This Is Beautiful: Frozen Burrito Meal Prep

 Ok so bit of an odd choice, but I've swapped lately to making frozen burritos for lunch as a meal prep. This is honestly next level, I can make a ton and freeze them, and can bring salsa or whatever so that it doesn't taste the same every day. And it doesn't require nearly as much day-of work as like making a sandwich or whatever, just a grab and go. I also feel a lot better with making it just a bean burrito and a tortilla so it's less bread and less meat but still filling. Anyways, this is a great idea in the saga of me trying to Enjoy Lunch, hopefully I keep it up for a while.

“Uptown Local and Other Interventions” by Diane Duane

This is my last installment in my read through of Duane’s ebooks. This is a little different in that it is a collection of short stories and they do not all take place in the Young Wizards series. Duane also gives a short preamble to most of the stories which I think adds a lot, because you get to see parts of her thought process, such as how one story grew and expanded into another.

Of course my favorites were the ones from the Young Wizard universe though. There’s a great one about chocolate that involves an entirely separate group of wizards from the main series. I thought it was a lot of fun that it was still on Earth and yet with a different cast that’s just as colorful.

And then of course there’s the story “Uptown Local” itself. This one centers on Nita and Kit who are bored out of their minds and go to annoy Tom and Carl. They get sent on a magical subway journey where they head to alternate versions of New York and see what they can find. Only stipulation is that they hand off the Subway tokens to someone else once done. They end up bringing someone else to their world, and slowly making it better.

It's not a collection that I would be likely to pick up separately, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to do so this time around!

This Is Beautiful: Volunteering at the Art Fair!

 The town that I'm in has a huge art fair every summer, it's like one of the biggest in the country and people come from all over. This year I signed up to volunteer at it, and I had such a blast! It was a great way to see some booths that I wouldn't have stopped at otherwise. I also was forced to spent more time in one area, meaning that I ran into a bunch of friends as they passed through. I loved the experience, I'll have to remember to sign up again next year!

Minneapolis

This past weekend I was in a conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota! I hadn’t been before so I was really excited to explore the city. I didn’t get to St. Paul at all, which is unfortunate, but I didn’t have a ton of time there.

First of all, I loved the public transit. You could take the light rail to the airport and get around super easily that way. The bus system also was pretty sweet, buses came frequently and you could get anywhere the rail system didn’t that way. I was able to get around without hyper planning out every move, which is saying something. I loved it, I didn’t need or want to have a car and could get places quickly!

My first day I headed down to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It wasn’t the most expansive collection, but there was a solid smattering of stuff. There were also so many recreations of rooms from different periods of time! To the point where it got a little confusing and I got all turned around. But I really liked their collection! There were a few small exhibits focusing on race or female artists or things like that.

After that I went to the sculpture garden, mostly to see the cherry on a spoon. That was a great picture, but there was also a large blue chicken I enjoyed. And from there I went to the Old Stone Bridge, which was unfortunately closed. But it was cool to see!

Then I made it to the Mill Street Museum. I ended up just going through the free spaces, not paying to go in, but that was enough for me. There was an exhibit on queer spaces that I enjoyed. And I also stopped by the House of Balls, a house next to a rail station where a sculptor set up his workshop and displayed his art. It was really weird and I loved it! The garden was the best spot, there were so many cool things there, including giant feet and wind chimes.

I also got into the skyway system for a little. It was odd, the section I was in had carpet and air conditioning. I knew it from 99 Percent Invisible that the skyways are designed to keep out homeless individuals and all that, and my experience there definitely lined up with that. It was so hard to find an entrance and the buildings close at odd times, etc etc.

I’m not sure if it’s just me getting out of a college town or what, but I loved Minneapolis! I hope I’m able to get back there at some point.

This Is Beautiful: Solo Conferences

 I might have written about this before, but whatever. This past weekend was my second solo conference ever, and it has been a while since the last one. It's just so much fun to set your own schedule, do what you're interested in, and not worry about the rest of your lab reporting back on your activities or judging or whatever (I don't think they do any of those things, but it's going from the possibility of it to absolutely no chance of it). It's also coming at a time when I desperately need a break, so I'm thinking of this as a mini-vacation.

Kind of related though, it's a conference that the rest of my lab isn't interested in, so I am truly free to do whatever I want. I'm very excited to be attending a lot of it!

Supervision of Mentees

 With the undergraduate researchers that I've been working with, I'm starting to run into issues of supervision. Not that they aren't doing their work or that they're doing it completely wrong, but I suspect that they are cutting corners in key ways because I'm seeing things fail down the line. And this is coming at a time where I'm out of lab for the weekend.

Since it was crunch time, I did a few things. I sent a scary email telling them to buckle down, and asked that they go over protocols together. I also tried out a new thing: they're uploading pictures to a google drive folder that I can look at on my own time. There's a few benefits to this, including that I won't get texts constantly throughout the day and I can look over the pictures on my own time. Plus I get to feel like I get a complete update on what's going on.

