Wayward Elf

Kitchener queen

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:10:00 +0000

I bought a crappy car. It's a 1993 Honda Civic del sol with a lot of rust (I'm showing you her good side) and a LOT of miles. But the engine seems solid, and it's awfully fun to drive--reminds me of my Porsche. I hope it makes it to the summer months when I can actually see how it handles!

I also finally finished up the baby gifts for one friend, only a couple weeks after the birth! I'm happy to report that a miracle did occur during blocking and I love how the blanket turned out!!

And a closeup of the lace pattern (not the true color):

And the bonnet and sweater pair:

I also finally dug my bog jacket back out. I've been really stalled out on this--first I spun my wheels for a couple of months trying to figure out how to make the front upper chest parts match, and in the end I couldn't figure it out. So, they'll have different color stripes.

Then, I came to the point where I had to Kitchener stitch together the underside of the arm and where the single piece that came up over the back/shoulder/down the chest meets up with the flap that was liberated from the front. I'm aware that this makes no sense without having knit the pattern. Suffice to say, I had to graft 181 stitches!!! It's a good thing I like doing Kitchener! But I had stalled out here as well because I'd never grafted garter stitch and didn't know how they needed to be arranged and whenever I was ready to knit I was always to tired to puzzle it out. Yesterday TNT had a "marathon" of the show Bones, so I got out my books and my sweater and I went at it. Took me 5 hours, but it's done--it's the bottom red stripe in this picture:

And it turns out my cat turned into a nip-head while I was gone. She just loves rolling around on this cardboard scratcher when I put some catnip on it. She rolls so hard she tips it over, then looks around with that "whaaaaa?" look, then turns around to check out the other side of the cardboard. It's good to have her back!!

All in all, life is good.

Simple pleasures

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:19:00 +0000

One of the joys of being home is being able to cook my favorite foods:

A grilled cheese sandwich made with Tillamook sharp cheddar and Bob's Red Mill gluten free bread.

A simple tostada.

I could make these in Switzerland, but they were both a huge hassle, requiring several extra shopping trips across town to assemble all the ingredients or their closest Swiss imitator. It's nice to be able to get everything I need at my local grocery store and cook it in my enormous cast iron skillet on a gas stove.

Based on the robocalls to my new phone number (when did robocalls get invented?? I don't remember them at all), the number wasn't out of service for long enough. The previous owner of this number was apparently a diabetic who owned both a car and a house and also had a huge amount of unsecured debt that needs consolidating. It's like reconstructing someone's life from their garbage or grocery list!

A few knitted things

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:44:00 +0000

OK, but first, to my relief:

I am now the proud owner of a US driver's license!! My last one, from New Hampshire, had expired in January after a rather confusing go-round about what, exactly, "renew by mail" means. It does not mean "if you go abroad, and are in some weird limbo with no US address, and you need to renew your license and this here one is the last one you had, so we'll renew it by mail." Instead it means, "we'll take your $50, send you a 6 month temporary license with no explanation that in order to get the 4 year version you have to provide proof of address in New Hampshire." It turns out that as long as my US license expired within the past 12 months, I had to take only the normal knowledge test and not the road test! I can just imagine trying to pass the road test after 20 years of bad driving habits.....

I have been knitting a bit, although far less than I imagined when I planned a few months of "retirement" for myself while getting settled back into the US. I have several pregnant friends, so I'm working on some baby things. Here is an unfinished (needs the edging) and unblocked (obviously) sweater (from this pattern):

And the unfinished (needs edging and sewing up the back) and unblocked hat (same pattern):

And a baby blanket (Fiber Trends Estonian Lullaby)

I'm not so excited about the yarn (Reynolds' Hopscotch). I was really focused on finding a soft, washable, apple green, and somehow totally missed the fact that it was thick-thin, which I think makes the blanket way too busy with the lace as well, although you can't really see either (lace/yarn) in this photo. I kept knitting a bit and then putting it aside because of that, but I don't know what else to do with the yarn (which looks like some other baby effluvia...) and I don't really want to go buy even more yarn and start over. I'm deluding myself into thinking that once it's blocked it will magically become wonderful. ha ha. We all know what a great blocker I am...

And I guess I might as well show you my new couch, since it will be the background to all my knitting shots! It's leather. Kind of. It's the "Webster" sofa from JC Penneys, and it's made of "bonded leather", which is like the leather dust that's swept up from the factory floor and chemical'd into some kind of fabric. But it has 8 way hand tied springs, which are apparently the ultimate in couch technology, and it was on sale from $1000 to $400. Failing economy: score one for Andrea. I was really stoked to find a spring couch, since my $1000 foam couch from IKEA in Switzerland was already pretty badly worn after only 3 years.

My retirement has been quite as leisurely as I'd been hoping. It takes a lot of time (and money) to run around buying cheap crap at Target to furnish a whole apartment! I'm pretty well settled in, now, and very happy in my new place. It's the quietest place I've ever lived. I'm on the steep part of the learning curve, though, and it's a bit overwhelming to have 100% new appliances and living space, so I haven't quite got all the kinks worked out of the system. I keep burning my food because my (coveted) gas stove reheats things in about 4 minutes--I guess I got used to my stove in Zurich which took about 30 minutes to heat up, so I'd put on a pan and then go off and do something else! I also got really annoyed one day that I kept having to walk back and forth from the counter to the fridge (my new kitchen is kind of long and skinny) and then I had to stop and laugh when I realized that my "problem" was that my kitchen was actually big enough to walk around in.

My old boss in Switzerland keeps adding little things to my to-do list. It's really hard to "quit" an academic job because the "lifetime" of projects is 1-2 years, so I think it's going to have its hooks in me for a while yet! The idea when I left was that I would get paid for October even though I moved back at the end of September. That way there would be a month's worth of work "in the bank" for when the reviews come back on my last paper (submitted in September). But there are lots of other little projects I was involved in which keep cropping up, so I've put in about 2 weeks worth of work and haven't even gotten the reviews back yet! Hopefully they'll turn out to be minor when they do show, but we'll see.

Happy happy joy joy

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:58:00 +0000

It's good to be home:

I'd ripped all my cds to my laptop before I moved to Switzerland and despite 3 years of valiant effort, I really never got used to the various cd-less technologies for playing music. I like my ipod when I'm out and about, but when I'm at home I really just want to pop 5 discs in the changer and listen to them on a stereo. So I'm very happy to be reunited with all my cds! Now, if I could only make a dent on the 100+ item wishlist I have going at Amazon..... And yes, that's some vintage VHS Spinal Tap in the corner!

I've been pretty busy the past few weeks! I rented an apartment in St. Paul. It's an enormous one bedroom with some nice older touches such as these leaded glass (?) windows in the dining room (the walls are actually white but I turned off the flash to try and catch the wall sconces):

and the exposed woodwork in both the living room and dining room:

I've spent a sickening amount of money getting it set up. It's funny, I don't mind throwing down a c-note for some books, but when I have to drop $500 at Target on "cheap plastic crap", I get all anxious about spending so much money. The couch gets delivered next week and I should be able to pick up my mattress tomorrow or next week and then I'll be all set to move in!

I'm knitting on some baby's things--pictures soon!

Some yarn and things

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 16:55:00 +0000

It's been a busy 6 weeks since I got home. Apparently once I'm no longer being paid to sit at a computer all day, I really don't want to sit at one all day! I haven't been up to much since I got back. I spent a few weeks hanging out at my mom's place in Oregon, seeing old friends there and up in Seattle and Vancouver, BC. Then I took Amtrak out to Minneapolis and have been chilling at my dad's place for the past couple weeks. I wasn't sure how quickly I'd start looking for my own apartment, but it turned out to be very quick--guess I've lived alone too long to be spending much time in the spare bedroom at home! So I've already rented an apartment in St. Paul--I got approved on Friday and hope to sign the lease ASAP so I can go buy some more cheap crap at IKEA! My new place seems enormous (1 bedroom with a separate living room and dining room!) and cheap ($700) and incredibly quiet (residential street!). I'm just eager to stop living out of a suitcase.

