Nikki's Graduation! - by Guest Blogger Allen!

Justifiably Proud and Happy Graduate - the red rope is for her commitment to community service

On Friday May 3rd, I had the pleasure of witnessing perhaps the most amazing event I have ever seen. While I was anticipating the usual pomp and circumstance of graduation, I don’t think I could have ever guessed that Nikki's graduation ceremony would be so special and so meaningful.

Candelores and Rodas on the front row

It began in the usual way with speeches and platitudes about the value of education and all of those things. I really appreciated that they introduced each of the PhD students individually and briefly discussed their research before presenting them with degrees. I doubt NYU will do anything like that.

Then they started presenting student awards. Nikki had said something that morning about there being awards given out for academic achievement and professional promise, as well as one that was chosen by the students to honor a fellow student dedicated to "service, empathy, confidence-building, industry and responsibility." When they began to announce these awards, I was just sure that Nikki was going to get one, because she was such an awesome student – how could she not? Alas, the awards went to other students – who most certainly deserved them – but since I am Nikki’s husband I am allowed to be biased.

Then I saw on the program that a “Special Award” was next to be presented. It was unclear what that meant.  The Dean began by explaining that the two awards that they school currently gives out were both established in the honor of retiring faculty who had given much of their lives to the School of Information. The school has not instituted a new award for students in 41 years, but decided the time had come.

Rodas anticipate that Nikki might be getting this new special award.

And rather than honor a faculty member, this time they were going to honor a student. A student, who in two short years had done so much for the School of Information that the only way they could think to acknowledge her impact was to create an award in her honor.

At this point, the lights dimmed, and they began a video slide show in homage to Nikki Roda – the first and only student in the history of UM School of Information to have an award established in her honor.  The pictures were captioned with quotes from friends and colleagues that highlighted just how special a person Nikki Candelore Roda is.

Fast forward to 1:02:14 to get to the good part

You can also see the commencement video HERE and read a description of the awards – .

If you can't read all the captions in the video, I typed them out for you:

A True Leader

Setting the Pace in the Classroom

SOCHI Officer

A2DataDive Founder

Spirit of Service

Fierce Drive

Intellectual Courage

Innovator

Vibrant

Lasting Legacy

Deep Involvement

Self-Motivated

It is really hard to capture in words just how magical an experience it was. At the end of the video, the entire audience began to cheer loudly. There was a standing ovation from all of the students - as well as their families as Nikki walked up to the stage - It. Was. Amazing.

The honor wasn’t for Nikki’s any particular achievement – although they cited all the work she did for the DataDive, the Student Clubs and Organizations, Alternate Spring Break, and Service Day as examples of ways in which she gave back to the School and the community – no the award wasn’t for any of those accomplishments, it was for being who Nikki is. A person who doesn’t just talk about doing things, but gets them done – whose heart is so full, so generous, and caring that she can’t help herself but to help others when she has the ability and the opportunity.

As she explained in planning the first A2 DataDive – “We have the Skills, We’d be doing something really good for the world, and It would be really cool.”

None of us knew this was coming

The Dean used those same words in introducing Nikki, the first recipient of the Nikki Candelore Roda Student Impact Award.  The award not only honors Nikki’s tireless spirit, infectious enthusiasm, and indomitable will to do good, but it reflects the University’s ongoing commitment to community service.  The A2 DataDive, which she established (with the help of Claire Barco and Emily Puckett-Rogers) is going to become an annual event sponsored by the University and overseen by the office of student affairs. Her legacy will be felt at UMSI every year as they plan this event, and every spring when they honor a student whose commitment to service warrants special recognition.

After he presented her the award, without any preparation, he asked Nikki to say a few words.  She really didn't know this was going to happen; it caught us all by surprise. Most of us were impressed that she was even able to talk at all. Not only did she deliver a speech, but it was touching, eloquent, and on point. She thanked everyone for their support and expressed how meaningful it had been for her to learn from her students and learn to work together. She was humble and gracious. When she finished, there was another instant standing ovation (truncated in the video). Not just from the students, but from all of the students’ family members who didn’t even know who Nikki was before that day. The speeches and the discussions of who Nikki is – not just what she had done - moved everyone in the auditorium to their feet. It was amazing.

