personal
pharyngula | January 26, 2008Well, I survived my first week of classes, and I think I'm on track to make it through the next 14. Unfortunately, in these days of fast internet communication, one of my students has a blog, and has already posted a frank review of her classes. I'm assessed. It's not good. I may have to flunk her, or maybe put her to work scrubbing the toilets.
jstemwedel | January 25, 2008PZ tagged me with a teaching meme. The question is "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?"
Unlike PZ, I knew I had a thing for teaching long before I had a clue what discipline I would end up pursuing. (My first official paycheck for a teaching gig was issued in 1985.) But at this stage of my life, my reasons for teaching are a bit more complex than "I like it," "I'm good at it," and "It's a requirement of my job to do so."
They're complex enough, in fact, that I'm going to subvert the question a little and talk about why I teach the two main courses I…
sciencewoman | January 24, 2008In the past week and a half, a series of both anticipated and unforeseen circumstances have been keeping me away from campus almost half of the time. First it was the snow day, then the MLK holiday, both of which meant no daycare. Tuesday I lost an afternoon to something unbloggable, Wednesday day care called to tell me that Minnow was feverish and had thrown up and could I please come get her. According to state laws (and common sense) if daycare sends a kid home early, they can't come back until the fever has been gone (without Tylenol) for at least 24 hours. Today, Fish took care of her…
grrlscientist | January 23, 2008tags: Orpheus, hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus accipitrinus, photography, parrots, pets
Orpheus, a six-month-old red-fan (hawk-headed) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, who lives with me. (flash, ISO, no zoom).
Image: GrrlScientist 2008.
I managed to capture a few pictures of Orpheus last night which I would have shared with you then, except that my wifi connection disappeared (boo!), so I had to wait until tonight. This picture, like all of the pics I captured last night, are not very good because my parrots have gotten wise to the ways of photography and have…
jstemwedel | January 23, 2008It's been pretty quiet here. Not only have I been engrossed in preparations for the Spring semester (classes start today), but I also went to the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference. So it seems like a good time to ruminate a bit on how conferences fit into the patterns of (my) academic life.
The official reasons academics go to conferences include presenting their work to others in their field and finding out what other people in the field are working on. In the "scholarly communication" hierarchy, giving a talk or presenting a poster is less valued than getting a peer-reviewed…
sciencewoman | January 23, 2008Back in August, in the midst of finding daycare, getting ready to teach, paying two mortgages, and reeling from my mother's illness, I got a most unwelcome piece of mail from the IRS. Actually, I think the timing of getting that letter is bad no matter when it occurs.
The IRS had selected me for an audit and declared that I owed them $1X00 in back taxes because I had failed to pay self-employment taxes on my graduate fellowship income. I had paid income taxes on the stipend, but not self-employment taxes.
Upon reading that, I did what any normal human being would do. I freaked out. When I…
pharyngula | January 22, 2008It's Tuesday, the 22nd of January, and this is the first day of classes at UMM. I'm teaching the introductory biology course again (Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development), my big core lab course in genetics, and an upper level class in science writing, and that's enough.
As is usual for me, I tremble in a state of dread at the start of the long season of lectures and labs, but once I charge in and get started I'll probably be surprised when I look up and notice it's May already.
clock | January 21, 2008Conference was a blast. Did not spend much time at home, though, so it is nice to be back today. Dog was happy to see me:
sciencewoman | January 17, 2008...that classes are cancelled today due to "inclement weather"
Seriously, I cannot recall being this happy about a "snow day" at any point since middle school. It might have something do to with the fact that I am scheduled to teach for four hours on Thursdays and as of 5:45 am when the announcement was made, I still had a lot of prep to do.
Of course, unlike some of my colleagues, today for me will not be a full day of unexpected research time. With schools closed, so is daycare, so I will be enjoying a full day of unexpected mommy time. Not that I mind really, but it is just another…
tlambert | January 14, 2008Tim Blair has cancer. He says that the prognosis is good, but he's having major abdominal surgery next week. He has my best wishes and hopes for a speedy recovery.
clock | January 12, 2008Is "reshaven" a real word? This is, apparently a matter of some academic interest, according to Alex.
I think "reshaven" is applicable in each of the following cases:
a) when the shaven area is not an area usually shaven. Example: if you shave your head, then the hair starts growing again, after some time you need to have it reshaven.
b) when the shaving does not occur at regular, predictable intervals. Example: "Bill's signature image is his big, bushy beard. A few years ago he surprised everyone by shaving it off. That was some kind of protest gesture on his part, I believe. He let…
sciencewoman | January 9, 2008Warning: Do not read on if descriptions of women's natural bodily functions makes you queasy.
