5 of the 13 headlines seen on CNN just now:
+ Did Terrell Owens attempt suicide?
+ Squirrel jumps boy in park; rabies suspected
+ Porn star candidate campaigns on campus
+ Charlie Sheen to become highest-paid sitcom star
+ Ashton Kutcher tells secret to Ryan Seacrest
Either I'm turning into a cynical senior citizen, or CNN is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for news.
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
What's in a name?
I've been reading this string of comments about women changing or not changing their last name when they get married. I have several feminist tendencies, I think, but this falls under the category of Mostly Unimportant as far as I'm concerned.
Granted, I'm not married and not about to be married, so I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about it. I also don't yet have a strong professional identity to consider, and that would be a larger factor if I were getting married later in life. It also gets trickier when there are children to consider. Keeping my name would seem very natural if it were just the two of us, but I feel strongly that my imaginary children should all have the same last name. Whether that's mine or his doesn't really matter, but I don't think some children should have one name while the rest have another.
Several commenters brought up the fact that the spouse that's changing their name can feel like they're losing their identity. I think I would feel a little sad either moving my current last name to my middle name or giving it up altogether, but it's not like I would lose my connection to my immediate family or extended relatives. Sure, I wouldn't have the same name on the family tree, but I wouldn't feel any less a part of it. My name is how the rest of the world addresses me; it's not the way I know who I am.
Again, a caveat here is that I have a pretty generic last name, and I suppose I might feel different if I had a very unique name or something that was very representative of my background. And maybe if my imaginary husband had a very ethnic last name, I would feel a little like an imposter taking on a name that presumes I'm much different than my regular white American self.
I want my family to be a cohesive unit, and I don't want there to be any confusion if I need to be with my husband or children in the hospital and we don't share the same name. So if that means me taking his name, him taking my name, or choosing a new name altogether, great. But I don't want to hyphenate, and I don't want to keep my name and then be forced to carry around a copy of my marriage certificate all the time so that I can prove that I'm a part of my own family. So if that means I become Melanie Y instead of staying Melanie X, so be it.
It seems like several years ago more women were keeping their names when they got married, and now the percentage of women who do that is down. This seems to outrage many women, but I don't really understand the drama. The feminist cause has bigger fish to fry than getting women to keep their names.
Granted, I'm not married and not about to be married, so I haven't spent a whole lot of time thinking about it. I also don't yet have a strong professional identity to consider, and that would be a larger factor if I were getting married later in life. It also gets trickier when there are children to consider. Keeping my name would seem very natural if it were just the two of us, but I feel strongly that my imaginary children should all have the same last name. Whether that's mine or his doesn't really matter, but I don't think some children should have one name while the rest have another.
Several commenters brought up the fact that the spouse that's changing their name can feel like they're losing their identity. I think I would feel a little sad either moving my current last name to my middle name or giving it up altogether, but it's not like I would lose my connection to my immediate family or extended relatives. Sure, I wouldn't have the same name on the family tree, but I wouldn't feel any less a part of it. My name is how the rest of the world addresses me; it's not the way I know who I am.
Again, a caveat here is that I have a pretty generic last name, and I suppose I might feel different if I had a very unique name or something that was very representative of my background. And maybe if my imaginary husband had a very ethnic last name, I would feel a little like an imposter taking on a name that presumes I'm much different than my regular white American self.
I want my family to be a cohesive unit, and I don't want there to be any confusion if I need to be with my husband or children in the hospital and we don't share the same name. So if that means me taking his name, him taking my name, or choosing a new name altogether, great. But I don't want to hyphenate, and I don't want to keep my name and then be forced to carry around a copy of my marriage certificate all the time so that I can prove that I'm a part of my own family. So if that means I become Melanie Y instead of staying Melanie X, so be it.
It seems like several years ago more women were keeping their names when they got married, and now the percentage of women who do that is down. This seems to outrage many women, but I don't really understand the drama. The feminist cause has bigger fish to fry than getting women to keep their names.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Interviews
I have two interviews scheduled for tomorrow!! Both are with defense/intelligence companies. When I budgeted time to go to the career fair today though, I forgot about the time that I would spend catching up with old friends who are now recruiting for their companies. :) I love running into people I haven't seen in a long time, and somehow none of those conversations today felt contrived or fake. I wish I knew how to surround myself with more people like that - friendly people who tell it like it is. No sugar, no fake smiles, no exaggeration of how close we were when we went to school together. I'm sure it helped that several of these friends worked for companies that I have no interest in working for, so they didn't have to give me their regular recruiting pitch. And it helps that we've all grown up a little bit.
