Bored in the 'Burgh? You Must Be Crazy: The Last Weeks of Summer

With CA training and my internship ending, I had a few crazy weeks there at the end of summer. By "crazy weeks", I mean I was working maybe 50 hours a week and socializing the rest of it. I like jobs that work like that.

Jim and I spent a day wandering up to Squirrel Hill and back, then ending up at the Vintage Grand Prix. Schenley was bustling with people looking at pretty cars and listening to the roaring of outdated engines. However, in true Pittsburgh style, the last lap of every race was spent waving to the drivers as they waved back.

Corinne (my summer roommate) and I (also named Corinne... cute, huh?) and Jim had a last hurrah going up the Duquesne Incline. Pittsburgh continues to make happy. Working downtown this summer gave me a better feel for a place I don't venture to very often, but overlooking the city, I really felt like I knew the place.


Of course, summer had to end, and CA ("Community Advisor", it's like a head RA) training started. We had a really awesome week of learning theories of community, presenting our own take on aspects of the CA role, and just in general bouncing ideas off each other, role-playing, and making grand plans for the school year. It is a group of leaders I'm proud to know now.

The Life-Long Learning: Corinne's Guide to Two Pittsburgh Museums

Schmalex came into town last weekend. Yay! She picked me up from the boonies (pool party in the country, anyone?) then we had a fabulous time with the Rosie and the Frank. And a surprise birthday. Well, "surprise." Made me wish for those fall days when life will be back to the academic rigamarole around here, and I will not be bored at 11:30pm.

On Sunday, Alex and I decided to visit a new part of Pittsburgh... Edgewood and Frick Park! Gasp!

And really, I never knew where the 61B went... now I do.

So the Square Cafe was delicious and all, and we had some pretty creative pancakes and such. Then, walked it off in the nearby acres of woods.

As afternoon time rolled about, we headed to the Frick Museum with pretty low expectations. Maybe it was because I'd only ever heard it called the "Carriage and Automobile Museum."


Thanks to an iPhone, we made it to the correct spot, and walked into a giant, stone... museum. The Frick really can't be explained any other way.


We were immediately greeted and talked through the grounds. The Frick has an art museum (which we were in), a car and carriage museum, a giftshop that used to be the Frick's playhouse, a greenhouse, and "Clayton" (the mansion of Henry Clay Frick).


Here's a mini history lesson: Frick saw that baked coal made coke, useful for steel. Carnegie saw the Frick had a lot of these coal-baking ovens. They became partners. Sometime later there were riots. Carnegie went back home to Scotland. Frick had to deal with it and used violent measures. Frick then hated Carnegie; Carnegie then hates Frick. Carnegie won't let Frick into his gentlemen's club. Frick builds his own building with a club on the 20th floor (it's called the Frick Building, on Grant between Forbes and Fifth... It's where I'm working this summer!) They get old. Carnegie writes to Frick: I'm sorry, we're old, let's forget about this. Frick writes back: I'll see you in hell. The end.


So, learned a little something? I only learned part of that during our tour of Clayton (just the coal-to-coke business). The rest my mentor told me at Carnegie Learning, where my internship is this summer.


Well, during our four-hour stay on the grounds of the Frick, I learned more little tidbits that I knew what to do with. The evolution of the word "sublime" (from "fearsome" to "awe-inspiring" to "awesome")? Check. The fact that Victorians would never take naps in their beds? Check. Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt were cousins, and pronounced their last names differently (Rooo-sevelt and Rose-evelt)? Check. The first drive-in gas station? On Baum Boulevard (in Pittsburgh). The bicycle being a big break for woman's independence? Check.


Every single person we encountered that day wanted to share something. They treasured their job, the history, and the stories. Even the two tour guides were swapping tales after the tour was finished.


Now I get to talk about that cliche, "life-long learning." I mean, even the theory of evolution will tell you that if we stop, we die. I'm reading a book called "The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature." Even those of you who dislike or don't believe in the idea of evolution can understand the metaphor of the Red Queen in "Alice in Wonderland." She must keep running just to keep up with the world; if she slows down, she falls behind.


As it is with learning. We've all met those people who have decided to get off the treadmill. Some refuse to get off. (My grandpa bought himself an Android for Christmas. While he doesn't know his own phone number, he can chose a place for dinner lickety-split.)


So the Frick Museum was a success. But that was Sunday! It's Tuesday now.


