"When I Grow Up" -- Making Toast and Breaking Ice

Professional Development is an important aspect of the AAAS Fellowship program. We are scientists who are trying to expand our skill sets and improve ourselves! Therefore, one of the things I *really* wanted to work on as a Fellow is my communication skills. For this reason, I have joined the NSF Chapter of "ToastMasters International" -- a group which meets every week to work on our public speaking. Every week, there are opportunities to give a prepared speech, or to stand up and give a 1-2 minute off-the-cuff speech on various topics to work on speaking on the fly. I've done a number of those short speeches, but last week I gave my very first prepared speech, my "Ice Breaker". 

When you join Toastmasters, you get a booklet with a number of different types of speeches that you can work through. The first one is just to get used to speaking in front of an audience, so you talk about the subject you know the most about -- yourself. It can be on pretty much anything related to you, and is supposed to last 4-6 minutes (keeping your speech within the allotted time is one of the goals). I took one of the suggested prompts, "how did you get to your current position", and wrote a practice script to help me prepare. While I did NOT memorize this speech verbatim, I had the outline of it in front of me, and had memorized some of the lines so that I could fall back on those words if I started blanking. I was pretty happy with my talk at the end of it, and I received some very nice comments from my speech evaluate (as well as advice -- I apparently overuse the word "so" when I speak, for example).  This is not the exact speech I gave, but I thought I would share it with all of you, and give you an idea of how I got to where I am now!

SCOTUS and Me: High Times at the Highest Court

I am not a morning person. However, this past Monday found me waking up at 4:00am, getting on the FIRST Metro train that ran at 5am, and going into Washington DC before the sun had even risen. Why would I do this to myself, you ask? To see the highest court in the land!

Ready to see the Law in action!

The Supreme Court is currently in session, from October through June or July. And oral arguments are open to the public. Seats to any oral argument are available to members of the public on a first come, first served basis. You literally only need to show up and not bring in any prohibited items or wear inappropriate attire (and not be noisy or make a disturbance, or you will be quickly escorted out). You can find the schedule of the court on their website, here, or alternatively via SCOTUSblog, which also has some very handy case write-ups.
  
I have two big pieces of advice for those interested in attending a Supreme Court argument:

1.  Go early. No, earlier than that. EARLY.
2. Do your homework. Understand the case before you enter the courtroom.

There are usually at least 50 spots reserved for members of the general public, although the courtroom can seat about 250 visitors. But those 250 seats include any officials, dignitaries, lawyers, or groups of students who have advanced seating. People also literally hire 'sitters' to wait for them in the public line. So depending on how popular the case is, those seats can fill up FAST.

We (Benson and I) deliberately chose a day where the case looked like it wouldn't attract a lot of attention: a relatively unpublicized bankruptcy law appeal. Nothing super controversial or that would turn up in the news. Our logic was that ANY case that made it up to the Supreme Court was bound to be interesting, if only for the process, and to see the courtroom and the justices. We showed up at 5:45am. We almost didn't get in.

We got to the court at 5:45am and were #69 and #70 in line. Ahead of us, a long line of people were already sitting on the curb with blankets and backpacks. We joined them, sipping on the coffee we'd brought with us, Benson reading a physics paper on his tablet, me practicing my Cantonese on my phone. We chatted a little with the people around us, but we were mostly just trying to stay awake. There were several large groups ahead of us who had clearly come together -- some of them seemed like law students. Once it was late enough that a Starbucks would be open, a small group went and fetched several large containers of coffee, returning to the cheers of their friends.

A bit after 8am, the line finally moved: police officers came by and started counting who was there. We moved off of the curb and onto and up in front of the steps of the courthouse themselves. The first group of about 50 people were handed blue tickets and got moved in front of the door to the left of the stairs -- they were soon let into the building itself, where (I hear tell) there is a cafeteria, bathrooms, and most importantly, guaranteed seating. The rest of us stood in a line in the middle of the plaza, waiting and hoping there would be more slots. I used some of this time to take over the Supreme Court Gym in Pokémon Go to distract myself from the cold. I ended up holding control over the highest court in the land for 19 hours. This amused me to no end (though that could have been, in part, the sleep deprivation).

Around 9:20, they let about a dozen more in, handing out a few more precious blue tickets. At 9:45 we were still outside, shivering in the cold.  I was fully convinced that -- since the argument started at 10am and we still had to go through security -- there was NO WAY that we were getting in, and we'd have to settle for the 3 minute quick in-and-out for those who didn't get in for the full session. But then! An officer approached, with more blue tickets and the final count, and gave out the critical 7 tickets required for Benson and I to make it in, as well as maybe 10-15 more for people behind us. I was not paying too close attention to that particular number, I was too excited to be getting in! We zipped through security (X-ray machines for you and your stuff) and headed upstairs. There, there is ANOTHER round of security gates and X-rays: you are REQUIRED to check your coats, bags, phones, and devices in the coatroom (a quarter per locker). You are allowed to bring in are paper and writing implements, but you can't bring in your phone or anything that could create a disturbance. We dumped everything in a locker except our wallets and went in; by now, it was a bit after 10am: the Justices were in the front of the court, and they were swearing people in.

 This brings me to my second piece of advice: DO YOUR HOMEWORK.

I found the court case and the argument quite engaging, but this would NOT have been true if I had walked in blindly. The night before, we very carefully went through several summaries of the case, from SCOTUSblog, Ballotopedia, and the Legal Information Institute, amongst other sources. We spent at least an hour going through it. Whenever we came to a term we weren't sure about, we looked it up and talked it over between the two of us until we were clear on the terms. We made sure we knew who the groups of people were who were involved. We looked up summaries of the different types of bankruptcy and the specific codes that the case referred to. We formed our own opinion of what we thought might be the 'common sense' ruling as far, as far as we could tell.

With this preparation, the case itself was REALLY INTERESTING! We could follow the lawyers arguments, understand the questions that the Justices asked (and every single Justice save Clarence Thomas asked at least one question during the session), and understand the answers given (mostly); even when it involved specific references to bankruptcy code.

 I was seated behind a big marble pillar, so I couldn't see the whole court at once, but if I leaned to the left or right I could see pretty much all of the justices, though they were sometimes blocked from view by the lawyer or by heads of people in front of me. From left to right, it was Justices Kagan, Alito, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Roberts, Thomas, Breyer, Sotomayor, Gorsuch. (Alternating left/right from the center by seniority, with the Chief Justice in the middle). It was REALLY COOL to see them in action! Which brings me to....

