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interesting ways to eat thanksgiving leftovers

Those roasted vegetables were really good with hot breads and sweet mangoes. It is ok if you don't get the breads joke. Also I've been eating a lot of pie for breakfast. Mmm, hot pie.

pumpkin story

My family visited my house for Thanksgiving dinner today. Yes, today is Friday. We always do that - it lets them use Thursday for driving. Works just fine. I made some great food: a pumpkin stuffed with roasted veggies, the wild rice stuffing that's become a family favorite, and a simple, delicious asparagus salad. It was complicated, interesting cooking, so I took a lot of pictures.

When my brother arrived at my house on Wednesday, we started preparations by making the vegetable broth that would go into the pumpkins' stew. This (which we later thickened slightly so it was more stew-like) was my favorite thing out of the whole meal. The roasted pumpkin was cool, presentation-wise, but this broth was just ridiculously good.

Thursday we put the stuffing together, and I don't have pictures of that. But there are a lot of pictures of the final stage of preparation from today. We hollowed out the pumpkins (which were actually just pumpkin-like squashes), first...
Then we roasted them empty for a little while - since they're the biggest thing they needed a head start.
They came out looking very pretty.

These vegetables were all roasted, too (on the outside of the pumpkins). I forgot to put the beans in, but I intended to include great northern beans as a substitute for the seitan the recipe called for. Then we put the vegetables and the sauce inside the partially-roasted pumpkins and roasted the whole thing a little longer.


The pumpkins came out beautiful and delicious. It was a little hard to access the deliciousness at first, though.


The last thing I made was this salad: roasted asparagus with lemon juice, blue cheese, and tomatoes. Everyone always likes it. I liked this wine, too - I am generally a fan of vinho verde.

look what I made

One of my favorite food blogs had a recipe for peppers like this a long time ago, except they had them in a sweet peanut-ful sauce. I didn't feel like going to all the trouble, so I'm just going to eat them with yogurt. I really love yogurt.

I decided to try making paneer. It's pretty easy. You boil & curdle the milk, then you strain it and squish it into a cheesy form.



And for lunch I had carrot-ginger-sweet potato soup, which was great.

cold day, spicy food

I have learned how to make some decent black beans to go with the quesadillas I eat all the time. The key seems to be cumin & onions.

special guest star

F. was visiting this weekend, and last night we didn't have much to do so we made a delicious dinner. I made sweet potatoes with creamy sauce, he made spicy fried rice with onions. Here's F's fried rice, mid-fry:


These are the sweet potatoes before I added the cream. I microwaved them first, so they didn't take much cooking in the pan, they just had to pick up the flavors.

Next, here are the sweet potatoes after I added some cream (actually, I put in milk, too) and peas. The spices in there are cumin, cinnamon, coriander, and cloves, so this smells pretty good.


We ate the rice with yogurt on top and had some wine. It was so delicious that I ate way more than I was actually hungry for. After that I wasn't good for much besides sitting on the couch for an hour or so.

perennial dinnertime favorites

An egg taco, fresh from the skillet. The avocado is a little less than pretty, but still delicious.

I forgot to mention

I have a dog now. She loves to chew stuff up.

lucky me

My iPod is covered by the warranty even though the reason for the crack in the screen is a little iffy: my dog chewed it up. They didn't seem to care, though, and the replacement will arrive tomorrow. Hooray for Apple.

Why not? Certainly you wil get.

I'd had these ancho chiles sitting around in my fridge, waiting for me to get around to stuffing them. But I kept thinking it'd take a long time, so I never actually did it. Turns out it's easy! I fried some rice with onions, cumin seeds, and canned crushed tomatoes, and then put that in the peppers with some cheese and baked them (450 degrees, 15ish minutes). They could have been roasted beforehand - I think that would have made the peppers softer & milder - but they were delicious just the way they were.



