Danielle Blog

Spring break vacation in TX!

Hi!

A lot has happened since the last time I posted. I’ve been in TX for a week for Spring Break/vacation. This is the one perk to working in education. I’m “forced” to take time off for myself. And while I’m at it, I’ve realized that it is good for me to get away completely so that I don’t feel guilty about not using the time to grade exams/homework or prepare lectures.

I’ve really needed this break!

I’ve had tons of fun with Texas Seestor, Trainwreck, and my two nieces – Munchie (the 3-year old) and Snuggly (the 3-month old)! There are lots and lots of photos on Flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/danied/

So many that I can’t begin to sort through them and find ones to post here. I wake up early (a habit from getting up to drive so far to school), but there is only about 45 min or so where I can really be on my computer before my nieces get up (if that).

This morning, I had to spend the time packing, because I head back to the Arctic Hinterland today. Honestly, it is really mild there today. But after having 70F weather here, even something as warm as 37F is going to feel cold.

BUT it won’t be long and I’ll be here!

While I was here, I scoped out apartments. Texas Seestor drove me around, Snuggly silently slept the whole time, which was fantastic. And I found 2 really good candidates that have garages. After seeing some with garages, I realized that I’d like to have the extra space for all of my stuff like bicycle, tools, and general storage of things that can withstand the summer heat.

ope! I heard a door upstairs. That usually means that Texas Seestor or Trainwreck are getting Munchie out of bed! Since I leave at 9:30 am today, I need to maximize my time with them!

Check out Flickr!

Remembering US National’s 2008 – Men’s Figure Skating

I finally had time to watch the men’s figure skating for the 2010 Olympics last night.

I was reminded of getting to see the 2008 US National’s in St. Paul, MN. The men who represented the US in the Olympics this year are all skaters whom I was able to see that year.

I have a handful of photos of them. My camera was running out of battery power by the end of the finals, and I had to keep flipping it on and off. Plus, I was trying to not get too caught up in taking photos. I wanted to actually enjoy their fabulous skating.

I only have a couple of images of Evan Lysacek actually skating. Of course he is this year’s Olympic champion (gold medal winner). He won Nationals in 2008 too.
I have more photos of Johnny Weir skating. He actually tied Lysacek in total points that year, but the tie-breaker was their standing in the free skate program, and Lysacek won that portion.

They have come a long way since 2008. Lysacek in particular is just an amazing, amazing athlete. I’m so glad he won gold this year!

Here are a couple shots I was able to take of Evan Lysacek.

Of course, the advantage of having a camera with a really fast shutter speed is that I was actually able to get photos of them jumping. But they spin so fast, and I hadn’t figured out how to use my “sport” setting, that they are still a tiny bit blurry.

Here are some photos of Johnny Weir.

Three cheers for figure skating!

Congratulatory flowers!

These flowers were ordered for me before I wrote my post where I mentioned that I hadn’t bought flowers for myself. When Texas Seestor saw my comment, she got a good chuckle out of it, because unbeknownst to me, she had gone in with Mom and Dad to buy me this bouquet!

It was delivered this afternoon, and as you can see, is just gorgeous!

I’ll be taking more photos soon. But for now, this is what I was able to shoot quickly with my normal lens.

Official!

It is official! I have been offered and I have accepted a job offer for a tenure-track position in biology at a small liberal arts school in Texas!!!

wooooooooooooooo hooooooooooooooooo

The image above is something I created to make notecards on Snapfish. I am going to send cards to people at my future school who are in my new department, were on the search committee, the provost, the president, and the woman in development (i.e. will be helping me get money for research). The school colors are black and gold, and I thought they might enjoy a card with a flower in the school colors. So I searched my numerous flower photos in my huuuuuuuuuuge iPhoto library (currently 9,800+ photos) for a yellow flower and can you believe that I found this tulip that actually has a black center in it too???!!!

Was this meant to be, or what? I took that photo in April 2007.

I really just thought I’d use a daylily that was yellowish green. But when I saw this and popped it on the design, I realized it was the right one.
Note, I can’t take credit for the idea for the background. Something similar was on Snapfish. I just copied it in the colors of my choice with the sizing of borders and lines of my choice.

Anyway, about the job:

Location: about 45 min (?) from Texas Seestor’s house! Maybe 30 min from where I might live (?). You know what this means? It means that I will get to see her, her hubby, and my two darling nieces on a regular basis!
Also, mom and dad are retiring in the area, so I’ll get to see them too! They haven’t picked a house, so it is still a bit up in the air as to how close I’ll live to them. But I have hopes that they will be close!

