Fear of a Female Planet

This past weekend was a busy one. The CHE Graduate Student Symposium that I co-coordinated was all day Saturday.



We had a great turnout (over 40 people over the course of the day). This photo was of the brave souls that made it all the way to the end of the day.



I was very pleased with the variety we had (there was even a poster session) and quite a few History of Science faculty attended in the morning.

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In other news I have decided to run the Monona 20K this year. It's just a hair under a half-marathon, so I'm going to try the intermediate half-marathon training schedule that Hal Higdon offers. Basically, instead of optional run Wednesdays, they are pace days (try to run that distance at the pace you want to run the race). I ran the Madison Half-Marathon at the 11:30/mile pace, so I want to at least up that to an 11:00/mile pace, but if that starts to go well in training I will shoot for 10:30 or 10:00/mile.

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I am also doing a challenge at my climbing gym this month: Climb a Mile. It's a lot harder challenge than it sounds. It equals out to doing 220 routes in 28 days. My partner and I have increased how many days a week we go to 3 times and increased the amount of routes we do each time from 7 to over 20. On the one hand it has really increased our stamina and technique, but disincentivizes trying new routes because you have to finish a route for it to count. In order to get a lot of routes done in one trip we usually do a warm up route 4 times, level up a route 3 times, level up to our peak route and do two of those 2 times each, then level back down the way we came up and add on at the end if we still have energy. Since we are doing routes more than once we try to change our technique each time, which has been interesting.

And, best of all, we are on pace to actually accomplish it! There is a party and raffle at the end, but really, it's about changing up our routine and trying something new for us.

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And finally! I finally broke down and got a tablet. Every time I thought about getting it I said, "oh, my netbook isn't that bad," and then last week it didn't even have enough available memory to run java. Since I waited this long I was able to get the Google Nexus 7 with 4G, so I can use it even when there isn't WiFi. So far I really, really like it. The difference in memory and power is exponential. I held off getting a blue tooth keyboard until I used it a little, but I do need to get that for taking notes with it. If I had the Nexus 10, the larger screen would make the on-screen keyboard workable, but I would prefer smaller size for most of it's uses and have an optional keyboard for the times I need that.

My abstract submission to the American Association for the History of Medicine conference in Atlanta in May 2013 was accepted! It will be based off of my first chapter:

“Young Children Here March Happily Back to School”: Germ Theory, Scarlet Fever, and Domestic Medicine in Depression-Era America

By the first half of the twentieth century in America scarlet fever was a common, but rarely deadly disease. Mothers still routinely dealt with it and epidemics could disrupt households and communities. Despite the fact that germ theory offered an explanation for how the disease spread and the expansion of hospitals suggested a growth in professional medicine, little had changed for mothers of children with the disease. What had changed was the growing power of public health departments to enact quarantines, close schools, and send public health nurses into homes, placing a greater burden on mothers to carry out quarantines, deal with well children forced to stay at home for weeks, and put into practice stringent hygienic measures to prevent the spread of the disease to other households. Despite new disease theories and new hygienic technologies, the responsibility of putting these ideas into practice still fell to mothers, who sought out, understood, and wove together workable solutions to the immediate problem of a sick child. If anything, new ideas about disease transmission put more of a burden on mothers, not less.

Hey LJ, I've been reading, just busy trying to get over writer's block - think things have turned a corner though.

In the meantime, I'll be in San Diego Thursday-Saturday for the History of Science Society annual conference. I don't think I know anyone there (and I've been to LA enough to limit that area significantly - yah traffic!), but weather/clothing wise any suggestions? I'll be inside the hotel most days, but want to go to the beach for a run and go to the zoo with a friend.