I don't think I've ever promoted this particular product before on this blog, but I wrote my dissertation in Scrivener and it was awesome. I never would have gotten going without it.
Of course, I opened it today to solve writers' block on the 30-page summary version of my dissertation for a contest, and the dissertation itself opened, as it was the last project I worked on using it. Meaning I probably haven't been doing enough writing.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
Yay birthday
I had a really great birthday. Monday night Joe cooked manicotti and cupcakes, and we had prosecco and bummed around. Yesterday I got up at the luxurious hour of 9:30 (instead of my usual weekday 7am), and Joe went off to his appointment while I had an additional hour to drink my coffee and lounge before I went to meet him at Friendship Heights. He usually takes the Metro there, but that is such an error because THE BUS IS BEST. Those of you who remember my packet-o-schedules from my Union Sq, Somerville days know that I am a big fan of buses, and yesterday I got to ride a whole new bus, the Montgomery County Ride On #1, which is similar in direction to the J1 Metrobus I ride to work, except that it makes many thrilling diversions into the adjacent neighborhoods instead of sticking to the boring main road. It was the best ever, and then I met Joe for lunch at Mei Wah, which was super tasty.
After lunch we went down to Union Station and walked over to the new Capitol Visitors Center, where we had a tour of the Capitol (fun, but I need to get on a staff tour because only on those is there the possibility of riding the Capitol Subway), followed by a quick browse of the little museum. Joe was pretty worn out after all that being out of the house, so we went home and vegged for the rest of the evening. It was fun to have the day off work; sadly, I only won $2 in last night's Mega Millions drawing instead of the $212 million someone in Ocean County, NJ won, so I can't play hooky for the rest of my life and will have to continue working.
Monday, March 02, 2009
A great day for Metro
I was very bummed about having to trek out to use the bus, but I became less bummed as I realized that the little bit of deck and walk I had to shovel to get to the street was far less work than shoveling the whole driveway and cleaning off my car, as I'd have to do if I were driving. It was also not that bad a walk, whereas it would have been a very stressful drive, since the streets were pretty slushy. The bus I caught was on schedule (later than the bus I would normally catch, but just fine for today).
Sadly, we care a lot more as a society about clearing roads than sidewalks. We leave it up to businesses and residences to clear sidewalks (where they exist... there aren't any sidewalks on my street), but we expect that our government will clear the roads. I kinda want to boycott work whenever it snows as a protest. Despite the University being open today, most of the sidewalks were not cleared when I arrived around 10, which is lame.
I wish I had been able to stay home today (I had to come in for something that we ended up cancelling and rescheduling anyway), but tomorrow I'm off for my birthday, which I will spend with my sweetie.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Werk
I opted to work from home today, since it was snowing, and it was an open day sandwiched between days full of meetings. I managed to finish this paper that has been plaguing me lightly for years and heavily for a couple of months, and I was feeling good, and then I checked my messages and I was immediately depressed under the suffocating weight of everything that dissatisfies me right now. Home life is good, students brighten my day and make me feel like I know stuff... and the rest puts me in a funk. If change is coming, I'm inclined to resist it less and less.
I need to write papers and get them on my CV as fast as possible.
I need to write papers and get them on my CV as fast as possible.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Waves tiny US flag
Metaphorically, since I don't have one here on my warm couch.
With the crowd practically up to my porch in Silver Spring, I opted to stay at home where Joe made me waffles and there was heat and no wind chill and only two people were using the bathroom the last four days. It was a good call.
We got our taste of Inaugural fever by braving the Metro Sunday for football first before heading to Dupont Circle for dinner. It was busy for a Sunday, and people from all over were being cute and asking everyone else where they were from.
I overheard someone talking about seeing Barack Obama, and it reminded me of the DNC in Boston in 2004 when a couple of friends and I went celebrity-hunting all day. We ended up in front of the Fleet Center where people were getting dropped off to go in. Barack Obama walked right by and waved to us, and we were probably just as excited to see him them as we would be today because we knew what was what.
Time for work -- watching whitehouse.gov for executive orders and proclamations while editing Joe's dissertation.
With the crowd practically up to my porch in Silver Spring, I opted to stay at home where Joe made me waffles and there was heat and no wind chill and only two people were using the bathroom the last four days. It was a good call.