I feel a little weird about this, to be completely honest. I don't what my students to think that I don't trust them, or that I'm giving them a ton of busy work. But I think for a weekend its manageable and it seems useful. At time of writing we are a day in, but I'm pretty pleased with the results.

We will certainly see, I want to ask the students what they thought of this system once I get back. But I do think it was good to instill a sense of the seriousness of this. Hopefully this means things start going right so we can end the summer on a high note.

This Is Beautiful: Middle of the Week Holidays

 Alright so I don't know what did it, but July 4th this year was so nice. It was last Thursday, and because it was in the middle of the week and in the middle of experiments, I still had to go in and work. But I was good about doing very little work, and then because everything was cancelled I went home and relaxed. And then the next day was a Friday and a lot of people took it off so even though I couldn't I still felt like I was working on a holiday.

Not a fan of July 4th in general (fireworks are annoying and this country needs to get it together) but having it be on a Thursday was really nice!

"Interim Errantry 2: On Ordeal" by Diane Duane

 So this is Duane's series of short stories based on the Young Wizards universe (you can read about the first one here). And this one has a theme, is it three tellings of different characters Ordeals, or the harrowing experience/test that makes them wizards. She starts with Roshaun, then Mamvish, and finally Ronan.

Roshaun's Ordeal until now has been largely a mystery. Essentially, both of his parents are wizards and he has just about given up on becoming one himself when he is finally offered the Oath. He travels to the Crossings where he learns of another system whose star is about to go haywire and he steps in to fix it. He has a very easy time of it, then runs into the Lone Power telling him not to go home. He doesn't want to do what the Lone One says, but doesn't want to openly defy him either, so clones himself and the clone heads out into the universe to fix stars until energy runs out and he sneaks home. The price is 3 years of his life (which later ties in as his disappearance from Earth's star).

It's really cool to have Roshaun at the center of the story, but I'll be honest, he seems to have an easy time of it. He puts together one complex spell and that's it. Feels a little disappointing. I was also hoping to see Roshaun more like the one we initially meet in the series that's a little more stuck up. This Roshaun was incredibly sympathetic and caring. Which, fine, I liked the experience better, but it would have been interesting to see how his disposition changes over time.

Second story is Mamvish's, and it describes the planet of dinosaurs she grows up on. She is born and immediately wants to start putting the world to rights. The interesting thing about these dinos is that when they eat each other, they learn what the other dinosaur knew. So Mamvish eats a strong dinosaur and gets stronger, a fast one and gets faster, a wizard and starts to learn the Speech. This goes on until the Lone One backs out of her Ordeal, and she starts traveling around helping the universe.

This is fascinating because the dinosaur's way of learning is so different. Mamvish doesn't just learn their knowledge she has their voices speaking in the back of her head giving advice. Which makes for a really cool concept for a species and then for interesting narration. Most of the time Mamvish is alone so hearing about the voices in her head is pretty interesting. It also doesn't make Mamvish feel too powerful either, because you hear about her learning as she goes, and how driven she is from the beginning. She is special and selected by the Powers, but she also does put in a lot of effort to get to where she is.

Finally there's Ronan. We know a bit about his Ordeal, that he had to take in the sea to save a boat in the past, but this gets way more into the details. Ronan beats a racist kid at school and gets suspended, and while wandering around avoiding home has a vision where his best friend offers him the Oath. The next day he timeslides back to an early Irish village in the middle of a storm. First he stops the wind and saves the village, but there's also a boat in the water. So he takes in the water to be it and subdue it, and saves the boat before passing out and waking up in his own time. 

Ronan's was probably my favorite, but I'm biased as he's one of my favorite characters. It seemed like it hit a good balance of showing Ronan's home life, what his Ordeal dealt with, and the obstacles he had to overcome. It also went into the impact of his Ordeal, where he starts doing better in school and the people that he saves go on to do other things. My only issue is that the racist incident at the beginning where he beats another student up smacks of white saviorism. The Black student barely gets to speak, which isn't great if you want to show a person with agency.

Finally there's a bonus story, "Owl Be Home for Christmas." It follows a little owl who makes a home in a tree that then gets cut down. She then is offered the Oath and becomes a wizard, and rallies the other owls to get her tree back (her tree is the Rockefeller Christmas tree). The NYC wizards are now grown up and get together to try and patch this so that no one notices the tree flying off, but the owl gets to keep her tree. 

This one takes place in the socially distanced 2020, and the characters are adults which is really cute. Kit arrives in a suit and its revealed that Nita works in the Planetary Wizard's office now. It's a cute story, I don't have too much to say about it besides that it's enjoyable and fun to read, which is a pretty high compliment in my opinion.

All in all, I quite liked this collection and the theme it has. The first Interim Errantry was a good time with the different stories but knowing what's coming next is also really nice. I would highly recommend both of these!

This Is Beautiful: Free Time

 Yet another post about how something ended that I'm doing and now I have more free time. Lol. Anyways Shakespeare in the Arb is finally over, and it's so nice having weekends back! I wasn't as burnt out on the show as I usually am, mostly because I got lucky and had a weekend off from performances, but it's still nice to not have that going on. Finally time to focus on having a nice summer!