Today

It snowed a lot here this weekend. I have been shoveling a lot. Here's what I've accomplished:


Photo on the left is the large pile that is next to my drive way - literally, I can no longer get snow up to the top and have to walk the snow around. The photo on the right is the view from the bottom of my front steps. Remember when you were young and you made paths and tunnels in the snow and how cool it was. It's not cool anymore.

In addition, I also baked these:

Which contain:

Lt to right and around the plate from the top: pumpkin cranberry bread (smells heavenly), ginger snaps (yes, they do that broken top thing all by themselves), Russian tea cakes (or Mexican wedding cakes), and these delicious broken top double chocolate with ginger cookies that are new this year. I made cookies to take to the staff at work tomorrow and for my students. We started this tradition of taking cookies to the staff as a thank you during grad school. Everyone brought one type of cookie and we walked around like elves around the holidays delivering them to everyone who made our work run as smoothly as it did. It was a big thank you. It was great because we only had to make one type of cookie and everyone got a random assortment. I made the variety today because I was seriously avoiding work! I also did 3 loads of laundry, shoveled for about 1.5 hrs, wrote about 1/2 of my holiday cards, put away a bunch of things. I'm exhausted and sore. No more snow, please.

1 foot, 2 feet, and more?

How much have you shoveled recently? I believe I'm at a total of about 2 hours for the weekend. And I believe we have more than 2 feet on the ground. It's still coming down. I just shoveled out my car and walkways even though I'm not going anywhere. I'm hoping this will cut down on my time tomorrow morning... or I might take the bus.

Now it's time to make some more cookies.

Uninformed

It turns out I was very uninformed about how bad the ice storm was in my area. All schools were closed today. And of the faculty in my department, only about half have power, and I think I was the first to have my power return. Lucky, I guess. Now if that luck would just turn into some funding for my research, that'd be great.

Icy!

In case you are wondering, I am fine. My area was spared the worst of the ice storm. I had power all last night and woke up this morning at 5 am - and had my tea and oatmeal and sent some urgent emails. Just after I sent the last email, the power went out. I'm not exactly sure when it came back on because I went out with a friend around noon. We needed to check on equipment at the U. But then, because the main roads were fine and had been cleared of most branches, we went on an adventure in search of places with power. I'm sad for the loss of my long planned day in the lab, but the day just seemed decadent since I really didn't work much. I won't be able to get back in the lab - probably - until next Thursday because of days at the beginning of the week that are at least half full of meeting. Yuck! I now hate meetings - it always seems like we are just going around in circles. Back to work now.

Not much to say

I am exhausted. So I have not had much to say recently. Sorry. More in the new year hopefully - or maybe before?

What does it mean?

TLDR is Too Long Didn't Read. This is what my TAs came up with when students revert back to their freshman ways of writing things in lists or describing with completely unnecessary detail what they did in lab. No need for the detail and they are told not to include it. But yet so still do.

It has been a very long week. I have gotten a good bit done. My list was much reduced, but then I realized I needed to get on with many things I'd been neglecting. I plan to work all day next Friday in the lab and am looking forward to it. But until then there are meetings and various things that need to be done.

TLDR

Sometimes when students turn in pages of nonsense, they get TLDR written on their papers. I like this one. Try to guess what it means... I'll let you know later in the week. My dad had a better one - TMBS.

