Association for Computing Machinery-UA Chapter

2.28.11

“We’re the glue, bringing professional ITs together.”

Association for Computing Machinery, the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, delivers resources that advance computing as a science and a profession…provides the computing field's premier Digital Library and serves its members and the computing profession with leading-edge publications, conferences, and career resources, according to the ACM website.

“We’re like IEEE; an organization of professionals in the engineering field,” said Wiwat Leebhaisomboon, former president of UA-ACM.

Involvement in a local chapter of ACM provides student access to Computer Science and Computer Engineering research papers. This can be accessed on campus, but not on your home computer.

“Our campus ACM provides the unique social aspect,” he said. “Computer Engineering and Computer Science students go to class, but how do you get to know each other? This is how.”

Why join?

“My personal favorite thing is the chance to know students and faculty. It brought me closer to the department,” he said.

In other CSCE department environments, there’s not much of a chance to talk, but at ACM, “we just talk and hangout. I enjoy that, and enjoy watching others do the same.”

Membership

ACM members must be CSCE students, but events are open to the public. Only group officers are required to pay the national membership dues, which are $35/year; there are no dues for other members.

ACM, made up of roughly 30 students, was largely a graduate student organization until this year.

“Now we (grad students) set up events and the undergrads come to the events,” he said. “Our membership is a little more than 50 percent undergraduates. It’s really hard to get them involved, maybe because challenges vary from undergrad to grad school.”

A number of the members graduate this may, so officers are encouraging undergrads to take responsibility, to become more involved or even take an officer position, like Secretary Hayley Archer.

Events

As an equally professional and social organization, the UA-ACM has three social events, two panel discussions and a distinguished lecture each year.

Social events include Board Game Night, a Video Game Night for playing Halo and this year, a Scavenger Hunt sponsored by Conoco Phillips will take place after Spring Break.

The 2011 ACM Industry Panel took place February 15, bringing one of the largest turnouts of UA-ACM event history. The panel includes representatives from six companies.

“We had a big turnout,” Leebhaisomboon said. At the panel, “you can earn FE credit, get free food, find out about available internships and prepare for the future.”

During the panel, “it’s easier to make contact with them. Students can hang out after events like the Industry Panel and talk to anyone they want to talk to,” he said. “It’s a good first impression before the Engineering EXPO.”

The dates for the 2011 Graduate School Panel and the 2011 ACM Distinguished Lecture are yet to be announced.

Each year, the UA chapter participates in the ACM National Distinguished Lecture Program.

“We can request a speaker from the list (of speakers available for distinguished lecturers,)” he said. “Nationals pays the speaker’s travel expenses and the UA CSCE Department covers local expenses.

“(ACM) is the middle man between ACM Nationals and the CSCE Dept. at UA for the lecture.”

ACM High School programming competition is the biggest ACM event of the year, a state-wide competition organized and managed by CSCE Professor, Dr. Wing Li.

Any high school students can participate, but the high school teacher can help individuals get involved, by knowing which ones would be interested in the first place, directing them to the website, and keeping contact with Dr. Wing Li.

Professional Development

“If you get your work in the ACM magazine, you’re set, it will help you (in the job market) a lot,” Leebhaisomboon said.

Coming up at the end of the Spring 2011 semester, Acxiom will sponsor workshop sessions about mobile computerized applications for ACM members. Officers plan to advertise more workshops this fall.

ACM currently doesn’t work closely with the Career Development Center now, but might in the future.

Industry Connections

The Acxiom corporation and Conoco-Phillips have partnerships with the UA Association for Computing Machinery.

Acxiom sponsored the ACM high school programming competition,” Leebhaisomboon said, and funding opportunities are growing because members are strengthening the partnerships.

“We talked to (company) representatives more and they became increasingly more interested as we told them more details of what we’re doing.”

The partnership with and sponsoring by Conoco-Phillips was one of many good things to come from the ACM Industry Panel.

Officers

Annual officer elections take place in April.

Wiwat Leebhaisomboon preceeded Ross Thian (PhD student) as ACM President. This year’s officers are Lora Strother, Vice President; Chris Borderer, Treasurer; Hayley Archer, Secretary (an undergraduate); Susan Gouch is Faculty Adviser.

Professor Gouch is responsible for keeping the UA chapter of ACM alive, through a brief period of inactivity when a majority of the members graduated.

