upping the ante

I have literally experienced so much in the time span since my prev post, it's hard to know where to start.  The highlights go a little something like this: (Spring Break) catching up on organizing papers and cleaning house, 4 mi hike (Food Poisoning) sick for 2 days.  Mom comes into town (Horse Races) and we go sight-seeing (Getty Museum).  My cousin raced in the rain (Team Swift) and we saw some stars (Griffith Observatory).  We were planning to go to the Chinese Theater and Beverly Hills but the LA Marathon was going on so we hit a cafe (The Trails) instead.  Got to hang with my aunt also who educated me about Einstein, Tina Fey, and great organizations such as http://www.farmvetco.org/ that she is putting her brand architecture skills to work on.  The visual story about seed swaps warmed my heart.

This past week at school I heard the research talk of Eileen Spain.  We also met in my office to discuss being a woman scientist married to another chemist (which we have in common) and I shared my passion for outreach and teaching general chemistry with her.  She got me thinking about fluoride and fluorine chemistry.  I heard the research talk of Matthew Benoit.  He called our neighbor's cat Fluffy a fathead.  He studies evolution of cats by measuring various skull points and graphing the data in such a way that divergence between genus and species can be seen.  It's called multiphasic allometric analysis.  Various types of comparisons can be drawn from large datasets to support classification and evolutionary conclusions.

I also heard a talk at the Athaneum by Oran B. Hesterman.  He shared his personal struggle with ulcerative colitis and how it caused him to have a paradigm shift in his thinking about food.  He teaches agronomy.  He founded http://www.fairfoodnetwork.org/ which is to aid food suppliers in connecting with social workers so that federal food assistance dollars can go farther and directly into farmer's hands rather than to Wal-Mart where people more likely purchase pre-packaged foods.  It was a call to action, he was recruiting us to become part of the solution to the obesity epidemic as well as spending more federal dollars on ag research and public education rather than spending it on subsidies for a limited number of crops.  He acknowledged that food solutions are going to become increasingly more necessary as the global population continues to rise.

I sprained my left calf muscle at adult ballet class.  It was impossible to walk on Tuesday and Wednesday.  I had to take baby steps and kind of crab-walk (sideways) to avoid stretching the calf.  It was awkward, but nice at the same time to be forced to slow down.  I spent more time enjoying the birds and squirrels on my walk from Center Court (CMC) to Humanities (Scripps) to teach my lecture on Wed and Fri.  Luckily by lab on Thu and Fri it was feeling better.  This means no hike, run, or bike this weekend.  Massage tomorrow! Want to eat junk food these days.  Want to bake scones and coffee cakes.  Why am I so stressed?