Summer Times: Packing, Moving, and Conferencing

It's been a summer of transition so far. At home, the family and I have been getting ready to move. Boxes are scattered throughout the house as we are trying to pack and clean in order to get the house on the market. I've found loads of memories.

H with her judgy look. She asked me if that was for Christmas.
"No, Honey. That's a Texas Homecoming Mum."

I've been slowly moving to my new office since I started as Associate Dean at the beginning of the month. As a borderline-hoarder, I'm quite proud that I've been purging at home and in my office. Of course it's difficult at times.

A best friend keeps it real.

My summer research project ended with some success, and while I am treating the summer as a wrap-up of my sabbatical, I can feel the sabbatical life slipping away. Work is getting busy as I am wrapping up some scholarly projects before the semester begins.

Soaking up extra kid time despite the extra work. 

Last week I was able to attend a philosophy conference in Montreal.

Ran up to Mont-Royal one morning for a view of Montreal.

Mixture of old and new buildings downtown Montreal.

My favorite street had houses like this lined on both sides.
This neighborhood was between Mile End and Downtown.

Graffiti art was throughout the city

But not all of the graffiti was pretty.

Street names

 It was an important conference to me for many reasons. This was my third attempt, but first time, to be accepted into the Canadian Philosophical Association annual conference.

Most important sign at a conference: Coffee!

The paper I co-presented was based upon the original proposal idea that got me to Oxford three years ago: Molecular Symmetry, Beauty, and Truth. That idea and paper has gone through several changes, but it hasn't been ready for journal submission yet. The feedback from the conference commenter and attendees, as well as the ideas swirling around this conference and others, helped tremendously. I'm hoping that means that this paper can be rewritten and get submitted in the next year. I also felt that this conference marks the end of my sabbatical and the start of a new academic year. I don't have another conference any time soon. Currently, I'm waiting to hear about some other journal submissions, working on revisions for a resubmission, and working on two new papers.

This conference was also important to me outside of my immediate research area. Instead of only attending my area of interest, philosophy of science, I attended one session in feminist philosophy. I am glad I saw another way that philosophy is contributing to society, and learned about some important work being done by Kate Manne in her book, Down Girl: The Logic of Mysogyny. It's next on my reading list. This conference being held in Quebec gave me an unique opportunity to be in a place where English is not the primary language. To be honest, I was a bit disoriented most of the week. Navigating was difficult for me (more than usual) since all the French street names looked similar to me. While everyone in restaurants, etc. switched to English once they realized I didn't speak French, it's been a long time since I was in the minority. It was good for me. Being in a new city, I did my usual Pinterest research so I could soak up the area on my off-time.

I ate a lot of bread. My favorite was chocolate croissants. Funny, I have no pictures of those. Probably because I inhaled each one.

Fairmount Bagel is famous. 

My favored bagel - Fairmount.

St. Viateur's bagel were good, but not fresh out of the oven.

I went to Old Montreal and Basilique Notre-Dame.

 
I think England ruined me. While this area and basilica is pretty, you can't beat hundreds of years old streets and cathedrals.
The Grand Prix took place the day after I left so the city was abuzz with construction and street markets.

I managed to get to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts for a couple of hours.

This huge wolf statue was freaky.

My favorite painting was this Mark Rothko. 

The museum is a huge facility (six buildings), but I made it through one building including the visiting Picasso exhibit. This exhibit was a great learning experience for me, too.

This was the Picasso art I was familiar with...

But he also did other styles as well. This sketch is from early in his career. 

The exhibit tackled the topic of appropriation and Picasso's work. I didn't know Picasso imitated African artists, but the exhibit would show the arts side-by-side, and you could clearly see the resemblance.

The exhibit did a good job I thought educating about appropriation, and also featured modern African artists. The exhibit was thought-provoking, and I'm thankful I got to see it.

It only rained one day in Montreal, and the other days were beautiful 70-degree weather. I'm glad I got to walk around so much. I feel like that's the best way to get the feel of a city. So on my six-hour layover in Detroit on my way home, I Ubered downtown to get the feel of a revitalized city. I was impressed with the architecture.

 After the long travel day, I was relieved to be home. Even with the busy past week of packing, moving, working, I'm thankful it's summer. I've gotten times with friends and family, and I'm looking forward to more in the next couple of months.

