Welcome Home to Snow

Looking out the front door to snow

After ten days away on the West Coast, I finally arrived back in Lansing. It was a wonderful trip, although strange as well. I have made Lansing my home and found a routine for myself, as well as focus to concentrate on school and to pursue what I have always dreamed of pursuing. Being back in Seattle reminded me why I love the landscape of the Pacific NW, and my heart ached ever so slightly for the salt water, mountains, big trees, and steep hills of the city. However, I know that place isn't my home anymore, and when the plane took off to come back to Michigan, my body longed for the Midwest. I was reminded of one of my favorite children's books titled Grandfather's Journey by Allen Say. In it he writes, "...the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other." Although my feelings are not quite this easily translated, I do have a hint of having the pull of one western and one midwestern state. 

We Travel with a Robot Arm

After our first day out in Coeur d'Alene to watch the eagles, we spent the rest of our time there doing some much needed lounging, reading, watching terrible movies, shopping, and last on the list, visiting the Spokane Winter Glow Spectacular. This is a first for Spokane and the lights are located at Riverfront Park near downtown. The sidewalks and paths of the park have little light displays set up all around, and even some Christmas music being piped out near the large fountain in the middle of the park. Since it was the inaugural year, we just had to go! It was kind of like a mini tour of Christmas lights, but only with flat two-dimensional figurine displays. I can't remember the last time I was in Spokane during the Christmas season, I think it may have been almost seven years ago. Even though there was no snow this year, I do appreciate the small city celebration that Spokane embodies.

Next, we flew to Seattle to visit the other side of the family, our robot arm in tow. (It's a gift for one of our friend's children, we think he'll like it). I carried it in my backpack all the way from Detroit, and when the TSA stopped my bag on the security machine I thought for sure it was because of the robot arm. Instead, the TSA agent who was requested to rifle through my bag pulled out my reading book and walkie-talkied over to his buddy, "Hey Mike" and lifted up the 900 page novel of the second book in the Game of Thrones series. I responded "Oh, it's just the book? I thought for sure it would have been the robot arm" at which point the TSA agent made a little robot arm pinching motion himself. We were free to go.

Two Turtle Doves and 120 Eagles!

I arrived in Spokane very late on Saturday night (basically, it was Sunday if one wants to be specific about what time it was). Traveling from Eastern Time, however, made the trip even more brutal because 1am in Spokane is 4am in Lansing. Despite the long day of travel, I woke up mostly rested on Sunday and spent the morning drinking coffee, reading the paper and visiting with my folks. Then on Sunday afternoon, we went to Lake Coeur d'Alene to watch the eagles fish in the lake. During December, bald eagles have a stop over in CdA to fish and catch their breath before they continue south to California and Arizona. CdA is one of the few places in the US to see this kind of eagle action, and it was pretty cool. There is a small ferry boat that takes people out to the other end of the lake to an area called Wolf Lodge Bay. Once the boat gets close to this part of the lake, the eagles are just everywhere. And I mean everywhere! They are sitting in trees looking stoic, soaring on thermals, cruising the shore, and diving feet first and plucking fish out of the lake. And to top off the gorgeous weather and sunshine, it was a record day for eagles. the count was the highest of the season, at 120. Very cool indeed. 

A One-Eyed Cat and a Ticket to Ride

Last night we went to our friendly neighbors for one last game night before we all leave town for the holidays. We started playing a game called Ticket to Ride, which is quite fun. Don't judge us that the directions are for six year olds. Basically, if you build the most train lines from a stack of picked routes, you win. Last night, I won. This is rare, so I like to rub it in a little. Our neighbors also have three pets, one of which is a super sassy friendly one-eyed cat named Oscar. The other two are dogs, who aren't as sassy. Oscar watched the game with us, and I think he was also pretty pleased that I won.

  

More Little Fixes

When we first found this house in Lansing, we were told that it would get a fresh coat of paint before we moved in. (This also meant we couldn't paint anything) Getting a fresh coat of paint on the interior also meant that all of the hardware was painted: knobs, hinges, escutcheons, latches. Fortunately, I know someone who can fix all of this! Now, almost all of the hardware and doorknobs in the house are cleaned and look so much more attractive. He's even fixing the mechanisms for the latches. It's all these little things that make living here so much more wonderful. I'm so appreciative to have a handyman around because, well, without him I would just live with cabinets that get stuck shut and crusty painted knobs. Here's a before and after.

