Holycrap squee! I have just had my first paper accepted for publication in a scientific journal pending a few final small revisions. This is very exciting for me. ^^

The journal is Physical Geography. The paper is about studying the spatial patterns of error in a climate model when used in mountainous terrain, and trying to link the errors to what climate effects may be causing them.

Same-sex marriage is now legal in Iowa.

The arc of the universe is long but it bends toward justice.
--Martin Luther King Jr.

...where by 'mad' I mean 'angry.'

I'm in Las Vegas currently at the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. It's going well so far, if a bit awkward and lonely but I think that's true of me and professional/academic conference settings regardless of anything else. And what I'm being scientifically angry about is global change.

( Wherein Doran provides what he hopes is an objective and scientific but rather irritated rant on global change and the people who don't get it )

Just a lil update to pass the time. I'm in the middle of my first semester with no actual coursework at all because I'm writing my area paper and intending to take comprehensive exams sometime this spring once I finish it. After that it's all dissertation work, no more classes. Said paper is coming along pretty well, I finished the first full draft of it at the end of January and now I'm working my way through edits and suggestions and 'write more about this's from my adviser. I spent February in the UK with my special people which was wonderful and heavenly as always. The filk convention was very very squeeful as such things tend to be.

The bad side to each visit to the UK to be with my special people is that it always has to end with that 'leaving' thing, which I find as life goes on I'm having less and less patience for. I'm looking more and more forward to when it doesn't have to be that way anymore and I can stay there for good, as immigrating to the UK is the plan once I graduate. Having to come back to schoolwork and loneliness is getting on my nerves more and more. and it's gonna get worse before it gets better. But it goes on and I just keep working away and trying not to whine too much, because these days nobody really seems to be happy with where they are in life. But clear skies will come again soon enough.

Also I have an Eee PC 901 now, one of those cute little netbook computers that's the size of a paperback book basically. Making the portable computer portable again. It's made of Linux so it doesn't fall over dead, and solid state memory so it doesn't set itself on fire and has like 7 hours of battery life. It's great for traveling and having internets without throwing my back out trying to carry a larger computer around, and is just plain cute.

So continues my mad dash to finish this round of edits on my area paper before I leave again in a week and a half to spend spring break in Florida with my parents, yay. And then I'll fly straight from there to the annual meeting of the Assoc. of American Geographers in Las Vegas, though I'm not presenting anything this time around. Still good professional experience or something. And hey, Vegas. SHINY LIGHTS YAY!

Reposted from http://www.furaffinity.net/user/min/ Min's journal on FurAffinity.

Because I feel strongly enough about this issue and I liked this addressing of it enough that I felt like reposting it here as well as my FA journal. Watch out world, I'm starting to actually post my OPINIONS on LJ more and more.

( Here there be dragons (who are feeling a bit indignant and rarry) )

I liked his inaugural address. A lot. I think this paragraph was my favorite part:

"As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more."

I choked up at that last bit almost instantly. Seeing it expressed that my country's administration even just had the DESIRE to be on friendly and respectful terms with the rest of the world feels like a polar shift from the last eight years, and has been one of the hardest issues for me as someone who loves this place and wants to have pride in it.

^..^

Hey all! Just figured I'd chirp up about some general State of the Dorey issues for anyone who's interested but doesn't talk to me on a nearly daily basis.

I've been stressing out quite a bit over grad school, working away on a really big 'area paper' that's basically meant to be a literature review of my entire area of study, in preparation for taking comprehensive exams sometime in spring '09. The stressy bit about it has mostly involved the influence of one professor on my committee, though not my actual adviser, who's a rather intensely driven fellow and seems to think everybody else should be to. The sort of person who tends to make you feel inadequate and guilty if you aren't giving 130% on every single thing you do and skipping Christmas with your family in order to get more work done on your research. In some ways it's good to have this influence on me to push me a bit, but by and large all it's been doing is stressing me out to the point where it's ironically been making it a lot -harder- to get any actual work done. Be that as it may, I finished the first draft of the section of my paper that concerns this professor the other day, emailed it to him, and them promptly skipped town for Christmas.

I'm sure once he's had a chance to read over it he'll have plenty of comments and criticisms, but provided they're more constructive than 'omg this is awful, GTFO of this university right now and never speak to me again' it'll at least give me some solid direction for knowing what I need to do next. Also it's a milestone, and having that section finished has been some solid progress that's given me a sense of accomplishment for the first time in a while where my studies are concerned. The stress of that suddenly being off my shoulders has felt a bit like the weight of the glaciers suddenly being off the Great Lakes crust and allowing my sense of enjoyment and self worth to rebound accordingly. Yes I know I'm a geomorphology geek, that's honestly the first metaphor that came to mind.

