The mildly insane thoughts of a mildly sane graduate student

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

PR 2: Canyon Hike









The second full day was spent in the inner corridor of the island in the mountains near Ricardo's hometown, Barranquitas. We left San Juan caravan style with 2 car loads of Spanish exchange students following close behind. I kept telling myself I'd learn Spanish by osmosis over that day but pretty much ended up just smiling a lot, nodding, and getting really excited when I recognized a word ("siesta!").






The morning was spent doing an "easy" (translation: death hike!) 4 hour hike in the San Christbal canyon (deepest gorge in Puerto Rico, with 700 foot walls). Note the climbing gear, rocks and fact that, yes, I am actually jumping off of the ledge there. Also please note: I sprained my ankle 20 minutes into the hike and was too damn stubborn to take Ricardo up on his offer to go back with me. A week of whining and Advil later, I have no regrets. When else would I have gotten to do this?

The belated trip photos: 1 cave exploring






I am finally getting around to posting photos. I have been totally submerged in stats and various MSc junk since I've gotten back.
Here is my first full day in Puerto Rico (somehow looks a lot like photos my dad takes under the microscope).
Ricardo, our host for the week, took me to the Rio Camuy Cave Park (3rd largest cave system in the world) for some spelunking (you have no idea how much I love that word!). It's a pretty cool set-up: you get carted down to the cave entrance in a trolley and then get a walking tour through the caves - the artificial lighting set up in the caves may have taken away some of the authenticity but made the viewing rather spectacular and led to lots of entertainment with my camera.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Buenos dias de San Juan

And so its raining on beach day... (started raining as soon as Martin and I got there). It's been a good lazy wandering around day after the last few action-packed days of cave-exploring and "death hikes" - yesterday's hike down, across and back up the canyon made the Shad Valley "death hikes" in the Rockies look like a piece of cake. Will upload pictures later.

It's interesting how everything here is Americanized yet not. The mall here looks like any old US mall, you can get any type of ethnic food imaginable. However, going out with Ricardo Sunday night, his friends were shocked and horrified that I could not speak Spanish. Instead of choosing to embrace either the metric or other system, they've adopted both (distances in highways are in km and speed limits are in miles).

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Getting ready to travel




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Well, I'm almost completely recovered and ready to leave in 2 days. Then I'll have a new point to add to my travel map that I just made. Minou doesn't realize that she isn't coming along and seems to think that the precious Guinness that I've packed for Ricardo is a good thing to snuggle up to.

Friday, February 9, 2007

Better






Well, 3-legged cat and I are both improving. You can hardly see her limp and I am back to eating normal food (too bad, I almost pulled an "upset" on the lab's "biggest loser" competition) and made it to the gym last night for the first time in a week.


Thesis proposal is continuing to drag on. I need to replace my plan to measure CRP with something else because I need a more rapid inflammatory response and I need to learn everything I don't know about Heat Shock Proteins - which is a lot because my project originally just required my acknowledgement of their existance and now I'm actually going to be using one of the HSPs (which one is still to be determined)... We'll see how far I get with that (my latest deadline for myself was to have my final copy of the proposal submitted before I leave for Puerto Rico in one week - between my walls I've hit and my unproductive week due to illness, I see another deadline delay in my future).


I do, however, have the long-ago promised knitting to show off: I've been making hats (2 done, a 3rd on the go - the lab girls will have matching hats with hearts for Valentine's Day!), my sweater has sleeves on the go and Minou found herself a new favorite hiding place in the cat food cupboard.

Monday, February 5, 2007

Still got med student syndrome

Okay, so I don't have shingles (thankfully). And the cat just did something stupid when I wasn't watching and sprained her paw.

This weekend has made me realize how bad it is to know too much (especially if, like me, you like to freak out and perhaps have a little too healthy an imagination).

Off to teach myself stats (am not sure what I am more disgusted with: classmates not being able to figure out means, modes and medians in 3 classes or prof deciding he needs to "babysit" us and give a quiz each week to make sure we did our readings... come on, people!).

I have knitting to show off. Must change my camera batteries first.

Sunday, February 4, 2007

2 sick puppies...

And so the cat and I are both at home in the midst of total self-pity: I've got a cold, sore throat and single-nerve root distribution of burning pain across my back (I am hoping I'm just an over-vigilant medical trainee who learned "When in doubt, it's shingles" self-diagnosing, but I am on the look-out for rashes and trying to figure if it's safe to go to school tomorrow - though I think it's pretty safe to assume that most university-aged people have had the chickenpox).

Minou meanwhile has been limping around all day. I'm trying to figure out cat biomechanics. One of her back legs seems to just give out on her.

I can see trips to the vet in both of our futures. Meanwhile, we are fighting for the curl up with a blanket and feel sorry for yourself spot on the couch.

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Amanda's shawl


I am sharing my blog with Amanda to give her some space to show off her masterpiece. Please keep in mind that this was made by Amanda from scratch: fibers spun, natural dyes made from plants collected by Amanda and shawl crocheted and assembled by Amanda.


Please also note Julia the kitten who has kindly agreed to model the piece of art.