I had a good time in Tallinn, Estonia right before I headed back to the States. My friend and I stayed right in the old town and had a nice leisurely vacation--the kind where you sightsee about 3 hours a day and spend the rest of it lounging in coffee shops or the hotel room. It was exactly what I needed after all the stress of arranging the move and everything! I was on a mission to buy some pre-label Kauni/Evila yarn and managed to hit the motherlode. I don't have pictures of all of it (can't seem to download to my new computer and am too lazy to set the old one back up just now). I bought about 8 pounds--here is some of it drying in my mom's back yard:

There is enough of each colorway for a sweater (I hope!) and there is another colorway not shown (sort of an orangey-fall scheme) along with some undyed browns I bought to stretch out the yardage in case I run short.

I've been knitting on my bog jacket out of this same yarn but haven't been making any progress since I got to Minneapolis. My cat not only remembered me immediately (yay!) but has also expressed her infinite love of nice scratchy wool--she will not leave the sweater, so it's turned into a temporary cat bed! I guess I'll be knitting her a blanket out of one of the colorways so I can have my sweater back!!!

I'm incredibly glad to be home and glad the economic apocalypse has calmed down a bit! I've been guzzling root beer like there's no tomorrow and sampling the gluten free goodies on offer and just generally being happy. The saddest thing about leaving Switzerland was that I really wasn't sad to leave at all, which says a lot!

I'm pathetically far behind on my blog reading--I imagine I'll get caught up and actually post more here once I have an actual desk set up in my new place! For now, just picture me curled up happily next to my cat who is curled up in cat-nirvana on some scratchy Estonian wool!

The eagle has landed

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:44:00 +0000

Ugh.

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:07:00 +0000

I just arrived in Tallinn, Estonia. My flights here didn't go so well. I had to go through security in Hamburg and they decided to swab my laptop (too many stickers on it?). It came back positive for "TNT". So did the second try. I spent the next 40 minutes standing there trying not to cry while surrounded by German policemen while we all waited for a manager to come clean the machine. After cleaning, they ran some more swabs which came out negative and eventually I was let go, with my laptop!

Note to self..... First stop tomorrow will be to buy an external drive to back this thing up--I'm really bad about keeping on top of that stuff.

While I was searching for more info on false positives, I came across false positives for semen--home infidelity tests! Sad and creepy all rolled into one!

Apparently, cleaning fluids can often be confused for TNT on these airport machines. My apartment was just professionally cleaned, so that's certainly a possibility. The real question, however, is what do I now use to clean my laptop before the next flight. I want to get rid of the old, bad residue, but I don't want to just introduce new, bad residue!! Anyone got any great cleaning tips? Keep in mind I don't speak Estonian!!!!

Garbage police

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 04:16:00 +0000

Yesterday morning while I was bringing my boxes down to the foyer (in preparation for their trip to the post), the garbage police showed up!

The van says "Schwarz entsorgen ist nicht fair!" which translates to "Illegal disposal isn't fair!" The door says "Kontrolldienst" which means inspection/monitoring office. The adjective "schwarz" literally means "black" and is frequently used here to mean illegal--schwarzfahren is riding the tram without a ticket, etc. I find the substitution a bit creepy because I can't help but suspect it has racist undertones.

I had heard that there were garbage police in Switzerland who would dig through bags of garbage for improperly disposed items (recyclables or hazardous materials) and for something with your name and address on it so they could send you a fine, but I'd always wondered if maybe the tales were just rumor or exaggeration. I know for a fact that your neighbors will dig through your recycling for your name and address and write you a note informing you of what you've done wrong (improperly tied bundles or wrongly sorted materials) and I thought maybe the garbage police were just an out of control exaggeration! I guess they really exist!

So yesterday they pulled up and nabbed a bag of trash on the sidewalk. The old system here was that we put our garbage into official, taxed garbage bags and left it on the sidewalk for pick up on certain days of the week. The new system, starting last spring, was that we carry the taxed bags 0-5 blocks to an official community dumpster. This was a slightly traumatic change for me, but I adapted. A lot of my neighbors either ignored the memo (and I can't blame them since I myself have developed the habit of deleting/throwing away email/mail in German because I just don't want to deal with it--I figure if it's really important they'll write again, or a colleague will tip me off to the content...) or they just don't care, and have been leaving the bags on the sidewalk. Finally the garbage police came, although I'm not sure if it was a random inspection or if another nosy neighbor called in to report the violation. So they swooped in, picked up the bag, and brought it into the van where they have a big sorting table. They opened the bag, dug through it, and appeared to find something with a name and address, then put the bag back together and moved along. I tried to get pictures of them digging through the bag, but I was also trying to be incognito and by the time I got my camera out they had moved the bag out of sight! It was still pretty exciting, though!

And I found a 50 CHF (about $50) bill on the street the other night. It's one of those weeks!

I self published a book!

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:40:00 +0000

But first, we have to talk about paratrooper surgeons. Naturally. During my winter-over at the south pole, one member of our crew became very ill. Now, we had all signed a legal document clearly agreeing to the statement that we understood that there was a real possibility of injury, illness, or death during the winter and that there was absolutely no possiblity of rescue. It's a creepy statement to sign, but the fact is it's just too cold (and dark!) to fly into the south pole between March and October. A couple of years before my winter, Jerri Nielsen was medevaced in early October, a few weeks before the scheduled station opening (most people mistakenly think she was evacuated in the heart of winter--it's as hard to dissuade people from that error as from the idea that penguins and polar bears are at the same pole).

During my winter, someone got sick in March, just a month after the station had closed for the winter. For several weeks, there was a massive information void while the people at Denver HQ tried to decide what to do about the situation, ranging from nothing at all to trying an actual wintertime evacuation. Now, the south pole is already a special place, where there is far too little to do and far too much idle time on everyone's hands, making for the ultimate rumor mill. One of my favorite "inventions" in that period of unknowing was that they were going to bring in some paratrooper surgeons who would parachute to station in the middle of winter, set up an operating theater, and operate on the crewmember in question. Yeah, paratroopers. In the Antarctic, where it's pitch dark and -90F. Ha ha. Needless to say, that solution did not come to pass. But I love the story of it all because it's such an awesome and larger-than-life example of the rumor mill, and thinking about it helps me keep some perspective on the smaller rumors that come up in everyday life.

Fast forward 7 years. I'm putting the final touches on my thesis, getting through the defense, and trying to figure out all the administrative hurdles I have to clear to graduate. Discussions of thesis printing are frequent. Rumors involving $2000 price tags are common. Really? $2k? For that price, I'll print/bind the damn thing in the US and just ship them back over!

I finally got my act together and went directly to the few printers in town who do this kind of thing. The best quote? $350. Sweet.

So, I've now paid to print and bind several copies of my thesis. It's kind of like self publishing a book at a vanity press!

Yay!!

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:06:00 +0000

I just got word that I'm officially accepted in the teaching certification program for spring term! Yay! And tonight I finished taping up all my boxes. I seem to be bringing home a cubic meter---mostly books and yarn, of course. Next week I'm off to Tallinn, Estonia for a little sightseeing. This is the home of the yarn company that makes Evilla and Kauni: oh yes, there will be some buying!

Knitting roundup

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:54:00 +0000

I have actually been doing a little knitting, although after the day's sorting and packing I'm as likely to just veg out and watch a movie without even picking up the needles!

