What?????
Last week was a very bad week in my corner of the world. I'll try to update on all that soon, but suffice it to say that last week sucked. This post, however, is about random baffling trivia found on the internet.
Bostonians often talk about how ridiculously expensive it is to live here. We generally say that it is the third most expensive city to live in, followed by New York and San Fransisco. If I remember my grad school searching days correctly, the living stipend for students in our program is about the same as NYU and UCSF with all three being the highest in the country, although I could be wrong.
While doing some random internet browsing this morning, I noticed a story at abcnews.com which said that Moscow was now the world's most expensive city, replacing Tokyo which had previously held the title. 144 cities (some of which seem random to me) are ranked, and after some googling I found an
article that lists all of the cities so that I could see where Boston fell. I've got the list below. (Yes, I probably could have found a site other than a random Irish site, but whatever, it was the first one that popped up.)
What I found interesting is that a.) Boston was not where I thought it was and b.) I guess I would have naively thought that American cities would be higher. I was definitely surprised at some of the placements, particularly because they were places that I never would have expected to have a high cost of living. I feel kind of ignorant (and not at all well travelled, which I already knew) now. I feel particularly bad that most of the cities that surprised me are in Africa. I guess I will have to re-think Africa. I will look into the methodology more if I get a chance (unlikely), but from the articles that I read it sounded like "availability/cost of a large house" was a major criteria. I also can't figure out why these particular cities were chosen...they seem a little random to me, at least the US cities. I wonder how the rankings would be different if the list were based on tourism.
The list (bold=surprises, italics=US)
Rankings
1 MOSCOW Russia
2 SEOUL South Korea
3 TOKYO Japan
4 HONG KONG Hong Kong
5 LONDON United Kingdom
6 OSAKA Japan
7 GENEVA Switzerland
8 COPENHAGEN Denmark (did not seem unreasonable when I was there last year)
9 ZURICH Switzerland
10 OSLO Norway
NEW YORK CITY United States 12 ST.PETERSBURG Russia
13 MILAN Italy
14 BEIJING China
15 ISTANBUL Turkey PARIS France
17 SINGAPORE Singapore
18 DUBLIN Ireland (I understand the expensive because of being in Europe part, but I still wouldn't have expected it to be so high
19 SYDNEY Australia
20 SHANGHAI China
21 ROME Italy
KIEV Ukraine
VIENNA Austria
24 TEL AVIV Israel
25 HELSINKI Finland
DUBAI United Arab Emirates
27
DOUALA Cameroon28 TAIPEI Taiwan
29
LOS ANGELES United States30 ABU DHABI United Arab Emirates
31 LAGOS Nigeria 32 BEIRUT Lebanon HANOI Vietnam34 SAO PAULO Brazil
SAN FRANCISCO United States36 STOCKHOLM Sweden
37
HO CHI MINH CITY Vietnam38
CHICAGO United States39 MIAMI United States40 RIO DE JANEIRO Brazil
41 LUSAKA Zambia41 AMSTERDAM Netherlands
43 WHITE PLAINS United States (I'm not surprised it is expensive, but I am confused as to why it was selected for the list.)
Okay....must go to a meeting now. Will finish reformatting these later. :)
Many hours later....
