I think my bowling ball just meowed

Since I last posted, we drove to Michigan and back. We were in the car for 41 hours. We listened to a lot of NPR podcasts. This American Life is my new favorite program. Check it out. Thanksgiving break was fun, but the time went way too fast. I tried to avoid everything in my normal routine: No working out, no getting up at 5:30 and going to bed at 8:30, no incessantly checking my email, and no reading or working of any kind. I'm not sure what I did exactly. I think there was a lot of sitting on the couch and staring at the wall. I need a hobby.

These next few weeks should be, fortunately, a slowish wind-down to the end of the semester. I have a paper revision to do, some data to collect, and a take-home final exam to write. I hope that I'm not underestimating things, but I think it shouldn't be too bad. I'm even taking a break right now to do this. If things go really well, I might even have time to build a cat tree so our now-enormous cats can get some exercise. They always gorge themselves with food while we're gone, but this time they became particularly HUGE. Picking them up is like picking up squirmy, fur-covered bowling balls. And not in a good way.

I think I'm a bad citizen

Earlier, I described the big project that I have to do that always gets assigned over Thanksgiving break. Last year, I had to spend about 90% of my break working on it. I lost out on some important family time, and it was just generally unpleasant. Armed with an extra year of experience and the important lessons I learned last year, I tried to make sure that my project would be more manageable this year. It's amazing what an extra year of experience is worth: All the right things fell just into place, and I won't really have any work to do over the break this year. There's really only one potential problem: I'm skipping school on Monday and Tuesday in order to make it to Michigan for more than 1 day.

Normally, this wouldn't be an issue. I don't typically have classes or obligations on Tuesdays, and my only class on Monday is with a class-is-optional type professor. However, this Monday and Tuesday, we have a job candidate visiting the department. I'm supposed to go to hear the person give a talk on Monday, and then there's a meet and greet with all the grad students on Tuesday. It will be a decent sized crowd, so it's reasonable to assume that my absence won't be too dearly missed. However, there's also a chance I'm going to need to meet with the professor who assigns the Thanksgiving assignment. Last year I opted out of meeting in order to spend some extra time with family, and I ended up in the dog house for quite some time.

I thought I'd cut off this issue at the pass by setting up the meeting earlier this week. The meeting was short and sweet, and I thought we discussed everything we needed to. But then I got a cryptic mass email (to everyone in the class) that indicated I might have to go to another meeting. The problem? By the time I find out whether this is the case, I'll already been in Michigan. I couldn't just talk to the professor about wanting to meet early, because that would have drawn attention to the fact that I'm going to miss the job candidate (which in practice is meaningless--my input will have exactly 0 bearing on the hiring process--but in theory it makes me look like I have bad department 'citizenship'). Hopefully this won't turn into a 'thing,' because there's really not much I can do at this point...

the importance of brand

Today one of my professors forwarded me an email from a student who wanted to meet with someone knowledgeable about persuasion. The student has a job interview and needs to be able to convince her potential employers that she will be able to persuasively secure funding, even during this down economy. In other words, the student was hoping for advice on how to persuade her interviewers that she is persuasive. Irony aside, I've recently been working on "selling my brand" (as the persuasion guy), and I'm happy to see that it might be working.

Branding yourself is necessary in lots of areas, including academia. The idea is that, when you see the Nike's swoosh symbol, you automatically know what they're all about. When people see my name in an academic setting, I want them to automatically know what I'm all about. Incidentally, it also strikes me that we Christians should be focusing on achieving a similar outcome for all areas of our lives. When people hear our names, they should know what Christ is all about.

of all the things to endure...

So most people have probably heard about the cruise ship that lost power off the coast of Mexico. A fire in the ship's engine room knocked out electricity, and the passengers and crew had to wait a few days before they could be towed back to California. Not surprisingly, the media has had a field day with the whole thing. My favorite headline so far has been this one.

"Cruise Passengers Endured Stench, Cold Food"

I suppose a stench is something to endure. But cold food? You endure a frigid temperatures. Blazing heat. Malaria. You don't endure cold food. Gazpacho is cold soup. (Some) People love it. Approximately 70,000,000 Americans 'endure' cold cereal every morning. Many people endure having cold pizza as a favorite food. Also, ice cream is cold. "Hey anyone want to go out and endure some ice cream?" Nooooooooooooo... Anything but ice cream!!!!!

Cold food, my friends, is not something to endure. Cold food is something to embrace. On the other hand, I guess it's true that it might not be pleasant to eat cold food while drifting off the coast of a country in the middle of a gang war (in a 4000-person floating apartment building with toilets that don't work). But whatever.

the big one

I'm spending a lot of time this week working ahead to get prepared for Thanksgiving week. I've got a huge project due the day I get back that is worth approximately 100% of my grade in an important class. The project is relatively simple: I have to design a study, collect the data, analyze the data, write an extensive review of the everything that has ever been written about the topic of the study, write up the results of the study, and then write about the implications of my results for the future of all research about the topic. I'm making some progress, but I still have quite a ways to go...

it's doing the opposite of working

In 1960, the birth control pill was approved for use in the United States. It was, and continues to be, heralded as the beginning of a "sexual revolution" in which women were freed from the consequences of an unwanted pregnancy. Up until about five minutes ago, I didn't know the rate of pregnancies in unwed mothers in the 1960s. Do you know what it was? Incorrect. It was 4%.

Do you know what the rate of pregnancies in unwed mothers is today? Wildly incorrect. It is 41%. I'm not saying the issue is simple. It is undoubtedly a complex one. What I am saying is that the birth control pill doesn't seem to be working. In fact, it seems to be doing the opposite of working. A 100 fold increase instead of a decrease? Nice try Science. I'm on to you.

we're all winners

There are a few great equalizers in society. Take pizza, for example. For just a few dollars, anyone in America can buy a piece of pizza that tastes incredible. And no matter how much more you spend, pizza just really can't get any better. So no matter who you are, from Bill Gates to Joe Six-Pack, you get to enjoy the same pleasure. No amount of money or power can change that.

Which brings me to the World Series. A commentator was interviewing Aubrey Huff, who played 11 seasons (over 1500 games) without ever having any success in the playoffs.

Commentator: So, after that long road, how does it feel to finally win the World Series?

Huff: It's the greatest feeling in the world... Except, of course, for when I had my two kids.

Nevermind the slight to his wife (wedding day? anyone? anyone? she's probably not that mad; he is a millionaire, after all). The point is that winning the World Series ranked second to having kids. Millions of people do that every year by mistake. Not many people will ever win the World Series.

And to answer your question, no. This is not my way of announcing that Sarah and I are about to "win the World Series." In fact, if your desire for grandkids/nieces/nephews is really getting you down, I suggest you go have a slice of pizza to tide you over.

they were legion

We got a surprising number of trick-or-treaters last night. Last year we had about 20 or so, and so we were expecting to have a lot of candy leftovers to munch on for the next few weeks. It turns out that we didn't even buy enough! Depending on who you ask (me vs. Sarah), you'll get a different estimate of the head count. Someone says 75. Someone who can't count very well. We had at least 100. You would think that an elementary school teacher would be better at keeping track of children. But no. You would be wrong.

Barney's first Halloween experience was a toddler/teletubby waddling up to our glass front door and peering/leering inside instead of knocking. Or, as Barney saw it, a little monster trying to murder us and steal our things. He had to be briefly restrained, and then he really seemed to enjoy watching the kids.