Finals Week

It's hard not to get caught up in the nostalgia of the season, not to mention planning hubs 40th b-day party and a monster road trip for Christmas.  Made a calendar of my dogs last night.  The momentum of the season and all the cookies and candy are supposed to give me enough energy to finish up all the gifts, bake all the cakes, sing all the songs, grade all the labs, tally all the points, drive all the miles, well it will all be worth it, and it should be no surprise that we will get there, we've done it before, right Mel?

Melle (in 2004)

This semester has been most epic.  It's just like any kind of training, you have got to keep taking yourself to another level.  When I searched for the word on my mind I got: HigherEdJobs, Higher education, and the following song: Taio Cruz - Higher ft. Kylie Minogue - YouTube (2010).  The songs that I had in my mind were:
Higher Ground - Stevie Wonder (1973)
I wanna take you Higher - Sly and the Family Stone (1969)
Both of which are much more amazing than the modern chart topper.

But why is it called higher education?  Higher than what?  Why do we elevate ourselves?  How?  We solve relevant problems and encourage others to join us in the endeavor.  Why not integrate problem-based learning earlier in the curriculum?  Wonder if there are any out there for Chem 15.  Wouldn't some kind of environmental analysis for Earth Day be a great activity?  I'm also needing time to plan for the invitation of Southern California's undergraduate researchers in Chemistry and Biochemistry to Keck for a symposium.  Will there be prizes awarded?  If so, what should they be?  Will we have a keynote speaker for the students to interact with throughout the day?  Whew!  We have to make an announcement soon.

Thankful

I am definitely thankful to have the classroom experience I am able to at my school.  My classrooms are lively and fun with a sense of security and organizational structure.  Students freely ask questions and listen actively during lectures and discussions.  I am a no-nonsense lab instructor who can work with students' musical tastes.  Safety is my #1 concern in the laboratory, other than that I appreciate students engaging freely with new equipment and techniques.  Often found wearing bright colors and personal protective equipment (PPE), I am easy to spot in a classroom.  A brief pre-lab discussion on the basic purpose of the experiment, the new procedures, waste disposal, and safety hazards specific to the lab is always provided at the beginning of the lab period, after pre-lab assignments have been turned in by students.  The teaching assistant, an undergraduate student, is asked if they have any general feedback for students before it's "goggles on" and everyone is encouraged to begin the procedure immediately.  Throughout the lab I am doing rounds like a lifeguard and enabling small-talk of a scientific nature by engaging with students about classes and extracurricular activities and how those may integrate with their experience of chemistry; how chemistry relates to other aspects of their lives.  It's been really fun working with teaching assistants, supplemental instruction leaders, and graders to bring the students a peer-peer interaction.



I am thankful for my family.  Although I have been spending most of my energy toward my education, I still appreciate the strength I have gained by my strong roots.  I have had many strong influences in my life that gave me the ideas I currently hold.  I appreciate the efforts they put into pushing me forward in my own understanding of the behavior of atoms.  I am still working towards completely crossing myself with my husband, but we're still looking to put down roots ourselves and just working towards the ultimate goal of a very green lifestyle.  I'm thankful for what we're able to do right now, farming in our yard and at school.  Small yield but enough for a small household.  I am crossing every muscle fiber in my body, hoping we can collapse our wavefunction to a much smaller box.  Right now we are delocalized over a large area and it is costing us too much energy.  Our carbon footprint is huge in comparison to where I would prefer to be.  Mathematically I know that if each and every person would work towards using less energy and consuming/producing more locally, we could all live more in harmony by connecting with each other in our communities.


Find more photos like this on My Green Riverside


I am thankful for friends.  These past few months have brought me closer to my friends and I appreciate their support and coaching during this transitional time for us.  The sun is coming up in my neighborhood right now and it's a beautiful sight.  The sight of the inside of our house is revolting since we have not put much energy into fighting the entropy lately, but so thankful for a long weekend to recover my momentum.  I have to set my own pace, that's the lesson I learned from long distance races.  It's never what's best for you if you run at someone else's pace.  But that's what's so fun, when you run a race with a friend, you get compromise and what really hits home as far as fitness is challenging the body to do something different.  If you do the same old workout, you will keep the same body.  If you want to change your body, you cross train!  So thankful for the advice of colleagues and friends at this time, for cross-training me.




I know I have too much going on when the number of tags exceeds the limit: career, ceiling tuesdays, century, community, distance, education, fall, family, goals, green, interdisciplinary, love, meditation, motivation, mountains, nutrition, ocean, plants, positive, running, Santa Barbara, science, shoes, teamwork!

