Tag / Purdue

by admin

Summer is coming (hopefully)

My BFF from high school, Alicia was talking about snow in the forecast for where she lives up in the Minneapolis area. We here in Purdue land (aka West Lafayette, Indiana) have been dealing with about 57 degree (F not C) weather and lots and lots of rain. It is almost May, and while summer doesn’t officially start until mid June (the 21st to be exact), The weather we are having right now is comfy for me here. I also really enjoy the rain, it was something I missed while living in the desert heat of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Tucson.

But enough about weather.

This summer, I will continue to work at Walmart. Last week I was training for a new position but I think I am going to withdraw my name from consideration from that position. Friday night I may have strained a muscle in my back from climbing a ladder and placing boxes of infant diapers on the top of the back room storage shelves. I have no way of knowing if that were the case, as I woke up the next day feeling like I had been in a major car wreck. I could barely walk or even raise my arms to chest level. I still have a little bit of pain once in a while, but it has subsided for the most part.

Also this summer, I will begin taking my prelim examinations from two of my dissertation committee members. (Dr. Almanza will test me on my research and food safety, while Dr. Nelson will test me on food service industry experience). To do that, I had to register for dissertation credit, of which I am registered for four credits. My third prelim exam will not be until December, as I am taking two statistics courses dealing with linear regression and some of that will be on the third prelim which I am getting from Dr. Jang. After I finish my three prelims, I then have to do my oral prelim, which is where I present my official outline for my dissertation and answer any additional questions my committee might have of me. Once the oral prelim is complete, the clock starts ticking and I have to complete two more semesters of work before I am able to graduate. With all this taken into account, I am planning my graduation for May of 2013.

As for this semester, I won’t know my grades for a couple more weeks, unless I can pry the information from my two professors; however, according to my calculations I will be getting a 4.0 this semester.

by admin

Less than a month in the semester left.

I am home sick again tonight (Friday), after coming home sick from work last night (Thursday). I hate being sick, but this does not feel like a flu, but more like something else. I have gone back through what I have eaten over the last week, and have found some sketchy items, but nothings that I can narrow down as being a cause of the symptoms. I am lucky that I know the symptoms that are related to certain food-borne illnesses, I can pretty much narrow down where a possible contamination might have occurred. So far, the only thing I can find is a possible issue with a place that Andrew and I went to eat at on Tuesday night. Of course, if could have been from Tuesday Lunch, as I had something that I had not had in years and it may not have set well with me and ultimately, it could have had something to do with my diabetes. Unfortunately, most illnesses can take anywhere from 8 to 72 hours to even up to and including 7 days for an illness to incubate in a persons digestive tract before symptoms are noticeable. Just for that reason alone, I recommend everyone keep an eating diary so that you can go back at least a week or two of food that has been eaten, in case there is an issue.

It is required that two, non related people be diagnosed by a medical professional in you feel that you have been infected with a food-borne illness. The reason they say two, non-related people, is because almost all home cooking is not done properly and the odds of getting a food borne illness from food cooked at home is greater than getting one from a professional establishment. Remember, it is not impossible to get a food-borne illness from a professional establishment, they just have more regulations to deal with that home cooking does not have to deal with.

Enough with that, time for what I really wanted to talk about, the end of the semester.

After today, we have two more weeks of classes, then dead week, followed by final exams the week of May 2nd.

On Tuesday April 26th, I have a meeting with my committee (Dr. Almanza, Chair; Dr. Nelson, and Dr. Jang; Members) to go over how we will be proceeding with my Prelims, which are defined as “…the determination of the: 1- student’s general understanding of the field, including appropriate theoretical constructs, and how this field fits into concerns of the overall industry; 2- student’s depth of understanding of his/her particular segment of focus within the field; and 3- degree of mastery of the methodological approaches and statistical tools appropriate for the student’s field of concentration.”

