Hello Sun and Clear Waters

Miss Outlier is off to Belize to go scuba diving. Because she can. Do I need any other reason?

Hiking Trip

Two weekends ago, I went hiking in the White Mountains in New Hampshire. I had a great time with friends, and although I wimped out and went with the "moderate" hiking group instead of the "advanced" hiking group (I mean, come on, my pride couldn't let me go with the "easy" group...), it was still plenty of miles for me. My legs have been talking to me ever since that trip. They have decided to unionize to prevent that much climbing in a short amount of time. For fear of a strike, I have ceeded to their demands and in the future every hiking trip will be punctuated with forced, 15 minute breaks every hour and a half. Mosquito repellent shall also be carried in my hiking backpack, and liberally reapplied at every mandatory rest stop.

Stupid unions. I'd trade in my legs for another pair, but that's not allowed under the new terms either....

I can't take credit for the following pictures, as they were taken by a friend with a nice Nikon camera. But the memories are mine, so I feel I can share. No people are shown because they don't know I have a blog, and I don't have release forms... :)

Our cabin:



Where we refilled our water:



Swimming Break:



Top of the mountain:





I can't lie, this made me really nervous to watch...



I love New England!



Panorama (you can open this up to a big picture in a new window if you like):

A Weekend of Ocean

Saturday

Saturday morning I went scuba diving for the Great Annual Fish Count. I thought that this was a silly event designed to get divers to all dive on the same day, but no it's really a serious thing! The New England Aquarium has divers count what kinds and how many fish they see, and they collect the data every year for a variety of dive sites to track the fish population. I had to fill out a whole form including depths and temperatures and habitats and everything. I was given a chart of popular fish types, so I could match what I saw to the proper fish species.

Kinda cool, I thought. Although I only saw about five fish, so my form was pretty sparse...

Then at the end of the day, the aquarium holds a BBQ for the divers and a raffle for prizes. You get raffle tickets just for filling out the fish count form. I won a subscription to New England Dive News, which is nice, but I had a 33% chance of winning a wetsuit and I didn't get one. :( Next year!

The actual dive was not what I expected, actually. This was a shore dive - which means you enter from the rocks at the edge of the ocean, instead of jumping off a boat. Never tried that before, and it's really awkward and funny-looking to watch divers crawling or sliding on their butt to get into the water. I thought I was pretty graceful, but then at the end a wave caught me and I flipped end over end. Okay, okay, I'm in, I'm in! :)

I've never been cold water diving before, and it's been two years since I last dove. So it was first time in this climate, first time at this dive site, first time entering from the shore, first time in a 7mm wetsuit, first time with a hood and gloves, first time using a dive flag, first time in two years, and... Yeah. I should have taken a refresher course.

I really underestimated how tough it was to get accustomed to everything. With the thick wetsuit and gloves, I couldn't feel anything, and with the thick hood I couldn't hear anything. Then the visibility was really poor (under 10') so I had trouble seeing my buddy, and my mask fogged up so I couldn't see anything anyway. I was already feeling claustrophobic, and then because I had to stick so close to my dive buddy (due to poor visibility) I managed to get myself tangled in the dive flag line. My buddy didn't notice because she was looking for lobsters. But then in trying to get myself untangled, I only managed to start floating upwards and I couldn't stay down (I think now that I wasn't carrying enough weights - again, first time so I had to guess on the weights).

It was really scary. I'm afraid to say I sort of panicked. The one thing you are not supposed to do while diving. I was never in any real danger, because my air supply was always fine, but I was just scared.

So this particular dive was a little awkward, but I think the next time I go will be much better because I will know what to expect. Onward!

Sunday

In the morning today, at 5:30am, the fire alarm went off. Gack. I am SO not EVER prepared when the fire alarm goes off. I always peel myself out of bed, put on some clothes, and waddle my way down six flights and outside. And it never fails that I end up standing on the sidewalk next to some tiny girl who managed to get herself dressed, fling her hair back in the cute bed-head ponytail, and appear bright eyed while waiting for the firefighters to give the all clear.

I will not miss this part of the dorm when I move.

Oh wait, I'm moving to another dorm... sigh.

But this afternoon I went sailing with a few other friends. This I love. I know how to work all the lines without getting tangled, my friends are also good sailors so we can do the whole gracefully-shifting-weight-while-tacking maneuver, and we totally owned the river today.



Life is good! When we really caught the wind, three of us have to hang off one side of the boat to keep us from tipping over, and I get to fling back my arms and scrape the waves with my fingertips.




This, my friends, is what grad school is all about.



And the moral of the story is that Miss Outlier is much more comfortable above the ocean than under it.

Diving!

I am super excited about tomorrow - I am going scuba diving for the Great Annual Fish Count! There's really no point in counting fish, it's just a silly reason to get a bunch of divers out along the Cape Ann area on the same day.

I was certified a couple years ago, but I've never been diving in the cold northeastern waters. So I bought myself a thicker wetsuit and boots. Apparently you can't use the same wetsuit for the Caribbean and northern US - it's a bit chilly up here... I was balking at the price of 7mm new suits, but it turns out one nearby dive shop had a used equipment selection. I went to see if I could find my size, and lo and behold I found a brand-new wetsuit in my size, discounted a ridiculous amount because it was an overstock they had too many of. Score!

