Baltimore, so far

I arrived in Baltimore last Wednesday evening. As I approached the city, I played "Good Morning Baltimore" and sang along. The next song that came up on my iPod was "Come Back to Texas" (by Bowling for Soup). I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I laughed.

Okay, so I moved to Baltimore. And I took a few pictures to give you a small taste about my life here.

First of all, I started my job at Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on Monday. STScI is located on the campus of Johns Hopkins University, though it's not technically affiliated with it. I am living in a brownstone-type row house a few blocks south of campus. It takes me 20-25 minutes to walk to work. I hope to buy a bike in the next week or two and start biking in. The weather outside if fantastic now, so I'm happy to be outside.

Here is a shot of the outside of my house:


It's kind of fun, actually, I feel like I'm living such an urban lifestyle!

I have four roommates, who I found through church. They are all students (two are grad students -- one at JHU and one at Towson -- and two are undergrads -- again, one at JHU and one at Towson). They are really great and a lot of fun so far.

There are five rooms in our house (so we all have our own). I was the last roommate to sign a lease in the house, so naturally I got the smallest room that doesn't have any windows. (But hey, that also means I'm paying the least in rent, and cheap rent equals more money to be put in savings. And I already know how to live in a windowless room.) But surprisingly, it doesn't bother me too much. My stuff is still in boxes....I don't quite know what to do with everything, so unpacking is going very slowly.

STScI is so far a great place to work. Everyone seems really friendly and helpful. My boss is great and there are other people here that I'm looking forward to working with. Here's a shot of my building. (You can see the STScI logo just to the right of the door.)

The JHU campus is beautiful. Here's a picture, that I took on my way to the gym.

Apparently I'm destined to live a window-less existence in Baltimore this year. My office, like my bedroom, doesn't have any windows. I think this is actually worse than my room at home not having windows. I'll hopefully get some posters or something up soon so it's not so drab and depressing.

Also note the shiny new MacBook Pro on my desk. My boss bought it for me, and so far it's great. I'm slowly getting used to using a Mac. It'll be my main work computer, and I plug it into that monitor while I'm working at my desk.

There is a joke that this area of the building is more like a prison than a hallway of offices. Just because it seems so far away and doesn't have windows. This explains the signs on the door leading toward the exit.

Work is slow right now because the data for the project I was hired to work on haven't been taken yet. But it's good because it gives me a chance to get ramped up and familiarized with software, the Mac, and Baltimore life in general. But I'm not at lack of things to do. My boss is really on top of things and has a whole slew of data he's ready to hand off to me to work on from previous projects. And some of it is really interesting, so I'm looking forward to delving in.

So far life is good. I hope it continues to be so!

Filbert's big moment

My car's name is Filbert.

And Filbert had a big moment somewhere on US Highway 127 on the way to see the capital building in Frankfurt, Kentucky. Approaching a stop light, the odometer looked like this:

And then it soon looked like this:

Way to go Filbert! Here's to 100,000 more!

The Chapter Treats

At the beginning of the year, I was set to move to Albany and begin the big, final push to finishing my dissertation. In what was perhaps one of the craziest decisions I've ever made, I decided that starting January 1, I would no longer be eating sweets*, until my thesis was finished**. (If you know me, you know I have an insatiable sweet tooth. I mean, really.) My thought process was that it would "motivate" me to hurry up and finish. Sort of like, "You know, I could really go for some ice cream. Well, I guess I better go write so I can be closer to getting that." Believe it or not, it was motivating like that at times. (But not all the time. But I still stuck with it anyway.)

But I decided to give myself a bit of a break. Rather than swearing off all sweets for eight months, I would allow myself a "treat" at the completion of every chapter. By this, I meant that it was one treat (for example, one bowl of ice cream, one piece of cake, etc.); and the chapter had to be in a form that was complete enough to send it to my adviser for comments. I also decided that the rules did not include drinking hot chocolate, since I was moving to Albany in January and it would probably be cold all the time. (I was right.)

Here is a collection of the treats I ate. And the chapter they represented. (The fact that I ended up throwing out the original Chapter 4 and adding a new Chapter 2 sort of messed things up a bit.)