School: smaller than my current school. But my current school is the largest liberal arts school in the country, because of the way it is designed. (I can’t really say more without giving everything away about where I am, etc.)

People: This is a BIG draw for me. The search committee was actually made up of people all across the school, which is really unusual. There was someone from chemistry, kinesiology, and hispanic studies on it (along with the bio dept chair and another bio person). They all get along really well. We were actually laughing and joking on my phone interview. My on-campus interview was really great too.
There was this whole school reception after my seminar, where I met people from all over the school and everyone just seemed to get along and emphasized how much of a positive aspect that was for them at the school.

As for the students, the professors all had very positive things to say about them. They were shy at first in my guest lecture, but really warmed up to me pretty quickly. So, I think that we will all get along well.

Courses: This is the other main draw for me. I’m was hired to teach a course in one of my specialties: molecular biology/molecular genetics. I’ll also teach their intro bio for majors and a non-majors course. And one semester of anatomy and physiology.

Research: This is the one drawback. There are internal grants that I am almost guaranteed of getting for my usual lab consumables ($3600 a year). But to get some of the larger equipment that I have currently, I’ll write small proposals with the people in the development office. Then they will go to donors in the area and try to get them to donate money to the school/my research. This was the most involved part of my negotiations. I tried to get the school to actually give me start up money. In the end, they just don’t have the funds to offer any start-up money. BUT the provost did have an in-depth conversation with development and the woman in development is pretty confident that we can get the money. If not, I’ll just have to change directions in my research to do less expensive stuff. Which I can do. I just hope to continue doing neuro stuff.

Religion: The school is affiliated with the same denomination of which I am currently a member! This is not the denomination that I grew up with, but it is what I found when I went looking for a local church that has contemporary music. Again, could this be a better fit?

I don’t have flowers to celebrate; with it being Valentine’s day weekend and all, the prices are just jacked up too high. BUT HB bought me chocolate truffle cake! We had some last night while we watched the opening ceremonies and just finished it off (I stopped mid-post to have tea and cake).

Note: I had to take this next photo really fast, because HB was ready to eat the cake when I realized I hadn’t taken any pics!

It tasted even better than it looks!

We had passion fruit papaya tea with it.

yummmmmmmmmmmmm

What’s worse? – a guest post by Texas Seestor

Texas Seestor emailed me about something that happened to her this week.  I asked her to write a guest blog post about it.

Here it is, in her own words:

====

Out for a stroll…

I was out for a stroll on Friday with Danielle’s newest niece in the jogging stroller (walking, not jogging, and with an infant sling for those that might be concerned).

It was a lovely, sunny day and I was aiming for 30-45 minutes. I was about 20 minutes into my walk on a main street through our neighborhood, and thinking that I should hold the stroller tight as I was going somewhat downhill and I was pretty sure I didn’t have the energy or speed to catch it if it got away, when I stepped in something on the sidewalk. I looked back to see what it was…

So, I ask you, what is worse…stepping in dog poop or not realizing until its too late that you just stepped onto a mostly decomposed, but still stinky, armadillo? Oh, and then, a few minutes later, getting dog poop on the stroller wheel and one of your new running shoes while trying to walk in the grass to get rid of any dead animal stuff on your shoe.

Yuck! UGH!

Only in Texas…

I didn’t puke, so that was a good thing. I did keep my walk to 30 minutes as all I could think about the rest of the way home was cleaning my shoe and the stroller with the garden hose. This was also a challenge as I was trying to keep my thumb dry which I had managed to slice open earlier in the week while recycling some cans, thus requiring 4 stitches.

Last week doesn’t seem like it was my week.

Of course, it all seems quite humorous now.

Job interviews done

As the title suggests, my on-campus job interviews for actual tenure-track biology faculty positions are now done.

I can breathe a sigh of relief (sort of). I say sort of, because now I have to wait on their decisions.

I interviewed at 2 small liberal arts schools in TX, because I really really want to move down there to be closer to Texas Seestor, Trainwreck and my two nieces. Also, Mom and Dad are retiring there this summer. I’m ready to live closer than a plane flight away.

I also interviewed at my current school. I just did that on Tuesday, and it was my last one.

They are all having their meetings this coming week to make a decision. I may know about one of them as early as Monday/Tuesday. Of course, that is the one that I will likely turn down. They just don’t have what I need to do summer research, and if I’m being honest with myself, I would rather continue to adjunct at my current school and/or wait on a different school in TX than go there. My current school will be hiring again, because there is another faculty member retiring at Christmas of the 2010-2011 school year.

