Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in tlaad's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Saturday, December 5th, 2009
10:37 pm	Thanksgiving and more I went to upstate New York to have Thanksgiving with my Peace Corps friend A and her gigantic family! Except that only about half of them were there. It was great, though. A and I are very close, and she talks about her siblings all the time. Now I get to heckle her youngest sister with some modicum of authority. We had turkey and potatoes and all the other things (A's family doesn't really drink, so I had my first family Thanksgiving where no one got massively drunk. That was kind of a cultural experience). Some of her siblings are culinary professionals, so we got to benefit from that. There were also great-grandparents and a small child. Afterwards, A took me around the area where she grew up: we saw one of the reservoirs that waters New York City and we visited FDR's house in Poughkeepsie. It was super windy, so we saw whitecaps on the reservoir, and we also saw a rainbow and some bald eagles! At FDR's house we saw the outside of the house (getting in costs money), and we also saw his rose garden and stables. There were a few roses with flowers still on them even. Upstate New York sure is pretty. I had a pretty good week this week. I almost got all of my pre-Christmas molecular biology done, but my last PCR had mysterious problems that I'll probably spend the next few days figuring out. This is a problem because I owe my boss a draft before I go home in a week on something else, and I haven't really done that much on it. In more pleasing news, I finally got rid of my car! And it was really easy! A friend took it, and she's really happy with it, and now I can stop worrying about when it's going to break again or how what I'm going to do with it when I travel or what a pain it'll be to dig out of the snow. Like an omen from above, we're getting our first really big snow (bigger than that one in October) right now, one day after my friend took away my car. And I don't have to dig anything out of it! (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 21st, 2009
1:22 pm	Oh internets, I turn to you Anyone have advice on a good bedtime snack? I find that hunger can keep me up at night, and am looking for suggestions of relatively unchallenging foods to fill me up before bed. Thanks! (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
11:02 pm	Cheapo Candy Thermometer! My cheapo candy thermometer arrived today! All the dial-type thermometers on amazon had pretty crummy reviews, so I got the cheapest one they had, and it is indeed cheap! It's about five degrees Fahrenheit off of boiling water temperature, but I think I can still use it. I bring all this up because the dial is labeled with "confection zone" betweeen 220 and 315 degrees. I would like to visit this magical confection zone. Perhaps you have to slow down in the confection zone, like you do in a school zone! Slow down to eat those delicious delicious confections. Mmmmm... In other news, I intend to make turtles this Christmas. Yay turtles! (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
9:55 pm	Religion, bikes, and guts! An old friend told me today that he was in the process of converting to another religion, so I have religion on the mind. When this happens, I tend to pontificate internally in long monologues. Hopefully not too much of it came out when I was talking to him. It's funny how he and I have in a way swapped religious affiliations since we met each other, and it's funny how fixed each of us felt then. So maybe I'm in an opinionated and nostalgic mood. Life's been plugging along. My bike was stolen (so was my neighbor's bike, and I'm proud to say that I did not throw a tantrum like he did), which was a bummer. That being said, the bike I got to replace it is very nice, and I've been enjoying pedaling around. I took a bike ride on Veterans' Day on the trail that the revolutionary militia took from Concord to Boston at the start of the Revolutionary War. I did not see any re-enactors. I did call my brother, who is a real live veteran, to congratulate him on his day. The weather today was crummy, but maybe tomorrow I'll do the bike ride again. Today it rained, and in general it's been getting chillier, but it hasn't snowed since I posted about snow, and for the most part we're still above freezing. Work's also plugging along. I've been doing a lot of sample processing from stuff I collected over the summer. In the spring, I hope to start cloning, which sadly does not involve sheep. Happily, the cloning kit that my superstar labmate introduced me to actually works, which kind of astonishes me. He says, "it's like baking cookies!" and it totally is. Most of my friends list has seen this, because one of you already posted it, but this video makes me smile every time. It's kinda not all that informative unless you want information that is very general or on exactly what they're doing, but it is very catchy. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
9:53 pm	Oh, I forgot This is funny. But probably only if you live in my town. Apparently, they even turned on the snow emergency lights outside the Somerville Theater for this event. Tom Champion is the local snow emergency/broken water main/alien invasion robo-caller. (Comment on this)