1. is Food Service (Dr. Nelson)
2. is Food Service Sanitation and handwashing (Dr. Almanza)
3. is Statistics and Methodology (Dr. Jang)

Each professor gets one of those topic areas and asks a series of several questions in which I must answer within a certain time frame, lets say two weeks.

I will be doing parts one and two over the summer with Dr. Almanza and Dr. Nelson; However, since I am registered for two more statistics courses for Fall 2011, the third part which involves statistical tools will be done during that semester. Finally, in last Fall 2011, I will have my Oral examination. It is kind of like the pre-conference I had with my masters committee, where they agreed to my choice and methods of research. It helps when it comes down to final examination and defense when a committee member asks “what about this” and the advisor says “why didn’t you ask that during the oral exam?”

I have received financial aid for the summer, but am only taking one, 1 credit class as I am still considered out of state. My request for in-state tuition is still being processed and I should have an answer shortly. If I am denied, I will appeal the decision. That class is 1 credit dissertation. It feels so strange to type and read. I am getting down to the wire. After I complete the oral exam, I have a two semester minimum wait until I am able to graduate. So that will include Spring 2012 & Summer 2012. The earliest I can graduate is December 2012; however I am giving myself an extra semester to ensure I have a perfect dissertation, so I am shooting for May of 2013.I hope that I can get extra tickets for those that really want to come visit me during this prestigious time in my life. Since both my parents are deceased, I would like my sister to be able to attend with a few of her children, but I also have friends from around the country that I was to invite as well. Even if someone doesn’t get to see me walk across the stage and get hooded by my committee advisor, I would still like to have friends here in town for the part afterwards. If you are reading this, and would like to be included in any extra tickets I may have or just for the party afterwards, please let me know.

I am currently working on about 5 research projects at the moment. putting finishing touches on the gaming chip study, making calls on the festival food competition study, waiting for a custom computer program to be written especially for me by my boyfriend Andrew, to help determine handwashing effectiveness with glo-germ, black-light, and a computer, I will them be Creating a survey of health inspectors inside and outside areas that have festival food competitions to determine their responses to the findings of the other 2 studies (not gaming chips), and a marketing strategy internal branding for the new “School of HTM” within the NEW Department of Health & Human Sciences. It is a class project, for a 600 level class which is like a UNLV 700 level class, where our results will actually be published, so I have been very busy.

My two classes I am taking right now have been very fun. I especially like learning how to use AutoCAD in designing a restaurant concept for facility design, and the use of focus groups and interviews along with surveys for the marketing class. I think I have started to annoy Dr. Nelson with my constant finding of errors or omissions in homework or assignments. But he did ask two special favors of me recently, one was to proctor an exam for him, and the other was to attend a presentation being arranged by the dean of the college. The first one was easy, the second may be a little harder as I generally work on Thursday Night, so the time of the event is during my normal sleep cycle, so I would need permission from Dr. Sydnor-Bousso to skip her class so that I can sleep later into the afternoon and then go to the presentation before work. Or I could contact work and tell them that I am needed at school for an emergency. Not sure how that will work, but we shall see what my options are.

When I had my meeting with my advisor (Dr. Almanza), we were talking about my schedule and stuff, then she told me that my name was being considered for an assistantship next semester. The fact that she brought up the subject was extremely surprising. She even gave me details about what the job would entail, which leads me to believe it is all but a done deal, which makes me really happy. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE working for Walmart. Just having a BS I have more degrees than almost everyone else in the entire building. You have to have at least a BS to move into management. So my MS is overkill, and the fact that I am working on my PhD I think actually scares them a little. They have difficulty talking to me. Like one day, the manager was trying to explain something to me, when she said ‘hold on, I almost forgot who I was talking to” She then proceeded to use bigger polysyllabic words to help me understand what she was saying. Then she said, “you are the only one that I have ever had to reverse the process of dumbing down things that I tell employees. Apparently if she tries to explain something two simply to me I get confused. She has to try and bring it up to a higher level than for other people. At first I thought she was being rude, but then she said “we have never had anyone as smart as you working here as just an associate.” She also told me that right now I have more college experience than the store or market manager. I are proud.

