February 13, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
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
December 25, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 3 Comments
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
September 20, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 0 Comments
In my attempt to write short little updates, here goes a bit about yesterday.
Performing was a lot of fun. The crowd was small, but appreciative. The event was organized by a different church that invited us to perform and raised money for the local food shelf.
My solos went pretty well. There was one note that wasn’t ideal, but HB didn’t notice, so maybe no one else did either!
I played the tambourine some while I sang, which was also fun.
Some of us hung around to watch the other groups. The second group was another praise band from a church in the twin cities. It was interesting to hear their versions of some of the same songs that we sometimes sing (ones that we didn’t do that day).
I also loved the petting zoo. My camera battery ran out of power before I got any photos of the bunnies, unfortunately. One bunny let me pet him/her for quite a while.
May 18, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
I almost forgot to tell you about my mini-solos at church, but then I saw Squirl’s comment on my previous blog post.
It was about 50% great and 50% okay.
Basically, I nailed it during practice and during the first service. Then, during the second service, the parts of the verses that were in my upper range (head voice) just ended up really weak. Thankfully, my mini-solo ended in my chest voice. So, at least I ended well.
I think that what happened was that I oversang in all of the songs between the first and second service and wore my voice out. I actually could tell that my voice was getting rough by the time we hit the sermon in the second service where we leave and go hang out.
That makes me frustrated. *sigh*
After the first service, the music director and his wife (who is also in the band) said that they should try to have me do more solos. Well, we’ll see what they think after hearing me in the second service. *sigh*
Well, I knew it wasn’t in a great spot in my range. But I’d hoped to overcome it. And I DID overcome it for the first service. Just not the second.
I guess there is something to be said for pacing!
March 28, 2009 - Posted by danielle- 3 Comments
Per my usual Saturday routine over breakfast, I was just getting ready to check some blogs of yours. But then it hit me that I haven’t updated my own blog since my b-day on the 12th. *bad blogger! shame on me!* 
I could use being busy as my excuse, which is completely true. But the other part of it is that A) I didn’t feel like whining and B) nothing totally major has happened that ‘warrants’ blogging.
However, maybe some medium (but not minor and major) things have happened that are worth sharing.
1) Being busy.
Things are crazy this semester and they are just going to stay crazy as I give exams and have to grade these big lab research papers that my first year students wrote for Intro Bio. Most nights I have to do prep for lectures for the next day. Usually, I spend Saturday prepping for Monday. Sunday prepping for Tuesday. IF I have time during the workday, I prep for Wed. But let me tell you, by Wed night I’m staying up until 10, 11, midnight, doing the prep for Thursday. Then Thursday is just like Wed night.
Hard stuff.
By Saturday, I’m so exhausted that my prep for Monday is too slow, which is why I only get the prep for Monday done and not, for example, all of Monday and then half of Tuesday or something like that.
I’m really looking forward to Easter Break. (Thurs, Fri and Monday off) Yay for working at a religious school!
2) Maybe this is major. Job security.
I asked my chair to write the high-up people to find out my status for next year. In other words, am I being rehired, as expected, or did the letter telling me I wouldn’t be rehired fall through the cracks? For some stupid reason, they send a letter if you won’t be rehired. But just don’t send anything if you will be. How dumb is that? What if the letter gets lost in the system?
Anyway, the end result is that I’m still expecting to be issued a contract next year when they do the contracts for everyone else. So, that is a relief. The very last thing I’d have time for right now is a job hunt.
3) Summer research
I have 2 super students lined up to do summer research with me. This research is strictly to get things going. It wouldn’t help my tenure process in the future – presuming I get a tenure-track position. BUT it will A) allow me to apply for outside funding, if the results are decent and B) potentially get hired for that tenure-track position that they should have this fall.
4) The lab for my molecular biology class.
