A big difference in graduate school…

is that some of the students are established professionals or life-long students.  For the most part, this is positive.  I’ve gotten to work on projects with an atmospheric scientist that did stints in Antarctica, people at the EPA, a director from the Cleveland Zoo, a couple lawyers, etc.  But there are also a few possessing the attitude that not only do they know more than the professors, but that because they are so established and smart, if they aren’t understanding something right away its the professor’s fault and they should proclaim this in a loud, interrupting fashion.

I’ve had idiots in my classes before, no-it-alls, hecklers, sleepers.  Hell, I’ve had (and on rare occasions been one of) the kids that sit in the back with 20 ounce bottles of soda and booze (the infamous “traveler”).  But none of those have made me as ready to jump over a desk and smack someone than the most problematic grad students.  Case in point would be last night, when a woman interrupted the professor at least a dozen times.  We were doing spatial network analysis, which for lack of motivation to describe it I’ll just describe as hard.  This student alternated between berating the professor for their lack of comprehension and interrupting to point out mistakes.  I’m sorry, but if you aren’t following the material, you have no place cutting off someone with a doctorate to inform everyone that the typical speed limit on residential roads in 25 mph, not 35.

As long as I’m bitching….I am in two ideologically opposite degree programs.  Environmental Studies and Economics.  Ying and Yang.  Treehuggers and greedy capitalists.  It amazes me the blind faith people have that their point of view is correct and anything opposing is ludicrous, as are the people holding that point of view.  If you ever want to get open-mouth stares, try explaining to an ecosystem science class that economic factors do protect the environment when used properly, or to an international trade class that the resource limits in combination with “Dutch Disease” can make trade bad for a developing economy.  Its quite amusing.

I feel better now.  I think I’ll eat some cereal.

Jackpot…

I’m extremely good at math, or at least I used to be in high school.  Won some awards and stuff.  Which makes it a little harder for me to justify playing MegaMillions on a regular basis.  For the uninitiated, MegaMillions is one of those multistate lotteries with 100 million dollar prizes and jackpot odds of 275 million to 1.  Probability-wise, even if the jackpot is up in the 300 million range, its still a losing proposition, because if you win you get smacked with taxes and might have to share it with someone else.  But I play it anyway.

Call it my fantasy game, not so much different from the tendency of certain females I know (ok, most females I know) to look at expensive handbags and Tiffany’s jewelery.  Its not really a realistic option, but its entertaining to sit and think about (emphasis on the jewelery not being a realistic option…I don’t want to have to get a job or anything like that).  Anyway, when the jackpot is up over 30 million or so, I try to buy a ticket for the twice weekly drawings.  Just one, because most of my entertainment in this venture is from thinking about what I would do with my slight chance of winning, not in blowing money in a futile attempt to actually do so.  I’ve tried thinking about it without the ticket, in an attempt to save that $2 a week for beer, but its just not the same.  My usual $50 million in the bank thoughts:

-No job, temporarily.  I’d stay in school full time until graduation, and then find something altruistic to do.

-Certain close friends and relatives would have their student loans/morgages paid off.  But only if they, starting today, bake me cookies on a fairly regular basis.

-Condo shopping.  Nothing huge, just somewhere in a nice location with its own laundry stuff and a place to put my 60 inch plasma tv with surround sound and matching beer cooler.  This tv will be super nintendo compatible.

-New car.  I like Em’s Mazda3.  But I might hold out for the upcoming plug-in Saturn (hybrid that acts like an electric car on trips under 20 miles)

-Travel.  Europe, Africa, Central America, South America, Alaska, New York, Washington DC, Oregon, Texas, Disney World, the Caribbean, Mexico, Canada, Fiji, Australia, China, Russia, India, Iceland, etc etc etc.  Say maybe three trips a year.

-Land.  I’d find a nice spot of semi-forested land somewhere, say 2-300 acres, and build a cabin/cottage there.  Literally build it.  I’d get some help on the stuff I could really screw up, but I’d like to do most of the work myself.

-Learn to paint.

-Buy various small consumer goods.  Mostly DVDs, books, and chipotle burritos. Spend more time at various Cleveland things, like the museums, waterfront, concerts, etc.  And buy a kayak.

-Charities.  I have four I try to give to on a annual basis: The Special Olympics (I sponsor an athlete),  The Cleveland Foodbank (self-explanatory), Heifer International (grassroots economic development and food security in both the US and the developing world via animal ownership) and Worldwatch (a non-partisan research firm concentrating on…everything.  They do the “State of the World 200X” books, among other things).

