One week at a time: Week 79

This week ends with my first meeting on the graduate student council but since it is pretty frustrating and raises my blood pressure just to think about the incompetence and pettiness, it will go first. This story begins over a year ago when I was a grad representative on the graduate studies committee. In close quarters with our department chair, he "asked" that I take up the role of departmental representative to the council of graduate students. Unfortunately, this was easier said than done as the elections process was riddled with errors and it took five months and several signatures to finally get onto the council. Of course, these kids are career undergraduate school government politicians, and they think nothing of planning meetings for hours during the work day. It was four meetings before I was even able to attend one, and weeks of drama about graduate leadership and faked feelings of oppression (damn MA in theater studies...) by the time I got to a meeting. I got there just to find out that my committee role had been cut because the chair wasn't able to read emails correctly. And I sat there for two hours as graduate students argued about why they should give money - that wasn't theirs and had been sitting in a bank account blocking future influx to same-said bank account from Coca-Cola student funds - to students trying to perform research abroad. What a waste of my time! I plan to resign from this ASAP, there is no progress to be make with these stone-hearted, numb-witted cousins of Moses' Pharaoh. To top it all off, I had to bike back in a freak snowstorm because I was stuck in the meeting for so long. At least I had my anger to keep me warm.

Cyclocross! Nothing like a bit of snow biking on road tires.

My proposal is in! After a weekend to relax and refocus, the last of the proposal was finished this week and submitted four hours ahead of the deadline. I have to give a lot of credit to our grant development specialist for all of her help in navigating the websites and proofreading some of the sections. My advisor says I stand a decent chance of funding based on the quality of the proposal, but I know there were 500-odd submissions and only 50 will be funded. Rough odds still look just that - rough.

Right after finishing up the grant and while I was waiting for the final recommendation letters from the other side of the water, I went to attend a seminar by a visiting professor from Nigeria who did his graduate work here in 1987. Just a few years ago... I have only a few notes from this seminar, that was attended by about 20 people, five of them fellow Nigerians. We delved into a discussion late about the deficit of funding and the struggle for educational quality in Nigeria. I guess I didn't realize the seminar was to be a pitch for funding, and based on our chair's reaction I'm not sure he was ready for it either. But there were three big takeaways from this professor that I want to share with you all.

1) He said he had a bit of life-coaching for the young ones in the room. "If you want to be successful in life, don't die." Yes, that was his simple advice and it's certainly a fair way to start. Even deeper though, if you think about failure, the only way to achieve success amidst failure is to keep on going. Keep trying, don't give up, don't die.
2) The speaker had done some great outreach work in his home region with the simplest of resources. Too often my peers seem to think they must have the newest technology in order to complete their research. Sure, the new gadgets or programming are nice but it is the mind that must be freshest and sharpest if you want to have an impact on science and your community.
3) A funny story goes something like this... When said professor was just a a student and was getting ready to head off to America to begin his graduate program, the village leaders wanted to bestow on him magical powers to protect him in the big world. So they used magic to make him bulletproof with this vest that would protect him in his adventures. But he said that night he couldn't sleep; he wanted to know if it worked. So he went back to the guy and said he wanted to know if it works. "Well," says the magician, "Put it on." "No! Is there another way we can test it?" "Do you have a goat?" And off they went, tying a village goat to a tree with this bulletproof vest wrapped around its unsuspecting body. They sight up the goat and pull the trigger. Something in the vest bursts into flames and the goat dies and is incinerated immediately. In a flash of fire, the goat is dead and gone. I guess years later he was still pretty glad he didn't test the vest out himself...

Jasmine and Daisy outside at last.

So late in this week was snowy and cold, but early during the work week it was actually pretty nice. The sun came out, the snow melted a bit and we finally let Jasmine and her mother out to run around. They were so happy to be out of the barn, and Phil was glad for the company. There's not really any grass for them to eat but they are happy to run around and rummage through the leaf pile. Jasmine is eating a little bit and so the next step is to get her trained to eat inside an area with specialized panes that are only big enough to let her through. There, she can eat her special lamb starter with greater protein concentration to support her growth and we don't waste that good feed on her mother who doesn't need it. We also have to settle on a name soon. Part of the law with raising sheep is that they get tagged with a state ID tag. This makes it easier to track animals back to their birthplace in case of a disease outbreak just by using their eartags. So my wife and I need to come up with a farm name to register and get this special tags from our state DOA.

I suppose it's been a while since I graced all of you with alcohol conversation, so for you scotch fans out there, this one's for you. Back at the beginning of February, my best man and long-time best friend proposed to his wonderful girlfriend. They surprised my wife and I with a visit the next week and honored us with the request to be the best man and matron of honor! I'm the matron, of course. We are very excited for this and it really reflects how much we value their friendship, too. They have been great friends, awesome support and gobs of fun. Many a game of euchre has gone late into the night. And somewhere along the way last year a bucket list item came up that my best man would really like to drink some Glenlivet 18. "Every man should have it on their list." Well, that was all we needed. That, and the permission to spend $100 on a bottle of liquor from our significant others. That permission came during a rare euchre skunking by the guys over the girls, breaking a long-time streak of female dominance in the games. No matter where I've lived, house rules have always been that a skunking either sends the losers running 1 lap around the house naked (in current -10F that wouldn't have been advisable) or the winners get free booze. It wasn't free, but it might has well have been. Now we only needed an occasion to celebrate with such a fantastic prize. Enter his engagement and my candidacy exams. Check.

So we broke out the Glenlivet this week and it was worth every penny. There was a time that I couldn't have appreciated it, but that time expired with my liver's ability to save me from vodka-induced poisoning sessions. This scotch was smokey, but sweet, with fragrance of fruit/honey. I savored every sip. "There's a special place in hell reserved for men who waste fine scotch...", and I was not one of them.

So much grease with fried jowl.

One thing that I was not afraid to waste was some of the smoked pork jowl that I fried up this week. My wife said it was disgusting, and she wasn't too far off. In truth, there were salvageable pieces that required a lot of precision trimming, but almost all of it was fat so that it even discouraged Betsy after a while. Yes, to calm the rumors, I did put the trimmed part on my macaroni and cheese. I have a soft spot for mac and cheese with pork, bbq sauce and parmesan cheese. I don't know, don't ask. This was just a bit too greasy and I ended up picking it off before I ate the rest of the mix because it just wasn't quite the same as pulled pork or bacon on top. Trust me, pulled pork with mac/cheese is definitely good. Jowl, not so much.

Hannah has discovered the toy bin. Now we just have to teach her to clean it up.

At the end of last weekend, we also got to celebrate Valentine's Day in a non-conventional way that demonstrates the uniqueness of both of us in this crazy marriage. It was my plan just to make dinner reservations and go out for a nice break after all the craziness with candidacy and proposals. But my wife had other ideas and wanted to find something out of the ordinary. That chance came just a few days before the holiday with an email from our zoo about a chance to do dinner under the frozen Christmas lights, eat hors d'ouevres (<-- freaking French spelling) and visit with the zookeepers and the koalas, polar bears, elephants and fishies. It was a cold night out, but above freezing so we walked around for a few hours, listened to zookeepers talk about animal mating and courtship, and drank champagne with the manatees. A historical carousel was also open and we rode it around until I was starting to get dizzy. We watched the baby elephant play with a plastic barrel and enthrall dozens of people for more than 20 minutes. All in all, we had a great, cold time. The best of it was being able to see the polar bears down by the chilly water in the moonlight. A great way to cap off a relaxing night together.