenty!

Bring on the week. I don't know about research, but I've got the lunches DOWN.

Saudi Arabian High school program

2011-07-21T10:42:00.000-04:00

My university has a brand-new partnership with a university in Saudi Arabia, and part of the agreement is that there will be outreach to girls and women in Saudi Arabia (including specifying a certain amount of women be enrolled in the joint exchange student program). As another outreach effort, a two week summer camp was designed for high school girls. So ten Saudi high schoolers interested in math and science are currently here in Boston, learning about engineering.

World's Best School already hosts a LOT of summer camps. (See: hordes of small bodies clogging up the student center at lunch these days...). And in particular, it hosts a well-established high school girl's summer technology program, which runs for four weeks. I was involved in helping plan the two week program for the Saudi girls, and we collaborated with the existing four week program managers to draw from their experience (and class materials!). As additional collaboration, the Saudi girls will join the existing program for the final capstone project. The final capstone project requires materials and lab space for building things, and it's easier logistically to just add ten girls and supplies to an established program with sixty girls, then to come up with something from scratch. Especially since the timing overlaps so well, and this is the first year we've tried this program for the Saudi girls.

We also tried to include some extra-curricular items for the girls. There are a couple field trips to local engineering and technology companies. There's a trip to the beach for the annual national sand-castle building competition (we checked to make sure the beach was appropriate, and it was - although obviously they will not be wearing bikinis..), and a shopping trip.

And last night, there was a social event that I was in charge of. For all of these girls, this is the first time they have been in America, and for some of them, the first time being exposed to Western culture in general. Their high school teachers are women (as are all the teachers in this two-week program, by the way), but they may never have had a chance to meet female role models in the engineering/science fields.

So I invited four other women grad students that I know (all from varying majors), and we had dinner and dessert with the high school girls. It was just an informal thing (I had some puzzles/games to break the ice if necessary), and the purpose was basically to prove that people like me and my friends exist. There are, indeed, women who make a career out of math and science. I thought about inviting undergrad women, but they are mostly gone for the summer, and I thought about inviting a couple of the female faculty, but their schedules are more difficult, and I thought grad students were a little younger and more relatable anyway.

So last evening, I got to be privy to a pretty amazing thing. I have always felt that World's Best School is an incredibly humbling place - no matter how smart I think I am, there is always somebody smarter. No matter how organized, how creative, how disciplined I am - always, there is someone further than I on the spectrum. For a lot of incoming students here, knowing you aren't the best is a jarring realization that can completely kneecap their personal identity. I've tried to look at it as inspiring, but mostly it's just humbling.

But humble comes in many forms. As well as academic and intellectual humility, it is also humbling to meet people like these girls - people who have come from families, circumstances, even entire cultures that set up roadblocks in their way. I've always had support and encouragement, mentors and role models along the way, and I am very blessed to be where I am today. To witness girls who have not had the chances and opportunities I have, and yet have the determined spirit to overcome obstacles and succeed in following their passions - that, dear readers, is humbling.

I was instructed to set up that event for the purpose of inspiring these high school girls and showing them what's possible - but in the end, it had the result of inspiring ME. If these girls are here, possibilities are endless.

Well bugger, it's not working

2011-07-20T10:20:00.000-04:00

I'm hard at work on my PhD at the moment, trying my best to graduate by next June. I had a committee meeting in February, and then with the committee's approval I spent the spring semester building a machine that I would use to accomplish the research. I finished the machine, and this summer I've been trying to - well, get some results. I had a schedule for this summer, that ended with me having some experimental results and a second committee meeting this August. (The results, of course, being popularly understood as a good thing to have for the meeting.)

But here's the thing - it's not working. I've tried a lot of combinations of parameters, materials, and processes, and I can't get the basic process of my research to work. Here is the basic process:

Step 1: Apply ink to stamp
Step 2: Stamp onto a glass slide

Not hard, right? Really, can't be that bad.

Well it took me a good three weeks to get the "apply ink to stamp" step to work. Turns out you have to have a stamp of the correct material, you have to do some pre-treatment to the surface of the stamp with the correct parameters, you have to apply the ink in the correct manner, and you have to use ink with the correct properties.

Ack. Not trivial.

But now it works, Step 1. Step 1 and me are good buddies. I can do Step 1 all day long.

But Step 2? Step 2 is not cooperating.

I tried using my machine to do the stamping, and it wasn't working. I thought, fine, I'll go back to doing stamping by hand. But that wasn't really working either. I could sort-of get it to work under some conditions, and one day I even got enough to transfer to take a picture of under the microscope. Finally! I thought, I have proof that I can transfer the ink from the stamp to the slide!

But it's not repeatable, and I have no idea why it worked that day and now I can't get any good results. A tease, I tell you, a tease...

Flat stamp? Patterned stamp? Different patterned stamp? Different temperatures? Different methods of stamping? Different ink? Different pressures? Click my heels three times and say "there's no place like home"? Tried all those, and nada.

And all the while, that schedule is glaring at me. I know that research does hit obstacles, but I always expected I would be able to figure a way around them - I always have so far. But if I don't get that committee meeting in August, one of my committee members goes away on sabbatical for a whole year. So this July has really been crunch time for me getting something worth showing.

Well, July is flying away, and I'm crunched alright. But I don't feel like I have anything to show for it, and I'm nearly out of ideas on what else to try.

KitchenAid

2011-07-19T11:10:00.000-04:00

Last week, my hand mixer broke. The plastic body cracked all the way around, and I thought maybe I could still make it work - but the crack caused the two beaters to be out of alignment. Since they were no longer concentric, "mixing" became more like, "using both hands to keep the vibrating mixer from flying apart."

So I started looking for replacements to my $12 Wal-Mart special. There is no Wal-Mart in Boston, however, so rather than travel arduously by bus to the suburbs where one can find a Target, I opted to poke around online. As I sat with pursed lips in front of my screen, I pondered: Well, let's see - I could always get another of the same one. OR, I could get this nice $20 one - but ooh! The $34 one has a retractable cord...

Well, ladies and gents, by the end of my research, I was nearly ready to place an order for a KitchenAid stand mixer.

That tends to happen in my family. The oft-told story goes that we renovated and doubled the size of our house, starting because my mother didn't like the living room curtains. And more recently, my family gutted the home office, beginning with the fact that the air conditioner didn't work in that room. Projects tend to escalate quickly!

Back to my project, Operation: Replace Mixer.

A KitchenAid, if you are not familiar, is a serious tool. Depending on the model you get, it's also a $300-$400 investment at retail price. But what my family has taught me (besides "projects escalate quickly") is that it is critical to have the right tool for the job. Actually, I suspect the two go hand in hand. Escalating projects is only a winning proposition if you are properly prepared for the expanded vision...

So is the KitchenAid a tool I need? I cook quite a bit, and use my mixer often. And man, the KitchenAid can do so much more than a little hand mixer... and the attachments! Endless opportunities. Good for hours of dreaming for someone like me, interested in both mechanical tools and cooking.

And the best part? At Amazon, the color I wanted was on sale for $206.

Figure: Ah, lovely...

Now let me be clear - the KitchenAid comes in many colors. Standard colors are available all the time, and then every so often they come out with specialty colors. Pioneer Woman even sold off a yellow flowered variety.

I happen to think that pattern is terrible, but in my browsing I found there was yet a worse option. Pepto-Bismol, baby powder pink. Sheesh.

Figure: Okay, I think it's actually for cancer, so it gets a pass for being a good cause.

And in fact, you can get a whole range of pink kitchen implements!

I feel about pink kitchen tools about the same as I feel about pink construction tools.

And that being, that if you can't handle the full-powered version of a tool, you shouldn't be playing with it. This applies to the "baby" versions of tools that come in pink, like the above drill, which is powered with all of 9.6 Volts. Don't hurt yourself, now...

To be fair, I did have a friend point out an excellent argument - that if you are a woman who can handle tools, there are legitimate, high-quality tools that come in pink. And there is one good reason to consider purchasing such a thing.

Figure: That's more like it. Comes with proper drill bits and 18V battery. Could be lithium ion, but still.

And that being, your tools will not get stolen (and believe me, tools have a ridiculous tendency to walk off). My chemistry friends would say that tools have a high vapor pressure... think about it... think about it... okay, maybe bad joke. In any case - if you work on a construction site, none of the men would be caught dead with a pink drill. And even if someone DID swipe your tools, it would be immediately obvious, because who else would have a pink one? I mean, let's not kid ourselves and think more than one woman would probably be working on a construction site.

So I will grant you that argument. But in my kitchen, nothing is getting stolen. Therefore, no pink. I want my KitchenAid to blend in, be a beautiful component of my counter space. Like so:

Figure: Can you see it? Hiding over there by the oven?

So that black KitchenAid baby was in my cart, and I was so tempted. I left it there to think overnight (another lesson from family - never rush the thinking portion of a project...). And what I decided was this: 1) I haven't saved up the chunk of cash I need for such a purchase, and money is definitely one of the "proper tools" needed for a project. And 2) I have been getting along just fine with a hand mixer so far. And finally, 3) Does my kitchen look like this?

Figure: My DREAM kitchen looks like this, granted.

No, no it does not. I still have a tiny efficiency kitchen, and I feel like getting a KitchenAid is a life step. Kind of like getting the white picket fence and the dog. And honestly, I'm just not there yet. When I have a house - or shoot, even an apartment with a dishwasher - then I'll revisit this.

So for now, I deleted the KitchenAid from my cart.

Actually, that's not quite true - I "Saved for Later."

Because you better believe I'll be back for it. And in the meantime, I splurged for the $34 hand mixer with retractable cord, daggone it, because I'm at least ONE step up from the $12 model. :)

Engineer Blogs, July Update

2011-07-19T10:27:00.000-04:00

Over at Engineer Blogs, I talk about how many ways there are to make mistakes in the machine shop. And, I discuss a few of the different kinds of belts there are, and the concept of crowned wheels (which, apparently, is a concept that neither Google nor Wikipedia can immediately help you find - and usually you can find almost any topic in the top three of one or the other).

Engineer Blogs, June Roundup

2011-07-05T11:44:00.000-04:00

In June on Engineer Blogs, I've talked about how things like Gantt charts help to schedule your work. I've posed the question - how do you measure success as an engineer? And for the holiday weekend, it seems appropriate to wonder, how much do you socialize with your coworkers?

Korea Conference Wear

2011-06-16T14:11:00.000-04:00

This post is on dress code, which is kind of an odd topic, but since it's my blog I can write as I choose - so here you go. As my dad says, it's good to be king.

During the conference I helped organize in Korea, the team wears a "uniform" of sorts. It's not an entire outift uniform, just some identifying piece of clothing. This is common practice every year, and the goal is to make it easier for the conference attendees to recognize the staffers, so they can ask questions, request help, or of course compliment us on the awesome job we're doing. :)

Last year, we had blue ties for the men, and blue scarves for the women. But to be honest, the quality of the ties wasn't all that good, and the bright baby blue color was a bit loud (and so, looked a bit cheap). This year, we wanted to up the quality of the uniform.

So we had really nice ties designed, out of high-quality material, and with a subtle conference logo stiched in. I helped design them, and I was quite pleased with how they turned out. (As a side note - four engineers, sitting around a conference table, trying to converge on an aesthetically pleasing tie design? Hilarious.)

So the ties were no problem, but the issue was this - the minimum order of women's scarves was 150. And we only had five girls going. So, we girls could either a) wear a tie too, b) find a scarf in a similar color, or c) wear nothing. Well, not nothing, but no uniform at least...

I happen to think women in ties can look really professional - the woman in question just has to have the confidence to pull it off. (As another side note, I just googled for images of women in ties to find a picture to illustrate that point, and apparently a lot of men have women-in-suit fantasies. Definitely a NSFW search, who'd have guessed? Teach me to blog at work...)

