April
Entry#389. 4/03/2025.
Sometimes my friends ask me “So how are you doing in these days? What do you do?”
Sometimes friends of my husband ask me “Do you work?” “Did you go back to school work?”
My answer would be “I still follow my husband.” “I do cycling often nowadays.” “Cycling is fun. But it’s challenging.”
Are you smiling?
“Following him” means, I go to conferences, to his invited-talks, to his races, to his hahdcycle-shoppings and so on. It is my privilege to witness his work/talk plus to have adventures around the new places/cities. It is, really.
I should make a list of visiting places with him after SCI. I was not be with him all the time before his injury. (Especially for invited-talks at college biology departments. He traveled alone, of course. I’ve never watched his seminar-talks.)
Last week during the spring break, he was invited to talk about his research at Earlham College in Richmond, IN. It was only 40 minutes driving there. I was feeling pretty much comfortable about the trip. It was our first visit to this college even though we visit Richmond often. (to the coffee shop. There is only one in this city.)
After his talk, I was able to wander around by myself. Stopped by Joseph Moore museum (JMM) and Richmond Art Museum (RAM).
https://jmm.earlham.edu/
https://richmondartmuseum.org/
I liked both. I found my favorite painting there. Fun. I discovered that there were several interesting research projects happening there. One professor takes students to Iceland. One professor takes students to Namibia. Very nice discovery to me.
I can tell that my husband had a good enjoyable time with new people and he was satisfied with his speech.
As you can see, my life in these days is just like that. And as you can imagine, I’d love to keep following him until he says “no more”. Are you chuckling?
Entry#388. 4/02/2025.
I have many friends who give me new ideas and teach me something new + exciting. Every time that happens to me, I feel lucky.
For example: my new phrase “Match Day”.
I have a veterinarian friend who has a veterinarian husband, 1 daughter and 1 son. Her daughter will graduate from a Medical school this May. We’ve been a long time friends (all of us) since our son did play ice hockey with her son when he was a tiny boy. Her kids and our son were in the high school cross country team, too. We built up our strong connection through running.
It’s been wonderful to witness her kids’ success journey. Especially her daughter. She invited us to her wedding. She and her mom have shared her several important events with us sending photos.
The latest event was “Match Day” “I Matched! moment”. Do you know about this?
I had to do google search for “Match Day”. I was so curious and I wanted to know what happened to her and her family.
See? This process is always fun and I’m thankful that they gave me this chance to learn.
According to internet, there is “National resident matching program = NRMP.”
“The NRMP uses a computerized mathematical algorithm, the “matching algorithm,” to place applicants into the most preferred residency”
You know? Japan has a different system for medical doctors. It is different.
So leaning about USA MD system is quite interesting to me.
And it looks “Match Day” is a really meaningful exciting event to all medical school students (I can see it).
Here are videos I enjoyed the most on social media. Now I imagine how much my friend and her daughter did happy dance together when they figured out her resident hospital.
Congratulations to my dear friends (both of you) on your new chapter as a real medical doctor. So exciting. I’m pretty sure that they continue to teach me something new more in future. And I look forward to it.
I want to add one photo here. It's one from a long ago. When I was still a new jogger and a curious cheerleader for cross country runners. My dear MD friend and her husband are in this photo. Sweet memory. All of them were CC runners.
Entry#387. 4/02/2025.
Tornado season has come again. Our town has tornado warning siren system. Every time the sirens go off in the middle of night, I get afraid and hope it doesn’t touch down here deeply.
I wrote about storm shelters for wheelchair users before. Here Entry#279 (7/09/2024).
This shelter is my kind of impossible-dream. but it’s an ideal idea for any wheelchair users.
Here are news about the wheelchair user activist, a 23-year-old travel blogger and disability/ mental health advocate.
Please watch videos. (I wasn’t able to link them here.)
Title: Strangers surprise OK woman with wheelchair accessible storm shelter
Title: Preparing for severe weather with disabilities
She received the storm shelter on a ground level (next to her shed) from a stranger(!)
Photo from a news site.
In our case, we don’t have a basement. Basically we don’t have a safe spot/ space in our house. We cannot ask neighbors to share their basement with us “casually”. You know, because it’s gonna be very challenging to carry my husband to go down to a basement with stairs. (However if it has to be done in a dangerous situation with real tornados, we have to do it! I know.)
So the tornado season makes me nervous anyway. Everyone out there, please stay safe. We try to do our best, too.
Entry#386. 4/01/2025.
Have you seen the prescribed burn (fire) with your eyes in front of you? I have not. In fact, we lived in Manhattan, KS for 7 years and we knew Konza prairie had been doing it every year. https://themercury.com/news/fire-as-a-tool-konza-prairie-researchers-maintain-ancient-grassland-with-modern-techniques/article_115f2105-35b6-599d-b59e-66956c1662a0.html
https://www.cjonline.com/picture-gallery/news/local/2023/04/26/photos-konza-prairie-prescribed-burns-fire-manhattan-kansas/11732997002/
So “prescribed fire” is a familiar phrase to me. Additionally our son informed us about his “prescribed fire” experience last August through October. However I didn’t think about prescribed fire in our area here before. I didn’t think about it somehow. Then all the sudden when my husband and I pedaled together in Miami White water park, we encountered the real prescribed burn!! How cool is that?
In a few moments, I was thinking “Can we go through? Is it really okay to go through?” Then we found the notice board there.
Here are photos of Konza from websites. I have to add this. One of great photographers at Konza is our friend!! Her photos are amazing!
The second photo (the right) above is, in fact, her photo! The caption here "Barb Van Slyke snaps a photo of the wall of smoke and fire burning through watershed 1D at the Konza Prairie last Monday. The avid photographer says she enjoys the opportunity to capture the fleeting moments of the burning prairie grasses." See? So great!
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