And thats about it.  Basically, I’d travel, build a little cottage, own a little condo and eat a lot of Mexican food.  I probably wouldn’t tell more than a handful of people I was a gazillionaire.  And the ones I didn’t tell would never know they were left out of the loop because of a lack of cookies.

“I’ll jumpstart YOUR engine….”

Yesterday, at the tail end of a road trip to Philadelphia and New Jersey (“Death Before Road Construction”), my older sister was getting ready to take the nieces to various places when she found out that her car, just back from a few weeks in the shop after an accident, was somewhat disinclined to start.  I immediately speculated aloud that the problem was with the battery, since along with “the tires”, “the engine” and “the smokey thing”, it is one of the few car parts I can recognize.  My brother-in-law comes charging home from work, freshly purchased jumper cables in hand, and we set about the manly task of automobile repair.

I’ve seen jumper cables used many times.   My brother-in-law has a mechanical engineering degree from an Ivy league school.  The jumper cables have instructions on them.  We have, between us, something on the order of 12 years of college.

All of which makes it somewhat embarrassing that our first attempt to start my sisters car resulted in a lot of smoke, and the second would have probably ended in our blowing up both cars had Em not pointed out that we were doing it wrong.  She managed to straighten us out, we got the car started and my sister and brother-in-law head out, leaving Em and I to pack up and head back to Ohio.  We load up the car and as I turned the key in the ignition…silence.  I hate cars.

Its comforting to know I have a girl that knows much more about cars than me.  Also, cooking, credit scores, ironing, travel, technology and a whole host of other grown-up how-to’s, including actually having one of those job things.  But for all that I can still kick her ass in Tetris.

Spring Training

I went running yesterday morning.  For 55 minutes.  Without walking.

This was a major accomplishment, seeing as how lately I am unable to walk up more than two flights of stairs without getting out of breath.  There is something embarrassing about sitting down in a classroom and being that person who’s breathing heavily but trying not to sound like it for the first ten minutes of class.  So its time to get back on the wagon of being healthy.

(sidenote: why is the phrase “on the wagon” used to refer to doing something that’s considered difficult, like when an alcoholic stops drinking?  They are “off the wagon” when they start up again.  It makes no sense to me, its a hell of a lot easier to be riding on a wagon than running alongside.)

Spring Cleaning

In preparation for leaving the nest, round 3, I have been trying to downsize the piles of stuff I’ve collected over the years. I’ve gotten through most of my academic binders, papers and tests from high school and college, and condensed it all down to a few small stacks of paper. It amazes me to look at it now, remembering so much stuff from back in the day. Some of the finds:

-Notes and papers from a week spent being mentored at NASA, back when I entertained astronaut dreams.

-Copies of tests from math and chemistry competitions (I used to do incredible at these, although midway through college my right brain emerged, and now I can barely recognize most numbers).

-Old letters misplaced but never forgotten.

-Results from a guerrilla opinion survey I did trying to get my high school to change its English course offerings.

-Old workout logs and race results.

-Important looking forms from when I was a president of a fraternity and probably should have filled out and mailed to various higher-ups.

-Way too many random bottle caps.

-An inch of paperwork stemming from a broken army special forces contract (expected ship date: June 28, 2004).

-A career assessment quiz from high school telling me that my dream job was to be a toll both collector or an accountant.

Earthquake

Last week I was reading a comic book on my black leather bachelor couch when I heard a low rumbling sound, kind of like a dump truck driving down the basement stairs.  It lasted just long enough to get my attention before the house started shaking.  A 3.6 earthquake hit frickin’ Cleveland, which is not exactly a geologically active area.  It wasn’t that big or long of an earthquake, maybe five seconds long and barely enough to make the glasses rattle, but still…it did prompt one of those “are we under attack?” moments.  I have an old army rucksack with some survival supplies in the basement, a couple of gallons of water, and 500 cans of beets and other weird things that no one in my house will ever eat but occasionally get bought anyway.  I guess the impulse buy theory there is something along the lines of “Hey, beets!” I’m not sure how I would react in the event of an actual invasion by Canada though.  I’d probably make fun of their little mountie hats.

A radio DJ commented that his thoughts briefly mirrored mine: “Is this the end?  Do I have to step up and be a real man now?  I’m not ready for that!”  I know that there are all kinds of precautions you are supposed to take in case some kind of disaster hits, especially after the mess that was Katrina.  But at the same time, its really hard to rationalize doing some of them.  Some are easy, like having lots of blankets and a few flashlights, a first aid kit and the like.  But some of the hoarding recommendations make me feel ridiculous.  Consequently, in the event of a complete breakdown resulting in the loss of all utilities, I will be surviving on 2 gallons of water, a case of diet pepsi and a significantly greater volume of booze.  Dinner will consist of some beets, uncooked pasta and a 64 ounce container of taco seasoning.