Never having lacked in confidence (ahem, for better or worse), I opted to wear the tie. With, might I mention, all buttons buttoned on my shirt. Sheesh.

I had to get one of the guys to tie it for me the first day, though, because I didn't actually know how to tie a tie. I wore a suit, as shown above, and it didn't stand out too much.

The second day I chose a pencil skirt and no jacket, so the tie was more obvious. Still, nobody really did a double-take, so I think it still looked professional. I also learned how difficult it is to get a tie to hit right at the proper length at your waistband - you have to guess ahead of time, because you use up a lot of tie fabric while making the knot. I guess guys have a lot of practice at this, but for me it's a bit tricky.

Now, all the other girls on the team opted for the "no uniform" option. While I understand why they didn't want to wear a tie (have to have a collared shirt, it's an odd fashion statement, etc.), come on now, I think that's cheating!

Because hardly any of the conference attendees realized the other four girls were part of the hosting team - they had no identifier, and the rest of the guys and me all had the same ties. So none of the attendees asked the other women any questions, or bothered them about water bottles, or asked about getting a new nametag, or any other host-type questions. No fair! :)

Figure: Obligatory MySpace shot, dedicated to my sister who is the queen of self-posing

In the end, nobody cared that I was wearing a tie, and in fact I got several compliments. What do you think - would you have gone for a scarf?

Post on Engineer Blogs

2011-06-15T00:16:00.000-04:00

Check out my latest post on lab notebooks over at Engineer Blogs - more content coming for this blog this week. :)

Goal of the Day

2011-06-09T21:24:00.000-04:00

On Monday I took a step gym class, on Tuesday I took a strength gym class, and on Wednesday I played basketball outside with guys who were fans of fast-break, no-blood-no-foul street rules.

Today my main agenda was to figure out how to get to lab, do my work, and make it home again with the absolute minimum number of stairs, or other occasions for which I might have to use my legs.

My Newest Baby Lives!

2011-06-07T21:32:00.000-04:00

The main reason that I chose the graduate lab that I am in, is because we BUILD things here. Of course I spend a lot of time on the computer, and a decent amount on theory and modeling, but in the end - I get to MAKE things. Hello, machine shop. My personal therapy.

My Master's degree was spent designing, building, and testing a machine. I built a second machine sort of between Master's and PhD project, which was a improved and smaller version of the first machine, applied to a different manufacturing process.

And now, I have built a third machine as part of the "make it happen!" stage of the PhD. This third machine is basically a stamping machine. The stamping manufacturing process will go like this: I put a rubber stamp onto a spincoating chuck, squirt on some ink, spin the stamp to spread the ink into a thin even coating, and then I carefully press a substrate onto the stamp to transfer the inked pattern. I then heat up the substrate to evaporate any remaining liquid and make sure the pattern is dry.

The trick here is that the substrate has to be very precisely aligned with the stamp. To do this precise alignment, I used kinematic couplings and designed a flexure to control the movement of the substrate during the stamping process. I wrote about the fixturing and the flexure design on Engineer Blogs, so go check it out there.

The key takeaway is that the machine I designed looked like this in CAD:

And then I spent some time in the machine shop, and the machine in real life now looks like this:

Two weeks ago, I prepared to press the "On" button for the first time. I had my safety glasses on, and I stood for a good thirty seconds with my finger poised over the button, running through everything in my head to make sure I had everything hooked up properly.

Finally, with a deep breath, I took the plunge.

And nothing happened.

Now, actually, this is not the worst thing that could happen. Nothing blew up, so it's still a minor success. The base of this stamping machine is a spincoater, available commercially. But of course the warranty is completely voided, because the first thing I did was take it all apart. And in the process of putting it back together, because I am making so many modifications (taking off the fairing and the bowl, adding an internal valve to change the vacuum chuck to a positive pressure chuck, changing to air purge instead of N2 purge, etc.), I had to short out all the safety interlocks.

So it's not at all unreasonable that something might blow up upon applying power for the first time.

(Actually one would think I should have turned this on and tested it BEFORE I took it apart... but where is the fun in that?)

Upon consulting the owner's manual, I discovered that the machine will not power on until sufficient vacuum and purge pressures are applied. So I proceeded to hook up the required inputs.

(Actually one would think I should have read the owner's manual first, but again, the fun? where is it?)

Then, not expecting much, I tried hitting the On switch again. Instant power! Lights started flashing, I could hear the pump running, and a faint hiss where I hadn't sealed a fitting well enough. Gees. I didn't even have my safety glasses on... and I didn't get to do any build-up or suspenseful pause, or anything! Oh well, it turned on, fanfare or no. :) With that progress, I called it a day, and went home for dinner.

And by last week, I had the machine not only turning on, but programmed with recipes, a homing routine, manual internal valves, and a vacuum chuck on the substrate side. My presentation at my weekly progress meeting with my advisor last week was one small square of glass stamped (badly, at that) with green food coloring.

It's not much to look at, but this means that my PhD stamping machine is designed, fabricated, assembled, and capable of running experiments.

So I'm pleased to report, my baby lives!

Guest Posting at Engineer Blogs - May Roundup

2011-06-06T21:22:00.000-04:00

Hey there - I'm sorry it's been a ghost town around here! I miss blogging, so I'm hoping to pick it up again regularly. In the mean time, check out my past few week's posts on Engineer Blogs:

I discuss my homeschooling background and how it contributed to my career as an engineer,

I jokingly disparage theoretical engineers as opposed to hands-on engineers,

but then of course I know theory is useful, so I talk about the design of flexures.

And then this week, I talk about what tools of the trade are essential for your job. What would your essential tools be?

Amusing Comments

2011-05-12T09:35:00.000-04:00

It's well known in my office that I work on a lot of side projects. In fact, I take a lot of teasing for all the things I explore that are non-research-related.

Late last week a very large package arrived for me. I eagerly brought it into the office, scooting it across the floor. I grabbed a crowbar and attacked the crate, tearing off packaging and ripping through plastic. Soon I was surrounded by a pile of fluffy peanuts, discarded cords, and stretched out plastic wrap.

Triumphantly, I pulled out the central piece of equipment. "Look," I squealed, "how cool is THIS!"

One of my labmates sauntered by my cube, poked his head in, and inquired, "Oh is this another one of your side projects?" And from the next cube over, a voice piped up, "Yeah what are you working on now, Miss Outlier?"

Oh come on now, people! Does nobody believe I actually do research anymore? Give me some credit here! :)

_________________________________

I play basketball every week, and this week we picked up a couple new players. As I was running back across the court after a play, I noticed one of the new guys was chuckling with my teammate. When I glanced at them, my teammate offered up, rather embarrassedly:

"He says you distracted him on that last play, because you smell good." Well there's a new one!

"Yeah," piped up the new guy, "I'm sorry, I've never played basketball before with somebody who.... well, smells good!"

I laughed and took it as a compliment. Really it's my deodorant - normally you can't really smell it, but when I'm sweaty and blocking with my arms up, I guess you can! Way better than sweaty boy smell, I can guarantee. :)

Point at Which PhD Students Wander

2011-05-11T12:32:00.000-04:00

In my meeting last week with my advisor, he asked me to come prepared with a schedule for the summer. True to my engineering training, I put together a Gantt chart of tasks and deadlines for things I would like to accomplish for research this summer.

My advisor wanted me to make a schedule so that he could keep me honest, basically - if I have target deliverables each week, then he can check and make sure I'm doing what I'm supposed to. If I have no target, he has no way to know whether I'm doing enough or not. (Of course, I kind of like it that way... I have plenty of side projects to keep me busy!)

But making a schedule is good - and a little accountability never hurt! Especially since I had a committee meeting in February, and my goal is to have the next one in August. The schedule I put together for the summer is designed to have me in a good position for a committee meeting - equipment designed and fabricated, some experiments completed, and an analysis of the experiments compared to a theoretical model. If I can get that done, I'll have a nice chunk of progress completed, and a good story to tell at the committee meeting.

It will also be a nice time to get some feedback (wait - committee members can be helpful? what a concept!). I have no idea what the results of the preliminary experiments will be, and those results are going to drive my research going forward. So it would be useful to get some direction from the committee at that point. Or, as may be more likely, I may just direct myself and simply ask for confirmation... :)

But my advisor made this comment during the meeting: "The other reason I asked you to make a schedule is because this is the point in the PhD when a lot of students begin to wander." About two years into the PhD, it turns out, is kind of a critical juncture for students. My advisor has found that if he doesn't keep students motivated during this period, one of two things can happen. First, they may think that graduation is too far off to worry about, they have plenty of time to get the work done, and consequently have little motivation to keep making progress. Or, they may think that the amount of work is insurmountable, and they become discouraged and again have little motivation to continue forward.

I think in my case, I have just discovered too many other cool things which I am also motivated to work on... so it's time to regroup!

Onward with the PhD! If I'm going to be out of here next June, (and believe me, people, I am highly motivated to graduate) this summer is crucial to getting some progress made... No wandering!

Fixturing and Constraints on Engineer Blogs

2011-05-07T20:55:00.000-04:00

I try my hand at a slightly more technical post on Engineer Blogs this week - check out some thoughts on fixturing and constraints, and how I design accurate alignment with kinematic couplings.

Sightseeing in Korea

2011-05-05T20:36:00.000-04:00

I recently went to Korea for a conference, and I intentionally stayed an extra two days so that I could have a chance to do some sightseeing.

Of course two days isn't nearly enough to explore an entire country, but I did my best to see a bunch of things. I took one of the very touristy "hop-on, hop-off" buses that runs loops around the sights of Seoul. I "hopped off" at a traditional village.

Figure: Traditional village, right in the middle of modern Seoul.

Turns out, the traditional village didn't have much to do, because it wasn't set up as museum or anything, it's just a bunch of empty buildings. Neat architecture, but moving on, moving on...

I attempted to "hop on" that bus, which was supposed to come around every 20 minutes, but I waited thirty minutes and saw no sign of my bus. I did however see every possible city bus route, and approximately seventilly buses from other touristy companies, just to taunt me. Just as I was pondering buying a ticket for one of those OTHER hop-on-hop-off companies, who actually seemed to be in the "hopping-on" business instead of just the "hopping-off" side - my bus finally appeared.

I went to see Seoul Tower, which is like the Empire State Building in that the only reason people go, is to make it to the top and look out. So I went. Rode to the top. Looked out the side. Tried to take pictures, but the windows were dirty.

Huh?

The one attraction is to look out, and the windows are crusted up? Come on now... Also it was a twenty minute wait to get to the elevator to go back down. How is that possible? Doesn't conservation of mass indicate that if I only had to wait 5 minutes to go UP, there shouldn't be a twenty minute line to get DOWN? Tis a mystery...

On Saturday night, a bunch of us went out to the local clubs. Since I was sightseeing with four single guys, I was not surprised that they were way more excited about this than I was. In contrast to Boston, where the bars and clubs all close at 2am, the nightlife never stops in Seoul. The subway stops running from 1am to 5am, so the common thing is to stay out at least to 5am, so you can get home. I went home at 3am (by cab, thank you very much), but the guys apparently made a night of it.

I have to say that the clubbing scene is much different than Boston. In Seoul, the clubs are packed into one area, with people pouring out into the streets and just hanging out on the sidewalks, and the feeling is incredibly alive and vibrant. And in the clubs, the music of choice is techno/electronic. In Boston, you can't have alcohol outside, so everybody is inside, and the common music is hip-hop, or house music.

Let me just say that I'm not bad as a dancer, (especially as an engineer), but I could not for the life of me figure out how to dance to techno. Fortunately once the club got busy, there was no need - everybody was packed in so tightly, it hardly mattered. It was an experience I wouldn't have missed - the lasers, light show, special effects, and electric atmosphere were pretty incredible.

