I hope they call me...

I'm very grateful that I got to spend Christmas with my whole family, because it will be the last one with all of us together for awhile! Tomorrow, my little (though taller) brother is going to the Missionary Training Center where he'll spend all day every day studying the Bible and Book of Mormon (among other things) and becoming fluent in Spanish-- in 6-9 weeks. Then he's off to Honduras to love, serve, and teach the people about the Savior for two years.

So, needless to say, this is probably the last blog post he's going to see for awhile. We can write letters, and he'll probably get to email immediate family, but I'm going to miss him! I'm proud of him and love him MUCHO!

Me and James-- Matching unintentional.


Most of the fam-- Becca was already in Chicago


And the grandparents

Te quiero, Jaime. ¡Estoy muy orgullosa de lo que has escogido hacer, y de los sacrificios que has hecho para servir al señor por 2 años! Espero que siempre sepas cuanto te aman tu familia y tus amigos. Voy a echarte de menos muchísimo y oraré para ti frecuentemente.

Y si no me escribes, voy a cazarte también hasta que te encuentro y resolvemos el problema. ;) Suerte y abrazos.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful...

Even though I have been on a fun-rationing plan lately in order to finish my papers, I have managed to squeeze in a little Christmas cheer this month.

To start things off, gingerbread houses! I said I was going to make a boat house, and someone asked the provocative question of whether that would be a house that holds boats, or a house that is a boat. The result:

The candy cane is supposed to be the mast, in case you couldn't tell (I don't know why you wouldn't be able to!), and the m&ms are fish.

So... I think it's ridiculous and hilarious, and I had fun making it. :)

Next on the Christmas-spirit list was music. I have the good fortune of knowing someone who knows everyone in Boston's choral music scene. We went up for a couple of Christmas concerts, and my favorite was the Harvard carol service. The music was so beautiful and well done. At one point, I realized all the tension had drained away and I was just left appreciating a gorgeous old church building full of gorgeous music. The best part about a carol service is that the congregation gets to participate too, and I do love me some singing. :)

Then, of course, there was some minor decorating:

Our primary prez got ornaments for all the kids (and teachers) and wrote "Primary 2009" on them. I love the shape and the simplicity, and it was fun to put this on top of my brightly colored tree. It will always remind me of the primary kids and how, despite the fact that they are sometimes impossible to corral, I love them.

Also, tender times with the roommate. I wasn't around most of the nights of Chanukah, but one night we lit her menorah together. (Well, she lit it and said the blessings, and I stood there and thought how cool it is that we can talk so positively and frankly about the commonalities in our spiritual views.) This picture doesn't really give you the full effect of the twinkling lights on the tree, but I still think it's great. Aww. :)

And what would Christmas time be without snow? We're not being slammed as badly as points south (like DC and NYC), but it's still snowing and they're canceling flights... Today's first glance at the airport's website made me hopeful, until I realized that most flights were only listed as "on time" because they're later in the day and thus haven't been officially canceled yet. :( I'm still optimistic, though, because I'm flying through Nashville this year instead of DC like I do for 99% of my flights out of Providence. I remember thinking (when I bought my ticket) that that was a strange place for a layover, but now I am ultra grateful for this blessing that probably means I'll be able to get to CO with no problems.

And weather.com (my oh-so-accurate source) says that the snow is supposed to stop by late afternoon today. So... Dear Providence, please plow tonight so I can get to the airport. And I hope the airport figures out how to get everyone out, because all the travelers that were supposed to leave today will want to get out tomorrow (when I'm leaving). Can airlines bump you? I sure hope not.

Anyway, I'm just hanging out in my little apartment, where I am also grateful for another huge blessing: living in an apartment where my landlord pays for heat!! (Most properties in Providence--including the place I lived last year-- make you pay your own heat, and it's very pricey.) So if anyone in the area wants to brave the storm and come over, you are welcome!

To those of you out west... See you soon!

Intense

Remember all the writing I said I had to do (and didn't really do because I was busy flitting around between states instead)? Well, the time of reckoning has arrived.

So I'll write a real post later this week. If you want to know how I'm doing in the meantime, picture me bouncing furiously on my exercise ball while I type an unending stream of intelligent thoughts. Ha ha! I was actually really productive yesterday, and while I'm feeling a little sluggish tonight, I think moving my little Christmas tree (thanks, Ginna) into my room for mood lighting is helping. :)

Rock and roll.

Creativity

This weekend was a blast, and I've also made an important discovery: You know those moms who are ultra-prepared and always have exactly what you need in their bags? Well... I used to think I would be one of them, but after this weekend, I'm thinking I'll be the mom who has things 93% of the time... and just makes it up the rest of the time! (A little CREATIVITY never hurt anyone though, right?) This weekend I found myself without antifreeze, without socks, and without keys. Here's my funny story...

Friday was opening night for the play my lighting-designer-grad-student friend has been slaving over for months. So I went to that (it was good!) and got to meet some of his other friends afterwards. I actually didn't forget anything for this shindig, and it was a GREAT START to the weekend.

However, his play was at UConn, which is about 2 hours away from where I was going next. So at 1:00 in the morning as I was driving along, I discovered the first thing I forgot this weekend: topping off my antifreeze. (I know, the leak needs to be fixed. Later.) So around 2:00am I was driving from gas station to gas station until I found one that actually sold the right kind. OOPS #1.