This is a heavy honor.  One that we don’t take lightly – and so – I think it is hard for Nikki to talk about it herself. But I don’t have any difficulty at all telling you and the entire world that my wife is AMAZING. Everyone loves her, is proud of her, and rejoices in her accomplishments. As someone who has known for a long time just how awesome Nikki is, I am overwhelmed with joy and pride to see her University express a similar level of gratitude and pride. This is perhaps the highest honor they could have possibly bestowed on Nikki – and the highest honor they have ever bestowed on a student.  It’s. Just. Incredible. – and there really aren’t sufficient words to describe it.

The Rodas and the Candelores were all in attendance. We had great seats right behind the graduates. And since we were all so overjoyed with the occasion, it’s no surprise that we managed to get some good pictures. Without further ado, here are some of my favorites.

Nikki and Darek

Nikki with Pete and Jane

Nikki and her partner in crime, Claire Barco

Nikki with Veronica and Laura from the Office of Student Affairs

Darek and Allison

Nikki and Dean Jeff MacKie-Mason

SI Graduate Shenanigans: Kate, Kendra, Phil, Nikki, Tawfiq, and Claire

Soma, Nikki, and Claire

Terence and Nikki (and Sabrish with the camera)

Kristen and Nikki

Rodas at the Reception

Mari and Darek

The Candelore Clan

Nikki and Yours Truly

YES!

The Nikki Candelore Roda Award!

On the move again: Vermont, Graduations, and Old Friends

Because we keep things "interesting" around here, Allen and I have been pretty busy during the first few weeks of our summer vacation.

First we went to visit our very good friends in Vermont...

Little slice of heaven

It was so much fun to catch up with Aimee and Bill, who we hadn't seen in three years (too long!)... A lot had changed for them since we last saw them, including the addition of 18-month old Dara

Ready to play with mom and dad

I could blast you with pictures of all the fun we had (going hiking, making meals, playing at the museum, putting shoes on our feet, reading stories, etc), but I'll spare you since blogger is not letting me upload the video I wanted to    :(    so, I'll leave you with this instead

Story with smiles time!

Next it was off to Sacred Heart University in Connecticut to see my brother, Darek, graduate with his doctorate in Physical Therapy

Proud family with the happy graduate

Darek is amazing! I'm so proud of him; we're all so proud of him! He's embarking on a new adventure (passing the boards and finding his first job as a licensed PT), but we all have no doubt that he's going to continue kicking butt along the way!

Another graduation that's worth briefly mentioning is Barnard's, my alma mater,  where President Obama gave the commencement address.

“We are better off when women are treated fairly and equally in every aspect of American life, whether it’s the salary you earn or the health decisions you make,” President Obama, May 2012

And to round out the busy and amazing week, we headed over the New York city to hang out with our friends Hamsa and Danika, who are shortly headed to the University of Kansas soon. We started off the evening playing Just Dance 3 for the XBOX. This is the most fun party-game/workout EVER!

Feel the burn!

And then of course, it wouldn't have been an evening with H & D without about a million rounds of bridge and drinking fuddy-duddy drinks (this time it was Old Fashioneds)

I was sad to say goodbye for a number of reasons. I left Allen in NYC for the rest of the week, where he's at a musical instrument conference hosted by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also, since I'm headed to CA tomorrow and he's headed to London this weekend, it was our last time to hang out before we're literally on opposite sides of the world for 2 months.  :(

But I've got a lot of great memories to sustain me and we both have a ton of exciting adventures to look forward to!

2012: Best Birthday Ever?*

What a crazy and amazing birthday week** I've been having! I don't even know where to begin. I guess the best place to start is the beginning.

The week began with a networking fair an expoSItion, a student showcase of their various projects. Claire and I presented the A2 Datadive in the hopes of convincing incoming prospective student to sign up. I'm happy to report that I think I was able to convince at least 2 students to sign up just to help out at the datadive.

Partners in crime

The expoSItion was also great opportunity for us to show off to employers as well. I got two interview for summer internships because of my presentation on the A2 Datadive; fingers crossed, I should know in the next week or so what I'll be up to this summer.

So, needless to say this week go started off to a bang, so I was really looking forward to my plans for Friday (my actual birthday). I was going to hang out with friends in the afternoon, go to a student-org sponsored happy hour, and then top the night off by going to see "The Hunger Games" with Allen and a few friends....

