Applying Late for Jobs and My View from Both Perspectives

I was inspired to write this post after reading a question to Dr. Isis about applying for a job "too late" due to having had a baby, which interfered with the applicant's ability to apply in a timely manner.

I commented:

As a person who has been on both the job-searching and the hiring sides, deadlines are there for convenience but they are rarely hard deadlines. I once submitted an application 20 days after the deadline and still got an interview. As another datapoint, someone emailed me when I was wrapping up my decisions about who to interview for a job, and I told him to hurry up and apply. That candidate ended up being the best one, and just started the job yesterday!

It will take them two weeks before they really even start looking through the applications. Hiring is an extremely time-consuming process, but at the early stages it is easy to add in another application to be considered. So definitely apply.

I was once a wee beginning job applicant, afraid of annoying the powers that be by not following the rules.  But, having now been at the other end of the table, I have a much different perspective.  While there are some things that may disqualify you for a particular position, there are few acts so egregious that a hiring manager will remember your name and make sure that you never, ever get a job with anyone they know.  (This is a notable exception!)

For that job where I applied  20 days too late, I told them my reason why.  It wasn't even a very good reason -- I hadn't seen the job posting until that day, and it just seemed like something too good to pass up.  I did not have a good excuse like Dr. Isis' correspondent.  But my application was very strong and I got the interview.  So it can happen.  In the worst case, they don't interview you, which is the same result as if you had never applied.

Really though, unless they are a completely unreasonable person (in which case, you don't want that job anyhow!), there is no negative repercussion from applying a little late if you accidentally missed the application deadline.  Now, that is not me giving you permission to willfully ignore all deadlines -- I'm just saying that honest mistakes are easily forgiven.

Job applicants often have this myopic vision of the hiring process.  I was talking to one of the postdocs I'd hired and I complained about how hard it was to fill the position, how many times my offers were rejected, and how glad I was that they were there.  "Oh," said the postdoc. "I only thought of it from the applicant's perspective -- it never occurred to me that you would be disappointed by people rejecting your job offers!"

Yes, we are disappointed by people rejecting our job offers!  Just as much, if not more, than applicants are disappointed by not getting the job.  It is a huge investment of time to screen applications, talk to applicants, bring them in for interviews, collect and evaluate feedback, and extend offers.  I was so heartbroken the first time my offer was rejected.  I really thought I'd had that candidate in the bag!  But I had to get over it quickly and get the whole process started again.

Making a job offer is a lot like making a Jane Austen-era marriage proposal.  You tell the person you really like them, they are just what you've been looking for, and you want to spend 40 hours a week together with them.  You have these means to provide for them (a.k.a. a salary), and you hope to produce little hybrids of yourself and them (a.k.a. research papers), if only they find you as attractive as you find them.  Then you smile nervously and hope they will say yes.

They usually have to take some time to think about your offer, and you desperately hope that they will think you are Mr. Bingley and not Mr. Collins.  I've been Mr. Collins more often than I would like.  In fact, I once had one person reject my job offer so that they would be free to possibly interview elsewhere (the place of their dreams, but that had not yet contacted them with any interest).  I don't know if that puts me in the same league as Mr. Darcy with his first proposal to Elizabeth Bennet, but that was a pretty odd rejection to say the least.  But it was all good, I offered the job to the next person on the list, who verbally accepted it immediately, and I felt relief that the position was finally filled.

After experiencing both sides of the table, I understand the hiring process much more, and at this point I am unafraid of applying for jobs (if I were in a position that I needed to do so).  I know how the system works.  I would know how to make myself attractive to hiring managers because I have been in their shoes.  I will write another post on that topic.

Musical Memories

My Nissan Leaf came with 4 months of satellite radio for free, and I began listening to the classical music stations every day on my way to work and back.  I got to hear a number of pieces of music that I once loved but had forgotten about.  Because I was getting so much enjoyment out of it, I decided to purchase a subscription after the trial period expired.  I'm still enjoying the classical stations and what they have to play.  Here is a partial list of the music that I re-experienced:

• On the Beautiful Blue Danube (thus the recent post)
• Symphony #2 "Romantic" by Howard Hanson
• Symphony #1 by Gustav Mahler
• L'Arlesienne Suite by Georges Bizet
• Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar
• Overture to Tannhäuser by Richard Wagner
• Symphony #5 by Dmitry Shostakovich
• Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky
• Symphonie Fantastique by Hector Berlioz

On Patriotism and Criticism

When I was in the eighth grade, my family lived in England for a year.  It was an experience that was very influential in my life.

