fashionable academics?

I find it hilarious and yet kind of awesome that this exists. Thinking about what you wear can be fun (especially for academics, who like to think about things). Reggie brought me back some amazing tights from Germany: one red pair and one blue pair. They are the thick ones (kindergarteny, my undergrad internship student says), so comfy and bright and unlikely to run. Pleased.

In other news, this sentence analysis thingy is also super awesome... I think I have a decent ear for what "sounds wrong" in academic writing, but fixing it is another matter altogether. Although of course I could always go with randomly generated ones.

October

So Steph had to call and tell me what is going on with my family, as per the blog. Possibly something wrong there. I go through phases where I forget to check. I am so jealous of all those going to Scotland... if only silly old Ontario had Fall as well as Spring Reading Week! But alas. I am just counting down the time until Christmas. And my birthday! Although that will likely suck, because... Guelph. But maybe something nice will happen.

Sophie came to visit last weekend and I was SO VERY VERY excited to see her. Love having visitors (and have tested out the futon and know it is comfy, so sort of feel like I have a guest bedroom to offer) (even if only one duvet cover! But don't worry, the duvet cover is always offered to the guest). We had a lovely time doing not very much except chatting - it has been a LONG time. Katie the Newfie came over Saturday night for a bit of an impromptu girls night/craft night (she is attempting to knit a toque and I am making a sock monkey for Del's friend Pauline's baby Chloe) and on Sunday we just sort of wandered around Guelph. Discovered that what I thought was a bakery was a gorgeous upscale-food shop like the one that was down the road from me in Edinburgh. We had some 75% dark chocolate and I got chai masala and some smoked garlic (I am a sucker for spices in lovely tins). Sophie bought me something called Mayan Hot Chocolate: ingredients cocoa liquour, organic sugar, cocoa powder, chili peppers, ginger, orange peel, Madagascar vanilla and "a unique blend of spices". It is amazing! It may or may not be the same thing I had at the Hillside festival, but I love it. Too bad it's so bloody expensive... but since Sophie totally rocks, now I have some :)

Work's going well. I had a look at my data on Friday and it is looking good! very happy about that. This week I have to collect the rest of it (sigh) and then start on a write-up, I guess. I feel like this is a really big deal on one hand, but on the other need to keep thinking about the next thing...

My supervisor also went to a conference last week, so I took his class. I only had to talk to them for ten minutes or so and then meet with groups individually, so wasn't too scary. Felt like it was good experience, though. Oh, and it also wasn't too scary because I had to give a presentation to my Neuroscience class (that I am taking, not teaching) the week before, and TOTALLY STUFFED UP* the powerpoint - so after surviving that, ten minutes of talking to a bunch of fourth-years did not seem scary.

Apart from that, have been very much a homebody lately. It is boring, but on the other hand I am richer and thinner from the lack of alcohol (though the late-night visits to the Salsateria have persisted). I've been to a few gigs, though, because a friend hooked me up with his former roommate Melissa, on the basis that we both hate Guelph. She is doing an internship here and is a big ol' music geek (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) and keeps her ear to the ground about shows and then drags me along. It has been excellent. Last week we saw Ohbijou as well as the Hidden Cameras, because Melissa knows a band member. Yay for getting to hang with the band after the gig! makes me feel special.

Anyway, have done my yoga and had my tea, so off to bed before 11pm hits. Good lord, I am turning into Steph...


*[I made a beautiful, gorgeous powerpoint, emailed it to myself, saved it on my USB drive {or so I thought... dun dun dun} and then went to give the presentation. Two slides in, I realised that half of the slides were wrong - and suddenly came to understand that when I had backed it up to the desktop, I forgot to re-save on the drive... so all my three hours of careful edits were no longer there. However, I had already started talking and it was a bit late to ask to start fiddling about with my email... so I just gave the talk anyway, and had to draw my diagrams that should have been on the slides in living colour on the whiteboard, from memory. Ridiculous. I thought I screwed up bigtime, but after the talk was over, one of the profs told me it was impressive that I didn't need my slides to explain and could do it all from memory... so maybe I pulled it off!]

I MISS THE FENCERS

Cheap like borscht

I just made some seriously rockin' borscht. This recipe is pretty confusing to follow, but the end result is YUM (and a lovely shade of red). The beets, carrot, potatoes and dill are all out of the garden!

Unfortunately, I am home making borscht on a Saturday night instead of at Nuit Blanche in TO like I should be because I am ill. I'm not as ill as yesterday, so was tempted to go, but it struck me as possibly a bad idea to stay up till 6am in the rain (first Greyhound back is at that time - I have no crash space in TO) while still recovering. I find it odd that no matter what I catch, the main symptom is a massive fever. It's usually one to two days of no ability to thermoregulate whatsoever, and then another day or two of feeling really burnt out and exhausted. I guess it must kill the germs, though - or something.