Next time I won't take the seeds out of the peppers with my bare hands, though. I often have a lot of little cuts on my fingers, and it really burned for a while. The skin is only just starting to feel normal again.

cleaning out the fridge

A while ago, Meijer had salad greens on sale, buy one box get one free. So I had a whole lot of arugula. But I never got around to eating it, and it was wilting in my fridge, until I did this with it:

Arugula is a little bitter, so I added some sugar, and it's a delicious late lunch (with plenty of leftovers, of course).

minty milk

I bought some fresh mint the other day to cook with some fennel and onions I was making. But what do you do with the extra mint? That's always my problem with fresh herbs - unless I'm making a lot, I can never use it up before it gets dried out. This time, though, I have a delicious solution to the extra mint problem.

First, I shred up 6ish mint leaves and put them in a short glass with a teaspoon or two of sugar.

Then I put in a tablespoon or so of milk and muddle them around as if I'm making a mojito.

Then I fill it up the rest of the way with milk. It's very refreshing, and it reminds me of some "fresh mint" gelato the co-op sells. But it doesn't cost $5 for a pint, even if I use Oberweis milk.

beverages

I have a stuffy ear (I didn't know ears could do that), so I've been drinking a lot of Mom Tea.

meals: greatest hits

These are some of the food pictures I emailed to my envious friends before I thought to put them up here (most recent first).

I made this cake for my family when I visited them over Labor Day weekend:
For a week or so, I was making avocado and roasted pepper spring rolls for lunch:

You can't see much of the food, but for this birthday party I made veggie subs, vegan chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, and margarita chiffon cake.

I ate this mango, too.

This was my entry for Iron Chef Urbana. Nobody really dug my "rustic home cooking" theme, so I lost to the fancy seafood dishes. But actually the twice-baked sweet potato with grapefruit on top was really good. Next time I might make it with some kind of grapefruit glaze, so it's easier to eat.


I ate this for breakfast a couple of times:

dinner

I've been taking pictures of my meals and sending them to people. They are invariably envious of whatever I'm eating. So I thought I'd start blogging about food instead of sending email - that way the envy could be less exclusive.
Today I made a version of this zucchini kurma, from one of my new favorite food websites. I used patty pan squash, though, because it's always been my favorite and I brought some back with me from Michigan.

I chopped all the vegetables...


Then I had to fry some onions and spices...


Here it is bubbling away with all the vegetables added...


I finally ate it with rice and some leftover potatoes. Don't you wish you were also eating my favorite squash?

the Bed

My parents dropped by yesterday on their way to take my youngest brother to school in Mississippi, and they brought me a bedroom set. I had one, but they wanted to trade - they get a bigger one for the guest room, I get a smaller one that can fit better in my apartment. The great thing is, my new bed is the Best Bed In The World. It's old, it's pretty, it's soft, it's tall, it's comfortable, it's the best. It has a decorative knob at the top that wobbles if you move around a lot. It's simultaneously endearing and annoying; I think I'll just keep the knob in the closet.

I admit it's also nice to have something to put my clothes in. But I'm really mostly excited about the Bed.

fairytale logic / magical reasoning

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ended exactly the way I expected it to. Every last loose end tied up the way I personally would have tied it. Do I know from narrative conventions, or what?

one good thing

A lot of things have happened, but one minor positive is that I can have green hair again.

week-ender

Sunday morning I read Ender's Game, which Matt gave me for Christmas. For a long time, I'd been planning on reading it but the time never seemed right. That's partly because I have weird behavior when it comes to books - I know if I start reading one, I'll read it as continuously as possible until it's finished. Stupid analogy: when that happens I think of the West Wing episode where Leo is explaining how he can't just have one drink - he has to get smashed. I have to... get book-smashed. But anyway, I think this reading style is part of the reason I haven't finished certain books: long, complex things like Gravity's Rainbow or Ulysses physically can't be read the way I got used to reading when I was a kid. I did a good job pacing myself with Norwegian Wood; maybe this summer I could take on an intimidating book without reverting to marathon reading sessions and long, forgetful rests.

events

Classes ended for the school year. I partied for four days straight, made some new friends, was hung over, took some finals, got a blue belt in BJJ, and threw a party for my graduating friend.

