I just found these really cool barcodes through the NYTimes site. It is amazing how much talent (and time!) these Japanese designers have! Sheesh.
In other news, looks like my dad will be defending his dissertation soon! (After 12 years it's finally happening!) Go Dad! I get the lucky job of dropping off the six different copies to his advisory committee (yes, they are 350 pages each), which my brother drove down to WV to pick up today.
Anyway, off to bed it is....
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Oberlin Visit 2008!
Over my spring break, I visited Oberlin for three days (well, 2 and a half to be exact!) to be part of a panel discussion on library school for the Mellon Scholars Program. I was invited by my friend Kate's former boss at Mudd. The talk went well; it was pretty informal. They gave us mugs from the library and a free library t-shirt! I had a great time---I stayed with a family I used to babysit for, and I made time to see most of the people I hadn't seen in a while. I also saw the spring opera production of The Coronation of Poppea, ate at Black River Cafe and The Feve. Of course, my trip to Oberlin would not be complete without a really-coincidental-6-degrees-of-separation story to tell! So, here it goes:
[Preface: I'm standing in line for the bathroom at the upstairs bar at The Feve. The line is always long. It's hot and it's dark, and there are way too many people because it's Happy Hour.]
The girl in front of me turns and asks, "Which twin are you?" I roll my eyes at her and say, "...Monica". Of course, at this point I have no clue who she is and figure she is one of Alicia's friends. The girl stares at me for a bit and then half screams, "OMG! YOU KNOW ANDREA!!! (my Italian friend who I went to Kansai Gaidai with in Japan)". Then it clicked and we both had a moment----she's this girl Kiki who met Andrea in Italy when Kiki was doing a study abroad program there--Andrea always kept asking me last semester, "You go to Oberlin and you don't know Kiki? Oberlin is tiny! You're supposed to know EVERYONE!!". And the reason Kiki thought she already knew me? She went on an AIDS march in Washington D.C. with Alicia 4 years ago (at least? A, please confirm!). Also, the freaky part is that she was ONLY in Oberlin for the weekend, because she is transferring schools.....So, if I had not been standing in line that night at that exact time, I probably would have never met her. WEIRD!!!!!
And now, for some pictures:
Foggy Oberlin after the opera let out.
Bella The Amazing Dog
R2D2 Mailbox in Cleveland
Will's Show-And-Tell presentation of Quincy (his older brother)'s Lego robot!
Kate in Cleveland---this was before the drugged homeless man harassed us as we made our way to the Greyhound Station.
Will, Jill, Quincy. I love this family!
[Preface: I'm standing in line for the bathroom at the upstairs bar at The Feve. The line is always long. It's hot and it's dark, and there are way too many people because it's Happy Hour.]
The girl in front of me turns and asks, "Which twin are you?" I roll my eyes at her and say, "...Monica". Of course, at this point I have no clue who she is and figure she is one of Alicia's friends. The girl stares at me for a bit and then half screams, "OMG! YOU KNOW ANDREA!!! (my Italian friend who I went to Kansai Gaidai with in Japan)". Then it clicked and we both had a moment----she's this girl Kiki who met Andrea in Italy when Kiki was doing a study abroad program there--Andrea always kept asking me last semester, "You go to Oberlin and you don't know Kiki? Oberlin is tiny! You're supposed to know EVERYONE!!". And the reason Kiki thought she already knew me? She went on an AIDS march in Washington D.C. with Alicia 4 years ago (at least? A, please confirm!). Also, the freaky part is that she was ONLY in Oberlin for the weekend, because she is transferring schools.....So, if I had not been standing in line that night at that exact time, I probably would have never met her. WEIRD!!!!!
And now, for some pictures:
Foggy Oberlin after the opera let out.
Bella The Amazing Dog
R2D2 Mailbox in Cleveland
Will's Show-And-Tell presentation of Quincy (his older brother)'s Lego robot!
Kate in Cleveland---this was before the drugged homeless man harassed us as we made our way to the Greyhound Station.