I seem to be a true modern woman, meaning that I've reached that age where all my friends seem to be pregnant, only we're all in our 30s (hence the modern). I made a February Baby Sweater from EZ's Knitter's Almanac. I'm embarrassed to say how difficult I found this, actually. First I hated the garter stitch with variegated yarn. No, zeroth I dug some superwash variegated sock yarn out of my "charity donation" pile so I had to adjust the stitch count quite a bit. Then I found that garter + variegated = [shudder]. I actually found the lace pattern impossible to knit--the two action rows are so similar, yet not identical, that I wound up having to tink every 3rd or 4th pattern row after having gotten off by a couple stitches by doing the wrong pattern early on in the row. I guess I never have to worry about knitting the adult version for me. And of course, all the hard-earned lace just disappears when using a variegated yarn [note to self!]. Then I kept forgetting to put in button holes, so they're "artfully" distributed, and then out of sheer "just get it done"ness I sewed the buttons on with dental floss. Sorry, new-parents, that's the best I could do! It doesn't mean I don't love ya!

For some reason, blogger insists on rotating this image.

I've been trudging away on my hemp tank top. I might even finish by next summer! Ha ha. My gauge swatch was too small to be useful, meaning I cast on waaaay too many stitches. I decreased a ton hoping it would turn into some drapey, flaring action on the hips. I have no idea if it will work, but hemp only gets softer for being frogged, so it won't be a total disaster.

And I knit up a couple of flowers for my Alexander Technique teacher. My last lesson is this week, and it seemed like the kind of professional relationship whose end needs to be marked in some way. I thought these would be fun because she has an endless supply of interesting stuff on rotation in her studio--little interesting things for the eye to rest upon during the sessions. But I'm not so thrilled with them--they just seem a bit homespun and sad. I very rarely knit things to give away--it's not so much that I'm selfish (which I certainly am), but that I always feel a bit ashamed of the things I knit. Not ashamed for me to wear them--I adore the stuff I make myself--but preemptively embarrassed for the recipient getting such an obviously handmade gift when maybe they aren't really into the whole handmade thing. To some people handmade means "too broke to buy storebought". It's so ironic, since handknit actually means "I have a lot of spare time and cash for hobbies, and I spent hours loving you enough to make you this," but those childhood lessons die hard, I guess. In the end, it's the thought that counts and my teacher will know that I mean this as a kind and thoughtful gift, and I'll never know if she doesn't display them!

Going out with a bang

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:30:00 +0000

I am thrilled to announce that I have a "publication" in Nature, one of the two most prestigious journals in the natural sciences. It's just a short comment on another paper (in the "Brief Communications Arising" category), but it is peer reviewed and it is in Nature, so I guess it counts! It's a nice high point to end my academic career on! The peer review process was pretty funny. It was like a parody of the peer review process--we had 4 reviewers and two rounds of review that took about 6 months, all for about 3 paragraphs of text!! The first paragraph is here--access to the full text requires a subscription.

Below I'll summarize (or more likely, expand! actual science content!) what we did, but first I need to define the term "reanalysis". Weather forecasts these days are made by taking all the available observations (from surface stations like at the airport, from "weather balloons" which measure temperature, humidty and wind up through the atmosphere at a given point, and from satellite observations) and dropping them into a computer model which is based on physical principles. The crank is turned and then it spits out a forecast for 0, 6, 12, 18, etc hours in the future. Yes, it actually makes a current situation "forecast" which covers the whole globe rather than just where the observations are. This output is called an "analysis". For a long time in the 80s and 90s the output of these model runs was being saved and people got the idea to look at long term changes in in climate in the output. This was a good idea with a major flaw--the forecasting models get updates all.the.time, so no one was sure if trends in the output were real or just from changing models. Eventually they took the latest model available and started over at the beginning (1948), hence creating a re-analysis. One of the incredibly useful things about reanalysis is that it can span gaps in coverage, so we get output in regions like the north pole where there really aren't many measurements. Of course, such output is obviously not as reliable in these "data sparse" regions.

The original paper, published by Graversen, et al. in Nature (volume 451, pages 53-56, Jan 3, 2008), looked at trends in the Arctic in one of these reanalysis products (the "ERA-40" one). They averaged the data for all longitudes for the summer half of the year and looked at trends from 1979-2001. (They started in '79 because that's when the bulk of the satellites came online, and stopped in '01 when the ERA-40 project ended.) They then did something interesting--they looked at how these temperature trends varied as you move from 30N to 90N, and as you move from the earth's surface up to about 10km up in the atmosphere. This last piece is really interesting (and is what I've been trying to work on for the past three years) because knowing where the warming is happening (at the ground, higher up, throughout the whole atmosphere) can give you a clue about what is behind the warming. Different causes of warming like greenhouse gases, solar variability, urbanization, will all have a "signature" of warming at different heights, so it's another way to help us disentangle what's going on with the climate system.

So, Graversen, et al. found a huge peak of the warming trend over the Arctic Ocean (85-90N) in summer at about 3km above the ground. This result was really puzzling and unexpected, and seemed to indicate that, whatever was going on in the Arctic, it wasn't being driven by greenhouse gases.

Since my phd thesis has been on historical weather balloon data (back to 1932) with a special focus on the vertical profile of temperature in the Arctic, we decided to take a quick look at this. We recreated the problematic figure from the original paper using the ERA-40 reanalysis, but then we took ERA-40 and kept only those locations where weather balloons are ingested and looked at trends from that, and finally looked at trends in the weather balloon data itself. The last two versions matched each other quite well, which isn't surprising given that all the weather balloon data is ingested into the reanalysis, and confirms that where there is data, the output is pretty good. The problem came over the Arctic Ocean and it turns out there are a couple of issues:

We discovered, in the primary reference paper for ERA-40 reanalysis, the discussion of a known problem ingesting satellite temperatures over the Arctic Ocean. It turns out that the data prior to 1996 was ingested with an error and the data after that without the error, leading to a jump in temperatures over the Arctic Ocean right at about 3km above the surface. An upward jump in the middle of a long series of data will give you a trend!
The lack of weather balloons in the area meant that there was nothing to keep the model "on track", allowing this satellite error to dominate the region.

Point 2 isn't so surprising--no one expects the models to be perfect. What I did find really surprising was that the reviewers of the original paper let stand the trends in such a poorly validated region, especially in light of the known error (point 1 above). It seems like a pretty big oversight to me!

Oh the handshaking!

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 17:50:00 +0000

I've been showing my flat all week to potential renters. The one woman who came by a few weeks ago clearly was told to come to the wrong apartment, as the new ad for my place shows no rent increase (she'd been told 1200 CHF!). I had a little misunderstanding with my landlords--I thought they were going to choose one day to show the apartment so I gave them several to choose from. Instead, they took them all so I've had about 40 people traipsing through here over the past couple of nights. The first dude totally surprised me--I'd been expecting the landlords to call and warn me of when the showings were, but since they thought I knew, they didn't call, so this guy caught me in the middle of sorting some recycling and general chaos. He could barely get in the door, actually! And he politely didn't comment on the second surprise of the night for me (maggots in my trash can). It was a fun evening, let me tell you!

So I've been getting to practice my german a lot with all these folks. Oh joy! I have my little spiel down, though, so as long as they don't ask any weird questions I'm OK. There's also a lot of handshaking going on. The Swiss really like to shake people's hands. A couple months after I moved here I finally had to break down and ask one of my colleagues what the "rules" were about handshaking. I clearly wasn't shaking their hands every day, but I was always being taken by surprise when a hand would come flying at me from someone I already knew. Of course, my colleague couldn't really articulate the system, since he just knew how it worked instinctively. Finally we agreed that one shakes hands upon meeting someone for the first time, and then on any subsequent meeting (and departure!) if one tends to meet the person less often than once a week. This excludes daily-contact colleagues, but includes pretty much everyone else in the country.

