Song for my Dad

My best friend always used to tell me that I was kind of slow. Except, she said it nicely:  "Beccah, you live in a hole, under a rock that's soundproofed, but you have an oatmeal raisin cookie, so it's okay." In fact, she was so enamored of this description of me that she drew it on my Spanish book in our senior year of high school.

The point of this is not to tell you about the wonderful, special relationship I have with the insane girl I call my best friend; that's for another post. The point is to tell you just how ignorant I can be of things, even when they are staring me in the face. The latest example of this is that, until today (when I looked at a calendar), I was completely convinced that Father's Day was this weekend, not last weekend.

Yes, I know. I have perception issues.

When I discovered this, I felt absolutely and totally horrible. Not just because I missed the day that basically everyone is obligated to tell their father that they love them, but because my dad absolutely deserves to be told every day how wonderful he is, and I don't do it nearly enough.

I get much of my quirky personality from my mom, but basically everything else comes from my dad. My eyes, my bushy eyebrows, my horribly crooked smile that got corrected by braces in middle school, my need to take care of everyone that I love when they're down or ill, my passion for cooking random and exotic things, much of my love of eating... I could keep going on, telling you how we're both non-confrontational and have a love of books beyond most anything, but you get the idea.

When my brother left for college, I got really close to my dad. My parents divorced when I was in grade school, and I live with my mom. As any sixteen year old can attest, that's about the age where you start fighting with your mom about nearly everything. My mom and I rarely had any big blowouts, but things were stressed, to be frank.

That's when I turned to my dad. I didn't live with him, so he was a welcome respite to the tension in my house. We'd chill out in his apartment, making three bean enchiladas together and watching Criminal Minds or a movie until late at night. We'd talk about anything and everything, take turns kicking ass at gin rummy and Clue, trade books - it was a great time.

I loved those weekends we spent together. They were my lifeline into my family, my reminder that things will one day get better between me and my mom. My dad and I had a rough patch when I was younger, but the fact that we got through it and were now baking and laughing together again filled me with hope. *

When my family was dropping me off at college, there was a moment. My dad had been completely stoic all throughout the day - helping me get my room set up, taking a tour of my school (he hadn't seen it before move in day), going through all the workshops they had set up. Then came the time to say goodbye. His flight was in a couple hours, and he and Jo had to leave in order to make their flight. He gave me a giant hug, and said, "Be good, kiddo," like always.

I don't remember seeing my dad cry before then.

Saying goodbye in the Kettering parking lot

Since then, we've had a different relationship, but still are wicked close. I only see him a few times a year, but the times I do I treasure beyond measure and we usually stay up half the night talking. I eagerly await his care packages (he still is the only person to have sent me newly picked apples!) and emails. Since he's gotten a Facebook, he now knows far more about my life (I'm a bit of a social networking junkie) and isn't surprised by what color my hair is when I come home.

I love him more than anything in this world (excepting other family members that I love just as much).

The sad part is that I've never really told him all of this. I've teased him for driving like a turtle (another thing we have in common!) and told him how much I love his cooking. I've congratulated him on his new job and thanked him for all the things he's given me over the years. Whenever we talk, I sign off with an "I love you," but I never really expressed to exactly what means to me.

My brother, Dad, and I at Christmas 2011

That's what makes missing Father's Day this year so deplorable to me. How could I not realize that it was the one day of the year to tell someone who means so much to me how much I love him?

So, that's why I decided that this year, my dad gets his very own Father's Day. It may be a week later than everyone else's, but hey, good things come to those who wait, right? Delayed gratification or whatnot.

My dad isn't perfect. We've had our issues, our disagreements, our bad times. But I am so, so incredibly lucky to have him in my life - he's the best dad that any girl could ask for.

So Pops, this is for you. For all of the games of badminton we played, for all of the tennis games you watched me lose at, for the loaves of zucchini bread you've sent me, for all the good times and bad.

Happy Father's Day!

Note: replace all "son"s in the song with "daughter", please. <3
Note 2: Sorry it's just a giant picture of Keith Urban; I couldn't find a better video.


*For all those interested, my mom and I are on much better terms now. We even have a mini vacation planned in less than a month together for my 21st birthday, just after a mini vacation with my dad to New Hampshire with a bunch of relatives!

Don't Be Stupid-Stand Up for Yourself!