Until 3am. And then nothing but bed is incredible in my book.

Sunday I took a tour to the DMZ - the border between North and South Korea. This was actually my favorite part of the trip. It's pretty fascinating to hear the history of Korea, which I only knew a little about. For instance, there is a railroad that goes from South Korea to North Korea and back that ran every day from 2003-2008. Did you know that? I had no idea. I thought that border has been sealed with machine guns ever since the DMZ was established.

The plan was to bring raw materials from the South, manufacture items using cheap labor in the North, and then have huge warehouses to store the goods. It's pretty incredible that enough companies got together to finance such a risky venture, I think. For a while it worked great, and then a North Korean guard shot a South Korean woman on the train, and they shut it down. So now there is the brand new train station, and giant warehouses, just sitting empty. It's eerie, really.

Also cool to learn that four tunnels have been discovered underneath the border. The North Koreans claim the tunnels were built to invade towards the north, but since all the dynamite marks are going south, and the tunnel slopes toward the south, it's pretty obvious the purpose was to invade South Korea... And the DMZ tour lets you go down and walk in these tunnels. The closest you can get to the North Korean border is 170 meters, which is where you are stopped by a concrete wall. So folks, I've been as close to North Korea as I care to get. This lady writes about the same tour with much more elegance and better photos than I, so you can visit her blog for her take.

Sunday we visited a traditional temple, which was beautiful and calm.

Still surrounded by Seoul, but peaceful nonetheless. It's a functioning temple, so people were there praying and lighting incense.

And the artwork and detailed architecture - gorgeous. Why can't churches in the US be like this? We pat ourselves on the back when we hang a nice banner on the putty-white wall above the gray Berber carpet, or when we put a few flowers on the stage once a year for Easter. These people paint every ceiling (see above)

... put sculptures on the church grounds...

...and hang colorful, cheerful pendants that dance in the breeze.

Beauty in nature and creativity in expression are part of God's gifts as well, and I might enjoy going to church more if it looked more like this. :) It's one of the things I have always enjoyed about Catholic churches in particular, actually.

Anyway - in conclusion, Seoul was an adventure I will not soon forgot. I enjoyed seeing the city, tried to experience some of the culture, and definitely established that I will have to go back in order to fully explore! For instance, I didn't get to go to a tea ceremony, which I would have liked, or go to the outdoor marketplace. Another time, another time. Until then, I will enjoy the memories.

Lemon Rolls

2011-05-04T17:43:00.000-04:00

I saw this recipe for Lemon Rolls come up in my Google Reader - and come on, how could I not? And cream cheese glaze... well consider me sold.

So for the most recent study break for my girls in the dorm, I made cookies and lemon rolls.

The dough is a pretty basic yeasted bread variety, but lemon juice and zested lemon are included for an extra kick.

Yummy filling... seemed so odd to be making rolls with no cinnamon sugar! I decided I would have to have two rolls, to properly decide if they reached the standard cinnamon-roll quality bar.

Rolling out and spreading the filling...

then rolling right back up!

Trying not to squash the pretty roll as I cut it (I used to hate mushing the roll when I made cinnamon rolls as a kid with my Mom... but with freshly sharp knives, and a little better adult motor skills, it seemed to work out!).

If you a nerd like me, you will realize that the fattest rolls are at the center of the roll, and the smallest ones are at the end. So the optimum placing of the rolls in the pan is not in sequential order... but instead the biggest rolls should be in the same row as the smallest, second-biggest with second-smallest, etc.

But no matter how much time you spend over-thinking it, in the end it doesn't matter all that much. Look at that deliciousness! Add the cream cheese glaze, and...

... drool. My girls and I polished off two 8x10 pans of these, plus cookies. I'd say a winner!

Eating in Korea

2011-05-03T11:33:00.000-04:00

If I might jog your memory, last year I helped organize an entrepreneurship conference, which was held in Iceland. I got to meet the President of Iceland, visit the Blue Lagoon, and snowmobile out to the erupting volcano. Oh, and of course, run the conference...

This year I was also involved in running the same conference, held in Seoul, South Korea during the last week of March. I will have another post about the sightseeing I did in Korea, but for today I want to talk about the food in Korea. (all tongue-in-cheek of course, no disrespect intended anywhere...)

One of the first things I noticed when walking around the city was that all the people over there (the women especially) are much smaller than in America. A little shorter, maybe, but that's not the main thing - mostly they are just skinny! This is partly because a large portion of people in the US are overweight, so I'm not used to seeing a population that is a healthy weight.

But even accounting for my perception bias, I mean - come on. Those women had hips that were as big around as one of my legs. How is that possible? Are they missing organs?

But then, dear friends, I discovered the answer. After a week of eating in Korea, it is quite simple - it's the food!

Consider the Korean Barbeque. Many people even in the states have had Korean food in this style. You order a meat (beef, chicken, whatever your fancy) which is brought to you - for you to cook yourself. It falls unfortunately to the youngest person in the group to cook for the rest of the group, out of respect. So already you have one person who has no time to eat.

Figure: See the guy on the far right? No smile. He's the youngest, and has spent all his time cooking, and hasn't eaten any of it.

And the rest of the group? Well while you wait for the raw food you paid good money to cook, they bring you endless sides to munch on. Endless sides, you say? Fantastic! Well, not really. All the side dishes come on tiny little saucers, with only a couple bites worth of food. But they are refillable, you say, so who cares how much is on each plate? Ah yes, excellent point. The reason they only give you that much turns out to be because nobody wants to eat more than those couple bites.

Figure: At the VIP dinner on Thursday night

Either the side dish is ridiculously spicy (whole peppers on a plate? entire cloves of garlic? really?), or pickled (the favorite preparation method for perfectly good vegetables is to add vinegar), or - wait for it - ROTTEN. Yes. Spoiled, fermented, whatever you call it, that food is no good. What am I talking about? Oh, you know it. Kimchi. YES, kimchi, a food which is inexplicably a favorite dish for many people. The way you make kimchi is to put cabbage in a jar and LEAVE IT, possibly for years, and then hope all the spices you dumped in cover the smell and taste. When recipes have to warn you that "film may develop at the top of the jar," or "may bubble over time," then I think you need to step back and re-evaluate...

And what if you don't eat meat? Well, you can try ordering a vegetarian dish. But the problem is that fish and seafood are considered vegetarian. We've already established that most foods are prepared way beyond their original recognizable state, so it's already a gamble what you are eating. The one dish which is always vegetarian is "bibimbap" which is actually my favorite food in Korea. Everybody else liked it too, (had no kimchi, so already you are starting off well), so we all ended up running around yelling, "Bibimbap! Bibimbap!" when trying to get a decent meal. Fortunately all the vegetarians on our team were that way out of choice, and not allergic, so if they ended up eating any "vegetarian" meats, we just chalked it up to life experience and kept going...

At the end of the conference, we decided we could all use a drink, so we took ourselves out to celebrate.

All of the team ordered a beer, except for one guy. He ordered a cocktail, which (he claims) is a "manly" drink in the US, and usually comes in a highball glass with ice, like a Scotch.

Figure: hello fruity girl drink

Well, not in Korea. Apparently here, that cocktail is a bright pink frothy drink that comes in a girl glass. With a cherry on top!

To end the night on a proper manly note, then, the gentlemen decided to relax with a couple Cuban cigars. (Available in Korea, but not the US. I am however skeptical that they could tell the difference; I view this in the same category with people who claim to tell the difference between a $40 and a $200 wine. I say after you crack $25, to the majority of people the wine's about the same...) Problem was, it was really cold in March when you are on a windy 17th floor balcony.

So here are our manly gentlemen, bundled up in bathrobes and a bedspread. Except the guy on the left, who you will note is the same one who ended up with the fruity drink. I think he was trying to redeem himself. That, and there were no more bathrobes... :)

On our last day in Korea, we went to a highly recommended spot for a traditional dish, ginseng chicken soup. Finally, I thought - chicken soup! Not spicy, not fermented. This I can handle. But when the dish arrived at our table, imagine my surprise to learn that chicken soup means that a whole baby chicken is stuffed into a bowl of chicken broth, and handed to you with chopsticks.

Do you remember my argument that the reason Korean women are gorgeous and skinny is because of the food? People, the traditional dish is a whole bird in a broth, with CHOPSTICKS for the complicated de-boning process and for eating a liquid.

I rest my case.

Discussion of Undergrad Education at Engineer Blogs

2011-05-02T11:08:00.000-04:00

My posting over at Engineer Blogs is late this week, but take a look -

Check out the discussion on whether undergrad engineering changes depending on what school you attend, or even where in the world you are. What do you think?

Globetrotter Returns Home

2011-05-02T11:03:00.000-04:00

Home again, home again. The year of 2011 is turning into the year of traveling - and just in the past month, I've been to Korea for a week, Turkey for three days, and Denmark for four days.

It's always so good to be back in your own bed. I got home from Copenhagen last night, stayed up to a reasonable hour to combat jet-lag, and today I'm back in the saddle. I have only one pair of clean underwear left, so tomorrow will have to be the day I get my house back in order, but today the plan is to get the office under control. Can only do so much at a time!

There's always things you miss when you are gone for a while. Today I am particularly grateful for the following:

- a full night's sleep, after a week of 7am-2am days
- simple yogurt and granola for breakfast, after heavy hotel breakfasts
- my own shampoo and conditioner and my favorite J&J baby lotion, after the funny-smelling amenities at the hotels
- listening to music, after constant meetings
- access to cell phone to hear the voices of people I miss, after a week of email-only contact with the U.S.
- worrying about mundane things and diving back into my comfort zone, after having to think high-level strategic thoughts and work through challenging growth

And, as a bonus, spring has arrived in Boston while I was gone! The trees and flowers have bloomed, the sun is out, the air smells fresh and new and flowery, and I am (gasp!) wearing a sandals and a skirt.

Life is good!

Engineer Blogs - Perception Week

2011-04-22T21:39:00.001-04:00

My post is up on Engineer Blogs on the stereotypes of engineers and business people. It's "perceptions of engineering" week on Engineer Blogs, so go check it out!

I'm now an approved writer for Engineer Blogs, (yay!) so look for a post from me there every Friday.

End of Medical Study

2011-04-13T12:17:00.000-04:00

For the past two years, I've been a participant in a medical study called CALERIE. The point was to measure what happens to a person (specifically, their metabolism and how fast their body ages) when you restrict the amount of calories they eat.

Research on this topic began in the early 80s, and it has since been proven pretty solidly that lifespan increases and illness decreases when calories are cut. Primitive organisms were the original experimental model, and then mice (I believe they cut the calories by 50%), and then when that worked they moved on to larger animals. Here's an article explaining a study that began in 1989, following monkeys with a diet restricted by 30% of normal calories. They've been studying these monkeys 20 years now, pretty much just seeing how long before they die... and it's a long time. The findings have been pretty incredible - a multitude of benefits seem to be associated with eating less.

In fact, there are people who already voluntarily restrict calories in attempt to live longer. It used to be a fringe trend, starting in the 90s, but now it's more mainstream. Most of the people dedicated to this lifestyle look like skeletons to me... but hey, maybe that's worth it if you live longer...?

So this CALERIE study was designed to test the aging/calorie link in humans. The goal was to create a calorie deficit of 25% of each subject's normal consumption (any more restriction than that was deemed unsustainable in reality, and too difficult on the subjects). There are two ways to create a calorie deficit (which means you consume fewer calories than you burn). One is to eat less, and one is to burn more calories. Phase I of the CALERIE study was a six-month study, and they tried three methods of calorie restriction. Method 1 restricted food by 25%, Method 2 added enough exercise to create a 25% deficit, and Method 3 was a combination of less food and more exercise.