Merit Management Group, LP v. FTI Consulting, Inc.

Background: If a company or person goes bankrupt, their stuff ends up being divvied out to their creditors by some Trustee of the bankrupt estate, who is in charge of dividing up the remaining assets to pay off as much of the debt as fairly and completely as possible. The Trustee also has some powers to undo recent transactions that the debtor may have made before going bankrupt -- so if you send 30 million dollars worth of stock to your cousin right before going bankrupt, the Trustee can undo that transaction and get your assets back to give to creditors.

BUT! You don't want to do things that will seriously damage the commodities or securities markets -- undoing a multi-million dollar deal that happened a few months ago could have huge consequences, and you want those very important markets protected, because THE ECONOMY. So certain types of transactions are protected, and cannot be undone. These transactions usually involve banks, or stock brokers -- financial institutions which are carefully defined by the bankruptcy code -- safe harbors. THIS case deals with a situation which tests the limit of these safe harbors.

The Facts Were These: Valley View Downs -- a Pennsylvania racetrack owner -- bought another racetrack, Bedford Downs. They borrowed (and then repaid) money from one bank (Credit Suisse) to do this, and the money and the Bedford Downs racetrack stock were held in escrow by another bank (Citizen's Bank) for some time during this transaction. Valley View Downs later declared bankruptcy. Can the Trustees of the bankrupt estate (FTI Consulting) undo this transaction? Or can the stockholders of the Bedford Downs racetrack (including the Merit Management Group) -- keep the funds because this transaction was protected?

Credit Suisse and Citizen's Bank ARE -- and no one is arguing this -- safe harbor institutions. But they were only conduits for the money: neither of the two banks would face any losses if the transaction was unwound. Merit Management Group says that transactions can't be ungrouped: if the transaction had ended at either Credit Suisse or Citizen's Bank they would have definitely been protected by the bankruptcy code -- so if the individual transactions would be protected, so should the whole. FTI Consulting says that even if the money and stocks went THROUGH these safe harbor institutions, that doesn't mean that the transaction itself is protected: ultimately the money and stock were traded between Valley View Downs and Merit Management, just moving through the two banks temporarily as the trade was made.

The Argument: Throughout the course of the case, every Justice -- except for the famously quiet Clarence Thomas -- asked a question to at least one of the two lawyers. Some of them were even rather snarky, and there were some pretty funny moments, to be honest.  I was surprised at how much humor a lot of the justices and the lawyers showed during the session. For example, Justice Gorsuch, after asking about the scope of the overlap between bankruptcy and security transactions, and getting a rather dodgy 'I don't have the numbers" response, quipped: "So [...] a triviality we don't need to worry about, even though it was a central feature of the Seventh Circuit's opinion?"

Based on their questions, it seemed to us that the Justices were already leaning on how the case was going to go, and were mainly prodding the two lawyers to check the scope of their decision -- and that they thought that the transaction should NOT be a protected one. For instance, Justice Breyer made a query about the limits of this type of ruling: if such transfers were protected, wouldn't just telling a bank to transfer shares from the bank to your wife be protected as well? Similarly, Chief Justice Roberts followed up on a line broached by the lawyer for FTI Consulting, asking why, if they ruled in favor of Merit Management, checks going through a bank would not similarly be protected transactions. By the end it seemed the lawyer for Merit Management was squirming a lot more than the one for FTI Consulting, and that the latter case seemed far easier to defend.

The Result: I'll definitely be following up on this and reading the decision when it is released, likely in a few months time. While I suspect I know which side the court will rule on, exactly how the decision is argued was *not* made clear, and will determine the scope of how the case can be used in future bankruptcy cases. Depending on how they argue it, it could be broad or narrow. I look forward to hearing the results, and HIGHLY recommend that anyone interested in our government's inner workings try their luck for attending a full argument.

Golden Geese and Other Goodies

I am now a month into my fellowship, and two weeks into my stay as a Fellow hosted at NSF. And I've been keeping quite busy!

On the work end of things, I’ve been running all over! I’ve been trying to get a feel for the various projects and foci of the CRS group within CNS in CISE at NSF. (And there are so many new acronyms to learn, too! Computer Systems Research; Computer Networking Systems; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; National Science Foundation; FYI.) I’ve been getting familiar with the building and it’s quirks (the elevators are VERY fancy -- so fancy, in fact, that I got stuck in one within 15 minutes of entering the building for the first time). NSF just moved locations so not only am *I* unfamiliar with the layout, so is everyone else! For this reason, I’ve been making a point of taking all the AV training and the like, so I can help my group with all the newness as best I can. I have my own work computer, I have an official badge I can ‘beep’ in and out of the building and the more secure floors with, and it seems like my group works on a lot of interesting things! Everything from grant panels, to outreach programs, to career/industry training, to online performances, to international collaborations.

I'm also attending a lot of events through my fellowship program. The AAAS fellowship program (another acronym -- as a reminder, this one is the American Association for the Advancement of Science) has a lot of different workshops, events, social groups, networking events, happy hours, and seminars that the fellows are invited to attend. For example, one of the social affinity groups basically just tries a new restaurant in DC every month. When I heard about it, I decided that it OBVIOUSLY was the best social group, don’t you think? 

Also through the AAAS group, I went to the “Golden Goose” award ceremony last Wednesday, which was a LOT of fun. The Golden Goose awards were created in order to honor science that had, shall we say, unusual, obscure, or controversial beginnings. This award was conceived of as a contrast a congressman's annual ‘golden fleece awards’ – highlighting projects that used federal funding that he felt were ‘fleecing’ the American taxpayer by funding silly research. But research can have very humble, or even silly origins, since it usually starts with a question which doesn’t have a obvious or even noticeably useful answer. One of the speakers at the event had a great quote from Isaac Asimov, where he said: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not, 'Eureka! I've found it,' but, 'That's funny!'" It’s impossible to say where the next big breakthrough is going to come about, especially when research can be full of serendipity. 

So the awards on Wednesday honored three projects: mussels sticking to rocks, ‘fuzzy math’, and an obscure type of fungus that practically no one cared at all about for ages. Or rather: research that eventually turned into an adhesive that is currently in 60% of American-made plywood, dramatically changing the industry and removing the irritant formaldehyde for a far more eco-friendly adhesive. A method of analysis and statistics for situations where the answers and parameters aren’t always clear, with large commercial implications/applications in industry. And the answer to a decades old question of why certain populations of frogs seemed to die out with no immediate cause detected. The award ceremony was quite enjoyable -- I really enjoyed hearing about the science, the MC was very entertaining, plus we heard from at least 4 different representatives from congress. The reception was also particularly neat -- it was held in the beautiful hall of the Library of Congress, where we could wander over and view the reading room from above while drinking champagne and eating delicious grilled shrimp, mussels, and other hors d'oeuvres.

