something about airplanes

this is my mother & i. we frequently wear the exact same color combinations, though not on purpose.

On September 15 we are flying from Boston to London to Glasgow!

Mystery solved.

Recently Mom and I were searching for takeout menus in the kitchen. Apparently Dad had just reorganized this cabinet the other day, so we weren't sure where they were hiding. While pulling out stacks of paper, Mom unfolds the following. This one sheet of legal paper has been floating around my house for the past 19 years.

"You drew this!" she says. "You had just turned three years old in '91, and we were driving up to New Brunswick to visit The Extended Canadian Family! You drew this in the car. You were so good."
"Okay, Mom."
"Well, you know, when kids have just turned three they can't draw like this. See? It's a clown." (points to label "The Clown")
"No... I think that's a picture of Dad."
"How do you know? It's a clown, wearing a hat! See?"
"I don't think so. I think it's supposed to be a picture of Dad...because that's what Dad's hair looks like."

(source picture: Thanksgiving 2009. To be fair, Dad looked exactly the same 19 years ago, although significantly less gray. File under: 'if you ever needed kind of blurry proof I'm related to these people'.)
"No. It... Oh my god YOU'RE RIGHT!"
"I drew it, I should know."
"You were three!"
"So?"
"We need to change that immediately." (crosses out 'The Clown', writes 'Dad')


All I have to say is that bitches don't know about my 3-year-old self's artistic badassery.

Hey everybody, come check out how great I am!

My presentations yesterday went really well. (This is a blog about my thesis right? Guess what - you get to hear more about it!) Unfortunately, my project is not the most self-explanatory thing ever, so even though I had a sweet 32x40 semi-shiny sheet of paper, I usually had to walk people through it. This is fine unless more people show up halfway through my spiel, but I'm not complaining - a lot of my friends dropped by the poster presentation and a whole bunch of people came to my presentation to the English department. Thanks for checking out my work!

My parents The Scientists came up for the day, which provided almost unending entertainment. Some background: My dad is a PhD chemist and my mother is a biochemist who did some early work on the human genome project in Canada. These days they are writing manuals for scientific instruments, but the liberal arts are not their thing. Watching them try not to kill themselves during the four hours of the English Department Honors Conference was hilarious - the better a presentation was, the more they looked like they were going to put hot forks through their eyes. They are very intelligent people, but this is quite simply not what they do.

HIGHLIGHTS:
- Mom and Dad sitting next to Dennis Britton at the English department thesis reading, who is prone to flailing when he gets excited about things - especially the analysis of female and male sexuality in Spencer's The Faerie Queen
(to be honest, that was the longest amount of time I had ever seen Dennis sit still)
- Sarah Sherman, interim honors director for the English department, who was just so over this whole situation. "This is blah blah and they like this. their thesis is about this. sadly, there are still eight more presentation after this." (Not a direct quote, but close.)
- Mary Clark sitting behind me, having a grand time: "Hmmm. I don't think so. hmmm."
- the look on the English department's collective face when I introduced an equation to their lives. HILARIOUS. Luckily, we switched back to words quickly. (Meanwhile, Mom and Dad were celebrating the fact they finally understood something happening.)
- Mom and Dad finally meeting Shelly. Shelly and my mom could possibly be the same person - they have the same mannerisms.

Here is a very picture of me explaining my research to one of my many advisors (left) and my friend Kallie (right)

I have blogged about cars way more than I ever anticipated

I drive a 2009 Toyota Corolla named Franz. Needless to say I have not felt very safe lately.

In case you have not been keeping up, Toyota has been going through a whole bunch of recalls on assorted parts in their 2009 and 2010 sedans, including a floor mat which was prone to getting stuck underneath the accelerator pedal, sticking accelerators, and the possibility of increased stopping distances in cold weather because the brake vacuum port could freeze. To translate: Your car could speed out of control... and then possibly not stop! And now there are reports of steering columns locking up! This is certainly safe.

I got Franz in late May. I had been driving him from my apartment to campus and back (plus around the greater Seacoast area) all summer when the floor mat recall occured. I had a new accelerator pedal by Thanksgiving. Shortly after returning to school - which I would like to note is in New Hampshire, a cold place - in January, all these other recall notifications started to come out.

I had noticed that Franz's brakes were prone to occasionally cutting out for seconds at a time. This is a scary thing, but I am also prone to stomping on my brakes (just like Dad!) and sort of assumed that this was a byproduct of stomping on my brakes... until Mom called me in a panic over the brake/accelerator recall. Explains everything! At least I didn't have accelerator problems, that would have been infinitely worse.

But today Franz is getting his brakes and second accelerator fixed. And ironically enough, 2010 Toyota Corolla and Scion xB Earn Insurance Institute for Highway Safety 'Top Safety Pick' Award. Awesome.

prenups? nah, pre-dinners.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. Happy birthday, Mum!

To celebrate, we went to Bugaboo Steak Whatever. This is one of those restaurants which insist on taking their theme aspect too far. Therefore - obviously - when they are alerted it is someone's birthday, they drag out every available person working there and sing a song and give dessert to the birthday person. Bugaboo Steak Whatever also features a stuffed moose that you Must Kiss. (Capital letters. It is COMMANDED.)

In preparation for this dinner, Dad and I therefore had to sign off on the following agreement:
I, Peter and Heather, agree to NOT invite the moose to Judy's birthday dinner...or FACE CONSEQUENCES.
We agreed to it. It's not like we had a choice, really... though Dad did sign with his favorite fake name, Irving.