Bring on the tequila and sunblock…Spring Break is here!

Yes, Spring Break is capitalized for a reason.  As of 5 pm on Thursday, my spring break started.  It’s going to be three days long, but it’ll be worth it, because I’m finally caught back up in school and can relax a bit.  So I have a beer, my couch, and a movie playing.

The real vacation will be next weekend, when I drag M across several states to visit some old friends and relatives.  But we’ll stop off at one of the largest malls in the country and, weather/time permitting, step in the ocean*, so it’ll be a nice little adventure.

*by ocean, I mean the one off the coast of New Jersey, not Fiji, Mexico or the Bahamas

Bah

I’m feeling rather frustrated with the aftereffects of my brain being broken (see previous post).  Not so much with the headaches as with the confusion/fuzzy thinking.  Thinking just…not so much hurts but it is very frustrating and not so much working at the moment.  I wouldn’t be more than mildly annoyed except that I’m kind of on the clock…In the next five days, I have 3 exams, a take home exam, a kinetics problem set, an economics problem set, two economics papers, a group presentation, a minor GIS (computer mapping) assignment and a whopping big GIS project due.  Which sucks, because I’m having trouble remembering things, concentrating, comprehending and, as of this morning, forming/finishing sentences while talking.  Whine. Whine. Whine.

On the plus side, I had food from my favorite Mexican restaurant last night.  And watched Half Nelson, which was a very good movie touching on a wide range of interesting issue I don’t really feel like thinking about at the moment.

Starting next week…

Aside from a few aberrations, I haven’t worked out in a year and a half.  I generally have a pretty hard time motivating myself to do so without some sort of challenge before me, so I’ve been trying to pick something physical that I can try to attempt.  Here are a few options I’ve been weighing:

1) Run a trail marathon in October.   This would get me out doing some running, without necessarily requiring more than a few hours a week of training time.  Probably the most relaxing choice as well, since most of my training would consist of running on little paths through the woods.

2) Race a half-ironman in August (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13 mile run).  While quite a bit more intensive training wise – probably like 10 hours a week, the training would give me an excuse to buy a pass to the gym and some shiny new bike parts.  Plus it sounds more badass than saying “well, I like to prance around the forest in my little shorts”.  This assumes you think that speedos are badass.

3) Finish a full ironman in August-September (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26 mile run, whew).  This would be a little crazy – closer to  15 hours a week working out, some weeks closer to 20.  On the plus side, unlike the first two options its me doing something I’ve never done before, and its something I’m afraid of, so it would very much be motivating.  I have mixed feelings on the time commitment though.  Epitome of badass manly man activities, frequent speedo wearing notwithstanding.

4) Run an ultramarathon sometime late summer.  Basically a trail race that is something longer than a marathon, probably something in the 30-50 mile range.  Also something I’ve never done, higher up on the badass factor (pshh, marathons are for wimps), won’t take too much training time, maybe 6-8 hours a week.

5) Start playing volleyball again, ideally with a fun team of apathetic individuals),and force myself to go to the gym and jog a few days a week.  This option has the bonus of not involving excessive amounts of tiredness, plus the beach volleyball league I play in is one of the few organized sports where the predominant concern of all playing is that no wild hits knock over the beer cups.  Downsides include sand in my shorts and the resounding guilt that I feel when I’m the dumbass that spills all the beer.

6) Rock climbing, orienteering, hiking, canoeing and other random things combined with volleyball…a lot of fun, not too much effort, and I’d still have time to play volleyball.

7) Give up on working out and spend my free time with my butt planted on a couch watching Simpsons DVDs and drinking beer.

Thunk…

…is a rough approximation of the sound a wooden parking barrier made as it connected with my head as it (the parking barrier) transitioned from a vertical to a horizontal position.  Embarrassing as all hell, since this happened in front of a line of occupied cars.  Three days of headaches, nauseua and generally being out of it, I gave in and went to see a doctor, who told me I had a concussion, but just to be safe we would make sure nothing was wrong with my brain by bombarding it with a series of high powered radiation bursts from every possible angle.

Fast forward to now, and the basic result is that my little brain is bruised (common medical term is concussion, aka busted squash), and the miracles of modern medicine deduced that at some point in the near or not-so-near future, I will feel better.  They tried to get me to wear one of those robes that is designed to expose areas I normally prefer to keep un-exposed, but I couldn’t figure out how to put the stupid polka-dotted thing on.  The polka dots were also a mystery – its as if the excessively breezing outfit wasn’t enough, so they thought they’d spruce it up a bit with the purple dots all over it.  Very new wave.