Quote of the Day

[RE: Baby seals]
"They're tasty too! Just like chicken (only better, because you know you're eating baby seal)!"

Math

I was driving back from a meeting with some colleagues yesterday, when a story came on NPR that said "For anyone who still believes that boys are better at math than girls, a massive new study published today in Science shows there's no difference." Really? People believed that until this week? I honestly thought people stopped believing stuff like that 30 years ago. Anyway, NPR started the story by asking how many solutions there are to the equation x^2 - 15 = 0. Easy, I know (2). But in a car full 4 men and one woman, guess who was the only one who knew the answer? Thank goodness it was an easy question, or I would have lost some of my street cred with them. The story went on to say that girls still aren't well represented in engineering. That's true. Any girl who's been in an upper-level engineering class can attest to that (In almost all of mine, it was me, one other girl, and about 20 boys). Then again, It's great odds if you're a single girl. Frankly, I kind of like being the only young female (or the only female, period) in meetings and such. People remember you and tend to listen to what you have to say, providing you're not shy about it. Which, um, apparently I am not. My car-mates also joked with me about my forceful way of handling part of the meeting. The term "bossy" may have been used. But actually, they were complementary about it. Clearly, some middle-aged men think a bossy girl engineer is pretty cool.

Girls Gone Mild, Baby Edition

Saturday was Leslie's baby shower (it's only a little more than a month before Kira Shaye arrives)! Here's a picture of me, Leslie, and Lisa. Doesn't Leslie look cute? They made fun of me for powdering my nose and touching up my lipstick just before the picture...but look how shiny I am (that's WITH the touch-up)! If I hadn't done that, the flash probably would have glared off my face so much I'd just be a big white patch on the left side of the frame.



On a separate note, I've decided that I'm going to invest in some "running skirts". I read about them in Runner's World, and I think they'd satisfy my inner cheerleader. Especially since my true motivation in high school for trying out for cheerleading/drill team (each time very unsuccessfully) was the cute little uniforms they got to wear at school on game days. In that respect, I think a few cute running skirts will finally make my life complete. The best part is the little built-in modesty undies are called "spankies"!

Quote of the Day

Two quotes, actually. The first is from Zach, the second is from a colleague who had to employ some creative problem-solving:

"Segways are like walking...but without all the dignity."

"[Telling someone you'll solve their storm drainage problem by] using the words Squeegee and Squeegee Team don't exactly instill confidence in them that you know what you're doing."