postings of a professional redhead

You’ll notice in my blogroll that I have a few medical-type blogs that I read (they’re great reads, check them out).  I’m actually fascinated by medicine, and my family is full of medical-type people; my mother and aunt (father’s little sis) are RNs, my aunt (mother’s little sis) is a pediatric intensivist (her 2nd career after she was a hot-shot lawyer in L.A.), and her partner is an APRN (ob/gyn).  To this day my family regularly asks me if I would please-please-please consider going to medical school - despite having a very successful career in engineering, and a just-starting career in wedding photography.  Their reason for asking me still, even though I already have a career?  “Because if some of these idiots I work with can be doctors, you could do it blindfolded and with your hands tied behind your back” - attribute this to all four medical field relatives, as they have all said this to me at one point or another.  It’s not just medical school though; regularly from everyone in my family, some friends,  and even old teachers, people are always suggesting some form of further education I should be seeking.

My father is the only person who is truly psyched about my chosen career - maybe because ohhh…we happen to work at the same place, and he gets to introduce me to his work friends all the time.  “This is my daughter, Sidney! She’s the [blahblahblah] that they’re always talking about in the 8:30 meeting!” and of course, his chest puffs out with pride when he brags about me to people at work.  (How I feel about being introduced to people first as his daughter and second with my title is probably fodder for an entire other post, actually…)

I wonder about this dichotomy, and why people seem so passionate about me going back to school.  My mother is especially guilty of this; when I tell her “violence in movies makes my legs get weak and my stomach flip-flop, how the hell am I going to handle someone whose guts are spilling out of their body?” she switches tactics, reminding me of my stellar LSAT scores.  “You could go to law school! They have a part-time program at UCONN! And those LSATs could easily get you into Yale!” Nevermind that I do not want to pay for either UCONN or Yale law school, not that my N.mumble GPA in undergrad would get me acceptance to either, anyway.  My p.i. aunt is the same way; “you know, you really should at least go back and get an M.B.A. if you’re going to stay in the engineering field. You already hit the glass ceiling, you said so yourself.”  My elementary school gifted teacher, who is now 89-years old and has recently converted to some sort of monkhood cult in the catholic church (the regular church was just “too liberal” for her) also brings this up during our bi-weekly phone conversations.  “When are you going to medical school? You have the brains for it, you know. Your mother always wanted you to be a doctor.”

You can imagine my disgust when I caught my mother and her sister talking on the phone about my baby cousins (future, hypothetical seeing as they are 6 and 7 years old) SAT scores, and how they would affect into which colleges they would gain admission.

“I see now why my cousin Erin always told everyone she wanted to drive a dump truck!  You guys put too much pressure on everyone! You know not everyone wants to be an over-achieving school nerd!*”

* My mother went to college for about 20 years, and has over four degrees framed and hanging on the wall.  My father has double undergraduate and double masters degrees as well as an M.B.A.  I managed to finish one major in college, and I haven’t seen my Smyff degree since graduation.  I bet it’s framed on the wall with her and my fathers degrees, actually…

I really have minimal desire to go back to school; I barely finished college alive, to be honest. The only thing that kept me sane during my time there was my participation on the tennis team, a few amazing professors, and my ex-girlfriend (who is now happily married and expecting a baby in February, but we’re still friends, and she reads this site, so hi Katja!).  An M.B.A. would probably be the quickest and dirtiest degree to get - but to what end? I once told my academic adviser in college that my career goal was “lower-middle management.”  Well baby, I’m there now! Who else can say they reached their lifetime carrer goal by the tender age of 27?  Between that and working to make money for my hobby (photography, specifically wedding), what else could I possibly ask for, career-wise?

Does anyone else have this constant academic pressure from their family? Is this a normal “I just want my baby to be all they can be and be the best and be successful and happy” wish, or is this indicative of a bigger problem? I think that everyone else in my family got the overacheiving striver gene, whereas I got the laid-back surfer gene.  No offense to surfers, of course.  They just tend to be the most laid-back people I know.

As I had written last week, I did indeed to to SolarFest - despite having pneumonia. Propped up by 40mg of prednisone a day, 1,000mg of clarithromycin daily, and a whole lot of Musinex-D, Jordan, Laura and I packed up my CR-V and headed to Vermont.

SolarFest was…amazing. I went to some great workshops (Catherine, there was one on food preservation you would have loved), met some lovely people, and enjoyed my time tromping around a horse farm in 95 degree weather. Laura and I volunteered at the “Kids’ Korner” (the name did make me gag a little) where Laura showed off her amazing skills dealing with little munchkins, while I taught the slightly older girls how to make friendship bracelets.