The BJJ thing is a big deal to me. Belts aren't easy to come by. I'd been a white belt for two years, and I do actually put some work into it. I feel like this is something I have to live up to. I don't feel like I am as good now as the blue belts I know were when they were my "age." Maybe that's because they and I have been improving, so we don't have an objective measure of how good anyone is or was. I feel like I have responsibilities now. Mostly they involve being a good "big sister" type to new people, and working hard so I don't suck at BJJ myself. The Indianapolis tournament is going to be a whole new animal now.

towering

Back in high school I used to be a non-actor in the drama club. I stage managed and built sets, worked the lights, and designed a few things. A few days ago I dreamed I was visiting my high school and there was some sort of drama emergency - they needed me to do some backstage stuff.

I had a few minutes to prepare for the show, so I was walking around taking charge. I was standing in the audience, and saw R. from BJJ standing on the next step down from me. I went over to say hi, and he scowled and said, "Don't tower over me like that." I think it's weird that somebody would show up in my dream just to scold me for being tall.

finals month

This month is disgustingly hard. I'm close to the end, but I'm going to be pretty unhappy between now and then. At least I'll never have to do it again - I have two classes' worth of credit left to take, and I'm not going to take them in the same semester.

After classes end, Porn Chowder is playing on May 5th - what a great day to have a show! I wonder if they know any songs in Spanish.

Also, I ran 2.5 10-minute miles today. I know I ran 3 miles a while ago, but those were slower. I could probably have pushed it to 3 today, but running is kind of boring.

off the mat(s)

Some yoga teachers like to classify life into "on the mat" (yoga related) and "off the mat" (not yoga). But those phrases also have a parallel BJJ meaning, so whenever yoga people say that I always get distracted trying to reconcile the fact that anytime I do yoga I am both on and off the mat simultaneously, depending on how you define "the mat". I don't really have this problem when BJJ people use the expression, because I hear it a lot more often in that context.

When's Porn Chowder going to play again? I heard it was in the first week or so of May, but I need to know. I need a countdown.

stereotype threat

That study I read a while ago about stereotype threat, besides pointing out that if you imply that blondes are stupid they'll do worse on math tests, also had interesting points about how people can be defended against stereotype threat. I think the main thing was that if you tell people a stereotype exists but science has shown that it isn't true, they don't have problems. I don't remember exactly.

So I've been wondering: my project for the teaching class is about differences in confidence, expectations, and performance between male and female engineering majors. Am I stereotype-threatening myself? Or am I defending myself against stereotypes by educating myself about the causes of observed differences?

Also, the lab I'm taking in the fall is at the same time as the 5th-semester Chinese class. So it turns out I have to learn Portuguese. I can always take more Chinese next year.

os alquimistas dao le

Should I take a fifth semester of Chinese in the fall, or should I learn Portuguese? I'm considering it because I've heard the next Chinese classes focus a lot more on reading and less on speaking. I think speaking is more fun, so I'm kind of disappointed by that. Also, since I am into BJJ there is some incentive for me to learn some Portuguese. I'd probably be a quick study, too, because I used to be pretty good at French.

lady-specific ailments

Guys, I'm not shy. If you don't want to hear about boobs and things, wait until I post something else.

Turns out that the reason I was so hungry last week was that girl week just started. Strange things happen to me around that time. I don't really have the stereotypical cranky-and-crying thing. Usually not much happens, but the sudden eating streak was unusual and worthy of comment.

Additionally, I went to jiujitsu today, sweated a lot, and then got really cold. I took off my under-armor shirt and just wore the t-shirt around in hopes that I would warm up, but it didn't work: my bra was cold. There's no resolving that problem.

Also I forgot to drink my tea again. This time it just got cold, not bitter.

just in time, too

I just ran three miles. In a row.

sick is the new well

I was sick this weekend, so I didn't hang out with people very much. It's amazing how much I can get done when I'm avoiding doing anything. I caught up on some homework and made soup. I'm very proud of this soup and plan to eat it for lunch all week. I'm not totally done with all my homework yet, but I am also not feeling as frustrated as when I took three weeks to do one problem, because those two problems are done.

I also returned a vetoed bridesmaid dress, and my fight shorts have been shipped. I'm especially excited about the shorts. I bet I'll have them by Saturday. I hope I am feeling better enough tomorrow that I can enjoy BJJ.

