All Hallow's Eve

Well, Alton's first Halloween was fairly boring. We didn't even leave the house, Grandma and Grandpa came over and we made some Emu tacos.

Yeah, Emu. I think the list of animals I've eaten in my life goes like this (in approximate order of frequency):
Chicken, cow, turkey, pork, bison, deer, tilapia, catfish, bass, walleye, crappie, sunfish (various spp.), crayfish, rabbit, pheasant, quail, dove, shrimp, elk, ostrich, oxen, _emu_, alligator, and I can't think of anything else right now, but I might have had a fried grasshopper once.

We were walking through the farmer's market and I saw the emu stand and couldn't resist. Very red meat. Wife and I couldn't tell any difference between it and bison (maybe a little less fat), but my parents didn't like it as much as beef (I, of course, haven't eaten beef in years, so no basis for comparison). My parents could have been reacting to my 'taco' recipe, which included red bell peppers and potatoes, as opposed to just meat and onions.

ANYWAY, here's what I've done this week:

- Visited Manhattan, home of _the_ Kansas State University. Met up with a friend of mine there and got some good advice on various aspects of a talk I'm giving. Good encouragement as well. This was an official work trip, because I needed to dig out papers on heavy metal pollution, but I brought along the whole family. I think the family had a good time (wife says yes!).

- In my mind, college campuses should have crazy people. When you go to college, you should end up experiencing diverse viewpoints and ideas. KU is like this, KSU...not so much. Notre Dame wasn't really like that as much as KU, but there was at least some oddity. Manhattan's sea of people who all looked like the preppy bastards I knew from high school made me think up a few possible slogans for the school:

"Kansas State University: Why would you want to learn anything anyway?"
"Kansas State University: Conformity is happiness....right?"
"Kansas State University: Comfortable with ignorance."

- In all seriousness, K-State has a nice library and some really good profs, so I shouldn't make fun of them.

- Manhattan drove home a reality I've always realized but never thought about: Driving in college towns sucks. After thinking about this, I can actually modify it a little: driving in state college towns sucks. The reason, I assume, is the fact that college admissions have sky-rocketed over the past 40 odd years, resulting in a great demand to expand buildings, but also a sky-rocketing price for nearby real-estate. So roads become expensive to build, and colleges are somewhat committed to the "walking campus" mentality anyway, and so road organization doesn't keep pace with the traffic load. This isn't really a problem if you're living on campus, and it isn't too much of a problem if you work there (usually with easily accessible designated parking), but for visitors it is a pain in the ass.
By comparison, Notre Dame, which has maintained a fairly even class size for decades while systematically eliminating ALL road traffic on-campus, has funneled traffic to large roads that can handle the load, and built parking lots in easily accessible locations near the edges of campus (eliminating the need for drivers to get on-campus at all). But of course Notre Dame is under no obligation to allow more students, as state schools often are.
I would love to hear of an example of a state-college town that doesn't suck to drive in (at least around the college). Here are the ones I have seen this effect in up-close:
Lawrence, Manhattan, Norman, Athens, even Golden, CO (even though School of Mines isn't a huge population). Ann Arbor's probably the best driving experience, and I was almost in a huge accident the last time I was there!

- NBA!!!!! Watched the first two nights of NBA action and here's my thoughts:
The Mavs are going to be better than last year.
The Spurs are going to lose this year.
The Celtics aren't going to be that good.
The Bulls will, ONCE AGAIN, start the season horribly.
The Suns and Bulls will face off in the Finals.
Mostly though, I'm just happy we're back in the NBA universe.

I fought authority and authority got bent...

I always realize new things about myself. As I was driving home today, I thought about my frustration with so much of the world, and realized that a lot of it probably boils down to one thing: I really, really, hate being told what to do. I can't think of a single authority figure in my life (advisers, bosses, parents, teachers, etc.) who could tell me what to do without me getting irritated.

For instance, once I was sitting in a lab meeting and my adviser said that from now on, he wanted us to send him a short little summary of what we talked about in our one-on-one meetings. This makes a lot of sense, but it pissed me off for two reasons. One was a sort-of pride issue: why should I record our meetings when it was always the adviser who couldn't remember what we'd talked about last time (Answer: Because advisers always feel as if your time is less valuable than theirs.). But that's just pride talking, the real reason it irritated me was because, damnit don't tell me what to f***ing do! (I didn't say this made a lot of sense)

This has been a ubiquitous feature of my life. I simply can't work at many jobs, because I simply can't handle being told what to do all the time. In high school I didn't turn in my homework. Sure, I was lazy, but I was also annoyed that someone thought I needed to do homework. If I needed to do homework, I'd do it, thank you very much. Otherwise bugger off.