I learned so much, and had such an amazing time, I can’t wait to go back next year. Next year, however, I will NOT be letting Jordan talk me into leaving my solar shower at home, because by the end of that trip, we smelled as ripe as the composting toilets. In the car on the way home we were just about gagging on our own stank, I don’t think I have ever been so dirty in my life! And I’ve been camping in the Florida Everglades, and still…not that dirty. When I got back into town, the first thing I did was take a nice, long, cold shower - I think three pounds of salty sediment went down the drain, it was so lovely, I really have more appreciation for showering now than I did before.

Saturday night there was a bonfire, complete with crazy bongo drum dancing, clouds of suspicious smoke, and lots of handsiness from everyone. Other friends of mine who we had met up with in VT were dancing around the fire, and it was totally crazy. I’ll have to get photos off my camera at some point, though I’m sure some of them will be highly incriminating…

I currently drive a 2007 Honda CR-V. Her name is Stella and she’s a lovely car, bigger than I need most days but great when we go camping or kayaking etc. Stella gets between 18-22MPG in the city, and between 28-43 on the highway (depending on how fast - or slow - I am driving). Considering my recent move to be less than 5 miles to work, most of my driving now is city driving. I just made up my mind to trade in my trusty Honda for the Toyota Prius when…

The car of the future has arrived.

Meet the 2008 Honda FCX Clarity, the first consumer-available fuel cell-powered vehicle. Of course they’re only making a couple dozen available for the lucky folks in SoCal to lease for $600/mo - but considering the price of gas! What a deal! Next year they will offer 200 on a three-year lease, to collect data before making the car available for purchase (I hope). And I want one, look at that car, it’s shit hot red and you’ll never have to stop to put gas in your tank again!

Speaking of gas prices, are they not outrageous? The following was published by CNN on the 11th, the prices have increased a bit since then, but the top three states in terms of gas prices at that time were:

1. California
2. Connecticut
3. Alaska

That’s right, go Connecticut, we have the 2nd highest gas in the country! More expensive than Alaska! And still no reprieve from the $0.35/gallon state gas tax, which is why I fill my tank up in Northampton, MA once a week.

Inspired by Catherine, I decided to check the walk score of my new neighborhood.

I’m disappointed that my new neighborhood only has a Walk Score of 42 – especially since Catherine has managed to move to a neighborhood with a 95/100 score. Amazingly, my parents’ house – in the middle of a tiny town with only three stoplights (all off by 9pm) received a 40. Then again, we walked around quite a bit in the summertime when we lived there. Personally, I wish they would add a Bike Score application to the site, easily enough if they just expand the parameters a few miles. I think anything within 5 miles is very bike-able, and even if it were just 3 miles my score would be closer to the 90s. My old house in Northampton, MA got an 83/100 – how I miss living in Northampton, and never having to get into my car to run errands.

In addition to riding my bike to work, recently I have stopped speeding. This may have soemthing to do with the $100 speeding ticket I received in Springfield two weeks ago, but after driving around at or below the speed limit, I realized that my truck went from getting 21MPG to 31MPG. Imagine that! Just by dropping my speed 15MPH, I increased the range of my gas tank by 140 miles. I challenge everyone to drop down to at least the legal speed limit, if not 5MPH less than - not only will you be helping to slightly reduce our dependence on foreign oil, you will be saving yourself serious money.

For example, last year I put 28,000 miles on my truck. At 21MPG, I purchased 1,333 gallons of gas over the course of the year. Had I been driving slower and making 31MPG, I would have only needed to purchase 903 gallons of gas. At current prices, that would have saved me $1,741.

Continuing on in this vein, I now live only 4 miles from my place of employment (5 miles by bike). I used to live 25 miles from my place of employment - forsaken out in suburbia! Most people I work with live in suburbia, one person in my group actually lives in Rhode Island and has been commuting to Hartford for over ten years is now paying over $1,000/month in gas! Just think, if you moved closer to where you worked, how much money you would save in gas. Last year, I drove 12,500 miles to and from work (not counting visits to our other plants). At $4.05/gallon, at 21MPG, that means I spent $2,410 on gas - just getting to and from work! Now, if I actually drove my car to work every day from where I currently live, that would be 2,000 miles of driving, which at the same gas mileage would cost me $385 in gas for the year. So now I’ll have (at least) $2,025 extra money in my bank account, just by virtue of living closer to work.

Now just think, if you ride your bike or walk to work, you’ll get about a billion miles to the gallon, plus maybe save some gym time.