lalalalala

really neat election result "cartogram"

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:33:02 GMT

here, balanced by state population

and here, balanced by population, and percentages for each county for each candidate

what's on your breakup mix?

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:18:03 GMT

If you saw my facebook status recently, you know that one of my roommates had his girlfriend (who I'm subletting from) over from Italy for the week. Well, not only were they just plain kissy-cutesy-giggly-throw up annoying, but they were kissy-cutesy-giggly-throw up-like right in front of my other roommate, Enrica, who on top of other recent problems just happens to be going through a break-up right now with a guy she's been dating for 3 years. (Hence even more annoyance than normal at the other roommate and his girlfriend, because of their incredible insensitivity.)

Anyway, apart from going together to see Sex in the City, I've decided to do a lil' breakup kit for her. I've already made some coconut oatmeal cookies but want to add a breakup mix...so now my question to you is:

What would be on your breakup mix?

the 2nd thing i've had stolen (this time with suspicians)

Wed, 28 May 2008 06:11:04 GMT

There was no time to unpack everything before Tobi left, so after he did, I was left over with a box full of spices, baking stuff, and dinnerware (dinnerware which I had conceived of Tobi and I using for our first official set), which fit nowhere in my room, so I decided to leave it up in the attic. The attic serves primarily as a common drying room for wet laundry, with lines strewn from one wall to the other throughout...so I was a little hesitant to leave my box there, but there was some other stuff there and I decided to take the chance, covering up the contents well with plastic bags and an empty box.

Well, it wasn't a week before I saw someone taking the empty box (filled with books) down the stairs, apparently helping someone move. I thought about going up there to "get something" just to check on my stuff, but didn't want to be the crazy-suspicious neighbor...so I waited until I didn't hear them going up the stairs anymore. When I went up, my box was gone. Furious, I ran down the stairs and walked towards this group of about 8 people (including said empty-box stealer) loading stuff in a couple cars, confronting the first person I saw, who happened to be the only one actually moving out. I told her I thought she had mistakenly taken my box and that I wanted to look for it, and she said there was no need, that it'd be hard to find, that there was already a carload taken, and that she was returning tomorrow and that if she saw my box she'd bring it back. Something about her made me not trust her, but there was nothing I felt I could really do, so I agreed and walk off, hiding my fiery anger and feelings of utter helplessness. Shortly after, these feelings overcame me and I called Tobi, not even being able to speak because of the strong emotions reverberating into my throat. He calmed me down and said it sounded reasonable...so I waited...

The box still isn't back up in the attic and I keep having fantastical visions of tracking the girl down, throwing her against the wall, giving her an old-fashioned Hollywood slap and angrily demanding my stuff.

What would I do if I actually saw her? Maybe that...probably talking developing into yelling and uncontrollable anger tears. Dang anger tears!

Morning kickboxing is in order.

makes me wish i had studied brewing instead

Sat, 24 May 2008 12:17:25 GMT

Mateveza (mate-pale ale)- made with organic two row pale malt, organic crystal malt, organic yerba mate, magnum and cascade hops

life in Leipzig

Tue, 20 May 2008 20:51:04 GMT

Having the feeling of being completely overwhelmed with thesis planning...
Occupying my time as much as possible, because of...
Missing Tobi so much I can hardly stand it...so I'm...
Exploring the little corners of the city to take my mind off things...
Warming to the city in the process...
Aching for a dog and the stability that entails...
Reading, reading...and reading...and also...
Deliberating yet again about career paths

Biking 35 minutes to work everyday...
Oscillating between different 2nd master's and PhD programs
Understanding how easy it is to feel lost
Needing to do some more exercise but...
Damning my stupid ankle for not healing after 3 months to be able to do anything on it

(flickr pics up)

i never thought the first thing i'd have stolen here would be...

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:30:14 GMT

my half-worn off bike handle grips. dagnabit!

you say chestnut and crabcake, i say bbq

Thu, 01 May 2008 08:20:35 GMT

I recently read an article in The Ethicurean blog about Gary Nabhan and his RAFT (Renewing America's Food Traditions) movement which re-ignited my thoughts about the rediscovery and celebration of regional food traditions. Though I don't exactly agree with the labels or extents on his regional food demarcations map (which places the Carolinas firmly out of BBQ & cornbread country and neglects the gumbo tradition of the Low Country Carolinas), the broad, regional approach does make sense when thinking about a strategy to develop a nationally (or even internationally) recognized "denomination of origin" system while combating the loss of rare food and livestock species. And even if I think there's still room for smaller cultural food regions, it's wonderful that this idea might have a chance of taking hold.

updates

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 10:18:36 GMT

-the apartment turned out to be fine, thanks to finagling moving 2 carloads of stuff to tobi's parents house. cozy and warm. lots of lovely lamps. except for the wreck of a bathroom, i'm gonna miss it. it'll be hard to leave freising as well. i realized how attached i had grown to it when i almost had to stop tobi the other day as he was listing off some things we'll need to take care of before i leave 'cause i wasn't ready to talk about it.