It was good to be exposed to another culture and another way of doing things, to learn that there is more than one way to be.  Yes, you can drive on the left side of the road and still have a functioning society.  You can go to an all-girls school and survive the experience, even if you have to wear a gray uniform every day.  And there are places where history goes much deeper than it does in this young country.  I learned quite a bit of tolerance from the experience.

But most importantly, it informed my understanding of what it is to be an American.  I returned to the United States with a deeper love and appreciation for my country.  But it was not a blind, unquestioning patriotism -- it was a love very much like the love I feel for my family and close friends.  I see this country's good points and I see its flaws, but most importantly, I can see its potential -- everything that these United States could be.  It would be unfair to turn a blind eye to these flaws, and approve unquestioningly of everything done in the name of the United States.  My loved ones deserve better!  It is my duty to use my perspective to indentify the problems, and help my country overcome its shortcomings.

Music I Enjoy: Traumerei

I played at some friends' wedding the weekend before last (these friends) -- and was asked to play Träumerei by Robert Schumann, a lyrical, reflective piece of music.




I had a recording of Joshua Bell (the violinist in the video above) playing the piece, and I listened and listened to him playing it, and even played along as practice.

But, Joshua Bell I am not!  I don't have nearly the skills that he does, mostly because I don't practice nearly as often as he does, and my fingers don't move the way I want them to all the time, because of my ulnar nerve damage.  Luckily, my friends were pleased with my performance (they got what they paid for and then some!).

I really like what Joshua Bell does with the piece though.  I think the flow of his interpretation is perfect.

Music I Enjoy: On the Beautiful Blue Danube

I hate to admit it, but all weekend, this has been going through my head:

That's bad enough, but what is even more shameful is that I've been enjoying it! Yes, it is overplayed. Yes, it is an earworm. But it is kind of fun. It makes me laugh. I love the beginning, preparing you for the imminent arrival of the waltz. It's like a sunrise, with the rays of sun just peeking above the horizon. You watch them get brighter and brighter, until the sun is up and the waltz begins in all earnestness. The ten minutes of music varies enough that it keeps you from getting too bored. There's even a brief minor section. It is definitely a waltz, and makes me want to dance around the house (ONE-two-three ONE-two-three) -- albeit without even a hundredth of the skill of the dancers in this video. Luckily since I am the only one at home I don't embarrass myself.

My Future Engineer

Vinny has always loved things that go round and round -- wheels, windmills, you name it.  He was terrified of the clothes washer for a while, because it went "boom boom boom" when the load was unbalanced and the noise scared him, but he has since overcome his fear and added washers to the list of fascinating things that go round and round.

He is so interested in washers that he has lately spent the majority of his computer time watching washer repair videos, which he can now quote word-for-word.  (If there's something wrong with your washer, ask him what to do before you call a repairperson!)  He always wants to help load and run the clothes washer, which is great except that while he is also excited to operate the dryer, he's much less interested in folding and putting away the clothes.

He also wants to play clothes washer.  How do you play clothes washer, you may be asking?  Well, he turns around and around, saying "ratta ratta ratta" as if he is the agitator in the center of the basket of a top-loading washer.

Yesterday he declared that he wanted to buy a washing machine and install it in the bathroom so that he can play with it.  If it weren't for the space problems, I would be happy to buy him a cheap used one to tinker with!  Instead, Jeff promised him that if we ever needed to get a new washer, he could help pick it out.

Another obsession of his is fans.  He has enjoyed watching videos of fans on YouTube for years and years.  There are people who have fan collections and post videos of them.  There are videos by kids and adults alike.  Vinny was especially inspired by the children with fan collections and began a collection of his own.  He spends the money he gets for good behavior on new fans.  And once, when he did something we were especially proud of, Jeff took him to Kmart and let him pick any toy he wanted.  What did he select?  A box fan, one with two knobs!

They have show and tell at his school every Monday and Friday, and every time, he has brought a different fan to share.  Some of the kids are not interested in his fans, but other ones have developed an interest in fans thanks to him.  In fact, we went to one of his classmates' birthday party a few weeks ago and the birthday girl had told her mother that Vinny had too many fans and should giver her one of his fans for her birthday.  We gave her a brand-new fan of her own and it was like the best gift ever.

