Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Chimney Based Archeology

After moving into our new house this spring, we discovered a lot of idiosyncrasies of the previous owners. A bizarre refusal to clean their carpets, judging from the fact that I had to vacuum each carpet three times, emptying the canister ever 50 square feet or so, before the vacuum stopped filling up. A do-it-yourself attitude towards wiring that makes no sense at all. Painted over wallpaper. A lack of cap on the chimney.

Now, the previous owners, having installed gas logs into a beautiful wood burning fireplace, which they subsequently painted white  for no good reason, apparently never used the fireplace, or did so without opening the flue. Because they were unbothered by the debris falling down the chimney due to said lack of cap. We became aware of this lack of basic chimney hygiene when some birds moved into our chimney.

There was fluttering and squawking of baby birds. And occasionally the sound of battle as a squirrel would try to raid the nest and the parents reacted. We could hear it all through the chimney, and I had witnessed the squirrel go in from the outside.

Today, our chimney was being swept. Out came the nest and the bird poop and lots of leaves.

And one very dead, mummified squirrel.

I guess we know who won the war.

~AMPH

Monday, December 30, 2013

The Word became Flesh

This Christmas season, as is appropriate, I have been meditating on the wondrousness that is the Incarnation. And the more I think about it, the more amazing it is. That God, the Creator of the universe, would care for his rebellious children, who actively destroy themselves, each other and the creation they were made stewards of on a regular basis, and care for the so much that he left Heaven, that He sent His Word, which is Himself, to the creation, to become a part of that creation by being born into that creation by a creature that he made, to live as one of those creatures and then to be killed.

This is love beyond comprehension. The all-knowing, all-powerful Creative Word bound himself to mortal, sinful flesh. He let Himself be bound in space and time, who made space and time, to a single cell, that grew into a bundle of cells, which attached itself to the flesh of a woman, and grew to be a tiny, fragile, powerless baby. The Word that separated the light from the darkness, who called forth creation from the depths of chaos, who breathed life into humanity, bound himself to 8 pounds of water and protein and bone and fat that could neither move nor speak.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good morning!

I never learned to be a proper adult in the matter of not waking up before dawn on Christmas. I hope I never lose that excitement.


I also get to see the presents and stockings before they are destroyed.  My dear husband, brother-in-law and friend from college put out most of the presents last night after I went to bed, so I came down to presents under the tree where before there had been none. It was wonderful. 

Now I am getting breakfast in the oven, and getting ready to awaken everyone else with Handel's "Messiah". Traditionally I should use Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" but I can't locate my cd of it. 

Later, we will eat roast goose and stuffing and plum pudding. Yes, really. 

Merry Christmas!

~AMPH

Sunday, December 22, 2013

Advent: Remembrance and Preparation

This past month has been the season of Advent. I had been planning on doing a whole series of posts on Advent, but I found myself far more contemplative this year, and wasn't sure how to put a of lot of my contemplations into words. But now that we are coming into the last few days, I thought it was as good a time to share as any.

Every year, liturgical Christians observe the season of Advent, which is a time of prayer, preparation, and remembrance before Christmas. We remember the longing of the people of Israel waiting for God to send them the Messiah. We also look forward to the second coming of Christ, when he comes again in glory. As we read scripture and prayer and make preparations for Christmas, we remember that we should also always be preparing for when Christ comes again. He came the first time in weakness, to redeem the world from the power of sin and death. When He comes again, he will come in power to reclaim His own, and rule the peaceable kingdom.

The hymn "O Come, o come Emmanuel" has always resonated with me. It is one of the older surviving hymns, sung to an antiphonal melody. It is based around the prophecies in Isaiah, and the longing of God's people for a Savior. I think it resonates because the prophecies are now half-fulfilled. The Son of God has appeared. He has given us victory over the grave. He has shown us the path we should follow.  But we are still waiting for Him to fling wide heaven's gates and close Hell's forever. For Him to disperse death's shadow, so it is no more. We are still waiting for the new Heaven and new Earth. But we wait in faith, sure that in our flesh, we shall see those prophecies fulfilled.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel
that mourns in lonely exile here
until the Son of God appear.
R: Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel!
O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high,
and order all things far and nigh;
to us the path of knowledge show,
and teach us in her ways to go. R.
O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
who to Thy tribes on Sinai's height
in ancient times did give the law
in cloud and majesty and awe. R.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse's stem,
from ev'ry foe deliver them
that trust Thy mighty power to save,
and give them vict'ry o'er the grave. R.
O come, Thou Key of David, come
and open wide our heav'nly home;
make safe the way that leads on high
that we no more have cause to sigh. R.
O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,
and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;
disperse the gloomy clouds of night
and death's dark shadow put to flight. R.
O come, Desire of the nations, bind
in one the hearts of all mankind;
bid every strife and quarrel cease
and fill the world with heaven's peace. R.

