No, I'm not really going to Nairobi via Minneapolis (that would be a bit out of the way, wouldn't it??), but before I embark on my trip to Kenya, I'm now on a 2-day trip to Minneapolis. I'm attending an all-day workshop on teaching evolution tomorrow, and I'm excited.
Anyway, before I get to Minneapolis, this is what I did in the past few days:
- I did a lot of work fact-checking scientific content for a big project I'm working on, as we had a big deadline yesterday. Want to know what percentage of our genes we share with a banana? How about how old several more well-known fossil Neanderthal kids were when they died? If Homo erectus was carrying a carcass of a kill back to it's social group to share and eat, what would that carcass look like and how would it be carried? Want to see a map of all the fossil and archaeological sites where modern humans have been found between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago in Africa, which is the span of time during which our species evolved, but before we moved out of Africa to other parts of the world? Well now I can tell/show ya! (That last one almost did me in; I was working on it until 11pm last night).
- Since we put every single fossil or stone tool we excavate into its own plastic bag, we usually go through, oh, 5 or 6 thousand plastic bags a summer. So I have around 35-40 pounds of plastic bags that I will pack on Sunday, along with Sharpies, tape measures, duct tape, and other standard archaeology stuff. I'm probably going to have to buy a bathroom scale to weight my bags, since my luggage was slightly overweight last year going to Kenya (you get 2 bags of 50 pounds each), and I don't own one. Neither does my boyfriend Peter, who when I asked him if he did, said "of course not - I'm a guy!" :) I have a very scientific way of weighing my bags: I stand on a scale (Y), then I stand on a scale with each bag (X). X - Y = how much my bag weighs. I know, I have such stellar math abilities.
- I ate copious amounts of pizza on Tuesday night with my sassy friends Martha and Nina. Martha gave me some Play-Doh to bring to Kenya, and I will either give them to friends of mine who have kids, or find an orphanage or something where the kids really need toys. (Martha's laughing as she reads this, since that's not exactly why she originally gave me the Play-Doh...)
- I did one of my last errands before I leave; picking up my internet equipment from the couple who moved into my old apartment, Megan and John, so I could drop it off with my old internet company. (Around the corner I found something I'd been looking for for a few weeks - an Obama bumper sticker. But I digress). I had left the internet equipment there so John could use it right after he moved in, because I know how much it sucks to be without internet! I got it from Megan who brought it to the photo shoot she was doing, along with the trickle of mail that came for me after I left. Afterwards, my friend Ari, who's defending his PhD on fossil primate community ecology (was that a good description?) at SUNY Stony Brook in July - good luck Ari!! - called me and remarked that it was so *me* to make friends with the people moving into my old apartment. Well, they're really nice, and they were willing to move right in -- I had to move out 3 weeks before my lease ended. Some of you know the insanity that has been my housing for the past few weeks; the short story is I moved from my 1 bedroom apartment in Adams Morgan into my college friend Alexa's 2 bedroom condo in Columbia Heights on the Friday of the weekend of the crazy heat wave. Note to self: don't move during a heat wave again, and don't move like 2 weeks before leaving for Kenya again. Now, since my two summer subletters (Bryn Mawr undergrads interning in DC for the summer -- Rachel and Josephine, who's from Kenya!) moved in before I was leaving. Now I'm staying in my friend Annette's basement room in her house in Petworth. Yeah, my head's spinning too. I just have to remind myself what metro stop to get out at each day. Speaking of moving, Peter gets the best boyfriend award for helping me move in the 90+ degree heat and, what was it, 700% humidity - including figuring out how to take apart my craigslist-bought desk so I could fit it into my new place. Oh, and my kitty was SO helpful while I was unpacking. In the photo, she's letting me know where the dryer is. Thanks Shadow, I never would have found it!
-I had dinner in a yummy place I'd never been before in Penn Quarter, called Cure, with my friend Jacquie. I met Jacquie through my college friend Carin, who used to be my indoor climbing buddy before she moved to Tahoe this past year (the nerve!). Jacquie works for the Red Cross doing disaster relief services; we had a good chat over some delightful food about the whole "give a man a fish vs teach a man to fish" attitude. She's trying a unique community-based approach to disaster relief, rather than individual-based, so people can get together and help themselves, too.
All this activity is the reason why the other night, Peter - who is often the yin to my yang, energy-wise, in a good way - told me on the phone that he looks forward to the time when we just curl up together on the couch and watch a movie, even if we don't do that until we're 80. Aw! Actually, we did watch two movies together this past weekend; the National Geographic museum was showing two previously unreleased in the US kung fu movies. Having never seen a kung fu movie, I wasn't sure if I'd be into it, but since Peter's a film buff and especially likes kung fu films I thought it might be fun. I enjoyed them a lot, actually - I think the kung fu film expert who explained the history and stories behind the films, and the demonstration of real Shaolin kung fu by a 31st generation Shaolin monk, helped.
So, I don't know, Anne-Marie... does that start to fulfill the gossip you asked for? Apparently inquiring minds want to know it all! ;)
By the way, Cheryl - I'm not quite getting the hang of uploading photos in the sense of placing them wherever I want (perhaps I need to only do one photo per post?), or deleting them, but there's a little icon of a landscape picture in the toolbar, towards the right, when you're writing; you just click on it, and voila, you can upload a photo! Can anyone out there give me some advice about this?
More soon...
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