I have to admit I'm not overly excited about shaking my doctor's hand (twice) at every visit. By definition the man is around sick people all day, right? Not what I want to be rubbing up against. But then, the viral theory of colds* doesn't really hold sway here, so spreading germs by pressing the flesh shouldn't be a problem either, I guess.

The other greeting/departure move is the cheek kissing, although when one gets upgraded to that was even less clear than the rule for handshaking frequency. Women seem to upgrade to kissing other women relatively quickly, with men less so, and men-men seems to be mostly a southern Europe thing. Here in Switzerland it's three kisses, although I still haven't figured out if you actually are supposed to make cheek-to-cheek contact or just kiss the air. I think it's really funny that the kissing thing really creeps me out--as in, it really violates my personal space--but hugging, which involves full body contact is fine with me. I guess it's all what you grew up with!

The handshake to kissing upgrade confusion is similar to the first name and informal-version-of-you confusion. It's extremely rude to use the informal version before it's been agreed upon, but I have no idea when or how that happens. With everyone in my group at work (4 people) we all started out on the first name and informal-you basis, and everyone else I've known in Switzerland has either been non Swiss (thus first name from the get go) or I've never really gotten to know them (hence we're still on formal-you and Mr. and Mrs. so-and-so). I did have one funny experience: after my knee surgery in 06 I was having a lot of muscle pain from walking all hunched up on my "sticks" (as they call crutches here), so I had several massages. At one of them, the masseuse was quite chatty and I was working really hard at making sure I used the formal-you (which definitely cut down on the "relaxation ambience" of the massage, but then since it was at a physical therapy place, there wasn't much ambience to start with), when suddenly in the middle of the massage the woman stops and sticks her hand out at me and keeps repeating "Hi, I'm Barbara". She said it about 4 times before I suddenly realized what was going on--she was introducing herself with her first name, meaning we should switch to the informal-you!

*People get colds here from drafts (even relatively hot air "drafts" in the hot summer) rather than from viruses, so fans and air conditioners (or even open windows) are very rare. I think it's similar to the idea that in the US we think we get colds from getting our feet wet in the rain....

Really bad ideas

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 18:05:00 +0000

Zuska had an interesting post about the use of sexual metaphors in computing (specifically at a hacking summer camp)--things like "penetration" or "violation". I commented about how it reminded me of my undergrad days when I spent a couple of years working in a physics lab building electronics instrumentation. One of the components used to build analog circuits is a resistor, a tiny blob of carbon (or something equally not-very-conductive) painted with colored stripes to denote the magnitude of resistance that that resistor provides. Most people found the color code hard to remember, so there are all kinds of mnemonics to help out. The first one I was taught* was "Black Boys Rape Our Young Girls, But Violet Goes Willingly for Silver or Gold" (occasionally people would tone it down by saying "bad boys..."). Yikes! I'm almost as speechless now as I was 20 years ago. And, hey, way to make the first woman in your research group feel welcome!

In electronics there are also all kind of connectors (like the one from the TV to the, uh VCR? ok, DVD!) which were referred to as "male" and "female" connectors, for obvious reasons**. Anytime I was around someone I hadn't worked with before, the first mention of these would be followed with an awkward pause while everyone in the room had my (female) anatomy flash through their minds. Or it would be followed by some ribald jokes (sometimes these would continue even around people I had worked with for a long time). This is a good example of the kind of "uncomfortable climate" or culture that makes me think twice about being a scientist--do I really belong? Do I want to put up with this for the next 40 years? All these kinds of events that magnify our Otherness can have this kind of very subtle impact. But because each individual event is so small, it seems kind of silly to point to them individually. It's well known, however, that these things really do add up over time and also in quantity.

*Incidentally (and luckily), I never had trouble with the color code because it's simply black-brow-the_spectrum-grey-white-silver-gold. The spectrum was one of those things that seemed to come naturally to me, and even as a very small child I was pretty neurotic about needing my colored pencils to be in rainbow order! in their case. Ahem. And with the resistors, the package around the spectrum was just a fade out from black to white. I never had trouble remembering left from right either--it's funny how people just get that as a toddler or they never do (their entire lives!).

**I have to confess that some of the "male" connectors had such large and deep "foreskins" that I would occasionally get a bit confused!

Rent Control

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 16:30:00 +0000

Because I gave notice on an allowed date, the company that owns my building is now looking for the next renter. They asked for specific dates and times when I could show it, so I was hoping we could do the open house style on just one or two evenings. Instead they opted for having individual renters call me to set up individual times to come see the place. This is more hassle for me--more phone calls (my absolute least favorite thing to do here), more of my time wasted. One person called and we set up a time, then she called an hour before she was supposed to arrive and wanted to reschedule for the next day. Grrr. She finally showed up yesterday and as soon as she walked in I could see she wanted to leave (and she did 3 minutes later). Turns out they told her the rent would be 1200 CHF (about $1200). This is a 25 m² (250 square feet) apartment on one of the busiest streets in Zurich in a relatively dumpy (by Swiss standards) building. My rent is 841 CHF (about $841). I was already annoyed that it had gone up from 776 CHF in April (I know landlords raise rent, but why wait 2.5 years and then hike it all at once?). I'm glad I decided to give notice when I could walk away--if I had to find a follow-on tenant, I would be really stressed about trying to lie and sell the place, whereas now I can just be honest!

This blog post about the psychology of dealing with climate change (or not, as the case may be) and some more general thoughts about risk assessment psychology is interesting. I especially liked "The science of human behavior, particularly the psychology of risk perception, robustly shows that we use two systems to make judgments about risk; reason and affect, facts and feelings. It is simply naïve to disregard this inescapable truth and presume that reason and intellect alone will carry the day. That’s just not how the human animal behaves." This reminds me of something I consider to be a fundamental flaw of traditional economics: the idea of the rational actor as the basis for the entire economy.

I've been spinning a lot. I dyed a bunch of wool this winter, but I hadn't been spinning so much because my back always hurts after sitting all day. So I've been planning to sell my wheel before I move, but I just couldn't let go of all the wool I dyed! So I've been spinning in 10 minute spurts (one little ball of prepped wool), and it's going ok. I'm surprised at how much I can get done! Of course, now that I'm seeing results, I'm second guessing my decision to sell the wheel. Argh!

Recent yarn I've spun. The red yarn was spun in April, knit into bad, thick socks, and frogged.

One batch (the rusty stuff on the left) was so pretty I couldn't bring myself to ply it--I knew the colors would just kind of muddy out. So I've been dreaming up patterns that would look ok using energized singles which bias like mad. I was thinking of a tank top knit in the round--the leaning stitches would just add textural interest! However, when I finally skeined them up, I realized something about my spinning: my singles don't have much "energy" (twist). They hardly coil up on themselves. This explains why my plied yarn is never very plied--the whole idea behind plying is that twisting two yarns together in the opposite direction from how they were spun means that the over-twist in the singles untwists in a way that makes the ply tighter. Balance is achieved. Instead, I have these barely twisted singles, which turn into two strands that are more like neighbors than plies.

Rust colored singles without much twist

Blue and red yarn--note how the plies are barely plied in the red yarn!

