Another gloomy day

It's cloudy, rainy, and just all around gloomy here. It's been helpful because all I like to do on days like these is to curl up with a blanket and read - I've been relatively productive over the past couple of days for that reason. The only thing about these long spells of nothing but clouds and rain is that it makes me feel gloomy too, like there's no hope (no matter how much you work, you'll never get it all done...muahahaha). An even better analogy would be that it reminds me of the scene in A Muppet Christmas Carol where Scrooge is meeting with the ghost of yet-to-come - scary stuff!

But all is well otherwise. My research career isn't over (more RA drama that involved a governor's office asking me to withdraw my report on their state and work with one of their staff to fix it). I cannot even tell you how freaked out I was. Everything is fine though and it will all work out. I keep asking myself when this RA is going to end! And I don't even know if I can get paid for all of the hours of overtime that I have put in - it's closing in on 20 hours at this point.

Anyway, everything else is moving along, and I'm making slow progress on my professional paper mainly due to the fact that I don't like writing until the last minute because I need the adrenaline that comes along with trying to meet a deadline. I have to have the paper written within the next month since my working group's last meeting in on April 24 (yikes!). I will have to give a presentation in front of two faculty members after that in which they will ask me about my paper. It's terrible but true that I am having a hell of a time trying to figure out what I can really contribute with my paper. It's supposed to be an original work, with something different about it that makes it unique. Most professionals have done what I'm doing now (looking at various aspects of the FTAA and why it's having a difficult time passing). We know why it's not passing and what needs to happen for countries to accept the agreement...I just have to think about it some more, and my grand idea will likely come to me in the twelfth hour (I hope).

Hope all is well with everyone else, and I hope you enjoy the time you spent procrastinating while reading this as much as I enjoyed procrastinating while writing it :)

It certainly is An Inconvenient Truth

Chris and I watched An Inconvenient Truth last night after having read the book last semester for the National Security Policy course. It's a well-done movie and is just as graphically-stimulating as the book (it's just like a really pretty picture book and weighs a ton). I feel that he has done a very good job of presenting the case for climate change, and has attempted to use shock and humor to get the attention of people around the world. It serves as a reminder of all of the little things that everyone can do to contribute to the solution. The website that he created (http://www.climatecrisis.net/) has information about what you can do to reduce your carbon emissions through small household changes, transportation changes, recycling, and others.

After finishing the movie, I started to think about the changing emphasis on the environment ever since I was in grade school. I remember the teachers emphasizing recycling, and seeing demonstrations about what we could recycle and what we couldn't and how we could reuse items around the house, like making bird feeders out of used milk jugs. There has been a dramatic change even in my lifetime regarding our attitudes towards the environment. It is good to think that possibly the emphasis that my generation received in grade school regarding the importance of the environment will help spur changes to public policies now and in the future as well as hopefully building better life-long habits.

I am far from the poster child of good practices regarding the environment, but I am trying to improve that by making small changes in my habits and further educating myself on the subject. Hopefully we will be able to turn the public will around to spark needed policy changes. But in the meantime, we can start making changes at home. I should totally be a motivational speaker, huh?

Btw, if anyone is interested in learning more about energy-related issues, check out Energista!. I should be an advertiser too while I'm at it. Maybe this is the beginnings of a infomerical...haha

It's so pretty!

Check out this picture from NASA.

And all I can think of is a line from A Bug's Life:
"Don't look at the light!"
"I can't help it - it's so beautiful. AHHHH!"
(An obscure reference I know, but anyone who has watched the movie with me will understand my love of this part)

Question of the Day

Why does Caesar have a salad named after him?

Of course, I'm assuming that the name originated from the ruler of the Roman Empire Julius Caesar, and getting a salad named after him is likely not how he would like to be remembered. Achilles tendon I can understand, but a Caesar salad?

Possibly an even better question is: where did this question come from? Great question, and alas, I can only speculate. I have been reading parts of Plutarch's Fall of the Roman Republic and one of the Lives that he deals with is that of Caesar.

If anyone has an answer, let me know.

Wait, I'm supposed to find a job too?

These final weeks of my academic career are quite interesting. I'm attempting to juggle all of my schoolwork, including the writing of my professional paper; trying to keep on top of all of the school paperwork that needs to be filled out (why they don't have it online, I don't know); trying to figure out where I want to move; and I'm supposed to be looking for a job at the same time? That can turn out to be a full-time job in and of itself. But I'm not complaining - I'm almost done!!!!! It's just a lot to try to keep straight. Hopefully I'll continue to remember to write things down - I don't know what I would do without a planner.

Job update: nothing to update about. I have started looking around for organizations that sound interesting, but have only applied to a couple of places. I'm looking in a few geographical locations: the Twin Cities, Chicago, the Pacific Northwest, and out east (preferably not D.C. at this point). I would really like to be based somewhere and will think about starting up traveling overseas again when I've saved up some money. I would really like to start checking out the state parks around the U.S. and do some hiking and rock climbing (that's why I was thinking about the Pacific Northwest; I loved the ocean and mountains in Peru and am pretty sure that I would love it out there).

Even though D.C. houses a lot of international organizations that are doing the kinds of work that I'm interested in, I don't think I would like the politicized environment. But then again, who knows. I do know that I doubt I could afford living there at this point unless I fooled an employer into giving an extremely well-paying job. There's always New York...

So basically what I'm saying, which will likely freak out my parents, is that I really don't know where I want to go or what kind of work that I want to do. I'm up for a lot of different possibilities. We'll see where the wind takes me.

RA update

You thought it was over didn't you? So did I! When we sent in the research for my research assistantship, I thought the position was over. But no! Then came the announcement that we were asked to present our research for the State and Local Policy Program Brown Bag event, an informal gathering of whoever wants to hear about what you're presenting on. So there was the preparation for that and a complete revision of the paper to make it look pretty (that was my job).

The presentation was this afternoon and we started out with an audience of about 12 including faculty, interested outsiders, and students. I just presented a little bit about the research I did regarding Indiana's state investment in R&D, but I was still nervous about it. I attempted to exert confidence though, which I think I did.

Next we are going to meet with the Dean to hopefully get some more funding so that us RAs get paid for all of the overtime that we put in. So we're going to make the report even prettier by producing a bound copy. It will be lovely. I'm close to being done with it! Woohoo!

Just because

I realize that I haven't posted for several days now - primarily because I have been "depressed" about being back in school after spring "break." I figured I would overuse quotations marks just because...haha. At least I crack myself up with my terrible jokes and puns. Anyway, the majority of break consisted of working on school work, including reading two books and working on research for my professional paper. We're so close to the end of school, but I am getting to the point that there is so much to do that my mind is on the verge of basically shutting down. But I have successfully suppressed this for the majority of the day.

Here's the cool thing about break though - my birthday present to myself (and no, it's not the silly picture you see here - it's the brand-spankin' new winter jacket that I'm wearing):