If I get the assistantship, it will start in Fall and I will have to put notice in for Wal-Mart, which I will miss. But I may still work one day a week, if they want me. Of course that also depends on how Andrew feels about this. we barely get to spend any time together now due to my schedule at ‘Walmart. We are hoping that the summer will be much easier to be together.

Finally, as a side not, check this out, I made a web-presence on Purdue, kinda like the site I had a UNLV, but Purdue colors and stuff. Take a look: http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~emckeown/index.html

by admin

Already at the end of February…

Not that I am counting the days or anything, but I do know that we here at Purdue have two weeks until Spring Break, approximately 8 weeks left of the semester, and about 7 months until I turn 40.

I am actually happy to be turning 40. Not exactly sure why.

Of course, things have been going very well for me for the past few weeks. I got a clean bill of health from my doctor, as my diabetes is under better control and I am still slowly loosing weight. I am anxious to go back to work at Wal-Mart, even though I just found out that they were a contributor to the campaign of Governor Walker in Wisconsin. They apparently made a bad choice, but I am not going to boycott them over one bad choice. Additionally, Wal-Mart has treated me exceptionally well so I have no complaints about them.

I am still waiting to hear back on the Panama Project that I interviewed with the HTM department head for. It would involve going to Panama and assisting a company by developing a feasibility study for a new restaurant concept they are interested in pursuing. I feel that it would be a great opportunity for me to show what I can do, plus give me a chance to travel outside the United States for the first time. Which reminds me that I need to start working on getting a passport.

Today, I interviewed for a position within Purdue. I should hear something, hopefully by Friday February 25th. The interview went very well, I think they liked the fact that I am already a Notary for Indiana, so I hope that is a plus for me. I am not going to discuss the position, as I want it to be a surprise if I happen to get selected for the position.

So that is pretty much an update of what has been going on in my life. I do need to post some rants about subjects that have been brought up recently that I have strong opinions about, but I will leave those for other posts. As always, feel free to question me about anything that I post to this blog.

by admin

Over analyzation of homework is aggravating

I had a wonderful weekend, well, aside from that awful homework assignment where I had to draw a flowchart that involved removing a case of lettuce from a walk in cooler, taking it to a sink/work area, and chopping it for salads.

So here I am, a person that has done a lot of cooking in his life time. For those that do not know, I will be 40 in September and I am very much looking forward to it. Anyway, I had also taken basic culinary preparation courses at Pima Community College in 1996 (well before that Jarrod Lee Laughner went there). I earned my Associates degree in General Studies and a Certificate in Hotel Food and Beverage Management. Not to mention that for my first 1.5 years here at Purdue and sometimes at UNLV, I helped teach basic cooking methods and techniques, such as proper knife handling and control, the different cooking methods and types of heat and so on.

So here I am making a flow chart on chopping lettuce for salads. The instructions tells us where everything is located, to ensure that we instruct our person to go and get the items from this location and bring them back to the work area. Here, I must point out, that the reason I got an associates degree in general studies rather than in any hospitality or other field is because I could get the Associates within 1 year, while any other associates would take 2 years. I had already spent 2 years at Pensacola Junior College from 1992 to 1994. I didn’t like the idea of taking 4 years to get an associates degree, so I piled all my credits together and applied for graduation. So to get a feeling of what my focus in general studies includes, you would have to look at the courses I was taking. I took some basics, algebra, English, etc. but my electives were in things like Nutrition and nutrition for food service, Hotel law, Foodservice Sanitation, Pascal & FORTRAN 90 program, Introduction to programming the internet (that was back when everything was programmed using text editors and writing HTML, WYSIWYG came later.

The computer programming gave me great insight into designing flowcharts for programs. Those were a bit easier, in that you were simulating the process of commands in a computer. In that sense, one wrong move (process), and the program doesn’t work. In the flowchart I was doing for class, one wrong move and a person could get hurt, equipment could be damaged, food could become contaminated, etc. By Saturday, the homework was driving me so crazy, I had to lie down in bed and literally stare at the flowchart on my computer and try to figure out what my problem was. Come to find out, I was over analyzing the assignment. I finished the assignment on Sunday in time to pick up Andrew later that day.