I've also been working away on my bog jacket. I worked up the back and sides (the bottom part with the fold/phoney seams), then added extra stitches for the arms. I put in the red racing stripe at the neck/shoulder/top of arms, and now just reached the neck. The front shoulders/arms are worked separately--I've started on one side. I might rejoin the fronts when I get back to the long-color-change yarn because I would prefer the stripes to be the same on both sides. That means steeking the front top. I've had some bad steeking experiences---no disasters, but just a lot of hassle and not being so thrilled with the results. I stumbled across some advice recently about not steeking heavy weight yarns, and suddenly my past troubles made a lot more sense--yes, dealing with tons of bulky ends does add a lot of bulk to the steek opening! Since this yarn is pretty fine, I think it would go better. I'm trying to figure out crochet steeking on a little test square--no ends to weave in, or so I'm told! And this is definitely the yarn for that--it's super grabby. When I dropped the stitches for the phoney seams, I had to hand tug apart the stitch in every row! In fact, I could probably just cut without securing the steek at all...

Bog jacket up to the neck split

Heh

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:50:00 +0000

I just came across this amusing fashion error!

I've been laying low--the air pollution has been in the "illegal" range for a week and my lungs feel like they are on fire. Not so fun. This happens every summer in Zurich and every year I forget and wonder why my asthma is flaring up (causing me to sleep poorly, making me grouchy. Oy!)

Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 09:53:00 +0000

I've lived at 21 different addresses in my life (a couple of them more than once), ranging from a few months to a decade. And I've had 21 jobs at 17 different companies, ranging from a few weeks (temp work) to 3 years. I have a love-hate relationship with moving. I hate the hassle of it, and part of me hates the change (change is bad! love my routine!) but another part of me loves the change (new things to explore! get away from the people who bugged me at the last place! run away from your problems--if you run fast enough they can't catch you, right?). "Doing a geographical" is a habit I'm trying to break, because I've realized that I tend to bring myself and all my baggage (emotional and otherwise) with me, and I can also see the, well, mayhem is a bit strong of a word, but the damage it's done. I don't have a good support system set up, and I struggle with long term "relationships" with other people when I remain in the same city as them (and by relationships, I mean all kinds--coworkers, neighbors, friends, romantic types, etc). Plus actually, physically moving is so tiresome for us booklover types!

I'd honestly like to settle down and be a part of a community. In fact, I came to this realization some years ago, and my response was ... to move! Because of course, the community I was in wasn't the one I wanted to build roots in. And so, I arrived in Switzerland with that mindset, so I pretty badly was hoping I would love it (and fall in love with someone who could ease the work permit situation!) and expected I might settle down here. As I've blogged before (a, b, c, d), things didn't go as planned. And so I face another huge upheaval, fully cognizant that moving will not solve my problems, yet knowing I have to move to begin solving my problems. Well, I don't have to, but staying here just out of stubbornness (moving isn't the solution, so I better stay just to not-move) is a pretty bad reason to stay when I have literally no other reasons to stay (tramlove, sadly enough, is not enough to tip the balance). Argh! How do I get myself into these situations? Whose dumb idea was this, anyway?

Some big transitions in my life:

Age 7: parents getting divorced
No, no, no starting this far back would make this a book. We'll move along. Anyway, insert the standard story here (one promiscuous sister, one goody two-shoes, all survive and grow up, eventually).
Age 25: ending first big adult relationship. Lived with an awesome guy for 7 years (all of college and a few years after).
Whoa, long story. Most of us have been here. My transition involved exceptional quantities of alcohol, more than enough for a lifetime. Definitely (to misquote Dickens) it was the best thing that ever happened to me and the worst thing that ever happened to me. The 'ship needed to end, as we'd grown apart, and it ending led me to directions and opportunities I'd never have had otherwise, but boy hardy the transition was tough. Hadn't realized how much my identity had been wrapped up in the "us" that was no longer.
leaving south pole
Going to south pole was fun. Dream come true, lots of self-pinching to see if it was real (really, though, the constant frostnip should have obviated the need for the pinching!). Leaving was tough. I'd lost the majority of my social skills (whaaaa? indoor snot rockets are considered rude? and my favorite thing to say was "noted" in this really dismissive tone of voice. That came from the weird habit people develop when being cooped up too long with each other with nothing to do: coming up to you and saying something either totally obvious or totally irrelevant. Like if I am eating dinner and someone comes up and says "you are eating dinner" or "you should eat the peas first, not the hamburger". I mean, WTF are you supposed to say to that? At first I'd whip out my little "green brain" (notebook we all carried everywhere to combat the severe memory loss we all developed) and my pen and pretend to write it down, saying "your input has been noted." Eventually that got shortened to a dismissive "noted".), and emotionally I was just shattered. I had had some high expectations about how my friendships would evolve once we left the station. People pretty much went their own way and I was "left" all alone and was incredibly bitter about it and felt very "abandoned". I now see this was a slight bit of distorted perceiving/thinking on my part, but that insight took several years to coalesce. I might add that I was a very bitter and unhappy person by the end of winter, so I'm not surprised (in retrospect) that nobody really wanted to be around me!

I traveled the world for a couple months grudgingly and resentfully--we basically got a free round-the-world ticket (15 stops in unlimited countries), so everyone felt "obliged" to make a big world tour, but most of us were emotionally too wrecked to enjoy it. I spent two months circling New Zealand, basically dragging from hostel to hostel and spending a large portion of my time crying in my bed. I didn't speak to anyone, and I didn't laugh for about 4 months after I left (if you know me in person, you know that I laugh all the time).

I came home, lived with my parents, and took up meditation, although at one point my dad said "if you get any 'calmer' you'll be dead!" because I was nearly catatonic, emotionally. It was weird, because I was clearly broken somehow and had little emotional affect, but I was working full time at the video store AND revising and defending my master's thesis, so I'm hard-pressed to call it depression (since it had no effect on my productivity, sleep, appetite or sex drive, nor did it cause the various kinds of bad thoughts that normally signify depression). I just simply had no idea who I was, and I mean that in the most literal sense. I was just broken.

I didn't know what was important to me, or what I liked to do, or what kind of people I liked, or if I could trust my own take on events. A lot of this came from having been deeply invested in some perceptions of life/situations at pole that turned out to be different than I expected, leading me to no longer trust that I knew what I thought I knew, about pole or anything at all, actually. One example was about role in station life. I had thought I was a "good comrade"--I was funny, excellent at hanging out (seriously, this is a legitimate skill needed in order to survive 8 months in a cold, dark, isolated place!), involved in community activities, cooked dinner for the whole crew (50 people) several times (there were no meals cooked on Sundays, so it was fend for yourself from the leftover fridge most of the time), organized some social activities. Sure, I was a little non-plussed with the cooks, and I was vocal about my opinions, but the vast majority of the time I was simply saying what others were thinking but didn't say (I know for a fact this is true). At the end of the winter, we had a performance evaluation, and suddenly it turns out I was one of the worst crew members on station, several letters had been written to the station manager complaining about me, I had made the station a worse place, blah blah. There was a loud screeching sound as my grasp on reality broke. I mean, I know everyone tends to have slightly unrealistic views about themselves and how they come across, but this was too much. I suddenly had no idea who was "right", and if I couldn't trust my perception of events on this, then really, I couldn't trust anything I thought I knew, could I?

Anyway, meditation firmly in hand, I moved to a cabin in the woods (although sort of also on the rural highway), to lick my wounds for a couple more years. Eventually I "humpty-dumpty'd" my personality back together, did some serious emotional surgery to cut out the festering wounds, and, well, I got over it!