Friday, December 20, 2013

Master Present Wrapper

Every year as I wrap presents for Christmas, I think of my sister and marvel. While I am usually good with three dimensional geometry, making my own knitting patterns and dress patterns, she is the gift-wrap extraordinaire. I mean this quite seriously. She was able to run a side business in Christmases past wrapping people's presents for them.

Don't get me wrong, I can wrap presents and they will come out looking decent. I'm miles above my husband in wrapping skills, for example.

But my sister makes the gift wrap ladies at high end department stores look like amateurs. Her folds are perfectly straight and symmetric. There are no errant wrinkles. This is made more impressive by the fact that she does not require tape.

It all started with our granny and our aunt, daughter of said granny. They reuse wrapping paper, which is a fine, green endeavor as far as it goes, but slowly, carefully slitting tape significantly slows things down at a family Christmas party. Our first lesson in present wrapping was "do not wrap in tissue paper".

My sister took it one step further. She just dispensed with the tape and wrapped presents with paper and ribbon and they still looked better than mine.

Needless to say, every year I try to live up to her exemplar wrapping skills. Or get her to wrap presents for me.

~AMPH

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

When grammar lessons work too well...

your eye starts twitching at people saying things incorrectly.

Growing up, my dad made sure that we, the children, knew certain grammatical things. If speaking of something was not, but we wish were so or posing a hypothetical, you used the subjunctive ("I wish I were a hamster" or "If she were a hamster, would her husband smell of elderberries?"). You used "fewer" for things you could count (like grocery items) and "less" for things that were continuous or semi-continuous (fluids or minute granules like sugar). There was a lesson about the different between "lend" and "loan" that I never learned very well**, probably because it came up infrequently. But most of all, we learned that "impact" was not a verb. A tooth could be impacted or something could have an impact. Those were the two acceptable uses.*

I may have learned the last lesson a little too well, because my right eye has literally started twitching when people use it incorrectly. Yesterday, someone on the radio described Sherlock Holmes as 'impactful' and my eye started twitching. It has not yet stopped twitching, on and off, a full day later.

This may be a problem.

~AMPH

* Slowly "impact" seems to be morphing into an acceptable verb in the same way the subjunctive case is being lost. I refuse to acknowledge either, because I am a curmudgeonly old schoolteacher grandma in a 24 year-old physicist's body.

**Apparently, my sister learned this one, but none of the others. Lend is a verb, loan is a noun. I can lend you a loan, but I cannot loan you anything. It makes as much grammatical sense to use loan as a verb as it would  to use chair as a verb.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Teaching Milestone: A Rate My Professor Page

I have prided myself, after I got my first semester of teaching student feedback, on being a good teacher. Not a great teacher by any means. But I know the material, I prepare for class and I try to help the students as much as I can. Which is apparently going above and beyond the call of duty for a TA (and some profs) at my university.

My student reviews are generally favorable, with the occasional "She goes to quickly" complaint, which I ignore because I give students several 15 second counts on each problem to speak up. They rarely do. They typically go something along the lines of "She knows the material and cares about the students. She does a great job teaching". Occasionally I get one where the student was clearly...not all together there. I once had a full page going on about how the student sat in the back and dreamt of strawberries. And occasionally I get cool compliments. Last spring one of my students wrote that I was, quote "one awesome motherfunction". Yes, motherfunction. Verbatim.

Last week, I discovered that one of my students had gone the extra step and created a "Rate My Professor" page for me (I'm not officially a professor, but that has never really stopped them from referring to me as such). I was given the following rating

Friday, December 13, 2013

Christmas Cookies: Gingerbread People

Now that finals are done, and the fall semester has come to a conclusion, it's time to bake Christmas cookies!


Cookies? Do I get to lick the bowl? PLEASE?!

Every year for as long as I can remember, Christmas has involved the mass production of cookies in my family. For one thing, they are delicious tradition! For another, my mother used them as end of the year 'thank you' gifts to the various people and business we interacted with through the year. Church people, the dentist, doctors, car mechanic, if we knew them and liked them, they got a plate of at least 5 different Christmas cookies. I aim to continue the tradition.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

I've become...my grandmother?


