Healthier-iest burgers

To me this provides even more evidence as to why nutrition information should be mandatory on menus, because give such a wide variety of options it is almost impossible to even begin to guess which of these would be healthy. I think some know to leave off the bacon, creamy sauces, extra cheese, eggs, and fried onions, but given the staggering amount of calories and sodium (almost 5grams!!), I think the over-abundance is more than anyone would expect. Additionally, even though some of these are low in calories, the sodium can be through the roof, providing over half a days worth and for someone with CVD this is VERY important.

40 Healthiest Burgers

40 Killer Burgers

Misery loves company

As the old saying goes, it is better to commiserate together than alone. Although these “sessions” usually do not amount to much change for most parties involved, there is some comfort in knowing one is not alone in a given situation.

As some know and I’m sure others have suspected the transition to and establishment of my life in the ambiguous land of a post-doc has been a bit harder than I anticipated. The proximity to my family and their support has been my saving grace. However, knowing that this is temporary, not having any sort of “freshman” post-doc class, teetering between students and professionals, and struggling with mentorship at work, are a part of my daily life.

I am partly to blame, because although I have been outgoing and social, at times it becomes daunting to always be meeting new people without a strong, core support of friends; therefore, I have not always taken every opportunity. I did finally make it to one of the (few) post-doc happy hours put on by the campus-wide post-doc association. It was a great time and I met some really fun and interesting people who are in a similar boat – looking for friends just to hang out with. Needless to say, the 4 or 5 of us have been out a few times over the last couple weeks and I went to dinner with one women, S, on Saturday.

S and I come from very different places. She is in A2 via, LA, via MN, via India and I grew-up just over 50 miles away. Her background is in engineering and she works in a totally different area of campus. This was the first time we had a chance to hang out one-on-one and even though we have very different lives, the issues we have with our current situations are very similar. There were numerous times in which we both commented, “I know how you feel, although I don’t really know what to do about it.”

At the end of the evening, my feelings were mixed a bit. Although it is nice to know these issues are not “just me,” it was a tad disheartening that they permeate so many different people’s lives.

A review and a cheat

I had my "formal" in-class review this week. My director had emailed me a few weeks back that Chef Jim would be coming to observe my class sometimes soon. I replied to both of them welcoming to visit and informing them that the last two weeks before the final (this week and next) the students would be giving their presentations on their final papers. Given that he came last night I am not sure how much of a review of my teaching skills he could have done. Of course it also had to be on the night that I did not prepare a lesson plan since we just had presentations and review for the final in the remaining time. Moreover, three of the students who signed up to present this week asked to move to next week. So, all in all, we'll see how it turns out.

I suspect one of my students just about cheated on his final paper. After reading over them this week, I was pleasantly surprised by the paper on diabetes LB wrote. As I was reading all 3.5 pages I was intrigued by sophisticated language and well written, cohesive sentence structure. Until I got to the last sentences, which read as follows, "PLEASE FINISH UP WITH YOUR THOUGHTS HERE...BLAH BLAH BLAH." This is pretty obvious that he did not write this and did not even take the time to read the 3.5 pages that whomever else wrote. I brought it to the attention of my director and we met with LB last night before class. LB was defensive, of course and told the director that a sister proof-read the paper for him and he forgot to look at it. LB also said this was paper was turned in for a biology class last quarter - I don't know if that makes me feel better or not. The director said LB was caught cheating before and fessed up to it and he felt LB would be honest about it and left it up to me to decide what to do. Grr...with that, and given that fact that even if I gave LB 110% on the paper, I don't think they would get better than a C. So with that, no other hard evidence and the fact that there are misspelling and grammatical errors, I am not going to give LB a zero. I do not think it was blatantly plagiarized, but I do think LB wrote a small portion that was extensively beefed up by said sister.

Food and drink

I checked a few things off my "to-do" list of things in/around Ann Arbor Saturday. This Saturday was the last of the German Park Public Picnics. There is a fairly authentic German biergarten about 15 minutes north of Ann Arbor that was founded in 1938 where they hold a public picnic on the last Saturday of each month of the summer. Doors open at 4pm and the gates close at 9pm with the "picnic" being over at 11pm. They serve buckets, yes, plastic buckets of bier, as well as fairly authentic German food.