“I joined the group when Dr. Gouch called some of us (graduate students) in her office and appointed officers to jumpstart the organization,” Leebhaisomboon said.

Contact
Google Group ACM Arkansas Chapter
Facebook Fanpage “ACM-University of Arkansas Chapter”
National Website http://www.acm.org/

UA-EWB Brings Guest Speakers to Campus

2.24.11

Members of the UA chapter of Engineers Without Borders narrowed the options for the Spring 2011 Guest Speaker down to three, and would like to know students top choice of speaker and speaking time.

Guest Speaker Options

The tentative date for the speaker is April 16, but several members are apprehensive about the turnout of a Saturday lecture, emphasizing the extreme promotion it would take to make it happen. The official date should be set before Spring Break to meet the required ASG Event Planning Meeting that should take place one month before the event.

EWB Treasurer Gavin Smith contacted Lloyd Walker, a professor from Colorado State University, (http://www.cwi.colostate.edu/CSUWaterFaculty/?WF_ID=122) who is willing to speak to engineering students on the UA campus.

“He was a mentor on six EWB trips, is an agricultural/water-systems engineer, has traveled a lot—he just got back from Africa,” Smith said. “He owns land in Ozarks and was heading this way anyway, so he agreed to do it.”

Because Walker will be spending some time at his Ozarks cabin, EWB has the option of having him speak during the week, on his way back through Fayetteville—possibly more suited to student schedules.

Secretary Jenny Doyle suggested making the speaking event an entire afternoon, including a workshop, luncheon followed by the speech.

Food options will be decided once location is set, but the preliminary option is pizza.

ASG funding allows for food to accompany the event, color posters for advertisement, the speaker’s travel expenses and boarding cost to be taken care of, as well as an honorary sum paid to the speaker.

EWB Advisor, Professor Soerens suggested a couple of his contacts as preferred speakers. Papa Mena, a community leader in Belize, would be a valuable resource to the group and a particular graduate student at Oklahoma State, originally from Kenya, was also suggested.

T-shirts

The long-awaited Engineers Without Borders t-shirts are being ordered soon.

Students had several options, mostly variations of the chapter name and national logo on either white, red or black shirts, with or without “frockets,” or front-pockets.

Members decided on two options: a white shirt with “Making the world a better place one village at a time,” in black lettering and another shirt with “For every person in the world there is hope, therefore we help,” in symbols on the front and in English on the back.

Secretary Doyle liked the second shirt especially, because, “You don’t have to explain what it means, you just turn around and (the shirt explains) ‘yeah, what’s up, we’re cool.’”

Belize

International Project Chair, Ben Marts is trying a new organization of the Belize group this time around.

“We’ll have three groups of people this time. One group each for design, fundraising, and for the people wanting to go,” he said. “You can be in all three groups, don’t feel like this has to limit you in anyway.”

The new system is a way for more members to be actively involved in all projects.

The next Belize trip meeting will take place Friday, February 25, at 12:30 p.m. at Kosmos Greekafe and a Belize Trip Design Meeting will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday February 28, at Gusano’s Restaurant.

Other events

EWB brings Jim Kilgore, former Arkansas Eastman Operations Manager, to speak on his missionary work in Bangladesh and post-Tsunami Southeast Asia, at 6 p.m. in Bell Engineering 267, on Monday, February 28.

“Come learn from his experiences and hear suggestions on how to work with different cultures on humanitarian projects!” Kilgore will give points on resourceful engineering in a foreign environment.

Members are hoping to team up with the League of Women Voters during their water quality speech series in Fayetteville, soon to come.

On Sunday, February 27, members will participate in a Community Garden event from 1-4 p.m. Free food will be available and anyone is invited to join.

EWB members also hope to join the Ozark Foundation in planting trees along Kings River on Saturday, March 5. Those interested in the event are welcome to camp with the group on Friday night.

For the local chapter records, the chance to register for the EWB National Conference in Louisville ended last night. The estimated cost is roughly $50 per person. Honorary Treasurer, Sarah Beth Dalby needs the registration fees as soon as possible, so she can have them postmarked by Thursday of next week.

Phi Sigma Rho

2.23.11

United by a love of penguins and engineering, Phi Sigma Rho is a social organization for women in technical majors. Members have dinners and weekend trips together, and help each other with classwork and job-searching. U of A Phi Sigma Rho is the only Arkansas chapter and one of the few chapters in the South. The original group began in Purdue, Ill., so most of the chapters reside in the North.

