Snakes in the Grass

[August 2018]

Most of my time in grad school is spent in one of five locations: my apartment, my office, church, band, and Kroger. That’s why many of my posts, especially in summer, are about my travels outside of Ann Arbor. Unless you tell me that you want more descriptions of what it’s like to sit at a desk for eight hours a day. Who am I to deny my adoring public?

However, I do occasionally do things in Ann Arbor that can conceivably be blogged about without making people fall asleep, and this was one of those times. A friend who had completed a Master’s program was leaving Michigan to pursue a job opportunity. Yay, employment. We had talked about doing something together months before, and with days before she was leaving the city, we made it happen. I had spent the day in the office (surprise), so my vote was for something outdoors. We decided to go to the botanical gardens.

Flowers

The Matthaei Botanical Gardens are located in the north-east quadrant of Ann Arbor and belong to the University of Michigan, but, similarly to Nichols Arboretum, are open to the public. At the botanical gardens, there are botanical gardens (surprise), a conservatory, a farm, and hiking trails. We started with the outdoor garden, saw some flowers, went into the greenhouse, saw more plants and cacti.

Assorted cacti

After the plants/flowers, we strolled off into the sunset walked around a trail as the sun set. The trail was unpaved, and partially wooded, with some parts along a grassy field-like area. There was minimal to no traffic noise, and we only saw one or two other people until we got back closer to the visitors’ center. Even in the humidity, it was nice. It was the most peace and quiet I’d gotten in a while. While I appreciate being able to live in Ann Arbor without a car¹, it also means you’re rarely more than ~50 fifty feet from a road, and even if you are, you can still hear traffic.

We walked and talked, then drove back to my friend’s apartment to finish the night with ice cream and fudge sauce. A sweet finish to a sticky evening.

But wait, you may be thinking, where are the snakes? Turns out there’s one venomous snake that lives in Michigan, the eastern massasauga rattlesnake (Cistrurus catenatus). Yes, a rattlesnake. In Michigan. However, massasauga sightings are rare at the botanical gardens (or so they claim), and we didn’t see any during our visit. You can see snake pictures here.

¹With a little help from my friends. Thanks are due to all who have given me rides all across/around/out of Ann Arbor.

Roll out the Red Carpet

I was going to jam in my movie recommendations/awards/comments in my book post, and then that got kind of long, so you get another post. Here’s the best of what I watched in 2018:

In general:
2001: A Space Odyssey – This movie does not look like it was produced in 1968. Visually, it could have been made in the 21st century. The pacing is slow, there’s no dialog for the first or last 20 minutes, you listen to The Blue Danube for like, half an hour, and the ending scenes are flat out weird, but it’s all so well done.

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure – Bill and Ted use a time travelling phone booth to amass a collection of historical figures to pass history class. Is this an artistic masterpiece? Absolutely not, but it’s so stupidly ridiculous that it’s good.

Soundtrack:
Original – Jurassic Park – Two words. John Williams. (And dinosaurs.)

Use of music – 2001: A Space Odyssey – According to Wikipedia, director Stanley Kubrick wanted to use music to create atmosphere and mood instead of relying on narrative techniques to drive the plot. He ended up using Richard Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, Johann Strauss’ The Blue Danube, and pieces by Gyorgy Ligeti and Aram Khachaturian.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1 – The soundtrack (Awesome Mix Vol. 1) is just the right mix of weird/wacky 70s to accompany a bunch of misfits and aliens as they save the galaxy.

Rewatch:¹

Star Wars – Both the original and prequal trilogies. Yes, I’m including all six episodes, Jar Jar, Ewoks, sand, and all.

¹I’m not including any of the Marvel movies as rewatches, even the ones I’ve seen before, using the argument that I fell asleep during every single one except for The Avengers and the first Guardians of the Galaxy.

Animated:
Coco – Similarly to Inside Out, I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did. In this Pixar film, Miguel accidentally ends up in the land of the dead on Día de Muertos (Day of the Dead) and needs to figure out how to get back to his family. The animation is what you expect from Pixar and the plot is straightforward but well-developed, even if the plot twist is more evocative of “of course that’s the plot twist” rather than “I had no idea that was coming.”

Marvel Cinematic Universe:
Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 1/2 – After making my way through the 17 Marvel movies before Infinity War, Peter Quill and his really weird gang and their kind of strange adventures backed by their 70s soundtrack win this award.

Musicals:
Chicago – We were supposed to be watching this after our last concert in band one year. We were probably not paying attention and fooling around instead. Chicago is supposed to satirize the criminal justice system, which it does with a catchy jazzy/vaudeville score.

Les Mis – Strong score, cast, set, lyrics, etc. Good adaptation overall.