The earlier part of Saturday also consistent of more food and drink with a trip to Slow's BBQ in Detroit. This is a fairly famous place in the area and has been featured in "Man vs Food" as well other food and BBQ shows and blogs. The meal was very tasty and worth the trip. It was, however, a bit sad to see how deserted Detroit has become. After a great BBQ meal, we headed over to the Eastern Market in Detroit. It is a huge open-air farmers market with tons more than just food. I did not really buy much, because I wasn't sure what to expect, but will definitely return and make some purchases. It was pretty amazing how cheap the produce it and all the speciality items that are at the market and in the surrounding stores.














Friday also had its fair share of, unexpected, food and drink. It all started with a tasting of the home-brew brought to the lab by a sales rep from whom we had recently purchased a $4k kit. The beer was pretty good, but I think we all enjoyed the names and labels of the beers a lot. The conference-room beer tasting rolled in to a pub-dinner at Ashley's, Sangria at Dominik's, snacks at Pizza House and a night cap a Bab's. All in all a good weekend!

Such a miracle

She is here, all ten fingers and ten toes, born at 9:29a on 08/20/10, 8lbs 7oz, 21" long. Right now she has to stay in nursery and has not been able to spend too much time with mom. When she was born her O2 was a little low that they were worried about her nursing and since her blood sugar was getting low as well, they had to give her IV glucose. They took an X-ray and blood work and found that that she might have an infection, although they think the sample was contaminated. Needless to say, she has to stay in the nursery for another 48h until the blood cultures come back negative for sure. Leslie is doing quite well with everything and Stuart said it would probably be a lot harder on both of them if this wasn't their third time around ;) So it looks like they will be coming home Monday.

Marissa and Allison did such a wonderful job and have been great through this whole thing. To must of our surprise, Allison is just utterly fascinated with the baby. While outside the nursery, she just stands on the ledge and stares asking for, "my baby." After Stuart took the girls in the nursery to see the baby, Allison could not stop talking about "my baby" and wanted to go back every time Stuart took someone new in. The first words out of her mouth this morning were, "where's my baby." I think instead of Leslie having to worry about Allison being jealous of the baby, she's going to be dealing with a "little mother"

I am so thankful that I was able to be here for such a wonderful occasion. I was not in the hospital myself, as when Marissa was born, or out of the state.

Welcome...

Baby Sherry #3 is on her way in just under 12 hours! I am so excited and grateful that I will be here (and not in the hospital or out-of-state). Pictures and details, like her name, to follow shortly.

Dr. Sherry...Dr. Christina...teach...um professor

I am just about half way through my first quarter as an adjunct faculty at the Art Institute of Michigan and have a whole new level of respect and gratitude for all of the teachers I have had during my 21 years of schooling. Overall, I must admit it has been a bit more work that I had originally anticipated, mainly because the PowerPoints I received from the previous instructor needed a bit of work. The quiz and test material, thankfully, were right on target and only needed a tad bit of tweaking. Once I have this first quarter under-my-belt, I think (at least hope) the subsequent ones will be a bit easier. I hope to have time in the future to more of an effort in to the concept and depth of the material, as now, it can be a bit of a struggle to have the basics covered very week. There are a chapter or two that we don't have time to cover currently and I want to find away to integrate this material in throughout the quarter.

After 6 weeks, I'm still not 100% used Dr. Sherry, especially since probably half, if not more, of my class is older than me. Why this makes a difference to me, I'm not sure, but I'm getting used to it. The scores their first quiz were not great, but on par with previous classes. I think they realized this is a serious class and upped the studying for the next quiz and scores improved. Right now, the biggest struggle is figuring out what things they don't understand. Sometimes it is obvious the concept is not getting through, but without people asking questions/making comments, it is hard to determine what material they are struggling with.

My director has formally asked me to continue teaching, so I guess something is going right!