Color Run ~ Race Report

If you have never done a Color Run, I can definitely recommend it.  The one I attended was EPIC.  There were 22,000 people traveling in cooperation, all wearing white.  There were hundreds of volunteers in goggles baptizing us in all the colors of the rainbow.  Then at the end everyone huddles together and sprays their color packet into the air and cheers!  There's no timing and no winning.  It's organized in waves.

The course I ran with my friend went around Qualcomm stadium in San Diego.  We went halfway around the stadium and then came back the same way we ran, since we started in the second wave, we saw the first man and first woman, running just as fast as they pleased!  There was a drumline from the YMCA that made me totally cry.  It reminded me of so many old high school memories, when life was simpler and all I needed was a beat and space to dance with my friends!

Life has been more than hectic lately.  The job search is moving forward.  I took my Nano Fashion Show on the road down to San Diego to carry out a mission of outreach and celebrating chemistry!  I stayed at the historic Sofia Hotel, a Neo Gothic architectural gem built in 1926 and operated during prohibition as the Pickwick Hotel.  En suite bathroom!  Very nice staff.  I was driving our 2003 Honda Civic which we fondly refer to as "the battlecat" and the valet guys were doing rock/paper/scissors for who would have to park it.

Monday, August 13, 2012, 7:28:56 PM

I missed the colors down there, there's a reason it's called The Jewel (La Jolla).  We had a great LOOOOOOOONG walk along the coast.  It's so soothing, we sat down on a bench and watched the waves come in for a long time.  Very restorative.  I've always loved the multiculturalism reflected there.  We walked about 3.5 miles after having run 3.2 miles.  That's what I love about San Diego, it supports outdoor activities.  Don't worry I was wearing sunscreen!

Back here in Glendale, not much is going on.  My squash is still flowering in the backyard but my front garden is suffering, with the exception of the succulent clones from Riverside.  And the spider plants.  I had intended to plant radish, chard, and more squash.  The pots are ready but the weather has been so crazy lately.  Dear husband bought me a Farmer's Almanac so perhaps I will find answers to life's persistent questions there.  Kind of like a CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics for gardeners.

The corn at my Student Garden is almost as tall as me!  You can see it in parts of this video.  An article is also here.  I have really been letting my colors fly lately in creative and scholarly activity.  Preparing a lab "Wish List" is so exciting, I had no idea this big step in my life would come so soon.  It's funny when you are young it seems your future can't come fast enough.  Then when life hits you with a big step, it seems like I'm unprepared for the magnitude of it.

Recovery Food

Since this was (and still is) my original place to vent all the randomness inside my mind, I will return to it for some #madwriting now.  I'm enjoying an apple cider cause it's fallish-weather and we're out of coffee.  I'm planning a little service outreach project with my general chemistry students.  They seem enthusiastic about it.  It's a way to bring in other types of people to get excited about how science can impact our lives.  I've been putting off announcing it because I can't get a hold of the person at the mall where I want to hold the event.  I've left countless voicemails but I have not yet visited the office to argue my side.  A friend says I may instead be running up against apathy in which case I want to proceed with the event.  I feel like any small space would work and I would hope to create a learning environment for both the students and the audience.  So I guess I kind of decided that I would bike to work on Monday since I am not teaching and arrange this show with the Montclair Plaza.  Where will it be and can we pass out fliers?  Is there a noise limitation?  What is the maximum number of people we can accumulate before fire codes are violated?

I labeled this post Recovery because we are now recovering from some horrible germs that were exchanged starting at the beginning of when students arrived on campus and worsening until the first round of midterms.  Maybe since we're on fall break now everyone will come back relaxed and healthy.  Or maybe carrying more germs.  In any case, I wanted to post about a common household chemical HClO also known as bleach.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach
I was so proud of myself for finally getting around to bleaching some containers for fall planting, then I heard that you don't want to plant winter crops until November 1st in Southern California because it tends to have heat spikes that cause the plants to bolt prematurely.  This is what I was hoping for with my late fall planting in the Student Garden, which is blooming quite nicely.  For photos of that project, see here: http://mygreenriverside.ning.com/profile/KaylaAKaiser

Rather than acting like I know everything about chemistry, I will admit I went to read the Wikipedia article.  I think a wiki is an interesting thing because it's natural like a tree that has branches and it grows along with the group (community) that curate it.  I've been involving students in building Wikis for three semesters now.  It's only a tiny bit of coding that has to work for the generation of new pages, but I think the students should delve into that type of knowledge early on.

Since this is a cycling blog, our latest cycling adventure led us to need disinfectant in a large bottle and tape and gauze and wrap for several weeks.  Amazingly enough, the patient (who shall remain nameless but was not me) has recovered from a bicycle accident.  Luckily we were close to home at the time and there were three of us so we managed to get everyone a beer and then a way home.

