Thursday, April 30, 2009

Good morning accomplishments

1. This is our 100th post! Let's have a party! with mini cakes (with spelt flour and lots of fruit) and balloons and extremely silly hats :)

2. Nanermellon is back in town and Fluffy and Summi will soon be here!

3. Dad brought came back from the grocery store, held out a bag and said, "I brought you a present." I reached in and lifted out a geranium by one of its fuzzy leaves. Soft as the down on a baby's head. There was another one nestled inside the bag.

4. We had strawberries and yogurt for breakfast. My first breakfast; Dad's second. Which inspires me to quote Lord of the Rings.
"Well, what about breakfast?"
"We've had it."
"yeah, one."
"I don't think he knows about second breakfast."
"Well what about tea! and high tea! and elevensies! Do you think he knows about those?"
"I wouldn't count on it if I were you."

5. I read this great passage in Know-it-All by A. J. Jacobs, which is actually a quotation from the Encyclopedia Britanica talking about Samuel Johnson's depression: "The light from heaven shone on him indeed, but not in a direct line, or with its own pure splendor. The rays had to struggle through a disturbing medium; they reached him refracted, dulled and discoloured by the thick gloom which had settled on his soul, and, though they might be sufficiently clear to guide him, were too dim to cheer him." ~Lord Macaulay, and as A.J. Jacob's said, the man could write.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A little sumpin-sumpin

1. Cherry trees are in blossom.

2. Bulbs are coming up everywhere.

3. A man was knitting a pink little something on the subway.

4. I had an excellent dinner and study session. I now have recipes and knowledge! (and excellent company who fed me both the dinner and knowledge.)

5. I wrote an exam! One done, one to go...

Friday, April 24, 2009

A series of surreal events

okay, so while not exactly nice events, they were interesting, and I like interesting. Keeps life spicy.

1. There were two police cars and men in business suits taking photos and measuring the area at the bottom of my street.

2. Two unmarked grey vans showed up and parked beside the police cars.

3. In between glances out the window, all the manikins in the store across the street lost their clothes and were nude.

4. They carried a dead body out of the apartment above the bar at the bottom of my street and put it in the unmarked grey van.

5. A man asked me if my mother was a nurse at a local hospital, because there is a woman there who bares a striking resemblance to me. I have more doppelgangers running about.

Sunday, April 19, 2009

cheeky physics

My favorite part of doing homework is coming across anecdotes that make me laugh.

There's a story about a physics student who, in answer to the exam question "Describe how the height of a building can be measured using a barometer," wrote "attach the barometer to a string and lower it from the top of the building. The length of the string needed to lower the barometer to the ground indicates the height of the building." The professor was looking for an answer that involved measuring barometric pressure on the ground and on top of the building, using principles learned in class. He therefore gave the student a zero for his answer.

The student protested the grade, so the case was given to another professor, who asked the student to provide an answer that would demonstrate his knowledge of physics. The student's answer was that the barometer could be dropped from the roof measuring how long it took to hit the ground. Using a formula involving the gravitational constant it would be possible to determine how far the barometer fell. The student was awarded full credit for that answer, and then, with a little prompting from the appeals professor, provided these additional answers:


  • Put the barometer in the sun and measure the length of its shadow and the length of the building's shadow. The height of the building could be determined using proportions.

  • Give the building superintendent the barometer in exchange for information about the height of the building.


Upon hearing these answers, the appeals professor was amazed, and asked the student whether he had known the right answer all along. The student replied that he did, but was tired of just repeating back information to get a good grade.

~ Lubart & Mouchiroud, 2003, as cited in Cognitive Psychology by Bruce Goldstein, 2008.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

5 Videos That Make Me Consistently Happy

1. "Now that I know where you live, I'd like to see you home."


2. big head and little arms *wiggle*


3. wait for the jump!


4. Give notice of his allegiance with the phrase "Good Morning."


5. The force is strong within you.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Smoosch Smooch Sluuuurp Smooch

Today I am especially grateful for the humour of strangers.
Two kids sitting directly across from me in the subway were making out on the subway with great passion of lots of slurping noises. The entire subway car was full of people awkwardly looking away, whistling, inspecting their fingernails and so on. I caught the eye of the man diagonal to me, and he grinned at me in sympathy and commiseration. When he got up to leave he stood at the door next to me and said quietly, "Looks like fun, huh? Well, it would be with someone like you. Not that I get to choose."
I like it when people laugh without judgement, and hand out compliments without expectations.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Tea Kettle Song

1.

2. I had delicious sushi. One roll was pink, one was covered in avocado, and and the third was slightly sweet and spicy with stripes of seaweed artistically arranged as decoration.

3. I hid jaja's easter eggs by blue-gooing them colour appropriately to the murals on her walls.

4. Dad read aloud to us from "The Year of Living Biblically" by A. J. Jacobs, funny and smart (both Dad and the book, come to think of it) and I truly enjoy being read to.

5. One of our neighbours poked their head in the door to say they were relieved to see our egg tree was flourishing once more. They'd been worried when they walked down the street yesterday and it was still barren.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

warmth

This may be my favorite story that I've come across in a long time: tweenbots

I also truly enjoy colour coding pansies. So pleasing to create floods and waves of colours with flowers.

The spring sunshine warmed me beautifully.

Monday, April 6, 2009

rationally irrational

I wanted sleep, I got lots of sleep last night.
I wanted eggs, I had eggs.
I wanted a shower, I had a shower.
Sometimes life is so nice, and gives you EVERYTHING you want.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Destruction and Rebirth of Student Sanity

Carmina burana and essays go well together. The music lends a sense of drama to the occasion.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Swing at the Symphony!

Swing concert at the symphony, what a fabulous time, and with what excellent company. We danced in our seats. The conductor wore a white suit jacket, black patent leather shoes and danced about on the podium looking as if he turned and smiled his teeth would flash a brilliant white gleam like a cartoon character or a star from an old black and white movie. The drummer was rocking out, looking, in his suit and tie and balding head, like a business man who had just let loose and was having the time of his life. One of the violinists bopped to the music in her chair whenever she wasn't playing, and the trumpet soloist grabbed the singer in the middle of a number and danced her about the front of the stage. The clarinet players, on the other hand, disapproved of the whole proceedings and alternatively left the stage, looked bored, cleaned their clarinets and fell asleep. All of which set me into a fit of giggles in the middle of the quietest number.



oh yeah, and Nelson and Jeanette do sing the Indian Love Call eventually...

...in pants that could hold entire bunnies in the top bits in Nelson's case. If the fancy took him that way.