44 SHENZHEN China
45 ABIDJAN Cote d’Ivoire
DAKAR Senegal
47 TORONTO Canada
48 JAKARTA Indonesia
BRATISLAVA Slovak Republic
50 PRAGUE Czech Republic
51 ALGIERS Algeria
52 ALMATY Kazakhstan
53 MADRID Spain
54 GUANGZHOU China
55 SAN JUAN Puerto Rico
56 VANCOUVER Canada
BARCELONA Spain
LUXEMBOURG Luxembourg
59 ATHENS Greece
60 GLASGOW United Kingdom
61 FRANKFURT Germany
62 AMMAN Jordan
DUSSELDORF Germany
WARSAW Poland
65 MUNICH Germany
BUDAPEST Hungary
67 HONOLULU United States
68 MUMBAI India
69 BIRMINGHAM United Kingdom
70 BRUSSELS Belgium
71 CALGARY Canada
72 BERLIN Germany
73 NEW DELHI India
74 MELBOURNE Australia
75 ACCRA Ghana
76 HOUSTON United States
77 HAMBURG Germany
78 KUWAIT CITY Kuwait
79 ZAGREB Croatia
80 MONTREAL Canada
81 RIGA Latvia
MEXICO CITY Mexico
83 WASHINGTON United States
84 MORRISTOWN United States
BOSTON United States
86 ATLANTA United States
87 MANAMA Bahrain
88 CASABLANCA Morocco
LISBON Portugal
90 OTTAWA Canada
91 SANTIAGO Chile
LYON France
93 GUATEMALA CITY Guatemala
CAIRO Egypt
PERTH Australia
96 TALLINN Estonia
97 DENVER United States
98 RIYADH Saudi Arabia
99 BRISBANE Australia
100 JEDDAH Saudi Arabia
AUCKLAND New Zealand
102 SEATTLE United States
103 MONTERREY Mexico
ST. LOUIS United States
105 WELLINGTON New Zealand
106 LJUBLJANA Slovenia
107 NAIROBI Kenya
108 ADELAIDE Australia
109 KINGSTON Jamaica
110 CLEVELAND United States
111 PORTLAND United States
SOFIA Bulgaria
113 PITTSBURGH
114 KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia
BUCHAREST
Romania
69.3
71.4
116
91
VILNIUS
Lithuania
69.2
73.6
117
116
JOHANNESBURG
South Africa
69.1
67.4
118
100
LIMASSOL
Cyprus
68.7
71.9
118
118
LIMA
Peru
68.7
66.9
118
113
BANDAR SERI
BEGAWAN
Brunei
68.7
68.5
121
114
PANAMA CITY
Panama
68.5
68.3
122
101
DETROIT
United States
68.3
71.8
123
85
LEIPZIG
Germany
68.1
74.8
124
119
WINSTON SALEM
United States
66.7
66.6
125
129
TEHRAN
Iran
66.4
64.4
126
99
SANTO DOMINGO
Dominican Republic
65.3
72.3
127
125
BANGKOK
Thailand
64.9
65.3
128
131
TIANJIN
China
63.6
62.5
129
130
BLANTYRE
Malawi
63.1
62.7
130
133
BOGOTA
Colombia
62.7
62.7
131
127
DACCA (DHAKA)
Bangladesh
62.5
62.5
132
132
COLOMBO
Sri Lanka
61.4
60
133
126
TUNIS
Tunisia
60.7
65.2
134
135
SAN JOSE
Costa Rica
58.1
58
135
137
QUITO
Ecuador
57.4
54.6
136
138
CARACAS
Venezuela
57.2
54.4
137
138
CHENNAI (MADRAS)
India
56.7
54.4
138
140
MONTEVIDEO
Uruguay
56.5
53.5
139
141
BANGALORE
India
56.4
51.7
140
136
KARACHI
Pakistan
56.1
56.1
141
143
MANILA
Philippines
56
49.8
142
142
BUENOS AIRES
Argentina
54.8
50.3
143
134
HARARE
Zimbabwe
50.9
58.4
144
144
ASUNCION
Paraguay
43.5
40.3
Alvan De Lecha
For those of you who were wondering, Alvan De Lecha is my relative. He was born in 1075 in Staunton Harold, Leicestershire, England.
Yesterday I heard about a website called www.ancestry.com. Right now they are having a 14 day free trial and I decided to play around with the site a little bit to see what I could do and whether I could find out anything interesting. The site gives you access to a huge amount of old public records and all US census records from the beginning-1930. As more people enter their own family trees, the trees link together thus allowing you to go back further than you could before. I didn't expect to find out much: my family has always been relatively good at keeping track of ancestors and I can (even before this adventure) name all of my great-grandparents, as can my parents. We have some idea of when people immigrated to the United States and from where. For two of the four "branches" of the family our knowledge goes quite far back. My great aunt has even put together a little book of geneology showing her ancestry going back to the late 1700s. To make a long story short, I assumed the site wouldn't tell me anything I didn't know.
In less than half an hour of casual browsing, I had mapped both of the branches on my dad's side to ~1820 in England and Ireland, one generation further than we knew in one case and three generations further than we knew in the other. I also showed that our relative who supposedly came over from Ireland was in fact born in the same small town that I was born in, while his father came from Ireland.
After all of that, I got really into searching. I've gone through and found a ton of information and annotated it as much as possible on my dad's side. I'm almost at a dead end now because I have run into some people with extremely common names or some people who seem not to appear in the census. (Note for the future: always fill out your census forms and don't name your Irish child Patrick or Mary.) Filling out most of the branches was pretty easy though, particularly since my family seemed quite diligent with census records post 1870 and since they have lived in the same county that I grew up in since that time. One surprising thing that I learned: the whole longevity thing (80-100 years old) goes back a looooong time, not just to the current generation. I guess I ought to think about putting away extra for retirement and think about what I want to do at 120.