After that, I went happily on my way to Rhode Island to spend the night at a friend's house-- except it wasn't really spending the night because I only slept for three hours before we got up to leave for NYC. And for some reason, I had packed no socks! (Which I hadn't noticed the night before since I was wearing heels when I left my house.) OOPS #2. But Cassidy hooked me up and off we went. We went mainly to see the Rockefeller center, where we ooh-ed and ah-ed at the huge tree and watched all the ice skaters. We did not skate because we had already spent the rest of the day walking around in the sleet and didn't really want to be anywhere near ice. We also saw a bunch of random things things-- Times Square, the public library, St. Patrick's cathedral, FAO Schwartz, etc. I really do get a buzz from rushing around with all the people. :)

And then we came back. The roads were not bad, despite the FIRST SNOW FALL! of the year, and we headed straight for the hot chocolate when we got home and removed our soggy shoes.

After a blissful 6 hours of sleep, back to Providence! It was supposed to be my week to teach the kiddos ("sharing time"), but fortunately we are doing a Nativity play for our ward Christmas party on Saturday so we had planned to practice that instead. This went smoothly and the kids were reverent (and adorable). Phew!

I even managed to arrange alternate rides for everyone I'd picked up for church since I had to go straight to Cambridge for choir after church. Singing went without a hitch, and we sang a piece that is my FAVORITE out of everything we've sung since I joined. Then I tagged along with some friends to a party that featured divine homemade eggnog and singing Christmas carols!

But here's where we're back to the only 93%-perfectly-executed plan: I LEFT MY KEYS in Boston. Yes, I'm serious. I put them in my coat pocket and laid said coat on the bed with all the other coats and... got back to Providence without keys (since I hadn't driven). OOPS #3... Yeah. So, thank goodness for AMAZING AND HELPFUL FRIENDS who will let me borrow a car for a couple of days and will bring back my keys on their next trip to Boston on Wednesday. And thank goodness for a roommate who woke up to let me in when I got home after 11:00 last night.

This weekend was a great adventure. :)

Verdict on the Stuffing

Well... the stuffing was mediocre. Bland. Lacked pizazz. I used this recipe, and the spices smelled very good in the bowl-- but there just wasn't enough contrast. The bread overpowered the spices, and everything was too sweet and blended a little too well. Even the fennel seeds I put in kind of faded away into the blend. Sometime in the future when I try again I will:

• definitely add some cranberries, and maybe some empire apples
  
• subtract the bell pepper
• use more paprika
• not toast the bread as prescribed
• use roasted almonds instead of pecans
• add a fairly good amount of black pepper
• add salt (which I didn't use since I figured the broth would have enough-- except then I used unsalted butter and low sodium broth. Oops.)
  
• use the mushrooms as a garnish at the end instead of mixing them in-- you couldn't even taste them!

So basically I will mostly make up my own thing, unless someone has better suggestions for fixing it up. Or a good vegetarian stuffing you already like. :)

This week: Writing writing writing writing New York writing writing Cambridge writing writing... Crunch time is on, with big papers due in two weeks! But I will take a break to go check out Christmas, NY style, on Saturday. (Yes, it's a quick trip.) Then Sunday is another choir performance in Cambridge-- still loving how much this music pushes my range and exercises a different part of my brain. :)

2 what?

I really like to cook, and I have not been doing it enough lately. So Monday, I made this fantastic chipotle chicken and rice recipe from my friends' recipe blog.

Except that... it was SO hot! Like, on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being it makes you sweat and maybe tear up a little), it was a 9. Or possibly an 11.

Seriously, it was hot. I had a couple of friends over, and they were very kind about eating my experiment. We consumed a lot of plain yogurt with it to try to cut the spice, but Lexie was still sweating. :)

At first, I was certain that I had followed the recipe almost exactly and couldn't figure out why it didn't work. (I always try to follow the recipe--mostly-- the first time I make something so I know how it's "supposed" to taste before I tweak it.) But, upon further inspection, I'm pretty sure I did not follow the recipe. The ingredients were right, but the amount was off, and I didn't even stop to think about it because I had someone helping me and was therefore distracted.

So whereas the recipe said "2 canned chipotle chiles in adobo," I actually put in two cans of chiles. Oops. There are like 4 chiles per can, which would explain the five-alarm feeling in this feisty dish that kind of made us all cry and down a lot of water and milk.

They both agreed that it was good (despite the fire), and I will definitely make it again-- but with 2 peppers instead of 2 cans. Yikes. Fortunately, we were able to cool off with some yummy cookies (and some more milk). Like all things I try to bake out here on the east coast, the first batch went to the cookie gods (as David observed) so the rest would turn out well. For some reason, the cookies I make here require about half the given baking time, but since this was a new recipe, I tried cooking them for 10 minutes as directed. I promptly cut it to 5 or 6 minutes on subsequent batches because I do not like rock-hard cookies, and I especially do not like blackened, rock-hard cookies.

But don't think for a minute that I am scared away from cooking. Tomorrow I am making stuffing from scratch. :) I'm going to be improvising a little bit, so we'll see how it goes. I will tell you all about My First Stuffing later. Happy Thanksgiving!

Note

When I graduate, I'm moving somewhere where people like football.

