Virtually Home

I've been feeling what might be called wanderlust recently...missing what it felt like to move to be in a new country or on a long road trip, with few responsibilities and new things to try. I think winter's clinginess is responsible. I haven't spent any significant amount of time outside in months, except while walking to a car or waiting for a bus. The weather is gloomy today: freezing rain and snow by turns, to kick off "spring" break. I wish it were warm enough to go camping (and that the ground were not still covered in snow). I'm dreaming about my next big adventure -- I'm thinking Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

I've made no secret of my feelings on winter, but until recently I was only mildly annoyed by it. Lately, I've been continually aware of my winter-related misery. Foremost among my least favorite things right now is the death trap that is the alley to my garage. It never gets plowed, and at this point there are nearly foot-deep craters where wheels have carved ruts through the ice. It's dangerous and nearly impossible to navigate without damaging one's wheels or undercarriage...and completely negates the purpose of garaging one's car to protect it from the winter. A few days ago it rained, though. A soaking, all-day kind of rain that went on and on. It was wonderful, mostly because it wasn't snow. Some day, there will be warm(er) temperatures again, and all of this stupid snow and ice will melt.

Maybe it's because everything is lifeless and covered with snow, but I looked up yesterday to see the frog season staring me in the face. And that's when the world exploded with work. I'm writing a proposal for a grant, trying to help an undergrad write a proposal, planning my summer research (and helping the undergrad to plan their summer research), learning how to analyze sounds, learning how to create artificial frog calls, learning multivariate statistics...and taking classes. Which probably involves learning, too, but I find I care about it less and less. I'm really excited about the frog season starting and the classes part ending. The snow is also something I can do without. All of these things are going to happen very soon.

The weird thing about grad school is that everyone in it has always been good at things but now fears they might not be good at things. They've always made top grades and won lots of awards, but now competition for money and jobs is at the forefront of everyone's minds, and prospects are daunting. The University is in the process of hiring an unprecedentedly large number of people (making up for lost time and lost faculty during the recession/hiring freeze) and so I'm seeing a lot of job candidates circulate through the department. Some of them are really impressive and not very much older than me. The important thing to note is that there are a lot of them. They're interviewing about five people for every job they intend to give (which is vastly more than one can reasonably expect under normal circumstances), and have received literally hundreds of applications for each of those. I have about five years to go from undergraduate to badass scientist, then convince som...

There were a lot of reasons I was excited to move to Minnesota. Winter wasn't one of them. I've always hated winter -- whether it's the half-assed Oklahoma one characterized by freak ice storms and sunny, 70 degree weekends or the predictably bleak, consistently cold Minnesota one doesn't appear to matter. It's cold here. Not uniformly cold, though. We get huge temperature swings like I was used to at home, but a swing from -11F to 20F still leaves you at "cold". It feels a lot warmer -- and that's great -- but it doesn't alleviate the need for multiple layers and excessive outerwear. Clothes are my least favorite thing about winter. I hate itchy clothes. I hate long sleeves. I hate socks (but especially thick, loose, or long socks). I hate wearing closed-toe shoes. I hate gloves that leave me unable to manipulate objects like door knobs and keys. The worst thing about winter is that you have to wear a lot of clothes, and all of them seem to f...

Well, I seem to have survived the crisis of identity that was graduating from college, moving across the country, and starting graduate school. I'm having a lot of fun here, for the most part. I get to think a lot about frogs, evolutionary biology, the causes and consequences of sexual reproduction, and the factors that influence female mate choice and male competitive strategies. I think this is really fun. It's also really amazing that I can get paid to think about things. To learn stuff, to question what other people have learned, and to design ways to learn more stuff. That basic research is supported by our economy and our society is remarkable to me, and, however much I wish it was better funded, its simple existence is pretty incredible. Grad school turns out to be a pretty stressful environment. There is an ever-expanding list of things to read and think about, and this semester I had the added stress of teaching for the first time. I'm striving to change the wa...

Icky Blossoms! On Thursday, I caught The Faint for the first time in years. It was the last night of their first tour in three years, so that maybe isn't surprising. It's one of those bands that stands out in my library - dance? electronica? that's different - and reminds me of times past. I'm too young to be as nostalgic as The Faint makes me. And damn, they put on a good live show. They formed in Omaha, originally including a Conor Oberst who stormed out of practice one day announcing he was going to devote more time to his other project (which would become Bright Eyes). That split turned out pretty great for both bands, I think. Derek Pressnall at the mic for Icky Blossoms. Icky Blossoms opened -- another Omaha gem featuring Derek Pressnall, my Tilly and the Wall/Flowers Forever hero. The day before, their van had broken down across the Canadian border, and I had feared they wouldn't make the show. It's hard to be a dance band and an opening act at ...