My favorite running machines. The treadmill on the right is my favorite. The left treadmill totally zaps my energy, even when I set it at a lower speed.

A view of the pool as I run.

Preston Trail: The church that I’m attending in TX.

McKinney Public Library: My source of audiobooks, DVDs, and graphic novels.

Frisco Resale: When I need to shop.

Downtown McKinney

More Downtown

McKinney Performing Arts Center

The wireless keyboard and wireless magic mouse are pretty cool too.

I am still using the MacBook Pro as my primary work computer, so the iMac is sort of just eye candy in my office. What a waste of great potential!

I definitely need to get back into video-editing again and learn the latest iMovie software.

I still have the Dell PC tucked away in my office. I need it for SPSS (statistics software). The mac version of this software is too expensive. I should also get a painting for the wall. It looks too bare and sad.

And when it snows in Texas, the snow and ice just stay put until the “warm” or above freezing weather melts it all away. Unlike PennDOT (Pennsylvania Dept of Transportation) that plows and salts the roads during and after a snowstorm, TxDOT (Texas Dept of Transportation) only spreads sand on top of the snow and ice.

Needless to say, the big ice and snowstorm (plus many days of freezing cold temperature) of February 2011 caused everything to come to a halt. Schools closed for many days. The news said it was a once-in-20-years event. And I was here to experience it. I actually did enjoy the “time off” from work

Looking through my Pennsylvanian eyes, the snow and ice weren’t really that bad at all. The bad thing is that the people here don’t have the right equipment to deal with the snow. Me including! I had to use my swiffer mop thing to get rid of some of the snow from my balcony.

Projects 90: Song Dong
Go to the link to read up on this masterpiece.

For this exhibit, instead of snapping photos of everything, I was careful to look for objects that I could relate to or something totally unique.

I had to smile when I saw the plastic bags folded into triangles. My mom does that too

The small stack of little red Mao books caught my eye.

The mineral pot! That was so crazy popular many years ago.

The plastic handle things at the bottom of the picture look familiar but I can’t figure out what they are for.

Styrofoam city.

Mosquito mat vaporizer. Once a fixture in my life.

A metal babychair. I’ve never seen one before.

And here are more photos of the exhibit.

But there was something that I thought I would find here but I didn’t….a brightly colored enamel potty!

1. Projects 90: Song Dong

I’ll dedicate my next post to this project.

2. Audio-guides

At MOMA, the audio guide gadget (a cell phone look-alike) came rent-free with the general admission ticket. You just key in the number and it will give you additional information regarding the piece. For example this piece: Three Musicians by Pablo Picasso.

And then you key in the number that’s on the plaque.

And that’s when I was clued in to the dog by the musicians’ feet. The narrator said something about the whimsical-ness of that piece.

Audio guides definitely help me look at the art pieces with slightly more enlightened eyes.

3. Sketch books

I like looking at incomplete pieces, especially the artists’ sketchbooks. My first experience was at the Met, several years ago, when I saw Van Gogh’s drawings, drafts, sketches, and incomplete paintings.

When I see all these big finished masterpieces it always seem so effortless for the artists. It looked like a lot of talent and not much hard work. It looked like the artists never made any mistakes.

The drafts and sketches somehow made drawing and painting feel more accessible to me. Maybe I should pull out my sketchbook and some pencils and start doodling again

At MOMA, there was a special exhibition of James Ensor‘s work. Very interesting stuff. His sketchbook was filled with many cartoonish figures. His work ranged from traditional painted portraits, really large pencil/charcoal drawings, and really modern looking pieces.

4. The “Hey! I also can do that” paintings

At the Met, there were so many old portraits that I know I’ll never be able to reproduce something remotely similar. At MOMA, I came across pieces that I felt wasn’t that difficult to reproduce.

Suprematist Composition: White on White by Kazimir Malevich (1918).
I can definitely do something like this.

Composition C by Piet Mondrian (1920)
I think I can do something like this too.

The Park by Gustav Klimt (1910)
Hmmm…definitely more difficult but still doable.

The Red Studio by Henri Matisse (1911)
This piece is inspirational. I once tried to paint a picture of my childhood room. But I was all caught up with the correct perspectives and details, I gave up after several ugly strokes. I guess I don’t have to cram every single detail or make my painting look like a real room. Looking at the “simplicity” of this painting, I realized that reproducing an exact replica of this piece may be doable but painting my room in this style will definitely take a lot more creativity and work.