Of the equipment listed in the assignment, there were pans, a knife, a cutting board, and a lettuce chopper. All these newfangled equipment that I actually had to Google a lettuce chopper to figure out how it works, since I had never used one. You basically put a clean head of lettuce in the open chopper and pull down on the lever and it dices the lettuce into neat 1 inch squares for salad. Pretty neat invention. So then I start the assignment with a decision question that I personally feel should be a “NO” every time you enter a new work area. And that decision is “is the work area clean and sanitized?” So I am off and working on my flow chart, I make another decision question, “do you have all the equipment needed to complete the task at hand?”, of course the answer is no, because the equipment is still in its original location, so I have them collect the pieces of equipment and bring it back to the work area. After that, I go through the process of removing a case of lettuce from the cooler and bringing it to the work area and opening it.

That is where I hit my first roadblock. This is homework, so I am sure he is expecting us to show some sort of initiative in developing this flowchart. I put myself in the position of following the flow chart, and I actually go to my kitchen and perform the steps with real items. Unfortunately I did not have a head or lettuce or a lettuce chopper, but the blender stood in for the lettuce chopper and one of my friend’s grapefruits from the cupboard simulated the lettuce. So here I am with a knife, a pan, a cutting board, a head of lettuce, and a lettuce chopper. I close my eyes and walk my way through the steps that need to be completed. I start very basic and move outward. I pick up the lettuce and say that the dead and wilted leaves need to be removed and the core needs to be removed as well. I then ask myself, Okay, so how do we do this. I go, okay, simple, take the heal of my right hand and while firmly gripping the head of lettuce I slam the heal of my right hand firmly into the core of the lettuce, thus ripping it from all leaves attached and it is now able to be pulled out and tossed in the trash. I then decide that the head of lettuce needs to be rinsed/washed, so I turn on the cold water and run the head of lettuce under the water and fill the hole left by the core like a cup with water running out among the now somewhat looser leaves. I turn the head over so it can drain a bit and I methodically remove pieces that were connected to the core, such as interior leaves with a red rustic tint. I place a full size deep hotel pan under the lettuce chopper to catch the lettuce, and I place several rows of towels to help dry any excess water that may pool towards the bottom of the pan. I decide that now would be a good time to make a decision on whether the pan is full or still has available space. Once the pan is full, it is removed and another plan is put in its place. I stop and rest for a pit and continue to walk myself through the steps that I have written.

While walking myself back through all the steps and following along, I stumble across an issue that I did not notice before and am unsure of how to fix it. Of course all the directions and decisions are what I consider perfect; however, I never used the knife or the cutting board and I now have no use for them in the near future. My ultimate decision is to remove them from the list of items that are gathered towards the beginning of the flowchart. But it originally frightened me, because I knew he had those items there for some reason. Unfortunately, when it comes to chopping lettuce, I have never used a knife or cutting board. In all my previous jobs, if the lettuce didn’t already come prechopped, we would pop out the core and then just rip the pieces by hand due to the issue that metal knives have been known to cause the oxidation to appear quicker (that is the rusting of the lettuce or red tint that appears where the cuts were completed.)

After talking to one of my co-students in the class, I found that I was not the only one that did not have a use for the knife and cutting board. She took the head of lettuce firmly in both hands and smashed the core on something solid to remove the core.

I guess you can see that I am pretty set in my ways when it comes to working with certain items

Only 7 more homework assignments for this class. I know that a future assignment will be about Therblings, which is a way of measuring what one hand is doing while the other hand is doing something else. We have heard that it involved the movement of hands involved in chopping some piece of food where it is important that the hand not doing the chopping is out of the way when the chopping hand comes down.

Anyway, this is my ranting about that homework that was turned in on Monday. It is a great learning experience.