Do I want to be a professor at a gigantic research university? I've always assumed I do, but I think that's because everyone assumes that is what PhD students want. Would I be happier at a smaller tech college or something? The truth is, I don't want to work hard in a discouraging environment with the threat of failure hanging over me at every turn. And it's beginning to sound like that's how it'd feel, competing for tenure with half a dozen other young faculty.

winners get shorts

These are the shorts I wanted that have been listed online as out of stock for months. I sent the site an email and asked when they might have more of them, and their response was that they already do! I ordered some yesterday. I imagine they'll arrive in a week or so.

Also, I left the bag in my tea for too long and now it's really bitter.

pation

I thought when I got back from the Pan Ams I wouldn't be so distracted anymore, but I was wrong. My plane arrived in Champaign from LA at about 1:30 Sunday night. The traveling was rough, but everything else about this weekend was so good that I still can't concentrate on work.

FIGHTING FACTS

First and foremost, Team McV competed ridiculously well. We brought home a pile of medals and were the second place team in the white belt competition. Second, I personally did ridiculously well, taking gold in a 5-person division. Third, the weekend was also really fun off the mat. Here's the story.

In the weeks leading up to the tournament, my guard suddenly stopped working so well. In retrospect, it was probably because everyone else started training harder. But at the time, I was worried: guard used to be what I was good at! I started thinking maybe I should switch and try to play the top at the tournament instead.

I was still mulling this over as my first match started. I hesitated, and the other girl jumped guard. It wasn't a great jump - I got her feet open reasonably quickly and started to pass. But she had me in a gogoplata for a little while, which was surprising and very uncomfortable. I'd never seen it before, and it took me a while to figure out what was going on and how to get out of it. I passed and took mount, she actually slipped out backwards, and I mounted her again. I was pretty tired at this point (still coughing from the choke), but I looked over at the guys on my team and they were all motioning for me to hold still because time was short. I probably would have done something stupid if not for them.

After that first match I realized I would really rather play from the bottom, so in my second match I jumped guard right away. Take that! She tried to pass, but instead set herself up to get triangled. I was still tired from getting choked by the first girl, coughing whenever I breathed too hard, so I was glad to have the match finish early.

I think my third match was really weird. I jumped guard and got my hands in for a cross-collar choke right away. My grip was ok - she could defend it, but if she didn't defend it I'd choke her. She defended it but couldn't make me let go, and I held on to that cross-collar for a really long time. At one point her face turned kind of purple and she waved her arms weakly - I was sure she was going to tap - but then she suddenly recovered. Damn! At that point I let go because I wanted to sweep her, but as soon as I did she opened up her neck again. I replaced the choke. I had gotten an advantage from something or other, and my guys were all on the side telling me to wait it out. I wasn't so sure (what if she passes and gets two points?) but I was also very tired, so I did what they said. It turned out ok - she pretty much couldn't move with the choke on anyway. That was the first time I have ever won by advantage. After the match was over, Adrienne said I held that same choke for something like three minutes. My hands were pretty tired.

Speaking of, Adrienne did really well herself in the blue belt division, and she said flattering things about me in her blog.

Competition feels different from practice. In practice everybody's got their individual goals, so you're working and you are together but you're not really working together. In competition, for 5 minutes everybody concentrates on winning one match at a time. Teammates keep time for you, encourage you, help you with strategy, and tell you the score. It's great to be on the mat with a bunch of guys backing you up, and it's also really fun to support your teammates when they're competing. Tournaments make the school seem more like a team.

OFF THE MAT STUFF

But when we weren't at the tournament watching or doing BJJ, we had some adventures. Everyone squeezed into Jimmy's car and we hit the Cheesecake Factory for some snacks, since nobody was trying to make weight anymore. There was also plenty of tequila and other drinks to go around. Feanil required that we take a trip to the beach, so that came right afterward. Somehow, when I got back everyone knew that I fell down while we were running to the ocean, but nobody knew it was because I was catching up to Jimmy and stepped on his foot. That is what happens when someone else tells the story first. But Jimmy is a cool guy, and probably singlehandedly responsible for everyone having such a good time Saturday. I hope he comes around sometime so we can order him some cookies - he was mesmerized by the idea that you can get them delivered.

