Month: September 2014

a tomato a day

This year has been a bountiful year for tomatoes where I live, and given my CSA membership and friendship with a successful gardener, I am certainly supplied with an abundance of tomatoes. But this post is not actually about that kind of tomato.

The tomatoes I’m talking about are chunks of time: I’ve been using the Pomodoro technique to get my work done. I’ve mentioned before that I have found this method of working in timed stretches to be helpful to my productivity.

A little more than a year ago, July of 2013 to be specific, I started to meet regularly with another PhD student from my program to commiserate and work on goals together. One goal I set was that I would work at least one tomato, that is a 25-minute stretch of time focused on the task, on my own research.

With all my other obligations for group research as well as parenting and home commitments, my own research had been regularly getting pushed to the back burner. While I’d work in impressive bursts for upcoming deadlines, such as when preparing for conference submissions and presentations, l would regularly go days or even weeks without looking at my own research when the other obligations had their own crunch times. I might make reasonable progress during the week, but a busy weekend or school vacation would come up and push all thoughts of my research out of my head. A family crisis or even a fun time like a family trip would come up, and even longer would go by. When the time would come for me to dig back into my research, it would feel alien to me. I actually had the experience of reading papers I’d written almost as if they had been written by someone else. (I’m happy to say that I did at least find them to be interesting and well-written!)

Since making the commitment to myself to do at least a tomato a day on my own research, I have made much steadier progress. There is much greater continuity, and I feel connected to my projects. Some days I manage to put in more time on my research, but I’m happy to say that I have always managed to get in at least one tomato before bedtime. (I had to give up on getting the tomato in before midnight at some point–there were days when I was travelling when it just wasn’t feasible.) Friends and family have come to know about my daily tomato.

Over the past year, there have been times when I have really wanted to just go to bed, or at least just goof off, at the end of a full and exhausting day, but I have not let myself off the hook. Even when travelling. Even when falling asleep at my laptop. 25 minutes is always an amount of time I can fit in. Even when the work is not my best or most focused, the gains to my sense of continuity have been immeasurable. I can much more easily pick up where I left of the day before.

I am feeling connected to my research every day in a way that I haven’t before.

flagging

This sculpture is in Larkspur, California. I have vague memories of seeing this regularly while growing up, as I lived in this part of Northern California for many of my childhood and teen years. I never actually knew anything about the sculpture, but its stark silhouette caught my eye during my trip to California earlier this year while we drove towards the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge one evening after an excursion to the Marin Highlands.

The wonders of Google allow me to learn that this is a statue of explorer Juan Batista de Anza, something I hadn’t known. Really, I just picked this photo for the flag because the word “flagging” had popped into my mind to describe the way I am feeling. In my tired state, I can see the statue as the pose of a weary traveller.

It’s been a really hectic stretch, with even more rushing around than normal, and tonight my energy is flagging. I will keep pushing forward, but I really just want a break.

balloon ride in the rain

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve never actually been on a hot air balloon, though I really hope to some day.¹ I have, however, been on an amusement park ride with cars shaped like hot air balloons.²

These photos are from my family’s 2010 trip to Story Land in New Hampshire. It was rainy the afternoon we arrived, but there was still fun to be had, and photos to be taken.

This trip was during my participation in Project 365 for which I committed to taking (at least) a photo a day to share online. I further decided to have monthly themes. This was still in my first month of the project, for which I chose reflections for my theme.

Amusement parks provide lots of shiny surfaces, so it was a good place to find reflections. I wasn’t actually too sorry that there was rain that day!

¹ I came really close to going on one when I was 13, but the weather conditions were wrong the day I was scheduled to go. Here we are 30 years later, and I still haven’t managed to reschedule…

² You might recognize these balloons from the set of amusement park ride silhouettes I posted a few weeks ago. ³

³ And once more, I am enjoying running with a theme. Or perhaps getting carried away with a theme, in this case. This past Friday’s friday foto finder theme was balloons and I found I couldn’t stop with just one. (Or even with the 3 I posted on Friday.)

balloons not included (friday foto finder: balloon)

This week’s friday foto finder theme is “balloon.” I have quite a few photos of balloons in my photo library, but I decided not to share any of them. Instead, I will share these 3 photos that do not show any actual balloons. Because I am contrary like that. (Also because I think the photos are fun in their implied balloon-ness.)

