For Fun

Appalling realization of the week: I've been in school for twenty years. I can legitimately say I've been in school for decades. Will I know how to cope when I finish with classes (two years from now)?

It's really cool to live this close to the start of a new century, since all these cool day/month/year patterns keep popping up. Later in the century, more cool patterns will appear using the month.day.year date-writing system (example: December 13th, 2014 will be 12.13.14) which will be impossible with day/month/year, so I suppose I'll have to switch my date-writing schema then. Nifty patterns like this make life happier.

It's the time of year when the kshlup-thuk, kshlup-thuk of flip-flops gives way to the shhrump, shhrump of snow boots. Astronauts don't hear these noises on the various spacecraft they inhabit, but I would imagine the pervasive sound of Velcro is just as grating and far more unavoidable. It still must be awesome to be an astronaut, though. It's the ultimate operator job! (I think I would rather be an astronaut than an X-wing pilot. I don't have the reflexes for Rogue Squadron.)

It's interesting how my study methods have changed since I've come to grad school. Previously, I had read the textbooks, taken copious notes (which I reviewed before exams), and done lots and lots of problems. I had thought this was the optimal way to study physics, but I've modified my study habits this year based on input from other people.
 

It occurs to me that crocheting and physics have a great deal in common. In the notation of standardized-test-style analogies,
(crochet patterns):(equations)::(crocheted project):(physics)
Crochet patterns are to equations as the crocheted project is to physics.
 

I used the scientific method, and now I look like the Joker. (Why so serious?) The whole sob story can be found below.
 

A friend pointed this out to me, but it's pretty funny.  

I've heard people say "the NSCL," and I've heard people say just "NSCL"; likewise with "GSI" and "the GSI." So which one is it? Here we present the results of a literature Wikipedia search on the topic of "The Definite Article and Fragmentation Facilities" (see below).
 

I've been a TA for several different labs at three different schools, and grading is usually the most disheartening part. The lab I was a TA for during the first half of the summer semester (one of those compressed courses) had a "practical lab" in the middle and at the end of the semester--in which students did a lab they'd done before, only this time independently in a foreshortened format--and I just finished grading a passel of them. (I think that's the official word for a group of such things--a herd of cows, a flock of geese, an unkindness of ravens, and a passel of practicals.)

After making websites for two physics departments, I finally made a homepage for myself.  It's mostly professional, but still very much 'me'.  In other news, my science diaries will be on NPR in August, so stay tuned.