US States

Well, its the 4th of July, the day the US celebrates kicking out the British once and for all. So while my American friends enjoy a day off and fireworks (I still shake my head at the difference in attitude in fireworks between here and there) I thought I'd give a brief resume of the US states that are ticked off, I've been to more than the below but they are edited highlights. I am a bit of a travel geek evidenced by the itinerary I sent to my parents and sister for my upcoming trip (which I am so counting down the days to, haven't quite got down to hours, but am close).

New York: NYC (June 2001, September 2001 [a whole post in itself], August 2003), Hamilton (August 2006)
New Jersey: Elmer (my home for 9 weeks June-August 2001)
Pennsylvania: Philly (June 2001), Wynnewood (August & September 2001), Reading (August 2001)
Washington DC: (August 2001)
Massachusetts: Boston, Amherst (August 2001, September 2001)
California: LA, SF, Merced, Yosemite (August 2003)
Washington: Seattle, Vashon (August 2003)
Oregon: Portland (August 2003)
Illinois: Chicago (August 2007)
South Dakota: Rapid City, for Mount Rushmore (August 2007). I was so surprised by South Dakota, it was filled with National Parks, another place I want to spend some more time.
Colorado: Denver(August 2007), I adored the whole feel of Denver and Colorado, I'd love to spend some more time there and go to Boulder.
Utah: (August 2007) Train from Denver to San Francisco went through Utah, I got off the train in Salt Lake City as I'd done so much about the Mormons in GCSE History when we did the American West.
Arizonia: (August 2007) Flew into Phoenix, drove to Flagstaff, visited Grand Canyon and Sedona.
Florida: Orlando and Key West (August 2007) on Dad's tour, Key West was my choice to chill out after the rest of the trip. We drove through Miami and I would have liked to spend some more time there.
Georgia: (November 2007) for a friend's wedding
Texas: (November 2007) visiting friends in Austin while I was out there for the wedding

This trip I'm not going to any new states this time (unless a certain someone has other ideas) but am picking up some new places. Its going to be good to re-visit DC and Philly along with spending some time in LA in less of a tourist mode. We are however staying in an amazing B&B in La Quinta for Joshua Tree. This is a place that has lots of the features that we talked about in a dream house, except being by a lake instead of the sea.

the past two weeks or so...

Random points from the past two weeks or so (in no order so whatsoever chronologically or of importance).

* Five days in South Wales with Mum, sister and Grandmother. View from living room was the sea (and the north coast of Devon if clear). Walks on the beach, sun, sea, and an awful lot of writing.

* Coffee , Lunch, canal side walk. pretty train journey, lots of good conversation (including some while we're on trains going on opposite directions) on different occasions with a good friend. Although we've known each other for 9 nine years (with some ups and downs) this friendship has really developed into something different and deeper in the past six months. Where it goes neither of us knows but are happy in the friendship.

* A good friend from the USA being over with a people-to-people ambassadors trip. Last time I saw her was the day after her wedding in November, and will spend the weekend with her in August on my way back from the west coast to the UK going via Atlanta.


* A series of very emotionally honest emails with the boy triggered by me discovering some old emails from four and a half years ago in the college email changeover and sending a bit to him. Nothing brand new from either of us but sharing stuff neither of us would have done a couple of years ago. This along with some amazing text and a 2 hour skype conversation confirms the fact that to quote something from Glamour magazine this month about long distance relationships "you have to write your own love story". The boy and I know what we have and are OK with it, despite that fact that it doesn't have a name. Also knowing he is looking forward to my trip as much as I am is very reassuring.

* I have an outfit for the boy's sister's wedding, and shoes and the most amazing earrings. I'm not normally this girly but its a fairly important thing for us and I'll be meeting most of his extended family en masse.

* Writing is getting there on the thesis. I'm very much in the get it done and over (my finances really need this to happen) and its progressing.

My life as a flikr mosaic

I really like flikr and need to get myself organised with it and put some of my photos up.

So from Cady.

