December 2008 Archives

Hey hey, the gang's all here in Charlotte -- all except Jose. But never fear, since he has a stocking and presents waiting for him when he arrives on Saturday. We had a lovely day with Christmas breakfast followed by present opening. This year was the year of the books. I got seven books! That should do me for at least six months, since I'm the person who has to force herself away from the computer in order to actually sit down and read. It's not that I don't like reading -- I love reading -- but I often drop it in favor of other activities and obligations. I can't decide what to read first!

By far the most popular gift in terms of use is the game I mentioned yesterday, Bananagrams, that Katie gave Joel. We have played it for literally hours today. People come and go from the table, but there is always someone playing. Other than the fact that Brian protests a word every time I win, it's been fun. ;)

Merry Christmas to all!

Coming back to Charlotte is always a whirlwind of activity -- even when I think I might be bored, there's always something to do.

As soon as my plane landed on Monday morning, Mom and Katie whisked me away to the mother-daughter lunch where, after three engagements in 2008, all seven daughters involved are now either married or soon-to-be. Not surprisingly, a lot of the talk centered around weddings and planning. After lunch, Mom and Katie and I headed out to do some wedding dress shopping. I was wary about David's Bridal, but that's where we decided to start since Katie had a good experience there four years ago. As luck would have it, I was the same way -- I only tried on 8 dresses, and I bought the 4th dress I put on. We were in the store for an hour and a half and had it all to ourselves, so I made sure to do plenty of twirling in front of the mirrors. I took photos, but obviously I won't post them here so Jose can't see (even though it sort of kills me that I can't show him the dress, since I'm so excited about it). Anyway. Dress = done. It only needs minor alterations, mainly because my top is a size smaller than my bottom and I don't see that changing anytime soon since it's been that way for, oh, forever. It'll get shipped to Charlotte, and my mom will send it along to me, probably sometime in February. Awesomeness.

Last night I met up with my old high school friends for dinner and chatting. We had the whole restaurant to ourselves, which was perfect because we tend to be a little loud and boisterous. ;) We headed over to Cayce's house afterwards, which was much better than in past years when we've just gone to a coffee shop and thus been kicked out when they closed. It was odd to be back in Cayce's house -- we hung out there all the time in high school, but I hadn't been there in probably 10 years. It was fun to see them all and meet baby Ellie for the first time.

Today was quieter. I ran a few errands with Katie and Joel, spent a couple hours wrapping presents (seriously, every year my mom says she doesn't have much this year, and every year the tree literally overflows with presents), and then had a big family dinner. Afterwards, we each unwrapped one present -- a tradition we've done for as long as I can remember. Joel opened a present from Katie, a game called Bananagrams. It's sort of like Scrabble, except everyone makes their own crossword puzzle-type layout with the letters they draw. When one person runs out of letters, everyone has to draw another one. This continues until there are no more letters to draw, and then the first person who can use up all their letters wins. It was a lot of fun, and with the way my family plays, it immediately led to lots of cries of "that's not a word!", "I challenge that!," and "look it up in the dictionary!" followed by lots of laughing and calling each other a rotten banana.

Yeah, I like my family.

Holiday vacation officially began on Friday afternoon for me, but I'm not flying to Charlotte until tomorrow morning. Jose and I spent the weekend making a quick trip up to Fort Worth for his mom's cousin's daughter's quinceanera. If you don't live in Texas, I won't be surprised if you don't know what a quinceanera is: the celebration of a girl's 15th birthday which marks the transition from girl to young woman.

(As a side note, I've been told -- depending on who I asked -- that the mother's-cousin's-daughter relationship makes Elissa either Jose's first cousin once removed or his second cousin. I'm not really sure which. Point being: Jose's family is large -- and they are all close. I don't think I could even name a single one of my parents' cousins.)

I'd never been to a quinceanera before so I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I can now safely say that it's almost exactly like a wedding without the groom. There was a church ceremony, followed by a cocktail hour, followed by dinner, followed by cake and dancing. There was a guestbook, a gift table, a photographer and videographer running around, centerpieces, flowers, alcohol, a court of boys and girls in matching dress... You name the wedding element, and it was probably a part of the quinceanera.