For Vinny's birthday, Jeff found an antique desk fan on eBay.  We know he will love it.  If only there were a small washer that we could get him (beyond the small pink toy we bought to try to help him overcome his fear of washers).

Computational Conversations

(based on actual conversations I have had with domain scientists...)

Solving a scientific problem?  I can help!

Is it a partial differential equation?  I know something about that.  I've solved Schrödinger's equation in many forms.  Advection and diffusion I know well.  Choose your finiteness: finite elements, finite differences, or finite volumes?  Each one has its own advantages and pitfalls.

Linear algebra?  Use an optimized BLAS library, not the reference library!  Our vendor has a group of applied mathematicians who developed these math libraries just for you.  Don't let all their effort go to waste!  Eigenvalues -- you don't need to orthogonalize at every step, just every so often.  Maybe it will require a few more iterations, but the iterations will be so much cheaper...

Optimization?  Yes!  Finally something I am an expert in!  Okay, so what type of problem are you solving?  Is it convex?  Is the objective function cheap to evaluate?  How many parameters?  Is it a mixed-integer program?  Actually, I think your problem could be reformulated as a combinatorial optimization problem and we could try an evolutionary algorithm...

Oh, you meant code optimization.  Yes, I can do that too.  See these loops?  Since it's Fortran, we need to reorder the loops so that the array is accessed by its first index in the innermost loop, not its second.  See, we just got a 4x performance boost just by swapping these indices.  Okay, let's change this array to a function, because it is easily calculated and the function can be inlined whereas that memory lookup can't.  And let's eliminate these "if" statements by dividing this loop into two parts.

Your job fails at 120,000 MPI processes, but not below that?  What happens when it fails?  How long does it take to get to the point of failure?  What is the code doing when it fails?  Does it always happen in the same place?  Let me ask my sysadmin colleague to look in the top-secret log files that only they can view...

Does this computation depend on that one, or can it be done in any order?  Is there any reason to keep this data after initialization?  What if we used this framework?  Asynchronously spawning new tasks would implicitly load balance this algorithm.  Your algorithm is not scalable.  The synchronizing you do will be a huge bottleneck as you scale up.  It may work okay now, but at the petascale or beyond there will be scalability issues coming out of the woodwork, things even beyond this synchronization issue.  Trust me, I have seen this happen even in my own codes.  Let my pain be your gain!

I may not be a scientist in your field, but I know a lot of things that can help you.  I've boosted the performance of codes by a factor of two with a single keystroke.  I may not have seen your problem before, but I've seen something like it.

Radio Silence

Hello world!

I have found that when I am under a lot of stress, I tend to just retreat inside myself.  I don't want to talk about the stress and I can't think of anything else to talk about, so I just get quiet.

The past two months have been that way for me.  There has been a lot of stress.  I have retreated and remained silent.

The stress is still there but I am trying to think about other things to talk about.  Please bear with me; my creative juices do not flow well under these circumstances.

Leaf Beliefs

My younger sister is a professor of religion, who focuses on environmental ethics, so she has been really interested in hearing what I am feeling about the ethical implications of owning and operating an electric car.  Since I have had it for a grand total of nine days, I of course feel inherently qualified to discuss all the ethical implications of the Nissan Leaf. (*grin*)

As I said before, I felt a strong ethical impulse to buy the car, and it went further than simple carbon footprint reduction.  I have enough disposable income that I can afford more than just the basic necessities, and I like to choose ethical ways in which to spend my money.  This is why I buy a share in a local farm -- I support the local economy and get tasty fruits and veggies to eat.  I also want to spend my money to encourage more good works, which is why I donate to good causes (e.g., GLBT equality).

I feel that buying a Nissan Leaf helped me to further both these goals.  It is ethical to avoid buying gasoline -- the instability in the Middle East is fueled by our insatiable appetite for petroleum.  (Of course there are ethical issues with the way that electric power is generated, but I think this is the lesser of two evils.)  By being one of the earliest adopters of the technology, I am monetarily encouraging a company that is taking a bold ethical step.

My sister also asked me whether I felt "less-polluting joy" every time I drove the car.  I told her that yes, I do feel a certain sense of joy every time I get into my coal-powered car.  (Most of our electricity comes from coal.)  Sometimes I just feel like, "Oh hey, I can drive anywhere I want!  I am not polluting at all!  I will never walk anywhere again!"

