The end of an era…

I fear my computer is dying. Actually, I’ve successfully progressed through all of the stages of death and dying (Kubler Ross, 1969):

Denial: My computer is fine. There was just a little power short - perhaps in my battery - that caused this blue screen of death to appear. I will just force a shut down, and it will be fine.

Anger: I hate PCs. Weak! Weak! That’s what you are - weak! Next time I want a Mac. How can my computer be going down this soon??? I’ve only had it for four years!

Bargaining: Please just last for another year or so - just long enough for me to save up for a replacement. I’ll let you start up slowly, and not open too many programs all at once, just keep letting me type and send e-mail.

Depression: It’s inevitable. You will die when I need something the most, so why should I bother trying to do anything about it.

Acceptance: Well, we’re on this downward spiral. I should probably look into replacements that I can afford within the next month and a half. I wouldn’t call it a will, but it’s something similar when you back everything up religiously every few days and plan for a transition of material from one machine to another. Don’t worry little computer, I haven’t given up on you, I’m just being realistic.

Through all of this I’ve been backing up all of my files, so as long as my external drive doesn’t die at the same time, I should be fine. Now I’m just trying to plan my next steps: Do I get a desktop for school so that I don’t have to carry my laptop back and forth? Do I get a much lighter computer so that it doesn’t slow me down so much? Does my bike damage my computer when it rides in the saddlebags? Do I get two small laptops and leave one at school? How soon should I start this transition?

It’s all overwhelming, but at least I’m dealing with it before my computer actually dies. Keep your fingers crossed for me and my little Inspiron…

Welcome to Academia

For those of you in academia, or who have had any kind of brush with the academy, you understand the mythical nature of funding. If you look at it too closely, it may disappear. If you keep your faith strong, and put that faith into action, you may be lucky enough to feed yourself, your family, and your research for another semester or so. For faculty (and graduate students), grant funding is like a magical beast: much sought after, exceedingly rare, and frustratingly elusive.

This week has truly been an initiation. After finding out (rather last minute) about a Request for Proposals that fit some of my research interests, Rachel and I decided to go for it and submit a letter of intent. Submitted at the eleventh hour, it did actually all work out, and now we’re working on the proposal. I never knew just how many offices and individuals had to look at/approve/sign/wave sages over and dance around proposals before they could be submitted. I’m somewhat convinced that there is a unique kind of mysticism that surrounds funding proposals for the following reasons:

1. The deadlines continually change. This can only be because some kind of spirit has shifted the ether slightly.

2. No one seems to really be sure what is required. This can only be because there are, in fact, no fixed requirements. The letters on the page swim, begging me to miss some size 6 font requirement.

3. Proposals seem to be due in threes. I suppose it is possible that this is only right now, but I don’t think so. I currently have three things due early next week. Rachel, my advisor, has two that overlap with mine, as well as one (much larger!) of her own. I think that this unsurprising coincidence suggests a much deeper superstitious reality.

Wish me luck!

Baby sweater

Here is my latest finished object… I finished it just in time for Caitlin’s baby shower last night (literally… I found the buttons yesterday afternoon). It is lavender and dark grey, though my camera made the colors a little off. I knit it from a corn fiber, which is lovely and machine washable, so I love it.

Many of you have been hearing about this baby sweater for Ash’s niece-to-be for quite some time. It took me a while, mostly because I measured the back incorrectly, and was then afraid that I wouldn’t know how to fix it with any kind of speed. But, I figured it out, and I’m pretty happy with how it all came together.

Here is the detail on the buttons:

And here is how the wraparound part of the sweater opens:

I found different (flat!) but still cute buttons to attach the inside wrap piece:

I don’t know how soon I’ll be doing another sweater, since I found the finishing on this one really frustrating. There were a lot of seams, and a lot of edging put on after the fact. That said, Ash made a really beautiful pullover sweater with a hood for the baby, so maybe I will just stick to things with fewer pieces and patterns that hide seams well…

Summertime…

We’re not quite to the official start of summer, but it’s clearly here in the School of Public Health. There’s almost no one in the offices, it’s almost eerily quiet, and my e-mail box is practically empty. I can see the wind blowing in the newly leafed trees out my window (which goes into my advisor’s office, but she also has a window, so I can see out). It’s taken a few weeks to ease into it, but I think my summer is officially going.

