First Day of Preschool

Happy New Year!

We rang in the new year by going on a family walk over to Broad Street to enjoy the Mummer's Parade.

Our 2009 felt like The Year of Advent with most of the year focused on the arrival of our little Alma. (She was definitely worth the wait!)

However, in glancing at the photos we snapped this year, our year was more than simply waiting. We had a great year with family, friends, trips, work, outdoor adventures, weddings, birthdays and so much else. This might have been my favorite year ever ... I really enjoyed 2009.

Here's to a joyful 2010 with time to wonder at all the blessings in our lives.

Master Chisholm

Another item checked off my life's to-do list!

Comps and Conferences

Another hurdle to graduation behind me: I passed my comprehensive exams. Hooray! Now I just need to put the finishing touches on my thesis, finish up my spatial statistics class and I'll be done.

I also found out that I was chosen to present my thesis at the National Institute of Justice's Crime Mapping Conference in New Orleans in August. Four days of my favorite subject, all expenses paid. Awesome!

90 to 1 odds

March is a great month for birthdays. This month, my grandmother turned 90, my little nephew turned 1 and my sister-in-law (who shares a birthday with said nephew) didn't have to age because she has forfeited her birthday. When she gave birth last year, she declared, "Now, I no longer have to age!" Joshua's sister Amy, who also has a birthday in March, may have declared the same anti-aging policy a number of years ago because, honestly, she doesn't seem to age at all! Happy birthday to all these lovely ladies and to the Little Man.

Here is Grandma Whelihan enjoying her big birthday bash. We like to give gifts that call it like it is. (Champion brand was established the same year as my grandmother was born, 1919.)
Right after that trip to NYC to celebrate my grandmother's life, I jetted off to Las Vegas for a weeklong American Association of Geographers Conference in Las Vegas. I was able to present my thesis, Mapping Geographically Weighted Regression: Spatial Nonstationarity of Logistic Regression Models of Juvenile Drug Crime Recidivism. The presentation went well. The questions afterward were tough. That's what I get for writing a statistically-focused paper and inviting people who wrote books on the subject to the session. Not that I'm complaining; their questions and suggestions are super helpful as I put the last touches on my thesis. Statistical stats is so interesting to me, but I am constantly reminded how big the field is. Some day I'll be an expert too. Some day ....

Unfortunately, since I'm allergic to cigarette smoke, I got the worst cold during this trip. I went nearly two full years without being sick and, while I'm grateful for that, I'm bummed that I had to endure a cold during this trip. The sessions I attended were fascinating -- census tract changes set for the 2010 big event, mortgage foreclosures, among others -- but the cold was a little more than distracting.

In an attempt to avoid the casinos, I spent a small chunk of time poolside at Caesar's Palace, which was beyond pleasant.
While touring around the city, I did not go into this building. The large photos of Elton John, Bette Midler and Cher were clear signs that I did not belong there.

One of the best parts of the trip was walking out to the Vegas burbs to visit the Springs Preserve. While interesting, it was a bit of a sham -- the water company putting up a museum dedicated to how Las Vegas is so extremely good at saving at water and how environmentally-conscious the area is. Um, excuse me? Sure, the ten-acre lot where the museum stands may be made with the environment in mind, but I had a hard time finding that same mindset in the rest of the area.


Even though I missed Joshua during my week in Vegas, it was nice to have some time on my own. I like exploring.

During my three-hour layover in Chicago on the way back to Philly, I emailed Joshua's best friend Scott to see if he was in the airport. Of course, in only a way that Scott can be, he was just flying in from Duluth. It was great to have a little visit with him before hopping on my flight home.

Once I got back to Philly, Joshua and I went over to our neighbors house to watch wrestling. Back story: Our talented neighbor, Randy, is a writer for the Associated Press and has to produce a piece on the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania. He invited us over to watch the first and the most recent Wrestlemanias. It was fun to watch Mr. T and the Hulk team up back when they were so much younger. Randy wrestled and wrote a piece two years ago about professional wrestling so I'm excited to read this newest piece. Please watch the video. My favorite part is when (very faintly) you can hear Randy say, "Oh no, this is bad."

This morning, I attended a shower to celebrate Amanda's pregnancy. She looks great. The party was fun and it was nice to catch up with friends from college.

Next weekend: Comprehensive exams = approximately 55 hours to write three essays that prove I am Master (with a capital M) material. Topics: 1. GIS and Crime Mapping, 2. Spatial Statistics with regard to Geographically Weighted Regression, 3. Peer Contagion within the Juvenile Delinquent Population. Fun stuff. Wish me luck!

