New adventures

In less than a month, I will be starting my postdoc at Penn State. I'm pretty excited to have an office again, and to explore a new place. I'm not thrilled by the weekly commute, but I am so, so thankful that I will be working somewhere close enough to Philadelphia that I can come home every week. And I am looking forward to improving my snowboarding skills this winter on the slopes that are only 15 minutes from campus. (!)

For now, I am trying to re-energize myself to work. It is a sometimes losing battle, although I have managed to get some work done. I am trying to finish an R&R now. The editor has asked for a number of rather large revisions, so it's a slow process. But I'm getting there, and hope to finish by the end of the week. I am also trying to finally get back to all the papers I abandoned during the last year. My co-authors have been very patient for a long time, but I know they are tired of waiting. Too bad there are several of them. I think I am a tad bit over-committed.

The good part of having more time on my hands (or at least not having any immediate deadlines) is that I have been able to run, cycle, and go to yoga on a more regular basis. I love progressing in these areas, and I think I have.

I have some pictures of meals I (or Alison and I) cooked over the past few weeks, which I hope to post soon. When I'm uninterested in work, I put my time and energy into cooking. It works out well.

Lastly, I have been avoiding all news of the health care bill. I see those NY Times articles staring up at me, and I can't bare to watch. I'm so nervous that it will fail again, and I just can't watch it happen. This country needs better health care. It is a CRIME that people can go without--that insurance companies can declare someone "uninsurable", that insurance is linked to work, that people can lose all their money because of an unanticipated illness... The list goes on. This is a topic I cannot even write about in a cogent manner, because I feel so angry about it. How can someone be against healthcare for everyone? Why is "socialized medicine" such a bogeyman? I'm cool with socialized medicine. Yes, even if it occasionally means I wait a little longer to see a PCP or some other minor inconvenience. I'll deal. I think we all will.

Time off in NYC

It seems that all I have been doing lately is taking time off. And this week I extended my "vacation" by visiting New York. It was actually a Brooklyn vacation, since we spent nearly all our time in Brooklyn, only venturing into Manhattan once, for a couple of hours. But that is what I go to New York to do--visit friends, eat yummy food, hang out in bk, and pretend I still live in the slope. It was a lot of fun, and we got to visit Jen & Andrea, who will be moving to Germany soon, as well as many other good friends.

We also ate some amazing food! Jen & Andrea brought us to Chavela's (in Prospect Heights), a fantastic and cheap Mexican restaurant. Their guacamole & mole were really good. On Wednesday, Alison took me to Tom's Diner, a Prospect Heights institution, where I had a cherry lime rickey and sweet potato pancakes (yum!) We went to Ippudo, a great ramen restaurant in the East Village, for lunch on Thursday. We followed this up by cupcakes at ChikaLicious's dessert club (a s'mores cupcake & a red velvet cupcake). Back in Philly, we continued our foodie vacation. Last night, we grabbed dinner at our favorite local restaurant--an unassuming but great Ethiopian restaurant around the corner from us. We ate the lamb special, which was fantastic. This morning we bought a french baguette from the local bakery and some fruit from Sue's, and had a tartine with fruid salad (mango, banana, and figs in a honey lime mint sauce) and a latte for breakfast.

Today we are working (posting on this blog is work, right?) this afternoon, before taking another break to celebrate the 4th. After today, I must get back to work. I have many co-authors tapping their feet at me... Not to mention an R&R that needs to get done. Oops...