I just entered in some info for my mom's side (while on the phone with her, actually) and quickly plugged our tree into someone else's tree that goes back to 1075. Some of the information looks a little questionable, but I'm sure that I can figure out a pretty good amount. I have decided that since I have records of people who lived in England from 1075-1640 and who were then among the orignial settlers of the Rhode Island colony, I will definitely be able to connect myself to someone famous or someone who did something extrordinarily important. ;)
My dad's mother's family has family reunions twice a year (the family reunion and the St. Patty's Day Party), so I am planning to put everything together in some large pretty wall hangable format in time for the family reunion in August. I also definitely know what my family members are getting for Christmas. I know that they will all (especially my grandparents and some extended family members) will really appreciate it. I think I might actually pay for a year membership to the damn website just so I can work all of this stuff out and make a nice record.
Yes, I know, I am a dork. But at least I am a well-documented ancestry having dork, right?
Vacation
I really want to go on vacation. I don't go on vacation very often-I don't really take much time off and most of the time go away I go to my parents' house, which doesn't really count. Sleeping on a lumpy bed, being bored in a small town, having my mom yell at me and wake me up way too early every morning definitely doesn't count. I think the last
actual vacation time I had was when I went to Denmark, and really...that was what? Three days after the work meetings?
Anyway, I really can't go anywhere this summer. Not only do I have an undergrad to babysit, but I also have my boss breathing down my neck about my progress (I want to scream at him that I really am working as hard as I can now, unlike a few months ago) and I NEED to finish this particular set of studies/paper. There is no way that I can afford any time off right now, although I must admit that I think motivation slow downs like what happened a few months ago are probably the result of a general lack of real vacation. I mean, I barely get a free weekend (this Saturday is beautiful, yet I will be in lab all day.) Even if I had the time, I DEFINITELY don't have the cash. *Sigh* I keep thinking of how much I would like to go to a beach and relax, or how much I would like to go to Charlotte to visit my best friend (or to have gone to Charlotte last weekend to visit many of my best friends) or how much I LOVED traveling in Copenhagen by myself last year just sightseeing and generally enjoying myself. I saw a girl with a terrible sunburn on the T yesterday (the exact kind of sunburn I get after a day in the sun) and I was SO jealous because it meant that she must have gone somewhere interesting and had probably not spent her last few days in the lab.
So....any suggestions? Since everyone seems to be having virtual parties in their blogs, I think I should have a virtual vacation. I think my first stop will be Tahiti. Anyone with me?
Minionses
(Yes, I stole that word from Landru. Oh well.)
My
undergrad minion started working fulltime for the summer yesterday. It should be an interesting week. Our boss is very adamant that any graduate student or postdoc who gets any sort of minion (tech or undergrad or whatever) needs to KEEP THEIR MINION BUSY AT ALL TIMES. This is in reaction to a recent incident where a he found a technician in the hallway on her cell phone all the time when she didn't have that much to do. Frankly it was somewhat understandable since a) we work in a lab which means that we have downtime interspersed with experiments, b) her experiments often involve her setting things up and then putting them in a machine for four hours and c) her direct supervisor was on maternity leave. Anyway, the result is that the rest of us get CONSTANT lectures (or perhaps discussions that are more severe than lectures) about keeping people who work for us BUSY.
This, of course, could quickly become a problem with my undergrad. I am spending the next couple of weeks teaching him how to do some experiments. I have pretty much stopped everything that I am doing to teach him these experiments (I was going to have to do them anyway, so it isn't a huge deal to stop things for them). These experiments (which he will eventually hopefully be able to do on his own) all have large blocks of free time (1-2 hours). I was really apprehensive about how we would spend the time yesterday, but he immediately walked over to my desk (on his own without being told), took a textbook and started reading and taking notes. He brought his laptop today since he has his own desk.
I gave him a paper to read this morning and am getting a little annoyed that he keeps stopping and playing on the internet, but really, how can I complain when he can look over and see my desk and what I'm doing? Anyway, it should be a long and busy few weeks as I try to get him up to speed and also try to get my work to happen. I feel like he's never going to be able to do these experiments independantly. Let's hope I'm wrong.
Old people
A lot of you have probably read about this already since it has gotten a lot of press coverage, but I think it is interesting, so bear with me. There is now a cell phone ringtone that is supposedly "kids only" in that it is a frequency that all kids can hear but that most adults are unable to hear due to gradual hearing loss as people get older.