Except, yeah, I'm still polluting.  It's not coming out of my tailpipe.  It's coming out of a smokestack instead.  While it is less than what would come from a tailpipe, even if it's 100% coal powered, that doesn't mean you are absolved of responsibility for pollution.

But since it is hard to see those emissions, it is hard to feel guilty when you step on the pedal and accelerate a little more than you would have otherwise.  And it does accelerate so smoothly and so instantaneously...

More About Leaf

I have been enjoying the new car immensely.  Scarlet drives like a dream.  This weekend my dad came for a visit and I took him for a spin in it.  He was very interested in how it all worked.

I have discovered some more cool features on the owners' portal website.  First, you can plan routes, making sure that you have enough range to do the entire route, and then send those routes to the car's navigation system.  Tomorrow I have to go somewhere unfamiliar for work, so I availed myself of this feature.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Second, you remember the little trees you can earn for driving efficiently?  Well, it turns out that it records the number of trees you earn and then rates your performance. I apparently drive okay but there is a lot of room for improvement.  I am ranked number eight-hundred-something out of all the drivers.  Number one gets nearly an order of magnitude more miles per kilowatt than I do.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong or they are doing right.

All About Leaf

I am pleased to report that as of Tuesday afternoon, I am a proud owner of a Nissan Leaf! We named her Scarlet, because she is a beautiful red. The car is a she, because it is awesome, innovative, and pioneering.

I'm not usually one to just jump in and be an early adopter of technology. After all, I've had a text-enabled cellphone for less than a year. But I feel so strongly that electric vehicles are the only thing that will help our transportation-related carbon emissions to cease, that I wanted to support the effort.

I am fortunate enough that I have a good job that allows us to support ourselves comfortably and still afford this car. It is not cheap. There are some tax breaks (including a $7500 federal income tax rebate) but that only goes so far. The cost of charging up is a lot less than the corresponding cost of gasoline, but even then, since I drive so little (the Beetle just crossed the 35,000-mile threshold) this saves me maybe $40 per month. I anticipate that we will take this car on errands around town, instead of our other car, so we should save a little more than that. Still, less than $100 in savings.

Anyhow, onward to the car!

This is Scarlet, parked in our carport. You can see the home charging station installed by two electricians beginning at 7:30 am this past Tuesday. I had to get the charger installed before I was allowed to bring home the car.

Another view of the car.

Check out that headlight. It has a fin on it, for aerodynamics purposes I assume.

Another view, trying to show that fin.

I think the fin is pretty clear in this photo. Maybe the cars of the 1950's had something going for them!

A view from the driver's seat.  That little window between the side and the windshield doesn't buy you much.

Here's a view across to the other side.

Between the seats.  That is one tiny shifter as we will see later.

The console can show a cool map telling you how far you can go without running out of charge, and a bunch of other things.

To start the car, depress the brake pedal and push the power button!

Here's the view you get: On the left is the battery temperature. On the right is the battery charge and the number of miles it estimates I can go. At the top center is a gauge for how much power I am drawing (or regenerating). In the center it tells me how long it will take to recharge at various voltages, and the odometer.

At the top, above the steering wheel, you can see the speedometer in the center.  On the right is a clock and temperature gauge, and on the left is a gauge telling you how efficiently you are driving, and rewarding you for your efficient driving by generating little trees.  The more trees, the better.  Unfortunately, they all get reset every time you turn the car off.

Here I am shifting into reverse by moving the shifter to the left and forward.  You shift into drive by going left and backward.  Of course this all makes perfect sense!  I double check which gear I'm in every time before I release the brake because I am so confused.

When you put it in reverse, a rear-view camera comes up on the console.  This is handy because the rear window is tiny.  The stripes are not part of my driveway decor; they represent distance.

A little light reading that came with the car.  I've made it through one of those books so far!

So I made it to work now.  I am a cheapskate and since my workplace provides free charging, I am going to take advantage of it!  So, I pull the lever to open the charging compartment, located on the front of the car just under the place where you open the hood.

Here's what it looks like when it is open.  On the right is where you plug in the 240V charger, which is what we have at home and at work.  The one on the left is for the 480V charging stations, which do not actually exist yet, but when they do, I will be able to drive this car to see my Dad, with a short stop to recharge on the way there.

