Coffee from a Reusable Ceramic Mug

(please excuse the misspellings due to a little bit too much grappa, which followed much too much wine - not that drinking causes bad spelling. It just makes me way too lazy to check my spelling; at some point I just think, “they know what I means!”) I heard this fable tonight at dinner. I like it!

A rabbit was playing in a field one day when all of a sudden a fox pounces on him and grabs him by the neck. The rabbit says, “Wait! you can’t kill me! I am just about to finish my thesis!”

Unfortunately, sometimes the lion tries to eat the rabbit, which is when the really struggle of grad school begins!

PS-Ann Arbor is a great little town!

That means you, Crimson Commuter.

I am in Ann Arbor, and it is -13 degrees out there! (Celcius, that is). That’s about 9 degrees for all of you Americans. After living in Germany, metric units just seem to make more sense at lower temperatures.

I have a meeting to go to tomorrow, all day, and then it’s back to DC Saturday. If anything interesting happens, which I suspect it won’t, I’ll let you know!

I am watching the State of the Union (alone in my apartment, despite the many gatherings in the city - I had a long day). At the same time, I am reading comments from bloggers on “Wonkette”, which is a blog kept by various youngsters (both lefties and righties) running around on the Hill these days. Cool.

The best comment on the State of the Union so far is “Did he just recap 24?” when referring to the beginning of the “9/11-evil-doers hate us and plan to drop a Nukular bomb on us” part of the speech. I was actually thinking the same thing no joke!Seriously though, he has learned how to pronounce ‘nuclear.’ Someone must have had a talk with him on that one. My second favorite comment was “Pelosi blinks everytime Bush lies” (giggle).

Sarah sent me the directions for the drinking game I should be playing tonight…

I went on a tour of the Capitol, again, yesterday. This time, the tour guide was a former Congressional fellow from my program. He took a bunch of classes about giving tours of the Capitol, and he was generous enough to share his knowledge yesterday.

He told us a bunch of tid-bits and debunked a lot of the myths about the Capitol’s history. For example, I was always told that Washington is not in the tomb designed for him under the dome because Martha requested he be buried in Mt. Vernon. In fact, Martha was fine with being buried right along side old George under the dome. It was their decendants who didn’t want to move the bodys once the Capitol had finished being built.

One fo the cool randome pieces of information was about the ONE person in congress who voted against going to war in WWII (and also WWI, but there were a handful who voted again that one). Jeanette Rankin was also the first woman ever elected to Congress. Can you imagine what it must have been like to not only be the only woman in Congress but also the only one to take a stance against the war after Pearl Harbor? She must have had some guts! There is a statue of her in the Capitol, right across from the astue of an astronaut. It’s the astronaut played by Kevin Bakon (so you see, she is only 2 degrees of seperation..).

Later in the evening, I went with a couple of the girls to see “God grew tired of us,” which is a moving film. It is about the lost boys of Sudan and the journey of a few to resettle in the U.S. after ten years in a refugee camp. It is an incredibly touching story.

The best part about yeaterday is that I actually got to hang out with some people outsied of work! I am going to try to join some kind of class around here to get myself out and doing something. Yoga classes used to be my external activity, but I don’t really jive with a lot of the yoga studios - it’s not my scene anymore. I will try to find something else in the next few months.

It is snowing like crazy today, and I have been staying wamr inside all day. I did some Skype with Matthias, my parents and his parents (all at the same time for a while there). Now I am going to head out, pick up a bottle of wine for a dinner party and then go to a coffee shop and read my book for a little while. I hope I get a window seat to watch the snow.

I’ll leave you with this - it is a sign above one of the men’s bathrooms in teh Capitol; somehow it seemed strangely placed

The 6th season of 24 starts now! I get to watch in real time this year! Gotta go!

Like tonight, for instance. I was picking up my mail on the way in, and there was a little old lady getting her mail. She bundled her mail, grabbed her cane and slowly started heading toward the elevators. I asked if she needed any assistance as she looked quite frail. She declined, but I walked with her to the elevators anyway, and we chatted about the beautiful weather today. She asked what I did, and I told her about the astronomy/science policy stuff. She thought that sounded fascinating, and I told her that I found it pretty challenging but interesting. I wasn’t sure sure how to ask what she did because she was about 2 minutes older than God, so I expected she was retired. Before I cold ask though, she told me that she does intelligence work for the FBI, and it is quite interesting work recently because those terrorists just don’t know when to stop! How cool is she? What a lovely intelligence officer. she speaks as terrorists as another piece of the puzzle of intelligence work.