We both had a lot of fun eating, drinking, dancing, and hanging out with Jose's super-extended family. Along with the usual group of aunts, uncles, and cousins, there was a whole new side of the family to meet -- and another round of names for me to try to remember! Everyone was staying in the same hotel, so we had an "after party" in the hotel lobby. I was fading fast and went to bed around 2 a.m. but there were at least a couple guys that saw the sun rise. Crazy. This morning we were all invited over to Elissa's house for breakfast and more family time. My eyes hurt from all the camera flashes.

It was a fast but fun weekend. We got back to Houston around 5:30, and I've spent the rest of the evening preparing to leave town for two weeks. Somehow I always find a bunch of loose ends that need tying before going on vacation!

Jose's present had arrived yesterday and was waiting on my doormat, so after a quick wrapping job we did our own Christmas since we'll be apart on the 25th. I got Jose a handheld aviation transceiver -- i.e. a fancy walkie-talkie that receives and transmits on aviation frequencies. He loved it. :) It takes 12 hours to fully charge (did not realize that -- BOO), but after letting it charge for a few hours, he fired it up and we caught snippets of two radio calls. It only picks up line-of-sight transmissions so when he's at home he can only hear the calls of whoever happens to be flying overhead, but he's already looking up the Houston air traffic control frequencies so he can scan them when he drives me to the airport in the morning. It'll also be great as a backup radio for when he's flying.

My Christmas present came in two parts. On Thursday night he brought me the beautiful roses pictured above, and tonight he gave me a pair of awesome pearl earrings (with a tiny diamond accent). He loves to get me sparkly things, and I certainly don't plan to complain about that anytime soon. Since they're pearls, my first thought was "I can wear them at our wedding!" Indeed, he bought them with that in mind. I have the best fiance ever.

What did we do before the Internet? Before Amazon? I filled up my shopping cart on Sunday night, and this morning I completed 90% of my Christmas shopping in less than 5 minutes. The only people left on my list are my mom and Jose. I keep telling Jose that he doesn't need to get me anything this year -- and I really mean that, since the engagement ring he gave me six weeks ago is totally enough! -- but he doesn't believe me.

I'm always late with the Christmas shopping, but this year I've been worse than usual. Time has really flown since we got back from Japan, and I'm sure it will continue to do so through the new year. Heck, time's gonna fly from now through at least June. I realized in the car on the way to lunch today that winter and spring are already shaping up to be extremely busy. I had thoughts of doing the Lonestar Half Ironman again at the end of March, but I'm starting to think that I should stick to short distances for the next six months. I'm just not sure I'm going to have the time to train properly. I really should just concentrate on getting in top shape for the Texas Independence Relay in March and leave another half marathon for the future.

In January I'm serving as mentor for a college team that will be in town to fly an experiment on the Vomit Comet. Then in February I'll be working STS-119 -- both the ascent and the rendezvous. In March I'll be running TIR and doing an intense couple weeks of design work for the Miss Houston pageant again.

I'll also be taking two more classes at UHCL -- the last two required for my degree -- plus beginning work on my Master's project. For the capstone experience required for my Master's degree, I'm actually given the option of choosing a thesis, a project, or an internship. An internship sounds awesome but is out of the question unless I either take leave without pay, quit my job entirely, or figure out a way to convince my management that they should let me do a rotation to Public Affiars. Writing a thesis is my last choice, so that leaves me with a project. I'm not annoyed by that, in fact, I'm sure I'll like working on a project (which I get to define) since I enjoy all my class projects as well.

What else? Oh yeah -- and we're planning a wedding for May.

And here I was thinking spring would calm down!...

I'm not really sure what the video above was created for, but I thought it was cool -- it shows a time-lapse video of two artists making a detailed drawing of the space shuttle. It reminded me of a drawing I've got buried somewhere deep in my closet at home that I did in high school. It's only half finished, but it was done from a newspaper photo of the shuttle landing after a mission. At the time, I loved both art and NASA. It's funny to think that in a way, I still do. Like I wrote a week ago when I got my 10-year service award, I don't really know whether I will still work here in another 5 years. But wherever I go, I know I will still love NASA and what it stands for.