“Being a female majoring in a science, math, engineering field can be difficult sometimes because there aren't many other females to connect with,” said Rush Coordinator, Rachel Schluterman.

“I love that I have a built in support group with my Phi Rho sisters, and it's great to be part of their support group in return.”

“We’re not a professional sorority,” said Treasurer Kelsie Costantini. “When we mention that it’s less time-consuming, some get confused…and think that there are hardly any time requirements at all,”

But really, Phi Sigma Rho is a way for women to connect on any level, without a required time commitment.

Membership requirements

Phi Sigma Rho has nearly 30 members and has chapter meetings every Monday.

“We’re growing, which is great because earlier we had a threat of losing the chapter because we got down to three members,” Costantini said.

Prospective members must be in a physics-based major, which is any major that requires the Physics I course, typically physics or engineering. Students must place bids, but Phi Sigma Rho has rarely, if ever, turned a student away. The group initiation event is typically a lock-in, a simple way for the girls to become acquainted.

Even though Phi Sigma Rho requires placing bids, “our Rush is different from Greek sororities because it takes place over a week or two and is really informal,” she said.

Members are required to work a few service hours, a requirement that changed recently.

“We changed it from three hours per semester to nine hours per year, so we normally organize one big service event for the entire group,” Costantini said.

This year’s main service event is the Fayetteville Relay for Life in March.

“We’re also hoping to work with the Girl Scouts-to help them get their badges-once a semester or more,” she said.

Resources

Although no members are obligated to donate money, many Phi Rho alumni return to make chapter gifts.

“One of them gave us a storage unit to use for a couple of years. They also give us resume input,” Costantini said.

Women of Phi Rho enjoy the camaraderie so much that the opportunity to start new chapters rests on the approval of other chapters. Basic networking usually leads to quick formation of other chapters.

Other valuable Phi Rho resources include Resumania, job opportunity notices and a study materials bank.

“During Resumania, (Phi Sigma Rho members) send our resumes out for review,” Costantini said. “Through the year, we get emails that bring attention to companies that are willing to hire.”

Why girls join

“I joined because of my FEP peer mentor. One day she was coloring this picture of a penguin (the Phi Sigma Rho mascot), and I thought ‘awesome. I love penguins,’” Costantini said. “She explained to me that the group was for girls in the same major, where we all have the same demands, we’re busy…(so we can relate).”

Phi Rho Rush Coordinator, Rachel Schluterman met some of the members at RazorBash and became interested because they were laid back, sweet, and really informative.

Events

Phi Sigma Rho kicked off the semester with a couple of informal dinners- pizza in Pomfret’s game room and an evening at Buffalo Wild Wings, followed soon after by the annual Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream social.

Coming up on Saturday, February 26, drop by 3 Spoons Yogurt on campus between noon - 2pm and mention Phi Rho while making your purchase. For each order, 3 Spoons will donate 25% of the profit to Phi Sigma Rho for fundraising our main event of the semester: Relay for Life.

Traditionally, the group hosts a formal event, but this semester they are having a Retreat Weekend at Devil’s Den, instead.

The 2011 Phi Sigma Rho National Conference will take place in Columbus, Ohio, an event that provides a strong sense of unity, sisterhood and various discussions about Phi Rho mission and rituals.

Each year, “at least one girl has to go, but this year we want more girls to go,” Costantini said. “We’re attending with our brother group, Triangle.”

The conference events with Triangle will be higher-energy than usual, since 2011 is the Triangle centennial year.

“It’s a big deal this year,” she said.

Occasionally, the group brings in a motivational speaker.

“Last year we had (the event) Leap. A speaker came in that talked about ways to bring people together, gave us a pep talk,” she said.

Officers:

Several girls work very hard to keep Phi Sigma Rho a dynamic, active group.

This year’s officers are AJ Salois, President; Courtney Cagle, Vice President and Scholarship chair; Kelsie Costantini, Treasurer; Sarah Withem, Social Chair; Rachael Pellegrino, Rush Coordinator; Rachel Schluterman, Rush Coordinator; Kristin Kovach, Secretary; Rosie Reese, Service Chair and BreAnn Hutson, Membership Educator.

As rush coordinator, Schluterman said, “It was my goal to be accessible to any girl at the U of A who was interested in a math/science/engineering sorority. The snow storms messed with our schedule a bit, but we were still able to reach a few ladies.

“It was a great feeling to introduce Phi Sigma Rho to these new girls and see them accepted just as I was.”