I Am Told Grades Don't Matter

Oh, and by the way, I did just fine. Actually, I did great.

One of the first conversations that the faculty have with new PhD students is the conversation about grades. Specifically, the fact that grades don't matter. This program is about the learning process, not about a number on a scale of 1 to 4. With that said, the faculty also remind us that just because grades don't matter does not mean that we can have a subpar performance. Also, for someone like me who has a departmental assistantship, I need to have a certain grade-point average to maintain my funding. This dual kind of conversation happens a lot in the program. For example, "You don't need to be worrying about comps right now" and then the next 30 minutes are spent discussing comps. This happened to me twice already. So, the semester is officially OFFICIALLY over, because grades are out now. Additionally, the residual anxiety I have been experiencing the last few days can now be put to rest. During the semester I have told myself and my cohort mates, "Grades don't matter!" but in reality I silently fret and wring my hands. This last week, I woke up almost every night at 2am feeling guilty about my overall performance, and hoping that my quant professor doesn't think poorly of me because I bombed the final. Or that I probably could have done just a little more on my final paper for my Prosem class. At 2 in the morning I am trying to remind myself, "Grades don't matter!" and yes, I have learned! I have learned so much! However, sometimes that hardest thing to learn is that learning in itself is the aim here. And after I lull myself back to sleep I remind myself that I certainly am achieving this aim.

The Tranformation

My semester is officially over! This past weekend I had a mixture of emotions. I admit, that I felt stressed out, and anxious (because of the horrible exam experience I had on Friday) and also confused about what to do with myself. During the last week I just wanted to be finished with everything, and then when it finally came, I didn't know what to do. I woke up on Saturday morning and tried to find something to work on, but I was also fatigued so I also just wanted to watch bad television all day.

What ended up happening was the transformation of my dining table desk into what I call the Craft Palace. I also started expanding my Craft Kingdom onto the coffee table, but was able to reel it back in late yesterday. I'm getting used to relaxing, and it's pretty nice. Relaxing and crafting for the next few weeks. So if a ric-rac dish towel shows up at your door, please know it was with the best of intentions.

Decorations UP!

The lights are up! The tree is trimmed! And I have my one Christmas wall hanging on the wall! It's been so lovely to decorate our little house for the holidays, and turn the tree lights on each evening.

On the Night Before My Final Exam

It is 6:21pm, and although I could still study for another three hours, I have decided to call it quits on reviewing for my quant exam tomorrow. My thinking is that, I'll let the calculations and the regressions run through my head and then sink in for the rest of the evening so that I can wake up early, read over all of my notes, walk to campus, sit down with 67 others and hand calculate for 2 hours. I have confessed that I do enjoy this, right? There is something extremely satisfying about comparing, correlating, and discovering relationships between sets of data. It gives richness to little points of information, and I find this so fascinating. Now I just need to remind myself of this when I sit dow to take the test.

Three Classes a Semester

Today is my last long Tuesday of the semester. As an aside, it's been an adjustment to say "semester" because for years I was on a quarter system. And these semesters are a long haul. Although I have to admit, that having 14-15 weeks to dive into a subject area is so much better than only 10. Okay, back to Tuesdays. Today is the last long Tuesday of the semester. One semester of long Tuesdays down, one more to go. Many of my classmates are taking two classes, unlike a handful of us who are taking three. (They are taking two because the majority of them are working, which I don't understand how one can balance that. I mean, I did that during my master's degree, but that was much different than this.) So last week, one of my classmates said, "Okay everyone, one more week! We're almost there!" Then I piped up, "Well, for most of you there is one more week. For some of us, we still have an exam left." Then he said, "Oh yeah, sorry. Well, one more week for some of us! And Emiko, you can give us the bird when you are completing your degree and the rest of us have another year left because we only took two classes a semester."