Turkey-Day Recap

I had a family filled Thanksgiving. Including meeting some additions to the extended family for the first time - my cousin's young children look like they walked off the pages of a magazine. When I was growing up, Thanksgiving was a big deal as we always traveled East (and/or North) to visit Grum and family. I don't know how my parents survived these trips with two kids in tow. I was with this portion of my extended family, but without my immediate family. The day started off well - with a long car ride. There were several interesting discussions including one that made me never want to go to a retail store again. See, the two cousins in the car have worked retail and had some pretty horrific stories. Eww... gross... germy stories. I won't elaborate here. Then there was the main event. We enjoyed appetizers, wine and lots of chatting once we arrived. It was fun to catch up with folks. Highlights included a tour of the very cool remodeled basement complete with radiant heat in the floor of the greenhouse area and a sauna, art projects with the kids (including color me), discussions of the tur-duk-in we were going to eat, learning about French bull dogs (one of the breeds of dog present), watching a bit of pool, hearing a bit of school of rock music recorded by the host cousin's kids (very talented musicians). Dinner was served around 4 pm and traditional grace was said. We missed Grum. But still, we ate, and ate. It was all delicious including the Texas beets. Apple pie for dessert an hour or so later.

Misconceptions about professors

I think there is a general belief among people outside academia that the life of a professor is easy. We all sit around all day pondering big ideas and being fed big, fat grapes. Well, this just isn't true. I've worked many 12 hour days since I got this job and I work most weekends - at least most of one day.

One of the academic blogs I read mentioned that people might get this idea because academics can to a certain degree create their own schedules. Meaning, you might find a professor mowing his lawn on any given Thursday at 2 in the afternoon. But what this blog also said is that you don't see the same professor in their home office at 2 in the morning working on a grant or paper, but they probably are (at least some of the time). I don't tend to take advantage of this policy - you will find me most days between 8 am and 6 pm on campus, mostly in my office or lab. I also take work home a lot.

Also, the other big misconception is that we get the whole month of January and three months in the summer off to do what we like with. If I did this, I'd never get any research done and surely wouldn't get tenure. I don't always get paid in the summer, but you can be sure I work. I worked on July 4th last year. And over the summer I took a long weekend Th-M off plus one day while my mom was visiting. I did take 2.5 days off after the end of the semester. So all told, I took just over a week off. Otherwise, I was working my normal long hours.

Today

I get frustrated when my students don't think and copy things of wikipedia. Ugh! No points for them!

Today, I got up and crossed the review of files of potential colleagues off of my list. Again! Ugh! These people can't read. This is the only thing I've crossed off my list for this weekend so far. I still need to:
finish grading (currently 1/2 done, will finish now with my glass of wine)
read paper to discuss with grad student
redo calculations of other grad student
check into equipment for third grad student and undergraduate
prepare lecture for Monday (including working the problems I'll present)
work on abandoned proposal to get abstract ready to send to another agency
and probably about 50 other things that I'm forgetting
But instead of crossing more things off the list today. I went for a 6 mile run at the gym (watching the food network and Today show). Then after the 1/2 grading I did, I went to see Australia with some friends. It took trying two theaters, but we made it. I really liked it. It was long, but was well paced and I really, really liked the Wizard of Oz references. I've always liked that movie and the references were well done - interwoven throughout. That is all for now. More on Thanksgiving adventures tomorrow.

Obama's first misstep

So I know there is about zero chance that I would agree with everything that Obama does, but this is a big deal and it seems too soon for such a big misstep. He had selected Lawrence Summers as the Director of our National Economic Council. Does this name sounds familiar to you? If you are a woman in science it should. Larry Summers is a former president of Harvard who was booted because of his comments about women in science which boiled down to they aren't smart enough to succeed in the field. (A little more information on the subject is here )

Blooms in the cold

Here's a plant update. The top is the violet that just opened it's blooms. I didn't know what the color was going to be, but this is a very rich, jewel toned redish purple. It's beautiful, and I'm sure the photo doesn't do it justice. Next is the mixed cactus. These are some of the most recent coral color blooms. There are also white and vibrant pink blooms on this plant. And finally, the giant cactus that is very heavy with blossoms has just begun blooming. I have a cool photo for a bit later of a double blossom at the end of one of the pieces. It's so nice to have some color in the cold, cold weather.

Sunshine and the Dell guy

Today, two happy things happened. The sun was shining when I drove to work too early this morning. The sun was shining most of the day and the sky was blue. This hasn’t happened much recently so it was particularly nice. Sunshine makes me happy.