And last, by not least, on the home front, I’m enjoying being back in a city with all that THAT entails.  I’m living very close, within a half mile, of the new NSF building, so I can walk to work. The metro station is literally across the street from the building, so I can go into DC with ease. I'm within walking distance of Old Town Alexandria, which is full of adorable shops and delicious restaurants. There are excellent Korean and Vietnamese restaurants not even a 15 minute drive away, and I can and an excellent Mediterranean and great French restaurants literally on my walk to work. I’m going to miss Green Bank – the beauty the mountains, the quiet, the outdoor opportunities, but I gotta say, the number one thing I missed there were good restaurants within a reasonable distance! So, life is pretty good right now -- busy, but good!

Watch Out, Washington!

Hello World!

After a year and a half at the Green Bank Observatory, I have once again started a new chapter of my life. I am now a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)! This is similar to a post-doc in that it is a one to two year non-permanent position for people who have received a PhD (in this case, specifically PhDs in STEM fields). However, this position is completely outside of academia. Instead of working at a university or research institution, I am being hosted at a government agency: the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Alexandria, VA. My fellow Fellows have been placed at a host of government departments and agencies throughout the DC-metro area -- in some cases, even congressional offices!

I have a long-standing interest in politics and policy (see one of my very first blog posts!). And I am trained, in my PhD work, as an astronomer -- a scientist. So this fellowship seemed like a natural fit for me. It is designed to bring more scientists to Washington, and to train them in the workings of policy --  specifically science policy and using science to shape policy. I have now finished my initial two week orientation. I have heard many truly fascinating talks on everything from using science effectively in building policy, to the legislation process, to networking strategies, to the creation of the US Constitution. And for speakers, amongst others, we've heard  a congressman (Bill Foster, Illinois), a federal judge, and an ambassador! So it's been quite a varied two weeks!

I have not yet begun my time at the NSF -- my first day is this Monday. What will I be doing? Well, the short answer is: I don't know yet. I will be working at the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) at the NSF. There are a wide range of projects I could end up working on, so right now, I'm keeping my mind open and my options flexible. I likely won't be working very much on Astronomy-related things, I suspect, but I'm looking forwards to applying my talents to other areas.

If you are a PhD or PhD candidate and would like to try something different, I would highly recommend checking out this program! You need to be a US Citizen and have a PhD in a STEM related field, and you can be in any stage of your career -- I've met both people right out of grad school, and people who are tenured and taking a year's sabbatical!

Whether I go back to academia after my fellowship or if I stay in policy, I am sure I'll be learning a LOT throughout this fellowship and really get a new perspective. It should be interesting to explore something I'm less familiar with and, I hope, make a difference to this country.

Ramping Up

Spoils of the hunt!

One of the things that's a little tough about living in Green Bank is that to get really good produce, you have to go quite aways. Generally, most things -- be they shops, restaurants, grocery stores, or whatever -- are at least 40 minutes away. However, if you DO find fresh produce around here, it has the potential to be very, VERY fresh.

A bit over a week ago, one of the locals took a group of us out ramp hunting. If you are not familiar with these little delights, they are a type of wild onion, basically. They have a bit more of a garlicy flavor than some, and you can use them how you would use green onions, scallions, or things of that nature. Prior to this, the last time I'd picked them was when I was hiking the A.T.; we happened across a patch and just picked a few to add to our cooking pots that night. I would occasionally see them at the farmers market in NYC, but they have a fairly short limited growing season and tended to be expensive -- you really do have to trek out somewhere in the wilds to get them! But now I'm living in (or at least, near) the wilds, which means, RAMP HUNTING.


It was a fun experience, the person who took us out clearly knew exactly where they tended to grow, so the group of us were digging up and down and all around a creek that was simply swamped with the things. There were half a dozen of us, digging for at least 45 minutes, and we barely made a dent on them. We washed them up a bit in the creek, then brought them home. I brought home two big bags, one of which I gave away to a friend who'd not been able to join, and I still haven't finished cooking all of them up. So far I've made buttermilk ramp biscuits (with bacon!), fried fish with ramp aioli, ramp-and-lettuce soup (mixing two separate recipes), and I've generally just thrown them into several other dishes I've made (squash with ramps, chicken with ramps, BLTs with ramps etc). It's been fun cooking with them! They're very inspiring.


Yeah, this is a short post, I know, but hey. I've been busy. And look! I'm trying to update regularly again! Go me!

Life at the GBT

The Green Bank Telescope -- my new workplace!

Hey all! I'm now about a month into my new postdoc at the Green Bank Telescope, and so far, so good! A lot of my time so far has just been getting familiar with everything -- attending meetings (whether I know what they're talking about or not), reading the various guides to observing and proposing for time on the telescope, and meeting lots and lots of new people. I've taken a tour of the telescope, and I'm going to be starting my formal training on dealing with the telescope and doing support work next week, which will be roughly half of what I do here (the other half, of course, being SCIENCE!).

For the past couple of weeks, I've also started getting back into my own science work. A project I'm on got some observations recently on the VLA, so I was going through data for that for a bit, and I'm starting to work my way through the referee report of a paper I wrote last fall. The paper in question came back to me right at the peak of my "Gah! Gotta finish my thesis!" push, so even though I've had the report for a while now, I only recently started to make corrections on it. So it feels pretty good to be thinking about science again.

My new house!

Green Bank itself is quite different from New York City, as you can imagine.  It's a very small town and is literally situated in a National Forest, and the entire area is beautiful. There is a lot of good hiking -- a couple folks from NRAO took me out hiking one Sunday for a hike up one of the nearby mountains, stopping for lunch at the top, and we saw a trio of bears on the way back down! (Momma and two cubs, so we kept our distance.) There are also regularly large numbers of deer in the field in front of my house, so that's rather neat, as well. Springtime is (hopefully) here, but we  can apparently get snow into May, according the the people here! For a while it seemed like the weather couldn't make up it's mind, it snowed one day and was gorgeous the next.

View from my back door a few weeks ago,
when there was still snow!

