Some things we never grow out of

You know how little girls* sometimes go through this phase where they have an article of clothing they love so much that they never want to take it off, including wanting to sleep in it? Well, as it turns out, sometimes you don't grow out of some things.

Last night I had to make a quick trip to Kohls** because I had to buy something for a Secret Santa thing I'd signed up for at church. (It involved buying a dress for a girl in the Spanish branch. Also, as it turns out, I know nothing about the way little girl sizes work.)

And so of course, since I was in Kohls, I walked out with stuff for me too, including a shirt, a pair of shoes, and a dress (all for $25!). I wasn't sure about the dress, but I bought it anyway. Among other uncertainties, it was sleeveless, so I was going to need to wear a cardigan over it and I wasn't sure if the one I had would work that well.

So I got home and I tried it on with the additional accessories, to see if I'd need to take it back. Oh no. It's great! I love this dress. I got home and tried on all the additional accessories (no, the fact that it was after midnight did not deter me from this exercise), including the black cardigan, as well as black tights, my blue shoes, and burgundy-colored pearl necklace. When I tried it on last night, I didn't want to take it off; I kind of wanted to sleep in it, I loved it so much. I wore it to church and kept it on even after I got home. I even took an afternoon nap wearing it. Ha! I guess that means that I did sleep in it! Mission accomplished.

I'm not really sure why I love this dress so much. I just think it's super cute, comfortable, and really flattering on me.

My camera is currently in NYC with my friend Bridgid (she's visiting me this week and up in NYC for a couple days; hopefully I'll post more about that later), so I tried using Mac PhotoBooth to take a picture. It's not good at focusing long range (for a full body shot), so here's the best I could do. Not the best picture, but it's cute, I promise!





* Maybe little boys too...I'm not sure since I (a) don't have any little boys and (b) wasn't ever a little boy; but I'm sure about the little girl thing. I was one a long time ago.

** Okay, "quick" and "Kohls" for me never belong in the same sentence. This statement is clearly an exaggeration.

I must be close

So I've been involved in doing research for awhile now. And I've noticed a trend for when I am on the verge of completing a project. (Holds true for conference presentations, papers, or any of the three theses I've written.) The trend is this: right before I finish it, there's a moment of total crisis when it seems like all of my results are completely falling apart. (Sometimes the crisis lasts for days, sometimes it lasts for hours.) Nothing makes sense and nothing seems to come together. It makes me worry that my presentation/paper/thesis will be delayed or worse, wrong. And that I'm the worst astronomer ever.

I've almost come to expect this crisis moment. In fact, it's sort of like a signpost that the end must be near. But in that moment, I always feel like "this time" things won't work out. "This time" the crisis will result in me being crowned the worst astronomer ever.

Okay, so that said, I've been working on this one "side" project for the past year and a half. This is longer than my boss and I expected it to take. But I feel like I've taken a project that was a pretty straight forward paper and turned it into something more interesting than just a data dump paper. ("Look! Data!" is now "Look! Science!")

So I've been waiting on some collaborators to get me some things I need to really knock it out of the park. But we're getting impatient. (Because we can still hit a home run without it.) My boss is getting anxious for me to get it out the door so I can work on other things. (And I am too.)

The deadline I set for the collaborators is tomorrow. Tomorrow I'm going to submit it, with or without the extra frosting on the cake.

Though, as it turns out, I'm not entirely finished with it.... Last week I was polishing it a bit and re-checking/refining some of my more important calculations. None of them were working! "How did I get those numbers before?! Why can't I reproduce what I *thought* I got before! I updated a few things, so I need the new numbers, but they shouldn't be *that* different than the old ones!"

I ran the calculations a bunch of times. They kept coming out way off. This was the moment for this paper when it looked like everything was falling apart. I felt slightly panicky. "Sure, things worked out in the past...but THIS moment of crisis...how am I EVER going to salvage this mess in time?!"

This was especially nerve wracking since I've committed to submit the paper tomorrow. So I'm up late tonight making sure everything is ready. I looked at those numbers again. The numbers that were making everything fall apart earlier this week.

Lo and behold. I found my mistake. Everything is working again.

This is a relief!

It must mean that the paper is ready to go.

But seriously. The trend continues to holds up. Why can't I just do everything perfect every time? That would be nice!

Commentary on Ezekiel 47

I know this post is a little different from the theme of my normal posts, but I couldn't let this go by without jotting down some of my thoughts. And I think some of my readers will enjoy reading this. It was too cool to pass over.

In my church, we don't have a paid clergy, so each member of the ward (local congregation) has a specific job (or more than one job). One of my jobs is to periodically teach the adult Sunday School class. This year we're studying the Old Testament. I taught today's lesson which covered Ezekiel 43-44 and 47. It was an interesting coincidence because as I was celebrating Thanksgiving with one of my good friends and her family up on Long Island, it was discovered that she had taught the same lesson in her ward last Sunday, that her brother was teaching it there that Sunday, and I was also teaching it down in Baltimore.

I'm pretty sure that I've read these passages in Ezekiel before, but I don't remember them. Nor do I remember them being so awesome.

