Welcome to Maine - The Way Life Should Be [Part I]

I just arrived back in Michigan after a 3.5 day trip to Portland, Maine.  Kerry and I left on Thursday evening to visit cousin Chad at the current site of his semi-suspended nomadic adventures.  In true "Kerry" form, St. Patrick's day decorations were very important even though we were going to be traveling for 4.5 hours.  She even brought a bow tie for chad to wear when we got in.  Observe -

  Friday morning I spent finishing up 3 finals [and I will elaborate more on this in my next post].  This ended up being alright since Chad had a meeting to go to at 11 anyway.  Friday was pretty laid back overall.  Chad finally got back and we walked to downtown Portland along the Promenade.  Here is a view of Promenade from just around the corner of Vesper St. -

  Yup - the name of the road down by the water is called the Promenade - or, The Prom, as it is affectionately called by the locals.  We stopped at a little hole in the wall place for some seafood chowder.  Kerry and Chad got the seafood chowder in bread bowls and I got the Crab roll.  Let me clarify - I'm not a big fan of seafood.  So, the fact that I ate safood over the weekend is a big deal.  My stomach turned, however, when I found a less than desirable piece of crab in the mix of crab meat.  It took me a few minutes to get over the the nausea before I could finish my lunch.  Kerry and I parused some fo the little shops in the area and then met up with Chad at an awesome little bar that had a TON of awesome beers.  We had one then we walked back to Chad's place.  Kerry and I bit it and napped until a little bit after 8.  We got up, went to Whole Foods [beeteedubs - that store is brilliant], and then made an amazing dinner of grilled chicken, red and white cabbage sauteed with onions in peanut oil [um - yum. Making this most definitely], and barley.  The three of us dined with Lauren [Chad's artsy fartsy hippie dippie roommate].  We played a round of Fill or Bust and we hit the hay.  Next up - Acadia National Park.

Things I MUST Share [with the mythical people reading this]

Since Facebook and Twitter have gone by the way of sacrifices and discipline for the season of Lent, I have to say - I honestly haven't really been missing it all that much.  This could be for a few reasons:
1) I have friends in REAL life that keep me occupied
2) I'm totally kidding - my only friends are research articles and grad school.  They keep me cold at night.
3) It is finals week currently.  This means any stalking and tweeting would put me further behind than I already am
4) I've been housing a friend since last Friday due to some marriage infidelity [the spouse not squatting is the slut] and this has caused me to throw all of MY needs, emotions, routines, and priorities into a tizzy and out the window.
5) I'm leaving for Maine tomorrow for a mini-holiday with my sibling [okay - this has nothing to do with it. I just wanted to brag]

Regardless of the reason, there is only one thing I do actually miss.  It is sharing things that are SUPERLY awesome with the rest of the world.  So, to the leprechaun that is actually reading this - I present to you the awesomeness I have either stumbled upon or been led to over the past few days.  Behold:

This first one was sent to me in an e-mail by my nomadic cousin Chad as the opening to a message about the activities we will be partaking in while my sibling and I visit him in Maine [which is where he currently has set down his nomading]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cds7lSHawAw


This next one is brought to you courtesy of the love of my life, [future] Dr. Robert Beckmann, M.D.  Rob called me yesterday after one of his many weekly med school exams a little bit on the tipsy side.  He entertained me and made me laugh as usual.  And then over the course of the day I kept getting questions about music - that is until he offered this one up to me through a text.  "Frightened rabbit u know them?"  "I don't think so. Music?"  "Yes YouTube them.  Swim till u can't see land.  This is a Katey band or I don't know you at all" [color coding coincide to my phone dispaly]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzjERZU3wbY
May I also suggest [mostly because I adore the video - for obvious reasons]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Lf7mriehU&feature=related

And as the worn out saying goes - I've saved the best for last.  Ladies and Gents, I knew that this video was released a few weeks ago.  I saw the tweet that it was available for viewing/listening pleasure and, once again, grad school got in the way of who I used to be - a really really cool person.  This album comes out in a few weeks and I'm more than a little bit excited about it.  And even though Davy and TayTay are looking a little [okay a LOT] rough around the edges these days - I would still happily bare each of them as many children as they would want.  So, from those fighters of foo:
Rope.
http://www.foofighters.com/us/videos/rope

But for now kiddies - I still yearn for new episodes of Pushing Daisies so that I can drool over the wardrobe I hope to have someday [insert Charlote Charles - aka "Chuck"- costumes]

And the Pie Maker I dream of calling my own someday

 And just for good measure - one of my favorite kisses ever [that didn't happen to be mine]

I'm Inferring A Positive Correlation and, [gasp] CAUSATION!