Latest Running Adventure

A few weeks ago, I participated in a science and religion conference on the Canadian west coast. I heard some really good presentations, and it was great connecting with old friends, and meeting some new ones. My paper (co-authored) examined different ways of being skeptical about science.

In preparation for any trips I take, I usually look up things to do in the destination city. Pinterest typically is helpful because it doesn't just list touristy spots like museums, but also things like, "The best coffee shop." Now of course, Pinterest fails at time. (One time it sent me to a musical bridge that wasn't musical at all. Unless you count banging a stick on metal rods as musical.) Many of the Pinterest lists for the Pacific northwest had some sort of venue that involves a lot of activity. True to that area's reputation and Pinterest lists, I found myself, not in museums or cathedrals, but being active on my downtime.

You find your regular pace for different race distances
and then know how fast you should run 800 m, 1200 m, etc.

Phil, running coach extraordinaire

The first evening after I arrived, I joined a local running group. Phil, the running coach, had a pace chart and a prescribed workout (with different distances at the track: 200 m, 800 m, and 1200 m). As you'd complete your set, he'd tell your time so you'd know if you are running too slow or too fast. I've done speed workouts on my own and with a friend, but I've never ran as fast as I did that evening. Having a coach give you instructions and yelling your time out was motivating. Running with a group, and falling at the end of the slower group, makes you push it hard. It was a great experience and made me want to find a running clinic to join here at home.

It's Myron's regular running clinic
so he took April and me to it. 

I love the moss on the logs.

The next morning I got to go for a hike up a mountain. It reminded me of my trail run/hike with Pam in Oregon last fall. Beautiful green everywhere.

About a quarter of the way up

                                       

At the top of this trail: worth the climb

                                        

Looking down

Looking up

Learned how to maneuver trail paths like this.

The hike was a warm-up for a trail run the following morning. As I've complained written about before, hills are the bane of my races. This flatlander survived, but my quads were shaking by the end of it.

Trail run...notice how long it takes to "run" 4.5 miles. There's a lot of stopping to wait for everyone to catch up (and make sure nobody got eaten by a bear) and pick the path. Of course, I was not complaining about the stops.

Elevation gain for the trail run

My typical run has this elevation gain in Flat Land Oklahoma.

I enjoyed the run, alternating between looking up at the beautiful big trees and down at my feet as I made sure I didn't trip over a rock or root. The view at the top of the trail was picturesque.

Wearing my Team OC shirt from this past Memorial.

To the left of my head where there are colored rows - that's a tulip farm.

Friendly running group that were welcoming and patient with this Okie.

Going down proved a bit scarier, especially when one of the runners slipped and slid down a ways on his butt. I got lots of practice of high stepping, going side-to-side in an S pattern, and just embracing the speed because slowing down would probably make me fall.

I didn't run the next day, but my last day I got to walk some trails at Capilano Suspension Bridge and on the Seawall around Stanley Park. According to April's Apple watch, we walked a half marathon that day. I feel like I got a good taste of BC with all the activity I was able to squeeze in over a long weekend.

The Post Part

Running, researching, sabbatical-ing, brain shunting, and kid-dragging to the ER. It's been busy since my semester has ended.

After I ran my half Sunday, I thought, I'll need to follow-up on my last blog post. It was going to be titled "Post-Race." As I settled into my week of undergraduate bench research and leaving sabbatical time, I made a mental note that I wanted to write more about the work I did on my sabbatical and what the next phase of research looks like for me. Post-Sabbatical. After witnessing hospital drama that was reminiscent of Grey's Anatomy and Mom getting a shunt put into her head Thursday, I needed some sort of Post-Brain Surgery blog entry. Finishing up the week single parenting that included a trip to the ER, I realize how full it's been this week. And how many reasons I have to be thankful.

I ran about five miles with a girl from Nebraska.
The running community is always so encouraging.

I'm thankful I got to run a week ago in the OKC Memorial Half. It was some of the best weather we've had in a few years, especially for the halfers. It got pretty hot for the full marathoners and relay runners in the last two legs. I was pretty sure by mile 6 or so that it wasn't a PR race, but I was able to finish with a 2:08 so I was satisfied (kinda). As always, the crowds were great and it was awesome to see my friends Jaryn and Tasha several times along the route cheering. Especially because I was tired. I think doing three half marathons in 8 weeks was a neat experience, but it wore me out. I have plans to keep plugging away this summer, trying to get my speed up, and I'll hit another half marathon at the end of the summer. 