I wanted to go BJJ shopping while we were there - I need to get some fight shorts - but it didn't happen. Maybe I'll just buy some online, but I am concerned that they'll fit weirdly, because they all say things like "new design to better accommodate you when you are wearing a cup!" Uh, thanks but no thanks, guys.

it helps to have company

From this post at Pandagon about why feminism is good for men, too:

The other side of the exercise and diet analogy is that healthy lifestyles tend to be easier and more rewarding in the collective. Eating better is much more fun if you have people who like the same food you do. Exercising is better around people who value it like you do. Feeling better is much more rewarding if you live with people who can keep up. Same with feminism—men who live in communities where their male friends are also feminist-minded and where they can have those meaningful relationships and friendships with feminist women tend to have a lot more reasons to embrace feminism. There’s not much reward to it if you have no access to women you can have those deeper relationships with and your male friends give you non-stop hell for your beliefs.

I've definitely noticed that it's easier to be virtuous in a lot of ways if everyone else around you is, too. It's even possible to be accidentally virtuous. For instance, I've been accidentally vegetarian for weeks at a time, just because I hang out with vegetarian people. I think that as feminists increase in number, accidental feminism will similarly become more common.

antici

I'm passing the time before F. and I leave for LA. First I was at work, but I couldn't concentrate, so I went home. But everything that can be packed has been packed, so I'm not sure what to do here either. Also! My shirts arrived today. I dress so snappy.

Yesterday in my teaching class, we discussed an article about the effects of unexamined assumptions on the classroom environment. Teachers can assume things about how learning works, the effectiveness of certain teaching methods, and even their relationship to their students and their schools. We talked about some kinds of assumptions that can be accidentally harmful. For instance: "teaching is a vocation, a calling, and I would do it for nothing." This one makes teachers feel good about themselves for being teachers, but also creates an obligation to put up with being overworked and earning low salaries. It also can make teachers profoundly guilty for not being constantly elated about their jobs. (Just like the similar assumption that everyone who is a mother loves being one.)

We also discussed some assumptions that were not mentioned by the article, and one of them was particularly interesting to me. I think engineering departments assume that "engineering education is intended to prepare students to be useful to their employers." At first this didn't seem so unusual, but I think in other disciplines it's more common for students to study the subject for its own sake, or because they want to put it to their own personal use. Literature, math, and languages are all subjects whose faculties think students are studying for more intrinsic reasons.

I think assuming that the purpose of engineering education is utility to corporate interests is particularly harmful, because educators are assuming that students aren't intrinsically motivated. It may even imply that students shouldn't be intrinsically motivated. Students tend to catch on to and adopt the assumptions of their instructors, so I think this assumption is likely to lead to students who don't have a personal stake in the profession. I don't think having a financial stake in it (in the form of a future job) counts the same way; in that sense the pressure to get good grades is a little bit like economic coercion. So when teachers assume students are studying the subject just to get jobs, the students themselves may be more likely to view their work as uninteresting and not personally relevant.

All registered athletes are in the list below

I leave for the Pan Ams this Thursday evening. My matches will be sometime Friday afternoon. I'm so excited! Now I have to go work out.

technology works as designed

I went for a run this morning with my new iPod. It was a lot easier and more fun than running with no music! Just like it's supposed to be! I wish the headphones had a clip, though -- the weight of the wire bouncing around sometimes causes them to wiggle out of my ears.

intrinsic aptitude my ass

I'm working on the references for the final project in a class on "College Teaching and Academic Careers." The project is a research proposal about classroom research; I'm writing mine about gender differences in participation styles. Having noticed that women often don't raise their hands and are more passive when doing group work, I want to come up with and test what I've named "low-stakes participation."

The whole thing seems to be a problem of confidence - active participation in class and small groups both builds and requires confidence. So maybe lowering the confidence requirement for participation will help train students (and women in particular) to be more confident in their ability.