The semester always ends on a high note. With exams, papers, and all of the other work from the semester coming to a head, as well as the formation of plans for the summer, the end of the semester is a crazy time. It’s a frenzied few weeks of intense reading, writing, making notes of things to do once the reading and writing are done, and relatively little sleeping and eating compared with the rest of the semester. It’s an exciting time, with lots of work, lots of productivity, and a healthy dose of panic.

The intensity of those few weeks reminds everyone why they want to eventually graduate, and why summers are critical. At the end of those few weeks, no normal human being can return to function the following Monday. It requires much more than a weekend for the limping transporters of neurotransmitters to rest up and get ready to run again. Perhaps not coincidentally, most summer plans allow for a week or so of rest and relaxation. This, however, is not as easy as it sounds. Maybe it’s just me, but after a crazy few weeks of adrenaline fueled papers and exams, and a schedule that no one would envy, it’s really hard to give up a schedule entirely. After I started my relaxing week of semi-vacation (working 4-5 hours a day, but not much else) I stopped being able to sleep properly. I would have a difficult time falling asleep, and wake up at odd hours. After a few days and nights of listless wandering, Alicia, in her infinite wisdom, told me to make myself a schedule. I did, and it seemed to help. However, over the course of those few days, as well as the day I made the schedule, I somehow successfully transitioned into relaxation mode. This made it incredibly difficult to concentrate while working according to my new schedule.

Starting this week, however, I feel like a new person. Perhaps it was the jarring realization that I’d nearly missed a deadline (or rather, that I had missed it, but by some miracle the proposal was accepted anyway), or perhaps it was just reaching that moment where I was ready to work again. Either way, my brain is functioning again, and I love it. I worked with Ash yesterday (as she is visiting, but had work to do), and today I’ve been in my office for quite some time and am still being productive.

Maybe someday I’ll learn how to tell exactly how much downtime I need after a large deadline, and how structured that downtime should be. Maybe I won’t. Either way, many thanks to those who put up with me during that time (mostly Alicia, but also other friends), and apologies to those who didn’t have to put up with me because I neglected to contact you by any means during the last month. Keep your fingers crossed that I’m on the steep part of this learning curve (contrary to the popular expression, I hold that the steep part must be when you make the most progress per unit time, not the reverse).

Spring!

As soon as it started to warm up, I switched to cotton. I got this beautiful hand-dyed yarn when I was in Portland. I’ve been wearing it pretty much every day since I finished it last week.

It seems that we’ve weathered the winter, and spring is here. It’s still fits and starts of warm weather, but it’s definitely getting there (read: it snowed a little last weekend). It’s been sunny and between thirty and seventy for the last week or so. You wouldn’t think that a range of 40 degrees in the space of three or four days was reasonable, but I assure that here, in lovely Michigan, it is. I for one, quite enjoy this part of the season. It’s what reminds everyone from out of town that the layering that’s such the height of fashion recently has always been critical to survival here. When the day starts out just below freezing, but warms up to a sunny practically tropical temperature during the day, there are really no options other than layers. (Apart, I suppose, from going home in the middle of the day, but that just seems silly.)

Adding to my lovely (albeit tired) mood is the end of the semester. Though I still have one take-home exam left to work on, I’m mostly done. I’ve handed in several papers, taken and exam, and am emotionally/mentally completely finished with the semester. Hopefully that won’t get in the way of the stats exam still to come…

Knitting!

Finally, all three items in the set are complete... Please ignore the ghostly pallor the flash created...

I bought this red/orange yarn when I was in South Africa last summer. I loved the color, and really needed the wrist warmers to keep me warm in the cold South African winter. I knit up the mitts while I was there, and enjoyed them thoroughly! Once I returned (with a whole suitcase filled with yarn), I was wrapped up in lots of other projects (knitting and otherwise) and I left the yarn languishing in my basket. Once it got cold, and I realized that the only hand-knit hat I had was the first one I had ever made, I brought out the yarn again. I made the hat, and it kept me delightfully warm. Finally, I realized that I couldn’t wear the hat with my green scarf without looking a little like one of Santa’s elves. At that point, I pulled out more of the yarn (and believe it or not, there is some left over even now) and planned the scarf. I finished the scarf yesterday, and am quite proud of my little trifecta.

Terrified Kitty in the Park

Ash and I took her cats to the park. Here is Lincoln looking terrified. We didn't stay very long, especially after the cats decided that the most interesting thing about the park were the busy streets that surrounded it...