Members help each other with classwork, especially when taking classes in majors other than their own. For example, Costantini said you might get “help from a fellow physics major while in physics 2.”

Contact

You can find this group at the “Phi Sigma Rho- Kappa Chapter” group on Facebook, as a Yahoo group or get more information at the national website, http://www.phisigmarho.org/.

UA Ntnl Society of Black Engineers

2.18.2011

Members of the National Society of Black Engineers met Thursday to discuss semester goals, NSBE national conference and service projects.

NSBE President Ben Onukwube takes pride in his organization and offered words of encouragement.

“People don’t care what you know until they know you care. I’m here to tell you that I care,” he said. “If you feel like you can’t come to your teachers, to your class, to your job, come to us. Let us help you.

“We’re here for you. I hate to see people drop out of engineering without talking to anyone about it. If you’re having trouble, talk to us first.”

Most of all, Onukwube counted his success on the strength of NSBE.

“Thanks for being a part of (NSBE)…keeping me on (my toes),” he said.

The main goal for Spring 2011 is to increase group involvement in NSBE events.

“We have lots of work to do. This group is good at showing up for free food on Tuesdays, but we need more involvement in the events,” he said. “The college has taken an interest in NSBE (so you should too.)”

Onukwube brought attention to the volume of members graduating this May and called for recruitment of freshmen and sophomores for leadership roles.

“Think of how you can contribute (to NSBE,)” he said. “Can you help us get sponsorships? How can I keep it going? How can NSBE make a bigger impact?”

Last semester, NSBE placed second in the campus-wide Canned Food Drive for the new, U of A campus food pantry.

“I was blown away by our response…I’m very impressed,” Onukwube said. “We came in second place, at 248 points. That’s saying a lot, since first place was ASG and RIC combined, which came in at 400 points—about $1/person.

Larger organizations on campus placed lower in the competition, showing a compelling work ethic in NSBE members.

National Conference 2011

This year’s NSBE National Conference will take place March 23-27 in St. Louis, Mo., during Spring Break. http://www.nsbe.org/Convention/Overview.aspx

Onukwube highly suggests the national conference, presenting its only consequence as the amount of time for transportation—something that can’t be outweighed by the benefit of the NSBE conference job fair.

NSBE Adviser, Professor Thomas Carter said housing and transportation will be provided for students, leaving only a registration cost.

All NBSE officers need to know is how many students are attending.

“We need to know by February 28 if you’re going,” Onukwube said. “Don’t come to me on March 2, when Panama (plans) didn’t work out and need me to sign you up.”

“In our last conference to New Orleans, we took 19 people, which was almost 5 times more than last year,” he said.

Community

NSBE members will volunteer with the Boys & Girls Club every 2-3 weeks to help with homework, play video games and other games with them.

“This is an opportunity for encouraging African American Higher Education. Please send me your opinions on this,” Onukwube said.

Resume Book

President Onukwube needs all NSBE members to send a copy of their resume to him as soon as possible.

As a career-centered RSO, NSBE is a crucial networking link in the Northwest Arkansas community.

“What good is NSBE without getting each other jobs? We’re resources to each other,” Onukwube said.

Students can do two big things to help each other excel: help each other in classes of their own strengths and form a database of resumes for availability at any job opportunities.

“You all printed off resumes for EXPO and I’ve been asking (for them)since…September. (So when) Walmart called me looking for three industrial engineers, I didn’t have enough to give them,” he said. “Please send your resumes to me!”

In Other News

NSBE members are invited to attend a free practice GRE test at 10 a.m. tomorrow, February 19, in the Mechanical Engineering Building, provided by Kaplan.

Members should pay national dues on the official site, http://nsbe.org/ via cash or check to Triest.

The next UA-NSBE meeting will be March 15.

Mission: To increase the number of culturally responsible Black Engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community.

Miles' Goodnight Jazz

He loves the piano. Well, loves to sleep on it.

Today, in my life

There's a lot of laughter in this office. Above, coworkers in mid-high five. This was shortly before anonymous coworker was offended by anonymous superviser, slung open a pair of scissors and said "I will cut you, bitch," causing an office collapse of laughter.

IMAPS

IMAPS: Bringing together the entire microelectronic supply chain

Have you been considering an engineering graduate program, but haven’t decided on a specific path? The International Microelectronics and Packaging Society, IMAPS, is a way to move forward in the world of engineering research.