Then, the repair guy from Dell (I highly recommend getting the at home warranty for 3 years, as I’m just shy of 2 years now) came to my office and replaced the LCD screen in 30 minutes! It is so awesome to be able to see what I am typing now.

Of course, with the good has to come some bad. I’ve been told that the grant I’ve been working on for the last few weeks (for long hours) will almost certainly not be funded based on the spin I’ve put on my work and on the fact that there is no money. This makes me not want to finish it because there are likely two more long days involved and I have zero motivation to make it happen. My chair disagrees and says a submission in the Dean’s eyes is better than no submission. Ugh! I’ll get some more advice and continue working, but might find that by the deadline, it’s just not worth it. I mean, why make the program officer mad, right?

tomatoes

I moved my tomato plant with it's green tomatoes inside when it got cold, so I'm still enjoying the fruits of my summer planting. Here's a photo of this tomato when it was green, on the plant and outside. And what it looked like just before I ate it this past week. Delicious. It's a lovely yellow color and is a heirloom variety. I'm glad I put them in pots because it was nice to enjoy on the door step of winter!

Curious

I just read (in some random bit of junk mail, while I was eating dinner) that Christmas cacti give off oxygen at night - unlike other plants that give off oxygen during the day. This is very curious indeed. And perhaps I am not deserving of the title - scientist (which by they way they don't like you to say at the boarder when crossing back into the US from Canada, even if you are flashing a US passport, they want to know what kind of scientist and what you study). My understanding is that plants take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen during photosynthesis. They do this only during the day because it requires sunlight. Chlorophyll needs light to do its thing - and that thing is the first step in the process. I can't remember the details, but I know it's the first step and I think it has to do with ATP. I suppose there could be a delay between steps... does any one know?

Otherwise, today, make that this week, was very long. I am working on a big project that might mean some money to pay my students so they don't have to teach (forever). I rewarded myself with nachos for dinner and I am going to have some coffee frozen yogurt - maybe even with some caramel sauce ooooh and maybe chocolate sauce, too for dessert. Yum! Then I'm going to watch Grey's Anatomy that was on in the middle of the night last night due to football. This sounds lovely.

I wish...

I never thought I would wish for snow, but I'm wishing for it now. I don't like cold rain. It chills you all the way through. And it means it is grey outside. I like it less than snow. Right now, I would rather have the snow already. But I think we're stuck with rain for the time being.

Hmmm...

I got gas tonight and paid just over $20 for a full tank. Prices are now below $2 here. I have an approach avoidance about this. I would love for gas prices to stay high so that people would drive less, but because everything else is getting so expensive, it makes sense that something should be dropping in price. Especially because most raises are not currently matching cost of living increases. I have certainly noticed that my grocery bill has increased by about a 1/4 of the total.

A Cake!

Now that's a cake!

My friend is headed off to be a volcanologist and several friends of mine figured this would be a fitting send off. It was revealed at a fun surprise going away party!

Jumping the line

I just finished a great book. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. It jumped the line of all the other books on my night stand because I wanted something entertaining for the plane a few weeks ago. It was excellent - I highly recommend it to those of you who didn't recommend it to me. It was a brilliant look inside the head of someone who has autism. Plus the message at the end - you can do anything if you put your mind to it - is one of my mantras. I liked that the boy in the book, Christopher. He does math to calm himself down when he's in a difficult or new situation. I do math when I run. I know it's strange. And it's really not for the comfort or anything but usually it's just fractions of how far I've gone, how far there is left to go, or how much time it will take me to get there. The time thing used to be really easy to figure out when I ran 10 min miles, but I do more speed work these days, and it's usually not whole number divisions.

Plant Update

The plants are doing lovely. Cactus one is blooming with 5 fully opened blooms and 2 that are just about ready plus many in the waiting. The other cactus might have at least one bloom by the end of the week. And in case you thought it was a fluke, another violet is getting ready to bloom. Yipee!