I opened the cover for the 240V socket, and this is what it looks like.

Here is the charging station, which looks almost exactly like what I have at home...

...except that, for this charger, you have to activate it with your magic card.  The electrons are free in exchange for tracking my usage information.

It's ready to go...

So I remove the plug from the dock...

...start plugging it in.

... and I push it in until I hear a click...

It's in!

We are charging!

A view of the trunk.  It is pretty big.  That black bag is a 120V trickle charger that you can plug into a regular wall outlet in a pinch.  There is no spare tire, but there is a tire repair kit in the left wheel well.

As you can see, I am not the only person with a Leaf at work.  The Head Honcho has a Red one like mine, and several other VIPs have them as well.  My car schmoozes with other cars belonging to important people!

Nissan has an owners' portal, where you can check the status of your car.  You can also program it to start the climate control while plugged in, saving your battery from doing all that work.  It's handy if you want your car to be comfortable just before you leave work, for example.

Here I set the timer to start cooling the car at 3:45 this afternoon...

...and it's set.

Huh?  There's a message on my cellphone!

It's from Scarlet, telling me that the vehicle's status has been updated.

It's 3:45 and the AC is on!  Nice of Scarlet to let me know!

Time to go home!  If you get in the car while it is still plugged in, you will see this warning on the dash.  It won't let you go anywhere while still plugged in, but as I found out this afternoon because I was too obsessed with snapping pictures to pay enough attention, it will let you go with the charging door still open.

I unplug the charger, and notice as I am putting it back on the dock that I have received a text message:

The climate control stopped when I unplugged it.

I hopped into the car and came home.  It is really a great car.  It has good acceleration and other than being so quiet, it really seems just like a regular car.  In fact, it is so quiet that at speeds of 19 mph or below, it generates noise so that pedestrians can hear it coming.  Another interesting thing is that because it is so quiet, you can hear a lot of noise coming from the other cars around you.  At stoplights I hear everyone else's music.

Anyhow, it is great and I am really enjoying the car.  I hope you enjoyed a vicarious taste of this awesome car!

Queen of Nerdingham

In case the Ph.D. in computer science was not enough of a giveaway on this, let me just say that I am a huge nerd.  I take pride in this fact, actually, but I have not always felt this way.

Growing up, I was made fun of a lot because I was a nerd.  I felt really bad about being a nerd, but there was nothing I could do about it -- I just love to think, learn new things, and exercise my brain.

I didn't have the perspective then that I have now.  I didn't see that knowledge, and the ability to analyze and sort through it, is power; that freedom lies between the ears; or that the strength of my mind and the determination of my will could save me from despair.

Today, I am grateful for my nerd traits.  My love of thinking and learning enables me to solve problems of all kinds.  It allows me to function well in the world.  And it helps me make a really good living and support my family.

I'm a Winner!

Yesterday I found out that the project I worked on as a postdoc won a major honor.  It wasn't until someone emailed me a congratulatory note that I realized that my name had been included in the nomination as well!

I spent about an hour laughing about the unexpected honor.  A friend at work told me that I should be proud and I deserved the recognition.

I don't feel like I do, but that is mostly because I have not worked on that project for several years.  But when I think about it, I actually did make a substantial contribution: although they don't use the algorithms I developed, they do still use the framework I developed for them.

Fostering: Continuing Education

EcoGeoFemme asks:
Do you feel like the training/continuing ed is useful, or just red tape? Have you learned anything from it?


Good question!  In principle, the training and continuing education is a great idea.  I can tell you from my brief experience so far, we can use all the help we can get!  But I actually have not yet taken a class so I don't know yet whether it is useful.  But there is one scheduled for sometime next month so I will update you on what I think.


Have any questions about foster parenting?  Feel free to leave them in the comments, and I'll answer as best I can!

Fostering: The Home Study

Ginger asked about the questions they ask during the home study.

The home study has two parts: first, examining your home to make sure that it is safe and has enough room for a child or children; and second, interviews with the family members. 

After she first arrived, I gave the social worker a tour of our house.  I took her to every room, told her how we used each room, and pointed out the room where the child would stay.  She made sure that we had sufficient smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, that all our medications were locked away, and the house and yard were safe in general.  There was a whole checklist of requirements, including things that did not apply to us (e.g., swimming pools must be fenced in).  We also had to have a bedroom that the child could sleep in -- they don't necessarily need a room to themselves, but it needs to be a bedroom and not a hallway or a shed(!).