Playing it, watching it-- either or!



Standing on the field after we rocked Utah my senior year. :)

I'm moving somewhere where people will run around in the rain with me (Amy, I miss you!).

And I'm moving somewhere where these people live within 20 minutes of my house (instead of an hour--or a state-- away).


That's all. I'm open to thoughts as to where such as place might be (besides Provo). :)

APHA

First things first: I love these earrings. And these too. :)

Now with that out of the way: I don't have pictures to put up yet, but this past weekend was the American Public Health Association annual conference. It was in Philadelphia, and since it's my last year of school (and my program paid for some of us to go), off I went!

My friend, Ashley, and I drove down Friday (getting stuck in rush hour New York traffic) and stayed with her uncle, who lives just outside of Philadelphia in New Jersey. Saturday, I wandered around the city with another girl in my program who grew up there. I liked it-- definitely more energy than Providence, but not quite as crazy as New York. It was hard to get a really good picture, though, because the city's public transportation was on strike! I assume there would be more people out under normal circumstances...

Sunday, I went to church with a girl I met last weekend in Boston. It was fun to go to a singles' ward again-- and also completely strange. I wasn't used to the introductions of visitors at the end of sacrament meeting and the thunderous mingling that makes meetings start 10 minutes late. If I had it my way, I would just import twenty or so singles into my family ward so I could have the best of both worlds. :)

The conference itself was a fantastic whirlwind of presentations. There were so many that I wanted to go to, but I had to limit myself (since, unfortunately, I have not yet been able to clone myself). I stuck to presentations related to aspects of nutrition and physical activity-- policy, consumer advocacy groups, innovative grass-roots interventions, and successful collaborative models. I also visited a lot of the sponsored booths, where I picked up ideas for jobs and occasionally left my resume. (I'm not terribly hopeful that something will actually come out of it, especially since I'm not available until May anyway.) Also, a lot of the places that actually had open positions were looking for analyst/research positions. I don't want to be a research assistant or coordinator or anything else for the rest of my life! SOUL-DRAINING. So I will have to be a little more creative about where I look for work so I can be on the ground working with people.

Anyway, Ashley and I made it back close to midnight last night and today was school and work as usual, which was a little rough since I have so much catching up to do. But, it was fun while it lasted, and I'm glad I got the chance to go.

P.S. Sorry this is kind of disjointed. I keep reading it thinking I should fix it up a bit, but I'm shot. Thanks for reading anyway! :)

Health Care and Halloween

I'm just feeling remarkably jaded today, and days like today make me think about moving to a commune or another country. In my classes today, I struggled with a couple of things:

- The RI health insurance commissioner told me that the "universal care" in Massachusetts (MassHealth) is not going broke. His reasoning was that they are exactly on budget-- they just didn't count on the state's revenue dropping 20%.

This is like saying that if I budgeted $100 and spent exactly $100, but only have $80, I'm fine. WHAT?!

The problem with health care reform is that we're not doing anything to reform health care-- we're just reforming who pays for it. I think we should call it "health care financing reform" instead so we can adjust our expectations accordingly. Then the discussion can keep ignoring preventive care or systems change without making people like me crazy.

- Some PhD who came to speak about food safety in my environmental health class basically cautioned against organics because the fertilizer people use may have E. Coli in it. Okay, so here's a thought-- how about we fix the system of giant feed lots that packs a bunch of animals too closely together and feeds them things that they can't digest properly (corn), which is what propagates the bacteria. And then, why don't we fix the system where we have giant industrial butchering complexes where people have to do their jobs so fast (in order to keep up with the assembly line) that they accidentally "spill" dangerous bacteria out of intestines into the meat. Organics aren't as good for the environment and health as local food, but they're still a pretty good thing. I wouldn't stop buying organics because of E. Coli.

I think this is why I hate am very frustrated with my program.

I'm feeling like, if I can't actually fix the root of the problem, then I don't want to pretend that I can. I should just take what I've learned and go back to direct patient care where I can help people develop reasonable work-arounds to deal with the problems as they are manifest in their lives. That way, at least one person benefits, even though the system is improving at the speed of cold molasses dripping.

On the upside, I do still believe that some communities can change, and even though we're still chopping at the branches instead of the root, sometimes we manage to cut a little more closely to the roots. Like the fact that some farmer's markets are now accepting WIC and food stamps at farmer's markets-- that's a lower branch.

Okay, enough of my venting. Sometimes I do stop stressing about changing the world and have some fun.

A neighboring stake hosted a Halloween dance last week and my friends, Mark and Jordan, dressed up with me. I love these guys, because they're always up for doing things-- I don't have to try to drag them along. :)



Good friends, good times.

Take it and run

I probably shouldn't be blogging. I have 1 hour to finish a speech, and though it's almost finished, I have to turn in a written copy (and my notes! When did we rewind to middle school?!), so I like it to be just so.

However.

The fire alarm is being tested in my building.

The gents upstairs are rock-banding their hearts out.

And I am tired.

So instead of working on my paper, for just a moment I will indulge myself (and hopefully you will indulge me too) in some random thoughts. :)

Random thought 1: I love fuschia leaves. All of the leaves out here are beautiful, but I always catch my breath running down the boulevard where there's one bush that definitely has its fuschia game on. One day I will take my camera with me and show you what I mean. Yesterday was a particularly lovely day to be appreciating the colors since it was sunny and in the 60s!