When I was in high school, I was on the Girl's Tennis Team. We weren't very good; in fact, we lost much, much more than we won in our matches. I wasn't a spectacular player, either. My coach always told me that I needed to be more vicious, to try and actually beast win a point as opposed to waiting for the other player to make a mistake. And yet, my Junior year of high school, I was unanimously voted as co-captain of the team.

Well, not unanimously, technically. When my coach gave me the news that I was made captain, he told me that everyone except one person voted for me. When I told him that I hadn't voted for myself, he said something that stuck with me for years afterwards:

"Well, that was stupid. If you don't promote yourself, then who will?"

In the years since then, I've realized exactly how true that statement is.

People in this world are selfish. They look out for themselves and for those who they are obligated to, whether they be family or friends. They aren't going to be worried about anyone they don't have to. Why are they going to take the time out of their day to help you? Realistically, they won't. Unless you promote yourself and tell everyone how wonderful you are, why you deserve a promotion or a pay raise, then you're not going to get it. Instead, you're going to be passed over for someone who's willing to stand up for themselves.

So stand up for yourself. Put yourself in the best position to succeed and do well. Don't brag, but don't be a wallflower. Vote for yourself, if you want a position. But most importantly, be yourself and be out there.

Adventures in American Sign Language

Me attempting to sign a complete sentence! Yay sign language!!

The site I've been teaching myself ASL from: http://www.lifeprint.com/index.htm. You should check them out!

Note: I realize I'm kind of horrible at finger spelling. I need lots of practice. But it's fun! :)

Let thy food be thy medicine

Many people who know me know that I'm a bit of a foodie. I absolutely adore cooking anything and everything (especially when it involves chocolate), eating whatever is set in front of me, and,most importantly, eating the things I cook. There's just something about filling the air with savory spices and pungent odors that represent the wonderful meal you're about to consume.

 Lately, my passion for food and cooking has led me to watch a lot of food documentaries on Netflix. One of them, Forks Over Knives, made a huge impression on me and totally changed how I see food. In essence, this documentary is about the concept of a whole foods, non-meat diet. Using a combination of science and statistics, the film seeks to prove that eating less processed food and animal products would not only cut down on the obesity epidemic in this country, but also help to retard or eliminate many other diseases, including liver cancer. Furthermore, even those people who do not have a particular devastating disease are so jacked up on caffeinated beverages, sugar, and various medications that they are masking their chronic fatigue and general lack of health.

I know it sounds crazy, but a person's diet can radically influence their health, in more ways than just controlling their weight. Think about it: the food you consume is the fuel your body runs on. If you put diesel in a non-diesel car, it more than likely will kill the engine. If you put crap food into your body, then it probably won't perform well. This concept has been known and understood for a while. Hippocrates, the founder of modern medicine, even said "Let thy food be thy medicine."

 What concerns me is the fact that people don't take this seriously, even with the abysmal health statistics we have in this country today. A quarter of all four year-olds in this country are obese. Doesn't that raise a red flag for you?

Take my co-op for example. I work on a team of nine software developers. Other than me, there are only two other people that I can think of that actually like to eat vegetables. One of my coworkers even makes fun of my daily snacks of fresh veggies when I bring them into meetings. Apparently, they all taste like grass. All of us are overweight, and the people who are older have more than their fair share of health problems; one person even misses more work than not for various doctor's appointments. All of them are also addicted to caffeine to get through the day, many needing multiple cups of coffee or cans of soda to wake up and be productive.

I don't understand this mentality. Yes, food that's crappy for you tastes delicious, like cookies and chocolate and chocolate cookies. But, at the same time, food is your body's fuel. It's what makes it possible for you to live, move, and exist. The better you fuel your body, the better you feel and the less you'll have issues. I know this from experience.

When I was at school in the winter, I was basically eating crappy food most of the time. It was easier to get, cheaper, and just there. I was kind of sluggish, stressed, and not in the best mental state, if you know what I mean. Then, when I got on work term, I was able to buy my own groceries and cook all the time. I started eating a lot more fruits and vegetables, cut way down on the junk, and started exercising. And, it was like a miracle: I felt so, so much better. I had energy up the wazoo, I was losing weight, and I finally didn't want to sleep the day away. In fact, I started getting up early! I felt so mentally and physically wonderful that I couldn't believe it.

I admit, I started getting a little fanatical about eating healthy. I wouldn't buy or eat junk food, and I even decided to not eat processed foods for a week. Yeah. That didn't end too well. I broke down on day 3 and made myself a tuna fish sandwich. It was fantastic.