1. type your answer to each of the questions below into flickr search.
2. using only the first page of results, pick one image.
3. copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into big huge lab’s mosaic maker to create a mosaic of the picture answers.

the questions:
1. what is your first name?
2. what is your favourite food? right now?
3. what high school did you go to?
4. what is your favourite colour?
5. who is your celebrity crush?
6. what is your favourite drink?
7. what is your dream vacation?
8. what is your favourite dessert?
9. what do you want to be when you grow up?
10. what do you love most in life?
11. what is one word that describes you?
12. what is your flickr name

I'm amazed at some of the things that came up, a steam train is not the first thing associated with my secondary/high school.

What Advanced Degree Should I Get

Pretty accurate seeing as I'm doing Social Sciences, my thesis is more physical science than humanities than I thought it would be when I started out but...

You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

Book List

From Maude in Progress .

The top 100 or so books most often marked as “unread” by LibraryThing’s users.
Bold the books you have read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish.

I always finish a book even if it’s a struggle. From this list I don’t see much I had to read for school. Perhaps a reflection of once you get GCSE English at 16 you don’t need to satisfy any other English requirement. For GCSE English we did 1984 (but I’d already read it I was and am a bit of a George Orwell fan), Macbeth and Flowers for Algernon. We did Romeo and Juliet in Year 9 (8^th Grade) along with a bunch of 20^th Century young adult writing. The Aeneid was the set text for the literature component of my Latin exam so I’ve read it in both English and Latin. I found it bizarre that I did Latin literature and never French. Especially as I did a total of 7 years of French. I have read Camus, Beckett and a couple of other things in French though (when I had time to attempt to stop my French getting rusty).

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel (Although I've read it for teaching my undergraduate tutorials and lecturing about environmental determinism, as opposed to having to read it for a course I was taking)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter (brought and read my first time in the US, I also re-read all the relevant American literature I had at the time including the Buccanneers by Edith Wharton)
Eats, Shoots & Leaves

The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion is this (?)
There is Confusion (?)
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
The Aeneid (in English and Latin, I was a geek at school and did Latin in my lunch hours)
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit (in Junior School)
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield

Life happens...

So in the past month I have (in no particular chronological or meaningfulness order)

* Been to a celidh (aka barn dance, square dance). I'd forgotten how much fun they are and we're planning on going to more. Unfortunately I'm going to be in the States when the Proms celidh is :-(

* Marked a whole load of exam papers. Personally, the incentive that worked for me (developed over my increasing teaching load over the last couple of years) is chocolate and sweets after so many papers marked.

* Written more than I thought on my thesis. Still having silly blocks over tiny silly things such as graph drawing but its all part of the process.

* Had some interesting conversations with friends. Why is it when you're single people decide to tell you they're interested even if you've known them for 9, 7 or 5 years (and know you're 'involved' with someone)?

* Been travel advisor to quite a few people on Vienna, New York, Zambia, London, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. I love travelling and sharing stuff about cool places with people so seriously considered just becoming a travel agent.

* Won a prize at a conference for my presentation. Quite a big thing but my non-uni friends don't seem to get how big a deal it is for me.

* Got shocked at how much petrol prices have risen just in the time that I've had my car (less than six months) a 10% rise. Luckily my car does just under 40 mpg and most of my journeys are at around 50 mph but its a bit shocking especially compared to how much petrol is in the US. I can't really complain about the weak dollar as I'll save far more when I'm there this summer from the exchange rate than suffer due to high oil price double impact.

Meme for the week

From Semi-Charmed Wife .

Apple juice or orange juice?
Apple.

Are you a morning or night person?
Night. I can do mornings if necessary but used to have a mug that claimed I was allergic to morni

Which do you prefer, sweet or salty foods?
Generally sweet.

Ninjas or pirates?
Pirates.

What was your favorite childhood television program?
Button Moon.

Are you a collector of anything?
No.

If you could be any animal, what would you be?
A monkey.

If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Timetravel.

What’s your favorite color?
Blue (and variations of it).

Do you believe in extraterrestrials or life on other planets?
Not sure.

Do you believe in ghosts?
Yes.

Ever been addicted to a video/computer game? Which one(s)?
Tetris (but it was my final year and a major procrastination tool).