Boy, was I wrong.

In what will probably be family-lore for a long time Allen was able to *again* keep a multi-month secret planning a spectacular surprise party for my birthday. I love Allen, but he's terrible at keeping secrets, mostly because he's so darn excited about how sneaky he's being. But he pulled it off again and it was awes-amazing***

Instead of going to a theater we drove to (seemingly) the middle of nowhere and came to this random looking office park with a building that said "Whirlyball" on it ... which before Friday had absolutely no meaning to me.

Neville and I rocking Iron Man mask, for reasons

Whirlyball, which seems to be a truly mid-Western experience, is a cross between bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball (use your imagination folks)

Putting my game face on

Driving your bumper car, you use that little net I'm holding to toss a whiffle ball into the net, which is built into a basketball goal. Yeah - it was just as awesome as you are imagining right now. Mind you, these bumper cars had no brakes or steering wheel; you basically had no idea what direction you were about to head at any given time. We were laughing hysterically, shouting curses and encouragement, and generally just having a great time. Probably the funniest part though was how serious people got driving their little bumper cars like mini tanks.

Then we got home for dinner and I found that the apartment had been decorated in an Avengers/memes/internet theme (Allen, Neville, and Gina couldn't really decide).

The picture on my cake was really the icing on the ... erm ... cake

We must have ALL OF THE MEMES at this party!

But honestly, the most amazing (and touching) part about this birthday was how many friends came out for my party. Allen said that he had to comb through Facebook to find everyone in a stealthy way -- but I was still really blown away by how many people were in on the planning (my friends who hung out with me that afternoon, the officers of the student org who planned the happy hour to keep me out, and my crazy friends who pretended to be spies on a secret operation to decorate the apartment).

I feel so blessed to have so many amazing people in my life. Thank you guys for helping me cap off a birthday I will never ever forget!

Oh! And I finally got to see the Hunger Games last night - and totally loved it!

______________________________

* I leave this as an open question because it's pretty tough to beat my 25th birthday back in 2008 when Allen surprised me by whisking me down to the Dominican Republic for an vacation where he proposed to me. He got me good then just as he got me good this year.

** I don't believe that the awesomeness of a birthday should be limited to one day

*** Awes-amazing, is totally a (SI) thing

Not all work...

Yesterday I went to a friend's 30th birthday party - the twist was it was at a rollerskating rink. It brings me back to elementary school when rollerskating parties were all the rage! It was ... the coolest thing EVER. And I gotta say after this party and Bill's a couple year's back I gotta say rollerskating parties are still pretty awesome. Friends! You've all been put on notice - next year's the big 3 O for me and I might just have a rollerskating party....

A thoroughly geeky evening

After a seemingly interminable first week of classes we thought we'd take Saturday off to geek out!

Here's Allen playing with his Christmas present, an Electronic Drum Machine Shirt from ThinkGeek. He was having such a blast with it because it comes with a little mini amp that goes to 11, allows you to loop tracks, and has an output so you can record the beats you've made with a shirt! Dissertation productivity might have seriously gone down yesterday, but fun definitely went up!

We also invited a group of friends over to watch Star Wars Uncut, which is a remaking of of the original... just by fans ... and in 15 second increments. Sadly the video feed didn't work so we weren't able to see it to the end ... but no matter we had plenty of bad movies on hand (ahem, DareDevil) to make fun of and the interent provided a ridiculous amount of funny videos to entertain us. Some of my favorites included Guy on a Buffalo and Dara O'Brian on videogames... in my defense though, I was pretty tired! ;)

My freakin' awesome day!

Every once in a while the universe conspires to just make everything click into place ... today was that time for me. I apologize in advance for the gloating ... but today has just been too awesomely perfect not to share.

To begin with, I had my first day on the job as a new associate at the Stephen S. Clark Map Library at UM. Turns out this library is a much bigger deal that I originally suspected; it is combining three different smaller areas of the graduate libraries (Maps, Government Information, and Data). Their mission is to make all this information freely accessible to the public so the new space they are building is front and center right across from the main reference area. We'll have digital display areas, a lab area, and a designated teaching space all beyond just the collection. It will be epic ... and I'm the new data person. LOL! Meaning, I'm the only one working there (as a graduate student) that isn't specializing in Library Science ... so I get all the neat data visualization, analysis, and GIS (geographic information systems) projects. SCORE!