Then, she interviewed me.  I was asked about my childhood and my general biographical history, my parents and siblings, how my parents disciplined me, the current status of my relationships with family members, my educational and employment history, my current job and how I feel about it, my religious beliefs and my openness to those with differing beliefs, how I handle anger, how I discipline Vinny, my relationship with Jeff.  I was also asked about any drug addicts or alcoholics in my immediate and extended families, and about Jeff's history with substances.  And at the end, I was asked what my goals were and what sort of foster care I would be interested in doing, and what types of children I would want to have.

On a second visit, Jeff was interviewed, and the questions were about the same.  The social worker interviewed Vinny, too, asking him what kinds of kids he would like to have stay with us.

After the interviews, the social worker wrote up a document about our house and about us, and sent it to us to revise and correct.  When we were satisfied that it was accurate, we signed a form to certify our approval and the home study process was complete!

In order to retain our license, we must have a home inspection annually, as well as stay current in CPR and First Aid certifications and receive 15 hours of continuing education each year.  Luckily the profiles of us will remain valid and we won't have to answer all those questions again unless we let the license expire!

Have any questions about foster parenting?  Feel free to leave them in the comments, and I'll answer as best I can!

Fostering: Q&A

GMP asked: From what you wrote it seems that prospective foster parents are quite thoroughly checked. In contrast, there are all these horror stories about foster care abuse cases in the news and TV shows -- do you feel they are grossly exaggerated?

I think there are varying degrees of abuse and mistreatment that occur in the foster care system, and the worst ones get sensationalized by the media.  The reasons for abuse and mistreatment in the foster care system are many.

First, foster parents are human beings, just like everyone else.  We all make mistakes with our biological children, and it is even harder to do the right thing every time with a child you don't know very well.  Foster children, who are justifiably hurting and scared, can react in very unexpected ways and really try your patience.  So if you are not well prepared or having a particularly bad day, you might reach the end of your rope before you know what happened.

Second, a lot of the people who are attracted to becoming foster parents had bad childhoods themselves.  They want to make up for their own bad childhoods by providing an abused or neglected child with the care they themselves could have used as a child.  While this is certainly a noble motivation, the foster parent's own childhood issues can result in them having a limited skillset when it comes to rearing children.  Couple this limited skillset with children who test your mettle and you can really have an explosive environment.

Third, there are evil people who want to become foster parents for the purpose of exploiting children.  The successful ones do not have criminal records and they have sufficient social skills that they can pass the home study process without tipping anyone off to their psychopathology.  In our classes, our teacher told us about a case where a man who did not (yet) have a criminal record became a foster parent for the sole purpose of grooming teenage girls so he could sexually abuse them.  Luckily they caught him before he could do much damage.

On my flight out of Alaska, I was seated next to an Alaskan foster mom.  We talked quite a bit, and compared notes about the foster care systems in our states.  The Tennessee system seems quite a bit more generous than the Alaska system, despite Tennessee's relative poverty as a state.  We receive more money to take care of the kids (sad, considering the extremely high cost of living in Alaska), and they do not receive respite care.  Our kids receive an allowance of $1/day, money that belongs to them, whereas Alaska's kids do not receive an allowance.  Also, Tennessee will pay for college or vocational training for youngsters who age out of the foster system, but Alaska does not.

I think this illustrates pretty clearly how different each state's system is.  That's why it seems to me that in some states the rules are more lax than in others, and there is more abuse within the system.  Florida is a state that seems to have a notoriously bad foster care system.  I'm sure this is due to the fact that the social workers are overworked and lack the resources to give all the children in the system the care that they need, and some end up falling through the cracks.

But even in the best systems, there will be mistakes and people get licensed who should not be.  And being a foster parent is hard!  I can understand how the frustration of it can lead people to make bad parenting choices out of desperation.  It's not an excuse but it is an explanation.


Have any questions about foster parenting?  Feel free to leave them in the comments, and I'll answer as best I can!

Making History

This morning we left for Illinois, to join my sister and should-be sister-in-law in making history.  You see, today marks the beginning of civil unions in Illinois, and my sister and her better half are among the first to be joined in civil unity.