I really really like the one school in TX, BUT the school I’m at is offering start-up money for research! And this would be at least double or triple what I got to start my research last summer. They actually offered the chemistry hire 10 times what I managed to use to get my research started last year!
I’d love to get an offer at both schools and get the TX school to match my offer at my current school….
…. that would be an ideal situation.

I guess we’ll see.

So, now I’m trying to catch up on everything that got put on hold since the time that i started applying back before Thanksgiving. I had those 2 weeks off in TX over break, but I didn’t do any of the home stuff that I need to take care of.
For example, I’m planning on taking down and sorting the Christmas decorations today!
I told two profs at school and their comments were something to the effect that there is still snow on the ground (as will be the case until April or so), which means that I’m all good for a while yet.

This brought up the other prof who has been at the school for 20+ years to comment that one year for graduation (late May) he remembers there being a spot of lawn that still had snow on it. Granted, it was in a shady spot…
… He also had an interesting factoid that since MN has been keeping records, there has been snowfall in every single month of the year – except for ONE. We assume it is July, but we aren’t entirely certain.

yeah.

And people wonder why I’d want to leave a great job like the one I have currently…

Happy New Year!

This was one of my New Year’s Eve activities – playing playdough with the older of my two nieces.

And we’ve gone to the park for the past couple of days. Yesterday was really nice out, but today was a bit cold when we were there (it was in the 40s).

We’ve also played dress-up some. The sparkly shoes and skirt that I gave her last year are still a big hit too.

We’ve been playing blocks, fingerpainting, riding bikes (and tricycle), reading books, eating snacks, and playing with the bunny.

As for my newborn niece, I’ve held her for a chunk of time every day. And helped keep her awake or played with her when my sister felt like she needed to be awake.

And here is one of the good photos of my new baby niece.

There are a bunch of photos on Flickr.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

It is Christmas morning and HB is still asleep, so we haven’t had our usual Christmas morning cinnamon rolls yet.

Christmas Eve was so very special yesterday.

Even with the snowstorm, all of us on the Worship Team made it to the services. The quartet that I was in practiced our 4 songs really briefly. They were a capella, so it was important to “remember” the songs. Once everyone arrived, we had a chance to run through the first verse of each of the main songs in the service. But we ran out of time for the worship leader and I to practice our duet. Thus, at the first service it wasn’t quite as relaxed as the 2nd and third, but I’ll get to that in just a minute.

Here is how the evening progressed once we finished practices.

The quartet that I was in sang 4 songs out in the lobby to welcome people into the church.
Lo How A Rose Ere Blooming – 1st verse only
Angels from the Realms of Glory (chorus is “come and worship, come and worship, worship Christ the newborn king”)
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
Joy to the World

During the first service (3:15), I didn’t sing up in front with the group. I just went up for the special music. My solo verse was not as good as it had been at practice, but that is sort of how it goes for me when I have to sing solo in front of people. But the harmony part was really terrific and my voice was all it could be.
Between first and second service, there wasn’t much time, but a few people from the Worship Team told me that we sounded good.

During the second service (4:15), I sang up front with the group. The service was as follows (this is more for my sake)
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
Litany of Lights (lighting of the Christ candle) and responsive reading
It Came Upon the Midnight Clear
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:1-7
O Little Town of Bethlehem
The Christmas Story – Luke 2: 8-12
Away in a Manger
Children’s message
The Christmas Story – Luke 2:13-20
Our special music – Babe in the Straw by Derri Daugherty and Steve Hindalong – Caedmon’s Call version from album City on a Hill
(this is the one that was recorded)
Message
Candle Lighting
Silent Night
Scripture Reading John1:1-5
Joy To The World

During the second service (4:15), my voice was right where I wanted it to be during my solo verse. I felt like it went as well as it had ever gone before. Afterward, four people or so from the Worship Team told me how well it went and how great we/I sounded. The sound team also told me that it sounded really great.
The recording is the raw version with the levels not mixed – but I had asked them to put it on a flash drive for me. When I listened to it last night, the keyboard (accordion setting) is overpowering, our vocals are the next loudest part, and you pretty much can’t hear the guitar. So, I am not going to share it until I get a version that has the levels evened out.
I’m hoping they will do that within the next few weeks!

For the third service (5:15), everything went as planned. This time, our song sounded even better!

