begin rant

Well then.

This morning at around nine AM, my old company elected to fire off eighteen percent of the workforce as part of a massive reorganization strategy. It claimed large portions of my old department, and a few of my friends are out of a job. My heart goes out to them, and I wish them only the best - many of them were good and capable people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

There but for the grace of graduate school go I.

God bless - and good luck, guys.

Posted by Derksen at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As part of my duties as a graduate student, I am required to give the occasional tour of the facility to interested folks from the general public. These range in age and experience from elementary school children to concerned growers from agricultural communities, and it is my responsibility to shed a little more light into the science of entomology - as well as to underline the research that the department here at the University of Florida is responsible for. I personally enjoy these tours, and get an extra-special kick out of the kids because I get to stand up on a podium and have fun talking about the weird diversity of everyone's favorite creepie-crawlies for an hour. It gets even better when the kids know how to ask good and pertinent questions, like "how did you arrive at [that impressively large number] describing the number of different species of insects there are?" - or "how did you figure out approximately how many insects might live in a common acre of farmland without actually counting them all?" I love the little skeptics among them best, and I suspect that they are going to have a very bright future. Anyone who refuses to simply accept facts as they are spoon-fed to them is an awesome and attentive human being - and seeing a fourth grader question methodologies, results, and conclusions is even better. An informed mind can follow a pattern and find their way out of a particular situation - but a critical mind can eventually work its way around overcome any obstacle in the path to truth.

Of course, working and touring around the entomology department has its own unique risks. Little things, like stopping off to let the kids (and their chaperones!) take a bathroom break next to a classroom with a lecture in medical entomology. At which point the professor might stick his head out, and wave you over for a little discussion...

"Oh - sorry, Dr. Kaufman - are they being too loud? I'll move 'em out of here real fast, and get their parents to shush them a bit if they are distracting..."
"No, no - not that at all. I'm just about to show a few slides of sarcophagids."
"Flesh flies?"
"Yes. On hosts. From a... (whispered) crime scene."
"Oh."
"Right."

Disaster averted, we take them into the other room, and instead introduce them to "Sally" and a box full of her friends, giant cave roaches from central america.

For some reason, this always seems to go over well.

Posted by Derksen at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Derksen at 8:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people, too."
- Cheris Kramarae and Paula Treichler

Reproductive rights are women's rights, and you'd better believe that they are just as ready to defend them today as they were thirty-four years ago. Gunpowder and grace, ladies - I'm proud to stand at your side.

Posted by Derksen at 6:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Hoy la tierra y los cielos me sonríen,
hoy llego al fondo de mi alma el sol,
hoy la he visto... la he visto y me ha mirado...
¡Hoy creo en dios!

- Gustavo Adolfo Béquer, "Rima XVII"

Posted by Derksen at 11:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will answer you: I am here to live out loud."
- Émile Zola

Posted by Derksen at 10:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone asked me if I had a recent headshot. Turns out the MacBook has a pretty decent video camera as part of the frame.

Posted by Derksen at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cooking for large numbers of people is a challenge that I have recently enjoyed again. It is at once easier - and yet more difficult than cooking for the self alone. You no longer concern yourself with producing too many leftovers or leaving ingredients out to spoil, but instead begin to worry that you have insufficient kitchen space to maintain and process several dishes. An interesting complication has been the necessity of simultaneously providing for the vegetarian members of my association with the same ingredients available for my normal meal-plan. Do you simply substitute and shift the relative quantities of components, or do you make a unique and separate dish that acknowledges the 'special' dietary requirements of some of your guests which can also be appreciated by 'normal' appetites? Execution requires far more planning, and far more attention to diverse burners and the suddenly smoking oven... but a good time will be had by all.

Posted by Derksen at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the last two days I have been laid up in bed by an old friend long thought forgotten. It appears that Gainesville does experience barometric shifts strong enough to adversely impact my sinuses... and once again, I find myself dizzily wandering into unconsciousness, hiding in oblivion until the pain stops. None of these bouts have been as bad as those from before the surgery. I haven't found myself incapable of standing or functioning as a rational human being, or choking down mysterious waves of nausea as the world swims before me... but it is a hell of a way to spend an otherwise sunny afternoon. It seems I have no choice: with the thunderheads on the horizon, I either wait until it rains and the waves of pressure pressure in my head are mercifully released - or I drink an inordinate amount of caffeine and stagger off the walls, full of a kinetic energy I can't quite seem to expend.

Posted by Derksen at 6:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

And like that, on the first day of the semester, I am magically made unto a Teaching Assistant (aide-in-training) for the undergraduate survey course, Principles of Entomology. This feels kind of strange, as I have neither taken the course, nor extensive prior experience in entomology - but nonetheless, here I am. On the bright side, while I do not know my entomology backwards and forth, I do know biology - and I actually may even have a little more teaching experience than some of my peers. I guess all that time substitute teaching or working with the "gifted and talented" kids paid off.

It should be noted that I will receive neither pay nor credit for my efforts - but I will gain more invaluable familiarity within the science of entomology as a whole... and maybe a nice letter of reference for my good behavior.

Time will tell.

Posted by Derksen at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)