A very moist June

After a very dry spring we are having a very wet summer here in Gainesville! On Sunday alone we got 9 inches of rain at the airport. Not sure of the current tally but we at least got another few inches over yesterday and today. Debby has apparently now made landfall and we are all hoping she moves on soon!

Here are some photos from our on-campus lake, Lake Alice, that I took this afternoon while we had a temporary break in the rain

This is looking toward the Baughman center. It used to be a raised area of the ground where people would stand and look at the alligators. Looks like it basically collapsed and is now all flat.

This is looking towards the area in the first photo. Usually there is a lot of room between the water and this bridge (probably at least 1.5-2 feet!)

And this bench is usually not surrounded by water!!

My lab has also been partially flooded the past two days (just a very small amount all on one side mostly) and my field work has also been postponed. So I will also be quite happy when Debby leaves! We did need this rain though, and walking around the lake area while everything was fresh and green was really nice :)

Two fast weeks

So far so good for my research stay in Japan. After an amazing week of orientation: lots of people to meet, great food to eat three times a day, wonderful host family experiences, and quite a bit of jogging, I am doing the research I came here to do.

I want to acknowledge the amazing job JSPS (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science) has done on welcoming this group of young foreign researchers in open arms. In addition, they have taken care of living allowances so that we are constantly worried what exactly the prices of daily goods, such as the bath towel I bought for ¥1500, are in terms of our usual currencies.

To begin the rest of the story here in Japan, I plan to tell a few stories in terms of food. For a while I wanted to be part of a food blog, but I did not think my cooking was that interesting for documentation. Here in Japan, the sheer lack of language and difference in basic ingredients will make it an interesting if not exactly instructive perspective. I will try to document my meager attempts at bachelor cooking in Japan. Tonight I am making some food in the combination gas stove, microwave oven I have in my family style apartment. The buzzer just went off so the results may will come later.

Take nothing for granted. One observation I had is that changing the language settings in programs, specifically web browsers, is extremely difficult. It is a catch-22 to change the language settings: I don't understand the language so I want to change it, but since I don't understand the language I can't change it. This is also true on many websites that do not have a conveniently placed link.

Brockmeier-san

Since Austin's been busy with his JSPS orientation, I'm serving as his blog proxy for now. He made it to Narita late on Tuesday night Japan time (delays in Atlanta) and the next day went with about 100 other students from the US, the UK, France, Germany, and Canada to an orientation in the Haneda region (about an hour from Tokyo via bus). He said the weather's been nice and he had a nice view of Mt. Fuji (and I'm jealous because it was cloudy when I was there next year and I didn't get to see it!). He's enjoyed the Japanese classes so far and I think he wants to keep up practice and learning the language after orientation as well.

I know this weekend he's doing the home stay but beyond that I'm not really sure what he's been up to. I got a weird email with the subject line "Went to beach, gonna do a load of laundry." When I asked what that meant (mostly because I didn't know how he'd have time to hang out at the beach during the orientation) he said "The ocean, no beach just some rocks with local fisherman." So I really don't know what shenanigans he's been up to now...

He'll be at the orientation until Tuesday and then will go to his host institution to start working in his lab. I'll try to bug him for an update when he gets to RIKEN!

Jaa matta! See you later!

After a busy few weeks of work, moving, travels, and wedding preparations, Austin's last "bachelor" weekend in Gainesville arrived rather quickly. Then amidst getting Austin moved and packed the weekend went by so fast! We took a trip to IKEA last weekend to get all of the furniture our new place needed, and after getting Austin's desk and other items moved in it finally feels like a little home (pictures to come after I clean it up a bit!). Thankfully we still had some time to relax, enjoy the cool and rainy weather, eat one last hamburger and steak before heading to Japan, and talk about how life's going to look in the whirlwind week and a half between Austin getting home and us getting married.

The first day apart is always the hardest, but soon after life settles down again and you get into a new routine. I'm excited for the many opportunities for work and play this summer: my first manuscript is almost done, I'm 2 weeks away from field work and 3 weeks from another experiment, I joined the church band and will continue to brush up on my piano skills with a new keyboard, and am looking forward to spending the summer in GNV hanging out with old friends and making some new ones as well. Austin definitely has a great chance to meet lots of new people and colleagues and I'm sure he'll come home with lots of great stories and adventures to share (and will hopefully share some on here as well! hint hint hint...).

Here's to summer 2012 and all the joys and challenges it brings us!

Adventures in Europe!

Life continues to be filled with many blessings and opportunities for adventures. As Austin begins to prepare for his summer research fellowship in Japan, I was fortunate to have had the chance to spent a week and half in Europe for a professional conference (see my other blog for more details on why I went to Europe). At the beginning and end of the trip I had some time to travel and explore and was also lucky to have met lots of new colleagues and acquaintances at the meeting. 