We *are* in the middle of the Radio Quiet Zone. This was established back in the 50's to keep the radio noise around the telescope as low as possible. This means there is NO cell phone reception or radio reception or wifi ANYWHERE in the surrounding area. I cannot have a microwave, wifi, or even a wireless phone in my house. It takes some adjustment -- honestly the thing that's throwing me the most is the lack of microwave and not being able to reheat leftovers in 5 minutes. That and the fact that, while there are a couple convenience stores in town, to do a *thorough* grocery store run I have to go at least an hour away. This past weekend I went to Lewisburg (1.5 hrs away) to go grocery shopping and go to the movies (I saw Zootopia -- fun movie!).


I am renting a house(!) about a mile from where I work -- this is the first time I've lived without a roommate, and I now I have a 3 bedroom 2 bath house all to myself. This is quite a change from my shared NYC apartment. I've set up one of the bedrooms into a guest room, and the other I am making into an office for myself. Well, that's the goal, anyway -- it's still kind of full of the boxes I haven't unpacked yet. I've unpacked all the *critical* stuff -- clothes, stuff for the kitchen, books, CD's and DVDs -- but I admit I'm being rather slow on the unpacking of things that I don't need on a daily basis.

That's all for now, just a short update. So many new things in my life right now!

A New Start!

Post-defence celebrations!

Many important things have happened since the last time I wrote here, the most important of which is: I successfully defended my thesis!  The defence itself went well, as did turning in the thesis, but the week prior to each was rather stressful, trying to get everything done. Not only that, the week prior to my defence I was feeling rather under the weather, and to top it off, on Wednesday night my computer DIED. And I hadn't backed up my slides and notes sufficiently. So I basically had to redo the majority of the slides for my defence which was NOT NOT NOT fun at all. As you can imagine, I was in a bit of a state. But as I said, the defence itself went well. The morning of, I actually found that a friend of mine had left "before" and "after" gifts for me on my desk -- the before was a stuffed snake toy (in reference to this amazing essay), and the after was a flask of whiskey. Both were very much appreciated and helped calm my nerves.

Not only did I defend, but I have also been hired as a post-doc at NRAO's Green Bank Telescope, in West Virginia, where I will be starting in late March! I'm really looking forwards to the new position, and I expect to learn a lot.  I've been joking that this will make me a "real astronomer" since I'll actually be working at a telescope and taking actual observations.  While I am an observationalist (as opposed to a theorist), all my data for my thesis has been from radio observations. So, while I wrote numerous proposals, got approved for telescope time, and had to figure out the details of the runs, I didn't actually do the observations myself --- I sent off  the relevant info to the VLA, and they scheduled the observations and sent me the data back. Even though I've been out to various telescopes, the only time I actually controlled a 'scope and took my own data on was on a class trip to MDM observatory in Arizona, and was for a class project, not my research (though it was a great experience). I am also not counting the observations I've done teaching labs or doing outreach, since those experiences aren't taking data for research so much as showing people the stars and explaining the awesome stuff that exists in the sky.

Anyway, I turned in my thesis on January 15th, and defended on January 29th. Since then, I've moved out of my apartment in NYC and shipped a bunch of stuff down to WV, where it is in storage. I stayed with my parents in Baltimore for a week, and now am in Cambridge in the UK visiting Benson. I'll be here for about a month, then going back to Baltimore until I move to Green Bank. I haven't bought a new computer yet -- I kind of want to wait until I've gotten to my new job, to see what kind of set up I will have there and what kind of computational needs I'll have. For now, Benson has kindly given me his old computer (very similar to the one I had that died) that he is no longer using, having upgraded about a year or so ago. So I can just use this one until I've decided exactly what I want/need to replace my old one. Happily, I did back up *that* computer regularly, even if I hadn't backed it up sufficiently close to the crash to save my slides, so I have all my work. The only thing I lost was the slides and notes. Which, well, was enough.

I've been having a lovely time in the UK. It is always good to see Benson and spend time with him, and it's been lovely to just relax and not worry about work, to take a real vacation. This past weekend, some good friends of ours -- Dahlia and Paul -- were in London for *their* vacation, so we met up with them twice! They came into Cambridge one day, and we went into London another. When in London, we went to a great restaurant -- Dinner by Heston Blumenthal -- which we all REALLY enjoyed a LOT. They take historical British recipes and modernize them somewhat to make an absolutely fantastic menu. We all got different things so we could try as much as possible, and split several of the appetizers and desserts. It's hard to chose favorites, since everything we got was fantastic, but I'd particularly recommend the roast marrowbone and meat fruit appetizers and the tipsy cake for dessert. The mains it's harder to chose one thing -- the duck breast was amazing, the ribeye was an extremely flavorful steak, and the halibut was a really well made dish.

Anyway, again, I've been having a great vacation. And I am both really happy and kind of sad about finishing my thesis -- it was so much work, it's very strange to be done with it. Even if research goes on and ever on, and I will be continuing my work on parts of it, having one big written work describing everything I have worked on is an odd experience. Here is 6 years of my life in 231 pages, right?? But for now, I'll relax a bit longer and then start on my next big experience!

Life update (and Soylent review)

Hi all!

It's been ages and ages, I realize, but I never intended to let this blog die. I've just been in the midst of writing up my dissertation and job hunting. I'm going to be defending my thesis in a couple of months, likely in late January/early February, so that's been my main focus for a while now. I haven't gone on any really interesting trips since the last time I posted, and while I have been cooking some and have been to some awesome restaurants (most notably Eleven Madison Park last May!), I haven't been doing nearly as much foodie stuff lately. The most interesting thing I've done food-wise lately was cook borscht (which turned out really well, admittedly) and to try out Soylent. If you aren't familiar with the product, it's basically a drink designed to replace food -- it's balanced so that if you consume nothing but, you still fulfill all your nutritional and caloric needs without needing to cook or prep anything.

But Jennifer, you say -- you LOVE cooking! AND eating delicious new things! Why on earth would you replace food with something like that? Well, for one, I love to try new things. And I really like the *idea* behind it -- making it easy to get all your nutrition from one source in a relatively inexpensive manner (~$2.30 per bottle right now, cheaper in powder form) seems like a good idea to me. And if I'm ever going to replace food with something else, now is the time -- like I said, I'm in the middle of writing up my thesis. I'm *busy* and when I'm not busy I'm frequently *tired* and don't feel like cooking up something complicated. If you compare the frequency at which I've been cooking for the past six months ago to any other six month period of my life since moving into my own place (albeit with roommates, but also with a KITCHEN) during my junior year of undergrad, you'll notice a SHARP drop in how often I've been doing so and a SHARP rise in take-out and super-simple instant type dinners which require minimal effort. Also, it's named after a famously cannibalistic product which I find, frankly, hilarious. Know thy audience, I guess.