This also got me thinking about the household uses of peroxide, another chemical important for our modern standards of living.  As an oxidizing agent, it destroys molecules that are colored.  When used as an antimicrobial, it destroys a wide-range of pathogens.  What potential we have in our household!  Well I guess I'm out of time and I do feel more relaxed now.  Sometimes I hold so many stories in my head and I have such big plans that it really crunches my brain.  Although I am not getting much perspective (not cycling or running or walking or swimming long distances) I am doing more yoga.  Maybe the time is ripe to focus inward.  I'm still obsessed with the Three Sisters.  It's so fall-y and comforting.  I've been trying to eat Squash, Corn and Beans together or separately throughout the day.  Pumpkins are plentiful and Corn is at the Farmer's Market.  Beans (green) or any type from a can have been in our diet these past few weeks.  Supposedly nutritionally balanced without meat.  We've been adding different onions, kale, dill, sage, all manner of spices, peppers, and cheese.  We've been so sick and tired that we've been eating cooked food just to stay alive.  Almost the consistency of baby food.  But it's comforting and sustaining.  And in some cases locally grown.  I'm looking forward to the Color Run, the Mission Inn Run, and possibly a trip to Santa Barbara.  Then we will give thanks!

What's your recovery food?

Authentic AND Local

I have my head in two places at once --> or maybe they are actually one.  I'm looking to the job market while at the same time focusing on doing a good job at the job I have.  But either way, I'm career-focused right now.  When I wake up in the morning, I feel energized at the possibilities of the day, but at the end of the day I am tending to feel like I didn't get enough done and I am trying to get up to speed to get to everything without any losses of time, but you gotta eat and you gotta sleep, ya dig?

I am writing about things that I'm happy about here.  My sister is visiting right now with her husband.  I have already attended the first seminar in the Fall 2012 Keck Seminar series.  My student presented her poster at the Summer Research Symposium.  I introduced myself to the ~80 new students I am teaching General Chemistry.  My car is amazing.  I love my doggies.

I am writing here about things that are upsetting me.  My back is hurting again.  I worry that I don't have the strength to do all the stuff I want to.  Between running and biking and home-gym-ing it with my husband, I had trimmed off a few extra pounds.  I wanted to be in shape when the school year started because for me, teaching is a very physically demanding profession.

My new classroom(s) are different sizes than the one(s) I had last year.  In one of them, there is so much furniture that I can hardly walk around.  In the other classroom, it's so spacious with staircases that I have to be very stable on my feet to walk throughout the space to pass out papers and interact with students 1-on-1.

What I wanted to write about today is the idea that I like to eat produce that is authentic (organic) and local just as much as I like to meet people of the same variety.  I like a diverse mix of people, just like I enjoy a salad with a variety of things in it.  I am brainstorming words that describe me (for the purposes of my job searching) and I would say Authentic is one big one.

I've spent time finding myself and my core values and I am genuinely myself.  I am nobody other than what I am.  I represent me.  I would also say that I am a locavore.  I love things that are locally grown or made.  I love growing and making things using materials that can be found in my local area.  If anyone is hiring, I am here in Glendale, locally.

complacent

I'm giving myself free reign today.  It's a holiday.  Technically.  So I will begin working after my #madwriting session.  I was thinking of a title for my post.  Something short that would summarize my general state.  I would say Complacent.  I typed it in to dictionary.com and got some ideas for why my brain would have come up with that particular word.

The first definition that popped up said "pleased, especially with oneself or one's merits, advantages, situation, etc., often without awareness of some potential danger or defect; self-satisfied: The voters are too complacent to change the government." With synonyms: "smug, unbothered, untroubled."

I was thinking BINGO that is how I feel about many things in my life right now.  I feel like there is a lot of noise in my headphones and it's my job to turn down the noise and turn up the signal.  This is why I've been doing #madwriting more often, but in a private journal like Julia Cameron suggests.

But sometimes, it seems, you have to focus on the noise for a minute.  Like acknowledge it during your morning pages and then it clears you out for more creativity and focus later in the day.  I've been preparing for the academic year to begin for the entire month of August it seems and classes start tomorrow!

This is a bike-centered blog so I want to share some bicycle noise with you.  I didn't make it out to some bike-related events in the area that I heard about and wanted to check out (or check-in to), but didn't want to (or couldn't afford to) spend the money, fuel, time, etc. devoting an entire weekend to a recreational pursuit.  One: Festival of Bikes, Two: Tour de Lake Arrowhead, Three: Swap Meet, Four: Public Outreach.  I guess I'm just not that into the lifestyle that I can devote a weekend to biking and forsake all other events.