Smoker Dance!

Here we are, in all our crazy makeup with the crazy bellies...

March Mysteriousness

Me in Houston, attending the 2008 AMSA National Convention and visiting Laura!

While I don’t get into March Madness as much as some folks around here, I do find March to be a mysterious month in many ways. Firstly, it is mysterious because of the weather. The old adage of “in like a lion, out like a lamb” could not be less true here. I might change it to be “in like bipolar mood disorder, and out like borderline personality disorder.” When March begins, we’ve already been suffering from long periods of cold depression. We can still remember when it was summer and we were happy and sunny, and fall, when we were manically joyful because of the beautiful colors, but it’s been a while since we actually saw the sun. March promises the beginning of spring in many places, and we can’t help but be bolstered by the false hope that here too, spring will begin. Instead, the weather transforms into an impossible to predict, one-day-warm-two-days-cold-one-day-of-rain-three-inches-of-snow disaster. It fluctuates between beautiful and terrible so quickly that you almost don’t remember how it happens. This is clearly mystery number one.

Mystery number two is how quickly the semester passes in March. The first week is often taken up by Spring Break, which marks somewhat of a midterm point for winter term coursework. This always comes somewhat by surprise, and the week of vacation serves to throw it off further. This year I went to Portland to visit Ash, which was the most fantastic break ever. We ate lots of vegan food, rode bikes, walked around, went to knit shops, and in general had a fantastic time. I’ve posted a picture or two below. Despite this fabulous, deadlines seem exponentially closer after break (though the calendar insists that time and dates are, in fact, quite linear). It takes a few days to get back into the swing of things, and then, poof, there are only a few days of March left and only a few weeks left of the semester.

The third mystery is the number of exciting events that always seem to take place in March. In the context of the medical school, I suspect that this is planned. You see, the second years disappear into board studying at the end of March, so anything interesting needs to be done by then if they are to participate in any form. This means that it is a perfect time for the Galen’s Smoker. (See below for a lovely picture of me using a bag of batting to create a makeshift empathy belly.) This year’s show, “Billy Medicine” was based on the movie “Billy Madison,” and was one of the best shows ever, according to most credible sources. I was a dancer, and had several walk-on/no-lines bit parts. It was wonderful.

In addition to the Smoker, the AMSA National Convention always occurs in March. This weeklong meeting (a few days of leadership meetings, and a few days of fabulous programming!) is kind of intense, and definitely exhausting, but one of the most fun weeks of the year. This year I was thrilled to hand down my chair position (I was the chair of the LGBT Health Action Committee), and to be elected to a position within the newly restructure Committee on Gender and Sexuality. (I am now the Grassroots Organizing Coordinator for Sexuality.) I think this will free up some of my time (no more administrative and managerial duties), but I will still get to do what I love, which is help local chapters organizing amazing programming around important healthcare issues.

Finally, March is also when Match Day occurs. Last Thursday, all of my graduating friends (except those who were in the early match specialities...) found out where they will be doing their residencies. It was incredibly exciting, and made me really want to work quickly to finish my PhD and the rest of medical school and move on out!

Ash and I in Portland

I have my eyes closed, but it was so bright I didn't notice that on the tiny screen, so this is all I've got. :(

Michigan Winters

Me, in snowshoes, in the Arboretum.

The winters in Michigan are one of the last things that admissions folks or current students mention to people considering UM. While many of the more northern states boast impressive ski offerings, and beautiful winter getaways mere minutes from the university, Michigan has a giant mountain built out of a landfill, and requires at least a few hours in the car to get to the beautiful state and county parks. What Michigan does offer during the winter, however, is a chance to be creative and innovative. In the interest of full disclosure, here are some examples:

--Michigan provides the opportunity to see how flexible your internal thermostat can be! When the weather fluctuates from a wind chill of -15F to 40F in the space of a week, your body can hardly keep up.

--Michigan dares you to wear more pairs of pants than you ever thought possible. If you have ever had to stand at the bus stops around campus for more than a minute or two during the winter, you’ll understand how close to death you can come in that short period. The answer to the biting wind and blowing snow/rain/sleet/hail is obviously tights, long underwear, and normal pants. You only thought we all gained weight during the winter.

