on running

As you may recall, I am in the throes of training for the Turkey Trot, a 5K on Thanksgiving Day. I am nearing the end of the 3rd week of training. Last Sunday, I ran 3 miles, which was my first 3 miler in a really, really long time, maybe even years. It went well, and I didn't feel like I was going to die. I have also started running with a friend, something I've never done before. We won't be able to run together all the time, but for now, it looks like we'll have a standing Sunday morning running date.

I have a few reasons for taking up running. For one thing, I'd like to lose some weight. During the time I've been in grad school, I've gained and lost the same 5-7 pounds. The good thing is that I lose those same 5-7 pounds. The alternative is that they just accumulate. But I'm tired of being so inconsistent with my workout habits, and I'm confident running will get me on track. Having a clear goal (the Turkey Trot) certainly helps, but so does the structure of a training program. I know when I'm going to run, how often, and for how many miles. My Type A personality really likes this structure.

I flirted with running before I came to grad school, and I really enjoyed it. I ran a couple 5Ks, and I considered training for a 10K. But then I moved to CA and never really hopped back on the treadmill, so to speak. I ran here and there, but never as consistently as I did prior to grad school.

I've also been motivated to take up running because I'm hoping that it will help me cope with grad school. This past year has been incredibly difficult and stressful. These things will always be there, but I'm looking for ways to deal with them. Yoga has certainly been a life saver, but it alone is not the cure-all pill. Already, I can tell that running is helping- it helps me cope with my stress and frustration, and it clears my mind.

green tomatoes

Our gardening season is sort of winding down. I say "sort of" because even though tomato and pepper season is wrapping up, Drew and I will still get to plant cool weather crops like lettuce, beets, and brussel sprouts. I know, I know, it's rough over here where it doesn't frost, snow, or get colder than say 55 degrees.

Our rookie gardening season went pretty well. We had big, bushy green plants, lots of peppers, some tomatoes, jalapenos, and beans. The peppers are slowing down but still producing, but the tomatoes have really slowed down. We have several green tomatoes that absolutely refuse to turn red.

Fortunately, they will not go to waste. This weekend I'll be using them to make salsa verde. If we've learned anything this gardening season, it's to plant tomatoes early- in April, not July. Big rookie mistake. Oh well.

At least there is eggplant.

turkey trot

After years of working out off and on (fortunately more "ons" than "offs"), I've decided that this is just the thing to get me motivated and moving: the Turkey Trot. It's a 5K on Thanksgiving Day. Drew and I have just registered, and I've roped at least one family member into joining us.

I ran a couple 5Ks in Minnesota, but none since moving to California. I enjoy running (I really mean jogging) and I do it here and there, but I haven't run consistently since the summer of 2006 in Minnesota. I check out issues of Runner's World from the public library in the hopes that I'll be motivated to run. Sometimes it works, but more often it does not.

So now I have a clear goal, but perhaps more importantly, I've forked over $30 for a registration fee. I have a training program and I started it yesterday. Already, it feels good. I harbor no grand expectations for race day. My only goal is the same one I've had for the previous 5Ks: jog the entire way, no matter how slow.

9/11/01

I was 21 years old and I had just moved to New York City on August 28th, exactly 2 weeks before the big day. I was going to study photography at the School of Visual Arts. I've never documented my experiences on September 11th, but the 10th anniversary seems like a good time to get it all down in writing. I really haven't paid much attention to the 9/11 coverage, mostly because it's sad and also because I think being there exempts me from doing so.

It was the second week of classes, and I had a photography class at 9am on Tuesday. The class was structured so that we spent the morning in the darkroom, took a break for lunch, and then reconvened for a critique in the afternoon. I was already in the darkroom when the first plane hit the first tower. I can't remember what I was doing, probably assembling my chemicals or something.

One of my classmates, Doug, rushed into the darkroom, breathless. He said he just saw a plane crash into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking something along the lines of "how the hell does a pilot just crash into a building? I mean, wouldn't you see that coming and watch out?" We didn't know it wasn't an accident, but obviously it wasn't too long until we learned otherwise. I do not remember any of my SVA classmates (aside from those who became my friends), but I doubt I will ever forget Doug. Of course, it doesn't hurt that he was a bit older than the rest of us, very good looking, and Scottish, so he stood out anyway. But because he was the first to break the news of what became 9/11, he is seared into my memory. Still in the darkroom, we all got out our cell phones to call home, but there was no cell service. Class was canceled and we all left.