9:34 pm	A couple of weeks ago I visited my buddy Farmer Kerry in Western Massachusetts. She's cool--she did Peace Corps in Togo with me, and then decided that her true dream in life was to be a farmer, and now she's an apprentice on an organic farm. Kerry also has a crazy culture shocked Togolese dog, who seems to be mellowing with time. I don't think she snapped at me once during the whole visit, although she's gotten in the habit of sticking her nose in guests' crotches, which embarrasses Kerry. Another Peace Corps friend and I share Kerry's farm's CSA. I also visited Krzys from high school and his kid, which was fun. They live in this communal house with some other folks (and Krzys' wife), which reminds me of Cal co-ops, except everyone seems to really like each other. Krzys is a cute dad--he's teaching his kid how to build simple machines and use power tools and stuff, which is like way cool. The weather was nice; the leaves were pretty. All and all, it was a good trip. This past weekend, I went to a couple of Halloween parties dressed as an alien prom queen. It was a fun costume, but it took some explaining. Fortunately, no one disputed that I was a believable alien prom queen. And that's the way it is... (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, October 19th, 2009
10:05 pm	Oh Snoes! It snowed yesterday! Which, I should remind you, was October 18. I am full of anger and resentment. Today was nice, though. In other news, Science in the News went well. I talked about amphibians and climate change and species-area curves. I got to throw in some fungus, which was great. People seemed to like it. The video recording still hasn't been aired, and the audio's not on the website yet, but meh. I tend to spend a lot of time working on these things to the detriment of my other work, but find that I really do enjoy science outreach events. All I've gotta do now is figure out how to parlay this into a career as the next Al Gore. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, September 25th, 2009
9:09 pm	Science in the News--again! Apparently, all I ever use the livejournal for these days is Science in the News announcements. I'm doing Science in the News again, next week! I don't know how many of the folks who read this are in the Boston area (perhaps none, come to think of it), but if you are, I'll be participating in a science lectures for the public series for the third (!) time next week! And if you're not, it'll be podcast again, and videocast! I'll be on TV! Actually really honestly, I'll be on a local cable tv station, and it'll stream, although I'm still not sure when that'll be. SITN tends to wait until the lecture series is over to post the podcasts, so non-Bostonians won't be able to hear/watch/read it until like December (unless you or I figure out when the video stream from the tv broadcast is), but you can listen to previous years on the Science in the News website . This year I'll be talking about Modern Mass Extinctions; it'll be on Wednesday at 7pm at the Armenise Ampetheater on Harvard Medical School's campus. Thanks for indulging this plug... (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, September 3rd, 2006
2:03 pm	Another New Adventure Well, I made it safely to Cambridge. I'm sure I'll be seeing all of you Northern Californians again soon. Take Care! (11 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, September 16th, 2005
3:06 pm	Hey, does anyone know someone who's selling a $1000 car? I'm looking for something that will run for about a year without (hopefully) serious repairs. I'm an inexperienced driver, so this car would be mostly for practice. Perhaps after a year I'll move and get a more permanent car. Any leads you guys have would be appreciated. Thanks! (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 30th, 2005
6:03 am	Made it! Hello! I promised to post and let people know that I made it back to California safely. I did--I'm home. Thanks so much for reading this journal over the past year and a half. And thanks to everyone for all the support you've given me during my two years in Togo. To Ayeke: see you soon! To everyone else: if you'd like to see me or contact me, let me know. Take care. (16 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 27th, 2005
7:10 pm	Last Entry? I'm posting from Lomé today--I've actually been here since Tuesday, but have failed to post as promised until now. I have a ticket! And all my paperwork is finished, seemingly miraculously. And I'm feeling pretty good (although quite tired) about my whole Peace Corps service. So here's the last entry, from Togo at least. I'm staying in this hostel run by this little old Vietnamese-French woman named Mammy. It has a reputation for being dirty, although every time I stay there it seems cleaner. Mammy herself is kinda odd. She's kind of a packrat, and she runs a boarding house. Peace Corps volunteers like to refer to it as a brothel, although I doubt it's any more of a brothel than any other hotel in Lomé. I've never bought sex in Togo, although I imagine it's pretty easy. Right now Mammy's Place is full of schoolchildren from Niger. They're all little, but quite well-behaved. And they arrived in a big bus. Apparently their school takes them on a big tour of West Africa every year (this has got to be a private school). I also went to the swearing-in ceremony for the new volunteers last night. They gave me a certificate! Whee! And I got to be interviewed for the radio. All of the new volunteers gave a speech in local language (the speeches were short, but for the most part intelligible). My replacement gave his in Moba. Everyone was dressed in their African Best. I wore my Bonne Année dress and got to shake hands with the Agricultural Minister's representative. Other than that, I've just been shopping and eating lots of Lebanese food (thanks to Lomé's sizable population of Lebanese people--some of whom run restaurants). I got to see some of my training-mates, although most of them are already back. Tonight I go out for palm wine. And I get to leave for home tomorrow! See you folks soon! And--for those whom I won't see--have a great Burning Man! (Comment on this)