We got our taste of Inaugural fever by braving the Metro Sunday for football first before heading to Dupont Circle for dinner. It was busy for a Sunday, and people from all over were being cute and asking everyone else where they were from.
I overheard someone talking about seeing Barack Obama, and it reminded me of the DNC in Boston in 2004 when a couple of friends and I went celebrity-hunting all day. We ended up in front of the Fleet Center where people were getting dropped off to go in. Barack Obama walked right by and waved to us, and we were probably just as excited to see him them as we would be today because we knew what was what.
Time for work -- watching whitehouse.gov for executive orders and proclamations while editing Joe's dissertation.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Gnocchi
In the past, Joe and I have purchased frozen or dried potato gnocchi from Italian food stores, and they've been tasty enough (they cook very fast too once the water is boiling). Joe ordered some at Roman Hall over break, however, and it was clear they were in a completely different league -- soft, and not gummy or tough like the packaged kinds.
I procured Lidia Bastianich's big cookbook (we've been making her vodka sauce recipe from the web forever), and we decided that since we had all the ingredients, we'd make gnocchi. I did the majority of it, grating the potatoes, mixing the dough, rolling and cutting and shaping. And they turned out. So. Damn. Good. Very similar to Roman Hall's. It was kind of time consuming, but there's no way we're eating packaged gnocchi ever again.
Joe made a tomato sauce to go with it (the classic gravy), but as per Lidia'a suggestion, he added some cabernet, and it made the gravy ever so much richer. I just had the leftovers, and they were delicious.
We also made stuffed mushrooms from the book last night... we could have made double, they were so tasty.
Going out to dinner is fun, but cooking together is romantic and hot.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Manuscripts
Making tables is fun. Writing the text of the results section is boring.
Just read my tables.
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
The conundrums caused by doublespeak
The Pentagon has ruled that Purple Hearts won't be given to those suffering from PTSD because it's not an injury intentionally caused by the enemy. What are we supposedly doing again? Fighting a war on terror? A tactic used to intentionally produce... psychological harms? Decide whether the people we're fighting against are intentionally trying to cause harms or not and get back to me.
Friend of the Project
I just read something on the national communication obits that I think is a really great thought. Dawn Braithwaite writes that she once asked the late Dr. Ernest Bormann how a scholar handles harsh criticism, and he replied "that he appreciated criticism when it came from a "friend of the project." He went on to explain that a "friend of the project" is motivated to make the work the best it could be, rather than self-aggrandize." This is a a simple but important point, because too often people think that criticism has to be "harsh" to be criticism, which tends to bleed over into showing how smart you are compared to this poor person you're criticizing. But truely constructive criticism doesn't feel like criticism at all; it feels like scholarly dialogue. The critic for that moment becomes a partner in your project, wanting it to succeed just as much as you do. I had this experience during all of my oral exams, where people weren't trying to play gotcha because they were invested in making my project better and what I publish out of it more useful to the world. I think this notion is a good thing for all of us to keep in mind -- particularly when doing those anonymous reviews that can so easily slide into snark.
Follow-up to yesterday
I wrote a more thoughtful response on facebook:
"I get the rationale that it's mostly a spokesperson job, and Gupta has had his face on TV talking about health stuff a lot, but nothing in his training gives him any expertise in public health. His training isn't even in general or preventive medicine. Frankly I'm sick of MDs getting a pass into the public health world without the requisite training, and this is just such an egregious example."
I'm bothered by two things here, both of which converge in Sanjay Gupta. One is the tendency for cable news to rely on familiar faces to be experts in everything, instead of actually seeking out and talking to experts. While not every expert is super articulate and it may be useful in a TV format to have recognizable journalists distill expert opinion, that's not generally what I see happening. On health, education, foreign relations and almost any complicated where there do exist people who have devoted their lives to figuring out what works and what doesn't, you see talking heads yammering inexpertly like it's all just a matter of opinion. And that is so annoying. I don't want to see this tendency entrenched in government.
The second strand I refer to in my facebook comment, which is that all too often, people who are trained in the medical world are able to just dance over to the public health world, without additional training. Many docs have the sense to at least get an MPH (like my fine students), but there are a lot of folks out there who really don't have the cred. Maybe I'm extra biased because the social and behavioral sciences are a lot more essential to public health than to most areas of medicine (although medicine could use a little more understanding of people and society), but I don't think training in medicine (particularly in specialty areas) gives you any cred to talk public health.