Random thought 2: I didn't think it was possible, but I'm actually booked every weekend until the end of November. Why? Don't worry, much of it is fun, but still...

Random thought 3: If anyone has recommendations of things to see in Philadelphia, I'm going there for the American Public Health Association conference next week. I'm really excited to check out the city and the ward (since Philly is on my list of possible places to move next year)... and, of course, talk about public health and whatnot. :)

Not as planned

I know people think I complain about Rhode Island drivers a lot. So, here's a fun story.

There I was... sitting at a traffic light waiting to go straight. I was in the left of the two lanes, and a giant SUV was sitting in the right lane. While we were waiting for the light to turn, said SUV honked at me, and I looked over to see some guy with a lot of bling and a sideways hat staring at me intently. Hmm...

The light turned green and I took my foot off the break... and then quickly slammed it back onto the break as my SUV friend did a U-turn in front of me! Or around me, or however you want to describe his fun little trick. In his defense, it was kind of him to try to warn me. This is obviously an extreme example, but I'm just saying that I'm not always just being grumpy when I say Rhode Island drivers are bad. :P

But stuff like that isn't really very important in the grand scheme of things. One thing that I thought was "important" today was that one of the Sunbeams (the 3-4 year old kids at church) actually addressed me directly today. I know that seems really small, but most of the time, you wonder if any of the kids actually know your name. And I was nervous today anyway because there were twice as many kids as usual, and we were having a hard time with the being-quiet part of reverence. It also didn't help that, as an object lesson, I had passed out stickers. I think they got the point, but those stickers quickly found their way to faces, fingers, ears, etc. Note to self: stickers are not as clever as I thought they were. A good substitute for candy maybe, but kind of hard to put in the "Not Now" box.* So when this adorable little girl said, "Sister Voss?" with her cute almost-lisp, it made me smile-- maybe if they can remember my name, they can remember something from the lesson after all! I love these kids.



*The "Not Now" box is where we have the kids put their bracelets, purses, papers, mittens, and anything else that small children are likely to find distracting (i.e., anything not firmly attached or sewed down). We get to teach in relative peace and they get to come collect everything at the end. I'm not sure whose idea this was originally, but I thank them from the bottom of my heart. Twice. :)

Oops

Oops, it's October. And I haven't posted for awhile. A brief overview:

1- School is fine. I have a lot of papers to write, including my thesis. (Which is finally pinned down-- how having enough food on a regular basis affects people's ability to change dietary behaviors.)

2- If you feel like doing a good deed, I am looking for images (like advertisements, etc.) that show "health," especially images or slogans that might have questionable validity. I'm doing a paper on how mass media affects how we think about health, so send me a link if you find something! :)

3- It's starting to cool down around here. This means snuggling with a big quilt at night (love!) and sweaters (love love!) and jeans (love love LOVE!). And of course, it means apples and butternut squash and trees that look like they're flaming. Excellent.

4- I found a new favorite recipe (pesto alla trapanese) and I made it with basil that I grew myself! (It's pretty much the only thing that survived this summer, thanks to the brutal rainstorm at the beginning that trounced all of my tender shoots). I also discovered that roasting nuts in a skillet is really easy and makes nuts taste so good. :) I might even like this better than the usual basil/pine nut pesto. Yum.

Drumroll please....

So my new calling is 2nd counselor in the Primary presidency. (Translation: an assistant to the president of the kids' organization at church).

Yikes!

But I'm excited. And I'm also excited because a couple of the freshman girls got called in to take my place at the piano and to help out (because we don't always have all the teachers we're supposed to have!), which will give me a chance to get to know them better. And also maybe help them feel like they belong, which is what anyone in the "wait... when do I become an adult?" stage needs! (Or at least I did. Do?)

And on a completely unrelated note, here are some pics from the famed Waterfire last weekend. :)


(See? I told you they classed it up this year. Neon fish on the boats? Yes, please! Providence, you make me smile.)


(Lisa, Danny, me, and Ben. Christina was taking the picture...)


(But if you look around hopefully for long enough, camera in hand, you can usually get someone to take one of everyone! Which we did.)

Number Fun

Well hello. I'm feeling much better (mostly just tired). Some updates:

8 is (roughly) the number of months I have until I graduate! Classes started (as you've probably guessed), and I'm trying to make all the papers and reading and thesis happen like magic. I like to tell everyone I meet that I'm finishing my master's even though I have 8+ months left. I think it puts a positive spin on things. :)

40 is the number of people who came to our last YSA church activity, thanks to wonderful support from the other leaders I'm working with as stake YSA rep (i.e., single Mormons-finder/activities planner). And 6 is the number of LDS freshman at Brown! By the time I leave, I'm hoping the network is a little more stable so people can come in and out of it easily without having to start from scratch every time someone moves. We are on our way!

5 is the number of people I had camping on various air mattresses all over my apartment this weekend. My friend Ben was road-tripping from D.C. with some friends, so they visited Providence Saturday night for Waterfire. I haven't been since last summer when I took Maddie, and I have to say they stepped it up a little. We also only walked around for an hour or two-- which is about all the entertainment bonfires in the middle of a river can offer. :)

6 or 7 is the number of songs we banged through in my first choir practice with a choir up in Boston. That's a lot of songs in only 2 hours, and though I am a pretty decent sight reader, I felt like everyone else already knew what they were doing! Turns out that's true-- Jason (the friend that recruited me to join!) explained to me later that the choir has already done most of those songs--so many people have been working on them for, oh, 8-10 years. Phew. It will definitely push my range though, which is good.