Anyway, they recently updated the product so that it's no longer just in powder form -- originally you had to mix it up yourself whenever you wanted it, but now it comes in conveniently pre-made bottles which I can grab on my way out the door if I'm in a hurry. They're 400 calories a pop, so in theory you can drink 5 bottles a day to get your full 2000 calories, but I maybe have one or two a week at most, when I'm tired and hungry or in a hurry to get somewhere and need food fast. Good for a quick breakfast or snack. I bought a 12 pack a little over a month ago and recently received my second one last weekend.

Taste-wise, it's kind of like a cross between unsweetened soy milk and those last liquidy dregs of oatmeal that collect at the bottom of your bowl, in that it's got a bit of thickness and texture. It tastes fine. A bit bland, but really, I like soy milk, and that's the closest thing to it, I think. Thick soy milk with a hint of oatmeal. Fine for a bit, for a meal here and there, but if I lived off the stuff I would get cravings for actual flavor pretty fast. 

Anyway, that's all for now, this was meant to be a quick life update mainly. No promises for future update schedules because right now my dissertation writing is the most important thing.

Going the Distance

So, I just realized (today) that as of maybe a week ago, Benson and I have been dating for over 10 years now. We've never celebrated dating anniversaries or anything, and I don't know the exact day we did start, to be honest, just that it was a few days before the Superbowl, which is a thing that I can look up. (I just remember being super giddy and seeing the Superbowl up on a screen in the student center, so I can't really get much more specific then that. Kind of random how memory works sometimes.) We've been doing the long distance thing since graduation, which means of that 10 years, 6.5+ of them have been long distance. 

So! To celebrate/brag/give support to other LDRers on this occasion, here are some date suggestions and general advice for things that we've done long distance. I don't claim uniqueness or creativity for any of these, by the way... I've definitely looked at ALL the articles online on doing stuff long distance. 

- Talk. Skype. Call. Figure out what times of day work and just schedule when you can make time for each other, and make this HIGH priority in your life, even if you are going crazy with homework or presentations or paper writing.

- DON'T talk. You have a ton of work to do? So do they? Just put Skype up in the background and work on your stuff in companionable silence where you can occasionally glance up and smile at the other person and listen to them working while they try and figure out why their code isn't working, dammit, and you wrestle with trying to find the bit in this stupid paper that is relevant to your research. It doesn't even need to be work, just hang out and browse the internet together. Leading to...

- Youtube videos, articles, and general internetness. Just, if you are doing nothing and interneting or listening to music on your own (or simultaneously on each end of the line), if you find and interesting article or video... link it or play it back and forth. You know how the "oh that reminds me of this other thing" chain goes. Similarly, things like Podcasts and audiobooks and music *CAN* be listened to at the same time over Skype. 

- Music! You can play music together and sing separately/together. Just rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody together or putting on some Sondheim and singing along to Sweeney Todd. Benson and I have also gone another route a couple times -- he plays the violin, so he's played some jigs and reels on his end while I danced to them on this end.

-Games. Games with remote co-op like Monaco or Castle Crashers or Portal (which we often do over Steam, which has the nice chat and voice chat options). Or Vassal is a free system where you can download and remotely play many different board/card/dice games, including straight up cards. We often play cards, or games like Pandemic or Ghost Stories. We've also both just gotten our own physical decks of cards and played things like Cribbage or other games where you don't have to actually interact extensively with the discard pile and it doesn't really matter if you are playing with 2 separate decks. You can also just separately play games and recommend them to each other and discuss strategy, of course. But I'm assuming that "tell your partner about things that interest you and you think they might like" is pretty much understood in a relationship, long distance or not. Actually, it can be pretty darn fun to watch your partner play something you've already done as you wait for something awesome to pop up so you can watch their surprise and delight. (Stanley Parable, I'm looking at you. Benson literally just watched me play that game as I DEVOURED it and he kept laughing at me as I worked through it and was being boggled and bemused at different parts of the game. It was quite fun.) Online puzzle games are also an option -- we have finished all but a few levels of the NotPron online riddle, and are currently working on the Tim Tang Test. We've both worked together and separately on the puzzles. We keep the solutions as we get them in a file in Dropbox, naturally. Also, good to note that screen sharing can be quite useful for solving puzzles and things like that. 

-Many many movies and TV shows. Download the thing, Dropbox it, get on Skype and IM and count down from 5 and press play at the same time, then mute them and chat on IM about the thing as you watch. We usually have multiple TV shows that we've got in the Dropbox so that depending on our mood we can go comedy, fantasy, sci-fi, drama, etc. We keep up with a number of shows (ie Game of Thrones, Agent Carter, Hannibal, Mad Men, Doctor Who, Mushishi, etc), but also glut on old shows we're interested in (ie. Farscape, The Wire, Twilight Zone, Arrested Development). Movies are generally for weekends where we have more time, and keep those in the box as well. 

- Books and stories. You can read the same books at the same time, separately, and discuss them, of course, like Benson and I did on the Game of Thrones series. You can ALSO just take turns reading back and forth chapter by chapter, like we're currently doing with Dune. Also, short stories are great for this. I've read Benson a bunch of fairy tales before bed, and am now going through Kipling's Just So Stories for short stories. 

-Write/be creative.  As per the previous suggestion, Benson has been reading to me from Burton's Book of One Thousand and One Nights. And from that, we're working on a grand index together, summarizing the events of each story, which level of story it is (meaning, tale within a tale within a tale and which tale it is within), and where Scheherazade breaks off the story each night and which night it is. We're keeping the master file in the dropbox and splitting it up by story. I imagine this could work for other types of things, too.

- A wild and crazy blast from the past: Actually write letters. Physical letters. We've not been doing this one since Benson moved to England, but let me tell you personally, the joy of getting an actual physical letter is well worth the 49 cents it costs within the US. And you can do stuff like write in cyphers or with constricted writing that you don't tell your partner what the key or rule was and they have to figure it out themselves. Or make crosswords and word searches for each other. Or send sketches. Or puzzle pieces. Or care-packages of goodies, of course, though this is more expensive.

- Cooking. What? Yes. Cooking. We've only done this a couple times, usually on special occasions like Valentine's Day, and it takes some planning. But. Choose a recipe, and each of you buy the ingredients. Then set up your computer in your kitchen so you can Skype. Start sautéing, or chopping, or prepping each ingredient at the same time. Alternatively, you can just eat and/or drink together without syncing to quite that degree.