A Fair Weather Cyclist

It's been cold. Not extremely cold, like pushing zero cold, but cold enough that I haven't ridden my bike in a while. The first snow a few weeks ago made me re-think all season biking in Michigan. I know there are people who do this, but I have to admit, I'm a little afraid. The wind chill on my face, numb fingers and toes, and most of all, the condition of my bicycle. Unlike the west-coast cities, Lansing, and all parts of the country that get regular snow, salt the roads. This turns into what I've been told is the "salt line" on your pants, and also means washing your car regularly in the winter time. This also makes me second guess biking because, well, (I know this is a totally lame excuse) I have a lovely bicycle!! I love this thing. I don't want it get all crappy with road salt. I know, I know, I could just rinse it off. But then I think "My numb fingers and toes". And then I think, "If I walked, I could listen to a podcast and keep my hands in my pockets and wear my big snow boots." Yes, these are the things that go through my head when I consider how to get to campus. As of late I have been walking to campus, but then there are days when I don't have time to make the 50 minute walk and I stare at my bike, then run to the bus-stop.

The reason I have to explain all of this is because I grew up with a dad that biked to work almost every day. I thought this was normal.  I thought biking to and fro was just, you know, how one gets around. In high school I used to bike to school every once in a while (until my seat got stolen and I got annoyed). Then I switched to walking. My first job after undergrad I biked to work, because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. I continued to do this off and on throughout my career in every city I've lived in. But I've been an amateur bike commuter most of life until moving to Michigan when I used my trusty steed every time I had to get to campus, or really, go anywhere. I love my bike, what can I say? But, but, it's just so cold. And the salt. Maybe I'll give it a go soon, (after enough guilt has settled in) but for now, it's walking with a podcast.

In the Season

Yesterday the holiday spirit overtook me. I think I had been building up to this, because I had been ogling the Christmas decorations at the craft store (and I mean the cheap ones). I almost justified buying a weird plastic ribbon because it was 60% off. Last week I bought an Advent Calendar, you know, the ones with the chocolates inside for each day? And also a wreath which I put some ribbon around (that would be real ribbon, not molded plastic). And then, yesterday came. And I just couldn't take it anymore. I needed a tree. So after a quick conversation about trees, we went and bought one. A fake one. That's how we justified it. This talk about a tree started with the lights we found downstairs so we could put lights up around the outside porch. After we decided that the two small strands of white lights would look just lovely around a tree, we hopped in the car. So our untangling of Christmas lights turned into a shopping trip for a fake tree and two more big strands of multi-colored outdoor lights. And almost an over-priced tree-skirt, but we dodged that. It was a jolly good time. We came home, turned on some Vince Guaraldi, unbent the tree branches, snapped the tree together, made some origami tree decorations and sat back and enjoyed our handiwork. And we have more plans. Oh yes. We need a tree topper (not sure if we'll make one or find a cheap one) and also one big "something" to put out with the lights on the porch. I heard, "Maybe a star, or snowflake or something" I'm really very excited about this because it's been a very long time since I've had a tree. Or even decorated for the holidays at all. Maybe it's the Midwest thing for me to do?

Have a Yule that's Cool

Friday night we went out to see a music show in an area of Lansing called REO-Town. First, a little about REO-Town. It's a district in Lansing that is just south of the downtown area, and is named such because of Ransom Eli Olds, you know, Oldsmobile. There is an enormous concrete wasteland nearby as well, where the former Oldsmobile factory used to be. This area is seeing somewhat of a revival, and it's inspiring to see this type of thing go on in a place like Lansing. It feels so much more needed and gratifying in this part of country and Michigan. So we went to see a musical act called the Lansing Unionized Vaudeville Spectacle. It was a lot of fun, and a special holiday show with dancing, Christmas songs, shadow puppets, and kazoos. I felt small town while at the show, that feeling of community that can only come from a small town, with such a diverse mix of people all wanting to support and love this part of Lansing.

The Lansing Unionized Vaudeville Spectacle (or LUVS)

Gonna Make It

I have exactly one week left of the semester, and the only thing standing in my way is a quantitative analysis exam. Earlier today I turned in my last paper, and then sat in on a conference call for my assistantship. I've decided to take the rest of the afternoon off and do some relaxing things (like reading Game of Thrones or watching Murder She Wrote). Then starting tomorrow I'm going to hit my statistics book hard so I can review (and re-learn) my quant methods for the exam. For now, this is how I feel: Like Lucky Day (aka Steve Martin) in Three Amigos. The scene where he's in the cell, using all his strength to try to escape. "Gonna make it, gonna make it, gonna make it!"

Let's Get Crafty!