Now, for this next section, I’m not trying to brag. But this was the first time I did a good-sounding solo for church. And I need to write these things down so that when my confidence is so-so in the future, I can read these. Plus, this is the sort of thing my parents will enjoy reading.
Afterward, I heard from more people. A woman (didn’t know her) specifically came up to the front while I was gathering my things and thanked me for sharing my gift. She said it was a Christmas gift to her to get to hear me sing.
A friend who is in theater found me too to tell me how pure my voice sounded and how beautiful the song was.
The wife of one of the sound people also told me how wonderful it was.
The pastor stopped me and told me how she thought it sounded wonderful and thanked me for singing and for sharing. She mentioned too how the song fit with the children’s message and the main message just perfectly. We hadn’t planned that ahead of time.
Those compliments really had me floating and really made me glad that I stayed here for Christmas Eve. There was a day or so where I’d contemplated flying to TX early to spend this time before Christmas with my sister’s family and my parents. I’ve been sort of weepy these past few days and somewhat regretting my decision to stay, which is a pattern for me at this time of year when I’m away from them. And of course this year, I’ve been missing out on these extra days with my nieces!
But I stayed, and I’m so thankful that I did.
And I fly to TX tomorrow night! (assuming that I can fly out of here with the way the weather is right now)
I’ll be there for 2 weeks! (I come back the weekend before classes start)

I’ll be writing more in the upcoming weeks. And hopefully finding a way to put our song in an accessible place once it is re-mixed. I can guarantee that I’ll be posting tons of photos to Flickr!

May the blessings and joy of Christmas be with you.

I send a hug to you,
Danielle

How could I resist sharing these?

This is my wee niece at approximately 1 week old. She is being held by my mom (Grandma) and Texas Seestor (her mom), respectively.

I get to see all of them in less than a week!

Last Sunday in Advent

Hello!

I haven’t been writing much, because it seems like no one is really around. But I did have an email from a friend who has read some of my blog in order to keep up on things. So, I suppose it is worth a bit of an update.

As you have guessed, I call Texas Seestor pretty much everyday to see how everyone is doing in their household. TS’s blood pressure shot up the other day, so she is now on BP medication, but this is far better than when she gave birth to my first niece. So, it is great that she is doing better in that sense.
Baby niece – still no nickname – although my mom suggested Squeaky – is doing well. She eats a lot (to be expected) and is slowly getting her sleep schedule flipped around from being nocturnal to being more awake during the day.
Older niece – I suppose she needs a new nickname too! – hasn’t shown a whole lot of interest in her younger sister. She has always been pretty scared of small things that are animated. She was scared of the Elmo that giggles and moves and the same with a doll. So, she is still pretty cautious of her sister.

In news about me, we had a decent practice for the Christmas Eve special music duet with solo section on Wed night. The guitarist and keyboardist who played with us for the first practice cannot be at the Christmas Eve service (to my knowledge), so on Wed night, new people had to learn their parts. I am assuming it will come together. I know that our vocals sound good.
The only thing that is a little worrisome is that I woke up with a sore throat/cold this morning! eek!
I’ve been sneezing a lot since Friday, so I’m praying it will pass and that I can participate to the full extent at the services. I’m part of a quartet that is going to sing some carols before the services too. AND I am part of the usual group up front leading service for the last 2 of the 3 services which are my favorite – the candlelight ones.

*big breath*

So, my voice has to be up to par!

Otherwise, I’m doing a lot of grading. I finished all of my shopping for presents that have had to be shipped. Now I just have a few easy things to pick up for family where I will hand them their gifts.
I’m grading finals all day today. I’m (obviously) avoiding doing them right now. They shouldn’t be too bad once I get started. I just have a bit of a mental block about doing them, unfortunately.

I have been to two choir concerts in a fantastic church in downtown Mnpls. One of them was by all of the choirs at our school, which was just fantastic!

Tonight, I attend the concert of a woman and her sisters who have formed a band called Redpath. The lead singer, Lauren Redpath was the worship leader at our church for a while. We stupidly didn’t hire her permanently, because people thought that she didn’t have enough experience in working with instrumentalists. She also didn’t bring in any new songs while she was with us. BUT her voice is so outstanding, it is a real shame, in retrospect. However, the church that she is at now is huge, and she is obviously getting more exposure.
I like to think that this is all part of God’s plan for her and her sisters.

I think it will be a great concert since it was so terrific last year – and that was when she and her sisters were just starting to form their group. So, they ought to be even better now!

I’ll tell you more about it once I go.

For now, I suppose that I need to get some grading done before I go to church. I’m looking forward to church. We’ve been singing all of the traditional christmas songs this Advent. And the children’s messages for the lighting of the Advent candles have been particularly good this season. Finally, the sermons have been spot on too!

Okay. Now I really am going to go. See you!