One of the things I disliked the most about my first full time job was the fact that there was very little communication from the management. Everything was rumors. I would hear about agency changes from news headlines and blogs before, if ever, I would hear anything from my supervisor or the head of the agency. News of new projects would go like this: "There's been a buzz about some new work coming down the pipe..." I hated that. "Down the pipe?" It seemed like no one person or group was ever associated with a particular policy change or analysis request. I felt acutely aware of just how big the gap was between the decision makers (them) and the lowly laborers (us). To be fair, it's an extremely large workforce, so all-hands meetings to explain changes or answer questions are often unrealistic. And it's a government agency, so engineering development and Congressional policy get tangled up as motivations for change.
I didn't realize how much I disliked that type of company communication until just a few weeks ago. The engineering VP of my current employer sat down with each group individually (15-20 of us) and discussed how things around the lab would be changing with our new president coming in, what hiring changes were happening, how the company was growing, what new projects were coming in, and why current groups and divisions are set up the way they are. He explained things as they were, even if that meant admitting some shortcomings or areas in which the company needed to improve. And when he was finished talking, he spent the next 45 minutes fielding questions from our group. Granted, it's a lot easier to do that sort of thing with a smaller company, and I'm sure that the VP lost a complete day or two just going around to all the different groups to explain the same things over and over. But at least for me, that sort of communication has an incredible boost on my morale and feeling of worth in the company. It's nice to be informed, and it's nice to feel like your suggestions or questions have at least some, however small, impact on how things are done.
One of the things I disliked the most about my first full time job was the fact that there was very little communication from the management. Everything was rumors. I would hear about agency changes from news headlines and blogs before, if ever, I would hear anything from my supervisor or the head of the agency. News of new projects would go like this: "There's been a buzz about some new work coming down the pipe..." I hated that. "Down the pipe?" It seemed like no one person or group was ever associated with a particular policy change or analysis request. I felt acutely aware of just how big the gap was between the decision makers (them) and the lowly laborers (us). To be fair, it's an extremely large workforce, so all-hands meetings to explain changes or answer questions are often unrealistic. And it's a government agency, so engineering development and Congressional policy get tangled up as motivations for change.
I didn't realize how much I disliked that type of company communication until just a few weeks ago. The engineering VP of my current employer sat down with each group individually (15-20 of us) and discussed how things around the lab would be changing with our new president coming in, what hiring changes were happening, how the company was growing, what new projects were coming in, and why current groups and divisions are set up the way they are. He explained things as they were, even if that meant admitting some shortcomings or areas in which the company needed to improve. And when he was finished talking, he spent the next 45 minutes fielding questions from our group. Granted, it's a lot easier to do that sort of thing with a smaller company, and I'm sure that the VP lost a complete day or two just going around to all the different groups to explain the same things over and over. But at least for me, that sort of communication has an incredible boost on my morale and feeling of worth in the company. It's nice to be informed, and it's nice to feel like your suggestions or questions have at least some, however small, impact on how things are done.
Thursday thoughts
+ Today is the career fair. I'm nervous. And there are a lot of companies that I want to speak with during the two hours that I can be there.
+ I've lost weight since I was living in Houston. All of my dress clothes are now baggier, especially in areas where I don't want them to be baggy!
+ My brass rat feels extremely heavy compared to the small silver ring I've been wearing lately. I used to love wearing my class ring - everyone at school bought one and wore it as a badge of pride for having survived the most academically difficult 4 years of our lives. After I graduated though, I wore it less and less because it didn't seem to mean as much to me when I wasn't surrounded by other MIT grads. Looking at it today though, I miss wearing it, but not enough to give up wearing my silver ring. I never thought I'd be back here after I turned my brass rat around at graduation.
+ The radiator in my bedroom is on already. We live in an old building, so the boiler distributes heat to every apartment in the building, which means that we don't have our own thermostat. So my radiator is on when it's September 21st and it's 70 degrees outside.
+ I must start going to bed earlier.
+ 95% of the kids in my Feedback Control Systems class are first year grad students, which means that they don't have much research work to do yet. I miss the days of getting all my homework done at work and then being able to leave at 3:30 to go to the gym.
+ I need to go the gym.
+ I see my roommate for about 5 minutes a day, if that.
+ My mom is visiting this weekend, and we're going to the Cape! It might rain though.
+ Dude, Grey's Anatomy almost made me cry last night. Maybe I can see the attraction with that show.
+ I've become a lot ballsier about biking in traffic now that I've started wearing my helmet regularly. Ironically, I think I was safer when I wasn't wearing it.
+ I miss having an officemate. Well, except for this morning when I could change clothes in my office instead of having to go to the bathroom.
+ My newest theory about my eyes being retarded is that it's caused by another medication I'm taking. My eyes didn't start freaking out until about 3 months after I started taking the medication, which is about how long it takes your body to adjust to the new levels of drugs. Plus, I've read that one of the drugs in the medication is known to cause dry eyes. It was hard to believe at first that my eye problems could be caused just by dryness, but I've started putting in re-wetting drops several times during the day, and it seems to be helping, so either they're just dry or the extra moisture is helping flush out whatever allergens might be in there. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday to see what my other medication options are.