To see what bunches of balloons others have to offer, pop over to the fff blog!

Gallery of Marvelous Mushrooms

Step right up and behold this wondrous array of freakish specimens of the fungal world!

First up, be amazed by these amazing balls of mushroom! Amazeballs!

And what, pray tell, is this large object? A hat? A chair? A satellite dish? It’s a mushroom, I say!

What’s that strange gray flower, you say? That’s no flower!

These petals are all fungus, my friends!

Gray too dull for you? Need more color in your fungal bouquet? How about a bit of green to brighten you fungal arrangement?

And what’s this emerging from the mulch? Is that a yellow balloon, being inflated from below? Decorations for the mole’s birthday party? Why, no! It’s a mushroom!

What’s up in that tree? Has someone adorned the trunk with a festive flouncing of ruffles? Why no! These lovelies have planted themselves!

And this strange thing poking up through the garden mulch reminds me of something…I can’t quite place it…

And what’s that disk hovering low to the ground, practically glowing in the twilight? Is that a tiny UFO, bringing tiny aliens to earth?

Well, no! Would you believe it’s merely a mushroom?

Watch your head as you exit the gallery, and don’t forget to pay a visit to the gift shop on your way out.

This evening’s presentation was brought to you by the Fans of Fungal Fabulousness, a completely fictitious group of mushroom maniacs. It was also brought to you by an excess of tiredness and a bit too much caffeine late in the day.

mushrooms in the morning, mushrooms in the afternoon

While poking around in my photo library for something to post today, I came across this pair of photos. Noting that they were taken 2 years ago to the day, I figured it was a sign. (Perhaps a sign that I am compulsive for even noticing such things…) Anyhow, I often find myself standing outside at the top of my driveway twice a day: waiting for the school bus to come collect my children in the morning, and then again in the afternoon for the same bus to deliver my children back to me. (It is really quite a marvellous phenomenon.) Some mornings are quite hectic, and involve us scrambling to get ourselves together, and rushing out with me feel too frazzled and tired to notice much of the world around me. Happily, other mornings I can enjoy the bits of nature that line our street and driveway. One such morning, I admired these little groups of mushrooms catching rays of the bright morning sun.

Come that same afternoon, I was back out on the driveway, and remembered to check in on the little mushrooms. I thought it would be fun to photograph them again, this time under the different light conditions.

I like how the two pictures are recognizably of the same mushrooms, but with subtle differences of color and texture. I actually quite like both of them.

This also reminds me that I should check to see if there is a new crop of mushrooms growing in that spot this year. Perhaps in the morning, if the morning isn’t too hectic…

assorted views of a tie-dye leaf

Today is the autumnal equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere, and the official first day of fall. I am going to use this as an excuse to post more photos of leaves. (Though, actually, it’s just multiple photos of the same leaf. But still…)

I was quite taken by the range of colors and patterns that could be seen on the surface of the same leaf.

It had quite a range of textures, too.

And it glowed beautifully when held up to the light.

This was a maple leaf that I found in my mother-in-law’s yard last September. Coincidentally, this was actually September 22nd of last year, which turns out was the autumnal equinox last year.

chipped and peeled layers of paint

Among the categories of things that regularly catch my eye are the patterns formed by weathered and cracked paint. (Like on, for example, dumpsters. Or subway walls. Or the lines painted in parking lots.) I especially enjoy seeing when the layers of paint reveal something of the varied history of the painted surface. (Or at least the varied trends of colors of decades past.) The varied railings and turnstiles at an old amusement park, for example, offer an especially fun array of multi-colored layers. Here are an assortment of shots I took of chipped and weathered paint from around Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire during my visit there in August..