4 is the number of days until I can dish about the new calling (church job) I am getting. 300 is the number of different emotions that went through my heart when the bishop's counselor talked to me about it on Sunday, but that's what divine intervention is for. :)

Hmm...

I am supposed to be working right now, but I have billed only 2 of the last 5 hours because I can't focus; this is why I can't work from home.

However, I'm trying to be a socially responsible person (and good public health student!), so I quarantined myself after I came down with a fever Wednesday night (plus some other symptoms) that were probably a low-grade seasonal flu. Minimum guidelines say to stay home for at least 24 hours after fever goes away, which I did. I feel MUCH, much, much better, but in most flu cases you can be contagious for 5-7 days after onset of symptoms, even if you feel good.

Sigh.

So I canceled everything yesterday and went in to work just long enough to put all my files onto a USB so I could work from home. I canceled everything for tonight and tomorrow... except tomorrow night because I have a friend coming up from D.C. (who was given due warning!) But I will be disinfecting everything and providing Purell, so no worries. :) On the upside, I'm not coughing anymore, so that decreases my likelihood of sharing.

There you go-- public health in real time. And here's hoping that I don't get anyone else sick!

Chi Town Part I

I never posted about my trip to Chicago to see Becca, so here you go! It was a fun trip, and I always love seeing my sister. :)

First of all, the buildings in Chicago are tall-- but there's so much space in between them!


Much to Becca's chagrin, I couldn't get over how many parks there were and how much of the sky you could see between buildings. We did a cool boat tour of the city's architecture, in which I found out why there's so much space between buildings: Because that's how their zoning laws are written! I guess Chicagoans don't like to be cramped.

I also managed to be there for the one week of nice weather they had had all "summer" long, so it was almost like being outside of the city. (Kind of.) We did lots of picnics in the park.

Just in case the picnics and parks weren't enough to ease my city fatigue, we went to the botanical gardens, the Shedd Aquarium, a museum that was really like an indoor botanical garden, and the zoo. It was pretty cool. We even got to see a butterfly being born! The butterfly house had a whole bunch of chrysalises (?), and one butterfly finished breaking out as we watched. Sweet.


On top of all that, we had a lot of excellent eating adventures... Which I will detail in my next post. Becca, you're so good to me. :)

Vicious Circle???

Dear T cells and B cells and all other cells involved in keeping me healthy,

Just wanted to see how you were doing. Not to be rude, but it seems that performance has been declining recently, so just wanted to check in! As you know, we slept for nine whole hours last night, and today systems are still running a bit low. We have a thesis to write and mountains to hike this weekend-- so let's kick it up a notch, shall we?

I imagine the thesis is part of the problem-- you take care of me, and I'll take care of that.

Cordially,
Me

**

Dear Me,
We don't like your thesis. How about you take care of that first, then we'll take care of you?

Sincerely,
Your Immune System

Lol!

I have the coolest brother ever

I love my siblings.





(I know this one is blurry, but I like it-- "By our powers combined..." lol!)

They are super awesome and we still keep crazy traditions like reading a (specific) book in the middle of the night Christmas Eve when one of us wakes up (usually Becca), even though we are becoming "grown-ups." And because I love them so much, I am sometimes super sappy when it comes to things concerning them.

Which is why I totally shed a few tears when my little brother opened his MISSION CALL and said he was going to Honduras!!!! In December, he'll go off to teach the people there about God and to serve them for two years.

I am so proud of you, kiddo!

(And I knew you would love it if I posted your pic all over my blog, lol.)

Random trivia

Last winter, I took lots of long walks on Sundays when church was canceled because RI is too broke to plow the streets. Some parts of Providence have really pretty old houses, so I took a lot of pictures. Anyway, I would occasionally find pineapples over people's doorways, like so:

(Obviously they aren't real-- it's part of the decoration, which didn't make it any less strange.)

Well, I finally found out what they mean! Early New Englanders apparently used to put a pineapple over the doorway to signal that a sailing family member (like a merchant or navy person) had returned safely. Of course everyone would want to come over and see that person, so eventually the pineapple over the doorway became sort of a symbol of hospitality. But I kind of like the "safe return" meaning best.

This random piece of cool trivia is brought to you by the letter "P" (for pineapple, of course). Now you know!

Field Trip Part II--the rest of MA and RI

First, a couple of random thoughts. Then a real post. :)

::Random Thoughts::
You know what I hate? When you want something on so many levels, but know that on other (really important levels) you really don't want it, can't have it, the way it is--and know that you can't or shouldn't try to change it. You know what I love? Sleeping in my own bed!!!! (Looking forward to it so much that I will probably be in bed by 10 tonight!)

And now, a real post. Sometimes you just have to dump the random thoughts out so you can start thinking straight again.

::Real Post:: aka "Salem, MA"

Salem was... not at all what I expected. First of all, I was picturing a tiny town in my head, but it was a true East-coast small city, complete with traffic and windy one-way streets. (Amber was appalled that we couldn't just make a square when we took a wrong turn in the one-way streets. I often feel the same way, though I have come to expect it.)