First, I LOVE the lab. It is a bit hectic, because the students take about twice as long to get stuff done as I do (if not more). So, I think that things are going to fit in the amount of time alotted to lab, and then they end up staying late. *sigh*
Second, I am replacing an outdated set of labs (Southerns) with an updated set of labs (sequencing). This seemed like it would be simple, because the labs were done in the Intro Bio class last semester. But, of course, in actuality it has been really hard. This is because A) when I ran through the labs to optimize them and check that everything is working, I got DISMAL results. Pretty much 3 reactions out of 6 worked. And there was no pattern to what worked.
BUT B) I just got the data yesterday from a second attempt that 7 out of 8 reactions worked! And the one that didn’t work was the one with the max amount of DNA in it. This is something that the company actually warns against, so it fits with their recommendations. Yay! Something that makes sense!
C) I got this working barely in time, since I have to give the students the next part of the manual on Thursday.
D) The manual.
It took me all of last Saturday, and part of Sunday to write the dang manual that I gave them on Wednesday! It was an incredible time sink. (look back at number 1 for how this was a major problem for lecture prep too)
E) Part of why I thought the expts were screwed up, was because the freezer holding the enzyme for the sequencing wasn’t hooked up to a generator when the power was out for 24 h. But that appears to not be an issue. Thank goodness. A missing extension cord could’ve been the reason for a loss of a $200 loss of enzyme. And how stupid is it that if you are the person responsible for the hook-up that you wouldn’t just go to a store and buy more extension cords???? I mean, come on, $20 extension cord vs $200 enzyme? Isn’t that a no brainer?
5) Singing for volunteer service
My church organized a day where they tried to get everyone at the church to volunteer for a couple of hours (or for 2 blocks of time, if possible). As it turned out, one of them was a recital for an assisted living complex. So, I prepped a couple of songs (acapella, because there was no time to get accompaniment lined up), and sang. I sang “Everlasting Arms” and “I’ll Fly Away,” 2 lively gospel songs.
I also led the whole group of church people in a song that we often sing at church to close the service. Probably not one you’ve heard of, because it is contemporary, but it was “Reign in Me.”
It was a good service opportunity. I’m glad I squeezed the time into my schedule to do it and didn’t just use the excuse of “I’m too busy.” Of course, I did it by skipping the church service that morning, but hey, you have to prioritize.
Okay, that was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay longer than I thought it would be. I guess this shows me that I need to update more frequently even when I only have “minor to medium” things going on.
One final note: Even though teaching is really crazy this semester it is still FAR better for me than research everyday. And next year will be easier, because it will be some of the things I taught this year.
December 22, 2008 - Posted by danielle- 4 Comments
I spent the weekend doing a sewing project for my niece’s Christmas present. I’d post pictures, but I want my family to be surprised too – and they are reading my blog this week, I think. So, I’ll show it after I give it to her. It will be cuter with her in the picture anyway. Hopefully, she’ll want to wear it.
Suffice to say it was fun to dust off my sewing machine. It was a little tricky, because I didn’t have the recommended needle size for the material. And I did this during the snowstorm, so I couldn’t go out for a replacement. But, you know, my niece won’t care. Thus, I’m perfectly pleased with how it turned out. Sewing this weekend kind of makes me want to find more sewing projects. This one took me back to my younger childhood years where I would design and make clothes for my dolls and tropical barbie. This would be the one I’ve shown here before.
Other than that, I went to church (in the congregation this week) and sang many Christmas songs. I’m glad this church goes ahead and sings them during Advent. So many of the songs are about Christ being born and Christ with us, so churches I’ve been to in the past haven’t wanted to sing them until Christmas Eve.
We have a really good line-up of songs for Chrismas Eve services. I’m singing at all 3. I will also be reading the beginning of the Christmas story from Luke.
I went to a really great Christmas concert last night. It was by Lauren Redpath who was our interim music director. I think our church made a mistake when we didn’t hire her permanently. She had shortcomings as a band leader, because she really didn’t know enough about instrumentation to lead the instruments. However, I think her vocals would’ve made up for it in retrospect. Ah well, hopefully we will find someone soon. You’d think that with the economy the way it is, we’d have people graduating from music schools in the area looking for jobs pretty soon. It was a great concert and really made me feel Christmassy.