Anyway, the article I am reading right now (Felder et al., "A longitudinal study of engineering student performance and retention: III. Gender differences in student performance and attitudes") keeps dropping bombs like this:

The converse question was also posed, i.e., what the most likely reason would be if the students performed above their expectations in the course (Table 10). Hard work was cited by the highest percentages of both men and women, but men were consistently more likely to report their own ability as the most likely factor while in four of five courses women were more likely to cite help or support from someone else. These attribution patterns match those observed by Fennema and Leder [25], who found that female mathematics students tend to attribute failure to themselves and success to help from others while male students tend to do the opposite.

Later on:

In the second semester of their senior year, the men remaining in the experimental course sequence were twice as likely as women to feel that they did more than their fair share in their groups and the women were significantly more likely to feel that their contributions were undervalued or ignored by other group members. This feeling is similar to one expressed by female Radcliffe College students, who reported that too often their contributions in small mixed study groups were not valued and so they preferred to study by themselves.

Yikes. And this, from a different article:

[Jacquelynne Eccles] found that even though girls got better math grades than boys, parents of daughters reported that math was more difficult for their child than parents of sons. For the math success of boys, parents rated talent and effort as equally important. For the math success of girls, parents said hard work was much more important than math talent. Ultimately, these young women have a lower opinion of their abilities in math and science and in their general intellectual abilities, even though they average higher college GPAs than young men.

And!

While boys quickly jump into a role and compete with one another to get their colleagues' attention and admiration, girls want to be in a group with people they like, and tend to wait to be invited or encouraged to assume roles.

Multiple sources and situations point to symptoms of the same disease. Lack of confidence and passivity are more common in women than in men, and they contribute negatively to learning.

Everyone agrees that group work is good, but how can instructors make sure confident students don't steamroll timid ones? In discussions with the whole class, the instructor can be there to guide the discussion and ask for contributions from students that need to be invited to participate. Small groups don't have the benefit of a facilitator like that.

Speedy!

I don't want to jinx it, but I think the weather has warmed up for good now. Even the ten-day forecast is in the 50s and 60s. Great news, because I just fixed my bike like you would not believe.

I'd been riding around with worn-out back brakes for a month or so - I could only use the front ones. Horribly unsafe, I know. This weekend I replaced the brake pads, and it's amazing how fast I can stop.

A week or so ago, it also came to my attention that there was some shifting trouble. I noticed the cable going into the shifter looked a little frayed, so at first I just tried replacing that. But the shifter itself had a very tiny, very important plastic nub broken off on the inside. This must have happened at some point before I noticed the problem (perhaps due to overzealously trying to shift) or maybe even while I was taking it apart to replace the cable. I spent the weekend messing with cables before I realized the shifter was broken, but it was absolutely no trouble to replace yesterday.

Last night I zipped over to Bdon's house and was reminded of the difference a sealed bottom bracket makes. Some things are so quietly good that you can only notice them when everything else is working properly.

I also got myself some fun bike accessories: a bell, so I don't have to ruin my bike-mood by shouting "get off the bike path" at people; a helmet that fits my head right, so I don't have to feel guilty for not wearing the old one that would just fall off anyway; and a great new red windbreaker that isn't intended specifically for cycling but works fabulously. It's even cut long in the back so my lower back doesn't get cold.

At work yesterday I mentioned my shifter story to R. (because I had the replacement in my bag at the time) and she said, "You take really good care of your bike, don't you?" People are surprised when you are a bike commuter and take good care of your bike, but nobody blinks when drivers take good care of their cars.

The thing is, I have to take good care of my bike. If I let something on my bike stay broken, it's unpleasant to ride, and then I'd rather just take the bus. Ewwwww, the bus. If I could make it more pleasant to ride in the winter, I'd even do it then. Not when there's snow in the road, though, because I'm worried about skidding. Maybe some ski goggles and one of those face hoods would help the rest of the time. My main problem is the killer wind.