We went to a couple of museums, but I wasn't impressed. The first one was the house of one of the judges during the witch trials, and it's the only building in Salem still original to that time. It was a little sparse on actual info-- mostly it just showed period pieces. ("This is a chair like the ones they used to sit in.") Then we went to a Witch Museum, where the most interesting part of it was the lobby. There's actually been a biochemical mechanism proposed for the girls' behavior, linked with some bacteria in rotting rye, if I remember correctly. But the rest of it was heavily sensationalized and then ended with a cheesy piece on Wiccans. I have nothing against Wiccans and respect their right to practice their religion as they see fit, but it was an odd representation (think mannequins depicting Wiccan ceremonial robes with a voice-over describing how nice Wiccans are). I still managed to find a favorite part of the exhibit, which was a fun list of common herbs and their actual medicinal properties compared to their "superstitious" properties. I need more hocus pocus in my life. :)

And last but not least...

"The Freedom Trail"

To end our Boston explorations, Amber was a trooper and traipsed all the way up the Freedom Trail with me to Bunker Hill. (When I've done it before, I'd only made it to the Old North Church where Paul Revere started his ride.) It was hot, but I loved seeing how excited Amber was to see things like the gravestones of several of the Sons of Liberty/Signers of Declaration of Independence. All of the buildings and monuments really help me bring our country's early past to life. :)

Field Trip Part I

Well hello, August.  And hello, family and friends who must be bored of my stagnant blog.  Recent events that I will describe briefly:

1) Amber, an old friend from Colorado, came to hang out with me for a week.  I worked a ton of hours before and after she came to make up some time, and then  we played hard.

2) This week, I'm in Chicago visiting my sister, Becca.  We are also going to play hard. :)

***

So Providence has many exciting things to see, like the old buildings downtown (especially the churches), the beaches, and the Roger Williams park.  There are other cool things like the PawSox and Waterfire, and other crazy RI festivities.  I gave Amber a taste of some of these, but we spent a lot of time in Massachusetts too, because she is a history buff. :)  Here's a sampling of what we did and saw:

::The home of Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women:: 

She grew up in the same area as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Apparently, her father was very cosmopolitan and even built her her own desk, which was simply not done for women at the time.  In many of the houses, they talked about various prosperous or accomplished women who chose to remain unmarried so they could pursue their writing or business, etc.  I came away with a deep gratitude that things have progressed somewhat, so that sometime I can be a mother and be married without giving up my identity.  I realize there are sacrifices and compromises, and one usually can't have everything all at once.  But I'm grateful for the women and men who pushed for women's rights so that, at various seasons of my life, I will be able to accomplish the things I want to do in a manner that enriches me, my family and friends, and maybe people I don't even know.

::The Minute Man monument in Concord::

 

This I liked because of the SchoolHouse Rock song about the shot heard 'round the world at the start of the Revolution... :)

::Walden Pond::

 

Here's a fun fact: Thoreau was actually not a hermit during his time at Walden Pond. He was living a simple life, not one closed off from the world.  He regularly walked into town to see friends, and though he only had a couple of chairs in his little house, one of the plaques there quotes him talking about the tiny room being filled with many people standing close together.  So really the lesson is to live simply in a complex world in order to preserve the beauty of the planet and human relationships, not to reject and vilify society without doing something about it!

::Newport Mansions::

A lot of very wealthy people used to have their summer homes in Newport, RI.  With a mere 70+ rooms, I have no idea how people had enough space to truly enjoy themselves for the summer. :)  We only went into one and weren't allowed to take pictures, but my favorite part was the grand staircase, complete with red velvet.  Think of every princess movie you've ever seen with the girl floating down the staircase to enter the ball-- that was the Vanderbuilts' living room.  I could do that for a night!  And, apparently they have enough tourists to warrant translation headsets, so I did my tour in Spanish and was relieved to find that I can still follow tours, even though I hardly ever speak to anyone in Spanish anymore and pretty much never use words like "chandelier" when I do!

::Beach::

We end the trip by relaxing at one of RI's many beaches.  The weather was perfect (finally-- it rained pretty much all of June and July), and we went a little later in the afternoon so it wasn't quite as crowded.

We had a lovely time.  Stay tuned for more adventures...

Mmmm... Plants :)

I love having plants in my house. This was my old apartment:

(Side note: Daisies last forever! One more thing to love!)

With a few more plants, I probably could have called it the Botanical Gardens. Unfortunately, I was only plant-sitting for a friend, and most of those dear plants are now in Virginia. But a couple stayed...


(though I'm still sort of trying to figure out where best to situate them)

...And a new one has joined the family, courtesy of my new roommate Eva. :)


Hooray for plants!

Palmyra, NY

Oh, hello there. Yup, I am still alive, just not posting so much. It has been busy! The apartment is finally in reasonable shape (though I still feel like a few things are out of place since my roommate moved in only a week ago), and the sun is shining in Providence! Yay. :)

What else have I been doing with myself? Mostly bouncing all over the place. Last week I went to Palmyra, which has a lot of historical church sites and where they do a pageant depicting some scenes from the Book of Mormon (despite protesters-- they even stayed through the torrential downpour that wound up ending the show early...).*


It rained so much! You can see that my shorts are still soaked despite Mark's gigantic umbrella.