At the end of Phase I, they found out that it's very very hard to exercise enough to burn 25% more calories than you normally do. Say, two hours in the gym. Every day.

Unsurprisingly, that method was very hard for people to stick to.

The combination method (more exercise and less food) still required people to spend about an hour in the gym, as well as diet. That also turned out to be difficult, and complicated logistically. So they settled on the food-only method. I would argue that it's still very difficult to do, but at least it's less time-intensive, and simpler to keep track of, and overall the most efficient method of calorie restriction.

So enter Phase II of the study, a two-year commitment to eat 25% less than you normally do. I signed up for the study, made it through the screening process, and was randomly assigned to the restricted group (as opposed to the control group, who really lucked out because they got paid the same amount for not changing a thing about their eating...).

At the beginning, I thought it was going to be easy. "They're paying me for this?" I thought, "and all I have to do is write down what I eat, and cut out the chips and cookies? Well bring it on!"

For the first month of study, they provided me food to eat. They do this to help you start the new habit of eating less - the meals they provide are sized to the amount of calories that you are allowed (or, your "calorie prescription" they call it). So you don't have to worry about calculating anything, you just eat the prepared food. I missed having chocolate (not part of the prepared meals...) but in general, it was easy peasy.

And life was going fantastically. From April to June, (two months) I had gone from my starting weight of 180 to a weight of 165. I felt better, I looked better, and what wasn't to like? By November (seven months), I was down to 160. I was on track, I weighed just what I was "supposed to." I was in the proper "weight zone" on the graph. According to the study directors, if I stuck to the 25% restriction, I should settle out at about 152 in a couple more months.

Now I have to tell you people, I have never weighed 152. Maybe for two weeks once when I was 12, as I rushed past that number during a growth spurt. So I was always skeptical that I would get to that weight. But I had no reason to doubt it - the trend line was going that way.

But here is where it fell apart.

In January of 2010, ten months in, I stopped losing weight after hitting a low of 157. I also started to really feel the pressure of recording everything that I ate. For someone so data-driven as I am, having to know and be aware of the calories of every single bite going into my mouth really bothered me. I never had to control my calories or my weight before, and having to control that area of my life was really making me become obsessive.

And also once I stopped losing weight, I went outside the approved "weight zone," because I was still supposed to be losing weight to get down to 152. So then every time I went to the study office to weigh in, I was told I was overweight. Hearing that for months in a row really started to influence me as well.

So it got really hard, really quick. But I am nothing if not an overachiever, so I tried really, really hard to stay on track.

I am ashamed to say that I would just not eat - I'd decide to basically starve myself rather than see a number on the scale that was too high. In fact I recall a time that I didn't eat for five days. But dang it, that number was correct when I weighed in on the scale.

The problem with that, as you may have guessed, is that it is unsustainable. Even if you don't eat, the weight you lose is mostly water, so you gain it right back when you start eating again.

Then I was in a quandary. I had to weigh in once a week. I knew from experience that I lose at a rate of two pounds a day if I don't eat (and the fact that I know that, is a testament to how badly I let this study mess with my head). So do the math - if I'm eight pounds overweight, I have to not eat for four days before weigh-in. If I was six pounds overweight, I had to not eat for three days. Now I kept thinking to myself, "I'll just get down to that weight and they STAY THERE, so I won't have to do this again." But as I said, you go right back to your previous weight because the loss isn't real - it's only water.

So do the math. Fasting for three days to make weight, then weigh in. Eat normally for three days, go right back up to previous weight. But recall that you have to weigh in every week - so you have four days left until next weigh in. And so then you have only one more day to eat before you have to start fasting again.

You can imagine this did not end well.

The turning point came one particular morning, and I remember it clearly. I woke up, and I really didn't feel very good. But I went to study headquarters anyway to weigh-in. I stepped on that scale, talked to the nutritional counselor as usual for a little while just to check in, and left early because I was feeling worse. On my way out of the building, I stopped to use the bathroom and get a drink of water. I just felt so tired and dizzy, so I went in the handicap stall and laid down on the floor. Twenty minutes later I looked up and realized that I must have fallen asleep.

Right then I realized I was being ridiculous. Of course I didn't feel well, and of course I passed out on the bathroom floor - I hadn't eaten for three days. And before that, I had only eaten for four days, because the week earlier I had done the same thing. I was putting my body through the wringer - and here's the catch - for NOTHING. Because all I could think was that the number on the scale was still too high.

Ladies and gents, we have a problem.

I am too smart to not see what was happening. When I stopped enjoying food, when I started thinking of my meals in 100-calorie increments, when I started feeling guilty for eating, when I started weighing myself twice a day compulsively, when I would eat junk food and be in tears while eating, when I would specifically say no to outings with friends because I'd have to eat high-calorie foods - these are not healthy things.

Trying to cut my calories by 25% created an eating disorder, plain and simple.

So in September, around the eighteen month mark, I called it quits. My weight had bounced around a bit, and I was back at about 163. So in total, for all the frustration I put myself through, I weighed essentially no differently than I had the previous November.

Ugh. SO not worth it.

I am pleased to say I have dropped as many unhealthy habits as I could. I weighed myself once a day as required, but no more. I stopped writing down everything I ate, and refused to feel guilty for eating. I never starved myself ever again.

Even though I had decided not to worry about restriction anymore, I still continued with the study. They can still use the data, after all. And so since I was still involved with the study, still weighing in every two weeks, it was still always in the back of my mind. I still knew the calories in things, I still cooked with lower calories in mind, I still always had a niggling feeling I was failing. Failing because without trying to restrict my calories, my weight started to creep up. From the 163 last September, I am 169 as of today. Still, I'd like to point out, that is down from the starting weight of 180, although nowhere near the fantasy eating-disorder-creating "goal" of 152.

And today - well, today is a beautiful day.

Today I am officially done with the study. Yesterday was my last day as a part of the study, and I was released from the hospital where I had to stay for two nights for testing at 8am this morning.

It's only appropriate that I end with a graph. Here is my weight, taken almost daily for the past two years. Highlighted points are the starting point of 180 on April 30th 2009, low point of 157.4 on December 9th 2009, and ending point of 169.0 today April 13th 2011. In the middle, around days 430-530 (June - September 2010) you can see the wild swings that occur when you misguidedly try starving yourself...

I am so, so thrilled to be done. Even though for the last six months, and really for the last year, I haven't been following the 25% restriction, I still have had to deal with the mental and emotional aspects of this study. Had I known what this would be like, I never would have signed up. Maybe given some time, I'll have a different perspective and can see the benefit, but for now I just have to give a hearty "take a hike" to the whole experience.

Evidence from monkeys or not, longer life is only useful if you enjoy the living. Carpe diem, and pass me a brownie!

Of High Standards and Pressures

2011-04-05T21:48:00.000-04:00

It's been a long time since I've posted here. I miss it, but sadly blogging is one of the first things to go when I get busy. I've been traveling to a conference, which I hope to write about soon (and which I allude to here at Engineer Blogs). But instead of getting bogged down in all the things I'm behind on blogging about, I'm just going to start in with what's on my mind.

I've had two people in the last week tell me that I have very high standards for myself and that I'm under a lot of pressure.

And this has stuck out in my mind (not only because of the separate sources this came from) because first, I don't really think I have high standards, and second I never really consider myself as being under pressure either.

On the first count, I will admit that upon consideration - yes, I do have high standards. But I don't think that's a bad thing, or that it should be a rare thing. If I know the right way to do something, or I think I can figure out a better/more efficient way, that's how I try to do things. If I don't do what I'm supposed to do, then it's my fault, and I don't blame anyone else. I try to cut myself some slack when I'm tired or busy, but in general I try to take care of everything that I've committed myself to.

My favorite people in life all have very high standards for themselves, if I think about it, and they inspire me. The people I know who have very low standards, I have little respect for. High standards I think should be the default setting - and if you are shirking your responsibilities in life, I think there better well be a reason for it.

I've also been told I'm lacking in the compassion department. I'm sure that ties in. :) I don't have much sympathy for people who don't do what they a) know they should and b) are capable of doing. I guess on a fundamental level I don't understand why there are people who don't do what they should. Why don't people just make SENSE, and act LOGICALLY, danggit? :) Ah, the life wish of an engineer.

And it also doesn't often occur to me that I'm under pressure.

I guess I actually am - I have responsibilities to my advisor as a researcher, to my housemasters and girls as an RA in the dorm, to my friends, to my family as a sister and daughter, to my lab mates as a colleague and collaborator, to my instructor as a student in pilot ground school, to the medical study directors as a study participant, and to my peers as an organizer and officer in an entrepreneurship organization. That's a lot of people to make happy on a daily basis. And if I'm lucky, I'd like to do things to make sure I'm happy too - exercise, keep my room clean, experiment with cooking healthy meals.

But doesn't everyone have similar pressures in life? And there are those with so much worse to deal with - illness, or finances, or job woes. Truly, I am blessed. In addition, all of those things are things I CHOOSE to do, and actually enjoy most of the time. Somehow then I don't feel like I should complain, because why complain about something that was your choice? But perhaps pressure is pressure, whether internal or external.

And the corollary to the comment that I'm under a lot of pressure was that I also don't have a lot of outlets. I disagree with that a little bit. Why is that when people say, "outlets for pressure," they are most often talking about things like drinking, smoking, clubbing, watching TV, eating junk food? Must every outlet for pressure be a vice? Is "outlet for pressure" just a convenient excuse for whatever kind of behavior you want to justify? Ack!

So in conclusion - in my own head, my standards are normal, and the general population has abymsally low standards. And in my head, the amount of pressure I'm under is voluntary and self-generated, and therefore I don't cut myself much slack when I fall short. Most of the time, this helps make me a driven, successful person. Other times, this tends to make me frustrated and unhappy, and project an arrogant critical persona.

Maybe I should get out of my head!

Do you think you have high standards for yourself? Is it exacerbated by external or internal pressures? And what do you do as an outlet that ISN'T a vice?

Guest Posting at Engineer Blogs

2011-03-17T14:16:00.000-04:00

Ever wonder if an engineer's brain turns off? Answer is no, no it does not - even while cooking.

Check out today's post on Engineer Blogs.

I was having dinner with a engineer recently, and we split the last appetizer. It fell to me to divide the morsel in half. As my friend watched me size up the little wedge with my knife, he laughed and asked, "Trying to find the centroid?"

Why yes, yes I was.

Takes one to know one, that's what I say. :)

Let's Move on to Doing!

2011-03-15T10:21:00.000-04:00

Well.

I carefully prepared, and then had a committee meeting. I got the required "Proceed" designation on my thesis card.

So now I need to proceed! After spending so long doing background research and writing, I am so so excited to get back to actually DOING things. Experiments! Building! Machining!

Ah, machine shop, it's been too long...

I get antsy after a while if I don't get my hands dirty. I have to find something to work on - in the past when I get antsy I've taken a Saturday to build houses with Habitat for Humanity, or to help my friend renovate his house. If there aren't any houses around to build, I'll pick up a side project to work on. But recently I've got too many side projects as it is! And I've been traveling, so my laundry and dishes and packing/unpacking/repacking have kept me from spending too much time tinkering.

But I miss tinkering.

So I'm pleased that now not only do I have my advisor's full approval to tinker, my tinkering antsy-ness can be directly applied to research. And eventual graduation.

And what's not to like about that?

Guest Posting at Engineer Blogs

2011-03-04T09:47:00.000-05:00

This week's theme is "your favorite class." I have a lot of favorites, but check out the one I wrote about here - it might surprise you.

What was your favorite class?

Committee Meeting #1

2011-03-02T11:11:00.000-05:00

I thought I'd give an update on my first committee meeting - I wrote about making slides for the meeting here and here.

I'm pleased to announce that the meeting went well! On the specified day and time, I had slides ready, room reserved, a few snacks and water bottles, samples for show and tell, and my lab notebook ready to take notes. All I needed was a committee.