Chapter 1

An amazing chocolate cake with pink frosting that Sarah made on our visit to Syracuse, NY. (I'd only been off sweets for like 3 weeks at this point, but was apparently so excited to eat it, that I couldn't even put my fork down for the picture.)

Chapter 2

Admittedly, I saved this one up for awhile. (About six weeks or something.) But I really wanted to take Nathan to Amy's Ice Creams after driving back to Austin with me. So I saved my treat and indulged there. Mexican vanilla with nutter butters. YUM!

Chapter 3 (old Chapter 2)

This was on my visit to Austin over Siena's winter break in February. Shared a fried ice cream from the Hula Hutt with Joseph.

Chapter 4

Probably the most exciting chapter to finish, as the data it required was the hardest to get through. It was a long time between finishing this chapter and finishing the previous chapter. I had saved those mint oreos from department cookie time for about a week, then bought a pint of Blue Bell cookies and cream ice cream. (And it HAD to be that flavor....I went to two drugstores near campus to ensure I found the right kind.)

Chapter 5

I finished Chapters 4, 5, and 7 all happened within like a week of each other, so I celebrated this one by just eating a bunch of cookies from department cookie time.

Chapter 6 (old Chapter 7)

I also finished this chapter during that February visit to Austin. Michelle and I had just finished biking around Town Lake. I got Amy's Ice Creams, Mexican vanilla with oreos.

Chapter 7

For the last chapter treat, I went to Swirll (frozen yogurt bar on Guadalupe) with my fellow finishing grad, Amy. We walked there and back, and I ate my whole thing (cookies and cream frozen yogurt with crushed oreos on top...and a few other things on top) before I got back to take the picture. Hence, the empty container.



Through this process, I learned that the sweet thing I always wanted most was ice cream. (As you can tell, it was often my treat of choice.) This really did surprise me, I thought for sure cookies were my biggest weakness.

Am I glad that I decided to give up sweets during this process? Eh, the jury is still out, but leaning towards a "not really" vote. Though it probably did save me from a lot of calories from stress-induced emotional eating. Which is probably a good thing.


* Sweets were defined as dessert-y foods and other sugary treats, including all forms of cake, ice cream, candy, brownies, cheesecake, cookies, pies, chocolate, etc. This did not include natural sugars (i.e., fruit). It also did not include cool whip nor sugary cereals. The rules I set up were pretty vague in the beginning and continued to be vague when people asked about this or that food. So sometimes people didn't like my rules, and I often couldn't justify them either. But it doesn't really matter in the end.

** In the end, I defined "finishing my thesis" as the moment when I actually turned every single completed form and the revised dissertation in to the graduate school. But I did indulge in treats at my party after my defense.

Smoothie Operator

I recently bought this:

It's a single serve blender. It's great.

I wanted to buy a Magic Bullet. But they were like $50. So, based on recommendations from my sister Sue and friend Desiree (who both own one), I bought this thing for $15 instead. It's especially great because I can drink my single serve smoothie straight from it. (The lid is designed for that.)

I've been looking for alternatives to cold cereal for breakfast for awhile now. Smoothies are great, in theory, but before I got this they involved a big blender that was too much hassle and that I hated cleaning.

My sister Sue gave me this basic smoothie recipe.

1 cup milk
1 heaping tbsp pudding mix (I prefer to use the fat/sugar free variety)
1 cup frozen fruit

(It also calls for ice, but I actually don't use it, never having had success with crunching ice in a blender of any kind.)

Best. Idea. Ever. I've made smoothies almost everyday since I bought it, including the following varieties:

* Raspberry with lemon
* Strawberry with white chocolate
* Blueberry with vanilla
* Raspberry and peach with vanilla
* Strawberry and peach with vanilla
* Strawberry and pineapple with vanilla
* Strawberry, peach, and pineapple with vanilla

(Obviously vanilla is my good go-to flavor.)

I may branch out to new recipes. Like using different fruit juices instead of milk.* And buying more frozen fruits. And maybe even adding protein to make it pack a real punch.

Tell me if you have a favorite smoothie recipe I must try. (Especially breakfast smoothies, but I'm open to all!) I'm a novice.


*Problem is, milk is just so much better for you than most fruit juices out there on the market.