Snow in Park Slope!

Finally, today we had our first real snowstorm of the season here in Brooklyn. For me, this was a much anticipated event (especially since we were beat by New Orleans)... but a snow day on the last official work day before break was a great surprise. So, as those of you who know me could probably guess, I spent the day working from home and taking pictures out of my window.

Later in the day I had a proper walk around the block, and took some more pictures.

We're almost done with the paper we've been working on for the last 2 months (read: I've been putting off for two months), which means that my time working directly with the Millennium Villages Project is also almost done. It's been such a wonderful experience, and it's helped me mature both as a scientist and as a human person.

This week I had an interview to continue on at the IRI, in a similar but more senior position. My role will be (hopefully) to support a range of similar projects on weather index insurance that the IRI is involved in around the world. My job will be in 3 parts: outreach, tool development, and basic research. The outreach will formalize some of the work I've been doing this year (most notably my trip to Malawi and Tanzania in July) - helping engage stakeholders on projects in the field. Currently, the projects I'd be working on are located in Central America and Ethiopia, with the potential for new projects in India and Indonesia and a few other places. For tool development, we're constructing a web-based application that can help with both education and implementation of weather insurance contracts. This is requiring me to (re-)learn some computer programming, but it's been fun so far getting up to speed again. Basic research will be the most similar to my job the past two and a half years, developing new methods and refining old methods for identifying climate-induced drought impacts using data from weather stations and satellites. Last night, the IRI had their annual holiday party, and it was so nice to think that I'll get to keep spending time with these people that I feel like I've just recently gotten to know a little better. They're so inspiring, and supportive of me and each other. On the way home, I thought to myself, my life is really wonderful.

On a related note:
My marathon training is also going well - and I've decided to dedicate my run to the Millennium Villages Project. I'll be running the National Marathon in Washington DC on March 21st. Any and all donations I gather in the meantime (which I don't expect to be much, but anything will help!) I'll donate to the MVP. I've also started another blog so I can chronicle my training and hopefully inspire other people to do something similar for similar causes. Idealistic, I know... but hey, that's how I roll.

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday, and I'll be seeing some of you in a few days!