Will, Jill, Quincy. I love this family!
The Things We Learn in Library School...
School's going OK, and I'm excited (make that *super* excited!) to intern at the Andy Warhol Museum starting in May, doing cataloging on their Time Capsule Project---Warhol left thousands of boxes of things, junk, and letters from famous people, etc. Basically, all mixed up, and it is our job to go through it all! So far I've heard of them working on a letter Warhol received from Jacquelin Kennedy Onassis to shredded bills in an envelop.
A woman who works at the Law Library (here on campus) came to give a talk on "Web 2.0" stuff. I'm happy to say I actually heard about a few things I hadn't heard before in the past 3 months. Here are some cool new tools out there:
Jott is a really neat little thing. It saves a voice mail and converts it to text. So, for example, say you are on a walk and you remember something you need to do tomorrow, but you can't write it down. Well, all you have to do is CALL and leave a message, and Jott will covert your message to text so you don't have to write it down. And it's free! Let's just hope their voice-recognition software is high quality...
BigThink: Think of this as YouTube for grown-ups. This is a place where people, whether they are experts on topics or not, can come and discuss and debate issues (politics, news, history, the meaning of life...pretty much anything!) . Basically, it is an interactive discussion forum with video being the medium. People post their opinions on certain topics, and anyone who wishes can respond or continue the discussion can post a video of themselves.
Doodle helps schedule meetings easily without all the email and phone tagging to figure it out---this thing takes all the times available from every one's busy schedule and then comes back with a time that will work for everyone :-)
You can use Basecamp to help you get big projects done! This will save information (contact numbers, calendar, etc) so you will have everything you need in one place. Yay!
Perhaps someone somewhere out there will find these gadgets useful.
BigThink: Think of this as YouTube for grown-ups. This is a place where people, whether they are experts on topics or not, can come and discuss and debate issues (politics, news, history, the meaning of life...pretty much anything!) . Basically, it is an interactive discussion forum with video being the medium. People post their opinions on certain topics, and anyone who wishes can respond or continue the discussion can post a video of themselves.
Doodle helps schedule meetings easily without all the email and phone tagging to figure it out---this thing takes all the times available from every one's busy schedule and then comes back with a time that will work for everyone :-)
You can use Basecamp to help you get big projects done! This will save information (contact numbers, calendar, etc) so you will have everything you need in one place. Yay!
Perhaps someone somewhere out there will find these gadgets useful.
Monday, February 11, 2008
LONG Overdue: Hawaii!
Sorry for my long absence. I was contemplating whether I should continue the blog or not...I think I will!
I returned from Japan at the end of December. On my way back I stopped in Hawaii, visiting with my mom's cousin Yash and his wife, Elizabeth, and my friend Jocelyn who I know from Oberlin (she is now in a masters program in Baltimore). It was quite the relaxing time, although there was no actual lounging on the beach, and I had a few pretty rough day or two getting over jet-lag!! I spent the days I was in Honolulu with Elizabeth---we went to the I'olani Palace (where the native people originally lived) and to some great restaurants, did a lot of amazing sight-seeing, went to a botanical garden (with lots of BIG trees). We also got to see endangered turtles (see below) and ate lots of good food (Yash included!).
I flew to Kauai for a day and a half to see my friend Jocelyn, who just happened to be on vacation the exact days I was there, except on a different island, of course! She was with her brother and mom in a hotel, and they were kind enough to let me stay with them. We got to lounge in the hot tub and pool of the hotel often(so nice when it wasn't cold!). My favorite part of that trip was going kayaking and hiking in the mud! It was very involved because we had to cross a stream waist-deep after kayaking to get to the hiking part. It was, in fact, SO muddy that we ended up hiking barefoot halfway in. And our guide said this was a GOOD day to be in the mud---often it is worse! We hiked to a huge waterfall which was beautiful, ate lunch, and went back the way we came.
