Twice

Inappropriate urges

2009-02-08T12:08:00.003-06:00

A student came in the other day with a very obvious pimple that looked like it was about to burst. I really, really, really wanted to pop it.
I'm currently reading a kinky polyandrous erotic novel. We have to go to Spring graduation today and I kind of want to take it with me as reading material.
I had a dream that Dr. H and I were spanking one of my colleagues. I won't say which one. However, I will say that I'm pretty sure that said colleague is both (a) a bottom and (b) in need of a spanking.

Sadly, I have self-imposed rules about my own behavior and at least two of these items violate them.

Status Updates

2009-01-08T09:01:00.002-06:00

What my childless friends say in their facebook status lines:

Lori slept 'til 2:45 pm today and it felt really good.

Gavin desperately in need of a 3 mile run, a hot tub, and a sushi lunch. Luckily all this is attainable.

What my friends with children say in their facebook status lines:

Hannah is wishing that her toddlers understood that she was running the bath that they want so they would stop screaming

Cathleen just finished cleaning up sleepover puke. Nothing worse than cleaning up another child's puke.

He's always been an asshole

2009-01-06T21:17:00.004-06:00

We saw my father the other day, a short stopover on a road trip back from my mother's. At one point, he picks up a very large large flashlight and shines it directly into my four year old daughter's eyes.

"OW! That hurts my eyes!" Curie yells at him.

He laughs.

"Why did you do that?" she demands, clearly confused.

He doesn't know what to say for a minute, then he makes up something about trying to shine it on the wall behind her.

Curie scrunches her eyebrows in the way that she does when she doesn't believe you.

My dad is one of those men who grew up with a bunch of guys who think insults and teasing are funny. Anyone who says otherwise is "too sensitive" and quickly becomes a magnet for further teasing. Sometimes he is funny. Most of the time he is just a dick. The truth is, I don't like him very much.

He is not my biological father. He married my mother when I was six. They divorced when I was twenty six. He adopted me when I was ten. No one asked me. Not that I am still annoyed about that or anything.

My daughter is a lot like me, with one small exception: she has all the assertiveness I wish I had.

A conversation

2008-12-20T22:14:00.003-06:00

Me: Wow, I had no idea there was an xfig port for the Mac

Dr. H: Um...

Me: Can you tell I don't want to work on these letters?

Dr. H: I wasn't going to say anything, but...

Difficult Letters

2008-12-20T20:16:00.003-06:00

Student A: Reasonably bright, helpful, model student in terms of homework, deadlines, attendance and the like. He is not challenged in the majority of his non-science classes where he seems to excel. He also does very well in science classes with a lot of structure and a lot of graded homework. Unfortunately, this makes him lazy in the few science and math courses that require him to study on his own to fully grasp the material. Recently dropped a recommended, but not required, math class because he had done all the homework, but was scoring low on tests. Dependable, but never goes above and beyond what is required in classes. Yet he is intellectually curious, takes extra classes and reads non-fiction for fun. I really like him. I hope grad school makes him step up to his potential.

Student B: Quite bright, but not nearly so much as he thinks he is. So sure of his own abilities, he has trouble seeing past his own mental models. When something looks somewhat familiar, he says he "knows all that already" even though it only looks like what he does know on the surface. Shows moments of deep insight in between being annoyingly stubborn. Has good leadership qualities except when he is pissing people off by being so arrogant. Has e-mailed me at least four times regarding letters of recommendation for grad school, not one of the e-mails has the appropriate tone for someone asking for a favor. He has no idea how much further he will go if he drops some of the attitude. I really want to like him, but usually don't. I hope grad school humbles him a little, because that is the way he will be able to step up to his potential.