--Michigan challenges you to make the best of a difficult season. There isn’t snow all the time, and it’s almost always cloudy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get out and have a good time. Sledding, cross-country skiing, and snow-shoeing (see above photo) are all fun options, and there are local spots to rent gear (since you’ll only be able to use it a few weekends).

--Michigan defies your love of precipitation in winter. Sometimes we even get all different kinds at one - euphemistically called “wintery mix.” If you thought you liked cloudy winter skies, think again. Here, you have to love snow, sleet, hail, rain, fog, mist, freezing rain, and “ice-rain”* to enjoy everything coming out of the sky.

--Michigan bets you can’t beat SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder). We go weeks without ever seeing the sun. I’ve heard that we have more cloudy days than even some of the more temperate northwest, but I’m a little afraid to check. With a little ingenuity, however, and a small amount of cash, you can invest in a light that has all the right spectra and may help bring you out of your funk.

That said, many people have found Michigan to be a hospitable place. The answer to the question a professor once posed “Why did people ever stay here - why didn’t they keep going?” is probably that they arrived in the fall, when it is beautiful and everyone is happy. Nonetheless, they lived through the winter, and were too weak to keep going afterward, so here we are. Come and visit sometime…

Quarter centenarians!!!

Note that there is a tens’ place cupcake, and a ones’ place cupcake. I ate the tens place...

Well, Alicia and I are both 25 now. I didn’t post during the week where I referred to her as being “my senior” or myself as the “sweet young thing,” and now both our birthdays have passed. I didn’t really feel any older until I realized that I am in a new demographic bubble. I got an application in my e-mail for an essay contest for 18-24 year-olds. I had read the first sentence and then realized that I couldn’t apply anyway. It was a strange feeling.

But mostly my birthday has been a lovely feeling! I had brunch at Angelo’s with Allison (in my cohort), and went to salsa class. Then Alicia and I went out for a lovely dinner. That was all on Tuesday. Wednesday we went and saw Kate Clinton (an amazing comedienne) at the Ark, which was also wonderful. It was fantastic to hear from everyone who called or wrote, and I’ve been enjoying myself. I still have several birthday celebrations to look forward to (albeit joint with the other late January and early February birthdays in my family), so it’s not over yet.

Everyone laughs at me when I talk about my birthday taking up a whole week, or even a whole month. But I don’t mean it in an egotistical “celebrate-me-for-many-days-and-many-nights” kind of way. It just takes a long time to fit in time with everyone that I care about. So let the festivities continue!

Life? Uneventful?

This is a new hat I crafted over a period of many months during free moments. It is modeled by a vase and bowl combination, as Alicia is at work.

It doesn’t seem like too much has gone on since I last posted. There have been all of the usual fun but relatively mundane life happenings. We dog sat for a week or so before the semester really got started (see below for the cutest dog pictures ever). We have seen some good movies, and some less good (ex. Persopolis was amazing, but 27 Dresses was a little disappointing). I’ve been experimenting with new small appliances I got for Christmas. (I have made a great deal of hummus in my food processor, which is my new love, with the rice cooker - in which I can also make applesauce unattended - at a close second.)

I’m taking the same number of classes this semester, but not teaching, and I think it’s making my life happier already. Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching. It was great to work with students, and I hope to make it a big part of my career. That said, it took up so much time! I didn’t realize how much of my own thesis-related thinking I wasn’t getting done until this semester started! I’m finally actively working to narrow down a dissertation topic and think about methods.

Things seem pretty uneventful, which is a bit of a change of pace, but good. I am still working a lot, and enjoying school, but it’s a little less frenetic… Hopefully I’ll have something more exciting to post next week…

Lucky

Isn't he cute!

Jock

Such a sweet face...

One semester down, three to go...

This is a tree outside our apartment. I forgot to take pictures when we had nearly a foot of snow, so you'll have to settle for the light dusting we're getting right now.

I've made it through my first semester of graduate school! There were times when I thought this day would never come, but now that it's here, it's easy to look back and see myself getting used to a different kind of work than I'd ever done before. I think (though you'll have to confirm this one with Alicia) there was a definite upturn after midterms, when I realized that I couldn't do all of my reading on time, but that I could do enough of it to learn what I needed to learn, and get as much as possible out of what I was reading. What's more encouraging is that it took me about a year and a half to figure out how to make medical school work for me. This makes me hope that I'm getting to a part of the learning curve that is a little steeper (read: for each small unit of time, I progress upward on the curve significantly, rather than creeping upward as lots of time passes).