That's all I have to say on that.
"I get the rationale that it's mostly a spokesperson job, and Gupta has had his face on TV talking about health stuff a lot, but nothing in his training gives him any expertise in public health. His training isn't even in general or preventive medicine. Frankly I'm sick of MDs getting a pass into the public health world without the requisite training, and this is just such an egregious example."
I'm bothered by two things here, both of which converge in Sanjay Gupta. One is the tendency for cable news to rely on familiar faces to be experts in everything, instead of actually seeking out and talking to experts. While not every expert is super articulate and it may be useful in a TV format to have recognizable journalists distill expert opinion, that's not generally what I see happening. On health, education, foreign relations and almost any complicated where there do exist people who have devoted their lives to figuring out what works and what doesn't, you see talking heads yammering inexpertly like it's all just a matter of opinion. And that is so annoying. I don't want to see this tendency entrenched in government.
The second strand I refer to in my facebook comment, which is that all too often, people who are trained in the medical world are able to just dance over to the public health world, without additional training. Many docs have the sense to at least get an MPH (like my fine students), but there are a lot of folks out there who really don't have the cred. Maybe I'm extra biased because the social and behavioral sciences are a lot more essential to public health than to most areas of medicine (although medicine could use a little more understanding of people and society), but I don't think training in medicine (particularly in specialty areas) gives you any cred to talk public health.
That's all I have to say on that.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
WTF
Sanjay Gupta? Are we kidding? I mean, I guess the guy's job the last few years has been to stretch beyond his narrow expertise (CNN: sure, a neuroscientist can comment on any topic in medicine or health! Who needs to call in the real experts!). But really. There has to be someone in the ranks of legitimate health-related institutions who could take this job!
I'm so disgusted.
Found!
The copy card I was convinced had fallen behind the (immovable) desk was actually holding my place in a journal I didn't finish browsing a while ago.
Yesterday I was peppy, and it was warm out, and I made it to the bus stop early, and the bus was there, and I got to work door-to-door in 45 minutes. Today, tiredness and scratchy throat, rain, no bus (either left early or never came), much later longer bus, 90 minutes. Boo.
So the plan is just to mope in the office, keep warm, and read journals.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
2008 in review
2008 was awesome because:
1) I finished my PhD.
2) I got a job.
3) I moved away from Baltimore and in with the bestest boy ever!
4) The election season was majorly entertaining, particularly with our addition of tomato pie to all events.
5) I managed to see almost all my family and friends at least once.
2008 was lame because:
1) The lousy economy, although that will probably end up being a net plus for me going forward as I try to build retirement savings (unless the stock market just crashes entirely for the next 40 years) and think about buying a house (moving a lot more real estate into the affordable range).
2) My car got to be too expensive to fix and is thus dead, and the resulting exercise has done nothing for my waistline. And I've been missing out on social time with the TV Night crew.
3) I didn't make it to any football games this fall.
4) My bestest boy didn't immediately get a ton of job interviews, and the market sucks.
5) I didn't go home for Christmas for the first time ever, which made me sad, even though I have had fun here in NJ with my Joey.
2009 will be awesome as Joe finishes his PhD and gets a job (he'll get something, it's just a matter of time and probably more agony), and we can start making even more tangible plans about the future.
1) I finished my PhD.
2) I got a job.
3) I moved away from Baltimore and in with the bestest boy ever!
4) The election season was majorly entertaining, particularly with our addition of tomato pie to all events.
5) I managed to see almost all my family and friends at least once.
2008 was lame because:
1) The lousy economy, although that will probably end up being a net plus for me going forward as I try to build retirement savings (unless the stock market just crashes entirely for the next 40 years) and think about buying a house (moving a lot more real estate into the affordable range).
2) My car got to be too expensive to fix and is thus dead, and the resulting exercise has done nothing for my waistline. And I've been missing out on social time with the TV Night crew.
3) I didn't make it to any football games this fall.
4) My bestest boy didn't immediately get a ton of job interviews, and the market sucks.
5) I didn't go home for Christmas for the first time ever, which made me sad, even though I have had fun here in NJ with my Joey.