I'm now back in Pittsburgh in grad school at Pitt. I like the program so far; I have two friends I knew before I got back in the program---my friend Dan, who I worked with 3 summers ago (?) at Hillman library at Pitt, and Kate, from Oberlin ('06).
This post makes me miss warm weather. Hopefully spring isn't too far away!
Elephant statue in the hotel garden
Some place pretty (chilly).
Water, palm trees, blue. Ahh.
Rooster! they were everywhere!!!
A Cannonball tree!
CAUTION: watch out for falling cannonballs!
Pretty flower.
With the turtles.
Chilling out.
sign around the turtles---also in Japanese underneath :-)
License plate of the van we rode to go kayaking in.
Where it all began...
My shoes after the hike to the waterfall...
The waterfall!
Yash and Elizabeth---it was *very* windy!
With Jocelyn at dinner.
Buddha in the cemetery.
Gates to the palace.
I'olani Palace
Rainbow after I got off the plane when I first arrived.
The End.
I returned from Japan at the end of December. On my way back I stopped in Hawaii, visiting with my mom's cousin Yash and his wife, Elizabeth, and my friend Jocelyn who I know from Oberlin (she is now in a masters program in Baltimore). It was quite the relaxing time, although there was no actual lounging on the beach, and I had a few pretty rough day or two getting over jet-lag!! I spent the days I was in Honolulu with Elizabeth---we went to the I'olani Palace (where the native people originally lived) and to some great restaurants, did a lot of amazing sight-seeing, went to a botanical garden (with lots of BIG trees). We also got to see endangered turtles (see below) and ate lots of good food (Yash included!).
I flew to Kauai for a day and a half to see my friend Jocelyn, who just happened to be on vacation the exact days I was there, except on a different island, of course! She was with her brother and mom in a hotel, and they were kind enough to let me stay with them. We got to lounge in the hot tub and pool of the hotel often(so nice when it wasn't cold!). My favorite part of that trip was going kayaking and hiking in the mud! It was very involved because we had to cross a stream waist-deep after kayaking to get to the hiking part. It was, in fact, SO muddy that we ended up hiking barefoot halfway in. And our guide said this was a GOOD day to be in the mud---often it is worse! We hiked to a huge waterfall which was beautiful, ate lunch, and went back the way we came.
I'm now back in Pittsburgh in grad school at Pitt. I like the program so far; I have two friends I knew before I got back in the program---my friend Dan, who I worked with 3 summers ago (?) at Hillman library at Pitt, and Kate, from Oberlin ('06).
This post makes me miss warm weather. Hopefully spring isn't too far away!
Elephant statue in the hotel garden
Some place pretty (chilly).
Water, palm trees, blue. Ahh.
Rooster! they were everywhere!!!
A Cannonball tree!
CAUTION: watch out for falling cannonballs!
Pretty flower.
With the turtles.
Chilling out.
sign around the turtles---also in Japanese underneath :-)
License plate of the van we rode to go kayaking in.
Where it all began...
My shoes after the hike to the waterfall...
The waterfall!
Yash and Elizabeth---it was *very* windy!
With Jocelyn at dinner.
Buddha in the cemetery.
Gates to the palace.
I'olani Palace
Rainbow after I got off the plane when I first arrived.The End.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Crunch Time
Announcement: Finals exams are next week, so I will probably not be blogging until next Wednesday at the earliest. I am working on getting an entry up about Fushimi Inari, a shrine I went to last weekend. But the pictures are taking forever to load, and I have many that I want to post, so you, my readers, will just have to wait!On another note, I taught Satoshi how to play the card game Go Fish, and he's been insisting we play at least two games every night after dinner for the past 3 nights. It's fun because I'm making him use English---he keeps mixing up all his numbers, to the point where he gives up and just starts to draw the number in the air or says it in Japanese. So far he's somehow won every gave we've played :-)
OK, back to work!
Until next week,
Monica
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Fushimi Inari Shrine
Here are some jumbled pictures from Fushimi Inari ...I am working on getting them in order, and will try to put captions where I can. Just thought you'd like to see some fun photos :-)
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