Training Log Archive: iansmith

Loading my belongings from storage onto a U-haul truck to drive them to Toronto. While packing my apartment away in August, I pruned my possessions - my furniture consists of a desk, a bookshelf, a coffee table (too good to give up), a small nightstand, and my trusty IKEA chair. The bulk of the rest was about a dozen large and small boxes. My kitchen box was by far the heaviest at over 100 lbs, though the small boxes loaded with books were not insignificant. I plan to prune my possessions down further, as the ascetic lifestyle appeals to me right now. For instance, I need to give away my 11 Wheel of Time books, my DVD player, an old PC tower, and some unnecessary clothing.

Event: The Eliminator Adventure Run
 

During my quick trip to Boston, I met up with Joe and Melanie for a good two hour session at Brooklyn Boulders! I mostly stuck to 5.9s with success. It was excellent to catch up with my peeps.

A short morning run. I listened to Flowers for Algernon. It turns out Algernon is a mouse.

OUSA work continues apace, though more sluggishly than I had hoped. The barriers are both institutional and personal: whether because of our timidity or process, taking actions seems to require time and meetings. I also have not been as dedicated and persistent as I need to be to push our agenda forward.

The budget and our current limitations at monitoring our financial state continue to occupy a lot of attention. Barb, Pat, and I have been auditing the tracking of team funds - which are maintained in a separate spreadsheet based on exports from our official accounting.

Apart from addressing budget concerns and transparency, my two biggest priorities are communications and advancing our growth agenda. Communications has a committee (CommComm), and we are working towards a comprehensive internal communication and publicity strategy for better communicating within OUSA, with the membership, and with clubs. Our growth agenda - largely bereft of unrestricted funds for 2017 - has the 50th anniversary fundraising money to support some of its goals. But we as the Board haven't yet arrived at a SMART (acronym) set of objectives for this money. I hope that results from how we allocate it in 2017 will inform how we budget for 2018; my deepest concern is that we'll blow through the ~30k without a lasting impact on the community.

Considering renting this guy for a US team+friends haus for team trials:
https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/8460191?locale=en

It's been a crap week; I've been feeling malaise and weakness for three days now.

In addition to being behind on my training, I've been behind on my logging. While the information has gradually diffused through the community, let it be known that I moved to Toronto at the beginning of January to start graduate school! I am in the Medical Biophysics program, which is a curious hybrid of biology and biophysics. My department includes computational biology, which is my area of expertise. I have the option of finishing just a Masters', but the plan is to push through a Ph.D. One of my main reasons for coming here is that I've collaborated with my current adviser, Dr. Benjamin Haibe-Kains, while at the Broad. One of my biggest lessons from my time at the Broad was the importance of choosing your boss, especially in an academic (read: feudal) setting. I'm doing rotations now in pharmacogenomics, epigenomics, and scRNAseq labs and taking classes. U Toronto has an especially legendary machine learning and statistics group, so I plan to take some classes in those departments.

A few observations:
1. Toronto as a city does not feel particularly different from Boston. U Toronto works closely with the hospitals in the area as part of the University Health Network, much like Boston's infrastructure. Curiously, there are dozens of neighborhoods with stark boundaries and well-defined cultural identities. Some are ethnic, like Chinatown and Little Portugal; there's a huge variety of restaurants.

2. I have banked with MIT's Federal Credit Union for my adult life, and they have been more than adequate. I obtained a Canadian bank account at a major bank, and I've found the experience more adversarial. The bank is trying to sell my products, and they are more persistent than the credit union.

3. Toronto's subway (TTC), while limited to basically two lines, is excellent. It's cleaner than Boston's and has monitors at every station with information about the next train (and news). Also, I've never had to wait more than 4-5 minutes for a train, even at late hours. Finally, they keep the doors open for a much shorter period at each stop - usually about ten seconds - than New York or Boston. This enables the train to travel much faster between stations, though you have to be ready to jump off at your stop.

4. I've connected with a bit of the orienteering scene - chiefly Klepperton (Mark Innes), who lives a few km from me. I need to get into a regular training regimen with weekly runs with Mark. I'm also looking for a track club, though I've been using the athletic center facilities intermittently for now. The two Toronto orienteering events I've been to so far both had some snow (read: Canadians are tough) and a smorgasbord of hot food and snacks after.

5. Tim Horton's has replaced Dunkin in my life. I'm trying to limit myself to only one delicious double-double coffee per day.

6. I recently made couscous for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed the combination of taste, substance, and ease of preparation.

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