2009 will be awesome as Joe finishes his PhD and gets a job (he'll get something, it's just a matter of time and probably more agony), and we can start making even more tangible plans about the future.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Validation
I like it when what I think is true about the world is corroborated by a much more systematic view of the literature. I always have this fear I'm missing some major article, and it appears I'm not when it comes to HIV-related stigma.
I took a break from data analysis (which I'm redoing in a different way) because I just hit total frustration with the way some of this data works out... there's a question on the survey about whether the respondent used a condom the last time they had sex followed very shortly by a question asking how often the person uses condoms. You would not believe the number of people who say they used a condom last time but then say they never use condoms and, worse, the number who say they didn't use a condom last time followed by saying they always use condoms. OMG, are you not listening to your own answers! Never mind the big hunk of missing data I can't account for at all, other than people didn't want to answer the question.
So instead I'm reading, because that is way less frustrating and I have a huge pile.
Vacation has been good so far. We've mostly been bumming around, eating and shopping. We've re-devoted ourselves to making our way through the Sopranos (I already watched it all, but Joey has not). We're not doing anything fancy for New Year's Eve, just going to a tasty local Italian joint and then partying at home.
The New Year will bring attempts at: 1) real weight loss; 2) getting these manuscripts out the door because they are actually going to fill some gaps in the literature; 3) writing up a real research plan for my next study instead of having some vague notions of what might be nice.
I took a break from data analysis (which I'm redoing in a different way) because I just hit total frustration with the way some of this data works out... there's a question on the survey about whether the respondent used a condom the last time they had sex followed very shortly by a question asking how often the person uses condoms. You would not believe the number of people who say they used a condom last time but then say they never use condoms and, worse, the number who say they didn't use a condom last time followed by saying they always use condoms. OMG, are you not listening to your own answers! Never mind the big hunk of missing data I can't account for at all, other than people didn't want to answer the question.
So instead I'm reading, because that is way less frustrating and I have a huge pile.
Vacation has been good so far. We've mostly been bumming around, eating and shopping. We've re-devoted ourselves to making our way through the Sopranos (I already watched it all, but Joey has not). We're not doing anything fancy for New Year's Eve, just going to a tasty local Italian joint and then partying at home.
The New Year will bring attempts at: 1) real weight loss; 2) getting these manuscripts out the door because they are actually going to fill some gaps in the literature; 3) writing up a real research plan for my next study instead of having some vague notions of what might be nice.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Chrome!
Holy hell is Google Chrome so much better than the ancient broken version of IE that is installed on my work computer! It's probably also better than the newer version that ought to be on here. I'm just glad it installed without the need for admin privs... I'm just going to assume I'm not breaking any regs by using a more secure browser. Seriously, though, try it out if you haven't already. It's so fast.
I'm still working on this damn paper. Instead of writing, which is what I thought I'd be doing today, I fired up SPSS to check some things in the analysis. Oh, there are so many things in the analysis that bother me, now that I actually look at it. I'm going to try to tidy some things, but I don't think the analysis will change substantially. SPSS is extremely easy to use, but there are some places where I'm looking for functionality that exists in Stata and I'm not finding it. It may be that I just don't know what I'm doing, but it's also likely that SPSS is just not super sophisticated.
I'm glad I'm going over the paper with a fine-toothed comb, however... there are some clear wtf moments that I think reviewers might notice.
This week is going by a little too slowly for my tastes. I really can't wait to get out of town.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Buttons!
One of the buttons popped off my coat late last winter season, and I just ignored it (despite how dumb it looked) until another button popped off last week (with a third button looking pretty shady). Now, it would help immensely if I hadn't gotten so, well, immense since I purchased the coat. It's now a snug fit. This morning I saw that Amazon had coats on sale, and nearly decided just to buy a new coat.
But in these internetting times there's really no excuse for not making such an easy repair -- I figured out everything I needed to know online in about 10 minutes, I dug up some sewing floss (threads wound together for things like cross-stitch so you can actually see it) and got those three buttons back on there good. Success! So now my coat works again, even though it's still a little snug, but that's a different problem.
Last night we went to Baltimore for a number of social activities. We met up at Maggie's with Joe's soc friends, and then we went to dinner for my friend's birthday (which was actually Monday, but she had horrible grant writing to do all that day). Then Joe and I went back to Maggie's before going back home. Baltimore is great when you spend 2/3 of your time there at Maggie's. Today we went grocery shopping, thus getting maximum utility out of the ZipCar. I'm kinda missing having my own car, though, and I'm pondering whether to get it fix now that it's been a few months since the last repairs, instead of an insulting three weeks. I still wouldn't drive it to work, since that commute is very hard on a car and the bus is easy enough (when it comes predictably) and gives me exercise. But it'd be nice to have it for errands and such. I dunno, we'll see.
