Raleigh, North Carolina

I almost forgot to write this, but I have been living in Raleigh for over a month now! No doubt part of this is that I really had to leave my old place, but I really like living here so far. There is public transportation, plenty of things to do, museums, and a lot of nature.

Now for practical reasons you really do need a car in Raleigh. There are buses but they don’t go everywhere, can take forever, and can be unreliable. I have learned to almost distrust the GoRaleigh buses, the GoTriangle ones seem to be much more dependable. Having said that I do have a bus option for getting to work and I take that practically everyday since I just don’t want to deal with parking and whatever. So having the option is a plus!

Just about every weekend has a free festival of some kind. The downtown area during the summer gets a lot of cultural festivals with vendors and food trucks and performances. I have yet to have a weekend in which there is nothing going on, which helps me immensely as I am living on my own. And not only that but there’s so much stuff within a short drive of here! There are multiple dance studios to pick from, which is a luxury I haven’t had in a while, and a circus facility, and a community band. Really just spoiled for choice here!

The museums deserve a special shoutout, there’s an art museum and a science museum and a few others as well. The art museum has a very fun collection plus a sculpture garden if you want to picnic. Beyond that even there are so many historical sites from taking a tour of the capitol building to seeing the founder of Raleigh’s house. There’s also the birthplace of Andrew Johnson, Lincoln’s vice president and the first president to be impeached! Very cool things to see if you are into local history.

And final there are so many parks and beautiful trees nearby. Even smaller places have their own gardens as well! You are certainly in a city, but green escapes are nearby and hiking is around. There are also good places for kayaking and paddling but I haven’t done those yet.

So I’m really happy living in Raleigh so far, it’s been lovely to be in a city and have access to more things. I don’t know if I’ll stay here past my job appointment, but this is not a bad place to be for a few years.

This Is Beautiful: Free Weekend

 It's been a busy few weeks, I'm actually looking forward to not having much this weekend and getting a little lazy. Or bored even! That might be nice.

“Pythagoras's Trousers: God, Physics, and the Gender War” by Margaret Wertheim

This book has been on my to read list for sooooo long, I almost forgot it was there. I was lucky and managed to get a copy at my new library. It’s such a fascinating book, it primarily gives a very accessible overview of the history of physics. Wertheim takes a very close look though at the relationship between physics and religion, and how that impacts the way female physicists work and are treated. As a result this spans everything from history and philosophy of science to feminism to religion.

Now the book itself was published in the 90s so it is a bit dated, I am willing to bet though that the argument Wertheim is making still holds water. Essentially, physics throughout history has been entwined with religion. This could be religious universities in the Middle Ages, or even more present day with talk of the God particle and whatnot. And that has inevitably led to scientists believing that only men can carry it out, like some sort of scientific priesthood. But the field could benefit greatly from more equitable inclusion of women, right now physicists are focused on this theory of everything that will not measurably change anyone’s day to day life (as admitted by the scientists themselves). One way the field would change with the inclusion of women is that it may shift its focus to topics more focused on benefitting society. But Wertheim is also careful to say that it isn’t a female physicists job to do this, it’s just that there will inevitably be changes and that is what she predicts would happen.

I really enjoyed reading this work, I thought the inclusion of all of these different topics and fields made for a really compelling read and argument. I am a biologist, not a physicist, so there was a lot of new scientific information in this work, in addition to everything else. I do see Wertheim’s project though as parallel to my interests in biology and adding to it, I really want to make science more equitable and inclusive as a teacher. And I want to teach myself more about the philosophy and history of science to fully understand it. These topics aren’t taught to you as a scientist, you have to go out of your way to get exposure to them.

I am so glad I was eventually able to find this book, it was a great read. The information is presented in a very friendly way, and it gives insightful commentary on the field itself. This book does it all!

This Is Beautiful: Pride Finally!

 This past weekend was Pride in Durham (past two weekends really) and it was great to finally make a Pride celebration! For a series of reasons I wasn't able to make it to the Prides in Michigan (weather and scheduling and health, etc) and I figured that I would have just missed it all this year. Not so! Durham celebrates their Pride in October since it's warm until then and that's when they first marched for equal rights. So we get a later Pride! And it coincided so nicely with my partner coming to visit me for the first time in my new place. It was so nice to go together and finally get a Pride!

