On Parenting

My friend's baby is put down to sleep between 7 and 8 pm every night.  And every night, around 9 pm, my friend goes back to her lab to do research.  I stay behind.  I catch up on dishes or drama watching, read my scriptures and then sit drowsily on the couch, waiting up for my friend to return safely.

And then, sometime around midnight, right when I'm about to succumb to sleep, the baby starts crying.  My friend has been following the self-soothe method and, after watching her get frustrated with her husband for not following the rules, I'm determined at least to follow her wishes.

So, there I sit, outside a seven month old's room, listening to his crying and counting down the minutes until I go into the room to pat him for a minute, hoping that the patting will pause the raucous noise before the patting time is over and I exit the room to listen to him cry it out again.  I sink to the ground again to listen, wondering, worrying that the crying is keeping up all the neighbors too and that my friend is accruing a large list of non-friends.  Usually, after about forty-five minutes of listening to that baby's frustration at the world, his mother comes home to feed him and I retreat, emotionally and physically exhausted, to my bed.

Last night was slightly different; my friend wasn't near her phone.  So my messages went unheeded.  I sat there, listening to the baby, wondering what to do.  He was absolutely miserable and hungry - but if I were to follow my friend's rules, I was supposed to just leave him.  And yet, I wasn't convinced "cry it out" was working.  I sat torn, guilty for leaving him, guilty for thinking I should not leave him.

I looked up information online and found, at least, that this is the sort of emotional struggle every parent feels.  So, after waiting a prescribed amount of time, and realizing that my friend might not reach her phone for a long time, I went into the room and picked that baby up.  He was happy in my arms and stopped crying, and within a few minutes, had settled his head into my shoulder.  Within ten minutes, he was asleep.  When I tried to put him back in his crib, he woke up and screamed again.  And then that happened again; this baby was not going down without being fed.  He would accept the alternative of being held though so we reached a sort of mutual understanding: I would hold him if he slept and I wouldn't put him down until his mom returned.

I almost wondered if he knew this was my weakness - to holding a sleeping baby.  All of my frustration and anger with him, and my friend, and the process dissipated.  When my friend returned to feed her very hungry baby, I stumbled to bed.

I know nothing about what it's like to be a parent.  I feel I know a little of what it's like to deal with a baby who wakes in the middle of the night.  I'm not convinced I'm ever going to be full of the same amount of love towards my babies as my friends express they have towards theirs.  But somehow, even then, I still want the opportunity to try.

Lab Notes

I was scanning parts of my lab book for a colleague today and found this tucked in the pages.

(emphasis added)

I know I wrote that down to send on a postcard over two years ago.  

But frankly, the timing couldn't be better.  

Quizzes

My facebook feed is covered with links to buzzfeed quizzes and I watch them all become popular among my friends.

One on Friday intrigued me: "What kind of Mormon are you, really?"  It was supposed to be a quiz that could predict where you lived (or should live).  Always up for a fun quiz, I decided to take it.  I enjoyed the family friendly questions and eagerly awaited my results.  Jack Mormon.  

Say WHAT?!

I was confused.  I stopped my friend from what she doing (not nearly as important as this quiz, of course).  She took the quiz, put in very different answers from me and got her answer.  Jack Mormon.  We stared at each other in shock.  

We've been friends for over seven years now, since a week after she became Mormon.  We were in the singles' ward together.  We watched the movies, sang the songs, we camped on church property near the Smith farm in Harmony, Pennsylvania.  And we're not real Mormons?  We were both stumped.  But you see, we're both scientists.   So we got to work.  "What are the most Mormon answers we can think of?"  We input our overly "Mormon" answers and got: Pacific Islander Mormon with some description about breaking rules but being loved anyway.  We laughed at our attempts to stump the quiz but decided to do a little investigating.  Do other people get ridiculous answers?  

"I'm from California and it says California Mormon."  

"I got Idaho Mormon and I'm not even Mormon but I am from Idaho."  

"I got Utah Mormon and I'm not even Mormon.  I'm baptist.  I'm not even sure why I took this quiz.  But I really liked the idea of quizzes."  

We laughed.  How did this non-Mormon get something more legitimate than us? 

The weekend went past.  I asked my roommate to take it and my friend asked her husband to take it and we all got Jack Mormon.  Which made us feel better, at least.  Phew!

Today, I couldn't resist when a friend put up a quiz entitled, "What's the Name of your Soulmate."  This should be fun, I thought.  I'm not married - I can't be disappointed by the results.  I carefully put in my answers.  Result: Drop everything and find an Erin.  

I feel like the quiz universe is just laughing at me.  Either that or all of facebook is conspiring against me with their fake real answers.  

Hi, My Name is...

Conversation today with my friend while driving home from the grocery store:

Me: ... so the moral of the story is: do look at wedding dresses while on public computers.
Friend:  When I was in France at a computer place checking email, my companion turned to me and said, "Soeur Taylor, the guy next to me is googling me."  And I looked over and sure enough, he was googling "Soeur Jensen.
Me: Hahaha, he's not going to find anything!
Friend: But honestly, googling the person you're sitting next to them at a computer place?
Me: You know, if I were that guy, and a beautiful woman with a nametag sat down next to me, I just might do the same thing.
Friend: Do you think sexy Ann would?
Me: Sexy Ann?
<Friend nods with her head and I look in front to see our car behind a car at a light with the license place that reads "sexy ann">
Me: Ohhhhh.