So now suddenly I'm feeling a lot more capable of realizing 'hey! It's almost Christmas!!!' and being excited about that, as well as a New Years vacation with my parents, and then a visit to the UK in February to see my loved ones and make an appearance at the Filk convention. Yeah, I'm gonna be there. ^..^

Remember me? yeah, that blue dragon who doesn't post too often. Just a general update on fun and less fun recent events.

( Social life++, doorways to CERTAIN DOOM, and a dash of righteous indignation )

To anybody living in an apartment or otherwise using shared laundry facilities:

Please do not leave pens in the dryer. It makes baby seals, small children, and Dorans cry.

Thank you.

Just got done watching the Olympics opening ceremony. It was pretty darn phenomenal, and the artistic portion at the beginning was beautifully done. A lot of really neat stuff.

I grumble along with everybody else how the Olympics so often anymore feel like they're so deeply mired in politics and corruption and commercialism that the whole point of them has been largely lost. But at the same time I really hold on to the ideals of the games firmly, and the kind of energy I feel from events especially like the opening ceremony still makes me see it as a neat chance for the world the come together and share something great as a single community. For all our nations and peoples to set aside all the childish and selfish conflicts we spend most of our time involved in and join together in friendly competition and share some of the good things humanity has to offer.

I'll freely admit I got a bit misty-eyed during a few parts. Because I still believe there's some honest work for idealistic saps like myself somewhere in this world.

We're gonna see nothing... only in Wyoming... come to Wyoming we've got NOTHING... o/~

Today made the drive from Cody WY down to Evanston WY. Wyoming has plenty of neat stuff in various corners, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons and Devil's Tower and all... but the west central part, where we drove through today, just has vast quantities and new frontiers in the concept of 'absolutely nothing.' Rolling hills of dry scrub and.... well that's about it. Occasionally a cow if you're lucky. But there were a couple stretches of around 60 or 80 miles of the road just going through this barren country with no settlement or habitation or services or crossroads or anything. It's rather intimidating to drive through, knowing that if something went wrong the only thing you could do would be waiting and hoping to flag down a passing car for help, of which there were not many. At the same time it's kind of neat that even in a country as obsessively developed as the US there are still large areas of effectively no human settlement. (This is not to say it's totally pristine and untouched, it's pretty much all rangeland for cattle. But cows don't tend to be handy with a jack or have spare engine coolant or phones you can borrow.)

However the trip only ended up being about 7 hours or so as opposed to the 9 and a half that google was telling us, which was a nice surprise. My lil car is still doing great, although some of the long rolling hills are really making me wish I'd bought a car with a V6 engine or something. Loaded down with our luggage, the car tends to complain rather loudly about trying to maintain freeway speeds up some of the longer and steeper slopes on the landscape. It'll get there but it keeps having to downshift and pump up the revs, and the cruise control tends to flat out give up on many of them. Poor thing.

Perhaps to compensate for all our jokes about the vast expanses of nothingness that seems to make up this state, wacky fun ensued when we went out to Pizza Hut. After a large order of cheesy garlic bread we figured a single large would be plenty for us, and we could deal with a few leftovers for lunch tomorrow because we're staying here two nights and have a mini fridge. When the order came we just got a medium, with the explanation that there'd been a goof in the kitchen and we were going to get two mediums instead of the single large. Okaaay... free food isn't bad but as soon as the medium came we realized that even just one of those was going to be more than enough for us. And then when they brought out the second pizza it turned out it was actually a large, because the pizza they gave us the first time was the wrong one.. so we ended up with a whole extra free pizza and walked out with three boxes of leftovers! So we're wondering how to deal with all of it since it's going to be more than we need even for an entire next meal tomorrow. Hee. It was kind of daunting but hilarious at the same time, our incredible multiplying pizza. WTS stack of pizza. One more reason I miss people, I know several of you reading this who I'm sure would be happy to help alleviate our pizza burden!

I am Doran Eirok and I approve this message.

https://pol.moveon.org/donate/gorechallenge.html

In the spirit of John F. Kennedy once challenging America to put a man on the moon within ten years, Al Gore has made a speech challenging America to commit to producing %100 of its electricity from cheap, clean renewable sources within ten years. He goes on to explain how dependence on fossil fuels involves more than just environmental concerns but also ties in with the economy and war.