As I continued to think about this I realized something else: I implicitly value the opinion of my peers. I'm willing to call up and ask a friend for advice about any subject, and I really really value that advice.

My last job (Oklahoma) started off great because nobody was telling me what to do. I just did the research I wanted, and didn't pay any attention to anyone else. But then I started getting told what to do...all the time. And then I started realizing the guy telling me what to do was a crazy jerk.

My job now is pretty fantastic because nobody is really telling me what to do specifically. Certainly there's a lot of oversight in theory, but in practice I'm just doing whatever I want. I feel as if I am extremely productive this way as well. I think I'm doing a great job. Even when the boss needs to tell me what to do, he goes about it by saying something like "I think we ought to have a meeting with everyone in the group so that we're all on the same page." And then the meeting is more like a discussion.

Other thoughts:

- Alton is so cute.

- Basic Instructions for life. Hilarious.

- I'm listening to the Manchurian Candidate on my drive to work. Boring. But still better than radio.

Good morning Saturday

What I did this week:

1. Drove to Topeka and sat in on a committee that is deciding what to do about reservoirs and sediment and available water in KS for the next 50-70 years. And by "sat in" I mean "participated". I ended up meeting a ton of interesting people, but it was a long meeting.

2. Staying in Lawrence and got to see my...uh...niece. Wow, I just realized my sister's baby is my niece. That's weird, but I guess not really. Anyway, she's 3 weeks old but still very tiny.

3. Went to Kansas City and looked at Redbelly Snake habitat. Which consists of oak-hickory forest with steep gradients. In 105 degree heat. That was a hot, sweaty, exhausting experience, but a lot of fun.

4. Went to see a play starring a college friend.

5. Read Harry Potter 4.

6. That's probably enough.

I'm thinking it would be really cool to record notes and a review of each of the restaurants I visit while on this job (only visiting local stuff) and call it "Threatened and Endangered Food."
I think that'd be fun.

Today it is back to the birthing class. Yay. After last week I've been telling people that if I saw that video in November...well...I wouldn't be pregnant.

What is happiness?

For the last several months I have wrestled with defining happiness. I don't know when I realized that I didn't know what happiness was, but it has been lurking in the back of my brain for awhile.

Consider, I've always been seeking happiness, but I don't know if I've ever understood why certain things made me happy, and other things made me unhappy, over a long-term basis.

A number of things appeared to be causing me unhappiness over the past few years. Mostly, a sense of disenfranchisement, snow, rain, and having no money. But getting away from those things doesn't necessarily cause me to be happy, it just causes me to be less unhappy.

So what is happiness?

I think it is interpersonal relationships. Friendships. Companionship. Playing videogames is entertaining, but playing videogames with a friend is genuinely fun. Exciting even. Makes me happy.

The same is true for cooking. I like to cook, but I really like to cook when I'm around friends. I like sharing a kitchen while figuring out the best way to prepare tilapia.

Even stupid stuff, like going to a grocery store or sitting around TV is ultimately far more fulfilling when you're doing it with friends.

I'm not sure this definition applies to everyone, but it seems to apply to everyone I know. Marriages are mostly about a particular interpersonal relationship that two people feel like fostering essentially forever. Family gatherings are often, cynically, described as opportunities to get together and eat, but what they really are is opportunities to get together and interact. Similarly, parties are usually not about anything beyond interacting with other people. The internet, for all its fantastic information, has become infinitely more popular thanks to social networking sites like MySpace, YouTube, Reddit, and blogs in general.

Furthermore, what do people spend their time talking about? Usually it is other people. People seem to talk almost entirely about other people, usually people you all know. In fact, you can often piss everyone off by trying to change the subject to something other than people.

So I think I'm on to something when I say that happiness is about relationships with other people. I think the happiness of most people is tied, directly, to amount and quality of their social interactions.

Sitting in the library

The summer has exploded into activity. After months of hard work in isolation, suddenly I'm in charge of a pair of undergraduates, in charge of planning experiments, and still trying to get finished with my own stuff.