Noticed the bright pink that Matisse used on the painting on the left? I once used the same shade of pink for a carpet in a painting of my room (again! I must be somewhat obsessed with painting pictures of my room). That piece of carpet was in the middle of the room on the floor. The perspectives of the room was correct (smaller stuff in the back compared to the front). I remembered I painted a pink carpet because I messed up the gray for the cement floor and it looked really bad. Well, my art teacher said I shouldn’t have used such bright pink for the carpet. I guess she never saw Matisse’s work!

5. The Beautiful

Opus 217. Against the Enamel of a Background Rhythmic with Beats and Angles, Tones, and Tints, Portrait of M. Felix Feneon in 1890 (such a long title!) by Paul Signac (1890)
This is beautiful. I love the dots and colors. I’ll never be able to reproduce something like this.

And then there are those phenomenal over the top famous paintings.

Close-ups of Starry Night by Van Gogh.

6. Modern art in real life

I’ll end with some photos of the special exhibition of Ron Arad’s work called No Discipline. The objects were located in this cage-like construction called Cage sans Frontieres.

7. Some sketches

When my camera ran out of battery power, I had to resort to some good old sketching.

I went for a 2 days 1 night trip to NYC. Visited two museums [i.e., Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET) and Museum of Modern Art (MOMA)], saw two music performances (i.e., free John Scoffield show at the Madison Square Park and a chinese pipa western fusion music performance at MOMA), had Malaysian food for dinner, and walked A LOT.

Knowing that I’ll possibly end up with a case of art overload and overdose at the MET, I tried to view the art pieces through my eyes and not my camera. Didn’t take a single photo there. But still I suffered from art overload…too much to see and there was only so much my brain could absorb before it all became a blur.

The next day, I went to MOMA. I’ve never been to MOMA before, so I was able to absorb more here and had quite an enjoyable time.

If they can do it, maybe I can do it too…

It’s only after I submitted my application that it sort of dawned on me that I’ve entered into a contract that if I am chosen, I’ll be paying $171 for the marathon fee. If I back out, I would have paid $171 for nothing.

Just before the lottery results were announced, I started to doubt this spur of the moment decision. A marathon…6 hours of pain on marathon day, not to mention the discomfort of over 16 weeks of training to run 26.2 miles. I think I was hoping that I would not be chosen.

But I was chosen, so it’s a bittersweet thing. Sort of like “Yayyy!!! Oh no….”

I’m kind of excited that I have the opportunity to participate in the NYC Marathon. If I can endure through 6 years of graduate school in the US (so far) and the chronic stress of dissertation research for the past year and probably another 8 more months to go, I can endure 6 hours of running/walking. It’ll be great that when I finally reach the finish line because then I would have completed something from start to finish this year.

Dissertation research can get very disappointing, especially when it drags on and on and each day only results in one data point. So many more uncertain days to go. It’s also sad when I see friends finishing their research and graduating and I’m still here, struggling through another day for another data point.

I guess I’m trying to run off the frustration!

Anyway, here is my brand new marathon training blog: Run Ailsa Run

Fortunately for me, both participants are located within walking distance of each other and around 25 minutes drive from my home. Unfortunately for me, the 2 sessions are 4 hours apart. I couldn’t imagine driving home and back again in that 4 hours. So thus far, I’ve window shopped and/or hung out at a coffee shop to pass the time. Sometimes I would try to get some work done at the coffee shop but those sessions normally didn’t last more that 1.5 hours. It’s hard to get settled down to some boring work at the coffee shop. I always ended up leaving earlier than planned and I would be off to more window and/or real shopping.

At one point I was even tempted to sign up for a summer only student pass at the gym that’s also within walking distance. It cost $99 but since I’ve already paid for the spinning classes that I’m taking at the university’s gym, I was not eager to spend more money. Then a friend recommended the Whitehall library which is only a very short drive away. That sounded like a good place to hang out.

Today, I made the very first trip to the library (after a short window shopping trip). It’s a small cosy library. I love the parking lot. There are many shady trees that I can park my car underneath to keep my car relatively cooler during the hot summer months. In the library, there are several study carrels and I’m currently typing this while seated at one of them. They also have a rather large DVD collection. I’m considering becoming a member so that I can borrow those. This hiding place is definitely the economical and more productive place to spend 4 hours.