-next move is this weekend to karlsruhe, where i'll stay with tobi for a month before moving to leipzig. gonna go there on sat. to meet with a range of potential roommates, and even though the rent isn't as low as i expected it'd be, it's still reasonable (170-260€/mo.). there are some really charming, spacious, old apt. complexes in the heart of the arts/bar district which i'm concentrating my efforts on.

-finally got in touch with my thesis advisor, who had been abroad and unable to answer emails for several weeks, and things are now moving right along. she gave me a slightly more specific topic suggestion--european governance structures surrounding green space management, their goals vs. their effectiveness, and indicators to assess their effectiveness. she also gave me the password to the project site, which has such an overwhelming amount of information, i grew a little anxious. the project is so massive, and is only in its early stages, so it's taken a bit of time to get a handle on all the aspects and how my thesis can fit into it in the best way, but i'm starting to get there. i was super productive yesterday, coming up with 5-6 research questions and a first, tentative outline.

-i'll move to leipzig and start work at the ufz on may 19th, probably staying until the end of september. after that, it's a big "?".

why did i sign that §"%%! contract?

Wed, 05 Mar 2008 22:45:31 GMT

i found a sublet a couple months ago for march--mid-april that i was really excited about...and then came pressure time when i had to decide between that place and another that was 100€ less and slightly larger but smelled like the most foul chicken ever when i went to visit (the person had just cooked)...so kind of out of impulse, i went for the more expensive place. i went today to check out what she left and take a first load, and i almost burst into tears. i have no idea how i'm going to fit all my stuff in here, much less tobi's.

it was in the bag...until it broke

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:25:58 GMT

I had been talking with one of the cool new SRM students, and we got to the subject of her job as an office assistant at this consulting firm in Munich. Dealing mostly with regional development, marketing, and tourism, it sounded absolutely perfect to me, and I inquired about the possibility of doing an internship there. Well, since she was going back home to Mozambique for 1.5 months, she had talked with her boss about me as a possible fill-in, especially since my native-English status could prove helpful on 2 international (Latvia, Egypt) projects they've got going on right now. Her boss seemed positive, everything seemed set...and then I got the call.

My German isn't good enough.

Since most of the duties are office assistant-related, and I'd need to be involved with formal, internal communications, my mid-upper level German wouldn't be good enough for her not to have to go back and proofread over things...so that's that. (Did I mention that I would absolutely love to work at a consulting firm just like this?)

This just increases my resolve. I WILL start learning German actively now. If I'm serious about trying to get a job here, I must.

ummm...can i get a "stupid" in here?

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:56:56 GMT

I just read an article in BusinessWeek Online about how Germany's unfriendly immigration laws is costing the country billions of dollars each year and creating a mass exodus of the highly skilled and educated graduate students its taxpayers pay for each year. (95% of foreign students pursuing a degree in Germany end up leaving for more immigration-friendly countries.) Add that to the brain drain of German specialists going to other countries for better pay, and the country is setting itself up for a dearth of skilled workers in the near future.

Supposedly, there's work being done on the immigration laws, but it sounds as if they're merely shifting around minor provisions instead of fixing the problem. One recent change will get rid of the horrid preference test (where a foreigner has to proove he/she is more qualified than a German national), but limit the time foreign students can stay in the country to 3 years after graduation.

Something tells me I'm up for a hard fight come late Fall.

celebrating ends and beginnings

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 18:39:56 GMT

after being totally engrossed in environmental economics and the theoretical underpinnings of information management for an entire month, i'm done with exams!!! now only one more group assignment now stands in the way between me and the finish of my master's classes.

i had planned to use the next month and a half to relax a bit before starting on my thesis, but besides a possible alpine ski trip in march, it looks as if i'll be just as busy as before (working at the forestry institute, doing proofreading jobs, doing background research for my thesis, hunting jobs/study programs, doing German and US taxes, improving my German, finishing historical map odds and ends)...it's a lot for a month and a half, but at least i'll be able to spend it with tobi. we have a cozy lil' single apartment close to town we'll be moving into in about a week, and i'm relishing the idea of playing house.

i guess it was worth it

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:59:00 GMT

After spending hours upon hours on a formal project report for IICA (for the Barbadian agrotourism model design/mapping project I was working on), I was hoping at least for some feedback on it...and as weeks passed, I finally decided to write my supervisors. Well *insert Southern exclamation on the tip of my tongue which I can't think of now*, wouldn't ya know it? Within 15 minutes of my writing, one of my supervisors wrote back! (That's so un-Caribbean!) He said he was just thinking about me because he was trying to import another AutoCad image into GoogleEarth and couldn't figure out how to do it and thinking, "where is Emily?"....so hooray(!), they're actually using my design setup! It's a good feeling after all the mess I put up with to know that my work is actually proving useful.