Speaking of unpleasant to ride, Matt's bike was broken for more than a year before he even tried to fix it. He'd been in a crash, and I guess when he fell he landed on the frame and bent it. It was not repairable. But before he got a shop to look at it, he was in limbo and couldn't start the process of preparing to replace the fallen soldier. G. has a book about motivation, and one of the interesting facts in it is that if you promise to help people but put them on a waiting list, the people on the waiting list actually improve more slowly than people who express interest but don't get put on a waiting list. Basically, if you tell them to wait before you'll help them, they won't help themselves in the meantime. But people who are not waiting will improve on their own. Matt's bike feelings were, I think, a little like that. He threw it away Saturday night. All that's left is the front wheel, which we kept in case I ever screw mine up. Pour one out for a faithful old bike, y'all.

Completely ridiculous

Some people don't believe me when I say this is a real thing that actually happens.

exhaustion

I would be really good at this if it was just the daytime stuff I was supposed to do. But even now I am expected to be working. I won't!

whoa!

This article is awesome. But this quote is disturbing.

...But it never occurred to me there was anything I could do physically to protect myself. Why? Not because I was drunk. Because literally no one my whole life had told me that my body could work in my own defense (and many, many messages had told me to the contrary).

ooooo, you said a bad word

I bought a new computer! I wasn't planning on it. But there was an Opportunity. This is how it was:

1. My computer has been getting older. I was thinking about replacing it in the next year or so.
2. It started having a problem with the power cord connection that I'd had fixed once before (almost exactly a year ago).
3. Matt bought a MacBook, and I was very impressed.
4. I heard some things about Windows Vista, and I wasn't very impressed.
5. I heard CDW had previous-generation MacBook Pros on super-discount.
6. I checked, and I don't care too much about "Core Duo" vs. "Core 2 Duo."
7. I can still get AppleCare even if I don't buy directly from Apple.

So yeah, I bought a computer. I will probably get it Wednesday, or at least Thursday.

Also I watched some Illini Club Hockey! It was cool, and I want to play street hockey again like I used to back in the day. That was awesome. Too bad the posse isn't really full of sk8ers.

We went to the new Radio Maria tapas bar, and that was very nice. I still like the Blind Pig better, though. The BP might be my new favorite bar with no pool tables.

This weekend

Delicious: three cups chicken

Exciting: Porn Chowder at the Iron Post

THIS WILL MAKE TRAVEL VERY HAZARDOUS OR IMPOSSIBLE

I am horribly entertained by this phrase.

"Oh man, I ate soooo much. This will make travel very hazardous or impossible."

"I am dressed so sexy today! This will make travel very hazardous or impossible."
"That guy is an asshole. This will make travel very hazardous or impossible."

(We are having a blizzard; school is canceled. I've been in college for 7 years and never seen it canceled because of weather.)

always never forget to check your references

This is the sticky cake recipe I like.
http://www.chiff.com/recipe/pages/10125.htm

Girlfriends are like house plants: you can leave them alone, but even house plants need water sometimes.

"In graduate classes you can just give the students the book and the homework and let them teach each other. I wish I could get my undergrads to do that."

I did something right today! I've been having issues understanding random processes, and with the math for my coherence class in general. On Monday I took a shot at the homework and got maybe two thirds of it shakily done. So this morning I got out the textbook (a textbook! What luxury!) and highlighted enough of the chapter we're covering that you'd think they just screwed up and used yellow paper. This afternoon I took my homework (which I considered a draft, fully intending to rewrite it later) and my copy of the coherence theory yellow pages to office hours to talk about what was going on. It turned out not to be as bad as I thought.
I'd solved one problem with a backwards method, which I fixed. I clarified the difference between time-average and ensemble average. I listened to a discussion of the one problem I hadn't done yet (the problem statement had a piece of information I didn't understand, and the solution turned out to hinge on it). Then I kicked the shit out of a problem I thought I'd done wrong. I wound up giving a mini-lecture on how I interpreted the Poisson distribution to apply and translated an ensemble average into something that makes physical sense. Then we got to the part where I thought I was wrong, and it turned out to be a sign error. Damn, I'm good.
Then I wrote up this little story for a class I'm in on college teaching, and related it to the readings for this week. In this class, since they are so big on active learning, they love it when you relate the readings to your own experiences. I have been thinking - other disciplines expect students to read before coming to class. Engineers give lectures that are basically what the students would be reading if they were reading before class. Why don't we require them to do the reading, and then just have discussions of example problems during class time? We could directly discuss the thinking process of problem solving. We could still lecture about concepts that need clarification, but we wouldn't have to lecture about everything. Maybe we are concerned that the homework plus the reading will take too much time, but: (a) people in other disciplines already do it, and (b) if we teach this way the homework will be easier because they'll have practiced. I am serious, folks. I am going to try this.