Maybe Just a Little Stir Crazy

We haven't had a lot to report on this website since Valentine's Day. Sure, we attended a neat play about Philadelphia prisoners, a radical cartography art exhibit, we have been enjoying weekly dinners with neighbors, saw The Wrestler to celebrate our 4 years together, started using coupons (I got shampoo for 0.25 a bottle - score!), Shanti turned (approximately) 3 years old, Simon started self-control classes, Joshua has been working most evenings and weekends while I have completed a large chunk of my thesis and sent out some job applications.

Somehow it seems like the only picture-worthy news is that the dog will now sit still enough for us to balance things on his head like his idols.

Imprisoning Communities: How Mass Incarceration Makes Disadvantaged Neighborhoods Worse

"Prison populations have grown mostly through society's locking up ever-increasing numbers of young men, especially black men, largerly from impoverished places. The concentration of imprisonment of young men from disadvantaged places has grown to such a point that it is now a bedrock experience, a force that affects families and children, institutions and businesses, social groups and interpersonal relations. With its isolation of people from poor places, incarceration does more damage than good, including increases in crime. In this way, incarceration has become part of its own dynamic. Imprisonment has grown to the point that it now produces the very social problems on which it feed. It is the perfect storm.

Uninformed public sentiments and practiced politial interests have created a malignant foundation for our crime-prevention policy. Legislative changes lean only in the direction of ever-growing punitiveness, drawing more and more young people – especially black men – into the system’s clutches. The system clutches them; indeed, people who get caught up in the penal system stay there longer, are subjected to more controls, and suffer a greater chance of failure than ever before in history. Faced with this situation, policy makers think only of becoming more strict and more punitive, more damaging, for an ever wider range of misbehaviors, drawing into the storm an ever larger group. As that group grows, the ripple effects of the damage also grow, crossing the social networds of those poorer communities and extending into future generations. Crime goes up, crime goes down; yet in a weirdly disconnected fashion, prison populations increase regardless.

The concentration of imprisonment among young black urban males is so extreme today that many of us simply assume that, when we encounter a young black man, he has a criminal record; and so we take what seems like appropriate precautions. As a matter of cold, hard facts, often these assumptions are correct.  ..."

--Todd R. Clear

 

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These types of topics are what I have been focusing on during my master's program at Temple.

Lunar Eclipse, Javelinas, and Long Titles

Before I head into my last semester of grad school, I am attempting to take a restful winter break: a week of snowshoeing, two days of home repairs, a week in Tucson visiting my best friend and a week prepping for the upcoming semester.

After our snowshoeing trip, I decided to fix one of the kitchen walls (cigarette smoke from the neighbors has been seeping into our house - yuck!) and repaint the kitchen from yellow rain slicker (a little too bright) to lunar eclipse, a pale grey/silver color. It looks neat and makes everything else in the room pop; as opposed to the rest of the house, where the walls tend to pop with color and the decorations are merely a distraction. Once the kitchen is done, I will post photos.

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My week in Tucson was great. Erica and Greg were exceedingly gracious hosts and excellent tour guides. From fabulous home-cooked meals, interesting conversations, trips to museums/zoos (javelinas!), and rock climbing, it was amazing. They set up the week so selflessly to show me a good time and I really cannot thank them enough for their time and energy. I cannot wait until they visit us in Philly.
To top it off, they have the best and cutest little girl on the planet. My photos do little to capture how incredible sweet Kira is so you will have to check out Erica and Greg's website for better photos.

Lastly, Erica's older sister, Juliet, who also lives in Tucson with her husband and almost-three-year old daughter, gave birth to twin girls while I was in town. Right before I left for Philadelphia, I got to see them and hold "Baby A". So wonderful!

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Now I am prepping for my last semester. Most of my semester will be spent working on my thesis and looking for full-time employment that I can begin in May when I graduate. I'm also the teaching assistant for the digital mapping course. I was the TA for this course last semester so it will be nice to be familiar with the lab assignments I have to teach. Lastly, I am taking a spatial statistics course, which is very exciting to me.

My thesis title has become something of a joke in the family: Mapping Geographically Weighted Regression: Spatial Nonstationarity in Logistic Models of Drug-Crime Recidivating Juvenile Delinquency. If you want a translation of what that means, ask me in person. It takes a few minutes to explain. I'm still not sure if Joshua has fully grasped it yet. Luckily, I am excited about the topic, so that should count for something even if everyone else thinks it's just nutty ivory-tower babble (which it isn't!).

Simon has been enjoying the dog park that is just up the street from our house. After some "structured walking time", running a few miles and spending time with us, we usually end up there where he gets to play with his buddies and get dirty. It's really fun to watch.

The photo to the right was after an especially fun evening at the dog park. Simon even received an audible "euck" noise from a lady who was walking down the street who didn't seem to like all the dirt he was wearing.

School started this week. With a full course load of classes, TAing for two sections of a digital geography class, continuing to intern at DVRPC and spending enough time with pup-oh, bossy cat and The Husband, I may not be blogging as often. However, we have fun trips planned for the next few weeks, so we'll be sure to share some photos.