Over the past year, I've begun thinking about new ways to try to grow professionally. I've never supervised undergraduate bench research, partly because bench research has always been challenging for me, and it seems so daunting to come up with the original ideas. The other reason is that I've taken the summers off completely until the Oxford program a few summers ago. Last year, with the kids older, but I wasn't spending a month away, I decided to work part-time in the summer trying to get some reading and writing done for my philosophy of science research. Josh and I found a great nanny who is still with us, helping with after-school pick-up now and soon more summer days. Part of the sabbatical magic was that I had the headspace to tackle a bench research project idea. I spent some time at the beginning of my sabbatical reading and writing a proposal for undergraduate summer research. I received institutional funding, hired an undergraduate research assistant (RA), and we started on the project two weeks ago. The project isn't anything too elegant, but I'm hoping it can be developed for one of my classes I teach. We're hoping to extract a certain chemical from sugar beets and sugar cane that is used in self-tanners. I've been pleasantly surprised that I didn't hate writing up the proposal (I actually kinda liked it), and so far, it's been a good experience thinking through ideas with my RA. If someone could have told graduate school Amanda that she'd one day be supervising an undergraduate on a bench research project, she probably would've laughed. Hopefully, my RA and I will have success on the project (aka that the science works).

Books, notes, and chocolate.
What more could a sabbatical desk need?

I just took my auto-reply off my work email. The one that told anybody who emailed me that I was on sabbatical so I would be delayed in responding. I'm sad my sabbatical is coming to a close. It's not quite all over yet, or rather, I’m not ready to completely lose it yet. I'm viewing the summer as a continuation of the sabbatical life, just on a smaller scale, reading and working on the writing projects.

Three kids @ a hospital are crazy.
They're fighting over the "good chair" here.

One kid @ a hospital. Much calmer.
H and I visited Immie before ballet.

I'm thankful for running and the work I love. Especially when other parts of living an adult life are not quite as fun. Mom ended up back in the hospital two weekends ago after she had another cerebral fluid leak (she was about one week post-brain surgery). While Mom has a great medical team, hospital life still isn't perfect. It was hard on Mom not being in her own bed and having to eat hospital food for a week.  Residents and an on-call doctor with a slight God-complex made for some moments that were reminiscent of Grey's Anatomy. I did feel the love from family and friends that week who continually sent texts, called, and visited. But I sure am glad Mom is home now recovering. I know we are all ready for her to be feeling well again. We are praying that the shunt will do its job, and there won't be any more brain surgeries in her future.

Spring brought shelter-cleaning (thanks Josh!)
and weather-watching.

Josh had professional training out of town last week so of course that's when Liam fell carrying a glass jar of marbles. I walked into the living room because C was yelling for me (he was in an intense game of Fortnight and couldn't stop apparently) and H had come to get me out of the toy room. I saw a frozen Liam screaming, broken glass, blood dripping, and marbles rolling around everywhere. I figured we needed to go to the ER when I saw how deep the gash was, and I'm no medical doctor, but it seemed to be bleeding a lot. I loaded everybody up and started driving. Liam was calming down, but saying, "I don't want stitches!" That's when big brother offered his words of wisdom, "If you don't get stitches, it'll get infected, and then they'll have to cut your WHOLE arm off!" As the nurse practitioner was about to start on Liam's stitch, H decided it was a good time to share her surgical skills with the room based upon a superhero doctor game she plays. She acted out in large movements and dramatic voice how to use a scalpel and then sew somebody back up. I told her to be quiet when I saw Liam's face go green as he's preparing for the stitch with no anesthesia (since he only needed one stitch, and would've needed two shots of anesthesia, we didn't go for for the shots). I was glad the accident wasn't worse, and I was especially relieved when the kids were in bed asleep that night.

Post-stitches: tough boy

While I'm sad that my sabbatical semester is over, I'm glad we're done with some of these post-parts of recent life events. And I love this time of the year. Campus seems to be recovering from the semester like all of its employees: quiet and reflective. Summer days are arriving.