I had a rendezvous sim all day yesterday, my fourth in the "front room." I'm feeling more comfortable out there, at least in the sense that my heart no longer flutters from nerves for the entire 8 hours. After four sims though, and especially after the last two, I've come to the conclusion that I need to talk more. I know that's an odd thing, since I rarely have issues with not talking. (Ha.) But a big part of being a front room flight controller, often even bigger than actual technical knowledge since people usually have that by the time they get to the front, is communication and trust. I know that I need to give flight directors confidence in both me and my ability to make good decisions and give them the necessary information. And so far, I've been too quiet. I have my midpoint evaluation scheduled for the end of January, so I'll have one sim before then to work on it!

So I've got strep throat. Again. Apparently after years of avoiding it after getting it regularly as a kid, strep has rediscovered that my throat makes a great home.

On the positive side, it hasn't been quite as bad this time as it was back in May, and because I recognized the signs more quickly, I'm already treating it. I started feeling a little iffy on Thursday night, and by Friday afternoon I was aching. I crashed on the couch at 8:00 Friday night and had a fever all night. 13 hours of sleep and a steady stream of Advil got rid of the fever and aches, but the sore throat has persisted.

This time around, I wasn't really interested in waiting until Monday to see a doctor. I've got a sim on Tuesday that I'd rather not miss, so I was hoping to find someone who could diagnose me today and get started on antibiotics so that I'm no longer contagious on Tuesday. Christina mentioned on Twitter that I should look for a Walgreen's or CVS clinic, and while there weren't any of those nearby, the Walmart down on 646 did have an in-store clinic open every day. So, off we went.

I had some qualms about seeing a doctor at Walmart, of all places, but they turned out to be unfounded. The clinic there is managed by Christus, one of the big health providers in this area, and I was very impressed. It's tiny, and they don't take insurance, but I expected that, and it was a fairly reasonable $69 for a strep test. The nurse practitioner was able to see me right away, and gave me a rapid strep test. The test actually came up negative, to her (and my) surprise. Since a negative result on that test is only 65% accuracy and because I have all the classic symptoms -- sore, swollen throat, white and red spots on my tonsils, slight fever, swollen and sore lymph nodes, but no congestion -- she gave me a prescription for penicillin anyway. Overall, it was a great experience and I would recommend the Walmart clinic to anyone who needs simple treatment in a pinch, like on a weekend.

Sadly, our experience at the Walmart pharmacy could not have been more opposite from the clinic visit. I normally get my prescriptions filled at CVS but since we were right next to a pharmacy, we figured Walmart would be ok. First issue: the lady seemed utterly and completely puzzled by my insurance card. I've never had this issue anywhere else, and with all the NASA people down here I'm certainly not the only person in this area covered by BCBS Federal. Second issue: they told us it would be ready in an hour, while CVS has always filled my prescriptions on the spot. Ok, fine, no big deal, Walmart is a pretty busy place. Jose and I went off to get lunch.

When we came back, the lady started to ring up my prescription for $15, then remembered that she'd had trouble with my insurance. I gave her the card again, and she disappeared -- for 15 minutes! She apparently had to call the insurance and was waiting for a callback. Finally, I went back up to the counter and told them I'd just pay the $15 (for reference, my prescription last time from CVS cost less than $1) -- at which point she said the prescription wasn't ready! Wasn't ready? Then what was she about to run up 15 minutes ago? Eventually she came back and finally gave me a bottle of pills for $12. I have no idea whether she even talked to my insurance company, and at that point I didn't really care -- I just wanted to get my pills and get out of there.

If you live in the Clear Lake area and you've ever got a minor issue and need to be diagnosed, I'd highly recommend the Walmart clinic on 646. But once you get your prescription, do yourself a favor and take it elsewhere. It amazes me that a person can have two totally different experiences within the same store a mere 20 feet apart!

As if the snow excitement weren't enough for those of you in the Houston area...

Space Shuttle Endeavour will be flying over the Clear Lake area on the back of the 747 today between 11:45 and 12:45! I'm not sure if you'll be able to spot it from downtown or farther north, but if you're anywhere in the Clear Lake vicinity -- keep your eyes peeled!

Update

Here are some photos of the flyby! Wow. Snow and a shuttle flyover. I think my head may explode from too much excitement.

Here's the whole set of photos I took during the flyover:

On Tuesday, I wore a light, summery skirt and a short sleeve shirt to work. Why? Because it was 75 degrees outside.

Twenty-four hours later, 99% of the blog posts, Twitter updates, and Flickr photos that I saw were some kind of variation on a single theme: IT IS SNOWING.