...

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 20:15:16 GMT

I had kind of been procrastinating on deciding about between the end of exams in Feb. and the start of my thesis work in May, what with all the rush of assignments and change of thesis advisors and such...but it was finally time. It was between moving in with Tobi in Karlsruhe, him moving in with me in Freising, still going to work in Leipzig for my previous thesis advisor, or interning at a research institute near Berlin for a project with ties to my thesis. Even though it'd be great for my CV to get some experience with another research institute, and it could help me on my thesis, I wouldn't get much money at all, and I'd hardly get a break before starting my thesis. I could make more money (which I desperately need) staying in Freising, and still read up for my thesis, but more importantly, it'll leave me almost 2 full months living together with Tobi, our longest consecutive time yet, and an important test of our relationship. I'm completely confident though, and really excited.

The other weekend when Tobi was over and I was talking with Ash on YahooVoice, she asked when we're gonna get married. We just looked at one another and smiled...

christmas break in schwaben & the alps

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 01:58:25 GMT

twas a merry german christmas.

pics (w/ andrea and gerrit in bad wimpfen, skiing, x-mas) and videos (fireworks going off like bombs over freising, skiing--tobi jumping, mogul skiing, me & andrea skiing) here

sliding into christmas

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:01:43 GMT

and i'm not ready! seriously, what is up with time these days? it's like it's been on a totally different schedule than me the past few weeks, and it kinda left me in the dust.

*deep breath* i have 7 papers or presentations and 3 exams (including two enviro. economics[!!!!] exams) in the next 2 months. it's ridiculous. and on top of all this we're supposed to be working towards our theses? and still supposed to have a winter "break"?

well, at least i'm making some in-roads on the thesis, maybe to the neglect of other things, but i just got some fabulous news! the woman whose presentation i attended on conservation, quality of life, and urban-rural linkages wrote me back today, saying that she'd be happy to supervise me on a thesis, that i can work there part-time, if i like, and that if i don't want to do that i could also simply communicate with her through email. she even followed up on the topic ideas i presented and gave me 2 more detailed suggestions.

both would pick two or so of the cities the project focuses on (manchester, UK; montpellier, france; leipzig, germany; warsaw, poland; korper region, slovenia; haaglanden, the netherlands; hangzhou, china) --one would be an analysis of conservation measures/governance at different scales in the urban-rural gradient, and the other would analyze how the translation from one or more ecosystem services to quality of life indicators differs in two or three places.

i'm going to accept! being able to work with a communicative advisor on an EU-funded project that actually still has a long life will be sooo much better than working with a busy rep-searcher on a non-funded project.

pics up

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:27:01 GMT

pictures of my ski trip with tobi and of an nc wine escapade with my parents are up here.

talkin' 'bout droppin' a downer

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:24:51 GMT

any suggestions for how to tell a guy you're going to do an internship under that you no longer want him to be your thesis advisor?

tangled up & confused

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:32:57 GMT

so, after 3 weeks of not responding to my email giving an update and asking about summer funding, my potential thesis advisor at the ufz finally writes me back and tells me that funding isn't sure and that i should get back to him with significant narrowing down/clarification of my thesis ideas within a week. what the §&%%!!!

i had already been questioning his value as a thesis advisor, but after talking with 3 people who have worked with him in the past, i really think i need to back away from doing my thesis with him, even if his proposed topic vein of green space mgmt. & climate change is really hot right now.

so this afternoon i went to a lecture a prof. recommended to me on "urban ecosystem services and quality of life as target systems for assessing urban-rural land use relationships" and talked with the person there about doing a thesis under her. could be a possibility. also a possibility is developing a sustainability indicator using GIS for this software program being developed by the chair of the sustainable agriculture department...and there's also a new project from the dept. going on in kenya which could support a thesis or even a PhD, for instance in the marketing there of organic goods or agritourism. choices, choices.

had to work out at the gym tonight. pent-up stress. an overwhelming feeling of confusion and potential missed opportunity. had to work it all outta my system. having a beer with some friends in the bar upstairs helped too. yes, i said the bar upstairs. (this is, after all, the only uni. in the world where you can get a master's in brewing. ahhh, i love germany.)

nearing roasted breadfruit

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:55:11 GMT

i may have never tried roasted breadfruit, but i did try andrew's semi-famous fish cakes, and now i have the recipe!!!