Today I volunteered to tend a gallery at the Mattress Factory, an installation art museum and catalyst for artists like Mark Garry (who was talking). While the tending of the gallery was a bit dull (only three people visited my floor), the whole event was smoothly run: an enjoyable evening, even for us volunteers.


Places like that just make me savor Pittsburgh all the more. Yes, rain is predicted this whole week. Yes, the humidity is a bit hit, as is the temperature. But, yes, Pittsburgh knows its art and history!


Helps a lot while I'm jogging along on that treadmill of learning.

The "Sunshine" State: Fourth of July with the Family

I work for a very wonderful company called Carnegie Learning that makes math software. Wonderful for many reasons, including that they gave us both Friday and Monday off for the Fourth of July.
 
So, thanks to my little sister getting bumped off a plane a month ago, I got a free ticket down to see my parents and two little sisters in Florida, where they were having a two-week vacation.


So I get down there late on Thursday, and Monday morning we are off to Sea World! They have a whole bunch of shows that we really enjoyed (jumping dolphins/whales/sea lions, anyone?) as well as a pretty sweet roller coaster (the Manta!) as well as a sea creature carousel as well as fireworks to finish off the evening. But the best show of the day was far and away the spoof show.

We had done the obligatory Shamu show and a dolphin show called "Believe" (yes, it was that hokie) and even a pet show, where dogs, cats, rats, skunks, and pigs had their day.

After all of these, we went to see "Sea Lions Tonight." The two sea lions (and a fat, ugly walrus) mocked all of the other shows, along with their trainers. And these shows were pretty darn easy to mock. (Really? "Venture beyond the horizon where dolphins, birds and spirited performers meet"? Cheesy.)

The next day was spent at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, where, if you have been buried under a rock for the past few months, the new "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" opened not too long ago.

It was pretty sweet how immersed you feel in the experience. Walking through Hogsmead, the roofs had "snow" on them... and somehow you felt cooler! We did the dizzying Harry Potter virtual adventure ride, then took a break and did some water rides in Jurassic Park.


It's good we did them then, because that was the last I saw of the sun for the rest of the trip. The skies opened up about two o'clock and didn't shut until... well, after Sunday at least.

We stopped at Toon Town to gawk at Betty Boop, then on to Seussville to meet the Grinch and other characters. (I was read "Oh, The Places You'll Go" after freshman year of high school, and that and the Sneeches are my two favorite Dr. Seuss books.)


Dinner in the Hogshead, with a bit of butterbeer beforehand, and we were done (and damp).


My final day was spent in the condo (which we had arrived late at the night before). The rain came down and out came the games. A grocery shopping trip revived us, and we got up enough momentum to go see the Flying Tigers.

That's right, the Great American Past-time of baseball. Greasy food, ice cream, and a roof for when it rained through the entire fireworks show. What more can you ask for? Oh, getting to see my family. That's in that list too.

Roughing It: What Happens Outside of Pittsburgh

I'm going to do something along the lines of combining two posts into one, since I didn't blog my adventure last week.

Well, on Tuesday, I traveled out to the mysterious boondocks of West Newton with some friends. Some friends who happen to be gun enthusiasts. (Did I ever tell you about that time that Khaled and I had a great long conversation about how dangerous America was because we had all these guns and Qatar doesn't?)

Anyway, we spent a good hour or so shooting guns. I got to shoot two different rifles, and like half a dozen pistols. Including one that belched fire!

Well, that weekend (this last weekend), I joined those guys and about ten other people headed to the Finger Lakes for some camping and wine tasting.

Yeah, a bit of a juxtaposition, waking up outside, not showering, then trying to be all high class and drinking wine and such... but it was awesome.


We had a fire, and greasy bacon, and delicious breakfasts, and a little hike to the lake. A friend of a friend is from somewhere with really cold water, so when he tested the lake, he decided to take off some clothes and hop in...


Well, the water was really warm!


But now I'm back to being a "city" girl again. Which means eating at cute little health food joints and walking to the library.


Speaking of books and libraries, I can't help but give a shout-out to the latest book I just finished. It was "The Ghost Map", by Steven Johnson, and was a fascinating look at the way that cholera spread in London in the 1850s. But, more than that, it was a full look into the effects of urbanization. For example, urban centers have a much lower birthrate than rural areas. And a lot of people are moving to urban centers. (He was describing how eco-friendly they were, compared to how many people are there.) But his thought was that in 2050, when there is an estimate of 80% of the population living in urban areas and the population being at 8 billion... that is when our population will start to go down. Fascinating.