Guys and Dolls – This is my favorite musical (not musical adaptation) of the musicals I watched this year. The 1955 movie version features Marlon Brando, Jean Simmons, Frank Sinatra, and Vivian Blaine as Skye Masterson, Sister Sarah Brown, Nathan Detroit, and Miss Adelaide respectively. Apparently Sinatra wanted the role of Skye, which went to Brando, and the two of them would not get along on set. Matters weren’t helped by the fact that Sinatra was a better singer than Brando. [Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons’ lack of singing experience is particularly obvious in “I’ll Know,” but they both sang all their parts themselves.]

Also watched: An American in Paris; New York, New York; On the Town; Beauty and the Beast; The King and I; Annie (The 2014 version with Cameron Diaz as Miss Hannigan in her last acting role. She was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. Again, in my opinion, it was one of those so bad it was good things.)

Disney progress: So far I’ve gotten through Snow White, Pinocchio, The Reluctant Dragon, Bambi, Dumbo, Make Mine Music, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, Victory Through Air Power, Alice in Wonderland, Melody Time, and Peter Pan.

2018 Life of an Engineer Book Awards

Back for the first time in this format since 2014. In total in 2018, I read 65 books, split 21/44 between nonfiction and fiction. I read more fiction, but you’ll see more nonfiction below because I was on a quest to find young adult fiction that wasn’t about finding true love, and I was . . . not very successful.

Best nonfiction:
Winner – The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown – How nine Americans rowed for a medal at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. A look into post-depression America, a time when you could still pay for college by working in the summer, pre-WWII Germany, and collegiate crew.

Nominees – The United States of Soccer, Phil West – A history of MLS. All references to the Revolution can be summed up as “and then they lost the MLS cup final.”

Hidden Figures, Margot Lee Shetterly – Basically the less dramatic, longer, more detailed version of the movie (women at NASA doing math before, during, and after the space race).

No Way Down, Graham Bowley – An account of several days on K2 in 2008 during which 11 climbers died. Engaging, in the style of Into Thin Air and The Climb¹, but written by a non-climber, which lends objectivity; however, the lack of personal experience with the subject shows.

Apollo 8, Jeffrey Kluger – The tale of how three men came to spend Christmas of 1968 orbiting the moon. Kluger is also Jim Lovell’s coauthor for Apollo 13 (originally Lost Moon).

¹Dueling accounts of the 1996 climbing season on Everest by Jon Krakauer, a client with mountaineering experience on one expedition, and Anatoli Boukreev, a guide from a competing agency.

Best supporting nonfiction²:
Pitch Perfect, Mickey Rapkin – A (slightly) more serious look at college a cappella than the movie.

The Pixar Touch, David A Price – The story of how Pixar came to be and the development of computer animation.

A Well-Ordered Thing, Michael Gordin – The life of Dmitri Mendeleev, the creator of the periodic table.

Leonard Bernstein, Allen Shawn – Have you ever wanted to know about the life of the perhaps the most famous conductor of the New York Philharmonic’s Young People’s Concerts? Here’s the book for you.

²Books listed here are good, but you would either need a strong interest in the subject to read them or be willing to plow through some less captivating writing.

Best fiction:
The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss – Similarly to Dune, this book starts out slowly, then you get really into it. I read a large chunk of this book on the train to/from Chicago in August. It’s the first book in a planned trilogy – the second came out in 2011, and the third is yet to be released. The first book ends in a not-too-cliffhanger-y way, so I’m planning to wait for the third book to be published before reading the second. This book is hard to describe without spoiling anything, so I’ll just say it’s good.

Best science fiction:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K Dick – The book Blade Runner is based on. I also read Man in the High Castle, and I like this book better, but I can see how Man in the High Castle has more potential for a full TV series.

Year Zero, Robert Reid – A Hitchhiker’s Guide style romp through the universe featuring music-loving aliens, space travel, and . . . vacuums and copyright law?

Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View – A retelling of A New Hope by characters ranging from droids and stormtroopers to jawas and the cantina reprobates.

Best YA fiction:
Turtles All the Way Down – John Green’s latest book. I was on a search this year for YA fiction that wasn’t all about falling in love (i.e. “boy meets girl,” or its cousins, “those two people who hate each other are actually in love,” “turns out that one guy you’ve known forever and is your best guy friend is in love with you so let’s date,” and “hey there we just met three minutes ago in the grocery store but we’re meant to be together forever”). Turtles All the Way Down does include the relationship angle, but it’s a book discussing mental illness that has a relationship in it, not a love story in which one of the loveably quirky characters has OCD.

Best pictures:
The Complete Guide to Nature Photography, Sean Arbabi – Really. It’s got great pictures.

Now a major motion picture³:
Pitch Perfect – See above.

The Princess Bride, William Golding – Same storyline as the movie, but with a different flavor of Golding’s humor.

Julie and Julia, Julie Powell – Haven’t seen this movie; the book is part ingredient hunting, part New York apartment living, part labor-of-love/hate cooking, and part slice of life.

Hidden Figures – See above.