I rented the rest of the gear today (I get an awesome rate from the dive shop that has an agreement with World's Best School). I could have rented the wetsuit and boots as well, but everybody pees in their wetsuit, and I don't know if I'm comfortable with that... :) Besides, the owner of the dive shop said that wetsuits are the most risky thing to try to rent, because they may run out of sizes on popular weekends.

So look out, fish! Prepare to be counted!



That's me at Turks and Caicos Islands. Maybe I'll get my dive buddy to take a photo tomorrow - but even if they did, you would just have to trust it's me. With a hood and full wetsuit and boots and gloves, it could be anyone!

Packing

I have begun packing. I am slapping tape on boxes left and right.



Yes, I look like that. My pink lingerie set is my favorite moving attire...

I applied and interviewed and have been hired for an RA position next year, so I am moving this summer into the undergrad dorm in preparation for all the new students to arrive in the fall.

My moving date is next Tuesday, and I plan to have everything packed by Monday so that the actual moving day is as painless as possible. My mother and sister are helping me move (thank you thank you!), and everything will fit in one small UHaul truck trip. I've never had anybody help me move before, and I am looking forward to having extra pairs of hands.

Also, this time I have an elevator in both old and new rooms, and that is a fantastic thing.

And while I am packing, I am tossing junk. The more I toss, the less I have to pack, right? My rule is that if I haven't used the thing in a year, I don't need to keep it (aside from a few keepsakes). I don't own any major furniture (just a couple nightstands and a set of shelves), so the majority of my belongings can be summed up in four words: clothes, shoes, tools, and books.

I'm not sure how it's all going to fit in the new place, but it's about the same size so I guess it won't be too hard. I'l have to figure out how to do laundry, how to set up my kitchen.

But we all know what the real first priority is going to be: setting up the TV and internet in the new place!

Gives New Meaning to Work/Life Balance

We have a homeless graduate student living in the building.

The top floor of my building has only one room - a conference room. Hardly anyone goes up there, they tend to use conference rooms on the second floor. But one professor is currently writing a grant, and he needs peace and quiet and PEOPLE PLEASE LEAVE HIM ALONE kind of space.

So he's taken to writing in the top floor.

Oh, yes, I forgot to mention that the conference room also has a kitchen attached to the back of it, and a bathroom with shower behind that. Don't ask me why, ask the inscrutable wisdom of the original designers who also designed the building to HAVE NO RAMPS into it. Which might be useful when MOVING EQUIPMENT.

Ahem. I digress.

The past few days, perhaps for the past week, the professor has arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed at 7am to write his grant. Laptop gripped to his side, he waits for the doors to the elevator to open (what, you think he walked six flights?). The doors slide apart, to reveal the immediate tripping hazard of a graduate student lying in front of the conference room door.

"Just catching a couple winks," the student blearily mumbles. (I kid you not, this actual quote comes straight from the professor).

Caught off guard, or perhaps just too far gone into the grant writing process to care about students anymore, the professor can't summon anything more than a brisk "hello." Then, a dismissive step over the prone body of the student into the conference room.

If I were the student, I might be miffed. I think this one was just a bit embarrassed.

To the student's credit, he is probably only between apartments or something for a short time. Nobody knows who he is, but he did pick the best spot to be homeless (given the kitchen and shower and all). He's always gone during the day, but must make it back at night, because the professor wakes him up in the morning.

So what is the proper protocol for this? How long should this go on before someone is notified? Who do you even notify for this? Should I care? Should I go out of my way to meet this student just for the novelty of it?

Consulting

I have recently added another new hat to the list of millinery I can wear. I have been fortunate to be called in to consult on an engineering project where my expertise can be used.

My first thought was - wait, I have expertise?

Well yes, it turns out after a lifetime of schooling I have learned a few things that can be useful to people actually working outside academia. Who knew? Miss Outlier, Consultant.

I have several points I'd like to make about this:

1) It is fascinating to work on a project in industry and observe the interactions between the engineers on the project, and the interactions between the engineers and management in charge of the project. The engineers on the project make decisions much quicker than I am used to in academia (where everything must be studied and analyzed before progressing). But in the real world, often it is quicker to go the "try it and see" method than to work out every detail from theory. And the management on the project (as opposed to my advisor who wants to hear the technical details) do not care about details except a few: progress made since the last meeting, expected completion timeline, and cost savings created by the project. Which is to be expected - managers have many projects in the pipeline, and shouldn't have to worry about the nitty gritty of each one. It's the engineer's job to get it done, I gather.

2) I am pondering: is this consulting something I should inform my advisor I am doing? I spoke with a labmate of mine, who works for my same advisor, and I found out that my labmate did some consulting last year. And apparently, my advisor was initially against it - he thought there wasn't enough time for my labmate to work on both research and consultation projects. Once my labmate proved that he wasn't neglecting research, my advisor was comfortable with the arrangement. But I haven't even broached the subject - perhaps I should? Any comments, internet?

3) In the real world, money is different. In the sense that I am worth some. :) And also in that people are not afraid to spend it to get things done. A lot more zeros get tossed around on the end of numbers than I am used to seeing. It's a little scary, but I have to remember that it's just a different scale. Because as a grad student, your time is not worth two turtles. But to even have a conference call on a consulting job, think about the salaries involved to have a handful of high level managers and a few engineers take an hour to work on something. The time value of money has just shifted drastically, and I'm learning to adjust to it.

When I see that first paycheck roll in I guarantee the adjustment won't be hard...