Friday, August 19th, 2005
4:35 pm	Wow. Vats of Tchakpah were bought and consumed (and I made popcorn, and was delighted when some old guy in my village who'd never seen popcorn before tried it and liked it). I packed up all my stuff. My host father gave me a cock (no, not that kind). I said good-bye to Grandmother, and cried even though I thought I wouldn't. I dropped all my furniture off at the new volunteer's house and said goodbye to his village. Now I'm in Dapaong. No more village for me. My immediate future holds fried chicken, bush taxis, and paperwork. Yay me. I also get to go tell a nurse I've been exposed to leperosy. I'll post next from Lomé. See you soon. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, August 13th, 2005
12:15 pm	I realize that I haven't been posting very much recently. This is partly because I've been busy, and a little because I don't know what to write about just now. Of course, I have news--Peace Corps has bought my ticket home. I have about a week left in the Savannes and a week in Lomé, and then I come home. I'm excited. I also feel a little unreal, sort of like the walking dead. I'm pretty much done with all my work (except the paperwork. Peace Corps doesn't really insist on that much, but I'd like to leave as much good documentation as I can), and working on saying good-byes to everyone. I'm buying four vats of Tchakpah on Thursday as kind of a "Thank-you for putting up with me even though I didn't buy you a hospital like you wanted" gesture. Four vats! There will be much drunkedness in my compound on Thursday. I'm also making popcorn, which people here really like. On Friday I'm leaving village for the last time, and travelling to Lomé by Tuesday. Then I get poked, prodded, interviewed, and packed on a plane home. Whee! I'm not done livejournaling yet (and I doubt I'll keep livejournalling when I get home--we'll see), since the intention was to just have a journal about Togo. I regret not making more entries, since people really seemed to appreciate this journal. That's all for now! (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 6th, 2005
10:49 am	Seven Weeks Left and Counting I've been back up north for over a week now. It's weird to come back and start trying to wrap things up at the same time. I'm especially excited about my replacement, though. I'm not going to be replaced in my village (which is good, since people in my village aren't that interested in working with a volunteer), so instead my replacement is going to the village where I do most of my work. It's called Sanfatoute, and it's right up by the Burkina Faso border. I get to go back and forth watching people fix up the house for the volunteer, and it's exciting. My counterparts in Sanfatoute are also very excited to meet the new volunteer, as is the chief (who tracks me down for news every time I visit). I, of course, am looking forward to showing off all of my friends and all of our work to this guy, who visits in about three weeks for the "post visit week" part of training. Yesterday I went to the village of Bombouaka for another soy demonstration. This is part of the agricultural institute's campaign to teach all their agents how to use soybeans. Hopefully, the agents can then introduce the techniques in village and encourage people to cultivate soybeans. I get to travel around--in a rushed sort of way--to all of the prefectural capitals in my region before leaving. So far we've done half of them (Dapaong and Bombouaka), leaving Mandouri and Mango. It's fun to do, and this activity is one of those rare "I feel like I'm making a difference" activities. We also got the best end result on our soy cheese (this is tofu) than I've ever had in one of these demos. So it was fun, even if I spent the entire day exhausted (I was feeling under the weather). I also love hanging out with agricultural extension agents. Today I return to village (finally, since I've been in Dapaong for several days) and go to see if any of the chicken raisers I work with are home. I don't think they will be, since it's the growing season, but you never know. I'm in the rather long process of visiting every single person I work with and asking them what their work plans are in my absence. Luckily, most people I live and work with know that I'm leaving by now. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 24th, 2005
6:50 pm	Another volunteer Hey, I'd like to offer a plug for my friend Ayeke's livejournal. She just got one a month or so ago, and she has a very different take on life in Togo from mine. She also lives in a different area (about as far from my village as you can get and remain in Togo). So if you want to learn more about Peace Corps volunteers in Togo, check her out! her login is mavie_8. edit: I fixed the link. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