My advisor showed up first, and then five minutes later the second member showed up. But then... no third member. At fifteen past, I started to get a bit worried. I had reserved the room for an hour and a half, and only planned on taking an hour (hopefully).

At twenty past, I looked up the phone number and called to check on the missing third member. The secretary answered the phone, and I said "Hi this is Miss Outlier, and I had scheduled a..."

The secretary broke in, "Oh, honey, I know who you are. Your committee member is on her way! She'll be there in just a few minutes. Don't worry!"

So the secretary was feeling for me. Bet she's seen a few flustered grad students in her time...

At twenty-five past, we were all assembled. I went through my slides, and I'm pleased to say that I had intelligent answers for questions as they arose. They had some critique, which is good, and I noted down all of their comments. That's what I want them for, right, their expertise? So bring it on!

It took about an hour, and we finished up just before the room reservation ran out, so all is well that ends well. The only thing I screwed up is that I forgot to bring my thesis card. I actually had it at my desk, and I had thought earlier in the week I should bring it, but it just slipped my mind.

But fortunately, I was able to get my advisor to sign the appropriate spots on the card later that day, when I brought the card to his office. I'll get the signatures from the other members next time we meet. The only critical piece is that the committee chair (my advisor) has to write "Proceed" in the comments section for the meeting.

It was even a little thrilling to watch my advisor write the comments section of the thesis card for this meeting. There are words in my thesis card. Signatures. I'm official, this is happening. One day I will be Dr. Outlier. My advisor bent over his desk, putting down a few notes about the critique I got from everybody - and then he stopped, put down the pen, and looked at me with what I swear was a twinkle in his eye.

"Anything else I should write?" he prodded.

You betcha there is. Mark down my "Proceed," sir!

Figure: I know you can't read that handwriting. Focus on the right - Proceed!

And so am officially past committee meeting #1 with flying colors.

The regular lunch crew was sitting around the table yesterday eating, and one of my friends asked me a question about my PhD topic. Turns out it's highly relevant to her work. I rattled off a bunch of information, and then answered all of her follow up questions with carefully thought-out answers, and offered to send her references to back up my reccomendation for her project.

"Man," said another friend, "Sounds like somebody just had a committee meeting! You just machined-gunned out information for every possible scenario!"

Well, yep, so I did. Didn't get the "Proceed" for nothing!

So, well, I'm on to proceeding.

Flipping Switches in Life

2011-02-28T16:45:00.000-05:00

This is a topic that has been on my mind over the past couple weeks - I'm sure I've written on a similar theme before, but I can't be bothered to dig through my archives to find it.

There are seasons in life, I feel. My mom has said the same thing, as have multiple friends over the years. I haven't lived very long, so I can't say that I've had all that many "seasons". But I have had a few major changes over the course of my life.

And I want to talk today about the feeling of the switch flipping. Feeling like a new season is beginning.

After high school, I went to community college. I remember distinctly the year that I realized, "man I am done with community college. This season in my life needs to end." Unfortunately I wasn't quite done, and I remember the tension that caused - wanting to move on, but just not there yet. And when I finally did move on to university, I remember coming home and driving past that community college campus. "Oh I am SO past that" was the thought that came to mind.

My family now teases me, by the way, whenever I become too uppity about something - "Oh, we know," they say, "you are SO PAST that!" It's a funny reminder for me not to forget the lessons I've learned, "past it" or not!

I remember the point I thought you know, I am too old to be sharing a room. I don't mind roommates in a suite or an apartment, but when I shut the door I want to be the only one there. That point came after only one year in the dorm with a roommate - didn't take long, it was a short season! Ever since then, I've had my own room. (Not my own bathroom, thanks to living in a dorm with undergrads, but I'll get there someday...).

And then during my senior year in college, I watched most of my friends move past the "homework and classes" season in life, and eagerly embrace the "career and family" season in life. I heard more times than I can count about how burnt out my friends were with school.

I didn't feel burnt out.

That season in my life hadn't ended yet, I didn't feel the switch flip.

And now I'm four years into grad school. :) Fancy that.

I remember at the end of two years in grad school, having finished my Master's degree and passed qualifying exams, that again I felt the season changing. It was time to step up my game, become a world-class researcher using all the skills I've gathered to tackle interesting problems. And goodness knows I'm now trying my best at that, though I'm always still learning.

I realized in grad school that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. And there came a point where I could have pursued that dream full time. But it wasn't time. That was not the season.

I feel like I'm currently in the midst of switching seasons. I've moved from being a middle-career grad student, to an end-stage grad student. I'm not taking classes. I've begun committee meetings. I am focused on a clear direction, and I have a target graduation date. And, all my friends are slowly leaving. Ever since last May, the senior grad students I know have been trickling away. All the memories have been sweet, and of course I'm meeting new more junior students, but the guard is changing. I'm in the oldest cohort in the office. I've been the most senior person in my lab for a while.

Every semester there is a "Registration Day" where all the students register for classes or research units at once. There is a brunch for all the students while they do this, and it turns into sort of a social event. My first year or two, I didn't know many people to say hi to. The second and third year, I knew more and more people, until I knew the majority of the people at Reg Day. Now at the most recent Reg Day, the number of people I know is going down again. I'm becoming that crusty old grad student who doesn't socialize with the newbies - ack!

It's a bit sad to say goodbye to an old season. I remember moving into the office, and being the newest person in my cubicle. Now, since the most recent defense, the turnover is complete and everybody in my cubicle is more junior than me. This past Friday the youngest person in my lab graduated with her Master's degree. My advisor had a going-away dinner for her, with all current students and a few lab alums coming out to catch up and congratulate her. I saw how the lab alums have now moved on, are starting families and careers in industry. And then Saturday night, all of the girls in the office had a girl's night to celebrate both my labmate, and another girl in the office who graduated and are leaving this week to start jobs.

It's bittersweet. It's a pleasure to get to know my officemates and labmates, and a pleasure to celebrate with them whenever anyone defends or graduates or gets a job. But it's sad to see them go, and realize that seasons in life change no matter what you do or how much you like the current season.

I feel like I'm finally becoming a grown-up, and maybe that scares me a bit. I have a handle on school, and I'm starting for the first time to look beyond school to the rest of my life. Yikes.

The switch is flipping my friends, I can feel it. I am not yet "SO past that," but I can see the light at the end of this season. Life moves on, always an adventure.

Guest Posting at Engineer Blogs

2011-02-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

Today's post lives at Engineer Blogs - check it out!

In Defense of UnCool Self-Expression

2011-02-24T08:35:00.001-05:00

A bit of a rant, which you may agree or disagree with at your pleasure -

One of the neatest things about being in school - whether undergraduate or graduate - is the vast variety of people you come into contact with. My perception, although it may be skewed, is that once you get into the working world your pool of friends becomes much harder to expand. If you spend all day at work, with the same set of people, you have to go outside work to find new friends. Sometimes you can do it with hobbies, but you only have so many hours left outside work. You can also find people in church or religious activities, or maybe your neighbors.

But nothing compares to the format of school - every semester you are thrown into four or five new classes with a new set of people to get to know. People move in and out of the dorms, putting you in contact with people not in your major. And you have endless choices of extracurricular activities - student clubs, athletics, service organizations, and whatever else you can imagine, each an additional opportunity to find people to meet and mingle with. For at least four years - maybe eight or ten if you go to grad school - you are practically a people-meeting MACHINE. Even in engineering. I can only imagine the effect is magnified in areas dependent on networking - business kids, anyone? I sometimes think that's the ONLY reason they go to school. :)

Suffice it to say I have been honored over the years to meet unique people of all personalities and persuasions. I have been stretched and challenged in my moral beliefs, my political beliefs, and in my technical and business acumen. I have made friends that I cherish that I never would have met otherwise.

I say all that to preface this story: Last week I found myself in the company of a new set of people. A friend invited me along to hang out one evening, and I met all of his friends. I was enjoying myself, trying to be sociable. It's a stretch, but I can manage it once in a while.... :)

And then the conversation turned to self-expression.

Ah, what an excellent topic!

The conversation began when one girl proudly showed off her new tattoo, and we began talking about the design of tattoos and how they can be used as self-expression. I was skeptical, because the tattoo was a tribal rose above her butt-crack, and I'm not sure how original that is or what exactly she was trying to express. But hey, I'll go along with it. I've seen some gorgeous tattoos, and they can have a lot of meaning for people.

And then we moved on to piercings. Let me mention that most of the people in this group had piercings, tattoos, colored hair. Enthusiastically, they all jumped in - "Yeah, it's so weird how piercings are still not socially acceptable." "People are, like, totally intolerant." "I'm just modifying my own body, what's the big deal?" And, from the guy with a ring through his nose, "So hard to be taken seriously."

Again, I have no problem with people with piercings. My problem was that I never heard any one of them say something like, "I got my piercing because I really like the way it looks." Or, "My hair is pink because pink makes me happy." Or, "I got my tattoo in honor of my battle with cancer." None of them were making their "self-expression" choices because of some part of THEMSELVES that they were trying to EXPRESS, but because of the acceptance of their friends, or the perceived fit in the culture they identified with. They were making their choices simply to be anti-normal. And if all you are is anti-everybody-else, perhaps that's not particularly unique either...

And sadly, what could have been a really interesting discussion quickly took an odd turn. This group continued on to begin bashing particular kinds of people - Christians, white-collar business people, conservative people - for not being self-expressive enough. Wait, what? Is it really that they aren't self-expressive, or that you don't like what they are expressing?

And I realized suddenly that what these people thought was that anyone who didn't look like THEM - the classic "alternative" look, which I'll cynically call "Hot Topic chic" - was suppressing their self-expression. That if you didn't look like them, you must not be celebrating your individual self, and you had succumbed to popular mainstream culture.

And thus, the hypocrisy of tolerance. Only tolerant of people like yourself. Only unique if you look like the other unique people look.

I was sitting there, not sure I had anything much to add to the conversation, and I contemplated what I looked like to these people. I have no tattoos, and a very safe two piercings in my ears. Brown hair, shoulder length, ponytail, glasses, no makeup. A Hanes T-shirt, denim skirt, orange tights, and sneakers. I am absolutely not bucking The Man. I do not support any causes on Facebook, I do not sneer righteously at political topics I disagree with.

You know who really doesn't care about "mainstream" culture? The Asian girl on my floor who just won an award for pistol shooting. The kid in my class who has a needle and thread carefully stashed in his baseball cap, because it may be useful to him. The kid who wears a cape, because HE thinks it's cool. The girl who wears a tophat and sleeps whenever she feels like it. They know who they are, and what's important to them, and they are each truly unique.

You know how I express myself?

By how I carry myself. By my speech. By my actions. By my treatment of my friends and colleagues. By the care and pride I take in my home and my work. I express myself every stinkin' day through who I am.

I have no need to make myself "alternative." I don't feel the need to be meta and ironically support counterculture. I ride a bike because it is convenient, not because it's the eco-conscious image I want to portray.

I am a female mechanical engineer, raised by homeschooling instead of public school, five years younger than everyone else, who can drive a backhoe, loves both cooking and construction, and chooses to live with undergrads so she can help mentor them. Don't you dare tell me that you are alternative and I am not. Just because I don't express myself the way you do, don't wear spikes or J.Crew or identify with any specific culture group, does not negate my own uniqueness or that fact that I AM indeed self-expressive. In fact, don't you think that precisely NOT having a group to identify with means that you are unique? Even, dare say, a true outlier?

The reason you don't see my self-expression is because I don't whack you on the head with it. I don't need to spend my day crafting the image I portray to the world at large. I don't need to modify my body through tattoos or piercings or hooks in my nose, because I'm not here to prove myself to anyone. I have no need to SHOCK people to get them to notice me, or to ensure that I'm "thinking outside the box" or "swimming against the stream" or whatever other cliche you care to insert. I just figure out what it is that I like - ME, not what culture dictates, or what counter-culture dictates - and what I WANT, then I DO it.