Mostly got over it. I have lingering health issues from that winter, and some permanent, well, brain damage is the only term for it: memory loss and slight cognitive impairment. My IQ dropped like 15 points over winter. Literally. I tested it. Most of that I was able to recover, but there are definitely things that I can't do or are harder for me to reason out now. It's scary, but in a way it's good because now when age-related mental decline comes, I won't have to freak out!
moving to Switzerland
Hey, why not? How hard can it be? Ha ha. I went through the classic stages of culture shock:
Arrival to 3 months: wow, this is paradise, OMG, this is the most amazing place ever!
3mo-6mo: I hate this place, I can't find x, y, or z and everyone's weird and I'm tired and I want to go home.
6mo-12mo: ok, some things are better here, some are worse, ha ha, wasn't I so hysterical the first 6 months in my opinions about this place!
12mo-18mo: look at me, I'm still so sophisticated with my "living abroad" and "being so balanced in my perspective", but really, the idea of being an expat is so cool, I'm going to stay here for the rest of my life!
Then I diverged onto my own path, which mostly was a self-reinforcing loop of
Repatriating
This is the upcoming transition, two of them, actually. Returning to the US, and leaving research science to become a teacher. I'm excited about both of them, and a little nervous. I'm worried about "reverse" culture shock, although I haven't experienced that on my trips to the US since I've been here. What's far more likely to happen is I gain 20 pounds from a daily dose of gluten free donuts... (donuts! People, I had no idea it was so good in the US!) I find myself anxious and fragile right now--I'm not quite at the point I was when I left pole, where even breaking the lead on my pencil would cause me to burst into tears, but I'm definitely easily verklempt, especially around things that have been important parts of my journey here. In particular, I am finding the weekly Anglican/Benedictine Evensong (done in Gregorian chant) service that I attend to be pretty emotional for me, as this has been an important part of my spiritual life here.

On some level I feel like my experiences are not at all unique--what I mean is that all of us humans go through tough times and have emotional reactions. The particular details of my stories may seem more glamorous and exciting, but the same kind of profound changing and growing experiences can be had by someone who's never left their home town. Marriage, divorce, having a child, losing a child, changing jobs, or even just waking up one day wondering "who the hell am I? It was all so clear at 22" are things that can be just as powerful as any international adventure. I've learned a lot from my knitting, actually, about patience, correcting mistakes, accepting imperfection (and the wisdom to know the difference!), about process (the present moment, the journey) being more important than product (the goal, the future) and, hell, I don't even have to leave my couch to knit!

Of course, this doesn't diminish my delight in the details of everyone's version of the human experience. Because the details are where it gets interesting! I recently read Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser, which is about these kinds of phoenix processes. It was a fascinating read--so many people, so many transitions! I can't wait to read the rest of this blog carnival!

August scientiae-carnival

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 07:23:00 +0000

Late last winter I knit up a Hemlock Ring blanket, but I didn't want to blog about it because it was a wedding present. I'm pretty sure the recipients don't read my blog, but you never know! I had a one pound cone of sunshiney yellow Jaggerspun Zephyr (merino/silk blend) left over from my weaving days. I split the cone into six nearly-equal balls (involving my swift, my ball winder, a kitchen scale and about 3 hours) and then swatched until I got a fabric weight I liked. The blanket knit up very quickly (a couple of weeks) and is the kind of lace I find I really like--each row is easy to memorize and very symmetric. It then languished for several months while I avoided blocking it (because, you know, I wouldn't want to block too early and then get it all creased storing it for several months!).

I finally blocked it in June when I went away for a week. It was a bit tricky in my apartment, since the blanket was too wide to block on my bed and I have hardwood floors. I finally pulled all the cushions off the couch, arranged them on the floor and pinned the blanket to it. I had to do this when I was going out of town because this arrangement left no room to walk through the main room of my apartment! The pins didn't really want to stay in the foam of the cushions, though, so I couldn't block very severely, meaning the blanket is really more of a small throw (and looked pathetically small when I laid it out on my sister's king size bed to show her). It also meant that one petal is shorter than the other 7--I don't know how that happened, but I couldn't seem to block it out because when I pulled, the other pins just popped out. Have I mentioned how much I hate blocking? And yes, after I took the picture I straightened out that curved petal!

I also started a little tank top with some hemp yarn. I ordered veeeeery thin laceweight, delusionally imagining I'd be able to crochet it into a non-see-through, but still light, fabric. Um, no. Using two strands made a nice fabric, but it turned out I didn't have as much time to crochet at my conferences (in June) as I'd hoped, so I didn't get very far. Then I realized it was about 10 inches too big around. Note to self: must learn to do bigger gauge swatches. By then I'd had to admit to myself that crocheting kills my wrists--I'd seen that coming during the sunhat but kept hoping it was a learning thing and once I got a bit better I'd stop doing whatever it was that hurt my wrist. Sadly, no.

At this point, my entire plan was spinning out of control. See, the one time I knit with hemp it really killed my hands, but crocheting with it was fine (as long as I ignored the searing wrist pain...), so I'd bought some more hemp with the plan to crochet. Which failed. So I decided to try knitting with it again. You know, because by this time I'd gone around enough times in my head that I didn't know which way was up! However, it seems to have worked, and I find knitting with it not so bad!??! Two things helped:

I boiled the skeined yarn before using it. Yes, for 30 minutes, I boiled it on the stove. Where it crocked (see def. 2) like mad. I let it dry and wound it into balls. Already much softer!
it's really fine singles, which somehow seem easier to work with than the tree-stalks I was using before. This could be an illusion, but then I'm a big fan of any kind of placebo effect. What's better than solving your problem without doing anything at all, and with no side effects?

Oh, so my other motivation for wanting to crochet the hemp was that I could work in the round but be less worried about the stitches sliding and the garment sagging. And I was hoping the stiffness of the crochet would render the finished fabric more woven-like in it's drape properties (knitting has a tendency to cling to my extra belly--not so flattering in a shirt, easier to avoid in a sweater, but I wanted to make a summer tank!). To get around the slippy slidey stitches issue, I'm using a slip stitch pattern (Quilted Lattice from BW's 1st treasury) since these, ironically, help prevent slipping later on, and then I'll make phoney seams once I'm at the armpits (drop a column of stitches then knit them up two rows at a time, from EZ).

Whew! Longwinded intro to a small picture of the pattern stitch (in a picture that is a bit too shiny to really see the pattern....):

In other news, the countdown to moving has begun: 10 weeks to go! I'm really excited! I was just back in the states for a week to attend the aforementioned wedding in Boston. That was great--two old friends finally marrying each other. I wintered with the two of them at pole (where their relationship began), so I know them really well, and I was so glad I could make it back for the big day. I also tacked on a short trip to Tennessee to visit my sister and niece (who just turned 7) and my mom also flew down. I tried to teach my niece to knit, but it wasn't so exciting compared to their Wii, unfortunately. Maybe next time!

The train has left the station

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:35:00 +0000

I gave notice on my apartment yesterday! It's starting to sink in that I'm actually going to be moving home soon. There was a bit of last minute excitement--I had originally intended to leave at the end of October, but when I looked at my rental contract I was reminded that I have one of the "standard" Swiss contracts which allows me to vacate my apartment on only 2 days in the year (1 Oct or 1 Mar). If I wanted to leave 1 Nov, I'm still legally obliged to cover the rent till 1 Mar, and would have to find an "after-renter" (nachmieter) to take over the lease. I was really worried about finding someone--the place I have is fairly small and kind of dumpy (hasn't been renovated since the 70s--most places are renovated at least every 10 years) and also the neighborhood isn't so great (noisy, lots of immigrants, very near the red light district).

I realized on Thursday that if I want to leave the flat on 1 Oct I had to send in my notice by Saturday, so I hurriedly cleared the idea with my boss (he's fine with me working from home, whichever continent home is on), painstakingly wrote out several termination notices in German (for the flat, the cable TV, internet, health insurance, and "personal* insurance", all of which require 3 months notice).

I'm surprised at the mix of emotions I feel, although I guess it isn't really surprising. I'm excited and terrified at the same time--I was practically hyperventilating on the way to the post office yesterday, although that was also partly due to the impending conversation in German required to send registered mail...