So, as expected, it's an incredibly busy semester. I am taking a Neuroscience course that is pretty full-on - lots to learn and lots of work. I am TAing two courses, one of which requires the kids to update Wikipedia on a cognitive neuroscience topic as one of their assignments (so I am responsible for first learning to do this, then teaching them to do it!) I managed to end up joining both the TA Administrative Council and the executive of the WiSE (Women in Science and Engineering) club, both of which have millions of meetings. And of course I'm writing a review paper and attempting to get some research done. And maybe exercise once in a while (joined an intramural soccer team!)

I think it could be quite a fun semester, as long as I can figure out some way to get everything done. There's always extra stuff too - scholarship applications, helping out the honours students, going to lectures and seminars. It's mostly all stuff I like, but when the pressure is on nothing is fun. Need to figure out how to fit everything in such that the pressure is hardly ever on.

Not being sick would be a good start. Oh well.

Had an excellent trip out to Killarney Park right before the semester started. I went with Mark the neighbour and Reggie, who is German (and therefore did all hiking and portaging in a bikini - and wore less than that the rest of the time). The lakes were amazing. I forget sometimes that Ontario is not all cities... There are only a few campsites per lake, so most of the time there was no one else around at all.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here are some pictures.















So beautiful. The portaging was hard-core but enjoyable, and it was so nice to be outside for four days straight. Well worth missing the first week of class, I would say! I am definitely going back.

finally some excitement!

Sorry about the long silence. August was crap and not much worth writing about. Yuck.

But! It is September and I am feeling better. This weekend I got to both check out the Elora Quarry (a quarry with a spring in it and a little sandy beach - I swam around for over an hour) and a conservation area near Guelph (the downstairs neighbours were kind enough to bring me along on that one). It also had a little pond to swim in, which was quite cool. (Although then we went and sat by a stinky lakeshore for hours - didn't quite get that one, you couldn't even swim).

And now I have been invited along on a portaging trip to Killarney, which I am very excited about. It was a tough call, as this is a terrible week to be gone - I will be missing all the orientation stuff at Guelph once again, plus my first Neuroscience class. Bad. But I am SO dying to get out of here, and I couldn't pass up the chance to try portaging! We are renting a canoe onsite and (according to Neighbour Mark) not doing more than 5-6 hours paddling and portaging per day. It looks gorgeous and it's not supposed to rain (though I can imagine it will be freezing). I am currently packing massive piles of trail mix and quinoa for the trip. Exciting!

So see you after, if I don't get eaten by a bear... we should be back Saturday night.

Accomplishment

Today I ran up the insane steps that separate the Ward (where I live) from the posh bits of Guelph. RAN up them! I walk up them on a weekly basis to get groceries, and even that usually kills me after. On the way down I counted them. 106 - and pretty steep at that. I suppose it would be a very cheap fitness challenge to try and work my way up to running up them and THEN not collapsing afterwards!

the kindness of strangers

Things have gone all to heck with work. We should have been able to start testing my first real experiment for my PhD (code name Hot or Not) tomorrow. All was ready to go... until my undergrad assistant happened to mention today that she just remembered that one of the people she tested earlier in the summer while I was away had invalid data because the computer died halfway through testing. This data was what we were basing tomorrow's stuff on, and now I find it is all wrong. Everything has to be reanalyzed without that guy's data included, which takes ages.

So I found myself at the lab late today. I started around 3. It was almost 9pm by the time I looked up, so thought I should be getting home. I got outside, and the storm of the century was upon us! (see above).

It wasn't raining yet, but there was a HUGE lightshow above me - sheet lightning every few seconds, flickering all over the sky. I was terrified (I fear being hit by lightning!) But buses stop at 6pm on Sundays in Guelph (STUPID GUELPH!) so I couldn't catch a ride home.

Then the rain started. Torrential. I didn't have a coat because it was incredibly hot and muggy today, so I was soaked through within minutes.

I was huddled under a tree*, praying (SCARED OF LIGHTNING!) when a guy in red car pulled up and asked if I wanted a ride.

THANK YOU!

My rescuer said he hoped he didn't seem creepy, but he remembered being a student with no car (and he had rescued an old lady and her shopping during Tuesday's storm). I said, nope, not creepy, and I am incredibly grateful. He was a pilot called Cory who was just on his way home. He drove me to my block (not the exact house - I'm not THAT trusting) and now I am watching the storm with the lights out because the power keeps dying anyway. Incredible light show. My rescuer said he heard there were tornado warnings too, but haven't seen any funnel clouds yet.

I hope Cory got home safe**, but I will forever be thankful... and pick up all soaked pedestrians during lightning storms if I ever get a car.


* contrary to my dad's opinion, I DO know enough to come in out of the rain, even if trees might attract lightning!

** and that the rain hasn't knocked all my tomatoes off - they are almost ready!