Last night as I was changing a diaper, I was suddenly debilitated by intense abdominal pain the likes of which I hadn't experienced since, oh, say, labor. The pain was sharp enough that I barely managed to get Minnow dinner and to bed, and I did beg Fish to come home from work early in case it progressed to vomitting. (I ate a place with "local color" for lunch.)
Eventually the pain eased, and the cause revealed itself.
My period returned overnight.
Mind you, I shouldn't complain because it's been…
jstemwedel | January 7, 2008Happy 2008! Let the bullets commence:
*I am now to the point of totally refusing to acknowledge this interstitial period between semesters as a proper break. Far too much of it has already been taken up with matters from last term, and there's no end of that in sight. Meanwhile, certain details of the upcoming semester are still sufficiently unresolved that I cannot yet do things like updating my course calendars.
*A piece of free advice to students: If you are emailing your instructor during an official break and would like a prompt and helpful response, avoid being abusive in that email…
drorzel | January 5, 2008A couple of years ago, I decided to lose some weight. Because I'm a big ol' nerd, this involved keeping a more-or-less daily record of my weight, and inevitably, I made a graph of it. Here's the latest version-- the blue points are from 2006, the green from 2007:
(It's not science without graphs.)
The precipitous drop in early 2006 corresponds to my miserable heartburn/ acid reflux problem. That's not entirely gone, but it's at least under control these days (thanks to the healing power of beer), and my weight has crept back up since I've been able to eat again.
I've gained back almost half…
sheril | January 4, 2008They call it the City of Angels, but for me, Los Angeles is the City of Co-Bloggers. Yesterday, Chris and I had a blast getting ready for The Intersection in 2008 and now I'm hanging out at the Correlations Compound with the Wired Science crew.
You know, in such good company, I just might stay awhile...
sciencewoman | January 3, 2008Scene: In mid to late December, in a nearly deserted building on a nearly deserted campus (finals over, grades in), a young assistant professor and a department chair pass in the hallway. Chair asks something generic along the lines of "How's it going?". Young assistant professor replies "I'm hanging in there." Chair gives the young assistant professor a quizzical look, but decides to let it pass. Young assistant professor suddenly realizes that "hanging in there" was not the standard acceptable response in that situation. She contemplates a moment more and decides that it really does…
pharyngula | January 2, 2008All that noise from a pair of rather ugly pissants criticizing my daughter falls short of describing her perfidy. Today, Skatje spent the whole afternoon making lefse — and she's really getting it down. The shape isn't perfect yet, but the texture and the thinness is getting up there around Scandinavian-grandma-quality, which is pretty darn good…I mean, evil.
Dang. It really isn't very evil at all, is it?
Except that she didn't make enough.
drorzel | January 1, 2008Because it's not science without graphs:
That's the traffic for this blog for 2007. If you integrate the area under the curve, you get a total of 833,275 page views for the year, which is, frankly, kind of astonishing. That's up from last year's total of 574,676, so I guess the goal for 2008 is to break a million.
The top ten posts for the year, in terms of traffic:
Many Worlds, Many Treats: 52,667 (of course)
Bunnies Made of Cheese: 14,068
Stealth Creationists and Illinois Nazis: 9,048
It's Turtles All the Way Down: 5,539
New "Meme": Manly or Self-Sufficient?: 5,213
Why Do Polarized…
drorzel | December 31, 2007There's really no global significance to January 1-- it's not even universally acknowledged as the start of a new year-- but it's good now and then to take a little time to reflect on things. As a culture, Americans tend to be fairly bad at this (we're a low albedo nation), but we've built two such days into our national calendar-- Thanksgiving, for looking back, and New Year's for looking forward.
(We also use these as occasions for excess, which probably says a lot...)
A year ago, I wrote that "2006 is going to be a hard one to top, for me at least," but 2007 came pretty close to topping it…
jstemwedel | December 31, 2007There are less than seven hours left in 2007 as I write this post, and as yet, my better half and I have no idea what we're doing tonight.
If we manage to get out, chances are good that a cover band may be involved.
In general, cover bands aren't really my thing, but every now and then a cover version puts a thrillingly unexpected twist on a beloved song. Here are three that I really like:
First, a dancehall version of a Tom Jones song:
Next, a ukulele cover of a Pixie's tune:
And finally, an acoustic take on Sir Mix-A-Lot:
If we happen to encounter a cover version of this caliber, we'll…