New Computer!

I bought a new computer yesterday, which was the second largest purchase of my life (my first being a certain ring...) I did not get a Mac. I had wanted to, but it was just too expensive for my budget. However, I am very excited about my new Dell--it's a Studio XPS, and I added more memory and a bigger hard drive along with a couple of other upgrades, so it should be roughly comparable to a MacBook Pro (at more than $1K less). It should arrive on or around my birthday, appropriately enough.

In the meantime, my old computer has pretty much died. The C drive is full, and the security system tells me it has found and killed a virus. Having little faith in the security system (the computer is more than 5 years old and has been on the fritz for at least 2 years now), I'm not so sure I want to transfer any of my files to the new computer. Luckily, I have already transferred most of my important files to my work computers, so I may not have to deal with that at all.

Unfortunately, until my new computer arrives, I cannot upload new pictures (disk is too full). I had planned to post pictures of my trip to China, my new haircut (very short!) and maybe food pics. But this will all have to wait. Stay tuned for pictures, and in the meantime I will try to entertain you with words...

Home Again

(Sidenote: "Home Again" was the name of my stepmother's consignment shop in RI.)

I am back from China. I had a good time, overall, although there were some bad spots. The conference was fun, if a bit lonely. JD & Hedy weren't in town until the last day, and Kathie didn't hang out at the conference for meals, so I spent a lot of time by myself. I met a couple of cool people, including a guy from the Ukraine who was in grad school in Japan, and grad student and professor from France. My collaborator from UCLA, Judith, introduced me to a couple of people she worked with as well. My presentation with JD went well--people told me they liked it, and they seemed genuine enough. And I felt pretty confident while giving the talk, which is always a good sign. I also saw some very good presentations. There was a banquet on the second day of the conference, at which I ate Peking duck. Yum!

On the very first night I was in China, Michelle and Ed (the people I was staying with) and I went to eat hot pot. Oh, how I regret this. I began to get sick on Saturday afternoon, shortly after I left the conference. Michelle and Ed had already been sick over the preceding day. I had stomach pains all afternoon and evening, threw up in the middle of the night while burning an extremely high fever, and then had a fever, chills, and stomach pains the following day. By the afternoon, I was able to walk around one of the old neighborhoods in Beijing with Michelle, before the fever came back and we went home.

On Monday, I felt much better, and I joined Lisa, Kathie, Hedy, Scott, and JD for a tour of the Wangfujing Snack Street--the one where you can buy scorpions on a stick! It was fun to look around, but we eventually went into a restaurant for lunch. After lunch, JD, Scott and I went to the Forbidden City, and then I went home.

On Tuesday, Michelle, JD and I hiked 8KM of the Great Wall. It was very fun, and very difficult. It was quite hot, and there were many steep climbs up stairs and the remnants of stairs. After 4+ hours of this, we ended our hike by taking a zip line over a small lake, and then a bus ride home. That night we had a yummy dinner followed by desserts at a rooftop bar.

All in all, the final two days made up for my misery. I loved hiking, and am inspired to do more sometime this summer. Unfortunately, I continue to have stomach problems--I felt very ill on the plane and on Thursday. Yesterday was a bit better, and I am waiting to see how today will go. I went for a run this morning, and the heat plus my stomach made for an unhappy time of it, but my post-run meal appears to be causing only minor stomach issues. It will be a while before I have any urge to eat Chinese food, though!

So long, for now

I'm headed to Beijing tomorrow for a conference and (hopefully) some sightseeing. I'll be there the 13th-20th. Unfortunately, a draft of my dissertation is due to my co-chairs on the 20th, so I may spend much of my time in Beijing working. It's really terrible timing. I feel resignation more than any other appropriate emotion--excitement, perhaps?--at the prospect of visiting China. I feel sad that this is one of the places that I have most wanted to visit for a very long time, and yet, I am dreading the trip and feeling completely overwhelmed by the thought of writing a dissertation introduction and conclusion, editing three chapters, attending and presenting at a conference, traveling for 30+ hours, and being in a foreign country all in the next 11 days. If I felt I had the option to not take this trip, I would stay home.

Updates on a Random Wednesday

1) I now officially hate my dissertation. I feel like I might not make it in time to defend on the date I chose. And if I do, I'll still be embarrassed to defend it. Does everyone feel like this, or is it just me?

2) I joined Twitter. I haven't been twittering myself, I joined to follow others. So let me know if you...twitter? tweet? twit? Anyway, let me know and I will follow you.

3) I secretly (okay, not so secretly) despise Elizabeth Edwards. I know she's supposed to be our favorite martyr, but I find her so self-righteous and full of herself. I have felt this way for a couple of years now, ever since her nasty comments about her choices (to stay home with her kids) made her a happier person than Hillary Clinton. But apparently people are catching on. Or at least they are questioning her complicity in Edward's affair debacle. That's a start.

4) Maine legalized gay marriage. Yay, Maine!

PAA

I am back from Detroit, where PAA was held this year. Detroit was a lot better looking than I expected. It was, of course, empty (particularly the restaurants). But the architecture was really cool. Except for the conference hotel, which resembled an M.C. Escher drawing--ironic, really, given that it was the GM building. Oh, GM, when will you learn???

So, the short version of the conference:

-Wednesday: Went for a run in the best hotel fitness center ever (new machines & great view), followed by yummy dinner in Greektown. Amy and I gathered leftover food and found a church at which to donate it, doing our good deed for the week. Briefly visited the mixer and met a Wellesley grad before heading to bed, exhausted.

-Thursday: Went to a great morning session on data collection, met with a coauthor for lunch, presented a paper, had dinner with Lisa & Melinda at Slo's Bbq (yum!), drinks with a couple of fellow demographers.

-Friday: Went for a run at 6am, followed by volunteering at the info booth (it saved me the cost of registering for the conference!) Went to the cohabitation section where Amy presented our paper brilliantly. Had coffee with my future postdoc mentor. Attended Kathie's awesome PAA address, then to the Detroit Institute of the Arts with Lisa & Scott, back to the conference hotel for Kathie's party. I ended up staying there until 1am chatting with Dohoon.

-Saturday: Up at 6am to practice talk, gave said talk which went okay until the discussant revealed all the flaws that I had skipped over in the talk. Attended a session on health in which I saw perhaps the worst talk ever, then on to a great session on education. Took a taxi back to the airport with Yingchun & Yilan.

Overall, I had a good time. I always have a great time at PAA. It's amazing how good the conference is, particularly when compared to other conferences (ASA, ESS). I constantly see people I know or at least know of, the quality of the presentations is pretty high, and I'm never at a loss for something to do. And while Detroit is not the best place to visit, it gave me an excuse to visit a city I would not have a reason to go to otherwise. Yay.