And I am willing to pound my stake in the sand and say that being comfortable with who I am, being proud of my accomplishments because I earned them, being secure in my personal self-worth without worrying about the image I portray, and following my dreams because they are MY dreams - THAT, my friends, is alternative. THAT is self-expression.

And my orange tights may be self-expression too. I do take a lot of flak from my girls about those orange tights not being cool. :)

Taking the Admin to Lunch

2011-02-23T08:39:00.001-05:00

My research group recently got a new administrative assistant, and while we miss the old admin, it's sure much better now than the no-admin situation we had going for a few months. This is now the third admin that has been here during my years as a grad student - which makes me feel either older, or high maintenance! Truly I don't know why the turnover has been quite so high... I swear I'm nice to the admins...

There's been some discussion at Candid Engineer and at Dr. Isis's blog recently on treating the staff well, and I thought it's an appropriate time to mention a nice tradition in my lab.

When the last admin joined our group a couple years ago, I thought it would be a welcoming gesture to organize a lunch outing for her with the students. I'm sure the professors welcomed her as well, but I hoped it would be helpful for her to meet and say hi to all the students that she would have to be fielding requests from. The idea was well received, and the lunch went well. (We paid for her, of course, even engineering grad students can pick up on some etiquette...)

When this most recent admin joined the group, I did the same thing. First I conferred with all the students who would be working with her to see what days would be good for lunch, and not surprisingly the answer was "pretty much any day." Man I love grad school! Then I went to say hi to the new admin, introduced myself and made small talk, and offered that the students would love to take her out to lunch if she had a free day.

The lunch again went very well, and we discovered that actually she is not only a secretary, but a technical writing editor. Perhaps maybe, just maybe, if we are especially nice to her, she might critique our papers for publication? Worth a shot in the future! :) I feel like the outing was a success (even if six people did pay with credit cards - really people? You don't carry $12 cash?), and I think it makes a nice tradition.

In business-speak, this is "on-boarding." Leave it to the business folks to make up a term and a procedure for common sense... Actually it's popular here to do the same thing when an advisor gets a new student - the current students of that advisor will take the new one out for coffee (or a beer, depending on the lab group). Gossip, small talk, and there you have it. It's a bonding thing, and it helps people become more comfortable and feel like valued parts of the group.

Between the welcome lunches and the bread and vanilla I make for the staff, I think the moral is that my way of being nice to people is to feed them... there are worse ways to show appreciation, I think!

Do you do anything to "on-board" new staff, or members of the lab group?

Content for PhD Committee Meeting #1: Part II

2011-02-22T08:39:00.037-05:00

There is another discussion point I wanted to raise about what the content should be in your first committee meeting, to follow up on my previous post.

What should you NOT include?

In particular, how much experimental data or initial results should you show or not show?

There are two scenarios here: either you don't have any initial results, or you do. Let's take a look:

No initial results: After all, it is just a proposal, you aren't required to have any data. But is this a good thing? SHOULD you have some initial results? I think it's prudent to at least show that your idea is feasible. But is it enough to just point to literature that says it's feasible? Or do you have to have tested the theory yourself?

Do have initial results: If you have done some experiments already, is there any case in which you should you hold them back? I know of one case in particular where a student, now graduated from my office, had nearly his whole thesis done before he had any committee meetings at all. So in order to - I don't know - graduate quickly? or follow protocol? whatever the reason, he intentionally held back results. In his first committee meeting, he proposed what he was going to do. Second committee meeting, which followed fairly quickly after the first, he presented half of the results he already had. (I'm sure he was crossing his fingers, as he was gambling pretty heavily that the committee would not recommend he change direction...) And then, looky there, he had a third committee meeting and presented his final results.

I don't think that level of withholding is ethical, to me that borders on misleading. I think the situation could have been mitigated if he (or his advisor) didn't let him get so far before having a committee meeting. But I can see how you may have results that you don't show, or relegate to the "Backup" section and only pull out if there are questions. For instance, if you have a lot of data on things that DIDN'T work, you may want to mention that you tried, but not go through the details.

In my case, I have just a bare few experimental results. I didn't show them in my committee meeting, I put them in the back of the presentation, and we didn't end up getting to them. I did this for three reasons: one, they are not a significant amount of work, so I don't feel like I'm hiding progress. Two, I think I demonstrated feasibility of my proposed idea without needing further proof. Third, my plan is to have my second committee meeting fairly quickly (August) because one professor is leaving on sabbatical. Because I am working on an aggressive schedule, with a hard deadline, I don't mind having a few things already in my back pocket. Makes less work and less stress for me if I don't make as much progress as I anticipate by August.

But is that bordering on unethical as well? Is there any case where you should NOT include information in your committee meeting?

Guest Posting at Engineer Blogs

2011-02-21T08:52:00.004-05:00

Happy Monday, folks!

Today I'm guest blogging over at Engineer Blogs - I encourage you to go check it out. I'm honored to join a cast of awesome bloggers creating a community for us engineers!

If you've read the post and headed back - the same question applies to you. Where do you do your tinkering?

Content for PhD Committee Meeting #1

2011-02-20T07:44:00.015-05:00

I am busily putting together slides for Friday's committee meeting #1. Can't quite write the whole thesis before any committee meetings, I suppose... :)

So what content is supposed to be in the slides for the meeting?

I know, generally, that the point is to propose (and defend, to some extent) what you want to do for your PhD project. But when I got down to the details, I realized that there are a few more conventions than that. So here's my outline:

Title Page: includes my working thesis title, the committee meeting number (a big 'ol FIRST ONE for me), who my advisor is, and what lab I work in

About Me: this I was told to include by older students, but I wouldn't have thought of it otherwise. You put down where you did your undergrad, Master's, and when you passed quals. A list of papers and conference presentations, and what your post-PhD plans are. I actually didn't put down my post-PhD plans, as I plan to get out of academia...

Problem: The biggest complaint I hear about seminars is that the speaker doesn't tell you the general overview up front. All it takes is a couple sentences: "I've decided that my project is going to be to build a machine to manufacture phasers out of unobtainium." Then people don't have to wait through ten slides to get to the point.

Purpose/Importance/Impact: I've taken a class from my second committee member, and he always drilled into us that in any presentation, you must begin with "PII." Purpose of the project - what you plan to get out of it. Importance - why anyone would care. Impact - what are the practical applications. I made sure to include this, if only to make that second committee member happy!

Why I Chose You: I put in one slide on why I chose my advisors - what expertise I hope they can contribute and how they fit into the project.

Why You Chose The Project: I said that I wanted to manufacture phasers out of unobtanium - but why not manufacture transporters? Or why not make phasers powered by melange? You can't do everything in your PhD, you have to narrow down the focus. But there has to be some thought behind the narrowing - how you analyzed the possibilities, and the justification behind your choices.

Previous Work: So has anyone else tried to make phasers out of unobtanium? How did that go? If not, what HAS unobtanium been used for? Have phasers been made from aluminum before?

Your Planned Approach: How do I plan to tackle the project? Build a mini-phaser first? Obtain the unobtainium? What issues do I think may arise? Any back of the envelope calculations I may have tried to help guide me?

Timeline: A Gantt chart of my project, including upcoming committee meetings, and most importantly - target graduation date!

Proposed Classes: the classes I've taken so far, divided into major and minor. This is the committee's chance to speak up if they think anything is missing...

Numbered Slides: Professors want to know whether they are sitting though 75 slides, or 20, and are we halfway done or just beginning? So I put the numbers on the slides - #/total. All in all, I ended up with 31 slides, which I think is a reasonable amount for an hour presentation + discussion.

So does this sound about right? Did I miss anything? Anything unecessary?

I've Been Down This Road Before

2011-02-16T08:31:00.001-05:00

When I wrote my Master's thesis, I had the worst time writing Chapter 1 - Intro and Background. I hated it. HATED it.

It took forever. As far as I could tell, there were two ways to go about things. These two ways are the same when applied to writing the Intro section of a journal paper, too, not just a thesis.

First method

Write one sentence - "Widget A has cool properties 1, 2, and 3" - and then go find the paper that supports that. You look up the paper, print it out, read it (or at least skim, ahem) and file it away. Add the reference to the end of that sentence, then on to the next sentence. Rinse and repeat for an entire chapter. And if you needed to write a sentence like, "Many researchers have tried Process X," then that would be a good hour of finding all the papers to cite for those many researchers. And if you needed to say, "Research in this area has been going on since 1986," then you might as well just throw your hands up and dedicate the afternoon to finding the supporting papers.

Second method

Run a library/journal search for all papers relating to Widget A. Usually get search results in the thousands. Read all papers and try to determine the relevant ones. Then sit down to write your Intro section, citing the appropriate papers as you go. When you get to the end, check to make sure you have cited everything relevant and didn't miss any papers. Of course, I usually have forgotten a lot, because my brain doesn't hold details very well.

Either way I try it, writing the intro section is painful for me. But what made it especially painful for my Master's, I felt, was that I did most of my background and lit searches the first semester I was in grad school. And then I was writing the thesis a year and a half later. I can't even remember what I learned last WEEK (my saving grace is looking at old weekly PowerPoint update slides for reference).

Now I'm embarking upon the PhD, and I have my first committee meeting coming up on Friday. All you really have to present at the first meeting is what you PLAN to do for the PhD - that's why it's a proposal, after all. But in order to justify why I want to do what I'm proposing, I need to know the current state of the art in literature.

And learning about the current state of the art is what I've been doing for the past month of two anyway, while I was writing/updating my proposal document. I've even got all my papers categorized and fully searchable!

So now I come to my point for today: I feel like I've been down this road before. And heaven help me, I'm going to do better this time around.

So I started a document titled "Miss Outlier PhD Thesis." And I am going to add to that document AS I GO, gosh darn it. The intro chapter won't change much between now and when I graduate (at least I hope!), so why not write it now?

The past day or two I've spent tossing all my current knowledge into a growing outline of my thesis. Even if I don't have the info I need, I go ahead and create chapters and subsections that I can fill in later. And even if it's only bulletpoints, I put everything down anyway. It's much easier to expand a bulleted list than to come up with content from scratch.

When I got home from work today, I exported all of what I have so far to a .pdf, in the proper thesis format. Now the formatting means the first 11 pages are nothing - just title/table of contents/table of figures, etc. And the last 5 pages are nothing - just a list of references. And I have a LOT of pictures that take up a lot of room, and probably won't be in the final thesis. And bullet point lists take up a lot of room.

But still.

I have 86 pages.

Man, defining the problem really is half the battle, isn't it?

Respect the Hoodie

2011-02-15T08:40:00.010-05:00

Most people, and particularly nerds, and definitely me, have an environment that is particularly conducive to being productive. It's important to have things arranged properly around me, so that my mind isn't worried about anything else but the task at hand. I would like to direct your attention to the following passage, which conveys the concept beautifully:

What is your nerd’s hoodie? I write better when I’m wearing a hoodie. There’s something warm and cave-like about having my head surrounded — it gives me permission to ignore the world. Over time, those around me know that interrupting hoodie-writing is a capital offense. They know when I reach to pull the hoodie over my head that I’ve successfully discarded all distractions on the Planet Earth and am currently communing with the pure essence of whatever I’m working on.

It’s irrational and it’s delicious.