- Time Zones suck. But sometimes it's totally worth it to go sleep deprived for certain things if you are both eager to do the thing together. This is why Benson got up at 6am to watch the Breaking Bad finale with me while I watched it at 1am here. And yesterday we did the same thing for the premiere of Better Call Saul. And when our time zone difference was a little less dramatic we'd do stuff like watch the State of the Union together.

There are many other things you can do, of course, but this is a good selection. But I feel that making the relationship and time together a priority is the most important thing for making things work. Within that, you can be pretty creative. Keeping positive, planning out visits and things to do together in the future, also good. And for us, Dropbox and Skype are apparently the key to our relationship. Thank goodness for modern technology!

Beautiful Cars update!

Just a quick picture -- my Dad hasn't sold the car yet, so I got to drive it around the park last month when I visited home. It was quite a treat!

Beautiful Cars and Driving Lessons

Chatting with my parents on the phone today, I discovered that my dad is selling the gorgeous old convertible, that he inherited from his dad, on eBay. I think I last drove this car more than 10 years ago, the first time I learned to drive stick shift, right after getting my drivers license in high school. Now, I say the first time I learned stick because I re-learned how to drive manual and got a heck of a lot more comfortable with it about 3 years later, in college, on a different car -- still learning from my dad, but on a Honda from the late 90's(?), rather than on the gorgeous old Mercedes from the early 60's that he was rather (and rightfully) protective of. The second time, on the Honda, I got comfortable driving it every day to and from the girl scout camp where I was working all summer. The first time, on the Mercedes, it was just around a parking lot, around a cemetery, around a park -- not on any major roads -- after I had already gotten comfortable on an automatic. That time it was mainly so that I'd get the theory down and be ABLE TO DO IT rather than be comfortable with it, I think. I've written before (even just in my last entry) about my dad's insistence (and my subsequent gratitude) that everyone should know how to drive a manual transmission car. 

I can't claim to be a car person in the sense of knowing tons about different cars or having a big mechanical aptitude -- I don't really know anything more technical than how to (and this is just in theory because I've never done it, only watched) change a tire or change oil. However, I *am* a car person in the fact that when I see a gorgeous car, I stop and look and drool a bit (usually figuratively, that, but only usually). I appreciate how beautiful they can be, and how lovely they are when they are running just as they should, and when a lovely car in the street, or on a television show to which I am semi-guiltily addicted, or on a website I'm browsing, or wherever, I can't help but stop and admire it. And I truly enjoy driving (though not in heavy traffic, no one likes driving in traffic). Give me a nice, hilly, up and down country road; or the twists and turns of CA-1 up the coast; or honestly just the car radio and a bit of lightly traffic'ed interstate through Pennsylvania to let loose my thoughts, and I'm content. I drove about 1400 miles from Cambridge to Manchester, to Edinburgh, to the Isle of Skye and back one over a period of a week this past summer. Parts of it were miserable, with stop and go traffic, and of course driving for LONG periods of time -- especially driving manual -- left me stiff and with a sore left leg. But the parts where I was flying through the Scottish countryside? Or driving around Skye's coast, occasionally stopping and admiring vistas? Those parts were utterly fantastic. Partly because of my love of travel and seeing new sites, but also partly because of that feeling of "WHEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"

The number one purchase I think about if someone asks me what I'd do if I ever won the lotto (not that I actually ever play the lotto unless my grandfather gives me a scratch off ticket) is an increasingly detailed dream car. And the image of that dream car is based off of this one. This car -- the one that my grandparents used to drive up to our house when I was little; that's been sitting in my parent's garage since I was about 16 -- old enough to be thinking more seriously about learning to drive and getting my license and whatnot. This car has been around all my life and all my formulative years regarding car beauty. This dream car that I shall purchase first thing with my imaginary lotto winnings, in case anyone is interested, is a sporty little convertible with has a body shape that looks suspiciously like this car -- only with all the amenities that one wants in a car like air conditioning, a working radio, a clock, and an actual back seat. My dream car is is a lovely shade of silvery-blue; is one of those cars that can be driven either in manual or automatic -- because manual is FUN in the right situations, but you sure don't want to drive one uphill in a city with stop and go traffic; is a hybrid -- because the other car, the *automatic* car, that I learned to drive on was a Prius, and I like to be environmentally conscientious and gas prices are only going up and yes in this fantasy I've already won the lotto but still. 

Anyway, I am kind of hoping my dad doesn't sell it before I visit home at the end of the month, since I'd love to take it out for one spin in the cemetery or something, just because DAMN. How often do you get to drive that kind of car? (Damn in the "ain't that fine" sense, not in the "cursing the world" sense). Like I said, I don't think I've been allowed to drive it in 10 years -- it rarely came out of the garage, for one thing, except for the occasional 'Fall leaf drive' and other quiet meanderings through the park. I certainly don't begrudge him of it if he sells it off before that, though -- I mean, I certainly could have asked before this to drive it again. I'm pretty sure I even have, a few times, but again, he's been protective of it and I'm not on the insurance or anything as a driver and I haven't had all that much stick practice in the past few years. But. It would be nice. And I *have* been practicing my stick shift lately, even if it was with the opposite hand and on the wrong side of the road. So maybe. We shall see. Either way, it will be sad when it goes. It's a lovely car. But hopefully it will go to someone who will appreciate it, who will fix it up and take it nice places, and who will keep it in good condition, and will be able to spend time enjoying it.

Travelogue: Scotland

Eilean Donan Castle

Having never been to the UK before, I really wanted to see some parts of it that were a bit further afield. So it is important to grab opportunities to travel when they come. Last week, there was a mini nova conference near Manchester, just the local astronomers around the UK which they hold every 6 months or so, kind of informal but a good opportunity to see other astronomers who focus on novae and even some of my collaborators that I rarely see face to face. This was actually held on my birthday -- I made some comments to Benson about this, saying that the ONE DAY I knew I had to work ALL SUMMER without taking off was, of course, the day I'd most want to NOT work and take off and celebrate. So, anyway, the day prior, I rented a car, then woke up at 6:15am on my birthday to drive 3 hours to the conference (with Benson navigating/snoozing in the passenger seat -- he just worked in a nearby library the whole day while I was chatting with folk).

