A Million Little Pieces

It's not that Mother lies.  She tells stories.  Especially about presents.  Every object has an elaborate back story.  It runs in the family.  Her brother is the same way.  Sometimes she gets so used to telling stories and the stories become so convincing, it becomes hard to tell fiction from fiction.

(I found an ugly, knobbly candlestick holder in our cabinets yesterday)

Moi: Why do you have this?  What is this?

Mother: It's from the Lutheran church.  It's hand carved by one of their missionaries from some place faraway.

Moi: Then why does it say "Do good and forget me" on it?

Mother: Oh.  Maybe I just picked it up from their Free pile.  I don't remember.  

If I Were a Rich Kid

Whenever Mother sees my Pumas, she tells me that I need a new pair of sneakers.  This has happened every time I have come home in the last year.

Mother: You need new shoes.

Moi: These are new.  I got them last year.

Mother: But they're so tattered.

Moi: That's intentional.  The fringes are supposed to be like that.

Mother You are too poor to be wearing intentionally tattered clothes.

Little Thanks

It's darn near vacation time, Dear Pretzels.  I can finally catch half a breath and write some posts.  It's too bad that I don't have anything to write about since I go to school and work all day.  The best things about today have all been the little things, and they've been things that only matter to me.  But they've been so satisfying.  Like finding my key card.  Successfully merging a funny data set.  Making a dinner  out of scallion pancake and creamed brussel sprouts.  Doing laundry.  And watching Storage Wars.  Days like this (and surviving New England winters) is why we have Thanksgiving.

Master of None

Actual questions I have received today regarding the course I am TA'ing:  

"The syllabus says that the midterm is due on the 30th and will become available a week before.  Does this mean that it will be posted on the 23rd?"

Yes.

"The syllabus says that the midterm will be posted on the 23rd and due on the 30th.  Will the midterm be timed?"

No.

Is the [open-book, take-home, week-long midterm for the online course] going to be proctored?

No.

First Steps First

Do you want the good news first or the bad news?  As a worry-wart-cynic, I always choose the bad news first:

It's in the American Journal of Managed Care.  As a web-exclusive.

In this context, I guess it would have made more sense to start with the good news:

I'm a first author!  It's my first time as a first author.  

Doc Whitecastle has been alternatively encouraging and disparaging of this accomplishment.  I believe he's aiming for 100% encouragement, but the reality of it all slips through.

(discussing a paper in progress on which, if published, I would also be first author)

Whitecastle: If [journal under review] accepts this.  That'd be great.  It'd mean you're first author on a [journal under review] paper.

Moi: Which is a lot better than an online exclusive.

Whitecastle: Yeah.  The worst part of that was that it was the American Journal of Managed Care of all places.  

The indignities don't end there.  Whitecastle asked me for a PDF of the article today (encouraging) but I haven't found a way to procure one.  

Poor Grad Student

I felt like the little drummer boy for the first half of last week, nervously awaiting a team meeting on The Big Project That Puts Bread on the Table.  It didn't help that the night before, Professor Tom (i.e. Big Boss) stopped by my office (I have a real office to myself, with a door and everything-- that's how big this project is) to say that he looked forward to my input at the meeting.  He was half joking when he responded to my look of alarm with "Well, that's why I gave you this office, right?"

But half serious was too much serious for me.  I am very junior on the project and usually spend group meetings nodding and turning my head to say, "Prof Fudge?" whenever a question is posed in my general direction.  On Wednesday, I watched, aghast, pa rum rum rum drumming in my head, as the other teams presented their updates with detailed tables, slides, and plans, knowing full well that I had no gifts to bring and that Fudge only drew up a plan the night before.  When I was called on, I replied with a suave, "Yes, um, Fudge?"  It drew unintended laughs.

In the end, I blubbered a few sentences and Prof Tom was generous enough to find them sufficient.  Later, he said that he "had to" call on me because I was sitting next to him.  In actuality, Amber, silent throughout the meeting, was sitting next to him.  I was next to Amber.  Maybe she was so stealthy that he didn't even notice her.

Note to self: Be more like Amber.

Biscuitheads

I bumped into Prof. Molten at the biscuit stand at the farmer's market this morning.  As Alene would say, the encounter was quite the 'treat,' as it involved both Molten and blacksauce biscuits (bumping into Michelle at the same place last week was also pretty nice, but don't tell her that I said that, we're engaged in a competition either for each other or other people's approval, it is not clear).