How to spend one's first evening of winter break

2008-12-19T15:51:00.004-06:00

Arrive home to the welcoming smell of t-butyl mercaptan in some, but not all areas of the house
Call natural gas company to report gas leak
Open windows
Hear CO detector go off
Put cats in pet carrier, kids in coats and head to neighbors
Call gas company again
Call neighbors to tell them we've let ourselves into their house
Gas company reports fire department will be coming too
Wait
Neighbors come home, our kids play with their kid
Their cat hisses at our cats
Gas company and fire department arrive. Vent house. Close up again.
Fire company determines CO is coming from water heater and/or furnace and the water heater has a hole in it and needs to be replaced.
Listen to fire department tell us not to turn on furnace until someone comes to check it or fix it.
Find "turn on the water and hope for the best" to be insufficient precautionary steps against freezing pipes.
Call extremely odd but competent heating and cooling guy.
Agree that our pipes would probably not freeze by 8am if our house was at 70 degrees now.
Explain that our house is at approximately 20 degrees now.
Wait.
Observe that kids are all tired and hungry and getting on each other's nerves.
Observe that our cats are hungry and getting on each other's nerves.
Return to house to get Mac-n-cheese and another cat carrier.
Heating and cooling guy arrives, assesses safety of furnace, fires furnace up and sets at 50 degrees for the evening once assured humans and pets will be retreating to a hotel.
Agrees to show up at 8:30 to replace WH, recommends replacing furnace, tells Dr. H all about the problems he has with his colon and his ex-wife.
Go through house quickly to collect necessities for the evening.
Retreat to hotel over protests of neighbors, having already taken up four hours of their evening.
Get kids/cats settled in hotel. Look over furnace brochures. Check consumer reports and manufacturer's website. Note that a 20+ year furnace in our poorly constructed house is likely to have very low efficiency.
Call heating and cooling guy in the morning to find out if they sell the 93% efficient furnaces in the manufacturer's product line in addition to the 80% efficient one he gave us the brochure for.
Pack up cats and kids, meet heating and cooling guys at house, install 93% efficient, two-stage furnace and new water heater.
Buy new CO detectors.

Everything you've imagined about ball pits is true

2008-12-15T21:40:00.005-06:00

Near our home in suburbia is a commercial indoor playground. We've gone a few times when the weather has been bad and we desperately need an outing. Dalton loves the place. Within seconds of arriving, he disappears up into the colorful complex, showing no fear of heights or any anxiety about getting lost. Sometimes he waves at us from some tube or porthole at the top, other times he reappears at the ground level, allowing us to catch only a glimpse of him before he disappears up another climbing tower.

If we haven't seen him for a while, we will climb up into the complex itself. Invariably, he sees us first, usually from halfway across the thing, several levels away, with no clear path between him and us. He'll say something like "I'll come find you," and then will inexplicably appear in front of us 30 seconds later, laughing.

I love seeing him there. It is almost like he was born to live in a three dimensional maze.

Curie is more tentative, and she wants Dalton to stay with her and play on the lower levels. She yells at him to come with her. He indulges her some of the time, playing in the ball pits, jumping in the bounce room, riding dinosaurs in the toddler area. Then he disappears upward again. Sometimes she follows him part way, going just a little farther each time. She yells at him to stop and come back down with her, but by then he is several levels away, climbing through some tubes or riding down a slide, too far away to hear her. Then he arrives at the bottom again, often around the same time she does. Then they are off again onto the dinosaurs or into the ball pits.

The last time we were there, they emerged from the ball pit and Dalton came over to show me a pink ball he'd found; it was one of only a handful of pink balls in a forest of blues and reds and greens and yellows. I took the opportunity to straighten out his clothes, and noticed something odd.

"Dalton, why are your pants wet?"

"Oh! I peed a little!"

As we left, I glanced at the ball sanitizer machine and wondered how often it is used.

Holiday

2008-12-14T11:27:00.005-06:00

Thanksgiving was surprisingly normal. An 800+ mile drive there in surprisingly good weather, with two four year asking continuously "when will we be at the ho-tel?" or "when will we be at Grandpa's?" was balanced with the 800+ mile drive back in crappy weather with two four year olds asking "when will we be home?" only sporadically.

In between, we had the usual tension between siblings. The fight between Dr. H's brother and sister had a familiar refrain, with only slight changes in verse. She was critical of how he was running his life (in this case how he is parenting his stepdaughters); he was critical about her apparent resentment of their father's partner. He was critical of her criticism; she accused him of avoiding interacting and not meeting her gaze. The sister's husband and Dr. H played their usual roles, allowing each to vent, being supportive, trying not to take sides.