Ready Player One, Ernest Cline – 80s references galore. The movie deviates pretty far from the book, and I actually think the movie ending is better than the book’s. Fairly light/quick read.

³All the books listed here have been adapted for the big screen. If they’re not listed elsewhere in this post, they’re good, but not one of my absolute favorites for the year.

The Year in Ann Arbor [2018]

January – We loved the timing and convenience economics of the 5 am flight back to Ann Arbor so much that we did it again this year. I arrived in Ann Arbor bright and early, went grocery shopping, and spent the rest of the day watching TV on my bed. When classes started, I began my mandatory semester of TA’ing, my first time as a grad student but my third time overall. Bessel functions made their return in a problem set, we got back to work in the band room preparing for our second concert of the season, and I ended the month at the Michigan Theater celebrating Mozart’s birthday.

As the TA, I had the pleasure of writing up all the homework solutions, which meant I had the pleasure of solving all the homework. February brought the return of the COMSOL problem set, which I tackled with, of course, all the pleasure. The Revolution began preseason and once again, fled from Foxboro to play in the Mobile Mini Sun Cup in Arizona, where they emerged victorious [this would, sadly, be a highlight of 2018 for them]. I watched most of the games thanks to the internet and also caught highlights from the Olympics. In other news, I finally gave in and bought a DSLR.

In March, my TA duties included attending a seminar titled The Power of Peer Review. Literally the only reason for that title is the alliteration. About a dozen people actually showed up and almost all of them were there because they had to be. At least there were snacks. I also carried on with grading, holding offices hours, and research. Outside of work, I began watching/rewatching the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe in anticipation of Avengers: Infinity War, which I still have not seen.

Easter this year was in early April. To celebrate we had lunch after church, an egg hunt (I got to hide eggs again), and a piñata. Very traditional. Since classes ended, I got to wrap up TA’ing for the time being, and I attended several band and chorus concerts in support of music and friends in the school of music. At some point during the month, the guy who writes PhD comics came to the university, so I went to see him talk.

May is a big month for early PhD students. Last year I took my doctoral candidacy exam; this year was the preliminary exam. I passed and immediately headed out of Ann Arbor to visit my brother in Chicago. I met up with my mother there and this time I got to see Chicago instead of haul my brother’s belongings across the city. We visited the zoo, the Museum of Science and Industry, and the Field Museum, plus saw Cloud Gate lots of times.

When I returned to Ann Arbor in early June with my mother, I took her to see the peonies and other bus/foot-accessible locations in town. At church, we observed the end of the school year for the kids with water balloon games, a water balloon fight, pizza, and a movie. My lab had a summer BBQ at our advisor’s house, followed by a game of Pandemic (we won). At the end of the month the World Cup started, so there went the ragged remains of our motivation and productivity at work.

In July, I continued the summer tradition of biking across most of Ann Arbor. My future roommate and I paid a visit to the food trucks at the Farmer’s Market for dinner one night and got a chicken jerk wrap and pizza. Art Fair came to town; I went to look at the prices. I got caught up on Marvel movies and started on watching every theatrical Disney animated feature film. With the availability of $25 tickets, a coworker and I went to see Manchester United and Liverpool play at the stadium.

Summer continued in August. Midmonth, my new roommate moved in. I took advantage of a library event and went to see Jennifer Pharr Davis, who wrote Called Again, speak. I took advantage of the library itself and finally saw the fourth season of Sherlock. I have very mixed feelings about this season. As summer wound down, I made a return trip to Chicago to meet up with a friend from Cornell.

At long last in September, our church moved into a building that we’d been renovating for the past year. Band started back up. I went to see a free showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey that was accompanied live by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. We participated in fall by going to a cider mill for cider and donuts.

October brought the arrival of my first academic conference as a graduate student. Another student and I flew down to Houston together a day early and spent the extra time at Space Center Houston. At the conference itself, I listened to dozens of talks, met up with several Cornell acquaintances, presented, and otherwise tried to subsist on free food and alcohol.

In November I took an extended break from work and travelled to Singapore to see family, some of whom I hadn’t seen for fourteen years. We saw a lot of people, ate a lot, and did all the touristy things.

December – On the way back from Singapore, we had a whirlwind stopover in Hong Kong. Back in Ann Arbor, the ChemE department hosted a Christmas party [food + alcohol = the one(?) time a year the department gets together], and I made Christmas cards and meatballs. Since I used all my vacation days to go to Singapore, I remained in Ann Arbor for winter break, and spent time with families from church and played Ticket to Ride and Exploding Kittens for the first time.

Minutes: I practiced 4165 minutes (69.4 hours) in 10 out of 12 months, or about an hour and a half a week. Hey, at least I practice.

Miles: Rode 254 miles in 9 out of 12 months. I moved closer to my office so I can walk instead of bike, which is where a lot of my miles last year came from.

Numbers: Books – 63+2 rereads, split 21/44 nonfiction/fiction

Movies – 58+11 rewatches