You’re given one million dollars, what do you spend it on?
A house in the UK and one in the USA.

List three of your best personality traits:
1. I'm loyal.
2. .
3. .

List three of your worst personality traits:
1. I don’t cope well with stress.
2. I don't give up soon enough on bad things.
3. I procrastinate easily.

List one thing you wish you could change about yourself:
Having more confidence in myself.

Any tattoos or piercings?
Just pierced ears.tattoos, all before I turned 16. I’ve had two removed with lasers, so I currently have one. No piercings except the ears.

Are you mostly a clean or messy person?
Messy except in the kitchen and bathroom

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live?
Near a certain someone. Generic description of place would be near the coast, but with some hills nearby so its not too flat.

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go?
At the moment new places to visit list includes Iceland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Mozambique, various Greek Islands, Mexico, Nicaragu

Name one regret you have:
Staying in not one but two bad relationships too long.

You’re about to walk the green mile, what do you have as your last meal?
Seafood risotto and a really good chocolate mousse/terrine. Accompanied by good wine, with a decent gin and tonic aperitif and followed by good coffee.

Name one thing not many people know about you:
My liking for trash movies and books.

If you HAD to change your name, what would you change it to?
Something a bit more Welsh maybe, although its common I like Jennifer and its diminutie forms. Maybe Bronwyn or Ester.

Do you believe in the afterlife?
Yes.

List five goals on your life’s to-do list:
1. Finish my PhD.
2. Live in the USA.
3. Get married
4. Visit all the continents.
5. Have a child.

April days

So I have been super busy.

This past week I was at a conference in Vienna, Austria. It has over 8000 participants from around the world and deals with all manner of Geosciences. Last year was my first year there and I spent a good amount of time worrying about missing something useful and getting lost in the conference centre. This year, despite co-covening a session, I was more chilled out.

More people from my institution were at the conference this year than last, I ended (as I thought I might) drinking a lot more than normal. Not having to drive home makes a difference. I also was braver about networking this year and ended up going for dinner a couple of times with people who submitted stuff for our session who work in my general subject area. However, I think I am recovering from stodge overload due to Viennese cooking.

I shared an apartment in a central location with an old office mate. She was a post-doc and now has a lectureship outside of London. We hadn't caught up properly for ages and it was so nice to be able to do so and have an easy going relaxing room mate experience.

So on Saturday we went to Bratislava, Slovakia. It cost 14 euros return took less than an hour and was a good day trip. Bratislava is developing (tell tale signs of investment banks, property management companies, property rental companies) and is a mish mash of architectural eras. Beautiful in a slightly shabby chic way, nice to see a city not sterile and reminded me of Prague 10 years ago.

Apart from that I had a PhD progress meeting (a college 6 monthly requirement). They depress me preparing for them but the meetings make me feel more optimistic. My supervisors tell me I'm too much of a perfectionist and I'm not far off.

Which is a good thing as I've got a ticket to the USA booked. I LOVE planning trips abroad. I'm going to the boy's sister's wedding in Philly, staying with him and his housemates in LA, then flying back via Atlanta to stay with my friends whose wedding I went to in November. We are either taking the plane from Philly to LA or the train. Travelling together is on our to do lists (long story about our whole involvement deserves its own, probably multiple, post). I jokingly suggested doing some this trip by train. This would involve taking a train overnight from Philly to New Orleans, stay overnight in NO then take another train to LA spending two nights on the train. We would get sleeper accommodation incl food and drinks and it would be a good way to catch up properly. But the boy has started a new job so is about to start negotiating time off so we'll see.

Cool Meme

From several people ( ProfGrrrl , Dr Medusa , Anastasia amongst others)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Go to http://www.photobucket.com/

2. Type in your answer to the question in the “search” box.

3. Use only the first page.

4. Insert the picture into your Blog.

1. What is your relationship status?

2. What is your current mood?

3. Who is your Favorite Band/Artist?

4. What is your favourite movie?

5. What kind of pet do you have?

6. Where do you live?

7. Where do you work?

8. What do you look like? (Apparently)

9. What do you drive?

10. What did you do last night?

11. What is your Favorite TV Show?

12. Describe yourself:

13. What are you doing today?

14. What is your name?

15. What is your favourite candy?

16. What is your favorite drink?

A dress and memories

I was unpacking some things that had been in my Mum's storage before she moved house. Amongst them were some clothes, in particular my dressy dresses, the ones I wear for formal dinners (black tie) and more dressy weddings.