Margaret Hale

I finished reading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.  I tried to explain the premise to a friend.  It ended up sounding like Pride and Prejudice.  "Wait, so the girl and the boy meet and don't like each other?  And then the man falls in love with her in spite of himself and proposes and gets rejected?"

But it's not Pride and Prejudice.  It's something much more nuanced.  The woman, Margaret Hale, is someone from a culture where class and distinction are based on birth and education.  It doesn't matter that she is poor and her father a clergyman; she is a gentleman's daughter by right.  However, when her father has religious doubts that lead to a conscientious decision to leave his position in the Church, they move to northern Milton.  There, she meets a man, Mr. Thornton, who is self-made, working his way up from shopboy to mill owner.  His place in society was not determined by his birth but by his own hard-won efforts.  Margaret doesn't fit into the mill owner/mill worker class distinctions in Milton and Mr. Thornton's lack of knowledge of Greek literature and tradesman skills render him unworthy of the title 'gentleman'.  When they meet, it's a clash of cultures.  

Learning to respect/like each other, then, is not simply a situation where one person learns to get over hastily formed opinions; it's a paradigm shift.  Each person learns to see outside of their own deep-rooted upbringing and background to find common ground.  It's a fascinating social commentary on industry, social class, progress and gender roles.  But it's also a great observation about relationships and people.  

Definitely a good read.  Good job, Elizabeth Gaskell.  Good job.  

Injury

This is what happened on my way to the library today: I slipped on ice and slammed to the ground.

This was my thought process:
"Oh!"
"Ow"
"Wasai!"

After this thought process, a number of other questions flooded my mind:
"I wonder how Hasebe is handling physical therapy?"  "How did his slip cause knee damage while mine appears to be ankle damage?"
"Oh, wait, is my ankle going to be ok?  Wouldn't it be bad if I actually sprained it?"
"Looks like I can stand on it.  That's good."
"Oh, it hurts.  I hope that it's not serious."

Hours later, my ankle is not swollen or anything but it definitely hurts every time I move it.

On a different note, yesterday, I found this on my friend's car.  It's a happy snowman!

More Identity Crisis

On Friday, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Air and Space Museum with some of the people from the labs I worked with in Japan.  It was a dream come true.  I can't imagine the last time I was able to spend so much time at the museum, with people who taught me so much.  Asai Sensei not only knew every airplane and rocket and spacecraft, he knew the names of the designers and who built the engines.  He knew what technological advancements were made between the airplanes and when there were paradigm shifts in the industry.  It was fascinating and I followed him around, eagerly trying to remember and soak in as much as I could.

For the rockets, there are a few models of the crude rockets designed and used by Goddard, who essentially pioneered space travel by showing people the validity of using rockets to reach space.  Staring at the bottom of the crude rocket, Asai Sensei pointed out the design of the moveable "fins" that were used to control thrust.  "You see this?  Goddard was the first to come up with such a design.  He patented it too.  But of course the Americans didn't care.  They didn't even notice.  You know who did notice?  The Germans.  They snatched up those patents and learned the technology necessary for their own rockets."

<source>

Next, Asai Sensei directed me over to the V2.  When I had first glanced at it, I had shuddered - this rocket that was so powerful and built by people in concentration camps.  But my professor hardly noticed my trepidation and keenly pointed out the same "fin" design found on the Goddard rocket.  "You see, here?  The Germans learned that from Goddard."

<source>

I noted the similarity and Asai Sensei kept going.  "Now, you know Von Braun was in charge of designing the V2.  And when the war was over, he came over to the American side and helped with NASA and the success of the design of Saturn V."  I followed him over to the Saturn V rocket model display.  He smiled at me, "It's like one large historical circle."  I nodded, "Yes, it all came full circle."  

As I looked at the Saturn V model in its glass case, it was with new eyes.  This is the rocket that got us to the moon.  Although the Saturn V itself was used for a largely peaceful effort in getting to the moon, it held a bloody genealogy.  The phrase "swords beaten into plowshares" means something differently to me now.  Space exploration which is a peaceful venture to worlds beyond did not come without its costs.  It does not remain untouched from the defense technology that fuels most of aerospace advancement.  It is all intricately intertwined.  

On a similar note, it can be an interesting parallel to think about the hard things in our lives, even the destructive things in our lives.  We can turn them full circle.  Defining positive upward turns in our trajectories might very well come from our darkest and most discouraging lows.  I'm not sure that I have confidence that I could become what I am without the hard things.  I don't think life really gives us the luxury to know the "what ifs".  However, life does give me the chance to demand, "Pain is not the end. I refuse to let this be so.  I will make something of this experience.  I will turn this into something for my good, for others' good.  There will be joy in my life.  There must be joy in this life."  

Never, never give up.