I'm told most women worry about turning into their mothers. This fear has never really been big for me, since my mother is a lovely, saintly woman who could cook our L.L. Bean boots into a delicious stew if the vegans ever destroyed our meat supply. Her sense of style is unparalleled, and far seeing. The worst thing you can say about her is that she is too nice. I think I have heard her yell-yell twice in my life. The only thing I didn't want to develop was crying during movies, but that is apparently not up to me.

In my family, my sister and I worried about turning into our grandmothers. While each of them could be wonderful*, they each had their personality quirks/little habits that we did NOT want to begin exhibiting. Such as my grandma's habit of tickling knees or putting ice cubes in milk. Or my granny's 2+ pack a day habit or insensitivity.

But I seem to have inherited my granny's love of antiques. Last week, on the quest for champagne coupes, I visited a little antiques store I found on a different crystal-related mission. There, I found 5 (which was the minimum number I need) lovely coupes.


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A long weekend of work

This weekend was the longest I have to deal with the whole semester long, because it was UNDERGRADUATE EXAM WEEKEND for the TAs. And yes, we do think of it in all caps because it consumes our entire weekend. This semester it was particularly long for me because I was given the (dubious) honor of being Head TA, based on seniority, proven ability to take responsibility, and because the head prof likes me (as a TA).

My responsibilities technically began several weeks ago, arranging the schedule for who was proctoring what (and implicitly when and where), notifying and/or reminding the other TAs that they needed to reserve the weekend for EXAMS and dealing with a couple of special situations that arose.

But this weekend was the show, so to speak. Our department asks a lot of its TAs for this one weekend of the semester, and for the most part we are willing to give, albeit with a bit of grousing.


Thursday, December 5, 2013

Rewards of Teaching

Today, as I do nearly every semester, I held a final exam review session for my students (or any student who wants to attend). The first year I did it, I had about 5 students attend. The second semester, I had about 80 students attend. Last semester I had to cancel due to a combined lack of classroom availability and inlaw presence. This semester, I had reserved the largest classroom in 'my' building (the one where I take classes and do research), which sufficed before. It hold about 65 people officially, and can accommodate about 80 people if they bring in chairs from the atrium.

The session was scheduled to begin at 9 am. When I walked in at 8:50 am, they had run out of normal chairs, atrium chairs, and room on the floor. I had to step over people to get to the front of the room. And they kept coming, at a rate of about 5 people a minute.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

New Carpet!

Today began the official house reconstruction, post shower flooding. We had had a carpet rep come before Thanksgiving, and today was the install date.

It is amazingly fluffy, it made me feel like this*. Its twice as thick as any other carpet in the house. It is lush. It is cushiony. The installers were incredibly polite and tidy.

This was Penny's reaction.



Honestly, that's kinda what I wanted to do, but I had too much 'dignity' or something. 

Next up, drywall for my ceiling!

~PhysicsGal

*I am unclear on the legal issues surrounding animated gifs of copyrighted materials, even if they have achieved meme status.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Super Easy Chicken Cacciatore

Usually, I am a fan of making everything from scratch. Its half the fun of cooking, after all. But some nights, I get home too late, or very tired, I'm not above accepting some store-bought pantry help. Hence, this insanely easy, even my husband could make it, chicken cacciatore.

It honestly couldn't be simpler. Take boneless, skinless chicken breast (or thighs, but they take longer), and cut them into roughly 1 inch cubes. Optionally, brown them slightly in olive oil in a hot dutch oven for a minute or two. Pour on a jar of tomato sauce, cover, and let simmer 30-45 minutes. Letting it go longer won't hurt it, this is just the minimum time to let it cook so the chicken is done. Serve with hot noodles, or just a loaf of crusty bread, and parmesan.


Enjoy!

~PhysicsGal

Monday, December 2, 2013

Breaking the Thanksgiving Silence

Sorry for the long silence. We went to visit my family up North (in Yankee land? I'm in Dixie, what's the not-Dixie part called?) for Thanksgiving, and even if they had wifi, I would have had no time to blog!

The drive either direction was long, as it always is, but made more tedious because of Thanksgiving/perpetual city traffic around DC one way and Thanksgiving/stupid college students who don't know how to drive in heavy traffic so they crash the other way. Dear Husband drove, as I drive too slowly and my car gets about 60% of his mpgs. Penny came along, and slept the whole ride.

It was wonderful to see my family, and get to hang out with them for a few days instead of my more recent drive up, stay a day, drive back type trip. We also got to trade Christmas gifts, wrapped, so we both saved a bundle on shipping costs.

I hope to resume regular posting later this week, but I am so tired from travel that I can barely think straight, so I will not try to write a coherent theology or physics post.

~PhysicsGal