And I came across it. A dress that brings back so many memories from when it was purchased to every time I wore it, a dress that so has its own personality. Normally I'm not like this with clothes, I abhor clothes shopping unless I'm in the mood (and weirdly if I'm in the US, perhaps as I suddenly become 2 sizes smaller and tops are long enough).

So I brought this dress at what is now Topshops flagship Oxford Street store in June 1997. I'd been to an open day at the college in London where I would start my undergraduate career in Chemistry (I switched to Geography somewhere else after two years but thats another story). After looking around the place and deciding that it was really where I wanted to go (above Oxford or Cambridge) I decided to go shopping for a dress for the upcoming sixth form party.

In the basement where there were concessions for other small designers. I found it, a floor length, pretty much backless dress, that clung in the right places, fairly high necked and strapless, with a slit up the back so you can walk. Basically the first dress I brought that flaunted my femininity but not too much that I was out of my comfort zone. It was reasonably priced and with a student discount under thirty pounds (my maximum budget). I remember showing the dress to friends when I got back home and them being slightly shocked, it was me but not expected.

I wore the dress to multiple compliments, for me the geek of the year this was unusual. I think I enjoyed challenging people's opinions of me. I got a kiss from the boy I liked (another chapter in our long drawn out relationship) and got scared. I got asked whether I was engaged to a good friend of mine that night, something that shocked my and my supposed fiance so much we laughed for about five minutes. (He was the first of my friends from home to get married though). I had an amazing night at that sixth form party, partially because it was after a summer concert at the local theatre in which I had played in several groups, had a couple of solos go well and sing in the chamber choir finale. Going from the natural post-concert high to a party meant everyone thought we'd been drinking already.

I wore the dress to a post-production party a couple of weeks later. The english class had adapted "Room with a View". I had ended up getting involved with stage crew, partially to manage a good friend who is a designer not a stage management person. We thought we invented the idea of a prop table! It may have played a part in my most short lived dating episode (dating someone to make someone else jealous, very silly and not worth it, particularly when the object of your desire is doing the same thing!).

I wore the dress to a couple of freshers balls (along with my very plain black dress, which has a history associated with it). It became my clubbing dress in London being worn to Turnmills (now sadly closed), Ministry of Sound, Fabric, Heaven amongst other places (it shocked my most recent ex that I once was into the club scene). I wore the dress to my new college freshers event two years after my first experience of starting a degree course.

I hadn't worn the dress in years. So when I found it I wondered did it still fit. My weight went up when I first started university and has fluctuated since. However, I knew from another dinner dress I'm about the same size as I was as a 17 year old (I don't know how but I'm not complaining). The dress still fits, it still makes me feel good and I would feel fine wearing it on a night out. Not to a formal dinner but for something else.

Normally my memories are so lucid when associated with place and landscape (I'm a geographer it figures), this is one of the few pieces of clothing that I can remember vividly the experiences each time I wore it.

Evidence of Snow (in a very British obsession with the weather)

So a couple of images (from my phone so not fantastic). One from my bedroom window. We had around an inch of snow. Bizarrely my boots (fabulous for teaching in) were the safest thing I could find to walk to church in. I forgot about my walking boots, but it was early in the morning. Its tried to snow a couple of times today and we've had some hail.

Easter

I woke up this morning to see abiout 3 cm of snow on the ground. This is not normal, neither the amount or presence of snow or the timing.

Yes, Easter is early this year but snow in late March is not usual.

Dad's is located in a place that is so central and away from the coast that moisture has run out by the time it reaches here whether the front comes from the East or the West.

It was fun walking to church this morning in the snow (the last time I did this was when it snowed on Christmas Eve a while ago) and made decorating the cross with spring flowers seem that bit more special.