It sounds totally off the wall in its ambition, but I think he makes some pretty convincing points about why it's more possible (and urgent) than most people think. I doubt it'll have the same kind of impact and success Kennedy's challenge did; for one, Gore isn't the president and the feeling I get is that however accurate and true his science is, all the people in this country who don't want to agree with him have already written him off as a wacky liberal alarmist, along with pretty much everybody in the scientific establishment who's actually noticing we've got problems we need to fix. For another thing, our whole society is neck-deep in the reliance on fossil fuels that Gore's urging us to break away from with this. So I'm hesitant with regard to how likely this will all come to pass, but it strikes me as one of those things really worth trying for and throwing some support behind. Because if we go 'nah, it won't happen' and go back to business as usual, nothing ever gets better. In fact with climate change they'll do the opposite of that.

I hope using my LJ to actually have an opinion about something rather than just delivering a dry account of what I'm doing doesn't shock anyone too badly. ;)

Well, back in Iowa again now. The city isn't looking too bad, I seem to have missed all the excitement really. There's still some roadwork, and part of the Coralville strip (sadly including Old Chicago, wah) is kind of creepily ghost-town-like. Most things seem to be recovering okay though.

Video Games Live was pretty amazing and a really fun time.

Being back in Iowa now is, as usual, both good and bad, nice and hard. Nice getting back into a normalish routine of life I'm used to, nice seeing people I've been missing. But now I miss the other people, rer. Geography is a pain sometimes.

So, new (used) car shopping took place last Saturday with my parents.

( Here's the story and the result )

My car is awesome and I love it. But no matter how good care I've tried to take of it, you can't stop time. While the engine and all still is working great, the rust along the rocker panels has been diagnosed as malignant and terminal.

It's still drivable as long as the driving isn't too rough, but totally fixing the problem would cost over 2000 dollars I determined this morning which just doesn't make sense anymore on a car that old. And given how much I drive between Iowa and Michigan, and that this summer I'm driving halfway across the country and over multiple mountain ranges in the name of research, I need a new car.

Once the semester's over I'm gonna head back to Michigan for a week or so to go car shopping with my dad. The Dragon Wagon will most likely pass to a cousin of mine who has need of it but doesn't do the kind of endurance driving I do, so it's nice having a good home lined up for it rather than the scrap heap.

Given the car's state this is all sad for me but not really unexpected, I've been bracing for the possibility. Just the way things go.

*hugs his car*

The conference went well! My presentation went pretty well, I don't think I was *too* awkward or anything, and I got several questions that were all ones I could answer okay and weren't like 'who let you in here?' So that was good. Also it was neat being all geographical for a week and just going to all sorts of random sessions, some of which were relevant to my own research and many of which just sounded interesting. It was a good time. Would've been nice to get a bit more chance to sightsee around the city, but time and desire were both limited given that for the most part I would have been doing it on my own anyway. Stuff like that is more fun with somebody.

So yeah, that was good. Glad to be back now though too. I've still got some end of semester stuff to take care of coming up, and some more revisions to the paper my presentation came off of and the next paper to start working on after that, but... I feel all free and stuff right now without that hanging over me anymore.

The big development... yes, yes I am still alive... in my life right now is that next week I'm going to Boston for the annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers. And giving a presentation on some of the stuff I've been working on as part of my doctoral program.

It's kinda scary! But I gave a practice presentation of it to the department last friday and it went surprisingly well, I managed to not stutter my way through it or trip all over my words or anything. So... at this point I'm feeling like it might actually go okay and I may even survive it with my self-esteem intact. Will have to see.

So.. scary and exciting and professional. tarkara_kamaris helped me go shopping for new spiffy dressy clothes since this will be the first time I've been dressy looking in a few years, that's kinda fun. Traveling to a big unfamiliar city all on my own is also going to be a bit interesting.

Will report back on how things went in a week... wish me luck!

Quick update! I'm in Scotland, blame any typos on the weird UK keyboard, having a great time being with close dragon types while missing all of you I'm not seeing right now, but for those I'll be back in Iowa and online in a lil over a week so I'll see you then. Love all of you and happy 2008. ^^

This was posted on the journal of my friend bladespark and I thought it was great enough that I'd repost it here to pass it on. Go have a look, it won't take you long.

http://www.sarahmensinga.com/dragongirl.htm