It was that moment that I came to a conclusion: food is all about moderation. It's okay to have junk food every now and then, as long as healthy, fresh foods are the staple of your diet. I'm not obese or severely ill, so I don't need to restrict myself to only eating healthily. I still can enjoy my favorite junk foods, like the oatmeal raisin whoopee pies I got today at the farmer's market (gosh... oatmeal raisin is AMAZING!!!). But I also mostly eat healthy things, like spinach, sunflower seeds, lots of fruits and vegetables and healthy proteins (read: no red meat). And it's worked for me. There's so much deliciousness that I don't feel deprived, but I still feel wicked healthy and happy. That's amazing to me.

So why can't the majority of our country see this? We spend more money of health insurance and medical bills than any other country in the world, and yet we don't take the time to take care of ourselves properly. If people ate healthier and just took better care of themselves, we as a society would not have the current obesity epidemic. But no. Our society is full of McDonald's and Burger King, fast food havens that give you a day's worth of calories with basically no nutritional value. Our society has break rooms like ours, where caffeine and junk food snacks are the norm and only option. And until our society wakes up, realizes that they can live healthily and still be happy, and demands something else, nothing is going to change.

 ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Note: You all should watch Forks Over Knives. It's on Netflix, and totally worth the hour and a half of your time to watch it.

Another Note: Anyone interesting in making a cooking club back on campus? Once a week, we'd make healthy food in the dorm kitchens, showing people how to make healthy, delicious food and better life choices while they are back at school.

One Last Note: Thanks for reading!

That moment when you realize Dr. Huggins isn't full of hot air

For anyone that's ever taken an ethics class, you've probably covered to some degree the phenomena of "Women in [insert chosen field here]". When I encountered this unit in The Computing Professional with Dr. Huggins, I really though the discrimination he was talking about was bull. I had worked for two years in a CS field and had had no issues with it whatsoever, even in my office where I'm one of four women. I had thought that we as a society of computer scientists had moved past the stone age where women were excluded, treated differently, scorned.

I was wrong.

This past week was a hectic week at work. In between the ridiculous amount of projects I've been working on, I'm also trying to get my thesis further along. So, needless to say, I was pretty stressed out in general. My thesis adviser hadn't been sleeping (in favor of getting a brief done), so I had to give him a lecture about getting adequate amounts of sleep. I'm a bit of a mother bear at times, and he clearly wasn't feeling up to snuff, so someone had to say something. When I was recounting this story to our coworker, someone came up to the cube and made a comment to the effect of  "You kept your thesis adviser up until two a.m.?" and then busted out laughing.

As I said, it was a hectic week, and me being me, the implications of that kind of went over my head. The person who I was talking to, though, caught on pretty quickly, commenting "I'm not going to touch that with a ten foot pole, not after last night's Game of Thrones," and continuing on about some form of incest that occurred in the show.

By the time he had finished his show recap, I recognized the fact that my coworker had attempted to make a dirty joke. Which, while somewhat annoying, was in the past and I felt like it was best kept there. No harm, no foul.

However, it came up again. A couple days later, someone made another dirty joke concerning me, and the person who made the original joke felt the need to recap his.

I kind of snapped. I told them (in my serious voice) to cut it out, that they were acting like 13 year-olds and were being extremely immature. And then I walked out of the office, trying not to cry until I hit the bathroom.

I had never expected something like this to happen. The fact that I was a girl never came up before at work, other than someone saying that I remind them of their little sister. It really irks me that it's coming up now.
Yes, I am a twenty year old girl. That doesn't mean that I should be treated any differently as a person at my work. My job performance is not determined by my gender.

The people have since apologized, so I don't want to make a big deal out of it. But the fact that it came up in the first place has made me think a lot.

CNN recently ran an article about the "bro-grammer" culture that has recently pervaded the computer science sphere. I initially dismissed this, as I did Dr. Huggins remarks about women in the workplace, as crap. Now, though, I wonder how being a female in a male dominated field is going to affect me. Will I just have to put up with distasteful jokes, or will there be more? Will my work be questioned more because I'm a girl? Will I not get a job because of it?

I don't know what's going to happen in the future. I guess I'll just work ridiculously hard, prove that I'm just as good as my fellow mathematicians will be, regardless of gender. I refuse to let this stop me from being to do anything.

Plan for the future:
(1) Develop a thicker skin to dirty jokes.
(2) Become an intellectual badass.
(3) ???
(4) Profit.