I headed back to the dorm and met up with some friends. Our dorm was about 2 and a half miles from the World Trade Center. (Interestingly, I never knew this until I google mapped it just right now.) My friends and I retrieved our cameras and video cameras (we were art students after all) and made our way down to lower Manhattan. We wanted to document as much as possible. Looking back, this was probably a foolish move. As everyone else was making their way out of lower Manhattan, there we were, making our way into the line of fire. On some level, I must have known it was foolish, because it would be years before I told my parents that this is what I had done. But on that day, I couldn't stop myself from going.

On the way to lower Manhattan, my friends and I parted ways. I made it as far as Chinatown, which is about a mile from the World Trade Center. I can't remember too much of what I saw, except that there was tons of smoke and dust. It was otherwise a beautiful day. The temperature was probably in the lower 70s, and the sky was clear and blue. The mayoral primary was supposed to be that day.

There was a mass exodus out of lower Manhattan. I think there was a lot of confusion. I snapped a photo of a young girl around 3 or 4 years old in a face mask, flanked by her parents, and looking quite bewildered. I lost that frame and several others in an unfortunate film development mishap.

People had face masks and some were shaking dust out of their hair and clothes.

I think that the biggest mistake I made that day was leaving my cell phone in my dorm room. This meant that I did not talk to my parents until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, after returning from my venture down to lower Manhattan. They were obviously very, very worried and frantic. I suppose that's to be expected, but I was strangely surprised that they were so worried. I guess I didn't think about the fact that they didn't know exactly where SVA was or how close or far I lived from the World Trade Center. In my defense, I had had a cell phone for only about a week, so I was not in the habit of carrying it. Plus, cell service was sketchy, so I didn't think it would matter if I left it in my room. I also don't know why I didn't borrow my roommates computer and send an email to my parents. But looking back, now I realize the mistake I'd made.

My parents would later say they were bombarded with phone calls from family and friends asking if I was okay. I don't know how long this went on. Maybe a week or so? Anyway, this was in the pre-Facebook era so I couldn't just update my status to let everyone know I was fine. This was also before I even owned a computer, and even though I had an email account, I didn't use it as religiously as I do now.

Later that evening, my friends and I went to a candlelight vigil in Gramercy Park. Then we went to Times Square. It was a ghost town. There were only a few other people there. There was a huge American flag draped over one of the buildings. The entire day was so surreal and looking back, it felt like we were in a movie. The gravity of the day really hit home when we saw a firetruck being towed down the street. One of my friends said that firetrucks are supposed to rescue people; they're not supposed to the be the ones in need of rescuing.

Classes were canceled for the rest of the week, and all of us got out of the city. I went to Providence, where a good friend went to school. Even though I emerged unscathed (I didn't know any of the casualties and I was not injured), it was a heavy and emotional week, and I needed to not be in New York.

There were many September 11th makeshift memorials throughout the city, so many that I eventually felt desensitized to them. Sections of lower Manhattan were closed off for quite some time, but I went down from time to time to take pictures. Eventually I did see Ground Zero. It was a big, huge hole. There was still a lot of dust, and I happened upon this piece of paper:

I felt like it summed up 9/11. I don't remember actually seeing the World Trade Center, and I find it a little strange that I've seen Ground Zero instead. In fact, I didn't even know there were two towers. My ignorance would be a source of jokes for the remaining year (as in, "yes Kris, there are two towers. That's why they're called the TWIN towers."). Oh, and my mispronunciation of FAO Schwartz (turns out that you say each individual letter, as in F-A-O Schwartz).

A year later, SVA had an art exhibit commemorating 9/11. I didn't return to SVA, but these pictures did. I wish I could have seen the exhibit and been there for the opening, but I'm glad that at the very least, my photos were a part of it.

on teaching

Last week was our last week of summer session classes. My class went well, but it went by incredibly fast. The 10 week quarter system is nothing compared to the five week summer session. I had fun teaching and the students were great. I think they had a fun time too. We had lively discussions and watched a couple movies and television shows.

