2014

Hey there, blog. I took a not so little break during Christmas and I've been dragging my feet when it comes to blogging. And basically for no good reason. I finished Gym Christmas with a swimming work out that never made it onto the blog and then I enjoyed several days in a row where I barely touched my computer.

Christmas at my parents' in Indiana was great, as usual. I spent a lot of time with Mr. Tobes and a lot of time doing nothing. But because of the timeline for SMT submissions,  I also spent a bunch of time editing a conference paper and an abstract that were both due in early January.

Other highlights: Mom took us to an IU game!

BoBo decided that my parents' fireplace is her favorite spot in the world. 

My mom graciously offered to help out with some dental bills I had in the fall, so I got a crown for Christmas! Not wanting John to feel left out, she got him a paper crown, shown here. 

She also got us this large bottle of tequila and we had margarita Christmas once again. Never gets old.

Dave and Carla came to town for the day. Naturally, we began with a visit to the Spoon, then a walk around campus, and finally, board games with fancy beer at the house.

John's grandpa came to visit and at the end of his trip, we took him back to catch the bus in Indianapolis. Mom suggested we take in a museum and have lunch at Three Sisters in Broad Ripple. We had a nice time visiting Indy with Mom. It made all three of us want to go back again (to the NCAA Hall of Champions, perhaps?). Here's John modeling his "I <3 actual="" christmas="" for="" got="" he="" hot="" p="" sauce.="" shirt="" some="" sriracha="" that="" with="">

Nearer to the end of break, we rang in the New Year with Mark and friends, including Amanda. She was dressed the sparkliest so she descended the stairs at midnight, in place of a glittery ball in Times Square. 

And since then, lots of other mundane but good things have happened. I will deliver the current 2014 highlights in a conveniently lazy list format. 

1. I decided to join the whole TriClub (rather than just the swimming) with the hopes of being able to run at some point in the next few months. I now think the expectation of running so soon was unrealistic (a topic for another time), but I'm really enjoying the rest of the club. I can go to spin class on Monday and Friday, swim three days a week like before, plus they also do strength training and a mystery workout on Wednesday. I don't typically make it to all that, but it's nice to have so many structured work outs available. Also, I'm having so much success with massage therapy that I really haven't had one of my motion sickness episodes in a while, and spin class doesn't make me motion sick! 

It turns out, triathlon club members get up VERY EARLY, so I'm still trying to get adjusted to that. But I think that it's actually going to help me graduate. I get up early for the work out and then I'm up.  I get in 2-3 hours of solid dissertation time before lunch, or a solid single hour before I teach. It's pretty awesome. Of course, I also fall asleep around 9:30 every night. 

I'm going to an indoor triathlon in Toronto in a couple of weeks to swim as part of a relay and I hope to post about what that's like. In general, it is so nice to have a group of people to spend time with who have no idea who Rameau is. 

2. Speaking of Rameau, a week or so ago, I went to Tallahassee, FL to talk about Rameau. I presented a chunk of Chapter 4 at their Forum, a conference run by grad students. Even though it was "cold" for Tallahassee, it was nice to get a break from our weather and enjoy some 50 degree days. I also go to catch up with Little Gillian, a former UWO student who's now ABD (time flies!) at Florida State. 

Side note: I have two friends named Gillian/Djillian/Jillian. I met them both at Western, neither of them goes here now, and both have attended FSU. Both currently live in Florida. Yet I don't think they've ever met. This is not the premise of a riddle. 

I also get to present "Rameau and Friends/Frenemies"* at the IU student conference during "spring" break. I'm lucky to have gotten on two fairly economical conferences - one where I could stay with a friend, and one in my parents' town. 

3. And speaking of my dissertation, I actually felt really good coming back to school and starting 2014 because THIS IS GOING TO BE THE YEAR: I am going to finish this dissertation, come hell or high water. My current plan is to defend late in the summer, or, if everyone important is still out of town, in the early fall. Of course, I'm meeting with my advisor this week and he may put the ki-bosh on all of that. Still, I've got a lot of stuff written and I feel good about the progress I've made. I've also learned that writing and presenting conference papers on my dissertation topic is, on the one hand, more efficient than on unrelated topics, but ultimately still a time suck. After the IU conference, I'm done for the school year. 

4. While stuck on the tarmac on the plane coming back from FL, I read most of Rachel Dratch's book, A Girl Walks into a Bar. And it's great! If you liked Bossypants by Tina Fey, or Is Everyone Hanging Out without Me? by Mindy Kahling, you will probably enjoy this book. Parts of it made me laugh out loud and others were simply touching and clever. I highly recommend it. Have you read anything by a woman comic lately? If so, please send me the title! Also, when is Amy Poehler going to write her own hilarious and brilliant memoir? All the cool ladies are doing it!

4. It's cold here, like it is everywhere else, apparently. Western canceled class on Day #2 of the semester and I think they vowed never to do it again. But, you know, it's Canada. It's colder than in previous years, but enduring the cold winter is a point of national pride, so they don't complain the same way Americans do. They seem especially excited about the cold because of the upcoming Winter Olympics. If you have a few minutes to kill, check out #WeAreWinter on the twitters. You'll see what I mean.