(discussing where I was going to church after my biscuit breakfast; I blanked on the address/neighborhood because my head isn't big enough to store such things)

Moi: It's just a few blocks that way.  In this pretty old building.  On the edge of nice and shady.  (pause)  Well, a lot of B'more is on the edge of nice and shady.

Molten: I was going to say.  I think my whole run here was on the edge of nice and shady.

As it tends to occur with people I've ever temporarily looked up to, Prof. Molten has recently entered a vegetarian stage.  When it came to the Band Man, Ira Glass, and Lenny, I either outgrew my role model and/or the vegetarianism was only temporary.  It's too early to tell if either will happen with Prof. Molten (OK, fairly certain her awesomeness will never cease to amaze me), but I take comfort in knowing that she still has her priorities right.

(she mentioned that the previous week, she only had time to get a pit beef sandwich for her husband but not donuts for the kids)

Moi: So you didn't even get a chance to get something you could eat?

Molten: Oh no.  I had my biscuit first.  That's non-negotiable every week.

Now that's a public health authority with her nutrition priorities in order.

Coughing and Wheezing Kind of Day

I had my fortnightly meeting with Advisor Who this morning.  Usually, I arrive to find someone else already in his office, deep into conversation, because Who tends to overbook his Wednesday mornings.  This morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that no one had usurped my spot.  Though that surprise soon turned unpleasant when I realized that the office was completely empty. No visitors.  But no Who, either.

When we finally did get to meet, I ran down a list of first-person asthma vignettes for a pilot study, many of them included complaints of shortness of breath, until Advisor Who stopped me.

Who: No, you don't have asthma.  You're just really out of shape.  I'm concerned that you're drawing a lot from your personal experience.

Ah, Mentor Who Insults My Level of Fitness.  This would be something to write home about, if every single mentor in the last 10 years hadn't been the exact same way.  I just have one of those faces.  And it's just one of those days.

Poo and Pee Kind of Day

One of my favorite things to do, whenever I worked with a junior high youth group during my summer at the Boston Project, was to tell the youths that we were not to have any talk of poop and pee at the dinner table while saying the words poop and pee as many times as possible.  I can't help it, these are funny words.

I gave you that introduction to prepare you for the line that has made me laugh all day.  Though perhaps I should be paving my ground in other ways, and remind you that I am a doctoral student, a serious thinker, a sophisticated poet, a responsible teaching assistant, and loving daughter.  The class I am TA'ing this term has the acronym "AHSPO."  It's a lot shorter and more convenient than spelling out the whole course title, but it makes for an unfortunate pronunciation.  No matter how I try, it inevitably rhymes with a**hole (or a**hole with a British accent).  Writing a poll for the class today, I decided to tack on a fun question soliciting alternative pronunciations/solutions.  Which brings me back to the line that made me crack up in class, then close the browser and turn my head so I wouldn't burst out laughing, the suggestion that made me smile all day long:  ass-poo.

Someone wrote ass-poo.  It's the little things that remind me why I got into TA'ing.

UPDATE: (Jesse, upon hearing what I found funny) "Why are the smart ones always so troubled mentally?  Ass-poo?"

Mental Marathon

Meredith, Allison, Laura, and I all converged at Marie's apartment in DC this weekend for our semi-annual get together of lots of walking, board gaming, eating, and healthcare-talk catch up.  Marie was a gracious hostess, kicking out Bryant and making us coffee and toast every morning.  Sadly, we did not play Bananagrams, opting instead for Apples-to-Apples (we prefer fruit-based games).  It led to hours of humor, mostly dark, as I somehow managed to acquire a hand with "Hiroshima 1945," "Pearl Harbor Attack," "Adolf Hitler," "Atomic Bomb," and "Anne Frank."  The game culminated to a heated 3-way tie for game point among the lefties.  Though it should not surprise anyone that the tie was broken by a win by yours truly.  I am just that good.

The real highlight of the weekend though, was our dinner at Birch & Barley.  We began the meal with complimentary, ridiculously light creme fraiche biscuits and olive rolls (you know how I feel about good biscuits).  And kept on adding on the starch from there.  Overwhelmed by the many words on the menu and in the end, we deferred to the waiter to pair our beers (yes, beer pairings, did you expect anything less with the exposed brick walls, the lanterns, and distressed-wood look?).  Giving up on picking and choosing among all the delectable options, we just said, "1 of everything from the pasta section, please."  Plus a side of mac'n'cheese.  Because you can never have too many simple carbohydrates between public health professionals.