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.

Pumpkin Eater

Dear Neglected Journal.  I ventured out to the great outdoors this past weekend.  Actually, I ventured toward D.C. and Punty and was driven out to the great outdoors in a leisurely, sun-dappled car ride nap.  But I arrived at the outdoors nevertheless.  Only to discover an orchard full of little children (and excellent cider donuts) and other mishaps.  Like how Punty's apple-picking trip came too late in the season, so we picked pumpkins instead (like that time we got blueberries instead of apples from a shady orchard in Maine... I have terrible luck with apples).  And she accidentally picked the farm her friend didn't recommend.  And by "pick pumpkins," I really mean "intimidate all the children off of the hayride, walk into half empty pumpkin field, wander around for 15 minutes as Punty picks pumpkin, then ride back into the store where Punty ditches said pumpkin for a prettier one from the bin."  I love it when I'm not the one that messes up.  On our way out, Liz ran into car trouble, so we camped out on the side of the road with a blanket and picnic.  It was the only time during the day that the outdoors cooperated.  The grass was nice, the sky was mostly clear, and the air was crisp.  It just came at the cost of a $2200 engine.  Lesson learned?  Avoid the outdoors.  Nothing good comes of it.

Center for Talented Toddlers

On the way to Important Yet Terrible Talk With Excellent Reception Food today, we bumped into Greg.  While we were all excited for the opening of the drug research center (this was, after all, before the Terrible Talk), Greg had bigger things on his mind: the education of his 3-year old.  He had a parent-teacher conference to attend, 2 letters of recommendation to obtain, and a very detailed pre-school application to fill out.  In describing all this, he inadvertently uttered my favorite sentences of the day.

Greg: One of the questions was, "how does your child deal with adversity?"  Uh... he cries.

Center for Awkward Youths

It's finals season again (coinciding with Neeson season).  This means that the weeks are generally gross.  But Thursday night was a brief, wondrous reprieve from it all, one of those nights with so many good elements, I don't know where to begin.  Empanadas from the biscuit people I adore.  Actually, a whole dinner from them.  Chill bluegrass music.  Al fresco dining amid trees, Christmas lights, and a little fire.  And of course, the lovely, lovely company.  It wasn't just that Sachini and Catherine are past ridiculous in their fun/nice distributions (off the charts on both scales), but also that we got to spend much of the evening discussing Mike's nerdy past.  I thought I could relate to him, Geek Camp alum-to-alum (ah, CTY), but he went far beyond a couple of misguided summers and into real hardcore stuff, with a special math and science high school (that Landlady Chang and Brother also went to), then teaching Nerd Camp, getting blacklisted, and then of course, back full circle to biostatistics here.  I had never felt so cool in my life.  Nor so proud that I 'only' spent 2 summers at Geek Camp.

Blazing Furnace

Expecting the Worst
Hanging out in my room last night, I suddenly heard a thump and little pop sound, followed by silence.  I didn't think Roommate Megan was moving anything heavy, but thought I'd check, fearing that someone had broken into the apartment or a surrounding one (ah, adjusting expectations in B'more).  Once I stepped into the empty living room, however, I saw that no such break-ins had occurred.  Then I smelled smoke.  Then I saw smoke coming from the heater closet. Then I saw a spark and rushed into Megan's room.

Two Public Health Experts One Mini Fire
There were a couple of minutes of chaos as we tried to figure out what to do, tried to get a closer look at the heater then jump away when we saw flames, and tried to see if we had a fire extinguisher anywhere (we don't; we should).  We then decided that calling 911 seemed like the right thing to do even though the fire was most probably out.  Right after Megan hung up, we panicked.  Not because of the fire.  But because we were both about to go to bed and not wearing presentable clothes.  She changed.  I borrowed a sweatshirt from her and kept the flowery white PJ half shorts because the heater was right outside my door and I didn't want to walk by another possible spark.

B'more's Best
The firefighters arrived in minutes.  They were everything one could expect them to be.  Calm, reassuring, and mostly seemed like they knew what they were doing.  We were right to call them, they said (I wonder if they tell everyone that).  They smelled the apartment and saw the blackened water heater.  "Yup, that's a fire all right."  Then they just chilled a little bit since everything was under control.  Somebody turned off the hot water.  Somebody decided they should leave a tag on the water heater.  Someone located a tag in his helmet.  Nobody had a pen.  Except for me.  I always have pens.