In all fairness, my semester has been over for a good week and a half now. I finished last Tuesday with my last exam. That said, my break didn't really start because I had gifts to craft and purchase for my family (I like the Solstice, we celebrate Christmas; it works out well.) I turned our study into "Santa¿s Secret Workshop," which I later modified to "Santa¿s Secret Sweatshop" when I realized how much I had to do before I went home to see my family. Don't worry, no elves/children/animals/other people were harmed in the making of my gifts. I got everything done with about a day to spare, and then had a really hard time sitting still, relaxing, sleeping, etc because I was so hyped up.

Now that that's over, however, I've moved on to the rest and relaxation period of my break. I've had several rough days of reading in my pajamas at my parents¿ homes, and plan to continue this strenuous relaxing mixed with small amounts of work and other things I need to get done until I return to school. For the first night in quite some time, I didn't wake up around 3:00 am last night. This is definite progress, and I'm hoping to unwind to the point that I'm ready to face next semester!

Another year, another parade, another exciting life transition...

Nothing like the Thanksgiving Day Parade to bring out the glamor in all of us!

Those of you who read my blog somewhat regularly may have recognized that photo without looking at the caption. You may have noted the 2 hoods on top of the hat, and the similarly outrageous outerwear on my mom and sister, and concluded that the only logical option was the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade. That or my mom got a little crazy with the thermostat...

Spending my first Thanksgiving as a graduate student was interesting. It contrasted with my undergrad breaks where I secluded myself from my family and read an entire novel before I was ready to face the world; I missed everyone and felt like I wanted to talk all the time. It contrasted with my med school breaks where I felt like the only conversation points I had were about inappropriate bodily functions (a hit with my mom's husband, but not often with everyone else); I talked to my mom about her dissertation work, and my dissertation work (work I'm dreaming about, that is), and my sister's future dissertation work. I realized that someday we'll be a family of doctors, and if we play it right, we'll be able to fix just about everything! (Mom = organizational science, Claire = political science, Me = medicine and public health) It was great!

So here I am, only a few months in to my new program, and I'm finding that I fit in and I'm even happy. There are terrible moments (okay, they are longer them moments, but allow me this sweet delusion) when I am afraid that I will never be good enough, or never get enough done, or never sleep enough. There are awful times when I know that I can't do my best, or that I've forgotten something in the rush, or that I'm sure that I must be heading down the wrong path. In spite of what Alicia may tell you (thank goodness she doesn't keep a regular blog!), overall, I think things are going pretty well. I'm variably overwhelmed, but what world health issue worthy of any effort whatsoever isn't overwhelming? (I'd have to be awfully arrogant not to be overwhelmed by the AIDS pandemic... Of course it can't be fixed with a dissertation¿ even a good dissertation... But I'm trying to do my part!)

So what I'm trying to say is: I'm still alive! I'm still kicking! I'm still excited! And I might even graduate someday!

My office!

The view from my window... (Actually, the beautiful ocean in Puerto Rico...)

The view from my new office isn't actually quite that beautiful - though until they frost the inside windows of my advisor's office, I'll be able to see through her office to the bleak gray outside. The view aside, I'm really excited to have a place to call my own.

My desk at home is overflowing with binders, papers, and other random class materials. There is also a pile of last year's coursepack for the class I'm GSI-ing, and until this morning there were two stacks of exams (one graded, one waiting to be graded). I've also been using my advisor's office to hold office hours to meet with my students. All told, my academic career has been calling out for a dedicated space.

My "office" is really a corner desk, two locking file cabinets, and a coat closet shared with the other 3 corner desks in our large cubicle. I'm separated by about 3.5 feet of cube wall from the folks walking through the offices. It's about enough to keep people from being able to grab things off of my desk as they walk by, but not much else. That aside, I welcome the move. I'll post a real picture of my office once it's up and running.

Exam craziness...

Something to think about when choosing a school: How much does the administration coordinate your exam schedules?

As an undergrad, I experienced the joy that was midterms and exams. I relaxed for the first few weeks of school, and then freaked out as the middle of the semester approached. If I was lucky, one or two of my classes would have 3 exams instead of two, so the spacing would be better. If I was unlucky, I would have one horrifyingly miserable week in the middle of the term, and another at the end.