Your nerd has a hoodie. It’s a visual cue to stay away as they chase their Highs and your job is both identification and enforcement. I don’t know your nerds, so I don’t know what you’ll discover, but I am confident that these hoodie-like obsessions will often make no sense to you - even if you ask. Yes, there will always Mountain Dew nearby. Of course, we will never be without square pink Post-its.

h/t Rands in Repose

For me, I have to have the following things in place to really get in a groove:

1) Desk clean and tidy
2) Dual monitors up and running all the applications I will need
3) Headphones in, Pandora or Grooveshark playing
4) Shoes off
5) Legs crossed up on the chair
6) In the morning, coffee at hand. In the afternoon - water or sometimes a diet soda.

In that manner I can knock out three hours of work, and only look up because I have to take a bathroom break. (See: coffee or soda at hand.) These past couple days, I've been spending a good amount of hours in the groove. It feels good, like I'm really making some progress. And if people interrupt me while I working, it really irritates me. This morning I snapped at a coworker - then immediately apologized, of course. But he said - "Wow! I finally found how to make you irritated! I didn't think it was possible..."

Yeah, man, you've got to respect the hoodie... :)

What environment do you need to help you focus?

Feynman Approach to Problem Solving

2011-02-14T12:38:00.001-05:00

Richard Fenyman is the man.

Edit: Whoops! Feynman. Darn dyslexia... :) Although I kind of like the sound of Feny-man.

This made me laugh today, not least because it hits close to home. I KNOW people like this. One of the myriad reasons World's Best School is a humbling place is because there are people here who operate like this on a daily basis. Sadly, not me.

May all your problems be solvable with the Feynman approach this week!

Cohort

2011-02-11T09:15:00.001-05:00

I was homeschooled from first grade all the way through high school, so I wasn't part of a high school class year. I went to community college next, and there aren't really defined class years in that situation either. It wasn't until I transfered from community college to a university that I really had a set of friends progressing through school WITH me. A cohort, if you will.

It was in university that I first realized how valuable it is to actually have peers. Growing up, most of my friends were either older or younger than me - I was used to interacting with adults and children, and people my own age tended to confuse me. (Or, you know, it was just the fact that I'm an ENGINEER... not known for socializing well...) But if you have a set of people going through the same things with you, you can commiserate, and compare notes, and provide encouragement, and celebrate accomplishments together.

In fact, the best situation is probably where you have a mix to interact with - a cohort of peers, plus some older mentors, and some newer that are learning from you.

Hey wait a minute - that sounds a lot like grad school!

I wanted to address today the "cohort" part of that ideal grad school mix. In my office with about 20 students in it, three of us are at the same point in our PhDs. We are also the three most senior students in the office... must mean I'm getting old! Of course I also have friends at the same point in their PhD in other labs, but I am closest with my friends in my office.

So myself and two other guys are all aiming to graduate about the same time - June 2012, fingers crossed and lab gremlins willing. I passed qualifying exams first (because I somewhat stupidly decided to take qualifying exams the same semester I graduated with my Master's degree). The second guy passed quals the semester after me, doing things the normal-speed way. The third guy passed quals the next semester after that, but the reason he was slower was because he came in with a Master's degree from another university, and it takes a little longer to come up to speed in that case.

But now we're all about on the same page. We all started writing the PhD proposal about the same time. I finished mine a few weeks ago, and the other two are putting the final touches on theirs. I have my committee together, and I have scheduled a meeting for Friday the 18th. The other two can shop around their proposal and get a committee together as soon as they finish writing, and have a meeting as soon after that as they can schedule one. But I suspect that the other two may be a month or so behind me in getting a meeting.

So here's the thing about having a cohort of peers - you compare yourself to them. Sometimes I think I'm going really slow through the PhD process (I started writing the proposal a YEAR ago, for crying out loud, and I passed quals waaaaaay back in May 2009). I mean, what have I done in the past year? Then I waffle and think, man, I am doing pretty darn well. I did quals first, finished my proposal first, got a committee first, and now will have a meeting first. Score!

The reality is that I land (as is usually the case) somewhere in the middle. There is a huge standard deviation in the PhD experience, and I think overall I'm doing just about right. The important thing is that I am confident that I can progress forward from here with a clear goal in sight.

Then the question becomes - how do you find a balance between competition and companionship? On one hand, it's good to compare yourself to your peers to make sure you are keeping on track (motivation, anyone?). And competition is healthy when it keeps you on your toes and constantly pushing the cutting edge. But it's NOT healthy to be arrogant about your success. And it's not good to get a case of Imposter Syndrome and think that maybe you aren't good enough when in reality, well, you are.

I am going to try to enjoy having a cohort to learn and grow with during my PhD, and try to avoid the pitfalls on either side. For instance, if it takes me longer than June 2012 to graduate, I will be irritated but not heartbroken. On the other hand, I am afraid the the other two students would be upset if I graduate significantly before they do. But I can't base my life on what other people think, so I'm just going to proceed with my life as best I can - cohort or not! I'm an outlier, anyway, right? :)

Do you have coworkers, or fellow students, or professors on the same track that you relate to and commiserate with?

South of the Border Cooking Class

2011-02-10T09:00:00.095-05:00

Figure: Miss Outlier, Chef

This is actually a woefully old post, but one of the nice things about establishing a routine is that I can be productive. So I'm getting around to posting things I've always meant to share! Oh wait - productive was supposed to apply to RESEARCH? Details, details...

In February 2010 (gulp - where did the time go?) I took a class from the Cambridge Culinary School of the Arts. The cooking school offers classes on the weekends to the public. Some are series - baking, or international cooking, or just the basics - and some are single day courses. I signed up for a one afternoon class, called South of the Border Cooking. And the best part? Getting to use the professional kitchen! Drooling, drooling...

Figure: We're wearing aprons. Must be official.

Figure: The teaching podium, where the instructor demonstrated techniques.

Look at that cool mirror above the instructor's table - it shows you the bird's eye view, so you can see the ingredients and watch what the hands are doing!

The class had ten people, and the instructor lead us through making an authentic Mexican meal. Or at least I'm told it's authentic, how would I know... The students were split between the dishes (or the dishes between the students?), so one or two people would work on each recipe.

Figure: Other students intent on preparing their dishes.

The recipes we prepared were the following (and yay, I got to take home all the recipes!):

Marinated and Grilled Shrimp with a Chipotle Pepper Sauce
Chicken Mole
Grilled Flank Steak with Ancho Chili Cream Sauce
Green Rice
Chicken Fajitas
Fresh Tomato Salsa
Guacamole
Salsa Verde
Refried Beans
Grilled Pork Tenderloin with a Peach and Macadamia Nut Salsa
Bittersweet Chocolate Cake

Does that not just make your mouth water? YUM! I was assigned the chocolate cake (no need to twist my arm on that one, I assure you).

Figure: Measuring out Mexican chocolate for my dessert

It was neat to hear the other students in class chattering away with their teammates. These two ladies in particular kept the class lively!

Figure: Ladies making roasted peppers.

I claimed a saucepan and spot at the stove, to make the chocolate topping sauce.

Figure: That's heavy cream. Oh yes.

Because the kitchen was all open, I could peek over shoulders and watch the other dishes come together.

Figure: Preparations for mole chicken.

Figure: Chicken being mole-d.

I felt like a fancy chef on a TV show - I got to have fun with the presentation (or, "plating") as well as actually making the dessert.

Figure: Plates for the chocolate cakes, dusted with cocoa powder.

At this point, the ladies making the shrimp appetizers finished the dish, so we all got to take a mid-class break and sample our efforts!

Figure: Shrimp, completed quickly, as appetizers are meant to be - and eaten quickly, as good food is meant to be!

After our break, I continued on and finished making my little cakes in individual ramekins.

Figure: Miss Outlier at work!

The kitchen smelled so good, it was ridiculous.

Figure: Grilled Flank Steak

Figure: Setting up the buffet. You can see green rice, flank steak, refried beans, and chicken mole.

Figure: Our instructor (see the hat? nobody else got a hat).

Figure: Meat! Pork and chicken.

When everything was ready and set out on the buffet, the whole class got to enjoy the meal.

Figure: Sitting down together.

One of the couples taking the class had brought Mexican beer to pair with the meal, and they generously shared with the class. Seemed only appropriate!

Figure: South of the Border, baby.

Let's get a close up of that, shall we?

Figure: Oh, life is good.

It's really cool how food brings people together. At the beginning of the day, none of us knew each other. At the end of the afternoon, we were laughing and joking and passing the salsa.

FIgure: Because really, who doesn't like food?

I ducked out of dinner a bit early to put the finishing touches on dessert. And because one of the students had a birthday, the instructor even provided a little candle for one of the cakelets. How cute!

Figure: Looks downright professional, if I do say so myself.

The finished dessert:

Figure: Basically a chocolate lava cake made with Mexican chocolate, topped with a fudge sauce and whipped cream.

The day was a success - I learned a lot, ate good food, and got to indulge my inner Julia Child! Maybe someday I'll take another class... the baking series looks particularly tempting...

Data Wrangler

2011-02-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Good gracious, is this not straight up magic for data analysis?

Wrangler Demo Video from Stanford Visualization Group on Vimeo.

This would have made my life SO much easier when analyzing data for my Master's thesis...

Found c/o MetaFilter.

Yoga

2011-02-08T09:08:00.000-05:00

In undergrad, I had roommates that used to do Pilates. They convinced me to go with them to a Pilates class exactly twice, and I found it to be thinly veiled torture. I wasn't strong enough or flexible enough to do any of the moves properly, so it primarily consisted of me stumbling through the class trying to imitate the teacher.

My roommates told me it was "relaxing and invigorating." I found it anything but. I much preferred to go out to the workshop and sand on the canoe I was building. Sanding, now THAT is a therapeutic activity.

But two different friends of mine have been raving to me about the yoga classes they are taking. There is a highly-rated yoga studio only a fifteen minute walk from where I live (and, only ten minutes from my office). And I know that yoga is supposed to be really good for you.

So, with some trepidation, this January I started going to some yoga classes with my friends, about one a week. I didn't know what to expect for my first class, but to my surprise it was phenomenal. The teacher was excellent (at least I thought so, though what do I know?), and showed both challenging poses and modified versions for beginners like me. There were all levels of students in the class, and everyone could participate as best as they were able.

Something about the class just really resonated with me - at the end of class, I felt like I had stretched muscles that had sat dormant for a long time, and at the same time challenged the strength of my body. Like I had connected my mind and body and breathing. I don't subscribe to the spiritual aspect of yoga, but calming your mind, noticing how you are feeling internally, and providing your body what it needs is really powerful.

The yoga studio I've been going to is almost exclusively a "hot yoga" studio, where the classes are taught at 95-100 F. I had been making my friend go with me to the unheated classes, because I wanted to get used to the yoga part first before I added the heated part. But it turns out that "unheated" just means they turn off the heater for the class, but it's still pretty hot because the previous class was heated, and if you know any heat transfer principles you realize it doesn't cool down instantly!

This Sunday I bit the bullet, and my friend and I went to a heated class. I got over the fact that yes, I was going to be dripping sweat - I just brought a towel, and figured it's okay because the rest of the class is sweating too. Turns out the heat helps with the stretching, and forces you to really relax and breathe if you want to be able to balance and hold difficult poses. In short, I loved it!

Indeed, I might even say it was "relaxing and invigorating"!

Full Time Researcher

2011-02-07T09:03:00.004-05:00

This is the first semester I haven't had any classes. Ever. Since I was five. No, wait - four. (I went to preschool). That's a lot of years I've spent taking classes, and now I don't have any except Ground School, which I'm taking for fun.

It's an odd, surreal feeling.

On the one hand, I absolutely love it. It is a glorious, glorious realization that there is life after classes - to go home and realize that you don't have to be working on a problem set.

No finals? Be still, my beating heart.

Even though during grad school I have only been taking two classes each semester, which isn't a full load, it still mentally splits you. If you have the overachiever bug and only two classes, it's very easy to spend WAY more time than you need to on the homework, making it perfect. Even though in grad school it's not hard to get an A, internally you still push yourself.