I forgot to mention that on the way back from Seattle I saw a comet from the meeting. Comet McNaught is now hiding in the southern hemisphere, but I got to see it briefly. If you click on the photo, I put a little box around the comet in Flcker so you can see it. Venus was also up at the time, so it makes a nice pair in the sky. The airplane wing gives some proof to my story!

Actually, it has been a lot more work than play, but it is fun, none the less. I have only taken a few photos so far, but here they are. I am spending a lot of time going to talks on the policy stuff in science, and I have managed to fit in some time for a few science talks as well. It is nice to hear about what’s being done today, I am exhausted at the end of every day, but I am enjoying it.

Here are a few more photos of the James Webb telescope model (real size), the fish market down the street, and a panel of experts on NASA’s astronomy and astrophysics. It include Niel Tyson, Anneila Sargent, Harrison Schmidt and Len Fisk if any of you know of these people. Most have been on TV representing astronomy. Niel is particularly well known.

Welcome back to Germany Matthias!

I am back at my first professional astronomy meeting since fleeing the field two years ago! It is in Seattle (a very wet place). I can’t believe that listening to talks and standing around talking can be so exhausting, but it is!

I met a few people that I haven’t seen in a long time, but I don’t know most people here. I found my old ’surrogate’ PhD advisor, VT, this evening, and it was great to talk with her again! She is a celebrity in astronomy, and hanging out with her allows one to meet all of the big shots at the meeting. They all seek her out to say hi. She introduced me to all of them thusly, “This is Dr. Bosler. She was the first astronomy PhD from UC Irvine, and then she promptly left the field.” She helped me realize that I am a little sensitive about leaving research; funny, I thought I was over that. I did realize that, for the moment, I am back in the field - whatever that means. An old collaborator and I are going to put together a project for one of his summer students to do using my old data. He is really understanding about my absense in research, and he invited me to Texas for a week to work with him on this project and to give a talk on alternative career paths.

I even got to speak German a bit tonight. I met an old colleague from Germany who is now in Tuscon, and I finally met the wife of the science policy mentor of mine who is also German. She used my German skills as a way to give her husband a hard time about never learning the language properly. I think she invited me to a party later this year too… I’ll have to follow up on that.

I am excited to be here, if you can’t already tell. Tomorrow is a long day so I better get to sleep. I promise to try to take some photos tomorrow. What good is a blog without photos?

Matthias is probably close to Europe about now; he flew out 6 hours ago. We were both pretty tired by the end of this week. It was not the traveling that did it. I got him the fifth season of ‘24′ for Christmas, so we HAD to watch it ALL before he left. That show makes me crazy, I swear. Matthias was supposed to have a 7 hour layover on the way back. I hope he managed to change his flight. I won’t know until he gets home. Here’s a big kiss for him, wherever he is!!!!!

So, if you look at Matthias’s post (amazing huh!), you may have guessed what happened today. After a long walk from the National Cathedral, after Gerald Ford’s funeral, all the way back to Arlington, Matthias and I settled in Ballston for a late lunch/early dinner. Matthias insisted, ALL DAY, that he must eat at the Chevy’s in the Ballston mall. I tried to convince him, several times, that it would be nicer to eat in cute little Georgetown or pretty much anywhere else, but sometimes, he gets his mind set, and I just have to surrender.

After dinner (and a big margarita), we stopped over at the CVS before heading to see “Rocky Balboa.” Two women walked in, and we heard a few German words exchanged between them. They went directly to the stand with the Vichy products (a line that’s popular in Germany). As the women passed us, I said, “Wait, I know that girl.” It was one of those times when I knew the face but couldn’t figure out who she was. It hit me a second later - was she in my yoga class in Regensburg? She looked over at me and did a double take. I heard her say to her friend, “Sie ist meine Yoga Lehrerin!” (She’s my yoga teacher!). Then, I knew I remembered correctly! Amazing.

Sarah and Cliff might remember Barbara. She was the most enthusiastic student in the class (who wasn’t a friend of mine). She came to every class, and she really seemed to be getting into it. The last I heard, she was planning on going to Miami at some point. She is in Arlington doing an internship this year. I gave her my card and invited her to the yoga class I am teaching for the AAAS fellows. I told her where it was, and she said that she had taken a class at the yoga studio in my building! That’s when Matthias decided that we must figure out the probability of that happening.

I had been hoping to find someone around here to practice German with……I found someone.