Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown

For some time now, every Christmas season I have watched "Charlie Brown Christmas," and every year I have found new (and same) things to laugh and enjoy in the movie. This year, I decided to document some of my favorite moments:

~When Charlie Brown is announced as the director of the Christmas play, everyone boos him, including Snoopy who actually howls at the thought. Charlie Brown walks by him and resentfully says, "Man's best friend."

~Conversation between Shroeder and another little girl:"Beethhoven cannot be that famous. His face has never been on the bubble gum card."

~The movie, despite being a wordly (i.e non-Christian) production, actually reflects the true message of Christmas. It denounces the commercialism of modern-day Christmas ("This commercial dog is not going to ruin my Christmas!":), and in the words of little Linus and his reading of the Nativity Story, it brings back the true meaning of Christmas---the birth of Jesus! (Im surprised they haven't banned this movie as politically incorrect!)

~And, of course, the song!!!

We are the champions

Even though I basically never keep my New Year's resolutions, this year I did manage to keep one of them, which was to run an 8K race before the end of the year. A few weeks ago, my friend Rocio and I went out to the West Potomac Park at 7am on a Sunday morning to participate in a race called "Run Geek Run." It was a surprisingly mild November morning, with just a slight breeze, which actually made the run quite pleasant. Of course, at about the 4th mile I started wondering why I was doing that race at all, but once I crossed the finish line, I felt great and had a sense of a profound accomplishment. To add to the excitement of the day,I also jumped my first fence in about 20 years---it was about 4 feet high, and I managed to climb it up with encouraging prompts from Rocio (and also watching a family of 4 with young children and a stroller jump the same fence). Both Rocio and I did better than expected at the race, with even better timing than our last 5K. More races to come next year!

Finding joy in simple things

After a looong week of endless mind-numbing mathematical proofs, the Sox getting pummeled by the Yankees last night, 19-8 (yes, I know it was a throw-away game, but it still hurts for many reasons), and dreary, muggy, rainy weekend, two great things happened this morning on my way back from the gym that brought a smile to my face:

1) I figured out the origin of the word "brunch"!!! I was thinking about what to have for lunch and decided to have an English muffin. I remembered the episode of Scrubs where they talked about brinner ("breakfast for dinner") and thought that it would be a good thing to have a name for "breakfast for lunch"---that's when it dawned on me that it already exists: BRUNCH! (And to think that for all the years since I have been in the US, I always wondered where "brunch" came from).

2) I had to stop by Staples to get some more of my beloved Papermate twisty-bottom pencils and got sooo excited to be there: I forgot how much I love the smell of school supplies, so I spent about 15 minutes wondering around the aisles, playing with fun paper clips, looking at different types of pens, and being completely amazed at the scientific achievements that led to the creation of clicky-top Sharpie markers.

(Yes, I do realize this post makes for a major nerd-alert, but oh well...that's me!)

Helen vs the Flying Beast

Imagine my horror last night: I was watching a great movie after a relaxing (3 hour nap) and productive (nice workout) day when I saw a huge roach crawling on top of my TV. Having an uttermost fear of giant roaches (and this one was the size of my pinkie), my brain immediately kicked into gear trying to devise a plan to overcome my fears and kill the intruder. Since I didn't have any bug spray (will own a can of the deadliest stuff by tonight for sure), I grabbed the only of the two sprays I had, the Green Cleaner, and a running shoe, and embarked on operation Kill the Roach. To my surprise and utter horror, this wasn't your regular slow-crawling bug---this was a flying and a very speedy one that managed to crawl/fly under the fridge after about 10 minutes of me spraying and chasing it around the apartment. I had to resort to doing other things until it re-emerged from hiding, at which point I knew that I wouldn't be able to sleep or stay in the apartment with the bug in it, so I HAD to kill it. Not knowing what to do and still being utterly terrified of getting too close to it (the thing could fly!!!), I called the one person that has practical ideas for all situations: Meg. Her basic advice was to smash the thing, which, of course, was what I couldn't bring myself to do. Her roommate then got on the phone and devised a great plan which involved switching the organic cleaner spray to Windex (the only other thing I had in a spray version), careful positioning of all the tools in my hands, and strategically stunning the bug with Windex so that I could smack it with a magazine. He concluded the strategy session with an encouraging "just smash the @#%$! out of it." I must say that the pep talk really helped, and after another 15 minutes of waiting to see what the bug does and working through my fears, I DID IT!!!
So, the final score is: Helen-1, nasty flying creeper-crawler-0. In fact, he has been washed down the toilet, so I'd say that his score is somewhere around -10.