Here are some interesting photos:

The bags I lugged around every day:

1. My handbag: purse, sunglasses, tissues, lip balm, keys, hand sanitizer, etc.

2. My pink research bag: portable DVD player, research DVDs, folder with all the data sheets, 2 clipboards for data collection, flip ultra videocam, digital camera, gorillapod, extra batteries, a copy of my dissertation proposal, dissertation log book, and items for the “practice the skill” instructional session with Daniel (i.e., an empty spray bottle, rags, rubberbands).

3. My messenger bag (with stuff for the 4 hr in between work): Neosmart keyboard, research articles (for the never ending meta-analysis work), and iPod.

4. My cooler lunch bag: 2 freeze paks, a bottle of cold water, breakfast (muesli with vanilla yogurt) and pre-lunch (peanut butter and jam sandwich).

Since I dropped by a grocery store on the way home after research work was done, I came home with 6 bags.

I have almost completed videotaping Daniel for the his second job task. This time around it was much easier. During the videotaping sessions for the first task, it was totally new to him so it was very difficult to get to him to do some things more than once and he got upset when we had him say some sentences more than once. Plus, I was rather tensed up about the whole videotaping business since it was also my first time doing the videotaping and trying to get everything to look as good as possible.

Videotaping the second task took a few more sessions because Daniel was dropped off late and we only had 30 minutes instead of an hour. So far, we have gone through three 30 minutes videotaping sessions and I think that should be enough. I just need one more clip of the store manger thanking Daniel for doing a good job and that has been scheduled for this Wednesday.

I’ve started my research work with my second participant, Rob. Work-wise, Rob is higher functioning so his 3 chosen job tasks are slightly more complex than Daniel’s. The first job task for Rob is cleaning the fitting room. Cleaning the fitting room as in removing all clothing and hangers from the fitting rooms, hanging them up again, matching the size of the item and the correct size hanger, and bring them out to the store and place them in their respective rack according to size.

Sounds simple enough until I tried videotaping him doing that task. Since I was trying to keep him slightly clueless regarding the correct sequence and steps to completing this task, I had to videotape the task out of sequence. We only had a short window of opportunity to do the videotaping, between 9:30 to 10am, and we had to stop the videotaping once the store opens. Those 2 mornings were definitely the craziest research days thus far. So many things to do, so little time, and so many things to keep track. I had to go back to the store another 3 days to do more videotaping of establishing shots that I needed which did not require Rob to be in them.

Because I didn’t foresee the craziness, I wasn’t well prepared and ended up with lots of continuity problems with the videos. Continuity problems? One videotaping session Rob was wearing white pants and the next session, he came in black pants. So in the final edited videos, he’s in white pants while walking out of the fitting room and in the next instant, he’s in black pants while looking for the correct rack. There’s a few more similar errors in the videos.

The cleaning the fitting room task is more dynamic and we had to move all over the store and the fitting room. Because of that, I had to do without the tripod and just held the flip video camera in my hand which resulted in some not so great clips. According to a friend, those shots looked like they were from a haunted movie! I have to agree with her and tried not to use the “haunted movie” clips.

After over 20 hours of video editing, I finally have the 2 videos ready for Rob. Unfortunately for me, Rob picked up on some of the steps during the videotaping session and he’s been demonstrating those steps during the second baseline. Since I’m evaluating the effectiveness of the videos to teach him the skill, if he picks up the skill during the videotaping session, without having the need to watch the videos, then my video intervention has just been proven useless/needless. Anyway, hopefully he does not pick up on all the steps and that he will only perform at 100% after watching the videos.

It has been a crazy applied research experience. With Daniel, apparently the task might be too difficult (or the videos were ineffective ) since he has not been able to independently complete the task after 2 months of watching the videos. But with Rob, he’s picked up some of parts of the skill even without needing to watch the videos. I guess I have just proven that the videos may not be worth all the trouble and it’s probably easier to just teach the tasks. On the bright side, both Daniel and Ron are excited to get a copy of their videos to show their family and friends. Unfortunately for them, they only get the DVDs at the end of the study.