Founded in 1967, IMAPS is the leading international microelectronics and electronic packaging society with professional members in 23 North American chapters and 21 international chapters.

The largest society of its kind, “IMAPS produces numerous publications, workshops, international conferences, exhibitions… Our events and products focus on those technologies critical to the present and future of microelectronics,” according to the IMAPS website.

The UA chapter is the only IMAPS in Arkansas and one of the few in the region, making it difficult for chapters to collaborate.

“The closest chapters would be the Chicago (and) the Austin chapters,” IMAPS Vice President Ranjith John said. “However, we do collaborate with as many other organizations (and departments) on campus as we can.”

While working on his masters in Microelectronics, he joined IMAPS in 1999. He enjoyed the collaboration that IMAPS provided with others in his field and decided to earn his PhD on the same campus.

“IMAPS was initially a research-based organization. The 90's saw exponential growth in semiconductors and…in electronic packaging,” John said. “HiDEC was the only facility on campus which served the purpose of providing electronics packaging expertise to students and industries.

“Over the years we have seen that involving the local community (is) beneficial to the awareness the total student community.

“The goal for IMAPS has always been the same--exceptional research.”

In the past 10 years, IMAPS has increased its student awareness and involvement in community.

Corey Thompson, IMAPS President, joined a couple of years ago when he switched from Mechanical Engineering to an interest in research packaging and used it as a way to get involved in the field.

Officers

Students form research opportunity by working with professors, so they are vital resources to research-centered RSOs.

Professors Bill Brown and Len Schaper began the UA IMAPS chapter in the late 90s, while involved with HiDEC. Since then, both have retired, but a professor’s job is never quite finished.

“Schaper pops up every now and then to check on us (and) Brown helps advise Ranjith on his PhD,” Thompson said. “They guide us.”

UA Professor Ajay Malshe now advises IMAPS.

Tristan Evans, electrical engineering major, is the organization’s Treasurer and officers are hoping to fill the position of secretary sometime this year.

Membership

IMAPS is made up of 33 members, mostly graduate students, with a few undergraduates and PhD candidates mixed in.

“Graduate students have more exposure to research, (so they’re more likely to be interested in IMAPS,)” John said.

There are no official requirements, only dues for members that attend symposiums. Part of this stems from the schedule of students and the general informality of the group.

“Scheduling is a nightmare for (pooling) graduate students,” Thompson said. “If you’re interested, you’re going to be involved in the group, but we won’t make you.”

The lack of undergraduates in this RSO has no significance to level of research.

“We had a poster competition in the group and had an undergraduate (student) place second,” Thompson said. “It was judged (fairly) by some of our professors and included a cash prize $100 for first place and $50 for second.”

John stressed that the group is universal because microelectronics and packaging has so many sects within it.

“We have people that are interested in any part of microelectronics. It’s about any novel thing that you’re working on,” he said.

Events

“We have three meetings per semester, mostly taken up by the lectures we have,” Thompson said.

IMAPS also hosts a guest lecturer and a couple of faculty lectures to discuss research.

An attractive feature for undergraduate students is that “our guest lecture is a way to learn about the industry (before you get there.)”

Previous speakers were the former IMAPS president Greg Caswell and Dr. Meyya Meyyappan from NASA Ames Research.

“This semester we are hoping to bring in two speakers, one is current President and CEO of a small business and the other is Vice President of Research for a technology company,” Thompson said.

Volunteering

During the summer, IMAPS members volunteer for the College of Engineering Welcome Center high school student camps and the solar boat races.

“We don’t count it as service hours, because it’s (mostly) a community event for the group,” Thompson said.

The summer service events come at a good time for IMAPS members, who are in Fayetteville year-round, unlike many undergraduates. For them, it’s a chance to get to know each other more.

IMAPS poster sessions are discussions centered on the members’ research, but the main meetings of the year focus on the bigger picture.

“Corey is interested in materials. I’m interested in packaging, which is much more interdisciplinary,” John said. “(IMAPS) is a way to see what is out there, what other people are working on and a way for different backgrounds to work together.”

Members of the Society represent every discipline and specialty in the electronics industry and include both technical and marketing professionals, according to the IMAPS website.

Annual IMAPS Symposium

IMAPS president has always gone to the symposium, but John and Thompson are hoping to get more members involved this year. Both are attending and emphasized how easily accessible funding is to students. The IMAPS national office awards scholarships for the symposium cost to students presenting papers there.