Happy 4th of July

A public service announcement about fireworks safety brought to you by Big Papi:
"Just sit back, relax, crack open a beer and let someone else light the fuse. So long as it's not Manny. Oh, and watch the eyebrows."

***For the uninitiated: Big Papi, aka David Ortiz, is a Red Sox designated hitter from the Dominican Republic who recently became a US citizen. Manny, aka Manny Ramirez, is another Red Sox slugger who is famous for his scatter-brained but hilarious ways. This is probably funnier if you know these characters, but I thought that everyone could benefit from the fireworks safety tips.

Helen versus Clogged Sink: Round 2

A few months ago I was having a friend over for dinner on a Saturday night (I cooked something...gasp!), and my kitchen sink decided to get clogged about the time my friend was getting there. The next day I, armed with the most potent de-clogging stuff Target had and a plunger, attacked the clog, and after several hours, I won the battle! The sense of empowerment and personal satisfaction can only be compared to the time when I used an electric drill to hang up a towel rack in my bathroom.

This past Saturday night the sink decided that it was time to get clogged again. This time, the countless attempts to attack it with a combination of the potent Liquid Plumr and energetic pumping with the plunger did not yield the desired results. I tried for about two days, after which I had to gather up my pride and call the apartment building maintenance crew (who, of course, fixed it with some magical tools---not sure how, I was at work).

So, if anyone is keeping score...Round 1: Helen-1, Clog-0; Round 2: Helen-0, Clog-1. I wonder if there is anything more potent than Liquid Plumr Foaming Pipe Snake on the market so that I can prepared for the next round (which hopefully won't come for a while). Of course, I could just call my resident friendly maintenance crew, but I refuse to go down without a fight.

One exciting accomplishment

A few minutes ago, my boss and I submitted a book manuscript to our institute's Publications Review Committee. Wow...this has been a long road, including multiple hours of brainstorming and writing, collaborating with people from 10 different countries, a major conference in Uganda, a productive week in Boston, sending a gazillion different emails, and copyediting about 120,000 words of a manuscript. To many people, this would not really be all that exciting, but to a major nerd like myself, this is a great day. Of course, the book now has to go through several rounds of revisions, more back and forth with the authors, and more nagging emails (Im getting quite good at this). So, I will probably have more gray hairs by the time it comes out (probably at least a year from now), but at least today I can celebrate!

I Love Red Sox Nation

How great is it to be a part of this great community of fans! You can strike a conversation about your beloved team anywhere and with anyone who proclaims to be part of the great Red Sox Nation. About a month ago, I was on my way to the elevator when I ran into a colleague from a different division who is always very busy (hence, spends very little time socializing) and who I knew was a Red Sox fan. We said the usual quick "hellos" when he suddenly said, "How about Dice-K last night?" (For the uninitiated, Daisuke Matsuzaka, or as everyone lovingly calls him, Dice-K, is a Red Sox starting pitcher who left the game early the night before this conversation with pain in his shoulder leaving the Nation terrified of the potential injury and stint on the disabled list). Of course, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to express my concern about our beloved Japanese import, and we spent about 5 minutes talking about it. It was a unexpectedly great break during a monotonous day at a research institute, and Im grateful that I have a compatriote in the same building in case something else exciting or terrible happens with our beloved team.

Saved....by TI-89

So, once again my beloved calculator saves my sorry neck. Yesterday afternoon I had my dreaded linear algebra final---dreaded not in terms of the complexity, but in terms of annoyance. The test as well as the class itself wasn't superbly difficult, but my poor aging mind apparently can't handle simple algebraic computations, so my beloved TI-89 (otherwise known as the best $150 Ive ever spent) came in and saved the day (and the test) in terms of making sure that all the computations are correct.