“I’m Glad My Mom Died” by Jennette McCurdy

I remember being aware that this book was coming out, I had loved iCarly when I was young and I was glad to see a child actor growing up. I picked it up finally because I was between books from the library and it was available as an ebook. I ended up absolutely loving it, McCurdy’s voice comes through so strongly and is so funny, plus it’s fascinating to see what was going on behind the scenes in her life the entire time I was seeing her on screen.

McCurdy starts with a segment of her mom is the hospital in a coma, and her trying to wake her up by saying she finally hit 89 pounds (essentially through anorexia). Flashback to her as a kid, growing up in a hoarder household where she lived to please her mother and make her happy. When her mother suggests that she act, she can’t say no. As she grows up, her mother encourages her to stop eating in order to make her small. She grows to hate acting and after iCarly, hates fame. Her friendship with Miranda Cosgrove, her co-star, is very real though. Her mom does have a cancer relapse and eventually died. And eventually, McCurdy gets help and starts to take a closer look at her relationship and mythology around her mom.

What I really love about this book is that it has all of the messy stuff about recovery. I haven’t read a ton of recovery memoirs to be fair, but there are plenty of anecdotes where I can remember how it looked on the outside, but she supplies the harsh reality of what she felt on the inside. So it may specifically resonate with folks that saw her on tv as a kid. It doesn’t gloss over the details and I so appreciate McCurdy for that.

Additionally, it is really harrowing to hear about what child actors go through. I mean I’ve heard all of the stories and whatever, but reading about it happening to her is something else. I am always so amazed by what they were able to get away with over at Nickelodeon (and Disney as well I assume). In the book she is offered 300 thousand dollars to never talk about her experiences, and she turns it down. She also turns down the reboot of the show. And good for her, or we might not have had this book.

This was such an entertaining, enjoyable read. I was rooting for McCurdy the whole time and really enjoying hearing her voice. And I’m just glad she’s in a better place now.

This Is Beautiful: Coding for Teaching

 This week I've been working on a course that I'm designing and I'm making sure that I can do all of the analysis myself before incorporating it into a class. It's honestly so much easier when the mindset is "what do students need" rather than "what is possible?" I like it so much more, it limits things and the idea is just hey, can we do this? Just another confirmation that I am where I am happy, which is teaching!

“Haroun and the Sea of Stories” by Salman Rushdie

This was a really quick read! The book is fun for both kids and adults, so the story is full of quirky characters and the plot really clips along. It makes for a fun time; I finished this in a weekend.

Haroun lives with his mother and father, his father Rashid is known for his storytelling. His mother gets unhappy though and Rashid doesn’t notice, and one day she runs off with a horrible boring guy who hates stories. Rashid is depressed, Haroun feels that he is to blame since he asked his dad “what good are made up stories?” in the aftermath. Eventually Rashid gets on stage and can only say “ack” meaning that their livelihood is in danger. Haroun goes with Rashid to tell stories to support some politician, and the night before his performance in a fit of anger Rashid says that he is done with stories. Haroun then surprises a Water Genie who is there to turn his storytelling magic off, and Haroun steals his tool and persuades him to take him to the great Walrus at the head of Processes Too Complicated Too Explain and reverse this for this father.

They fly to the City of Gab (which is on another moon) on a bird and learn that the waters of the Sea of Stories are being poisoned and the princess has been captured. From there it is war with the inhabitants of the city that is always in darkness for the ocean and the princess. They are not in agreement for what the priority is though, the inhabitants want the ocean clean and the prince wants the princess back. So they split up, Haroun and some new friends head off to spy on what is being done to the ocean. They are immediately captured, but they figure out the plan is to plug the spring of stories and manage to dismantle that. The key is that these inhabitants have managed to detach their shadows, Haroun uses a wish and Wishwater to turn the moon so that they are in the sun and the shadows all melt. Meanwhile the others fought for the princess and won since the inhabitants of the dark city hate their leader. Haroun decides as thanks for his efforts he wants a happy ending, and when they get back Rashid tells the story of “Haroun and the Sea of Stories” and they find his mother has returned.

The summary really doesn’t do this book justice, there are so many quirky things and silly wordplay that would just take too long to explain here but make for good reading. It also feels a little like Alice in Wonderland, there are multiple characters from Haroun’s life that reappear in Gab. Additionally, there are clear influences from India here, Rushdie provides some explanation to the character names at the end that highlight this the most clearly.

All in all, a good fun read that makes you think a little, not too much, about stories and how useful they are. They aren’t real, but why should that make them unimportant?