“One of the greatest opportunities that I have had since joining IMAPS is the chance to network with professionals in the field of electronic packaging,” he said.

“When we represent the U of A student chapter at the Symposium, the booth is visited by hundreds of professionals from every corner of the electronics packaging field. The people that you meet will eventually end up being the people sitting across from you in an interview.”

The Creativity Room

The room I spent my childhood in was something I call the creativity room.

My bedroom? No.
It was the one with the piano…and many other things.

This was a collage of resources and creative efforts, serving as a “sewing room” for my mom, who sews and knits various blankets for newborns and constructs dozens of other useful items as Christmas and birthday gifts.

The dark-stained wooden door was never an ominous entry, since it was always open, leading into a naturally-lit room. At the back corner of our house, it had the advantage of windows on two sides: one of those being a sliding-glass door. The top half of the walls was painted a modest egg white, and the other half was paneled by rugged, splintery old barn wood, salvaged from an old building on our property. My mom asked for that wood to be used in her sewing room, loving the country-home feel it added to the already remote location of their home.

The wooden paneling was the white elephant of the room, for me.

It was the one thing that could scare me from the room.

Who puts old, unfinished wood in their house? No one else I knew, that’s for sure.

My active imagination kept bugs, spiders and other creepy-crawlies pouring out of the walls. The lure of my sheet music and sewing projects outweighed my fear everytime.

In my efforts to clear my mind of worry, one day I touched the wall, attempting to convince myself of my imagination’s absurdity. Out of the porous wood came a spider, defensively scuttling across his territory. Out of my lips the blood-curdling scream.

It was the beginning of battles in years to come.

Did I want to play piano? Yes.

How bad? Bad enough to keep heavy shoes around, suck up my inferiority and kill arachnids the moment they were spotted.

Attack and defense. Invasion and repulsion.

The first wall hanging you notice is small—a piece of embroidered work (about the same dimensions of notebook paper) with a saying over a family of bears dressed in human clothing, and shackled with a thin baby-blue frame, white matting. The momma bear wears a bow, daddy bear wears trousers and glasses, accompanied by a toddler and a baby stroller.

I don’t remember the embroidered phrase exactly, but that was never the point.

It was about home and family, the kind of thing that makes you feel safe, even if you want to hate those bears. The type of thing that reminds me of the fourth grade—the feeling of security in things that have always been there, that you had yet to question--like wearing cotton dresses to church and immediately donning your wall calendar with the dates of vacation bible school. It’s the kind of comfort I used to get from listening to Dr. Vernon McGee’s voice on the crackly waves of an A.M. channel. You ingest it, whether you listen to it or not, and you’re filled with peace.

In the corner of the corner of our mysterious house was a large print of a nature scene: a tall sanctuary of forest full of spring-green foliage and a deer and her fawn, newly freckled. The immensely tall trees lend an unearthly sense of spaciousness. A spaciousness that sickens even children by the meager comparison of the squashed confines of existence.

Despite the unworldly spaciousness, the deer seem trapped in fear, which always convicted me with worry that they were in the same plot as Bambi and his mother. It never failed to leave me uneasy, this utopia with beautiful, sweet-looking animals where fear resided. It seemed busy in its dire emotion, full of things, but with very little clutter.

It was a sanctuary that’s been tainted, one from which they have to flee. My fox-and-hound sort of worry knew there must be a lot of love there, in that painting, but that it didn’t matter on a certain level.

A child discovering the tragedy of nature, the tragedy of reality.

Even still, it was my favorite thing to look at in the room. The anxiety spurred me into narrative, where I could get out of the picture of my life, or take the deer away from danger. My imagination found solace in the meditation of walking through a perfect, quiet woods where only the crackle of twigs and the gushing of streams could drown out the rest of the busy world. A place of escape and contentment.

And then, there was the Piano.

The Piano, my world.

An upright, cherry wood Rudolph Wurlitzer—the love of my young life.
In the early years, it was racked with hymnals, dozens of easy-level books and as much pop sheet music as you could imagine. Karoke machine not far from it, it was my station of long afternoons in the country.

A symbol of curiosity, through which I thought I could learn about my mom.

A teacher, wife, mother, her only other love was piano. Her consuming desire to be an efficient, not even great, pianist left me with the biggest puzzle of all. What is the allure here?

I spent so much time trying to figure that out, that I never returned from the journey.