Now, I just have a couple of days of working from home and then I’m off for a week and a half! I’m sure I’ll be taking lots of photos and posting them to Flickr soon. Hopefully, I’ll post here as well, so if you aren’t too busy, pop on by!
June 15, 2008 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
I sang with the band at church for the annual Variety Show. It was terrific! It was hard to hear how we sounded, so I’m hoping that we can get an mp3 of it. But we were told by people that it was amazing and awesome. So, I’d imagine it was good.
I put pictures on my Flickr account of us performing. Since they show our faces, they are marked private for friends and family; so, you’ll need to log in to see them. They are pretty much what you’d expect people singing with microphones to look like….
… but you can see my fishy dress. And my jewelry (bracelet and earrings) that I bought on Saturday (the day of the performance) to go with my dress.
I was also the official photographer for the event. Yes, me in my dress and heels. Not quite the usual photographer outfit, but much more fun, I thought. I got assistance by someone so that I could have pics of me singing with the group. I gave her a brief lesson and away she went! I’ve had a lot of fun tweaking the lighting on the photos and making a powerpoint presentation of the good ones. I even put captions on all of the photos in the presentation that lists the people, the name of their act, and the original creator/performer of the piece.
March 23, 2008 - Posted by danielle- 5 Comments
Happy Easter everyone!
As the song goes, Jesus Christ is Risen Today, Alleluia!
It has been a good Lenten season. I did read my bible and prayed almost every day. I’ve resolved to keep up the pattern even now that we are at Easter. I have tried to read the entire bible in the past but kept getting stuck; I’d start at the beginning and get weighed down in the old testament. This time, I’m going to focus on the New Testament and work through that.
I thought maybe I’d take my camera to church and take some photos of the Easter Flowers, we’ll see. If so, I’ll post them here sometime after lunch.
In the meantime – Happy Easter and Happy Spring!
UPDATED: Here are the pics I took.
and in large
November 5, 2006 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
I don’t think I’ve mentioned here what ended up happening in my quest for a church. First, I tried out a United Church of Christ (UCC) church that is nearby. It was small, but the people were friendly and I liked the minister. However, the choir was about 5 people and didn’t fit my desire for a choir with a substantial number of people that could sing songs with separate parts.
The next church that I went to for a while, including Maundy Thursday and Easter services was a good fit. I liked the minister a lot and the choir was big enough and seemed happy with their director and sounded good. But the minister ended up leaving over the issue of whether or not the church was going to be open and affirming. I’ve been through the search for a minister and the interim ministers that come and preach while the congregation is searching…
…and I just decided that I couldn’t go through all of that again.
So, I tried out another church in St. Paul. It has been the church that I’ve been going to now for a while. I was initially attracted to the friendly and welcoming congregation and minister. I didn’t get to hear the choir for a week or so, because they happened to not sing on the Sundays when I was attending. But when I heard them, I could tell that they were a good choir. On one of the Sundays when the choir hadn’t sang, I got the impression that the people sitting around me were some choir members. So, I asked them about the choir and they had nothing but good things to say about the director and the choir.
Now, this was all happening just as summer was approaching and the choir was disbanding for the summer. So, when fall came around, I ended up joining the choir.
It has been a really good experience so far. The director is picking out pieces that are within our abilities when it comes to difficulty in singing. She spends quite a bit of time making sure that the nuances of a piece sound really good. At first, I thought that the music wasn’t hard enough, but you know, I like this level of music, I’ve decided. When you are learning a new piece of music per week, it is nice to be able to feel like you’ve really mastered it. And that instead of having sections of the song where you don’t really sing or aren’t sure of your part, you know the whole thing really well. That is what used to happen in choir in school, you got to the point where you knew every note and how to pronounce every vowel at just the right volume to sound perfect. But that isn’t the sort of thing that church choirs usually have time to work on. Usually, it is a mad rush to learn the basics of the piece and you learn certain key points, but miss out on parts of the rest of it.