Benson and I at Jodrell Bank

All in all, it was a decent birthday (terrible traffic aside) - I had a lot of good conversations with people, talked about science, got some feedback on my research, and so on. But because we were already going up towards Manchester, Benson and I reasoned it was a good time to just keep going north. Which is why we rented the car for a full week and spent a long weekend in Scotland! So, after spending a chunk of Friday afternoon visiting a collaborator at the Jodrell Bank Observatory (the central hub for the radio telescope array eMERLIN, which is spread over the UK -- we got quite a nice tour of the facility, in fact) we drove up to Edinburgh. Our first night was a simple one -- we just checked into our hostel (which was made entirely of shipping containers and absurdly inexpensive), went into town and walked around old town. There, I lusted over the multitude of plaid clothing that was *everywhere* (if you ever look through my wardrobe, you may notice that I have a fondness for it), and, more importantly, went for dinner and drinks. Naturally, I had to have haggis for my first ever trip to Scotland... followed by four shots of whisky (divided by two, though, since Benson and I split them). You see, we deliberately went to a place called Whiski, which I would highly recommend, which has 300 different whiskies available for tasting. Which is a good selection, I think. We actually went back again on Monday night to get 3 more shots. Benson is a BIG whisky connoisseur, so I pretty much let him chose what we got. Between the 2 tastings, we got one whiskey from each of the regions -- Highlands, Lowlands, Islays, Speyside, Campbeltown, and the Islands, plus an extra Lowlands -- I don't quite recall what we got, honestly, you'd have to ask Benson -- but they were all very good. I tend to prefer whiskies that don't have an overly strong peat taste and that are smoother, but I'm also not that fussy or knowledgable about the whole thing. I know more now than I did at the beginning of the weekend though.

The next morning, we arose from our shipping containers,  bright and shiny early, and drove to the Isle of Skye. Which was a lovely drive across the lowlands and highlands, going through a national park at one point. Now, you'll note that I was driving. Benson hasn't really driven since he got his license 10 years ago, and doesn't really trust himself behind the wheel. Whereas, I actively enjoy driving (assuming no traffic). This was my first experience driving in Britain, however, and it took some getting used to not only DRIVING on the wrong side of the road (and through endless roundabouts), but also shifting gears with my left hand. Manual cars are the norm in the UK, and much cheaper to rent, you see. My dad taught me how to drive stick shift when I was in college -- he kept a manual car around in part for this purpose, and had me drive said car to my camp job over the summer every day, so I'd get used to it. So it's a useful skill! I never finished writing up my last summer's activities (whoops) but this came in handy last year when we were in Italy, as well -- we stayed at a friend of Benson's house, and borrowed his grandfathers car. Which was stick. And I was the only one of the four of us that could drive -- which made me the designated driver throughout the Italian countryside, and enabled us to see much more of it than we would have been able to otherwise. So worth holding back a bit more on those italian wines....

Anyway, the Isle of Skye was GORGEOUS. We did a lot of hiking over the weekend, drove all around the island, had lots of delicious fresh seafood (and were even taught how to shuck oysters by the proprietor of the wonderful Oyster Shed), saw a TON of sheep (sheep EVERYWHERE), visited the Portree harbor, and, naturally, toured the Talisker Whisky Distillery. Talisker is one of Benson's favorite whiskies, so we got to sample a few very nice ones, too. We stayed at a lovely little B&B which overlooked the Eilean Donan Castle in the town of Dornie (not on the Isle of Skye itself, but within driving distance). After we spent a very nice 2 days in Skye, we headed back to Edinburgh, to explore the town a bit more in depth. We still mainly wandered -- I bought myself some plaid items as souvenirs, we had more delicious food, more whisky at Whiski, visited the main castle there, and climbed up Arthur's seat for a gorgeous view of the city. All in all, a good trip! Now, we're back in Cambridge again, which means... we should probably start thinking about buying tickets and planning our trip to Greece for the last week of August. Yeah... things to get on soon...

The view from Arthur's Seat

Cooking in Cambridge

So again, I'm spending the summer in Cambridge, visiting Benson. Both of us very much enjoy cooking, and I've been eating better here then I usually do at home, since usually at least *one* of us feels like cooking, and it's a  lot more fun to cook for two then to cook for one. So, the result of this is that Benson and I have made breakfast (or brunch) at least once every weekend since I've arrived, which has been pretty awesome. I actually brought to England with me a small bottle of maple syrup which I bought in New Hampshire last week as a gift to Benson -- it's already over half gone!
We've done pancakes, omelets, Dutch Baby, the world's best scrambled eggs, Challah french toast (from scratch -- with my friend Zahava's amazing homemade Challah recipe), and this weekend we made Oeufs en Cocotte (eggs in a pot). I'd never heard of these before (and thus had never made them before), but while we were browsing in a kitchenware store (looking for a cheese grater, amongst other things) we stumbled across these little ceramic mini-casserole dishes which were just too cute for me to pass up (my one true weakness: kitchenware). So, while commenting to Benson, waiting in line, that I had no idea what we would make with them but I had to have them anyway, the lady in front of us suggested making Cocette - a french dish she knew, with eggs and ham all made in a tiny ramekin - perfect for the little crockery we were purchasing. So, with help from Google, we had this for brunch this morning.



Oeufs en Cocotte
4 eggs
150 grams (5.5 oz) créme fraiche
nutmeg (a pinch)
salt and pepper (to taste)
handful of fresh chopped dill
butter
Optional additions: chopped up ham, bacon bits, asparagus, smoked salmon, cheese, anything else that might go in a delicious eggy breakfast dish!




This dish was quite easy to make - first, preheat the oven to 180C/350F (switching units of measurements for temperature and cooking in England has been a tad aggravating, I admit, but I'm getting used to it). Mix the créme fraiche with dill, salt and pepper, and a dash of nutmeg in a small bowl. Then, butter 4 ramekins (we just did this in the 2 little dishes, but ramekins are usually smaller) completely, and put  a generous spoonful of the creamy mix in the bottom of each one. If you are adding ham, cheese, or other things, put those in next (we just used ham, which was a nice addition), and crack an egg on top of that (in our crockeries we put 2 eggs, since they were large enough). Finally, put a dallop of the créme fraiche mix on top of all of this, and put another sprinkle of salt and pepper and a dash of dill to garnish. Put your ramekins in a baking pan, and fill the pan with warm to hot water until it comes halfway up the side of the ramekins. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the eggs have set nicely.

These are great. I particularly like the taste that the dill gives to the recipe - dill is something I really like but don't actually go out and get very often (it doesn't dry well in my opinion, fresh is the way to go, and I usually don't buy a lot fresh herbs because they only come in huge packs at the store and they go bad before I can use them all). I also associate the taste and smell of dill with my grandmother (on my dad's side) -- she was a fantastic cook, and I don't think I encountered dill very often anywhere other than her house when I was little, so it's a pretty strong sensory memory associated with her. Can't have it without thinking about her. Anyway, so yes, a delicious brunch, and pretty easy to do, if you have ramekins.