(from andrew--notice the very bajan way of neglecting to put down any set amounts)
Boneless salt fish/cod fish
chives
sweet pepper
thymemarjoram
hot sauce/hot pepper
self-rising flour
 
Boil the salt fish to get some of the salt out, grater the fish on the small long side of the grater (not the side you would grater coconut).
Chop the chives,marjoram,thyme fine. you can also grater your sweet pepper.  
put them all in a bowl,  cover them with water not to much though, add in your hot pepper then taste it to see how hot it is,put in your self-rising flour and stir it to a batter.
It must not be too soft but you should be able to get a small spoon and dip out some of the batter and let it drop out of the spoon slowly, if it come out too fast then and some more flour.
heat your frying pan with enough oil.  when you drop the batter in it will submerge then it will pop up and start to float, fry until crispy golden brown (like mine) (smile) then its finish.

i got some other good news from iica the other day...
i was so angry about all that happened (or didn't happen) with the internship that i couldn't decide whether or not to finish a report on my mapping project, which the director asked for a week before i left. in fact, every time i thought of my experience there, i got huffy, and then thinking about the director asking for a showpiece report for the project...*uggh!!!* made me go almost red. and what's more, i never got any feedback from her, so i had no idea if i could even expect a good recommendation from her or not...hence my hesitation at writing a project report for her.

so i endeavored to ask her for a recommendation letter. that way, i could get some feedback on my work, and in a permanent form. if she didn't send it, then i wouldn't waste my time on the project report, i told myself. much to my disbelief, when i called her last week to ask for the letter--coincidentally, it was at the same time caribbean food author rosemary parkinson (a familiar face around the iica office) was showing her her new book that's about to come out on jamaican culture & cuisine--she actually acted genuinely happy to hear from me & told me that they needed me back there. and even more surprising, the recommendation letter came about a week later, flush with praise.

it's some consolation.

now i have a report to write!

a welcome relief from thesis-thinking

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 00:10:14 GMT

it's been snowing all week, so much so that there's now finally enough around oberjoch (in the northern alps) to ski...and for tobi, that means ski-ski-skiing. i love my lil' ski-nut.

f-o-c-u-s

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 21:16:44 GMT

been thinking a lot about my thesis topic again. met today with a really cool prof who specializes in landscape aesthetics and biodiversity & land use in agricultural landscapes. she agreed with me that i need an advisor who will help me maintain focus and we laughed at my ADD-ness. i counted all my thesis ideas today; it was more than 30.

frustriert

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:35:22 GMT

upcoming shows in munich:
14th- jose gonzalez, asobi seksu
21st- beirut, the twilight sad
24th- ryan adams
26th- john vanderslice
29th- sole & the skyrider band
30th- beatsteaks

can i afford to go to any of them? nope.

in search of roasted breadfruit

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:16:27 GMT

"roasted breadfruit, OHHH, how i wish i could have some roasted breadfruit!!!" so went the verbalized desires of many an acquaintance in barbados, to the point where i just had to get my hands on some. and so went the search, which led me to a market near one of the main train stations in bridgetown, and to an old lady with a luscious assortment of goods, including said breadfruit. i gathered some peanuts and mangoes and then told her, "i'll buy a breadfruit from you if you tell me how to roast it." she cautiously started, "well...i dun know...you wanna cook one? well lemme see here. i dun wan tell u wrong." and with that, she went over to a competitor's stand and asked her how she roasts them. a 15 min. conversation ensued, with all manner of questions such as what kind of house i live in, if i live close to neighbors (because it would smoke), what kind of oven i have, etc. mixed in with stories of how their parents used to do it, and the best way they ever ate it, and so on and so on, until they finally reached a satisfactory method for me to cook it. after thanking them many times, i went back over with the lady to her stand, put out my money to buy it, and then asked..."now i need to cook this within a day, right? 'cause i've heard it rots quickly" with that, she said, "hold up, i gone git my man ta cook some up for ya. i tell him tonite and you come back in the mornin and i'll have it for ya."

i walked back home with a huge smile on my face, rejuvenated by the spirit of generosity and the richness that some foods still (luckily) seem to encompass as a bearer of culture, tradition and memory.
--------------------------
i never got that roasted breadfruit. damien called at 10:20 that night to ask if i could be ready at 6am to go out in the field with him and finish surveying the peter watson farm...and i went.

and so was the rest of my experience with iica...tinged with broken expectations and disappointment (that you already know)...but also with beauty and confirmation--in andrew's fish cakes, in the way every iica celebration and the best of the conversations there seemed to revolve around food, in the joy and earnestness in sharing one's culture, and in the benefits of and opportunities in agritourism.

i'm now back in germany, but my culinary journey of barbados will continue with a reading of austin clarke's "pig tails n' breadfruit", and with several home-cooked bajan meals i'll learn this fall, the first of which i'll share with tobi and his new chinese roommate. ...i hope andrew will share the recipe for his fish cakes.

SotD

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:36:18 GMT

that's for Smile of the Day...--->found here.