So yeah, it snowed. In Houston. Hard. More than an inch. Enough that it stuck to the ground! I couldn't believe it, but I took full advantage. I was driving to class at 6:45, talking to my mom on the phone, when I commented to her that it was sleeting. Five minutes later as I neared UHCL, the sleet had most definitely become snow. As I walked in from the parking lot, everyone I passed had a stupid kid-like grin on their face.

Most of you know this, but just in case you don't: it does not snow in Houston. It just doesn't. Heck, it barely ever reaches the freezing mark at all! Snow is a once-every-10-years thing for us -- so it's not surprising that the entire city was full of people running around as giddy as children.

It was STLL snowing when I got out of class three hours later, and Jose had built a mini-snowman on the back of his car, which was pretty much the cutest thing ever. So we went outside and ran around for 45 minutes. We built a snowman, threw some snowballs, and just generally jumped around and exclaimed at how awesome it was that it was snowing.

Here are more of my crappy snow photos:

I first set foot on-site at Johnson Space Center in August 1997. I did five cooperative education tours as an undergraduate and another as a grad co-op over the summer of 2001 between graduating from Georgia Tech and starting at Stanford. The way the government calculates "time worked" is a bit complicated, but when all was said and done, my "effective" start date as a civil servant became August 1998. After finishing at Stanford, I moved to Houston permanently and started full-time at JSC in July 2002. So that's 11 years since I first pledged my allegiance to the government (yep, you have to do that), 6.5 years since I started working full-time, and many semesters as a student thrown in.

If you can even remotely follow all that, you are now ready to hear my point: this afternoon I walked over to building 1, sat down with a group of others for a short ceremony, and was given my 10-year government service award. It's not much -- just a tiny pin, a handshake, and a photo with the head of Mission Operations -- but still. Whoa. 10 years.

Left is the 5-year pin, right is 10-year. 5 more years and I'll get a gold one! ;)

I've been thinking a lot lately about my future. I'm no longer early career, but not quite mid-career. It's time to start thinking more long-term and give myself more direction than I've had in the past. What do I really want to do? Do I want to stay in flight control (which will be going through quite a lull soon, as the shuttle stops flying)? Do I want to try to move elsewhere within mission operations, or within JSC, or within NASA elsewhere? Then there are the harder questions: do I want to stay at NASA at all? Do I want to even stay in the aerospace field?

So I've got a lot of thinking to do. But I'm happy to report that today, just before I got my 10-year award, I found what should obviously be my next job for the short-term: Wienermobile Driver.

Wienermobile spotted in Galveston almost 4 years ago after the Mardi Gras 5K

Yes, Oscar Meyer is taking applications to be a hotdogger, aka to travel the country in a giant vehicle shaped like a wiener.

AWESOME.

I don't remember if I ever really talked about them much, but I took two classes this semester at UHCL. One was Digital Media Law, which turned out to be a really great class -- far more interesting than I thought it would be. I feel like I got a lot out of it as well, and have a much better understanding of both law in general and law as it applies to the areas I'm most interested in, like copyright and the Internet. Our final project was essentially a term paper that we were required to turn into a webpage. After reading about them during the two weeks we concentrated on copyright law, I chose to research the issue of orphan works -- those which are still copyrighted, but whose authors are unknown and cannot be found. (Basically, people don't use them because they don't want to get hit with a copyright infringement claim should the owner turn up. Some groups argue that this actually defeats the purpose of copyright law, which was to protect author's rights for a limited period of time before allowing them to fall into the public domain, the latter of which is considered to be good for society as a whole.) I'll post a link to the website once I make the final tweaks for the last day of class on Wednesday.

The other class was Desktop Publishing, which is really a class in learning how to use Adobe InDesign to prepare files for printing. There's a lot more that goes into a professional print job than you'd think, and I enjoyed picking up little bits of info here and there, and doing a few more projects to add to my portfolio. But overall, I was really disappointed in the class and it can all be traced back to one thing...the professor is just way, way too nice. I know that sounds like an odd complaint, but hear me out.

First, she is consistently late to class and thus starts class late. I guess most people would like that, but not me. First, I'm not getting my money's worth and second, I leave work at least 1.5 hours early on Mondays just to go to her class. When she starts half an hour late, that bugs me!