This week is the last actually at work, and then I'm going to NJ for 2 weeks! I have to "work at home" three days in there somewhere, which should be easy enough with Joe hacking away at his dissertation. It should be otherwise relaxing.
But in these internetting times there's really no excuse for not making such an easy repair -- I figured out everything I needed to know online in about 10 minutes, I dug up some sewing floss (threads wound together for things like cross-stitch so you can actually see it) and got those three buttons back on there good. Success! So now my coat works again, even though it's still a little snug, but that's a different problem.
Last night we went to Baltimore for a number of social activities. We met up at Maggie's with Joe's soc friends, and then we went to dinner for my friend's birthday (which was actually Monday, but she had horrible grant writing to do all that day). Then Joe and I went back to Maggie's before going back home. Baltimore is great when you spend 2/3 of your time there at Maggie's. Today we went grocery shopping, thus getting maximum utility out of the ZipCar. I'm kinda missing having my own car, though, and I'm pondering whether to get it fix now that it's been a few months since the last repairs, instead of an insulting three weeks. I still wouldn't drive it to work, since that commute is very hard on a car and the bus is easy enough (when it comes predictably) and gives me exercise. But it'd be nice to have it for errands and such. I dunno, we'll see.
This week is the last actually at work, and then I'm going to NJ for 2 weeks! I have to "work at home" three days in there somewhere, which should be easy enough with Joe hacking away at his dissertation. It should be otherwise relaxing.
Friday, December 05, 2008
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Mid-week
I'm already looking forward to the next vacation! I want some more eggplant!
The ceiling has finally been fully restored to my office, so I think they must be completely done in here. Nothing is coming out of the heater despite my requests to the thermostat I now have in here, but it's not actually that cold -- I'm just a big baby. Now that I have a ceiling and no evening visitors to wreck my stuff, I reassembled my lamp (I hid it in a drawer because it was constantly being moved, including once out into the hallway). During the ceiling mess they installed a motion sensor on my light, which would be useful if I had a strong interest in using my light. Now that I have a ceiling for the lamp to reflect off of, I'd prefer to go back to that. I had to cover the sensor so that the overhead fluorescent grossness wouldn't click on everytime I wiggled in my chair. Now my office is cozy again.
Too cozy... I'm feeling sleepy.
I need to get this paper out the door. It really just needs some updates, but I'm finding myself tortured by some of the language we used in the paper, which is slowing me down some. Also the abstract is deeply flawed, and I don't understand why journals only give you 150 words. Gotta get pithy, I guess.
The ceiling has finally been fully restored to my office, so I think they must be completely done in here. Nothing is coming out of the heater despite my requests to the thermostat I now have in here, but it's not actually that cold -- I'm just a big baby. Now that I have a ceiling and no evening visitors to wreck my stuff, I reassembled my lamp (I hid it in a drawer because it was constantly being moved, including once out into the hallway). During the ceiling mess they installed a motion sensor on my light, which would be useful if I had a strong interest in using my light. Now that I have a ceiling for the lamp to reflect off of, I'd prefer to go back to that. I had to cover the sensor so that the overhead fluorescent grossness wouldn't click on everytime I wiggled in my chair. Now my office is cozy again.
Too cozy... I'm feeling sleepy.
I need to get this paper out the door. It really just needs some updates, but I'm finding myself tortured by some of the language we used in the paper, which is slowing me down some. Also the abstract is deeply flawed, and I don't understand why journals only give you 150 words. Gotta get pithy, I guess.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
And I usually like red
Starbucks is doing this Red campaign thing where they donate $.05 for every eligible drink you buy to combat HIV/AIDS. But they're pitching it as some reason to get more coffee than you usually would. How about you just donate your $2-4 to a decent HIV foundation or NGO instead of buying extra coffee?
I think the train is going to be nuts this evening. But I got my lecture done and mailed out for tomorrow, so I can just relax and read magazines.
I think the train is going to be nuts this evening. But I got my lecture done and mailed out for tomorrow, so I can just relax and read magazines.
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