My only complaint at this point, is that we sing in a choir loft that is so distanced from the congregation that it is hard to feel like I am connecting with them. Really, if I don’t dance around the issue, I’d admit that we aren’t connecting with them. At least not emotionally. That is one thing that my last choir director complimented me on. Also, I’ve had numerous people in my last congregation tell me that they watched me (me!) for facial expressions and to get the meaning of the music. I felt honored and humbled, yet proud (can you be humble and proud at the same time?), that they would do that. I always made a point to look out into the congregation as we were singing (and try not to lose my place in the music) and use facial expression to indicate the meaning of the music, so it was special for me to hear that my efforts were making a difference. And I miss that. There is talk that the congregation will leave the current church building someday (who knows when) and move to a smaller one, because there just isn’t enough membership to warrant and maintain such a huge building. If that is the case, I think we, as a choir, will be closer to the rest of the congregation and will be more connected. At least, I hope so.
For now, we just sing with energy and precision (most of the time) and hope that they are hearing the message. I think they are, and well, I know that God hears us, and that, after all, is the point.
November 5, 2006 - Posted by danielle- 0 Comments
I don’t think I’ve mentioned here what ended up happening in my quest for a church. First, I tried out a United Church of Christ (UCC) church that is nearby. It was small, but the people were friendly and I liked the minister. However, the choir was about 5 people and didn’t fit my desire for a choir with a substantial number of people that could sing songs with separate parts.
The next church that I went to for a while, including Maundy Thursday and Easter services was a good fit. I liked the minister a lot and the choir was big enough and seemed happy with their director and sounded good. But the minister ended up leaving over the issue of whether or not the church was going to be open and affirming. I’ve been through the search for a minister and the interim ministers that come and preach while the congregation is searching…
…and I just decided that I couldn’t go through all of that again.
So, I tried out another church in St. Paul. It has been the church that I’ve been going to now for a while. I was initially attracted to the friendly and welcoming congregation and minister. I didn’t get to hear the choir for a week or so, because they happened to not sing on the Sundays when I was attending. But when I heard them, I could tell that they were a good choir. On one of the Sundays when the choir hadn’t sang, I got the impression that the people sitting around me were some choir members. So, I asked them about the choir and they had nothing but good things to say about the director and the choir.
Now, this was all happening just as summer was approaching and the choir was disbanding for the summer. So, when fall came around, I ended up joining the choir.
It has been a really good experience so far. The director is picking out pieces that are within our abilities when it comes to difficulty in singing. She spends quite a bit of time making sure that the nuances of a piece sound really good. At first, I thought that the music wasn’t hard enough, but you know, I like this level of music, I’ve decided. When you are learning a new piece of music per week, it is nice to be able to feel like you’ve really mastered it. And that instead of having sections of the song where you don’t really sing or aren’t sure of your part, you know the whole thing really well. That is what used to happen in choir in school, you got to the point where you knew every note and how to pronounce every vowel at just the right volume to sound perfect. But that isn’t the sort of thing that church choirs usually have time to work on. Usually, it is a mad rush to learn the basics of the piece and you learn certain key points, but miss out on parts of the rest of it.
My only complaint at this point, is that we sing in a choir loft that is so distanced from the congregation that it is hard to feel like I am connecting with them. Really, if I don’t dance around the issue, I’d admit that we aren’t connecting with them. At least not emotionally. That is one thing that my last choir director complimented me on. Also, I’ve had numerous people in my last congregation tell me that they watched me (me!) for facial expressions and to get the meaning of the music. I felt honored and humbled, yet proud (can you be humble and proud at the same time?), that they would do that. I always made a point to look out into the congregation as we were singing (and try not to lose my place in the music) and use facial expression to indicate the meaning of the music, so it was special for me to hear that my efforts were making a difference. And I miss that. There is talk that the congregation will leave the current church building someday (who knows when) and move to a smaller one, because there just isn’t enough membership to warrant and maintain such a huge building. If that is the case, I think we, as a choir, will be closer to the rest of the congregation and will be more connected. At least, I hope so.
For now, we just sing with energy and precision (most of the time) and hope that they are hearing the message. I think they are, and well, I know that God hears us, and that, after all, is the point.