It was sort of supposed to be a stake (i.e. all of RI) trip, but that didn't happen so much. I drove up with my friends Mark and Jordan from CT, and we met up with a bunch of other people from Hartford.


We drove down Friday for a big dance, and then Saturday we spent the day visiting places like the farm where Joseph Smith grew up and the print shop where the first Book of Mormon was printed. All the tours were given by missionaries, and it was cool to hear their personal testimonies of how the gospel works in their lives.

The farm


Sewing up the spine of the Book of Mormon


Finished product

One story that really struck me was about Joseph having to move the plates one night because of mob threats. He was inspired to move them to a loft in the room they were in. It really spoke to me because it was such a tiny move (literally five feet from their original hiding place), but because of that small move, the mob didn't find the plates. Life can be like that, can't it? Little course changes now can bring big repercussions (and big blessings!) later.

The loft

We also walked through the Sacred Grove and the Hill Cumorah.

The Hill Cumorah Monument--Mark, me, Karen, Jordan


It was a good trip.

*If you don't know what I'm talking about and want an explanation, feel free to ask. Lots of details + still very busy! = this is what you get. :)

Blueberry Month

Did you know that July is National Blueberry Month? Or at least it was a couple of summers ago when I created this bulletin board at an internship. (I was going through old pics and this made me laugh. I am definitely an artiste. Ha ha!)

For my Rhode Island friends, does anyone know of a good place to pick blueberries? Yum....

Things...

Today is a good day.

1) I have awesome friends (especially Ashley!) who helped me move--all weekend long! And my couch is really heavy. And I own a lot of stuff. THANK YOU!!!!

2) I have more awesome friends at church who, in addition to being really cool people, are really great examples to me. We work with the childrens' organization, and I am so impressed by the love and patience they are able to infuse into everything. I hope someday the kids appreciate the time they take to put together games and lessons. I hope when I have my own kids, I can also communicate high expectations and help them to live up to them like these ladies do. :)

3) The sun came out today! Thank you, Rhode Island-- I'm glad we finally got the memo that it's summer. Now if we can just keep it up, that would be fantastic.

I have lots of other blessings too. But three is a nice number so I'll stop there for now.

Tomorrow WILL be better

Today is a bad day.

I went to sign the lease on my new (much smaller) apartment. They told us it was $500/month more than they told us (multiple times) during the "selling" period. Then they told us that, no they wouldn't pay all utilities (as previously mentioned); rather, they pay only for heat and hot water. This apartment is a total downgrade from what I have now. When I thought it was significantly cheaper than what I have now (and closer to the gym), I figured I could tough it out for a year. The price was low enough to compensate for the smaller size and the coin-op laundry (instead of having my own like I do now). REGRETS. I'm not really sure if there's anything I can do about it. I have to be out of my current apartment this week unless I just give up and can somehow convince my new roommate to live here in good old University Heights on the wrong side of Hope.* Which is not likely.

Additionally, I already hate my thesis and haven't even really started. Being a master's students is sort of limiting (translation: really limiting) because you have to do what's already being done by someone else. The problem with emotional eating is that no one at Brown is working on it. They're obsessed with weight loss and fruits and vegetables. News flash: people know they should eat better and workout, and everyone knows there are reasons why they don't (too busy/tired/the stairs at work stink). Clearly, this kind of research is NOT HELPING because people all over the place still consider eating a battle instead of a nurturing, nourishing experience. But that's how it goes. No funding, no time, NO FUN.

Really, the bottom line is that I am tired of thinking about how to help people....


...because I want to actually DO something. These extra letters behind my name better open every door I think they should, because this was (is) a long, expensive way to discover that I really miss patient care. And, while I'm super grateful for my pays-for-school-and-teaches-me-necessary-business-skills job, I do NOT like desk jobs. I need something else, or I'm going to lose my mind. On the upside, I'm exploring possibilities of doing "independent study" classes where I can just work on projects I care about through the health department.

*There are very distinct "right" areas to live in in RI. I live in a decent place, but the street right behind me is super sketchy, and my apt. complex has 24-hour security people that drive around all night... I've never had a problem and I don't think it's a big deal, but my new roommate is from RI. I think she gets nervous driving through my parking lot.

On the upside...I'll probably feel better after I actually move. I mean, little kids play in boxes all the time; I'm sure I can live in one for a year. ;) And as for work...well, it's not the rest of my life. I think independent study "classes" will be my saving grace.

Life, I love you, but I don't have to like you right now.

My Life: A Short Story

I know you are dying for the follow-up from a couple of days ago. Here you go! Pictures to follow later. :)

1) Working hard
I just started a cool new project at work. I'm excited because a) it's great experience putting policy into action, and b) I get to work more closely with a whole bunch of CEOs and big-shot hospital administrators. I don't want to work in business (I miss patient care!), but I do get a teeny rush from high-octane work environments... Basically, there might be some new legislation coming down the pike, and we're scrambling to fit a 10-month certification process into 4 months so we can help the hospitals out as well as dominate the niche in Rhode Island.

2) Replaced my car!
Dan and Maddie are the best and sold me their car. It's a white Chevy Malibu, which I have not yet named, but I definitely will. (But I'm proud of myself for still walking to work today.)