Dinner is also a thing Benson and I have been making, obviously. So we also recently made the *best* chicken wings I've ever made in my life. We combined two recipes for the task -- first, Korean chicken wings are amazing, so we found a recipe for the sauce used in San Tung Fried chicken wings (here). We lack a deep fryer, however, so instead we decided to bake our chicken wings. However, the best thing about Korean chicken wings is how deliciously crispy they are. Which means we managed to discover a recipe which crispifies chicken wings in the oven extremely well instead (here)! We modified the crispy bit a little.


Crispy, Oven-baked San Tung Chicken Wings
Wings:
4 lbs chicken wings
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour

Sauce:
2-3 scallions
10-15 cilantro sprigs
2-3 tbs soy sauce
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup water
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tbs rice vinegar (we substituted apple cider vinegar mixed with white wine)
1 tsp chili garlic sauce or red peppers (AKA - Sriracha sauce!)

Preheat the oven to 250F (yes, two hundred fifty, not a typo). Pat the chicken wings dry. Mix baking powder, flour, and salt and sprinkle/coat the chicken wings with the mix -- you don't want to heavily coat your wings, because then they taste like baking powder, but you want to cover them well. This is the agent which is going to make your chicken wings crispy! You can add the flour mix through a sifter or a mesh strainer to sprinkle it lightly over the wings if you would like, rather than rolling it in the flour mix to coat it.

You are going to bake the wings on a wire rack -- so you want to put the rack on a cookie sheet, with aluminum foil covering the sheet (for easier cleaning). Then evenly arrange the wings, skin side up, in a single layer on the rack and bake at 250F for 30 minutes (this dries out the skin). Then, increase the temperature of the wings to 425F for 40-50 minutes more, rotating the sheet halfway through. The wings should be lovely and crispy and brown at this point, so take them out and let sit for 5 minutes. Then, simply toss in the sauce until they're all coated and delicious.

Ah yes, the sauce. Also an important thing you should make. The sauce is quite easy though -- just mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan, put on low-medium heat, and simmer (stirring frequently) for 5-10 minutes until it has thickened. We found that starting the sauce right after you rotate the chicken wings is about the right amount of time, giving you 20 minutes or so.

These are AMAZING. We served them over rice -- we actually made a half recipe, which was plenty for two with the rice. But for a larger group, make more!

So, all in all, having a lovely time in Cambridge. I've also gone into London 3 times now -- once as described in the last post, once for a live show of a comedy radio program I really like, and once to go to the Victoria and Albert museum as well as to track down the *best scotch egg* in London. We succeeded in this second task, finding ourselves in a really great Michelin star pub for lunch which served game and had *perfect* venison sausage covered scotch eggs. That was a good day!

Until next time!

An American Abroad

So, as I may or may not have mentioned, I'm spending this summer in Cambridge, England, where Benson works as a postdoc. I've been here almost three weeks now, and overall, I'm just very content and happy. I've settled in here pretty well.

I've got official visitor status at the IOA now, and am moving from desk to desk as various astro grad students are on vacation, or working in the library when no desks are available. The people here are friendly and interesting to talk to, I've been having good conversations about science and about non-science things, too. I'm chatting with the grad students at lunch and during coffee and afternoon tea (both of which are daily here... which is good except it makes it overly easy to take breaks and not be working!). My paper is coming along, not as far as I would have liked, but I feel like I'm making progress. After work, Benson and I cook nice dinners together on almost a daily basis, then hang out, watch TV, play games, or even work a bit at home. Or we bike into Cambridge and watch 'football' (aka soccer) at a pub with some of his friends, or go to the market (there is a very nice market in the town square), or watch movies at his department. Watching the world cup has been a lot of fun here -- even if the USA is now out. We watched the USA/Belgium game at the "Isaac Newton Pub," where apparently a bunch of Americans had gathered to watch the game. (Our keen senses picked up on this when people on the other side of the pub started belting out the National Anthem at the beginning of the game -- of course, the Americans at OUR table then joined in as well.) Quite a gripping game, even if we got out at the end. Tomorrow for the 4th, we're going to a pub with a German friend of Benson's to watch the Germany/France game, then are going to wander the town and do *something* vaguely patriotic or celebratory, I suppose -- perhaps we can find other Americans out and about.

Benson's flat has the most gorgeous view out the back of a huge field and trees and whatnot in the distance. I'm biking to work every morning past horses (well, one field of them, anyway), but the town center is like 10 minutes by bike, extremely easy to get to, we go in pretty regularly.  And honestly, the IOA couldn't be closer to the department, it's like an 8 minute walk, which means it is barely even a bike ride. EVERYBODY bikes here, the town is *quite* bike friendly. It's also easy to get into London by train. We've only gone in once so far -- we went to the British Museum and attempted to do the entire thing in a day -- an exhausting and somewhat hopeless task, but we did walk through every room at least, even if we didn't look at most things closely. We then went around town to see all the big landmarks: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, westminster abbey, the Eye of London, the Tower of London, the famed London Bridge (aka the Tower Bridge). A fun day!  And of course I've been trying to eat all 'typical' English foods -- bangers and mash, meat pies, fish and chips, tikka masala (which is as English as the fortune cookie is American, plus there is a LOT of good Indian food here).

As I mentioned, there is a market in town, so we've been cooking a lot. Mostly simple things -- stir-fry with rice, oven baked chicken, sloppy joes, the most gorgeous and huge artichokes from the market that I have ever seen, a homemade omelet and bacon (the bacon here tastes different, and is a lot leaner, which is fine, I guess, but leaves us without extra bacon grease with which to cook other things... and the bacon doesn't feel quite as *decedent*) -- but we've also done stuff like homemade wonton. And this weekend we're thinking of doing another French Laundry project, we haven't decided quite what to do. In general, I find it's a LOT nicer to cook for two than to cook for one, so I've been eating and cooking more here than I usually do back in NYC, with more variety and fewer leftovers. We're also planning on going back into London next Monday, do another museum (we're deciding between the Tate Modern and the Victoria Albert museum, we'll do them both eventually, it's just a matter of priority), get a nice dinner, and then I managed to get us free tickets to a recording of a radio show I like: John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (basically, a radio sketch comedy show). So that should be fun!

That's all for now, I'll be sure to post a few more status updates while I'm here.