I've been looking forward to going home for so long, what if I get there and don't like it? I'm sure that I've changed since I moved here (I have lived 10% of my life in Switzerland, as a matter of fact), and the coming-home culture shock in some ways must be harder than the going-abroad culture shock: I'm supposed to know and like how things work at home, right? And I'd sort of forgotten about all the logistics of international moves. A couple weeks before I moved here, I had a routine appointment with my therapist at which I blurted out "I think I have an anxiety disorder!" She looked at me and said, "You're moving to another country. You should have anxiety!" At least I can laugh at my anxiety this time around!

Mostly, though, I'm just really excited!

*I have no idea what "personal insurance" is either, but I was told it's virtually mandatory and since it's 80 bucks a year, I just paid up rather than risk some looming fiasco. I think it covers the in between things--if I hit someone while driving a car, my car insurance would cover that. I guess if I hit someone with my hair-trigger umbrella and they got injured, it would be covered by this insurance?

That's Dr. Elf to you!

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:28:00 +0000

My defense went great this morning. I am HUGELY relieved it is all over and am off to fritter away the afternoon before a celebration dinner. Yippee!!!

Nostalgia

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 15:26:00 +0000

I'm reading a really interesting book called Cut From Whole Cloth by Richard Franke. It's an interesting hybrid of family history, biography, and fiction. The author traces his grandparents' immigration from Germany around the turn of the century and the family experience in later generations. He takes an interesting approach, though. After doing tons of research on his family through oral histories and looking at documents, he takes the facts of their lives and blends them with some creativity and the book literally reads like a novel. It's very well written, but I find myself having trouble maintaining suspension of disbelief--I keep thinking "how could he know what they were thinking", then have to remind myself that he's trying to capture the spirit of their experience.

I'm especially interested in immigrant experiences (being a temporary emigrant myself!), so this book caught my eye. What's really captured my attention while reading it, however, is how the many children in the first generation go about their professional lives. Because I've been struggling so much with my own path and what appear, in retrospect, to be such bad choices*, I'm fascinated by how other people make choices about what to do in their work life.

[*To be fair, my choices weren't really bad in the grander scheme of being able to learn from all experiences. It is true, however, that for the past 5 years I've been in job situations that really don't suit my personality or needs on a day-to-day level.]

The family patriarch started a tailoring business which expanded into dry cleaning (then brand new!) and all the kids (about 8!) in the family eventually wound up working there. What's interesting to me is how clear each person's function seemed. Things along the lines of "Suzy is good at math, so she'll do the books" or "Hank is a whiz with machines, he'll keep the machines running". Those with people skills did customer interfacing or sales. It was all just so clear and easy. But then I have to suspect I'm adding a real patina of nostalgia onto this, and of course I'm totally ignoring the fact that there weren't a lot of options for people (especially women).

It's true that fewer options to choose from does make a decision easier, but it also can leave a person feeling trapped or permanently underemployed. I certainly don't want to return to the days of "pick your career: teacher, nurse, or secretary", but I am struck by the general notion that more is not always better. I've found personally that I enjoy occasional periods without things because it makes me appreciate them that much more when I have them. I learned that lesson about fresh fruit after wintering at the south pole. That first orange I had when the station opened up after 8 months of complete isolation--I can't even describe what that was like it was so divine. To this day, when I'm in a funk I can just look at a banana or an apple and think, "hey, at least I can enjoy this luscious fresh fruit, totally on demand" and that bit of gratitude often lifts my mood.

I guess in a general way I'm speaking to the idea of Lent, or of voluntary simplicity. While these concepts seem obvious to me in regard to stuff, I'm also finding new application in the realm of ideas, and of how I choose to spend my time.

I just ironed my shirt and pants for my defense tomorrow. My grandma would be proud. Well, she'd be proud that I ironed at all, but maybe not so proud of the results! I iron in as many creases as I remove, but things still look better since the majority of the tiny wrinkles are gone!

I've been a bit, erm, hysterical this week, going from imagining I'll win the ETH medal to rewriting my resume in my head to cover my tracks here when I fail the exam. Heh. I've finally gotten my talk to a good place (after having lost my mojo for a few days--that was scary!). I'm normally a good speaker (loud, clear, funny, and extremely enthusiastic) so I was pretty disoriented when I couldn't seem to get my talk together last week. I have just 20 minutes to present 3 years of work--luckily I'm also one of the fastest talkers I know....

Women on the ball

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:35:00 +0000

Here's another interesting billboard ad:

It seems to be related to the the UEFA08 European Soccer Championship which is being hosted here in Switzerland this month. My off-the-cuff translation of "Frauen an den Ball" was "women on the ball". Coupled with the image I interpreted that as meaning something along the lines of women are only allowed to be sporty if we're also extra-feminine (to counter our transgression against gender norms), or perhaps that the only role of women in football games is as a sex object since they clearly intend the double meaning of being "on the ball(s)".

But when I actually looked closer, I realized that "an" is being used in the accusative, which (in German) implies motion or movement from one place to another rather than fixed location, so the translation is closer to "women coming to the ball". It turns out if you go to the website advertised, you can download a brochure (pdf) which includes several similar images and a several page summary of the rules of soccer ("das kleine ABC der Fussballregeln" = "the small ABCs of football rules") apparently targeted towards women to bring them up to speed on the game so they can enjoy the games too. The intro text, which I can't entirely translate, discusses surprising your man with your knowledge of football so you can talk with him (rather than avoiding the topic as in years past). It certainly seems targeted towards enhancing his pleasure of the games by having an enthusiastic female at his side (rather than a party-pooper who doesn't care about the games).

I'm submitting this image to Sociological Images: Seeing is Believing. I really enjoy that blog because it's so thought provoking. It's like getting to take a sociology class, delivered right to me! I took a couple women's and labor studies classes in college, but always wanted to take more, so I really appreciate having resources like this!

The dark side

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:46:00 +0000

It's finally happened--I've gone over to the dark side.... of crochet!

I've been meaning to learn to crochet for ages but I was a little bit afraid to because there are so many cute crochet animal/toy patterns out there that I was worried that once I learned to crochet, they'd find my body buried under an avalanche of little wool bunnies and so forth! Ha ha!

But the "killer app" finally turned out to be this sunhat. My eyes are pretty sensitive to sunlight, but since giving up contacts (dry eyes), I haven't found a satisfactory sunglass solution (expensive mistakes aside). I have one sunhat that works pretty well, but it's a camping kind of hat and most of my friends cringe when I wear it in the city. I've been scoping out straw hats to buy, but then got the bug to make my own, and found this pattern. So I taught myself crochet, worked up this sad little square of sc about 10 times, and then jumped in and made this hat. I had to make it up twice in total, but in the end it came out perfect:

I made it with some AllHemp6 I had lying around, and was excited to discover that I can crochet with it. I found knitting with it killed my hands, but I adore the end result, so now I'm dreaming up all these crocheted hemp projects!

I've also been working on my EZ Bog Jacket, which I'm totally thrilled with. I'm using that Evilla artyarn I'd ordered to play around with. First I tried to make it into a vest of my own design, but once I got past the armhole and realized it was totally the wrong size, I ripped it and started this. I'm particularly enamored of the "racing stripe" possibilities, such as in this example.

I know, it doesn't look like much when it's all piled up in a blob... You can see the phoney seams (where it wants to fold on itself) and that I've cast on extra stitches to make the full length sleeves--so I'm about half done with it. I had knit up a ginormous gauge swatch, and guess what. It worked! Right before I cast on the extra sleeve stitches, I put the thing on a couple of needles and laid it out flat and it was exactly 44", the intended size. I was stunned, actually. I kept gauge for 800 square inches of knitting!!!