Last weekend, we attended a Car Wash to raise money for John Morlock who we met through facebook.  He is a veteran who rides in events with other veterans.  He is part of an organization called Ride2Recovery that supports veterans who can be provided bicycles (with adaptations if necessary to accommodate any injury) to complete long (~600 mile) multi-day rides.  The idea inspired me to stand streetside waving a flag for an hour in Burbank, while dear husband was soaping, washing, and drying cars with a group of young marines at the American Legion.  We met another veteran Robert Kugler who also rides a Ride2Recovery-issue bike, who was there along with his wife Charlie.  Both of them are from Nebraska, like me!

I encourage anyone who understands how awesome cycling is to consider how you might support the Ride2Recovery organization or participate in their events.  I believe there is no better way to heal yourself than to train for and achieve an inspiring tour, especially if you are doing it with your friends (who become your heroes before you finally believe in yourself).  I learned in the power of group cycling by riding with the Riverside Bicycle Club.  There are scientific papers that show you can tolerate a higher level of pain when you are training in synchronization with others.

This is why I love group events, cycling or running.  I'm so stoked to do the Color Run in San Diego.  I think I'm more looking forward to it because it forces me to train (at least a little) and the actual event is all about having fun.  To me, that's what fitness has always been about.  I've spent many years punishing my body, trying to twist it into ridiculous positions and defy the laws of physics.  I've fallen down from exhaustion in a dance studio, and I've fallen off my bike a few times.  I think doing the color run will be less about competition, and more about being with my friend Sam, whether we feel like we want to walk or run to get through the course.  I'll definitely post a report when we get back.

I have to spend some time on Clitoral Mass.  I mean Critical Mass.  It's one thing that I shout in my head at cyclists that I see not wearing helmets.  It's totally silly that I shout in my head at cyclists I see with no lights on.  I never want to go on group rides in Los Angeles because I hear that everyone's taking drugs and doing dangerous things.  I heard someone always leaves in an ambulance.  What kind of ride is that?  Who wants to get together on a weekly basis and say, "hope I'm not the person who leaves in the ambulance on tonight's ride."  Or maybe they say something like, "I'll never have a manuvering error when we're hammering through a densely-populated area at night on drugs and I'm 18-years old."  I'm not that age anymore, so I just can't go on those rides.

In other bike-related news, I tuned up our old bikes to get to the Farmer's Market and the bicycle parking is off Central Ave now not on Caruso Ave.  It's great to be able to lock your bike to a solid rack in the shade right next to the security office with cameras pointed at it.  As my friend pointed out, if I were going to steal a bike, I would steal that new fixie over there.  Well I love the bikes we have, and I hope we have them for a long time more.

Also, the little shop we got Mike's shoes & pedals for the Performance, and seat for the Trek has gone to new ownership.  I love to support local bike shops, because how far do you want to have to walk if you get a flat near your house?  If you don't support your local shop, you'll have to go all the way to a big-box retailer on foot (assuming your bicycle is your main mode of transportation, but who in the US would be in that situation?) Anyway, the new owner calls the shop simply Glendale Cycles and he is very calm and unassuming.  He has a mountain bike, a road bike and a BMX bike for himself.  He's had the shop just a few months now, but don't be afraid to go there if you are ever in the area.  The phone number is 818 937 9440.

1053 words. #madwriting.

BBB update

In this blogosphere I had become sidetracked.  I had to actually split my personality, but still sometimes it overlaps. This post had me writing about science (nanotechnology) as it crosses with cycling.
https://sites.google.com/site/kaiserwellnesscenter/home/nanotechnology/carbon-fiber

In other news, I made a donation to support Bikes Belong on July 21 to honor my girl Heidi Swift, the awesome Rêve tour author and rider.

We've posted our best hikes, bike rides, and runs here. Find courses with maps by region and distance.
https://sites.google.com/site/kaiserwellnesscenter/home/fitness-awareness/available-routes

Two Dog Parks Ride

Met the Bodaceous Bike Babes July 1st at Golden Road Brewery.  Will join a group ride soon, either that or Wolfpack Hustle, or ride my bike to work day again.  Truth: we have to get used to the speed of LA traffic and riding a bike in this town is CRAZY.  Not sure if all the education would be worthwhile if I splatted myself on the pavement.

I left this blog alone for 3 whole months and in its absence, I have been sad and quiet and catching up on my reading and putting on weight.  Is this a good thing?  When does relaxation cross the line into depression?  Well at least I feel better now!  I'm trying to find that balance.
https://sites.google.com/site/kaiserwellnesscenter/home/fitness-awareness/finding-balance

I gotta get back to some kind of dance class.  This is when I was cycling for my commute (May 2011) and then I gave myself ballet classes for a month as a birthday present last year (July 2011) at Riverside Ballet Arts.  This year, I haven't been cycling as much, but I took those ballet classes at Inland Pacific Ballet.
Hoping to get that started again.  My posture will thank me as long as I don't injure my calf again.

Not as weightless as life on a bike would make you seem...