The Elements of Style

I think I'm going to change my haircut. I've had the same "long in front, short in back" style for a few years now, I think. I love it, but it's got a few problems. First, it takes time to make the hair stand up in the back, and I am very busy this semester. Yes, I am seriously considering sacrificing style for an extra 10 minutes in the morning. Very, very busy. Second, it's winter, and if I have a hairstyle that depends so heavily on standing up for its stylishness, hats are right out, and hoods are contraindicated except in extreme circumstances.
I fondly refer to my current haircut as a reverse mullet. It's cooler than that makes it sound, though, because it has a lot of razory spikiness built in. I hope to maintain the razor coolness, but move closer to a short-all-over strategy so I have an easier time wearing it. Maybe when I have fewer classes I'll grow out the front again. Why does anyone ever grow out the back of their hair? If anyone knows, please explain.

We got to carry each other, carry each other

Jack has been playing the same "best of U2" CD in for the past few weeks of jiujitsu. In each class we hear it at least three times. That makes six times per week. If I assume it's been going on for three weeks (I suspect it's more, but I am rounding down), that's 18 times in a row that we've heard the same CD. I like U2 too, but damn. Maybe I ought to bring Jack a mix. He'd probably be into some of that Brazilian stuff all the cool kids like. But would it be weird to Paulo, suddenly hearing a bunch of what are basically golden oldies to him?

Jesus Ray we got the chessboard out but you playin' Whac-A-Mole

Jesus Ray we got the tortas out but you makin' Qdoba

Jesus Ray we got the 客家豆腐 out but you eatin' fried rice

Jesus Ray we got our tuxes out but you wearin' a shirt with a name tag

gross.

In his most recent advice article, Cary Tennis suggested that a man should leave his cheating, unrepentant wife. So far, so good. But then he said the guy should get in touch with some fathers' rights groups for support. Uh. Those are the guys who think domestic violence happens as often against men as it does against women, right? The guys who think a man shouldn't have to pay child support unless he gets to see the kids, even if there are good reasons not to let him? These guys think women are always lying: at home about whether they're on the pill or not, and in court about whether their husbands were abusive. You recommend a guy get over his irresponsible wife by taking up hating women as a hobby? Bad form, Cary.

Also, I'm in a class with a discussion board, and one of the ongoing assignments is to post about the weekly readings. People often post about themselves and how the readings relate to their lives or past work or whatever. But one response was kind of weirdly defensive. It seemed like, confronted with scholarly works that challenge previous experience, this person's response to suggestions for improvement to existing methods was "but that's harrrrd" and the response to a description of various levels of cognitive development was "did you just call me dumb?"

I met S. this weekend, who seems cool. He's in a local band called Dress Code and teaches in the Anthropology department. I am going to try to go to the next Dress Code show. As one might expect, there is a dress code - some sort of preference exists for people wearing a dress. The band will also wear a dress. That's just this show, though - other shows' dress codes did not involve dresses.

为什么学中文？ 因 为 我 想 交 朋 友。

Today I tried ordering food in Chinese for the first time. I hadn't tried it yet because I am shy about speaking Chinese with strangers - I feel like I am wasting their time. But today I did, and it turned out to be kind of an adventure.

I went to the Chinese place across the street from my office and asked for some dumplings, and the owner was only a little surprised - I think I have probably said "xiexie" to him before or something.

While I'm eating my dumplings, a white guy comes in and has a conversation in Chinese with the owner, who tells him he has a new dish that's delicious, and also that there's another white person who can speak Chinese here (that's me). So I invite the guy to sit with me.

We had a nice conversation about how he has been to a lot of different countries, I should go to China, and the internet is a series of tubes. So I made a new friend using Chinese! Awesome!