Memories

The decluttering fairy has worked her magic again. I decided to do something about the box of photo albums and scrapbooks gathering dust in the basement. I don't look at them very often, and when I move again, I don't want to take that much stuff. So I spent the last two weekends turning a two-foot-high stack of albums into a 2" stack of photos. I am throwing out 90% of the photos, scanning a representative sample, and keeping a select few for non-digital viewing. If you are a collector, this news will give you heart palpitations, and I apologize for that, but it's turned out to be a delightful project. The photos span my life age 0-31, when digital cameras became commonplace. It reminded me of many people who were treasured friends during a time when our lives intersected. I have lost touch with many of them, but that doesn't negate all the wonderful experiences we had.

A few of memories, in reverse chronological order...

One of the biggest Star Trek conventions is held in Las Vegas each year. in 2007, I attended with Andrew (my new boyfriend) and Tom, a friend from my research group. I didn't tell my advisor I was going, because I was scheduled to take my physics qualifying exam the week after I returned and I didn't want him to think I wasn't serious about studying.

My cousin S got married in one of Liberace's houses, and the dress code was something like film star. I chose to come as a 1920's film star.

A momento of the year I worked as a chef. It's the hardest physical labor I've ever done, and they paid me a whopping $7.25 per hour. In comparison, I thought my physics graduate school stipend of $18k annual was a king's ransom. I would never return to professional cooking, but I am still pleased with how confident I am in the kitchen as a result.

During high school, I studied abroad in Germany. At the end of the year, my parents and brother came to visit. Here, my host father introduces my mother to many European liquors. My brother was a junior in high school, so I vaguely remember him being continually annoyed with being away from his friends and wanting to eat a lot of McDonald's. This is a far cry from his current life.

 I lived with three families during my year in Braunschweig, but my favorite was the W Family. They tolerated my vegetarianism,although my host father repeatedly admonished me that "Vom Schwein kommt die Kraft", i.e. strength comes from eating pork.

The first day of school. My brother broke his arm a lot. This was probably fourth grade for me, and was the last year we lived in Illinois before moving to Georgia, then Ohio. Boy, we were both really blond back then.