7:48 pm	Back to the grind--for two more months I dropped my friends off at the Ghanaian border this morning, which was kinda sad. We all had a good time, and it won't be long before I see them again anyway. In a way I wish they could have stayed longer to really understand what life here is like, although I know that that takes more than two years. Besides, it's good to get back to work. I've neglected most of my job for the past month and a half (although I knew I'd be doing this ahead of time, so I'd gotten a good start on wrapping things up). Now I have two months to really wrap things up, including arranging for my Togolese counterparts to take over my work and getting things ready for my replacement volunteer in Sanfatoute. This reminds me--my friends actually got to meet my friends in Sanfatoute! They actually got to meet Grandmother, and also my friends in Dapaong! It's so weird, and so cool. They liked my Togolese friends, too, which was nice. I enjoyed walking back from the border to Peace Corps today. The border's right on the beach road. All the other times I've walked this path I've been worried about crossing a border, but today I just got to walk along and look around. It's pretty in a postcard sort of way--there's sand and blue water and palm trees, and there's men dragging nets full of fish onto the shore. The prettiness is superficial, but I did enjoy it. I just walked along looking at the beach and people's colored pagnes and ignoring the moto guys and money changers. It reminded me of the feeling I got when I first came back from Ghana two weeks ago. A lot of things suck about Togo (especially if you're travelling or crossing its borders), but once we were in Lome, I found it comforting to know where I was and what was going on around me. I speak better African French than I do African English (at least, the language spoken in the streets), which helps. It felt like coming home, in a very weird sort of way. I'm going to a slightly more home-like place on Saturday, and then really home in two months. My friends are going home tomorrow night (Ghana time). I honestly think they had a good time. I certainly did. And I know they developped a taste for African cuisine (even pate, even after all the bad press I've given it). Yay wonderful visitors! (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 12th, 2005
2:07 pm	Safe Arrival in Togo I just thought I'd let you folks know that I successfully brought three Americans into Togo. We're now in Dapaong, and they're finally getting to see how I live here. It's exciting. Later! (Comment on this)
Monday, June 6th, 2005
4:19 pm	Ghana, Part II We're still here! We hung out in Kumasi for a few days, visiting a monkey park and the Kumasi cultural center. I had a lot of fun being a tourist in tourist places--it's hard being mistaken for a tourist in villages where people are trying to get on with their lives (and you're trying to get on with your work), so to be on vacation in a cultural museum was rather nice. We also actually saw monkeys at the monkey park, although only like one or two, and from pretty far away. The park was very lovely, though, and I took some photos of the scenery. Then we travelled down to Cape Coast, and we're leaving for Accra again tomorrow. We visited Cape Coast Castle, which was the largest slave-trading castle in West Africa. Visiting it was indeed chilling, and we had a very good tour guide. I'm not sure what else I want to say about that in a medium such as livejournal, but since it's an important part of our history, I recommend that everyone who has the chance visit this castle. Today, we just got back from Kakum National Forest, which is a conservation/education type place with rope bridges running through the canopy of this rainforest. Way cool. It was fun to see the forest from both sides--and we saw lots of mushrooms! And other cool creatures. All in all, I'm enjoying Cape Coast a lot. If I had this trip to do over again, I'd spend more time here and enjoy this lovely town. In less than a week, I'll get to bring my friends to Togo! Whee! (Comment on this)
Thursday, June 2nd, 2005
8:53 pm	Ghana, Part I We made it to Ghana! At least, so far three quarters of us have made it--the fourth one arrives next week. My border crossing was tiring but relatively painless. I hung out in Accra for a few days with a nice American woman who I met in Romania. She took me all around, and even drove me to my GRE appointment. The test came and went, and my friends arrived intact. Their luggage didn't for three days, but eventually we got it. Now my friends have Lufthansa-related angst. We've been having fun so far. We went to the beach and swam in the ocean. We saw more of Accra than we'd planned (because of luggage), but that wasn't all that bad. We made it (with little time to spare) to catch the Lake Volta ferry upcountry. This was a fun ride--Lake Volta is beautiful. We got second-class tickets, so we ended up fighting for benches to sleep on during the overnight part of the trip, but it was definitely worth it. Now we're in Kumasi, which is the center of Ashanti culture. We got to visit a museum and wander around the ginormous Kumasi market. People here are pretty laid back compared to folks in big cities in Togo. No one's sick yet, knock on wood. Unless you count the cold that I caught, which went away quickly and did not result in much inconvenience. Everyone is having a good time. Net in this particular cafe in Kumasi sucks more than in Dapaong, which is why I sound curt. We all say hi, and hope life is going along fine in the Bay Area. PS: Paul Twohey rocks. (1 Comment |Comment on this)