Story and the ability to hear the ringtone
here.
I can hear it (the graph of hearing frequencies that accompanies the story leaves off 25-29 year olds; apparently we are deaf). It is quite possibly the most annoying noise I have ever heard. Frankly, I feel the need to apologize if you heard it after clicking on my link.
Would someone really want that as a ringtone? It is the world's most annoying noise! Also, if I were teaching a class and someone had that ringtone and it went off, I think I would have to resort to violence.
Speaking of old people...this weekend I noticed that both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam have become OLD. Since when did this happen? I do not approve.
Published!
I came in early today to do an experiment which I promptly realized was totally screwed up. I was quite upset that I was awake and in lab so early on a day when the boss wasn't here and I was thinking of how little I now had to do and how maybe I could leave early today. Then I went online to check out today's issue of
Science and now it is kind of worth it. It is nice to see your name in print. It would be even nicer if my name was higher up (especially since I only really get credit towards graduating with papers relating to my thesis, on which I would be the first author), but I’ll take a Science paper.
Since I have not so much to do today, I'll most certainly be writing more posts to update on the focus group and an article in Rolling Stone entitled "Sex at Duke". But for now I'm going to be very, very happy (and tired).
UPDATE:
1. Anyone who reads the abstract and or the paper and who can understand anything wins a prize.
2. Is it bad that the editorial summary of it kind of misses (and kind of states the opposite of) one of the main points?
Focus group
Earlier this week I was asked to be part of a Young Alumni Focus group for Duke. I mostly said yes because I figured it would be something new and different to do, because I figured it would be at a nice restaurant, and because I thought maybe I would meet fun people. I will definitely let you know how it goes.
There is one little problem, though....
I am supposed to think up answers for the discussion questions before I go, and I don't have any answers. I know these are all meant to be specific to my Duke experience, but does anyone have any suggestions or answers for THEIR college experience that might spur me into thinking of what my answers are?
The questions:
What did you expect from Duke after graduation? Did Duke meet these expectations?
As a young alumni, how do you want to connect with Duke? (volunteering, social events, giving, networking, sports, through classmates…or not at all)
They also want me to review an alumni website and give suggestions on how to better connect with young alums.
The only thing that I can think of to say is that it is annoying to get calls asking me to donate all the time when they really ought to know that I have student loans to pay off and that I am in graduate school and that I have stopped answering phone calls that my caller ID says are from the Duke campus numbers because I know they are about donations. I feel bad, but whether or not I wanted to give money to Duke, I don't have it sitting around now.
As for my expectations....did I have any expectations? I can't really think of any. Would it be really bad if I said that my expectations were "a diploma"?
The Dreaded Wedding Recap
So....the weekend went okay after all. Somehow I got all of my shopping, laundering, packing, working, hair cutting etc. finished in time to leave on Friday. I analyzed data on the train and realized that there is light at the end of the tunnel and some experiments are actually working. I got home late Friday night and found out that my presence was required at a funeral on Saturday morning. My great-aunt had passed away at 91 (I had seen her often as a small child but I would guess that I hadn't seen her in at least 5 years.) Post-funeral there was of course a large family reunion type get together which lasted most of the afternoon, which was also fine and rather uneventful.
Then I got home and got ready for the wedding. At that point I was dreading it so much that I couldn't remember why I was going in the first place. In the end I was dressed perfectly appropriately (there was so much variation in dress that it would have been hard not to be) and I had a fine time. I thought ahead enough to call a friend who I knew was going and who I guessed might be without a date as well to coordinate our arrivals at the church so that we could sit together. A group of us from high school sat together at the church and it ended up that we were all at the same table at the reception as well. Most of our discussion surrounded the fact that the matron of honor (another hs friend of the group) had not shown up because she had given birth the night before. Only one person asked about my date situation, and it was my ex-boyfriend so it wasn't really the awkward kind of situation I expected. The wedding itself was nice (although I couldn't hear anything; I had forgotten how bad the acoustics in that church are), the bride and her family all seemed very happy to see me. Oh...and the bride's brother (a HS senior when we were freshmen, the guy that everyone except me thought was soooo cute back then) is amazingly attractive. I almost melted into a little puddle when he gave me a hug and asked what I was up to in the receiving line.
After that, it was a good weekend with family (lots of homework help for my sister) before a long train ride back. This week has been okay so far, although it is HOT!!! and our old lab building does not seem to be doing very good job of controlling the temperature. Blech. I didn't know that I could get so sweaty from just pipetting.