+ My new favorite blog to read is Everyday Goddess.
+ I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get all my thesis research, analysis, and writing done before May 11, 2007.
+ I've lost weight since I was living in Houston. All of my dress clothes are now baggier, especially in areas where I don't want them to be baggy!
+ My brass rat feels extremely heavy compared to the small silver ring I've been wearing lately. I used to love wearing my class ring - everyone at school bought one and wore it as a badge of pride for having survived the most academically difficult 4 years of our lives. After I graduated though, I wore it less and less because it didn't seem to mean as much to me when I wasn't surrounded by other MIT grads. Looking at it today though, I miss wearing it, but not enough to give up wearing my silver ring. I never thought I'd be back here after I turned my brass rat around at graduation.
+ The radiator in my bedroom is on already. We live in an old building, so the boiler distributes heat to every apartment in the building, which means that we don't have our own thermostat. So my radiator is on when it's September 21st and it's 70 degrees outside.
+ I must start going to bed earlier.
+ 95% of the kids in my Feedback Control Systems class are first year grad students, which means that they don't have much research work to do yet. I miss the days of getting all my homework done at work and then being able to leave at 3:30 to go to the gym.
+ I need to go the gym.
+ I see my roommate for about 5 minutes a day, if that.
+ My mom is visiting this weekend, and we're going to the Cape! It might rain though.
+ Dude, Grey's Anatomy almost made me cry last night. Maybe I can see the attraction with that show.
+ I've become a lot ballsier about biking in traffic now that I've started wearing my helmet regularly. Ironically, I think I was safer when I wasn't wearing it.
+ I miss having an officemate. Well, except for this morning when I could change clothes in my office instead of having to go to the bathroom.
+ My newest theory about my eyes being retarded is that it's caused by another medication I'm taking. My eyes didn't start freaking out until about 3 months after I started taking the medication, which is about how long it takes your body to adjust to the new levels of drugs. Plus, I've read that one of the drugs in the medication is known to cause dry eyes. It was hard to believe at first that my eye problems could be caused just by dryness, but I've started putting in re-wetting drops several times during the day, and it seems to be helping, so either they're just dry or the extra moisture is helping flush out whatever allergens might be in there. I have a doctor's appointment on Monday to see what my other medication options are.
+ My new favorite blog to read is Everyday Goddess.
+ I have absolutely no idea how I'm going to get all my thesis research, analysis, and writing done before May 11, 2007.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Units
A little background: my thesis work is building on another student's work from last year, and when she started out, everything was done in SI units. When she presented her work to NASA however, word got back that she should really convert everything into English units to be more consistent with what NASA is used to. So she did, and now I'm trying to sort through her work and keep straight which stuff was done before the switch and which stuff was done after. Additionally, as any recent engineering graduate will tell you, English units just generally suck, so keeping track of everything in BTUs per foot-pound and is it pounds-mass or pounds-force? is a big headache.
Older engineers have much more experience and therefore intuition about how big or small things should generally be (typical heat rates, downranges, etc.), so I can appreciate how it's nice to be able to evaluate a new design or additional analysis in units that you already know. But, since I have pretty much no engineering intuition and very little experience, I'd rather stick with metric units because everything's divisible by 10 and there's no confusion between things like a short ton and a long ton. And really - bushels? Furlongs? Give me a break.
But I digress. Sorry about the rant. Anyway, I was looking for additional articles online this morning and found a copy of the "Apollo Experience Report - Mission Planning for Apollo Entry," published in 1972. I noticed at the beginning of the document, right before the abstract, there's an additional note that reads:
Older engineers have much more experience and therefore intuition about how big or small things should generally be (typical heat rates, downranges, etc.), so I can appreciate how it's nice to be able to evaluate a new design or additional analysis in units that you already know. But, since I have pretty much no engineering intuition and very little experience, I'd rather stick with metric units because everything's divisible by 10 and there's no confusion between things like a short ton and a long ton. And really - bushels? Furlongs? Give me a break.
But I digress. Sorry about the rant. Anyway, I was looking for additional articles online this morning and found a copy of the "Apollo Experience Report - Mission Planning for Apollo Entry," published in 1972. I noticed at the beginning of the document, right before the abstract, there's an additional note that reads:
"The MSC (Manned Spaceflight Center) Director waived the use of the International System of Units (SI) for this Apollo Experience Report, because, in his judgment, use of SI units would impair the usefulness of the report or result in excessive cost."30 years later and not much has changed...