I woke up yesterday with a bump on my eyelid.  Just between my eyebrow and the crease in my eyelid.  Here is what the bump probably closely resembles:

Here is what I perceive the bump to look like:

 And here is what the bump feels like if I forget and actually touch my eyelid:

I'd like to point out that I'm pretty sure whatever the hell is causing my eye to be somewhat swollen and painful is in relation to my current level of stress as it is now finals week, not to mention the NCA submission deadline WAS this Wednesday, but THANKFULLY got pushed back a week [because apparently thousands of people dying in Japan warrants an extension].  It could also be plausible that some menacing insect decided to feast on the delicate tissue that protects my orbital structure.
Anyhow - not only has some disgusting deformity appeared over my left eye, but my acne count has also increased, which, in all honesty, is no surprise to me.  This is a recurrent theme in my life.  As the quarter draws to a close, my skin gets even worse than it already is.  And while I do expect this to happen, I still have yet to build up a tolerance and self-esteem buffer for my terrible skin. [which seems odd since it's been bad for around, oh, you know, 14 years].  So, here is what my skin probably looks like in reality:

And here is how I perceive myself to look [making me want to sport the oh-so-fashionable bag over head look]:

So, I can safely say, from years of repeated observation of stress levels and amount of acne, that there is a positive correlation between the two.  And in fact, I'm going to go so far as to say that indeed, the former causes the latter.  Years of evidence allows this causal inference to be made; as the quarter/semester comes to an end and all of the course finals are due in a three day span my body revolts by producing excessive amounts of oil and betrays my cover of this imbalance of hormone levels by wreaking havoc on my face.

Mind you, I'm coming to these conclusions through my own research, not because medical science has already proven, with REAL science that there is a casual link between the two.  I'm just saying.

So, the moral of this disgusting story kids is that grad school is detrimental to your health, causes you to have the skin of a teenager, and ages your skin faster than normal.

kp.

Writing for Social Scientists (Becker, 1986) - "One Right Way"

"Harvey Molotoch put the point like this in a note to me:

     A problem that writing people have is the idea in their heads that a given sentence, paragraph or paper must be the right one. Their training in a land of 'facts,' in the celebration of 'right answers' - including the 'right' way to approach their Chem lab book or English theme - immobilizes them at the typewriter keyboard.  Their problem is that there are many right sentences, many right structures for an essay... We have to free ourselves from the idea that there is only one CORRECT way.  When we don't, the contradiction with reality absolutely stifles us since no sentence, paragraph or paper is demonstrable [to ourselves] as clearly the right one.  Students watch their words come out, but of course these words - in first draft - are not even meeting the test of 'OK', much less CORRECT and PERFECT ESSENCE OF CORRECT.  Not having a vision of tentativeness, of first-draft, of n-draft, they can only feel frustration at the sight of failure.  After a while, one sees the first tentative thoughts of a paragraph or paper as obviously failing this test - and so one doesn't even start: writer's cramp.  The fear of failure is an accurate fear, because nobody could pass this self-imposed test of getting the one correct version, and the failure to do so is especially [and distressingly] evident at the point of first-draft.

Some very common, quite specific writing difficulities have their origins in this attitude: the problem of getting started and the problem of 'which way to organize it'.  Neither one has a unique solution to be discovered." 
(pg. 48)

I like this book.  I didn't read near enough of it over this past term.  I will, however, be reading it over break.

Also - once all of these finals are turned in, I will begin writing more about my experiences sans facebook and twitter - among other things.  But, I've got too much "one right way" writing to do in the present.

kp.