Space

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

I'm fairly large for a woman. I'm tall (5'9") and busty and am probably best described as "solid" rather than curvy. I've never been ashamed of how I look--sure there are the odd bits that I'm not thrilled about, but all in all it's a pretty decent package. The only time I ever feel bad about my body is right after I visit a doctor, where they inevitably harp on me about my weight. It's pretty tiresome, especially when they seem to miss the forest for the trees: I walk everywhere, I eat healthy foods, I have a quick (and awesome) smile and laugh, and an eager, playful approach to what I think is a well balanced life. In the grand scheme of things, I can't believe 20 extra pounds really matters. But doctors seem to make it their special mission to humiliate overweight people, and blame as many of our ailments on our weight as possible. It's like they had a whole class in med school about bullying techniques and diverting the attention from what really matters.

I've noticed a pattern in my Alexander Technique lessons, where my instructor will have been repeating a certain phrase or action for weeks (months!) and I have no idea why, and then suddenly, it clicks. One of her longest running expressions is about me having "enough space" around me. Sadly, it's one of the few that I haven't entirely been able to understand (which is surely why I'm still going!). I suspect that my habit is to kind of withdraw my limbs and head into my body as much as possible, which is a tense way to hold and move my body.

It's a strange comment for me to hear, because, of all the flaws I might have, overdoing self restraint in limb movement has never been at the top of the list. I'm one of those eager, clumsy puppy types, arms and legs flying all over, knocking things off walls and tables, hitting strangers in the head on the street, and making shop clerks very nervous. I've always sat with my legs sprawled out, knees wide and ankles flung out, often an arm draped over the next seat if it's empty. All my friends know that when I arrive anywhere I sort of take over the place--bags and hats and coats distributed across all surfaces, inching into their space.

And yet, somehow, this other me has edged in, one who needs to be told to take up my allotted space. I think some of this may be my (possibly misguided) attempt to "grow up" and toe the party line in terms of "how adults behave". Moving to Switzerland has surely made that worse--in an attempt to fit in and not be the big loud American, I've felt myself getting more stiff, trying to control my movements and those damn limbs! My first year here I tried to dress "European" (leather shoes, blouses and slacks), and I even kept my hair all bound up in Pippi Longstocking braids. Talk about symbolic. At some point, though, an acquaintance mentioned that I even "walk like an American", at which point I realized the jig was up. There was no pretending I fit in, and I have since reverted to wearing sneakers and a lot of t-shirts, and I let my crazy hair fly loose. Even in the US I'm a bit eccentric, but it's OK to be eccentric in the US. I'm looking forward to not feeling like a freak of nature every time I step out of my house, of letting my loud voice boom away at it's natural, unrestrained volume, and letting my crazy-fun personality flourish the way I used to.

The other "space" that I have not been fully using is my contribution to groups, especially meetings at work. I've always been the type to speak up and express my opinion or ask questions, but I've really struggled with that lately. After I read Why So Slow by Virginia Valian , I realized that when it seemed like my input at meetings was repeatedly being ignored, that feeling isn't all in my head. And the wind just went out of my sails. Valian talks about how continuing to speak up in group situations and being ignored can actually be ultimately damaging to a woman for a couple of reasons: one is that all her colleagues repeatedly see her speak up and then be ignored, which harms her reptuation, and the second is that it's damaging to self esteem. And it's true--no matter how many times I tell myself it's them and not me, it still hurts when I'm ignored, and I find it ultimately less painful to just keep my mouth shut. I'm pretty disappointed about this (both that I'm in such a situation and that I don't seem to have the energy to fight this battle right now), and it's another thing I hope to work on in the future.

I've certainly consumed more than my share of adventure-space, leading a lot of people to tell me I must be really brave. I'm not sure brave is the right word--it's more like I have no idea what I'm getting into, and I perpetually think, how bad can it be? I'm pretty proud of myself for this: acting despite my fears, pursuing my life-long dreams, and biting off more than I could chew a time or two. But I've always survived, and I have a raft of great stories to tell, and I like knowing that I can try my hand at anything that takes my fancy. I hear so many women undercut themselves before even trying something new, even something small like knitting a more complicated pattern than they've ever tried before, and it's so sad. It's not like someone will die if the sweater sleeves come out the wrong size! I think my freedom from self-limiting beliefs is one of the things I treasure most about who I am because it means that anything is possible in my life.

For the June, 2008 Scientiae.
Tag: scientiae-carnival

thesisizing

noreply@blogger.com (--elf--) — Tue, 27 May 2008 10:10:00 +0000

I just handed in my thesis to the school! One down, one to go. I have my defense next Friday--I'm expecting it will go fine. I'm good at giving talks and find them very energizing, which means I tend to sail through the questions in a haze of that natural high we get when doing something we're good at.

But it's been a long haul for me, getting this done. I wrote the following post about a month ago, in the depths of the misery:

Writing my thesis has been a semi-nightmarish process for me. It's strange, because in other contexts I like writing. But this is an endless stream of the particular part of my job that I hate. It's like that one chore you just totally, unreasonably, can't stand. For me, that's taking out the trash. Seriously, I will let the bags pile up for weeks, garbage juice leaking out all over the floor. Dishes? No problem. I could wash dishes all day long. But the garbage? Nope, just can't deal.

Scientific writing is like that for me.

It's not so much that I have that much work to do, although there is quite a bit. It's more that I sit at my desk, unable to concentrate, yet totally stressed that I have to try to keep working. I normally have pretty high levels of self discipline, so when that breaks down for me, I sit there, paralyzed, unable to work and unable to convince myself to work. Sometimes I'm tired and can't really think straight, but it's more often that I'm just bored by the detail of it all, or I simply don't want to do it. Then comes a flood of low-key panic: how am I going to get this all done if I can't actually get myself to work on it? How can I force myself to do something I hate? I've been sitting here for an hour trying to convince myself to work and it's not succeeding--the jig's up. This time I'm going to fail.

A Jungian friend of mine talks about our "inferior functions", and how when we have to perform an action that relies on that part of us, we trigger these bizarre, unreasonable, out of proportion doom emotions. Sometimes I think I'm going to die from sitting here trying to do this work. Not "think I'm going to die" like a panic attack, but this deeper sort of "I'm literally going to vaporize with the strain of this becoming-not-me that this task requires". I know the Jungian typology is a bit controversial, but what my friend says really captures my experience with these things. In this case, an attention to obsessively small points of detail is not one of my strengths, but is exactly what scientific writing is all about.

I tend to be pretty highly somatic, as in, when I get stressed out, all my little strange aches and pains flare up to remind me that part of me doesn't like what I'm doing, as though I didn't already know that. Pretty much every single mystery pain I've ever had in my life has flared up in the past couple months! I'm sure that some of my health problems are psychosomatic. That doesn't mean I've made them up--the physical symptoms are real. It's just that some of the underlying cause might be stress or frustration or unhappiness rather than a virus or a mechanical defect. Everyone has this to some degree--asthmatics can have an attack brought on by stress, for example. It can be pretty maladaptive, though--feeling crappy just makes the icky task last longer because I can't work as efficiently when I'm in pain.

I recently had some bloodwork done for one of my semi-psychosomatic things. The technician drew my blood without wearing gloves. Then, because my pathetic little veins collapse and no one can ever get much blood out of them, she wound up using about 4 little vials. Then she popped those little colorcoded rubber caps off the vials she'd used and poured all the blood into one. All without gloves. My eyes about bulged out of my head. Anyway, it turned out to not be what I feared (rheumatoid arthritis) Instead I discovered by accident that my swollen joints (and night sweats and mood swings) were from eating soy--I went on vacation and ate differently for a few weeks and everything cleared up. Got home, hit the soy latte, and they all came back.

Edit:date fix