Science (non) Fiction

Prayer

My maternal grandmother is in the hospital after open heart surgery to fix a partially blocked cardia artery and an occluded heart valve – she’s in the ICU for a couple days, then in the regular hospital for another week or so – she’s apparently doing fine, vital signs all good, but its still a little touchy, since she’s 83 (ish) and surgery at that age is never completely safe or predictable. So prayer for her health would be greatly appreciated – and that she would have plenty of support and care when she eventually leaves the hospital. Thanks!

Freaky economics?

So I’m reading (actually listening to it on audiobook) Stephen Levitt’s book Freakonomics – he’s an economist who writes about questions that have interested him for a while, and they’re not typical ‘economist’ questions – he asks stuff like ‘what do sumo wrestlers and real estate agents have in common?’ and ‘do teachers cheat for their students?’ and ‘why did the crime rate drop so dramatically in the 1990s?’. Anyway, his answers are thought-provoking to say the least – some things are pretty clear-cut, like his example of school teachers in the Chicago public school system who were caught cheating on standardized tests to increase their student’s scores (and therefore any benefits/pay increases coming to them) – and he’s got a whole section on the KKK (including quite a bit of history of which I was not aware), and about how their methods of intimidation and terror have changed over the years (including a story about a guy who went under-cover with them for several years to learn more about their secrets) – and there’s a really interesting section on drug dealers who still live at home with their moms, about how the majority of people selling drugs on the street aren’t making enough to live on their own, much less get out of the poverty they’re in… but the amazing part is when he talks about the crime drop in the 90s, he links the drop in crime with the legalization of abortion in Roe v. Wade (again, there’s some of this about which I was not completely aware), leading to much fewer births for women who are at the highest risk for raising children who will go on the become criminals (he says the education status, economic status and several other factors are the leading causes of children becoming criminals later in life) – so fewer births for those women means fewer criminals down the road, specificall children who would have ‘come of age’ in the 90s. This is fascinating to me (who knows why…) – and while I still think abortion is morally wrong, the concept is quite amazing, that legalizing abortion (and therefore making it available for those of lower-income/power rather than just those who could previously afford the illegal one – rich little girls) could have such a drastic effect on crime statistics. Now he does walk through the other causes of the crime rate decrease (gun control, better policing strategy/hiring, decreased drug market, etc) but he contends that the effect is still not fully explained without considering Roe v. Wade.
Anyway, you should check the book out – I’m thinking about getting a hard copy of it to look through so I can check out some of his references. I’m in the middle of a section on ‘what makes good parents?’ – also interesting, if slightly less controversial!
I’m heading home early today to see mom and dad and brother, but I’ll have to be back Sat night for some lab stuff and to be in church Sunday morning – better get things wrapped up so I can actually leave!

Finally!

I’m finally through with my round of presentations!!!! My thesis committee meeting went decently well on Wednesday, and they’ve passed me on the next level, meaning that come August, I can progress to ‘fifth year’ status – whoa!!!!! How scary is that?!?! It’s so incredible that I’ve reached this point in my graduate school career – as a first year student struggling to make it through classes and choose a lab and learn technical basics and not make a fool of myself, I never really pictured myself this far along in school – it was too far out in the future to picture. Now that I’m here, it’s almost surreal, realizing that in another year or two, I could be finished with school and out in the ‘real world’ finding a job!

Now my work turns to getting some really impressive data in the next couple months, before I have to turn my focus to teaching a lecture at the end of March – which I’m a bit apprehensive about, but very excited at the same time! I mean, this is what I’m hoping to do for the rest of my career, so I’m hoping this will provide some really good experience and a chance to get better with teaching skills – plus a national conference at the end of May where I’ll present a poster of my recent work – a good place for networking and making contacts for future job searches!

All right, enough work/school related stuff – I’ve got a fun weekend planned – a girls afternoon tomorrow, then my brother is coming up to seen me Sat night and staying til Sunday sometime – yay! I haven’t really seen any of my family since the holidays, so it’ll be nice to catch up – we have a lot more fun together now that we’re both adults – I think we’re going to watch Rocky Horror Picture Show (the only time I’ve seen it before was with him too) and eat take-out and have fun! Good times! And I’m still not sure about what I’m doing for the superbowl – I’ve been invited to a couple parties, but we’ll have to see when Matthew has to leave and how dedicated I am to the game…