More Tibet Pictures

I recently established a Flickr account and was able to find some photos taken by my colleagues on our trip to Tibet in June. Because the photos are far better than the ones I took, I decided to post a few of them. The top picture shows a Buddhist lama outside of the Drak Yerpa meditation caves, and the lower photo shows two Tibetan women in traditional clothing, drinking yak-butter tea. Photo credit can be given to Marguerite Bennett.

Honors Orientation

This year is my first as Director of the Rockhurst University Honors Program and it has thus far been marked by fun and productive activities with some outstanding students. Last week, we welcomed the freshmen Honors students with a pasta dinner, prepared by their Honors mentors and our Honors VP of New Member Development, Ms. Kayla Miller. Dinner was followed by a trip (in the pouring rain!) to the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum and coffee or frozen yogurt. The next day, Honors mentors and mentees worked together on their team-building and leadership skills at the Tucker Leadership Lab (pictured). Through these activities we were all able to grow to know one another and to depend on eachother's skills and knowledge. I can't wait for the next Honors event!

Snake Surgery

Just before classes started my research students (Caitlyn McCall and Ryan Miloshewski) and I, along with a colleague from KU (George Pisani), were consumed by dealing with a problematic study animal. One of the rattlesnakes we track decided to hang out a little too close to a neighbor's home, so we had to rescue her and re-re-locate her to a different site. Before we could do so, we needed to surgically remove the radio-transmitter that allowed us to track her in the first place. The first picture shows George "tubing" her, which entails wrangling her into a tube so we can handle her and anesthetize her prior to surgery. The second picture shows the snake post-op, with me (and Ryan in the background) waiting for her to come out from under the anesthetic, which she soon did. So the surgery was successful and she recovered rapidly enough to be set free a few days later.

Mathfest 2010

A fantastic student (Maureen Whalen, pictured) and I just returned from Mathfest in Pittsburgh, PA, where we each presented a talk concerning our Rockhurst-Hogan Interdisciplinary Summer Institute (a college-experience institute with local high school students). We discussed how the structure of this institute has influenced the Pre-Calculus course at Rockhurst and how it could potentially affect other courses like our Freshmen Seminars. We did this only with the behind-the-scenes help and coaching of a wonderful Math professor, Dr. Guadarrama, who had a baby last week and of course could not attend the conference. As a biologist, I was especially fascinated by the Biomathematics talks; and I also thoroughly enjoyed the discussions on fractals, which are just incredibly cool. To top things off, we got to enjoy a Pirates game and see the lovely Pittsburgh skyline from atop Mt. Washington. And on our way home, we shared a plane with the band Foghat! It was a great experience.

Back in KC...for a few weeks

I am in Kansas City again between trips. We just went to Milwaukee for my sister-in-law's (Heather's) baby shower (I guess it was my brother's, too) , and I'll be leaving for a conference in Pittsburgh next week. The baby shower was so much fun, and that day was when it really hit home that I will soon be an aunt and my brother will be a dad! We also got to go to a Brewer's game, which was awesome and really exciting since they won in the 10th inning. The pictures are of my brother, Jeremy and his wife, Heather; and me and Heather's sisters, Tanya and Brittany. We will all three become aunties in November and we are preparing to spoil little Tessa as soon as she arrives!

Busy busy.

I know it's been awhile since I last posted but May took me (and our Biology Field Trip class) to southern Missouri and then to a conference in Cincinnati, and June began with our Hogan Institute and a seminar in China and Tibet. In this picture I am eagerly awaiting the beginning of the Cham festival at Mingdrolling Monastery outside of Tsetang, Tibet Autonomous Region. During this festival the monks celebrate the life of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava, or "the Second Buddha," the yogi who brought Indian Buddhism to Tibet) through dance. It was amazing! This celebration only occurs once a year on Guru Rinpoche's birthday (May 10th on the Tibetan Lunar calendar), and we just happened fortuitously to be visiting Mingdrolling that day. We couldn't believe our luck! I am wearing a kathak, or prayer scarf, given to each of us as we were graciously invited into the monastery by the interim abbott, a very kind Buddhist Lama who arranged for us to have a tour of the monastery and fantastic seats at the Cham.

An exciting week

Not only is this finals week and the lead-in to our Biology Field Trip, but over the past weekend my family celebrated a landmark event: my parents' 40th wedding anniversary! They are the cute couple pictured here, holding a gift from some friends. People came in from all over the country to celebrate the occasion, including friends they hadn't seen for years and I hadn't seen since I was little. After a picnic and some catching up we listened to their friends' band and I actually saw my parents dance for the first time in my life! We all had so much fun and we're so proud of them.