Lately.

Here are a few things I've been up to lately.

Went to the Arkansas vs. Tulsa football game with Cara, Laura, and Jordan - basically 3 of my favorite people. The picture below was taken from our seats, which were right in the heart of the Tulsa section. I was a bit skeptical about these seats at first, but it ended up being a blast (probably because Arkansas won and we were able to act a fool in the middle of a bunch of angry people holding hurricane warning signs.) Thanks for the tickets Mr. Dean!

Our walk home from the game was beautiful. This was the peak weekend for fall color in Fayetteville, gorgeous!

Last Sunday, I attended a banquet in honor of the Indian holiday of Diwali.  Apparently it's a really big deal to Indian people. I have some Indian friends at work, so a bunch of us (as well as other non-Indian people I work with) went.  And we all wore Indian clothes.  My friend Brenda hooked me up with an awesome male Indian garment (it was actually Nepali, but no one noticed) that she just apparently had laying around.  Indian clothes are comfy, I could definitely get used to them.  The banquet was pretty sweet.  There was lots of Indian music and dancing, some funny clips of Bollywood movies and commercials, and basically the best Indian food I've ever eaten...it was seriously awesome.  The first picture is me with my friend Sharath, who works down the hall from me.

And this is Carmen and Payel, both of whom work in my lab.

The Grim Reality

Fair warning: This is a Debbie Downer post.

So last night I was aimlessly browsing facebook for a long time, and I randomly came across a facebook group dedicated to the death of one of my former students. I had no idea he had died.  He was actually one of my favorite students I've ever had- super nice, hardworking, genuinely interested. I could've definetly been friends with him. After some detective work (searching the archives of the newspaper in his hometown), I found out that back in July he lost control of his vehicle and ran off the road into some trees and was thrown out.

Sometimes I forget that people my age die.  Freak accidents happen.  Life is transient.  I suppose it's a good reminder, but it sucks that such a great human being is gone.

Anectdotes from Sunday School

One of my favorite things about hanging out with a group of 5-7 year olds is the funny things they say or do.  Here are some of my favorites from this morning:

Kid: "We went in a cave once and it was like 50 feet tall.  Mommy said that's about 13 daddies."

While they were coloring-

Me: So what are your favorite songs these days?

Kid #1: Hosanna!

Kid #2: (named another Christian song, I don't remember what it was)

Annoyed Kid #3: Do I have to say a Jesus song?

Me: Of course not!

Kid #3: Ok then, mine is Free Ride with Lightning McQueen. (I assume it's from the movie Cars)

At the beginning of the Bible lesson-

Me: Ok, let's pray. Dear God, thank you for letting us be here, and help us learn more about you. Amen.

Kid: Gee, that was short.

Sing to the moon.

I'm might be more overwhelmed right now than I ever have been.  Not by work, or life, or responsibilities....by music.  The pace at which I'm getting new music right now is much faster than the rate at which I can actually listen to it all.  I think it's safe to say that I'm probably getting on average about 4 or 5 new albums per week.  There are several reasons for this. 

1. The advent of Ruckus (and my subsequent knowledge of how to free my Ruckus songs from the oppression of the licenses they bear).

2. Mojo, a program that lets you browse the iTunes libraries of other computers on your network and download the songs to your computer.  This has made for some ravenous music sharing with the roomies.

3. Friends making mp3 cds for me.

4. New releases from some of my favorite bands.

That being said, here is a list of albums I have fallen in love with lately.  If you are cool, you will like these albums too.

-New Surrender by Anberlin

-The Sparrow and the Crow by William Fitzsimmons

-You are My Sunshine by Copeland

-For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver

-Conor Oberst (self-titled)

-For All This by The Early November

-and there are others but I'm writing this at the end of a long day of work and my mind is going blank.

What a wonderful thing to be overwhelmed by.

"...better dressed than any girl on her wedding day."

So I've been listening to Jon Foreman's (lead singer of Switchfoot) solo acoustic albums lately and they are way good.  He made four EP's, one for each season, and I thought I'd share one of my favorites from the Spring EP.  It's called "Your Love is Strong," and it's a modern take on the Lord's Prayer.  These are my favorite lyrics from the song:

I look out the window
The birds are composing
Not a note is out of tune
Or out of place

I walk to the meadow
And stare at the flowers
Better dressed than any girl
On her wedding day

So why should I worry?
Why do I freak out?
God knows what I need
You know what I need!

That is all. Hopefully I will start posting more often than I have been.

How to dress like a European, and smell like one too!

Hello? Is this thing on? There's like an inch of dust on this thing.

So I just got home from what I'm calling my annual "science camp." This year it was at the University of Toronto, and there were around 700 grad students and professors from my field from all over the world. I always get a kick out of how differently European men dress from Americans. In addition to being the annual science camp, these meetings also give me a fresh look at the new trends in European fashion. So without further ado, here is a list of must-do's to look uber cool and trendy (Euro-style).

-Of utmost importance is the capri pant (man-pris). It was like a floodgate of 3/4 length opened and I got caught in it.
-Of lesser, but very high importance is black socks. With sandals, shoes, any other desirable footwear.
-Extreme v-neck t-shirts...time to show some man-cleavage.
-Faux hawks. Nothing says "I'm european" like a huge spike down the middle of your head.
-A last rule of thumb for dressing like a european is the tighter the better.

Now you can all go and dress like european men. You're welcome.

Skies so blue, hearts so true.

Hello. It has been too long, here's what I've been up to.

-Finished writing my grant proposal. I was so excited to be done writing that I literally could not proofread it as closely as I should've - thus it got turned in with a handful of typos.

-A freakin awesome trip to Albany, NY. The highlights included hanging out with Dan alot, a legendary 24 hours in Montreal, hiking to a waterfall in the Catskills, hiking to the top of Black Mtn. in the Adirondacks (or the 'dacks as the locals call it), visiting Schenectady's finest cougar hotspot, and eating lots of Hormel products.

-Successfully defended my grant proposal! I'm now officially a Ph.D. candidate. Thanks to everyone who celebrated with me afterwards with El Camino Real and Habibi - it was a blast!

-Got selected to give a talk at the conference in Toronto that I'm going to in July. Holy crap I'm talking about my research in front of like 800 people. It's kind of a big deal.

-It's summer!

ps. There's a lab full of Chinese people downstairs and they are ALWAYS listening to country music. I don't know why, but it makes me laugh every time I hear it.

EDIT: I almost forgot! I decided that my all time favorite 80's pop songs are Oh Sheila by Ready For the World, Africa by Toto, and Take on Me by Aha.  At least these are my favorites at the moment.