Second, when we critique each other's work, her feedback consists entirely of "that looks fabulous!" -- even if it doesn't look fabulous. It's nice to get 100s on all my assignments, but it'd be even nicer to get some constructive criticism! She's supposed to have the outside perspective that I don't have. I want to hear it.

Third, she consistently pushed deadlines farther and farther out in response to people in class whining that they needed more time. That's all well and good until you come to the end of the semester, when suddenly there are three projects due on the last day of class. This is partially my own fault, since I could have tried to get started earlier. But most of the time, I had to wait for her to present the project outline and requirements in class before I could really start working on it in earnest. So that's the situation I found myself in, and that's why I worked the entire day yesterday, from 11 a.m. until midnight, to finish all of my projects.

Here's a rundown of the projects I did:

The first assignment was a poster for the Siggraph conference -- a gathering of all kinds of digital and interactive media people. The 2009 theme is "network your senses." I'll be entering it into their poster contest in the spring. I don't know if it's what they're looking for, but I was happy with it.

The second and third assignments were to pick an organization and create a one-page ad and a tri-fold informational brochure. I chose the Smithsonian because I knew they'd have plenty of material to work with! The artifact photos came from their website, the sky photo is one of mine, and the stars photo came from NASA. Since I don't live in DC and couldn't take my own photo, the Smithsonian castle photo is courtesy of Flickr user g-na, used under a Creative Commons license. If this were being made for actual use, I'd need to get permission from g-na, but since it's just a non-commercial class project, Creative Commons is enough.

The fourth assignment was to make a two-page magazine spread. I recycled a cheesy "space history" article I wrote almost four years ago and added a bunch of photos I've taken of JSC. This one was a breeze, thanks to all my time working on the Technique at Georgia Tech. ;)

The final assignment was a 12-page booklet -- either a cookbook or a city walking tour, our choice. Of course I chose the walking tour, and decided to feature Kyoto and use some of the photos I took on our trip.

As a grad student, I had to do one additional assignment -- redesign a menu from a local restaurant. I chose Tokyo Bowl, a great sushi place down here that has a pretty ugly menu. (I also knew I wouldn't have time to take new photos, so this let me use more of the Japan photos I already had.) This is the assignment I ended up least happy with, mainly because with all the pushing back of deadlines (and the fact that the prof basically ignored the fact that she needed to give us specs for an extra assignment), I ran out of time to do the job I really wanted to do. I plan to re-do this one when I have some downtime.

These are all just small JPGs of the projects. If you actually have interest in seeing a larger version, let me know.

Photo by Joe

It was pretty darn chilly when I headed out this morning for the Reindeer Run over at St. John's hospital in Nassau Bay, but once the sun came up it turned out to be perfect weather for running. This is one of my favorite races in Houston, and I'm pretty sure I've run it every year since I moved here -- which adds up to seven times! (Wow! I didn't realize that until I counted it just now. Cool.) Most years it's still pretty warm, and one year I remember it being really, really cold. This year was juuust right.

Sarah's Reindeer Run History:
2002 - 31:40 (my PR at the time)
2003 - 29:18 (PR that stands to this day)
2004 - 30:34 (won a trophy for 3rd in my age group!)
2005 - 32:45 (it was warm that year -- about 75 degrees)
2006 - 35:00 (ran it with Jose)
2007 - 32:24 (was really sore after doing random weight-lifting the day before)
2008 - 32:59

When I picked up my packet, I looked in vain for my foam reindeer antlers but they were nowhere to be found. I'd gotten a bag without antlers! Fortunately Joe hooked me up with a pair that matched my red long sleeve shirt from the 10-Miler.

My running motivation has been at rock bottom since late October, so I ran this race only because I like it so much, and I wasn't disappointed. I saw a bunch of friends and got to run the whole race with Debbie, since she was taking it easy. I wore my watch but didn't look at it, instead concentrating on just running and getting a few miles on my legs. I finished in 32:59 by my watch. I went with no expectations, so I don't really have an opinion on my finish time. It's fine. My pace was more consistent than usual, probably because I wasn't worrying about it! Isn't that how it goes? :)

As for future plans, I'm sure I'll come out of the running lull soon enough. This might have actually been a good year to forego the half marathon in January, but I wasn't even really thinking about that and missed the deadline to transfer my registration to someone else -- if I had wanted to. We'll see. I'm feeling pretty indifferent about the race at this point. I have so many other things going on that I've been viewing exercise just as a means of staying fit lately, not as a means of training hard for any specific event. Tri season was pretty busy, so I'm probably just a little burned out!