Super Confused Super
The next step was calling the emergency maintenance number, which put me in touch with Brian the Maintenance Manager.  "Wasn't I just in your apartment this afternoon?"  "Yes, yes, you fixed a drain.  Thank you!"  "I didn't touch your water heater."  "I know you didn't.  But it still burned up."  "Can you explain this again?  You're saying it caught on fire?"  "Yes, sir, it burst into flames." "I just don't understand.  This has never happened before."  "It's the first time for me, too.  But it happened."  "Well, do you want me to-- right now, I don't have a --"  "You should come first thing tomorrow morning."  "OK.  That's good.  Because it's 11 o'clock now."  Who knew I had a talent for talking supers through difficult situations?  I did.

This Happened Tonight

I know it's been quiet here lately.  But at the very least, this will be explained.  Tomorrow.  After I get some sleep.  And perhaps, a new water heater.

My Best Work All Week

Yet another pirate research joke.  There are a lot of pirate statisticians out there.

Cut

Last week, I decided to live beyond my means (like the people who got us into this recession) and treated myself to a nice chef's knife.  Not ridiculously fancy, but fancy enough.  It cost about the same as my (Target) microwave.  It arrived today.  And has me excited to chop vegetables.  Considering the cost savings in adverted health utilization this knife will bring because I'm eating more vegetables, it's probably an investment win in the long run (then again, living longer = more health expenditures, what a conundrum; such is the curse of learning health economics).

(Two pictures from last weekend below.  It appears that we're all terrible at having our picture taken.  This suits Brother's purposes because he takes artistic photos and can bring the best out of people in natural settings.  But it does terribly for having family pictures.)

Two good photographers.  In one terrible picture.

Everyone says they look alike.  I don't see it.

Hail Kaiser

I love a good goof who spins a good yarn.

(discussing his friend Kaiser)

Doc Nice: You know the Kaiser foundation?  She's from that family.

Moi: Whoa.  That's amazing.  That's really important.  Do you think she's related to the Kaisers of the roll?

Doc Nice: Probably.  If you're going to start a health system, you need some seed money, and I bet that that's where it came from.

Moi: It makes perfect sense.  If you feed people simple carbohydrates, they'll get sick and enter the health system.

Doc Nice: You know, isn't Kaiser German for king or something?  I bet they're also related to that.

Moi: OK, now you're just stretching this too far.  Let's not get carried away.  They are not German kings.

Doc Nice: I'm sorry.  You're right.  I was just goofing off.

One Last September Post

(Mother, preparing for her sermon on Saturday night)

Mother froze on stage this morning.  She was delivering a sermon at a church in Boston and suddenly forgot what city I was living in, instead she said, "My son flew back from California and my daughter from ... from ... from ... (and this point, her friends and I start snickering in the back pew) uh... Johns Hopkins."  You could say that she panicked in the moment.  You could also say that even now, I'm not sure that she knows where I live.  It took her awhile to acclimate to the fact that B'more is south of Boston.

(defending the integrity of her Costco-bought giant bottle of sangria)

Mother: Your Father and them don't like it, they think it tastes weird, but I think it's great.  

I Solve

Pretzels, I'm so proud of my investigative skills that I am going to put down my problem set for a few minutes just to tell you all about it.  I got a text about 30 minutes ago from a number that wasn't in my phone.  All I had to go on was that the person went to the Bo' (207 area code and you don't live in Maine?  You went to the Bo'), probably wasn't part of the JWo-VitaK crowd, and was in SF.

Not Jared.  Not Lily.  They would be in my phone.  Facebook told me that Zvi had just arrived in SF, but he should be in my phone.  A quick check, however, revealed sometime in the process of switching from one antiquated flip phone to another to another, his entry got deleted.  Then I checked his facebook profile and his number was listed there and I figured everything out.

OK.  That wasn't as dramatic as it played out in real time and maybe it didn't require that many skills, but let me have this one.  I certainly don't have my problem set figured out.