Lessons of the day: Dr. Huggins usually knows what he's talking about. Don't make dirty jokes at work. Being an intellectual badass will get you anywhere in life.

I'm NOT a "pretty girl"

*Warning: this may sound completely ridiculous. But, since it's my blog, I'll ramble about it anyway!*

So, lately, people have been calling me a "pretty girl". And for some reason, that completely gets under my skin. The question, "Are you excited to go to the Science Festival?" should not be answered with the phrase "Of course! I get to go and spend time with a pretty girl. Why wouldn't I be excited?"

I'm not a "pretty girl".

I'm not saying that to be self derogatory. I know, realistically, I'm moderately physically attractive. I ain't no Angelina or Princess Kate, but I'm not hideous either. I'm nicely nestled in that niche of girls who don't make people cringe, yet don't inspire jaw-dropping where ever she goes. That's exactly where I want to be.

I'm saying it because I am so much more than my physical appearance. I'm fairly intelligent, kind, a tad crazy and spontaneous, and generally an overall good person. My personality is what makes me who I am, not what I look like. When people call me a "pretty girl", I feel like they're overlooking the rest of me and just focusing on the fact that I am indeed female. Heck, I dyed my hair to get people to stop looking at my physical appearance and instead have to get to know my personality before they could know who I am.

To me, a pretty girl is someone who dresses in pink, is kind of waif-ish, and has absolutely no substance to her whatsoever. She just kind of flits around, talking about The OC in a high, flute-like voice, and says or does nothing of substance with her life. She's like a ballerina without the sick dance moves, unbelievable skill, or amazing control.

I'm not that kind of girl. I have freaking substance. And if you want to hang out with me, it better be because of that substance, not because of the fact that I'm a girl without any blatant physical abnormalities.

And yes, I realize the people who are calling me "pretty" probably have good intentions. I just really hate the word. That's why I never call someone that; I opt for a "gorgeous" or "beautiful". That way, my compliment encompasses their personality, too. Some people have an absolutely gorgeous personality, and it just shines through into their physical being. I just can't use the word "pretty" to describe someone's personality. It sounds so fluffy and fake to me.

I'm not a fake, nor are many other people I know. So, please, call us beautiful, or gorgeous, or wonderful. At least for me, it means so, so much more.

Welcome to My Mind

Hi! I'm Beccah, what's your name? *prompts response* Oh, what a lovely name. It's truly nice to meet you. 

Welcome to my mind! Beware the temple guards that may inhabit the trees (or various other parts of my mind)! I really want to watch Legends of the Hidden Temple now. Have you seen it? It's one of the best game shows known to man. I really wish it was still on, but no. Nickelodeon had to go and cancel all of the good shows, like Legends and Double Dare and Doug. I wonder if he ever got together with Patty Mayonnaise... And thanks to my wonderful roommates, I can't think of the word mayonnaise without saying it like Paula Deen in this video: [insert YouTube video of Paula Deen insanity here. I'll find it at some point in the future. In the meantime, enjoy this Paula Deen related website: http://pauladeenridingthings.com/]. 

Okay, sorry. There was a point to this post, not just to listen to me ramble.

Introductions!

 Well, as I said, my name is Beccah. One of my friends told me once that I should write a blog. So I am! I'm a writer for my school newspaper, The Technician. However, I'm on work term for the next six months, so I won't be able to write for them until October. Therefore, I'm starting this blog to offer my opinion on a variety of subjects (read: whatever happens to come to mind).  I promise, I'll try to keep things coherent; as you can tell from the earlier paragraph, I occasionally get distracted by stray thoughts, such my recent desire to own a goat named Oregano. 

I guess I can tell you a little about myself, for those of you who haven't had the experience of meeting me in person. I'm a relatively spontaneous and random person. Things come to mind and, if they don't have any blatant drawbacks, I generally act on them. I am also generally obsessed with math. It's basically the most beautiful thing on this Earth simply because it's everywhere, in everything, and is the purest from of perfection on this planet. I'm also very into helping people. I love doing service whenever and wherever I can. Seeing a person's smile and knowing I put it there is one of the most rewarding things in life. 

I think those are the most important things about me. Other things of note include the following: I go to Kettering University, one of my good friends calls me a "Masshole" when I'm being a pain in the butt because I'm from Massachusetts, and I really, really love squirrels.

Well, that's about all for now, I think. I'll try to post here about once a week about something that you'll hopefully find interesting. 

Until next time!

Your insane, squirrel loving mathlete,

Beccah