Still Running...

Though I have not posted about anything recently, I have still been keeping up with the pursuits of knitting, running, and working. :) Perhaps working is not so much a pursuit as a necessity.

Nonetheless, after two or three weeks stuck on Week 4 of the Couch-to-5K training program, I was getting frustrated. No results = no good. I decided to take a big rewind after the time change and begin again. This was one super-excellent idea!

I have been running again for about 5 weeks and finished Week 5, Day 2 today. That's two 8-min runs, for anyone who is keeping track. The mileage is steadily increasing and so is the total time running. Whoo!

/self-congratulatory post :P

The Way the World Works

I find, more and more, that I am disappointed with the way the world works. I am sad for a friend today; it does not seem fair that she has lost her dad suddenly and so close to the birth of her first child, his first grandchild. And all of this is in addition to her having lost her mom (also suddenly) when she was in college. WTF, universe?

Oh, Teaching

Movie Teachers vs. Real Teachers

The Death and Life of the Great American School System

Awesome

Totally, totally awesome

The Wonder Wheel, a Google feature I had no idea existed.

Ya Think?

Article in the NYT on women in science and math fields, including professorships -- a brief, unexplored sentence: "In dozens of conversations with women scientists and technology executives from the United States, Europe and Asia, a pattern emerged: Many attended single-sex schools and a significant number had scientist parents." (Emphasis added.)

Ya think? See: women's colleges.

From MHC's website:

• From 1966 to 2004, according to the NSF’s Survey of Earned Doctorates, Mount Holyoke graduated more women than any other liberal arts college who went on to get U.S. doctorates in the physical and life sciences (356 and 109, respectively). This puts Mount Holyoke in the top 2 percent of all colleges and universities--even major research universities with at least double the enrollment and faculty.
• Among all colleges and universities, Mount Holyoke ranks eighth (tied with Stanford and Wellesley) in the number of graduates who earned U.S. doctorates in physics from 1966 to 2004; ninth in chemistry; and sixteenth in biology.

Why thanks, NYT. Could you explore that one a little more next time, please? That's probably more significant than all of your goings on about "biological clock" this and "stereotypes" that.

Fascinating

- NPR story on obsolete jobs
- NPR story on a gay documentary from 1978

Insert Clever Title Here

Though sidetracked temporarily by the epic snowfall in the DC area, I have continued the running training program. I even dragged myself out of bed to run on Thursday before work. Week 3, day 2 tomorrow.

Two bits of commercial-related commentary:
1. Mazda is advertising some sort of car as "wicked fun." Go New England slang!
2. TLC is advertising a show called "Four Weddings," which looks awful from the perspective of women picking at each other and also in supporting the wedding-industrial complex. Outside of that, the title of the show just makes me want to add "and a Funeral" every time it gets repeated.