As a medical student, this never happened. Because the curriculum at UMMS is organized into sequences, we always had exams every 2-4 weeks, but never more than one at a time. In some ways, this made every week finals week, and caused a lot of stress. In retrospect, however, it was fantastic to have everything coordinated so that you only had to focus on one particular subject area at a time.

Enter the School of Public Health doctoral program. Much like undergrad, I'm taking classes in several different departments. Much like undergrad, I feel like I'm learning incredible amounts about all kinds of things. And, unfortunately, much like undergrad, I'm coming up on what may be one of the craziest three days of my life thus far: Oct 23-25. I have two large exams, a research presentation, and a presentation of a midterm paper all within those three days. "Now," you may be asking yourself, "if I knew ahead of time that this week was going to be so bad, wouldn't I have planned ahead so that I could neatly budget all of my time?" I too, had such thoughts at the beginning of the year. Tragically, all of these plans for preparation and level-headed thinking were brushed to the side as I struggled to keep up with the day to day work for all of my classes. So now, here I am, with one 10-page reflection nearly complete, a professional portfolio all but done, and several more large assignments staring me in the face.

The bottom line, dear prospective students in any discipline, is to ask yourself how you function best. Do you prefer to have someone structure your life for you? Do you prefer to (attempt) to structure things yourself? Do you like having little bursts of stress throughout the year? Or do you prefer to have two periods of absolute insanity each semester? There are no right answers here, only important things to think about. Once you¿ve considered how you want things to go, talk to other students, and gather coping strategies like your life depends on it, because it will...

A first year student... again...

Becca and I after a long day of weeding and shoveling.

On the eve of the eve of the start of classes (I start Tuesday), I'm amazed that this is actually the last time I'll be a first year student. Sure, as we go through life we are first-timers at lots of things, but there are unique trials and tribulations of being a first year student. For example, I will never again have to find a new section of the university bookstores. (I had never found the School of Public Health books before - they are alphabetized separately, which is sneaky. All of the other sections - except medicine, which I have already found - are alphabetized by subject.) Additionally, I will never again be this in the dark about what my class schedule should look like. (The only confusing classes after this will be the 3^rd and 4^th years of medical school, and those are pretty structured and planned out. After that I won't have a "class schedule," even if I do attend classes periodically.) While some of the stresses of being the new kid don't change with the transition from student to not-student, I'm pleased to have checked off another milestone in my program.

In addition to the usual pre-class jitters, I'm excited to get started. I'm frantically hoping that I did well enough on my biostats exemption exam to be in the biostats course I want. (I did fantastically well on my practice exam, and am hoping I didn't freak out and blow it on the actual thing.) Apart from that I¿m looking forward to next week. I am taking the following classes: Social Demography, Biostats, Intro to Complex Systems, the required doctoral professional socialization seminar, and a brief MSTP-required ethics course. It should be a uniquely math-filled semester and although I'm a little anxious about that, I think I'll get through it and come out uniquely math-filled...

Jumping back a bit though, Thursday and Friday were orientation, and I learned a lot more about the specific requirements of the doctoral program (overwhelming and scary, but exciting), and got to meet the rest of my PhD cohort. There are 10 of us, which is a huge number! Also, we are all girls! I guess that shouldn't be shocking as public health is very female-dominated, but coming from the 50/50 medical school, and the unspeakably low fraction MSTP it was a bit of a shock. (As an aside, the MSTP works really hard to recruit women as fellows, but it's hard to get folks to come to the midwest...) Anyway, Friday was the "Practice Plunge" - the stated goal of which was to introduce new students to the practice of public health. We visited the Detroit Department of Health Promotion and Wellness in the morning, and learned about all of their programs. It was great to hear about the field from folks in it, and think about how research fits into all of those things. In the afternoon, we went to "Hope Takes Root," a community garden in Detroit. They provide resources to individuals in the community to help them grow their own produce. Some of it is sold at the various farmers' markets in the area, and some is consumed by the gardeners themselves. We weeded for a while, spread woodchips, and also shoveled dirt to level out an area that had previously held their fruit trees. It was intense work, and after a few hours, I was completely ready to get on the air-conditioned bus and take a nap.

On a happy note, it's cooling down in Michigan, signaling the start of my favorite season - fall (or autumn, if you prefer that). Still enjoying the last day or so of the summer, however, I'm off to relax and read a book.