5. I signed up for the Ontario Masters Provincial Championships swim meet in March. There's no minimum qualifying time and it's in Windsor (about 2 hours away), so woohoo! I'm doing the 50M, 100M, and 400M Freestyle (400! What am I thinking!!), and the 100 IM. It's so exciting to have an actual event to train for. I'm sure I'll post here about the weekend in Windsor after it happens.

And with that, it's 9:30. I've been up since 5:15! Time for bed!

If you're reading this, then I hope your Near Year has been great so far!

*Not the real title. In case you're curious, the real title was, "Rameau, Voltaire, Castel, and Public Image in Enlightenment Music Theory."

SMT 2013: Charlotte

Last weekend was the SMT's Annual Theory-a-thon in Charlotte. While I was there, I also heard people refer to it as Theory Camp and Theory Christmas. Theory Camp I understand, but Theory Christmas...that's too much. 

Anyways, it was a productive, fun, and also exhausting conference, per usual. I got to reconnect with lots of people from IU, though none of the students in this IU department ad were present, including Mark: 

I got to see my former classmate, Drew (shown below), give a paper about baroque dance that was great! He also played piano in his presentation to demonstrate different conceptions of baroque meter, and his playing is excellent. Presentations with live performance are always the best. 

The DJ and Bryn were present with little Trudy and it was great to hang out with Mama DJ for a bit in between sessions! Trudy is cuter in real life than in pictures, if you can believe it. 

This year's conference had included several great pedagogy sessions, though I was sad to miss Bryn's as it was on Sunday morning, during my flight (but you can check out the materials here!). I found those sessions particularly inspiring and I'm going to try to incorporate some more new tech/media into my teaching. I love the idea of having a short, weekly podcast to introduce the topic of the week for my students. 

I also somehow managed to do a bunch of personal work during the conference weekend. My plan was to go to things when I wanted to, but not to force myself to go to any sessions just because I was there. The result was that I had a little extra time on my hands to write, especially Wednesday afternoon before everyone else arrived. I had the hotel room to myself and got all kinds of stuff written before my roommate, Anna, arrived. It turns out that an expensive hotel room that does not include internet is a good place to get stuff done because you don't have the internet to offer distractions. It did give me the idea to get a few fun colleagues together, rent a cabin (or cottage, as the locals always say) somewhere pretty, then work all day and have fun in the evening. It would be sort of like an informal writing retreat! 

On Saturday I went to the parties and snapped this picture of several senior theorists playing poker at the end of the Yale reception.

Then John went to AMS almost right after I got back from SMT. Bobo and I had the weekend to ourselves and we filled our time with walks in the gray weather.

This was our first fairly cold weekend - highs in the 30s - and it's starting to feel like winter, even if it still looks like fall. 

Bobo has her winter wear all ready to go. She's wearing her red, heavier coat in the photos above. And below you can see her knit sweater for moderately cold weather. As you can see, she loves them both. 

Gym Christmas Day 7

Gym Christmas Day 8!

Work out: Iron Strength. Man, that routine is hard. 

I was supposed to run today, but I delayed until Sunday morning because it's raining and I'm trying to get over a mild cold. Yesterday was also a rest day to prevent the cold from getting worse. It seems to have worked! Back to running tomorrow.

GYMGO: I'm counting this as a WEIGHT A MINUTE day, since all of the exercises after the warm up involve either body weight or free weights. Now all I need to do is go for a walk or try something new to get a GYMGO. Woohoo!

Thing I ate today: wonderful wonton soup (shown below) at Zen Gardens, an Asian-themed, vegetarian restaurant in town. I can't believe I waited so long to try it! When I looked at the menu, I felt overwhelmed with choice - I wanted one of everything. It's not pricey, so I hope we go back soon. This soup had a tasty broth, mushrooms, big fat wontons, shredded carrots, and baby bok choy. A++. John, DJillian, and I also split a sushi platter, veggie tempura, and pan fried dumplings, all delicious.

Multiple pictures today, because I want to show you both the soup I at at Zen Gardens, and the pie John made yesterday.

I think I mentioned before that this is Pie Christmas, i. e., John has decided he wants to learn how to make pie crusts. Yesterday we went to a potluck, so John made the Pear and Cranberry Galette from Vegan Pie in the Sky. It turned out really well, despite John's anxiety over the crust. He's signaling here that the recipe makes two small galettes, and that the galettes were the second pie recipe he's tried from this book. They were a big hit at the potluck. Everyone passed over my whipped eggnog cake (also delicious) to eat his pies, which were pretty visually impressive. Pie Christmas is going to be awesome.

Gym Christmas Day 1

Day 1. 

Work out: 30 minutes of Iron Strength, adjusted to make me less motion sick (no mountain climbers, no sit ups, etc). Includes things like squats, push ups, lunges (I did the physio variety I learned last summer), 5 lb. weights, and stretching.

GYMGO Card: crossed off a "Grab Bag" square in the top left corner. I've studied the card and decided that my strategy will be to get the diagonals first.

Photo and food I've eaten today: cranberry + cottage cheese + sweet potato muffins, from the Lean Green Bean, via Djillian. Shown here with some Christmas items.

Oh man, these are good, and super easy. You want to make these muffins.

Side note: you may have seen on facebook that Sargibso's smart and very funny boyfriend, Aaron, was recently diagnosed with testicular cancer. He's started a blog where he can write and make jokes about it. It's definitely worth your time.