Pop Quiz Time!

What is Pestobuda?

A. Italian night at the Buddhist monastery.
B. George W. Bush's nickname for the Dali Lama.
C. College-level geography student's answer to the question "Which city is divided by the Danube River into Pest and Buda?"

The correct answer: C

Grading geography exams is always entertaining.

For all the geographically impaired and Miss Teens from South Carolina, the city that has two sections called "Pest" and "Buda" is surprisingly Budapest.

And just to rub it in...

Finito ... until January 22nd!

I'm done with my first semester of school. Yippy! Although hanging out with the cat all day isn't a bad gig.

Public Speaking Advice from J. Chisholm

Today I had to give a 2.5 hour class presentation ... yeah, really. Luckily I have a helpful husband who sent me a bunch of pointers before I gave the presentation. Here they are:

1. If you don't know the answer to a question, like our commander and chief, make a joke about something completely unrelated and hope the questioner forgets what he or she asked.

2. You own the room, feel free to throw anyone out ... even the teacher!

3. If you are unsure how to pronounce something, either say it quickly and mumbled or just skip the word entirely.

4. Beat your fists against the table and shake them in the air

5. Hide behind the podium

6. Avoid eye contact with the audience

7. If someone is asking a hard question, act like you do not understand what they are saying and have them rephrase the questions over and over, then answer a question you want and just skip over theirs

8. Bribery is a helpful tool

9. Follow Jesus' lead and conduct some miracles, or at least some neat magic tricks

10. If all else fails, just be yourself, and trust that you are awesome, your work is brilliant and you are more then prepared for this beeeaatch!

Needless to say, the presentation went very well. When I allowed the professor to come back into the room, I did the rabbit out of the hat trick again for him. He was obviously impressed. This school business is easier than I was expecting.

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On a completely different note, here's a photo from one of Joshua's recent matches.

(Note: Joshua is on the bottom left of the photo)

New! New! New!

We have been gaining a few awesome possessions/people/items/time, which we thought we should share. In no certain order ...

• Cutting board shaped like Pennsylvania. Hooray for Joshua's best man Scott and for engraved wedding gifts! If you cannot see it well, it says "Laura and Joshua August 19, 2006" Then it marks out Carlisle on the map with a dot. How awesome is that?!
  
  


• Weight bench and a full set of weights that are located in our very full and extremely organized basement. We traded our gym membership at Sweat Fitness (known for its meatheads and bikini models) for a much more economical home gym.
  
  


• A new Thompson, but you will have to ask Brian and Bridgette for the details on that one. We couldn't be more excited!


• Play Station 2 to keep Joshua out of trouble while I am doing schoolwork. Although it probably gets him in more trouble because all he does is yell at Madden "for being stupid" while he plays that football game.


• An island for the kitchen (Ikea's Ensta), which we have been wanting since we moved here. Now we can sit on our stools again as we eat breakfast and watch each other cook. Those stools were a favorite part of our apartment so we wanted to reincorporate them back into our lives.


• A mustache, which is getting progressively bigger and "twistable" much to our enjoyment. Joshua's Halloween costume this year is going to be awesome. Although there are almost too many options!

• Mr. Bento, which is a Japanese-style lunch box that is already causing some marital strife as Joshua is suspicious that I might love it more than him. (Laura Bento has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?)
• A BBQ grill as a housewarming gift from M&D Thompson. It has been providing plenty of quick and yummy meals.



• Lots of time to read about the things that interest me. It is so wonderful that I have this time to read and think in such an intense way again. (I always look so studious, don't I?!)

• Since we are still slowly building our base of friends in Philadelphia, we have had the joy of spending a ton of time together. We went to Hershey Park together a few weekends ago, have been taking more walks around our neighborhood, and have just generally enjoyed being married to one another. Even though our motto was going to be "First year for love, the rest for spite" we aren't living that out very well! (Obviously, that wasn't going to be our motto. Our real motto is something like "Try to act older than toddlers.")


• The return of rugby season! Saturday's match featured a guy whose nose was moved closer to his ear than the center of his face. It was pretty amazing ... and pretty awesome that it wasn't Joshua in that situation.

Next: A rugby trip to Pittsburgh to visit Kate and Neal!

Bless this house with too many desserts!

It was so nice to sit around the house while friends, family and neighbors trickled through to visit last Saturday during our house blessing and open house.

Unfortunately, we were so busy hanging out that we forgot to take photos except for this lovely one showing the two Lauras, kitty and the cookies which will be sent to a certain Patrick in Afghanistan.

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School started this week, so posts may be fewer and farther between for a chunk of time. Although, maybe it will be the opposite as I try to create more study breaks for myself!