Here is the first "slide" of my presentation, along with
the handout with my bubble presentation and my theoretical framework

I am almost finished with a big paper - the mini-proposal I have been working on for the last several weeks for my Proseminar class. I am hoping to put it to bed by Saturday so that I can then turn my attention to re-learning all the quantitative lessons that I had to let fall by the way-side. I need to re-learn them because my final exam is on the 12th. However, the paper I am putting to bed this weekend also had a presentation attached to it, which I gave yesterday.

It's not that I hate PowerPoint presentations, it's just that I'm not very good at putting them together. So when I give presentations, I usually like to either stand up with no PowerPoint slides, or do what I like to call, "crafty powerpoints". This is what I chose to do on Tuesday. I just really needed an excuse to get crafty, because the thought of spending more time at my computer trying to lay out a presentation made me pull my hair out. (And speaking of hair, I have found a lot more grey hairs in the last month on my head. I'm not trying to be vain or anything, but this is what is happening.) Anyway, hair pulling. So I decided to make my crafty powerpoint with giant post-it notes. And I cannot tell you how excited I was to find giant post-it notes at the office store!! Pretty cool. Because I love post-its, I use them for everything. I even stick them on my phone to remind myself of things.

The presentation went over well. I made handouts for everyone, and also did a crude survey where everyone got a post-it note. I'll synthesize that data later this week.

It has Been Confirmed

Last night was my last full class for organizational theory. My cohort was divided in their feelings about this class, because the content is not easily accessible, nor is it very inspiring to most. I happened to really enjoy the class. I like talking about theory, and using theory to test against whether a situation might or might not be true. I like the concept of turning something hypothetical into an experiment, to see if what is hypothetical is or isn't actually the outcome of the supposed situation. But that's just me.

During my last class, my professor was describing the process of analytical writing for our exams next year. And he actually said, "You need to have this skill because you will be required to write about things you don't know about, and this is how you do it." So it has been confirmed. I am being asked to write about things I don't know. The feeling I've been having of "lost at sea" because I'm writing about things I don't completely understand is valid. Yet the pieces are coming together, because the skill of knowing how to write about things I don't know about is what my professors are teaching me to do this first year. I find this completely fascinating.

Why I Love Murder She Wrote

A few weeks ago, I had an insatiable desire to watch Murder She Wrote. It came on strong, and so I went to my computer and started searching for episodes. For any of you who also have this kind of appetite for late 80s and early 90s murder dramas, you will be glad to learn that ALL TWELVE SEASONS of Murder She Wrote are on Netflix. That's right. Available for your streaming. So this desire wasn't just a one night thing, I've been watching at least 6 episodes a week. And you know what? This show is amazing! I remember watching it as a young teen-ager (ahem, with my mom) but now, it's like an entire new series, with familiar faces.

There are several reasons I love this show, in addition to the crime solving aspect (because you know I can watch back-to-back episodes of Law & Order as well - all of this crime drama addiction I blame on my mom). Here are 7 top reasons: 1) Tom Bosley has the worst, I mean THE WORST Maine accent I have ever heard. And it's so bad, it's good. 2) Jessica Fletcher is so peppy! 3) Jessica confronts anyone who is putting her rights at risk. (See several episodes in Season 3, when she declares, "You are holding us here against our will!" or "You have no right to do this!") 4) Angela Lansbury is super classy 5) Everyone who is guilty of the crime casually confesses to Jessica at the end of every episode 6) I get to see guest stars like Dirk Benedict, Courtney Cox, Leslie Nielsen, Tom Selleck, and more! 7) This show is the best way for me to decompress at the end of the day. I can't put my finger on it, maybe it's the wardrobe of the cast, or the Cabot Cove setting. Whatever it is, I love it.

Watch Out! His Eyes are Raisins

We have the sweetest neighbors. The first day we arrived in Lansing as we were unloading the truck, a nice young fellow came over and offered to help. He then proceeded to help us unload the remainder of the truck, which was basically over half full with all the heavy furniture. He then asked if we wanted to come over later that evening and try out his beer, because he's a home-brewer. If that's not a Welcome to Lansing, I don't know what is. We often spend Sunday evenings playing board games with them.

Last night, he and his wife stopped by and gave us some homemade cookies. They had been up in Mt. Pleasant, about an hour north of Lansing where they both grew up, making cookies with his Grandma. So they gave us a few, and we promptly scarfed them down. I did capture this quick picture before they were all eaten. And I was also warned that Santa's eyes were raisins, so I plucked those out before I ate his face.