My trip started off with a Thursday night arrival to Berlin after a decent flight (i.e. I slept through most of it) from the US to Amsterdam. As luck would have it, two guys from church were traveling through Berlin on an epic European post-graduation adventure just before I arrived and they were staying at the same hostel as me. We found a nice outdoor restaurant and shared a pizza, some beer, and I got to hear about the places they had been to already. I spent Friday sightseeing around Berlin. The highlights for me were Tiergarten (a really big and beautiful park near the Parliament building), Mitte (the area with a lot of old historic buildings), and sitting along the river while enjoying a beer and people watching (see below for the view from my seat!). After a late lunch/early dinner of döner kebab I took the subway across town to see Die Entführung aus dem Serail, an opera by Mozart that I bought tickets to see in April. This was my first trip to the opera and I really enjoyed it! I had been listening to this particular one a few timesand knew enough of the story to keep up with what was going on even though it was all in German.

Friday afternoon in Berlin with a view of Mitte :)

On Saturday morning I went early to the main train station to catch an express train to Wittenberg, also known as "Lutherstadt" since this is where Martin Luther essentially started the Reformation. The town was very photogenic and walkable (my favorite part about small towns in Europe!) and I enjoyed strolling around. The main sights are the two churches and the Luther museum. My first stop was at Stadtkirche, the church where Luther did a lot of his first protestant sermons and got the movement really moving. I also went to the Schloßkirche, the church that Luther nailed his 95 theses onto. Unfortunately the original church burnt down so this one was rebuilt essentially as a memorial for Luther and he was also buried at this church. Schloßkirche was much more decorated and fancy but I think I liked Stadtkirche because it felt more like a Lutheran church, less decorated and simpler and you could feel like at any moment Luther himself could start doing a sermon. After checking out the churches I had a really awesome German lunch and went to the Luther museum. I had to go quickly since I had to get to Berlin by 5pm but I thought the museum was really nice. All in all it was a great day trip!

Quote from inside the Luther museum

From Saturday night through Thursday I was really busy with the conference since I was a student volunteer and had a poster to present. I really enjoyed the meeting and was happy to have met some really great scientists and students. There was also a really great student party on Tuesday and lots of chatting over beers after a full day of volunteering. Can't wait to go back to the Europe SETAC meeting again next summer!

On Thursday evening I took a flight to Stockholm for a weekend holiday with one of my old friends who is currently at school in Munich. I saw him last year in Germany so I posed the idea of meeting somewhere that neither of us had been. We both agreed on Stockholm since neither of us had been to Sweden and had heard lots of great things about the city. We had 3 full days of sightseeing and overall my impression of the city is very positive! It's quite a beautiful scene since the city is basically comprised of a lot of small islands. It's often referred to as the Venice of the north and even though I haven't been to Venice I can see why they say that! Highlights of this trip were walking through the old city, the smell of the sea during a boating tour through the canals, watching the sun set over the city from a roller coaster at 10:30 pm, and having a beer with Scott and two of his friends at a neat outdoor floating bar.

A beautiful view of the old city and the palace that Scott took

All in all I had a really excellent time! Europe is such a great place and I look forward to returning (hopefully sometime soon!), especially to Germany. Until then, time to get back to work and to get ready to sweat this summer here in Florida :)

May Travels

Erica has made it home from Sweden and Germany. We are so lucky to be able to have these travel experiences, but it was great to see her in this rainy Florida night. Yesterday, I had returned from my trip to Nebraska and Minnesota one day inclusive so I could drop her off and pick her up. I even stopped by a little store in Eustis that sells German sausage and IKEA in Minnesota to pick up my own souvenir to rival her authentic ones from the continent. Hopefully, I will hear more about the stories.

Lots of updates

April appears to have disappeared! Lots of traveling and events going on this past month so I've been slacking on the blog update.

I was so glad to have the opportunity to travel northwards a couple of weekends ago to see my niece and nephew's baptism. The twins are so cute and growing so fast! And of course Miss Sophia is as fun and adorable as always :) And even with the busy weekend my sister and mom and I had a chance to chat about wedding stuff. We now have a shower date set and have shifted into party planning mode. It was such a nice time and I'm so happy that I got to celebrate such a blessed day with my family.

The Mendens (AJ, Meredith, Sophia, Leo, and Juliet)

Me and grandma Perry :)

The weekend after the baptism trip (April 28) was Austin's 26th birthday! The weather is starting to get warmer and warmer, perfect for a trip to the springs where the water is 72 degrees all year long. We went to Blue Springs (about 45 minutes from GNV) with some of Austin's lab to do some swimming, jumping off a 15-foot diving platform, and snacking in the sunshine! Glad to have spent the nice day with some great friends :D

AND on top of all of that, and normal work/life stuff, I moved yesterday! Austin was a great helper and even set up the whole kitchen for us; it took a little while because he was feeling out the "zen" of the space but now that it's done it looks great! We still have to hang art and then make an IKEA trip, so no photos yet...

More updates to come. Austin and I both have some travels at the end of the month, so stay tuned for more tales of our adventures!