Accidentally trapped in the room next to a particularly long skirmish, Dr. H and I discussed whether we should leave and walk briefly into the fray to hand the sister's husband a beer or if we should simply stay put and have really loud sex. Sadly, we did neither of those things.

There's always next year.

It's my party and I'll _____* if I want to.

2008-12-07T12:29:00.003-06:00

Dr. H: What do you want to do for your birthday this weekend? Anything special?

Me: Well, we are going out to the theater the night before.

Dr. H: I know, but would you like to do anything special on your birthday? I'm offering to watch the kids by myself if there is something you would like to do.

Me: OMG, I could really use a day at the office.

^{* work}

Yet more consistency with expectations

2008-12-03T15:54:00.004-06:00

Overheard: "I am so screwed."

A student in my non-majors class who hasn't been to class in a week and a half, after receiving today's test.
Observed: Another faculty member pulling out of the local sandwich shop in his large SUV, as I pull in driving my Prius hybrid.

He is our resident climate change denier/skeptic.

Exactly what I expected

2008-11-26T13:35:00.002-06:00

9 a.m. class, junior/senior majors: 100% attendance
11:30 a.m. class, freshman/sophomore nonmajors: 55% attendance

Thanks for alerting me

2008-11-21T00:32:00.003-06:00

Major stories on our local news this evening:

A rat is spotted in a historic downtown hotel
You can save money by buying store brands and making your own lunch

Couldn't Agree More

2008-11-21T00:29:00.004-06:00

more music charts

From GraphJam via Wil Wheaton.

Books

2008-11-17T18:31:00.000-06:00

Last year, I read Everything Conceivable by Liza Mundy. This spring, I will be running a series of discussions about it. We have a half course on our campus which involves students reading several books over the course of the semester. Students select the books from a large number of choices, and they meet in small groups for a few weeks with the professor teaching their particular book and then write a paper. Some books are novels, others are collections of essays and still others are nonfiction. A question from a colleague last week reminded me to drop a note to the coordinator and I said I was interested in doing this book at some time in the future. She wrote back immediately and said she still had a slot left for Spring and had put me in. I was thinking next Fall or Spring, but it is too late now.

The last time I participated in the course, I decided to do Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt without having read it. Two colleagues I know have chosen to read the books for the first time with the students, so they all discover the book together. I thought this was an interesting idea, so I decided to do the same. I chose The Years of Rice and Salt because I really like Kim Stanley Robinson and because was on my "to be read" list for a long time. Only problem: I thought it was an alternative history but it was actually about Buddhism. Which I knew nothing about. I enjoyed the book and the discussions with the students, but I was expecting something different. I didn't do a particularly good job running the discussions either, something I hope to correct.

In any case, I have read the book this time around. I thought Mundy's book would be an interesting one for discussion because I get the impression our 18-22 year olds know very little about assisted reproduction and many of the topics invoke strong opinions. Additionally, they way Mundy organizes the topics into somewhat self-contained chapters will fit in easily with the course format. As for the book itself, I found it to be a very easy and interesting read. I didn't really learn much more about how assisted reproduction works beyond what I already knew, but she seems to give a relatively straightforward introduction. Mundy also had some observations about ethical issues that I had not considered, so I found the book interesting in that sense.

I'm excited about participating in this course again, but am wondering how to handle controversial topics. I have run discussions on controversial topics in class, but they are usually on topics like "should we build more nuclear power plants" and not on, say, selective reduction. The sections consist of only about 4 students, so I'm especially concerned about keeping things constructive. Any suggestions?

An Observation

2008-11-16T19:09:00.002-06:00

Mother animals in the Dora the Explorer universe misplace their baby animals all the time. This seems like it would be evolutionarily maladaptive.

Last week

2008-11-10T00:04:00.005-06:00

Omaba!!! Did I mention how excited I am by this?!
Lush's Sex Bomb Bath Bomb. Works as advertised. O.M.G.
CA passes prop 8. Boo!
I picked up a crappy cold.

Share my pain

2008-11-09T22:45:00.003-06:00

The setting: An exam in a non-science majors general science sort of course. The question: Natural uranium is 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235. What is enriched uranium and what is is used for?