The event I am looking forward to is the Texas Independence Relay in March. I need to do some training for that, but only for speed -- not really for distance. It's the thought of distance training that really been making me think "ugh" in recent weeks.

I posted again on the wedding blog. This time it's about the oh-so-fun topic: budgets.

I also added the feed from the wedding blog to the sidebar, right above the Flickr photos, so that I don't feel the need to write here that I wrote there. (Confusing.) So if you want to read the wedding blog, either use the links to the right or just add it to your feed reader.

Enjoy!

I got my first two Christmas cards of the year this week -- one from Barbara on Tuesday, and one from Kelly and John on Wednesday. Man, you guys are really on top of things this year! I haven't even't made my Christmas cards yet, much less mailed them. And I do plan on doing them. Last year was not a one time thing! If you want one and you're not sure that I have your address, make sure to email me.

Jose is in D.C. for the rest of the week visiting the Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter team, since he's done some work for them over the past few months. LRO was supposed to launch this fall, but it's been postponed until spring. Thankfully, when you're going to the moon you have the luxury of pushing things back on a month-by-month or even week-by-week basis, since the moon is so close. Unfortunately it's different when you're trying to go to Mars. The Mars Science Laboratory, JPL's next giant mission, was officially postponed until 2011 -- instead of launching next year. The launch window available to get to Mars in a reasonable amount of time without spending an impossible amount of fuel to get there only exists for a few weeks every two years. It was extremely unlikely that MSL would make the October 2009 window, so it will have to wait until 2011. It sucks for all involved.

Sometimes it is really frustrating to work for NASA.

Then there is also today's news that Miles O'Brien -- long-time CNN reporter and anchor who covered space and science news -- is leaving the network along with a handful of others because CNN is entirely shutting down its science, technology, and environment section. Say WHAT? The only justification I've seen is that environmental news is already covered by some part of Anderson Cooper's show. Ok, even if I buy that, where will they get their science and space news? A huge news outlet like CNN should not be relying on wire services to get news applicable to an enormous and very important sector of the country -- not to mention that CNN just announced that they plan to start their own wire service! How the heck do you start a well-rounded wire service when you have no staff dedicated to science, space, technology, and environmental news?? Just another sad sign of the times. I bet they didn't cut their entertainment news staff, that's for sure.

Sometimes it is really frustrating to, I dunno, want to learn about science.

But anyway, my point was really that Jose is out of town, which makes me feel all discombobulated. We spend so much time together (cue awwing or eye rolling or whatever you want) that it's weird to find myself alone. Yesterday was super busy -- I had a sim that lasted all day, then 3 hours of class last night, with 2 hours of frantically finishing the project I procrastinated on in the middle -- so I didn't really feel it until I got home after class. There was no one to eat dinner with, and no one to watch TV with. I settled in on the couch and distracted myself by finishing "Twilight." It got pretty engrossing at the end, even though when I stepped back, I found the whole thing a little silly. I guess I'll go buy the second book now.

So due to popular demand, I made a wedding blog. Before I give out the link, here are a two things to remember. I don't really expect either of these to be an issue, but I felt like they needed to be said:

1. I'd love feedback and ideas if you have them. But I would not love for my silly wedding blog to become controversial in any way. That's not to say that I don't want constructive and helpful criticism and advice. But if you think something is tacky, or ugly, or stupid...well, I'll be happier if you just keep it to yourself.
   
   
2. Everyone can read this website, but everyone will not be invited to the wedding. If you're going to be invited, you probably know already because you heard about the engagement via a phone call or email. I know that sounds harsh, and I'm truly sorry if anyone is offended, but it is what it is. We decided very quickly that it will be a family-and-close-friends affair, as it's just not possible -- or affordable! -- to invite every single person we've ever met.

If you're cool with the "ground rules" and are still interested in indulging in my wedding-related though crud, you now have my permission to check it out at http://www.saroy.net/wedding. The only new post there so far is about changing my name. Nothing like starting off with an issue sure to be of interest to my feminist friends... ;)

On a side note, how cool is Wordpress? It took me all of 5 minutes to set up that site via the one-click install option provided by my hosting company, and then less than an hour to surf all kinds of cool template websites to find one I liked and then edit it to my liking. Sweet.