Random pearls of wisdom from my officemate

This really should be a running list, but since I don't know how to incorporate it into the blog template, Ill have to settle for posting a weekly update of the gems that come out of my officemate's mouth (with a serious expression on her face for most of the times).

Christina gem #1:

Another friend from the office stopped by to invite us to go camping over the weekend.The following dialogue happened:

Mandy: "It's going to be 6 girls all in one tent."
Christina: "That must be one big tent."
Mandy: "Yeah, it sleeps 12."
Christina: "Oh wow, it must be designed for a Mormon family."

Signs that you are jetlagged (and disoriented)

1) It takes you several tries to fill out the immigration form that you have filled out about 20 times before

2) You cannot remember your house number---to the point that you start wondering if you filled out the aforementioned immigration form with the correct (oh gosh, I really hope that I did!)

3) You have to take several intentional mental step backs during the day to remind yourself what day of the week it is (i.e. what things you have to do on that particular day)

Things to pack when traveling

Lessons learned the hard way:

1) Alarm clock: Trying to wake up by setting the alarm on your iPod after calculating the time difference only to realize that there is a reason for the headphones jack on the iPod (i.e. it doesn't make a sound without either a speaker or headphones)

2) Imodium, esp if traveling to Africa ('nuf said)

More gems from "Scrubs"

New addition to my vocabulary of expressions: "I squat and surf" (hint:look at the picture). Meg, this one is for you:)

A monkey can do it

Interesting article about the Russian space program involving monkeys...and a hilarious picture of a monkey in a simulator. As an animal lover, I have mixed feelings about this, but it's neat to see that we still have interesting and rigorous research going on in the Motherland.

Sweet Caroline

What a game...Sox-Yankees, 4-3, over 5 hours with rain delays in the 8th inning at the climax of the game...wow! Best of all---FOX showed most of the game, despite the rain delay!!! Plus, my favorite pitcher pitching---makes for an exciting afternoon, lots of jumping up in the air and trash talking the guys in the striped uniforms (stupid Yankees) for me this afternoon.

SCRUBS is back!!!

My second favorite show (after Friends, of course) is BACK on NBC (after a superlong writers' strike). And already, Im picking up more words to add to my vocabulary: Brinner (=breakfast for dinner). I do love brinner!

Awesome book

My officemate and I often talk about how we have become a kind of food snobs: we prefer certain restaraunts to others (and really snubb those we don't like), avoid HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) like the plague, and only shop at Trader Joe's (I do cheat with Safeway once in a while). She recommended Omnivore's Dilemma, and since I have started reading it, Im afraid Im going to stop eating half of the food at the supermarket. I highly recommend it, especially for those on the health nut track.

Cultural differences

My first post is about cultural differences between Russia and the US. The other night I was coming back from work on the metro. I usually take the elevator out of the metro to the street since it "drops" me off closer to where I need to go (i.e. home). Usually, people nicely line up in front of the elevator since it can only hold a certain number of people. On that night, I was the first in line for the elevator, with about 4 other people lining up behind me. Then, all of a sudden, this man walks up to the elevator door, right past me, and becomes the first in line. Of course, everyone in the line is shocked and starts looking at each other. When I mouthed to the others, "Should we say something?", everyone started shaking their heads, saying, "No, no." This is where I realized that this is America: people are so nice that they will not reprimand a common-law breaker. On the contrast, Russians do not let things like that go...perhaps, because we are used to standing in line, but we never let people get in front of us in a line without a good exuse (i.e. pregnant, disabled, etc). Had this situation occurred in Russia, this man would have been booed out to the back of the line. But, only in America, rule breakers just get scorning looks. I love this country.

Welcome to my randomness

Since I have so many random thoughts running through my head with the speed of million miles an hour, I decided that it is time I started putting them on paper (or the webpage)instead of unloading it all on my poor officemate every morning:). This is going to be a collection of VERY random ramblings and observations that amuse me on a daily basis. Of course, there is going to be some Red Sox thoughts involved since I have become an avid fan of the 2007 World Series Champions.