Here's some thoughts:

1. I have an undergrad working for me who is very full of herself. She's certain that A) she's the shit and B) her rich boyfriend will keep her from ever needing to work. She's interested in science because it will be "A reason to get out of bed in the morning."
If you're rich and you want a reason to get out of bed in the morning, work at a f***ing soup kitchen. Seriously, I can't imagine a scenario where that wouldn't be more fulfilling.

2. The prof I work with most closely (who routinely drives me insane), has been astonishingly nice lately. Frankly, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. He hasn't insulted anyone to their face for most of the past 2 weeks. Do I forgive and forget?
You may have heard the old saying: "Women forgive, but never forget. Men forget but never forgive."
That's a load of crap. Not only do I not forgive, I write things down so I don't forget.

3. Boston slipped to #5 in the NBA draft. That's great. I've throroughly enjoyed having a city to hate. Thanks Boston.

4. If you've never taken a green fluorescent light and dropped it into a lake at night, and then seined up whatever showed...well....you should. That is AWESOME. I may do this fifty times this summer.

5. I'm working on an NSF grant. This is almost guaranteed to fail on the first attempt, but everyone agrees that it is a good idea. So I'm writing it anyway. If I were to get an NSF grant that would go a long ways towards proving my value as a scientist. Of course, even if they did fund it on the first attempt (unbelievably unlikely), I wouldn't find out until probably October/November....if I'm lucky.
The subject of this grant? The Zeroeth Law of Stoichiometry (homeostasis).

6. I'm sitting in the library 'watching' the undergraduates who are here for the summer class session. The station is packed, and there is all kinds of craziness occurring. Officially it is a dry campus for this two week session, but I'll let you in on a little secret.
This coffee mug next to the computer here?
That's not coffee.

Some things I learned today

I spent my day instructing, teaching, entertaining, and educating (in no particular order) a bunch of 7^th and 8^th grade students. I figured, naively that this would be about like providing content for 9^th graders.

That’s just not true.
Here’s why, I think: 9^th graders are constantly exposed to people (Sophs, Juniors, and Seniors) who are more mature than they are. As a result, their behavior tends to become more mature than their physical age alone would suggest.

8^th graders, by contrast, are constantly surrounded by people (6^th and 7^th graders) who are far less mature. As a result, they act far less mature.

I’m sure it’s more complicated than that, but you get the idea.

Here are some ways that this manifests itself:

1. They never shut up.

2. They do not respect their peers...at all.

3. They don’t care.

4. Even the smart ones.

5. They never shut up.

6. They just want to get done and go ‘play.’

I find that last one to be kind of a cute concept. Does anyone really remember how to play? Jeez, I had forgotten. I can’t imagine being that carefree. There was just a constant barrage of screaming and yelling going on for hours this evening.

Here are some handy tips if you end up needing to create content for a group of middle school students:

1. However much you think you need to have ready: Double it. I figured I’d push 7-8 hours of content easy with what I had prepared, based on what had happened with a group of 9^th graders. No way, I ended up filling about 4.5 hours! Ug. I felt terrible. We ended up spending the rest of the time fossil hunting, which was fun, so I guess it worked out.

2. Remember all those points in your talk where you ask questions? Yeah, that’s not going to work. You need to ask specific people questions. I can’t tell you how many questions I asked today that were greeted by absolute silence. I should have been pointing to individuals and asking them questions.

3. Tell them to shut up. Apparently they always hear “be quiet” or “stop talking”. Telling them to shut up worked pretty well.

4. These guys have the attention span of...well, 7-8^th graders. That means any concept has to be explained in a 5-second burst. You might be able to string together several such bursts, but then again, you might not. Come to think of this, I’ve had this problem with many adults as well.

5. Try not to scream or laugh incredulously when nobody remembers what you said two seconds earlier.

6. Do you remember what you thought was cool in middle school? You do? Good. None of that will be remotely interesting to these kids. So just accept that.

7. Apparently the idea of herding cats could also be applied to middle school kids. I would have gone insane if I’d had to keep track of these guys, but the teachers here just sorta allowed the swarm to move. When I was in middle school, if you’d given us this much freedom, we’d have trashed the Dwight Eisenhower Memorial and gotten our middle school banned from ever returning. Oh wait. That’s exactly what happened. Apparently my wife’s dad (who lead this group) commands much more respect from his charges.