So, after hearing about the books and movie for weeks, I finally bought the first book in the Twilight series and have been reading it for the past week. I'm almost done, but I can't wait any longer to say: what is up with this book? (If you haven't read them, there may be spoliers coming up, so stop reading this entry now.)

I will admit that it is entertaining, and I may continue reading the series -- but it is also fluff to the extreme. I mean, I read a lot of fluff books but Twilight really tops them all. After 400 pages, I have finally gotten to the point where some action takes place other than Bella and Edward mooning at each other. An evil vampire wants to eat Bella! Excitement! Except I know she survives, because there are three more books to go though. But up until now, I've been rolling my eyes on a regular basis. Here's a rough paraphrase of the first 300 pages of the book:

Bella: I hate this town. It's boring and too rainy.

Edward: (looks dark and mysterious)

Bella: Ooh, who is that boy?

A day later...

Edward: (inexplicably saves Bella from getting crushed by a van)

Bella: You're so beautiful.

Edward: You smell tasty.

Bella: What?

Edward: Yeah, I'm a vampire.

Bella: I'm scared. But not really. I can't look away because you're so beautiful.

Like one more day later...

Bella: What did you do last night?

Edward: I watched you sleep.

Bella: Wow, that's not creepy at all.

Edward: I make up for it by calling you old-timey things like "my delicate flower."

Bella: I love you.

Edward: I love you too. But I also sorta want to eat you.

Bella: Did I already say that you're beautiful? Because you are.

Seriously, the love story is the most bogus thing I've ever read. Granted, my opinion is probably colored by all the things Becca posted when she was reading the series, but come on -- it's a 12-year-old's idea of love. They fall madly in love -- willing-to-die-for-each-other in love -- in like 3 days. There is no actual basis for the relationship other than 1) each of them thinks the other is, like, totally hot (never mind that Edward thinks Bella is totally hot because he can't resist the smell of her blood) and 2) Edward is really polite.

I'll probably finish the first book tonight, and keep reading the series. Like I said, they're entertaining. But it bothers me that there are thousands of pre-teen girls out there -- and many older women as well -- who think that this is what love is, and that Edward Cullen is the perfect man just because he's beautiful and polite.

Catch me while I swoon.

Jose and I got back from Corpus Christi about 10:30 last night after a nice two days with his family. We ate a lot, slept a lot, watched a bunch of TV, and checked out a couple sales. Oh, and I played a ton of Wii with his youngest cousin Megan, who is surprisingly coordinated for a 6-year-old. La Paletera continued to spite me by closing early, but we caught them open at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon. Ha! Fruity freezes for all!

We spent the entire drive there and back listening to Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers. It discusses successful people and takes a deeper look into what makes them successful. Gladwell argues against the traditional American belief that "I'm successful because of me and me alone, because I worked harder than everyone else" and instead makes the point that success can also be dependent on things that are totally out of your control -- such as when you were born, what your family is like, and what kind of culture you grew up in.

Take his first example, for instance: in studying professional, elite hockey players, you will find that a disproportionately large number of them are born in January, February, and March, while a disproportionately small number are born in October, November, and December. Weird, right? But hockey is a sport where talent is identified very early, when an age difference of even a few months makes a big difference. The age cutoff for kids' leagues in Canada is January 1. So the kids born earlier in the year are bigger, more coordinated, and more mature than the ones born at the end of the year. Therefore the slightly older kids get selected for better leagues. They are given better coaches, and more practice time. After a while, they really are better than the others -- because they were given the opportunity to become so. The same thing happens in baseball, where talent is also sought out in young kids. The cutoff is in the summer, so there are many more baseball players born in July, August and September than in April, May and June. The same thing even happens in education, where older kids are often seen as smarter simply because they are a bit more mature -- I know this is something my mom has seen with her kindergardeners. The 5-year-olds tend to be better than the 4-year-olds.

I could go on and on about all the other interesting stories in the book, but you might as well just read it. My only critique is that I think Gladwell goes too far in the direction of saying "some people are successful only because they get lucky and have certain opportunities." Just because you're born in January doesn't mean you'll be a great hockey player -- that much is obvious. But maybe it does mean that if you want to play hockey, and if you're committed to putting in the time and effort necessary, you have a better chance of succeeding than your December birthday friends.

Something to think about...