Did I mention that he also predicted H1N1? Yeah, check out the book.

363: Recollecting the Semester Abroad Blog

As many of you might know from my Facebook update, I recently printed out 363 pictures from my months abroad.

And since I am the math fiend I am, I'm going to do some statistics about my semester abroad.


My blog during the semester had 459 pictures on it. There were 172 posts spanning from November 18, 2009 through May 28th, 2010. There were posts daily from December 29 to that May 28. That's just shy of five months. (I mean, it's nothing compared to my sister who has written in her journal daily since, like, 6th grade. And I'm not even exaggerating that much. And she's out of college now. She has been journalling daily for, like, nearly half her life.)

Anyway, I wanted to do a word count analysis, but Google Analytics had this to share. It's a pdf of all of the site visits, where they come from (mostly the US, but Qatar is in second!), and how many from Dec. to May.  (That's right, over 2,420 visits. 2,421 to be exact.) 

My most popular posts were Don't You Wish You Had A Dial, or Day 21, I'd Like to Buy That, or Day 12, and Keep Away, or Day 88. Now, why those posts had more views, I can only venture some guesses (the first referenced a Kuwaiti politician and a new restaurant people want reviews on, the second and third I think I put a links to on Facebook).


Search terms was another interesting one that Analytics put in a different report. Now, who in the world searched "corriene's semester abroad" 6 times and kept finding me? I guess the good news is that "corrine's semester abroad" (7) eventually got them to me.


Now, what am I going to do with all this data? Well, for the most part, I think it is interesting, but that's all it is going to do, is be interesting.


For some of my blogposts, however, some of the memorable and well-written days, they will be printed out and put in a scrapbook. That's were the 363 pictures come into play.


If you want to see some of the pictures I chose, you can go to my album. They aren't all there... so I guess sometime after this summer is over, you can ask to see my scrapbook to see them.


By the way, anyone seen a small herd of large white envelopes? It appears that my best laid plan of sending papers home through inter-campus mail (yes, it works campus-to-campus too!) might have been thwarted by mail forwarding from Pittsburgh back to Doha. They are currently... in the ether.

Go Research!: Back in the Burgh

I am working with an organization over the summer called the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center. I'm downtown, at the historic Frick Building, working with Carnegie Learning on doing studies with their math-learning software.

And I'm back in the same dorm I was during freshman and sophomore year. And I'm pretty sure the rooms got smaller.

It's been a good first week back here, with some rain, some sun, some friends, some art... the Three Rivers Art Festival is going on, and I've seen a few exhibits in my time downtown.

So, a good start to the summer. Been busy and doesn't look like it is going to slow down anytime soon. Which is how I love it.

Guilty!: Jury Duty

I spent two of my precious days at home doing jury duty. They drew me about two years ago, however, each time I returned the card saying that I was away at school. This time, they denied the request and told me to report on July 21st. Or else.

Well, since I'm currently in Pittsburgh, that didn't quite work for me. So my parents kindly called, explaining the situation, and they said for me to report on Tuesday, the first day of the work week (since Monday was Memorial Day).

So I go in on Tuesday, and I'm called in the group heading over to the municipal court next door (instead of the county court).

Well, the trial, with its six witnesses (yeah, it was an actual criminal trial with all the trimmings), lasted all of Tuesday, and we finally went into deliberations Wednesday at about 3:30pm.

The defendant had been arrested for reckless driving and 4th degree assault (meaning that he didn't necessarily injure the guy, but he "intentionally touched with intent to harm or offend"). All of the stories basically lined up. A crashed car because he couldn't make a corner? Yup, guilty of reckless driving. Even if he might have been provoked, he had a choice to pull over.

And the assault? The victim of the assault had had a cellphone kicked out of his hand, with the foot possibly continuing up to kick his forehead too. Well, one juror wasn't sure that a kick that might have been aimed for the cellphone and happened to kick his hand was an "intentional touching" of his body. I mean, the defendant could have accidentally hit his hand... according to her.

The rest of us didn't have the same feeling, but it turned into a hung jury.

If you want more details of the whole situation (that involved racial tensions, a BMW, and a Risk game), strike up a conversation sometime. But that was my civic duty, so I can remain a citizen of Washington State. And with no income tax, who wouldn't?