My Experience as an Undergraduate
For those of you that are interested, it's here.My Wedding
I was married on May 31, 2008 to the lovely and supportive Roy Steves. For those of you who would like to see pictures - here are some!Dancing
I started dancing at age 3. I started with Jazz and Gymnastics, and worked up to Ballet and Ballroom. I had the opportunity to be exposed to many styles of dance, including Musical Theatre, Tap, African, Modern, Hip-Hop, Irish step, Lyrical, Bellydance, Thrash, Country Line Dance, and others. Currently I am primarily involved in Swing, specifically Lindy Hop - I go to social dances and dance camps/exchanges whenever possible (which sadly is never often enough). I had the opportunity to dance and choreograph regularly before I came to graduate school, and I miss it terribly - but getting a PhD requires some sacrifices, and I can only hope that I'll be back into dance even more soon.
Below: Me dancing with a friend of mine in Sacramento a while back, and yes - I'm sticking my tongue out!
Climbing
I started climbing regularly with a group of grad students, post-docs, faculty, and friends in January of 2008. Sadly, another thing I enjoy that I stopped having much time for (the problem really was that my schedule conflicted with the group's schedule, so I stopped going). Another joy I hope to reacquaint myself with sometime soon.
Cats, also known as - My Kids
Leo, my big gray fuzzy baby. He was born in March of 2003, and was the odd one of his litter - 3 looked siamese, 2 looked like gray tabbies, and then there was my gray poof-ball. He was adorable, I had to keep him. He now weighs in at 14 lbs, and doesn't fit in my lap anymore - but he tries to be adorable anyway. We're pretty sure he's part Maine Coon (his mom was a gray tabby) and he seems to like alternating between "look at me, so adorable an- I eat your hand!" and complete lapcat - lap perforation and all (we finally fixed that with nail caps, since he's indoors now).
Kaylee, the adorable terror aka Roy's cat. She was born in 2007 and we got her free from a little girl giving Kaylee and her sibling Ping (the black one pictured) away at the Chico Farmer's Market. Sadly, Ping had some serious health problems and is no longer with us. Kaylee has an incredibly high int score for a cat, however - I think she might have taken a penalty to her wisdom score for it. We think she might have some Savannah or Egyptian Mau in her history, because she's very good at opening cupboards, seems to easily jump 6 feet straight up, and is quite vocal when she wants your attention. She can be the most adorable cat ever, but she's also trouble - destroys nearly everything she gets her paws and teeth on. With luck, if we keep enough cat toys around she might not destroy our home.
Comics, Other Geeky Stuff, and Stuff My Friends Do
xkcd PhD DarkTaco ScienceAdviserMy Personal Entertainment Favorites (in case you haven't seen/heard of them):
TV
Top Five: Firefly, Farscape, Castle, Doctor Who, and Stargate (SG-1 & Atlantis)
Other good ones: Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, Lie To Me, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, Dollhouse, and Heroes
Ridiculous and good: Invader Zim, My Hero, The Tick, and Sealab 2021.
Movies
Top five: Serenity, Star Trek (2009), A.I., Wall-E, and V for Vendetta
Other good ones: The Prestige, Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2, Iron Man, Pirates of the Caribbean (all), Swordfish, Much Ado About Nothing, The Boondock Saints, Pulp Fiction, Gattaca, Aeon Flux, Memento, Identity, Tron, Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars, and Stargate movies
Ridiculous and good: Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Super Troopers, Galaxy Quest, Lilo & Stitch, and Strange Brew
Books
Top Five: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (whole thing, used it in place of the Bible at our wedding - our version is bound like one), Farscape Comics (not really books, but I don't have time to read that much - and they're awesome!), "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!", Ender's Game, and I'm currently trying to read Snowcrash - it seems really good so far and everyone I know seems to love it.
Other good ones: The Physics of Superheroes, Serenity, The Ninja Handbook, and other silly things. I also enjoy work by Fyodor Dostoevsky, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Dawkins, Neil Gaiman, Laurell K. Hamilton, and whoever else falls in my lap when I have the time.
That's probably more than enough... I'll stop now.