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Resume writing
Tonight I spent way longer than necessary updating my resume for the career fair next week. It's amazing how long you can debate between "action" words to describe things you've done at work... developed, produced, constructed, determined, analyzed, performed... bleh. And I also can't decide if I want to keep the objective on my resume - on one hand, it gives the reader an immediate idea of what field I'm in, but I always feel like my objective sounds stupid and completely obvious, since I can't come up with anything more creative than, "To obtain a challenging full-time position in aerospace engineering." Double bleh.
Tomorrow is my last day of work/class this week because I'm leaving on Friday to go to Indianapolis for my cousin's wedding. Yes, to be a hot pink blob. The wedding is going to be a lot of fun since I haven't seen much of my extended family in a while, and Josh is able to come too, so I'll have a date. :) Of course, the downside is that he'll have to put up with my crazy family for the weekend. And I may have to wear my glasses during the wedding since my eyes are still messed up. Still. STILL! But that's a story for another time...
Anyway, going home to the midwest for the weekend. I'm excited. :)
Tomorrow is my last day of work/class this week because I'm leaving on Friday to go to Indianapolis for my cousin's wedding. Yes, to be a hot pink blob. The wedding is going to be a lot of fun since I haven't seen much of my extended family in a while, and Josh is able to come too, so I'll have a date. :) Of course, the downside is that he'll have to put up with my crazy family for the weekend. And I may have to wear my glasses during the wedding since my eyes are still messed up. Still. STILL! But that's a story for another time...
Anyway, going home to the midwest for the weekend. I'm excited. :)
Overweight? Congratulations!
Seen in this article from the New York Times about the rising number of diabetics in India:
"In perverse fashion, obesity and diabetes stand almost as joint totems of success.
Last year, for instance, the MW fast-food and ice cream restaurant in this city [Chennai, formerly Madras] proclaimed a special promotion: "Overweight? Congratulations." The limited-time deal afforded diners savings equal to 50 percent of their weight (in kilograms). The heaviest arrival lugged in 135 kilograms (297 pounds) and ate lustily at 67.5 percent off."
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Registration Day
I got to campus early this morning to talk to a professor about being my faculty thesis advisor, but I still have another 10 minutes or so to kill before meeting with my regular academic advisor to register for my classes. I love Reg Day though - the excitement about taking new classes is still greater than the dread of the work that comes with them, and you run into all sorts of people that you haven't seen for months. Well, maybe just I feel that way, since my office is off-campus and several of my old friends from undergrad are in on-campus labs.
Anyway. I'm registering for a math class called Optimization Methods and I'm still deciding between two aero/astro classes: Feedback Control Systems and Aircraft Stability & Control. Feedback would be easy, I think, but it meets MWF from 2-3pm (bad for leaving early on weekends) and has a final exam (yuck). Aircraft Stability & Control would be harder, which might be a lot to handle with the optimization class, but it has no final and meets Tu/Th mornings. So then I wouldn't have class on Fridays. :) Yes, I realize these are terrible ways to decide which class to take. But I shop around for classes every term, so I guess this one is no different. In any case, I'm excited that this is my very last semester of classes!
Anyway. I'm registering for a math class called Optimization Methods and I'm still deciding between two aero/astro classes: Feedback Control Systems and Aircraft Stability & Control. Feedback would be easy, I think, but it meets MWF from 2-3pm (bad for leaving early on weekends) and has a final exam (yuck). Aircraft Stability & Control would be harder, which might be a lot to handle with the optimization class, but it has no final and meets Tu/Th mornings. So then I wouldn't have class on Fridays. :) Yes, I realize these are terrible ways to decide which class to take. But I shop around for classes every term, so I guess this one is no different. In any case, I'm excited that this is my very last semester of classes!
Friday, September 01, 2006
Goodbye Marlborough St.
It is officially September 1st, which means I am officially squatting in my own apartment. Technically my lease ended at midnight, but I can't get my keys for the new apartment until 9am tomorrow at the earliest. And since I have no plans to sleep on the street tonight, my junk and I are staying here illegally. I've had these unsettling dreams the past couple nights that the current tenants in our new place don't return their keys on time and I can't get my stuff out of here... hopefully reality will be a nice change tomorrow.
Anyway, this past year on Marlborough Street with Glenn and Phil has been a good one, except for moving in last September. That was awful. And just for kicks, the internet has decided not to work since I (gasp!) unplugged the modem from the power strip and plugged it into the wall, so I'm stealing wireless from some other sap in the building. And now it's time for bed, since I need to be up in five and a half hours.
Anyway, this past year on Marlborough Street with Glenn and Phil has been a good one, except for moving in last September. That was awful. And just for kicks, the internet has decided not to work since I (gasp!) unplugged the modem from the power strip and plugged it into the wall, so I'm stealing wireless from some other sap in the building. And now it's time for bed, since I need to be up in five and a half hours.
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