The thing is that I'm not supposed to admit that teaching was fun and enjoyable. As far as our priorities go, teaching gets short shrift. After my students thanked me for a great class, I felt like they'd been hoodwinked. What they don't know is that teaching, at least at a major research university, just isn't a priority (for grad students or their professors). It really doesn't matter. Students and/or their parents shell out thousands of dollars to learn from professors that don't prioritize teaching. Professors will still get tenure and grad students will still get a Ph.D. even if they're bad teachers. I could have had a shitty class and bored my students to tears, and it wouldn't have mattered. I wouldn't have had to engage them in lively discussions or used television shows and movies to illustrate the material we'd been learning about.

It's not always the professors or grad students' fault that teaching gets short shrift. I suppose that's just how academia works. Drew and I recently watched a movie called Tenure, starring Luke Wilson, Gretchen Mol, and that bald guy from Anchorman. Wilson played an English professor trying to get tenure. He was an excellent teacher, but had a dismal publishing career. He was offered conditional tenure, but would have to take a year off from teaching to build up his publishing record. In the end, he declined the offer and ended up taking a job teaching high school students.

The main point of the movie did not seem too far from the truth. I have seen students enter grad school with the desire to teach, only to leave after a few years to pursue high school teaching. It's the dirty secret of academia. You think teaching matters, but it really doesn't. If you really want to teach, don't go to grad school. Research and getting published are valued, not teaching; it's the message we're constantly bombarded with.

Nevertheless, I still had a good summer session. It was fun and rewarding, and I think the students got a lot out of the class. And even though teaching is supposed to take a backseat to research, I don't regret the effort I put into it.

a trip to the moca

Yesterday, Drew and I headed up to LA to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art. I'd never been before, but I was on a mission to see Andy Warhol's collection of Campbell's soup cans. There are 32 in all. The MOCA does not allow photography, so I snagged this picture off the internet:

Warhol was part of the pop art movement. Some people probably wouldn't even classify his work as art, but I love it. I love that Warhol is making some sort of social commentary with his art. I love that his soup cans are a critique of our consumerist and mass produced society. It's genius.

The rest of the museum was great too. There were plenty of exhibits, but not so many that we didn't get to see them all. I'm a fan of modern art, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. My general rule with art is, the crazier, the weirder, and the more mysterious and abstract it is, the better.

After walking around the MOCA, we decided to walk around the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Frank Gehry designed it (he was also the architect behind the Weisman Art Museum on the Univ of MN campus). It's beautiful.

We wandered around and climbed the stairs to the public garden. It was really nice and made a good day even better.

escabeche

Based on the way I've been spending my free time lately, you'd never guess Drew and I live in sunny, southern California. You'd never guess that we have access to fresh produce year round from the farmer's market. Rather, you'd think we lived in a cold weather state, by the way I've been busily putting up food. I guess I'll just be prepared for when we (hopefully) live in a cold weather state.

So far I've canned two kinds of salsa (a third is soon to come), mango chili butter, and now escabeche.

We have one jalapeno plant, which produces too many jalapenos for us to cook with, but not enough to can. But this week we're garden sitting for some friends who went out of town, and they told us to help ourselves to anything we'd like. So we picked their jalapenos and this is what happens when their peppers got together with ours: escabeche.

I thought escabeche was something made of fish, but I guess there could be more than one kind. Anyway, this one consists of pickled and seasoned veggies- onions, cauliflower, garlic, carrots, and of course, jalapenos. It was super easy to make, and tasted pretty good.

salsa!

We had a bit of a "heat" wave the past few days (meaning temperatures reached the high 80s, maybe even low 90s). Naturally, the best thing to do during a "heat wave" is turn on all the stove burners and can something, which is exactly what I did.

We had a bunch of jalapeno, green, and red peppers, and we needed to do something with them. I've been eating the red and green peppers with hummus, but obviously I just can't eat jalapenos in the same way. So I decided to make salsa even though our tomato plants aren't quite up to the task yet. But I'd had my eye on a recipe for peach salsa, and since we're not growing peaches anyway, I decided to head down to the farmer's market to pick some up. And I couldn't resist the fat romas and beefsteaks, so I got those too.

So Drew and I made peach salsa and a fresh tomato salsa earlier this week. They're a little spicy, namely because I got a little lazy with de-seeding the jalapenos and didn't do such a good job. But the salsas taste nice and fresh and way better than the store bought stuff.