3) NYC Ballet
Tony was very sweet this weekend and surprised me with a lovely dinner in Times Square, followed by excellent seats for a performance of the NYC Ballet. We were less than ten rows back, practically in the center (orchestra seating)! They performed a Stravinsky violin concerto, and it was amazing. The last movement was the best-- the pairing of the instruments with the dancers was most striking in this movement, which is my favorite thing about ballet. I love being able to see the group of "low brass" dancers glide around the "violin" dancers, and the perfect, effortless beauty of really good dancing. :)

4) Always wanted to be a writer...
This is a small opportunity, but I've been writing little nutritional "columns" for a wellness intervention in California. One of Brown's research centers is doing consulting work for this intervention and writing all of the newsletters, and I've been writing small pieces on common barriers to healthy eating. Mostly, I like it because my writing is finally reaching people who can benefit from it (and because it's another good way to keep up on nutrition).

5) Hip hop class
I love working out, I really do. But I haven't had a real goal for awhile (besides actually getting my workouts in), and it's sort of demotivating... I mean, I love lifting (especially when I'm using the same weights as some of the boys), but increasing weights only goes so far. Numbers get old after awhile! So mastering a dance combo is a good motivator. :)

Preview

I don't want to deal with pics tonight, but lots of exciting things have been happening around here, so here's a preview:

1) Working hard
2) Replaced my car!
3) NYC Ballet
4) Always wanted to be a writer...
5) Hip hop class

Dying of curiosity? :) Tune in tomorrow!

Breathe

I did it! I'm alive! I turned in my last paper today. At 35 pages (okay, really only 25 if you don't count appendices and references), I was glad to have it off my hands. It's hard to believe that I'm done with my first year! It seems like it's gone by so quickly, but I also feel like I've been in RI for ages.

I've been so grateful for this twist in my path, and grateful also to discover which parts of me b e n d and which parts are pretty solid-- Traits I can rely on to deal with the ebb and flow of life. Not that I'm not grateful for the bendy parts too, since that's how I get to ride the waves!

1. Rachel, 2. Apples and Peanut Butter, 3. Summer greens in the Duffey lake landscape near Lillooet in beautiful British Columbia, 4. Color Me!, 5. Meditteranean 1, 6. "Shelly" ... 20000+ views!, 7. "Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero." Marc Brown..., 8. Young Buddhist monks, 9. Stag fight

P.S. You should click on the blank square so you can actually see the picture. This square represents what I want to "be" when I "grow up." I thought about finding a different picture when it came up blank, but then I thought maybe it was a good reminder for myself as is. I do want to be a hero and design interventions that reduce maladies in entire populations. But if I've learned one thing this year, it's that viewing my "heroic" efforts reduced to a spreadsheet isn't really fulfilling for me, and it sort of sucks the humanity out of public service. I hope I can be an actual hand for someone to hold, even as I go on creating "big things." :)

Post three times if you believe in avoiding papers...

I have a lot of respect for peppermint herbal tea. Just smelling it is instantly relaxing, and every time you take a sip, you have to breathe out a little of the stress that's pent up inside-- you can't help it! I think being able to instantly help people see the brighter side of life is definitely a quality worthy of emulation. :) Plus, you always find tea in cute, homey places.


(Sorry, this is obviously not peppermint tea. But it is a cute, homey tea place that Maddie, Julie, and I visited.)

Yeah, stuck in school mode...

Okay, I'm supposed to be writing papers, and I will, but I needed to take a break to share a fascinating study I stumbled upon.

Self-silencing: The act of withholding emotions, opinions, strengths, and capabilities perceived to be threatening to one’s partner in order to maintain the relationship.

So self-silencing has previously been linked with depression, low self-esteem, lower self-reported quality of life among female cancer patients--you get the idea.

And now, this study gives some preliminary evidence that this self-silencing may be linked with increased risk of eating disorders. Well huh.

Further evidence that dealing with emotions is an important step in the road to healthier eating. Mind, body, spirit. :)

Ups and Downs

Earlier this week, I felt like this:


School was a teeny bit stressful because I had all of my final presentations within a week and a half. Eek! And I wound up putting in some extra hours at work... So sleep and I were not close friends.

But...

- On the upside, April showers (of which we had plenty! Look at my soaking wet pants below....) do bring May flowers! Lots of them! The trees around here are beautiful! Sorry I don't have any pics yet, but I'll give you a preview: My favorite trees have pale yellow blossoms. My second favorite have salmon-colored flowers, which I think is fascinating-- I don't think I've ever really seen plants wearing that particular shade before.

My soaking wet pants-- ha ha!



- On the upside, the sun has decided it likes to shine most days now. Yay! This is also fun because people come pouring out of their offices during the lunch hour, and they're fun to watch. I love seeing people walk together!

- On the upside, Tony and I have been seeing each other a little more frequently, despite our busy schedules. The adage that "absence makes the heart grow fonder" does not work for me. Time together = a much calmer, happier Rachel. Last week when he was out here, we went to a birthday party for one of the guys at school where I finally (finally!) got to wear my pearls. I don't have many occasions to show them off!



Here's to beginning another whirlwind week... But a little smarter this time, with proper attention paid to Mr. Sandman. ;)