So even though two classes is not physically much time spent in class, and although homework for two classes doesn't take too much time from your week, it FEELS disproportionally distracting. Especially if the class is a project class, where you have to mentally deal with the project plus group dynamics.

So not having the distraction of classes really frees you up to focus on your research, and the productivity of experiments goes way up. Right?

Yeah, theoretically right.

But on the other hand, I'm having trouble adjusting to no classes. Whereas I used to wish - "man, if I just had a whole morning free, I could really get something done". Or, "if only I had an entire afternoon with nothing scheduled." Now, I find that although my evenings are still scheduled (exercise classes, RA meetings, basketball, occasional dinners with friends, meetings on conference organization), my days are fairly free.

Do you know how hard it is to get up in the morning, when the first thing on your schedule for the day is simply lunch? Especially when I do my best work at night? What ends up happening is that I stay up later and later, and sleep in later and later, until I have shifted myself completely around backwards. Not the ideal way to go about your life, being out-of-sync, even if technically there's nothing wrong with it.

World's Best School has an academic calendar that gives the whole month of January off, and classes begin in February. So all of Jan, I was sort of treating it like vacation - it's Christmas break, right? But now I'm coming to grips with the fact that my whole YEAR is going to be like this, with no classes. So at some point I have to get out of vacation mode - this is how I will be WORKING.

My advisor is also not the sort that micromanages, he stays hands off unless I ask for help. I love that about my advisor, but it exacerbates the motivation problem because he doesn't apply pressure. (I know, I know, I have terrible problems.... :P)

I have always had trouble keeping track of the date - who keeps track of whether it's the sixth, or the seventeenth? - but I could usually at least remember what day of the week it was. But now, the weekend is pretty much the same as the weekday. I can go in to work and do experiments on Sunday, and I can stay home on Tuesday (um, blizzard days are good candidates for working at home...). A lot of my work is on the computer, and really there's no need for me to be in the office for that if I don't want to. But it's turning out that perhaps I SHOULD be in the office, necessary or not, so that I force myself to be productive and not to get distracted.

Because what I am finding is that NO routine means it's hard to stay motivated, even though in general I'm really good at being self-motivated.

So this coming week, my goal is to establish some boundaries - a routine, artificial though it may be. I would like to get into the office at a reasonable hour (9:30, maybe? 10? Anything's better than 11 or later), make my coffee, check email, write a quick blog post, and then get to work. Because if I have a whole morning free, and I get nothing done, whose fault is that? If I'm checking Facebook in the afternoon that I have nothing scheduled, I have only myself to blame when my weekly meeting with my advisor comes around and I don't have results to show.

I have flexible, focused days available to me. I plan to use them.

How do you schedule your days without classes to plan around? How do you apply external motivators?

Ground School

2011-02-06T09:17:00.066-05:00

This semester I am taking a not-for-credit class that I am really excited about - Private Pilot Ground School. I have always wanted to get a pilot's license (it's on my wish list), and it turns out that the Flying Club here at World's Best School teaches a class every semester that helps you get your license.

To get a private pilot's license, you have to take a written exam, an oral exam, and then the actual flight exam. The Ground School class is intended to teach you all the knowledge necessary for the written exam. Some things about flying a plane you can't learn until you actually, you know, FLY the plane, but there's a lot you can learn on the ground. Thus, Ground School.

As a side note - if I get a pilot's license, I can add it to my driver's license and my scuba diving license, and now I'm all set for land, air and sea! Just call me Double - O....

The first class was this past Wednesday. Now when I was in undergrad, I did an Aerospace option for my senior year, so I have taken a couple Aero classes. I figured given that experience, I'd probably be familiar with at least some of the material. I skimmed the slides for the first ground school class ahead of time (overachiever bug is still alive and well after all these years in school), and I thought - well I have this in the bag.

So I walked into class the first day quite full of myself - didn't even bring paper and pencil to take notes. I leaned back in my chair, looking around at all the incredibly young faces in class, feeling smugly superior in my grad student status.

And for the first part of class, I did indeed have it under control. "This is an airplane," said the instructor, gesturing to an inflatable model, "This is the wing, and this is the engine." Easy, easy. We continued on. "This is an aileron, on the wing, and the elevator on the horizontal stabilizer, and the rudder on the vertical stabilizer. These are your control surfaces." the instructor explained as she pointed to each piece.

Still good! I have actually physically built all those parts. I helped build small remote-controlled airplanes in undergrad, so I am quite familiar with all the various flaps and structural pieces. And my speciality is control systems, so I even have a good idea how those control surfaces affect the plane.

We continued on, going over things like "Don't Drink and Fly" (the rule is eight hours bottle to throttle), and the different kinds of licenses you can get (multi-engine, commercial, instrument, etc.). As the instructor flipped through the slides, I glanced at the clock - the class goes 6 to 8pm, and it was about 7pm. I hadn't had dinner yet, and my stomach was starting to let me know.

The instructor also glanced up at the clock, realized both that it was halfway through class, and that she was not halfway through her material. "Okay class," she said, "We're going to have to speed up."

So we started flying (ha!) through the slides, at the same point the material was becoming new to me. Is the plane stable in roll? Stable in yaw? Stable in pitch? If the answer is yes, is it positively stable, neutrally stable, statically stable or dynamically stable? Or all of the above? None?

Ack! By the time we got through that section I was convinced that while a plane, in flight, COULD theoretically be stable, in my hands it would quite probably go UNstable quickly and dramatically. In fact we watched several painful YouTube videos to underscore how terribly, terribly things can go wrong in a plane. (How helpful, thank you!)

And then.

THEN.

"Now," chirped the instructor, "we will talk about turning the plane."

This is where my brain exploded.

To turn the plane to the left, for instance, you roll the plane left. The instructor drew a nice diagram on the board of the wings, tipped to the left. Now when you roll left, you create more lift on one wing than the other. The different lifts cause different drags, so you end up yawing to the left as well.

More pretty arrows were added to the diagram.

In addition when you roll left, the net force vector is now pointed at an angle, and your total force is now split into a vertical and horizontal component. That means you have less total lift going up, so your nose points down, and you have to compensate by pitching up.

Now we're in three dimensions, and the instructor had run out of ways to draw arrows, so she gestures with chalkboard erasers.

I have decided that if by some miracle I can prevent my plane from going unstable, I am never going to be able to turn. I will just have to pick an airport that is directly lined up with my final destination. Six degrees of freedom? Are you Aero people nuts? Thank goodness my MechE career only deals with a few degrees of freedom at a time....

Reeling from thinking about forces in three dimensions, I glanced again at the clock. 7:30pm. My stomach was talking to me now, and it wasn't a happy conversation.

"And now," said the teacher, "we are going to learn the really important information."

Really? Now?

"Now, listen closely, because here's the proceedure for getting out of a spin..."

Oh, no. This I may have to pay attention to. I stared as she drew on the board, spelling out acronyms for "easy memorization." Where was that paper and pencil I was too arrogant to bring??

"Okay. Now in addition to a spin, you may also get into a stall. So here's how you get out of that."

More acronyms. "And CAREFUL! This particular procedure is not instinctive, and in fact your instinct will be to do the exact OPPOSITE." Oh gees....

"And finally, class, we need to go over what to do in case your engine stops."

Okay, now, enough is enough! I'm going to need dinner for this... :)

I did try to pay attention to the engine-out case, but man I was starving, and my poor brain was fried from trying to think in six degrees of freedom. I left class no longer as smug as I was going in.

And now with the benefit of a few days to ponder the material, I waffle between thinking flying a plane isn't all that hard and that it is designed to inherently positively stable, and thinking that there is an infinte number of ways to screw things up and spiral into the ground. Still, I am very excited about the class and about eventually getting my license. If anything, I have learned that I need dinner ahead of time! Give me a sandwich, I'll read up over the weekend on the spin, stall, and engine-out scenarios, and then bring on next week!

Homemade Vanilla

2011-02-04T08:45:00.070-05:00

Two years ago I gave out cranberry bread as Christmas favors. Last year I did eggnog bread. But this past Christmas 2010, I had in mind a project. I wanted to make my own vanilla.

I have forgotten quite where I came across this idea, but it did stick. It kept niggling around - you should do that someday, Miss Outlier - and so I kept the project in the back of my mind. But then once I decided that Christmas was a good excuse to make vanilla, suddenly I noticed examples everywhere. The whole world was going around extracting vanilla, it seemed.

It's like spending three months thinking, maybe I should get a new bedspread, and then the day you decide that YES, you do have money for the new bedspread, suddenly you must have one THAT DAY. And you spend two hours at the office shopping on the internet, intent on acquiring what you want (do you know how many OPTIONS there are?). Oh wait - is that just me? Ah, maybe it is. I also spent four months thinking about getting my ears pierced a second time, and then the day I decided on getting it done, the store was closed, so I spent an hour getting across town to another piercing shop rather than wait any longer.

It's just a me thing, I guess. Moving on.

I wanted to make vanilla. Now if you get a real vanilla bean at the whole foods store, just a single one, it's something ridiculous like $2.99 a bean. And I needed about a pound of beans. Yeah, that kind of shoots the whole "cheap homemade gift" idea in the foot. So I did some research, and strangely the best way to get large amounts of high-quality vanilla beans is on eBay. No joke - the wholesalers sell through there.

Figure: 1/2 pound Grade A Tahitian

I also learned that there are two kinds of vanilla beans (from Madagascar, and from Tahiti). And if you buy enough of one kind, they throw in a half pound of the other kind. Well OBVIOUSLY. I now am the proud owner of both kinds, and also more beans than any rational person should need.

The way you make vanilla extract is to basically get a bunch of alchohol, cut up vanilla beans, dump them in, and wait. The alcohol of choice is usually vodka. To make as much vanilla as I had bottles, I had to buy three handles of vodka at the liquor store. The fact that I barely got a second look with that purchase is a testament to the college town that Boston is, I think...

You can either put the beans in the vodka bottle, and then portion the vanilla into smaller containers when it's ready, or you can put the vanilla beans directly in the individual bottles and fill with vodka. I thought it looked kind of cool to see the actual beans in the bottle, so I chose the latter.

The bottles start out clear, obviously, because vodka is colorless (not odorless. my dorm residents were a little worried about me for a day - my whole room smelled like alcohol). Then over time, the vanilla extracts out and the liquid turns amber and then brown.

Figure: Vanilla, about a month in.

I started the bottles in October, and kept them lined up on my bookshelf. Every week or so I'd shake them. It takes about three to six months to mature, so I figured Christmas would be just about right.

Figure: Labeled and decorated as gifts

During finals week last December, I took these little bottles around and dropped them off with the administrative assistants and shop guys.

The secretaries loved them - "Oh, these will be perfect for Christmas cookie baking!" one of them exclaimed. The shop guys, on the other hand, were a bit confused. Sort of a, "Thanks, I guess...." was all I got.

But just yesterday one of the shop guys stopped me and said - "My wife says to tell you a big thank you for the vanilla! She's thrilled to have it for baking." So see, I guess that gift just had to find the proper recipient. :)

A Cost Recap:

$19.53 vanilla beans

$27.60 vodka

$20.51 bottles

----------------------

$67.64 Total

That made 5 of 5 oz. bottles, 5 of 10 oz. bottles, an 8.5 oz., 12.5 oz., and a 17 oz. bottle. So that's 113 oz. for $67.64.

So, 60 cents/ounce.

If you buy pure vanilla at the store, it's about $1.06/ounce or $1/ounce, or you can find it even cheaper for 56 cents/ounce plus shipping. So I didn't come out too far ahead in price, but again - that's really not the point.

This project was easy and not time consuming, and got good results, so I'd say I'd do it again - except I now have enough vanilla to last me a lifetime, I suspect. In any case, a success!