Then I had an impromptu meeting with the resident Information Technology and Communication for Development specialist at my school. I'm taking his class, but I wanted to ask him if he'd be interested in some of the research projects I'm working on ... including some collaboration I'm doing with a former colleague on Social Impact Measurement for non-profits. I laid out my plan for how I want to take advantage of all these networks that are working in tandem around me at the moment: my colleague, Alibeth Somers, looking at Social Impact Measurement; the Data Without Borders team that is trying to connect non-profits in the developing world to data scientist in the developed world to help solve their information flow problems (through Contextual Inquiry to all my SI501 friends* out there!); and all of the student groups on campus that are focused towards improving NGO performance through better data implementation, like the Community Informatics Corp. He was a little skeptical at first (mostly because my project sounds enormous) but once I showed him some of the work I did at Agribusiness Systems International in Lucknow, India he said "That! I want you to write a report on that!" Cha-ching! Finding a faculty advisor: check!

I was already planning on picking up my amazing bike today (the shop put a kick-ass basket on back so I don't have to wear my backpack when I'm riding). But just actually having it was squeal worthy!

And THEN (!) my friend Gina (of moving-in fame) finished her preliminary exams (qualifiers for her PhD candidacy) ... and so we celebrated with an early happy hour! Huzzah for excuses to drink beer at 4:30pm on a Monday afternoon!

And THEN (!!) I got an insane 4 missed calls from Allen. I called him back worried that something had happened - and something had happened: SOMEONE MADE AN OFFER ON OUR APARTMENT!!!! YEAH! We haven't decided if we're going to accept (they offered lower than our asking), but we have begun negotiations! Someone liked our apartment! Hope is not lost!

And THEN (!!!) nearly 20 minutes later Allen calls to tell me that someone else is coming to see the apartment this evening! WE ARE COOKING WITH GAS FOLKS!

I don't know if anything will come of these prospective buyers for our apartment, but it takes a huge weight off our shoulders to know that there is interest ... and that Allen might finally be able to join me in Ann Arbor before Thanksgiving!

So you see, I couldn't NOT tell you about this crazily-awesome-amazing-fantastic-joy-filled-crazy-freakin'-day I had today.

Have you ever had a similar type of day? I hope so.

_______________________________
* SI501 is the required course that MSI students at UM have to take. It is essentially about project management, but done through the lens of contextual inquiry (ie seeing how users interact with their information/data and to see if there are any outsider perspectives they can give on how to improve flow/process). It is apparently the class everyone suffers through (crazy amounts of busy work and you're working on a team, who you apparently want to murder by the end of the semester). I feel pretty fortunate that my 501 group seems really awesome and I'm hoping that we all make it through this class alive.

Hamsa and Danika Get Hitched!

Buttermilk Falls in Ithaca

So last weekend we drove out to Ithaca with all the junk I was planning to move to Michigan (more on that later) for the wedding of our friends Hamsa and Danika .... names more diligent readers will recognize as our card-playing-gin-drinking buddies from Delhi.

Ithaca really is GORGES (ahahaha) ... and we didn't wanted to miss out on all the fun wedding activities that were happening throughout the week so we set up camp at Treman State Park.


We love love love this tent that the Metzner's gave us (sniff, sniff) for our wedding two years ago. It held up in some serious rain and cold over our days camping in the park.

We were graciously invited to some of the pre-wedding bachelorette/bachelor day activities. The ladies had a bridal shower, a trip to Treman State Park swimming hole, group nap-yoga (seriously), dinner and dancing.




The boys spent the day playing paintball and Beersbee then later met us out for dancing. They were a little worse for wear (they all - including the groom - had some really angry looking red bruises), but seemed to have had a lot of fun.




Their ceremony was beautiful ...


And the reception was a blast!

Despite the threat from Irene the weather held out for Hamsa and Danika...


... although by the Sunday morning rain was coming down in buckets in Ithaca. I know of several people who's travel plans were disrupted by the storm. Thankfully Allen made it back to Brooklyn safely. Our building wasn't affected by the storm at all (no flooding, no loss of power).

I on the other hand headed straight to Ann Arbor from the wedding. After an 8 1/2 hour drive I made it to my new home ... but more on that in a bit.