Here is a sampling of the most painful responses:

Enriched uranium is uranium made to be more polar
Enriched uranium is present in U-238 and used before
Enriched uranium is used for buildings
Enriched uranium is processed and used for cleaning

This seems unnecessary...

2008-11-09T18:27:00.000-06:00

A few notes from a conference

2008-11-09T11:54:00.003-06:00

Finding two other conference goers on the plane, we decided to share a cab to the hotel. The cabbie was a talkative sort of fellow who told us unbelievable tales of his past. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, offered us a deal. "You scam your boss, I scam mine." I won't say what happened, but I will say there seemed like only one way to get multiple receipts.^*
The speaker giving one of the plenaries sounded a lot like Harry Shearer . This was especially evident when he used "Alright" as his verbal pause.
I went to one session given by someone had developed a seminar course on the topic I am planning to run for a freshman seminar next year. He passed out a detailed schedule, with reading assignments, discussion topics and weekly short writing assignments. Given that I like what I heard, this simplifies next Fall considerably.
With some time to kill after the end of a conference I went to the Borders in the very large mall next to the conference hotel. Something was odd, but I could not place my finger on it. Somehow, people in this Borders just looked a little different from what I expected. Soon the reason becomes clear: I had just walked into a Bill O'Reilly book signing.

^* I lost a shuttle receipt from my last trip, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over this.

Yesterday's Gone

2008-11-05T00:21:00.000-06:00

I haven't felt this hopeful since 1992.

A question for a student of mine

2008-11-04T19:41:00.003-06:00

I have a student in danger of failing for no good reason, but lots of bad ones. Here are the reasons I have identified so far:

He didn't buy the book because someone told him he "didn't need it"
He has not had high school PhysChemBio. Instead, had a similar class 8 years ago in middle school that he doesn't really remember much about.
That class was taught in a different language.
He skips class regularly.

I've suggested he come and see me once a week (in addition to, you know, showing up for class). Today, he came to my office hours for help.

Here's the question I really want to ask him: Did you think it was a good idea to show up in the office of a professor whose class you may be failing reeking of pot?

Wrong on so many levels....

2008-11-02T12:55:00.004-06:00

The other day I went to a Math seminar that had some relevance to BioChemPhys. At the end of the seminar, I took a cookie from the provided refreshments. As I did, a man I did not know said to me, "Those are fattening, dear."

Moments in time according to Dalton and Curie

2008-10-31T21:53:00.003-05:00

Yesterday: Anytime between birth and the last time he or she slept

This day: Today

Tomorrow: Anytime after the next time he or she sleeps

A long time: Anytime longer than 2 seconds

Too long: Anytime longer than 0.5 seconds

Yesterday a long time ago: Anytime between birth and about three weeks ago

Every day: Anything that has happened at least one other time that he or she can remember

A little while: As long as he or she wants to.

Veto

2008-10-31T18:19:00.004-05:00

My kids vetoed the matching bug costumes I purchased and insisted on going as witches. I have boy-girl twins. They have not been introduced to the words "wizard" or "warlock" - hence they are both in dresses. It isn't the first time.

Update RBoC

2008-10-29T16:12:00.004-05:00

Just a few things that have been going on while I have not been blogging:

I've become addicted to PackRat on Facebook. It's Addy's fault, really.
I've also become obsessed with RealClearPolitics. I have only myself to blame.
My mother was quite disappointed Hillary did not get the Democratic nomination. I was worried she was going to vote for McCain. She lived in Arizona from 1976 until May of this year, and generally felt positively towards McCain. Sarah Palin took care of all that. Yesterday, my mom voted for Obama. In Florida.
My conservative cousin who is turning 36 this month voted for Obama a few days ago. He has never voted before. Ever. He lives in Texas, though, so no help there.
My mom is a victim of the mortgage crisis. More on this later.
I went to a CUR (Council on Undergraduate Research) workshop as a member of a team from my institution. It was fantastic.
We hired fabulous adjuncts this year. Awesome.
Three comics I like about work, life and woo.
A little vignette from my house, while trying to convince the kids to get dressed:

Dr. H: Hey, who don't you both wear your kitty shirts? Then you can be twins!

Curie: We're ALREADY twins.