Piano, my comfort, my friend that would be there waiting for my return from gossipy teenagers and shallow, self-absorbed tweens. A major source to instill organizing, planning and dedication to my system. Imagine your biggest challenge and the most fun you’ve ever had. Then combine the two.

It was always flooded with bits of paper scattered on the bench and stacks of other music. This was my scatter-brained songwriting in informal music speak. The type that drove my piano teacher nuts because it wasn’t quite jazz, wasn’t quite classical and worst of all, she couldn’t even read it…she had to trust me and listen to it played.

The Piano.

It was the part of the room that felt like mine. I would scrape off mom’s music and try to remove the stereo, to clear it off like a performance tool. I spent hours there, much more than mom did, and certainly more than dad. Upon each return, all the clutter would magically return to the piano, as if it was a mere bookshelf or closet, and my work would begin again.

Near to the piano hung a photo of my twin nephews wearing sailor-type outfits at age three. For a short time, my nephews lived with us when I was seven and they were five. Coming from a child that was so isolated by age gap to her siblings, I’d always begged my parents for a younger sibling. The six months of living with my nephews was a brief answer to that prayer.

We fought together.
Called each other names.
Built forts and fought more if territorial lines were crossed.

It was fabulous.

Saturday mornings were spent slathering mickey-mouse-shaped pancakes in real butter and granulated sugar before my mother turned us loose, not to return to the house until the next meal.

Watching Aladdin was our rainy day reflex, coloring and drawing on scrap paper over the linoleum floor was part of our daily agenda and running across hay bales took an inordinate amount of time.

All of these things spring to mind, the endearing, weathered, dog-eared pages of my childhood in the days before my nephews moved away.

Creaky, crackly yellow blinds were just above mom’s 1970s sewing machine, suspended by way of a dirty white rope wrapped around a metal peg on the window sill. Whole months, whole seasons would pass before I would see them unrolled, in use. Conscious reminders of nights when dad was gone to Missouri to see his family, or gone fishing. These were the nights when mom wouldn’t sleep and instead would sew multiple projects in our creativity room, bidding her time until her hero returned.

The suspended blinds were marginally present on rainy afternoons of childhood, twirling the dirty white rope around short fingers, nose pressed against the glass, mentally judging how long the backyard basketball “court” dried or how long I had to wait before lying in the grass again.

The glory days of the sliding glass door the few years that we had an above ground pool. 1998 echoes of the sleekness of having no screen, of slipping out onto the deck for some on-the-go tanning before jumping into the pool only when visitors came and discipline relaxed.

It’s now a foggy-glass door, peeling, cracking, rarely used.

Warped brown and mustard-colored linoleum goes easy on the bare feet of the young pianists of the room. Worn from years of plopping down a soft grid for cutting fabric, piecing patterns, placing pins. This is where I tossed, then joined my printing paper by lying belly-to-floor and learned to write a printed “A” properly. It’s where I memorized my home address. It’s where I embarked on the journey of music by first drawing an outline of my hands and numbered the fingers. Music by numbers.

Here was the only time in my life that I found a wooden car with a potted plant in it as a threatening thing. Rolling unsteadily on the linoleum, my uneasiness came from the threat of bugs crawling out after watering it. The rarity of this event never seemed to calm my fears, somehow.

As a reformed bedroom, the creativity room actually had a closet. A vintage affair, the wooden-washboard panels opened to the most chaotic assembly of fabrics and half-finished clothing projects, illuminated by a lightbulb on a string.

Enter at your own risk.

Enter for a dip into the pool of possibility.

Squeezed into the least interesting corner of the room was the family ironing board, used mainly for everyone’s least favorite chore--ironing Dad’s handkerchiefs, but also riddled with an overwhelming stack of button-up shirts and mom’s dresses.

The only sense of wonder the ironing board could provide was its location under my mom’s personal corkboard, smothered with greeting cards and the only pictures of my her family that she owns. The elusive other family that I didn’t know well, staring at me while I starched shirts.

The room wore a dark-wooden clock with gold numbers, which struck some odd sort of fear in me, after having been abruptly shaken one day by its presence and intuitively prayed for someone at the hour of their death. A death unknown to me at the time.

The hung plaque nearby only added to that fear, with Ephesians threat or promise, “there’s a time to live, a time to die.”

The thin, golden hand ticked, ticked, ticked over the dark wood.

Ticking, mortally.

It ticked, ticked, stopped.