There's a big ceremony tomorrow morning in a Chicago park, in which couples from across the state will participate.  The governor and the mayor will both speak.  I am really excited to be a part of the festivities and I am also looking forward to the time we will spend together after the ceremony!

Alaskan Adventures

The thing I didn't mention in the previous post is that my business travel was to Alaska.  There was a conference up there and afterwards, I stayed for a few days extra.  My sister Rachel flew up from Vancouver to join me in exploring the Alaskan countryside.

We took a train from Fairbanks to Denali National Park, where we spent two days.  One morning we had a wilderness tour in the park, which consisted of riding along the road in a bus with a tour guide, periodically stopping for pictures, especially when wildlife crossed our field of vision.  We saw many animals, including moose, caribou, fox, and a lynx.

We also saw the dramatic Denali landscape,

and Mount McKinley.

I took so many pictures, my camera ran out of battery power and I had to stop.  I am not much of a picture-taking person, but I felt compelled to preserve the experience somehow.

For most of the rest of our time, we hiked around some trails at the entrance to the park, and admired the rushing glacial melt and the spectacular peaks around us.

I was fascinated by all the ice on the ground, still melting.

The sun essentially did not set the whole time we were there -- at best it was twilight for a few short hours before the day began anew, so we had to draw the curtains tightly if we were to get any sleep.

It was a really amazing experience that words cannot begin to describe -- and neither can pictures.  To be in a place so untouched by humans, so wild, so vast, so rugged -- it was a very emotional experience for me.  I pretty much could not wipe the goofy grin off my face.  I exclaimed at the amazing landscapes, the high mountain peaks, the wild animals.  I felt so connected to the natural world -- more connected than ever before.  I could see why people fall in love with Alaska and stay, despite the harsh conditions.

Business Travel

I am on business travel this week, at a conference.  Overall, I am having a lot of fun.  But there are moments that are not fun, especially for a woman business traveler in a male-dominated field.  Over the past four days, I have had the following experiences:

• My supervisor's supervisor (hereafter referred to as Boss) and I were traveling on the same flights.  Upon boarding the plane, I saw Boss was already on, so I made a comment to him about the legroom of his seat on the plane.  His row-mate volunteered to trade seats with me in exchange for payment so I could sit next to Boss.  I suggested he take it up with Boss, since he is richer than I am. The guy discounted monetary wealth as unimportant and waxed rhapsodic about happiness and the quality of life.  At that point his words combined with the creepy vibes I'd been getting from him made me realize what type of payment he was thinking of, so I declined and disengaged from the conversation.  My suspicions about his motives were confirmed when Boss told me the guy had invited us to join him in the airport lounge.  (Hint: he was not interested in Boss's company.)
• Upon checking in at the hotel, I was asked if Boss and I were together.  No, we are not.  Also, he has kids who are my age.
• At a social event, I was mistaken for being married to another one of my colleagues.  At least this person realized that I worked in the same place as my would-be spouse.
• Conference attendees get free breakfast at the hotel restaurant.  This morning, I was charged for my breakfast, because I was obviously the spouse of one of the men I was eating with.

These are small slights, but they all add up to make business travel a lot less enjoyable for me than it is for my male colleagues.

Child Logic

Vinny has a cough and a bit of a cold, so yesterday morning I gave him some children's cough syrup before school.  I went into the kitchen with the breakfast dishes and left him at the table to drink it down.  While I was rinsing them off in the sink, I heard him say something to the effect of, "I wonder if this would help my nose, too."

When I returned to the dining room, I saw that his nose was all red -- the same color as the cough syrup.  He had tried snorting some of it into his nose, I soon found out after he started screaming in pain!  He kept telling me it was an accident -- but I think it was only an accident in the sense that it unexpectedly hurt him.

I helped him blow his nose and get all the cough syrup out.  He was a little freaked out because he mistook the red dye in the cough syrup for blood -- probably because his nose was burning so badly.  He whimpered for a while but eventually the pain went away.  I stressed to him the importance of using medicines as they are supposed to be used.  My doctor prescribed me some nasal spray in an effort to help my sad sniffer -- and I explained to Vinny that if I swallowed the medicine meant to be sniffed, I would be in trouble.  Hopefully he understood, but even if he didn't, I suspect that this experience will warn him off of trying to snort any kind of illicit drugs!