The premise is that Ezekiel, who was a prophet in ancient Israel, had a vision of the temple in Jerusalem. By reading a variety of verses in Chapters 43 and 44, we gain insight into various aspects of the temple. (Including it being the house of the Lord, its holy nature, the very grounds being holy, worthiness requirements to enter, etc.) The really meaty stuff is in Chapter 47. This vision blows my mind.

First though, it's important to understand the geography of the region of this part of the world. Here's a basic map of the area:

The Sea of Galilee (the top, smaller lake) is a fresh water lake. The Jordan River flows out of it, and into the Dead Sea (the bottom, larger lake). The Dead Sea is the lowest point of dry land on the planet earth, about 1300 feet below sea level. Water does not flow out of the Dead Sea, and as water from it evaporates, it leaves the salt and other minerals behind, so it just gets saltier with time. It's a crazy cool place, and geologically very interesting. In fact, due to the high salt content of the water, it is much more dense than fresh water, and so people can actually float in it. I can attest to that! (And it's really, really fun.)

Because the Dead Sea is so salty, it cannot sustain life. There are no fish or bugs anywhere around, not even those brine shrimp that seem so abundant in the Great Salt Lake. There are no macro organisms of any kind. This is why it's called the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea is located to the east of Jerusalem. In between the two is an area known as the Judean wilderness. It is among the most barren places in the world. (I took this picture on our drive to the Dead Sea this past summer.)

Ezekiel's vision, as recorded in the first 12 verses of Chapter 47 (specifically 47:1, 6-12) goes something like this: He sees the temple in Jerusalem, with its doors facing toward the east. (This eastward facing is symbolic for other reasons, but note that this also means the doors are facing toward the Judaen wilderness and the Dead Sea.) In verse 1 he sees a river rushing out the eastward-facing door of the temple.

The results of this are astonishing. I love the imagery. Specifically parts of verse 8 (emphasis added):

These waters issue out toward the east country,
and go down into the desert, and go into the sea:
which being brought forth into the sea,
the waters shall be healed.

Amazing! What beautiful symbolism. Because of the water that is flowing from the temple, the waters of this barren sea are healed. What a beautiful choice of words!

The verses continue to talk about the multitudes of life that are brought forth as a result, including trees, and specifically the tree of life. (Although it doesn't call it that here; however, John sees something similar in vision, recorded in Revelation 22:1-3, and does refer to it as the Tree of Life.) We know from other scripture (including from Lehi's vision in the Book of Mormon) that the Tree of Life is representative of the love of God, is most desirable of all things, and will bring joy to our souls.

The symbolism of this vision is so rich. The imagery is so beautiful. Our discussion of it in Sunday School today led to many thoughtful possible interpretations of it. I believe the overarching symbolism is this:

• The water from the temple: Pure doctrine; Christ as the living water; etc.
  
• The Dead Sea/Barren Wilderness: Personal suffering; consequences of sin; etc.

In other words, the doctrines of the Gospel are healing. Specifically, the power and spirit that are available from the temple are healing. We can be healed. Everything that the Savior touches will be healed, whether it's a broken heart, a broken relationship, a broken home, or a broken society. I believe the answer to life's ills lie in the Gospel of Jesus Christ; and like the waters from the temple in Ezekiel's vision healed the barren wilderness and the Dead Sea, so can the Gospel (and especially the power available from the temple) heal us and cleanse our hearts and homes if we allow it.

Hairstyle

I'm in need of a hair cut/trim right now.

I haven't found a hair dresser yet in B'more that I like. (Of course, I haven't looked, which may be part of my problem.) Any of my local readers have any recommendations?

A few weeks ago I was on a plane flying somewhere. (California? Utah? I don't actually remember.) The woman next to me was watching CSI: Miami. I've never really been into CSI, and I couldn't hear anything, but one character caught my attention. She looked familiar, but I didn't know/couldn't remember her name. She had medium-length brown curly hair, a lot like mine. I really loved her haircut. It reminded me of a haircut I got over a year ago in Utah by my sister Sue's friend Marin. That was a great haircut! But Marin doesn't cut hair anymore. :( (And....I don't live in Utah anyway.)

So I searched and searched for pictures of this actress. I had no idea what her name was, just that she was on CSI: Miami. No luck.

Well, this weekend I solved the puzzle. Turns out the show was CSI: New York, not CSI: Miami. (Sheesh, how could I get them mixed up?) The actress is Melina Kanakaredes. I did some online searches and found some pictures, and this cut/style I particularly liked. What do you guys think of it for me?

I've never taken a picture to a hair dresser before. Would this picture be enough for someone who is good to figure out the cut and style on me? The part is in the middle, instead of my usual off-to-the-side (see below), but maybe I could pull it off? Or just have them alter the style from the picture and keep it on the side?

(In case you forgot what I look like.) These are just mac photo booth pictures of me (i.e., taken while I was procrastinating work, and hence a little bit silly). This one was not long after I got that great hair cut.

This one was about 6 months later, so it's still the great haircut, but grown out a little bit. (And hence a little less great, but still not bad. It was a good hair day.)

Opinions?

Stars are the best!

This semester I'm teaching a class at Loyola University. It's a general astronomy class for non-science majors. It's my second time teaching such a class, and the first time here in Baltimore.

We're starting to talk about stars, and I'm reminded how much I love stars! I just love them! They are the best!

Next time in class we're going to be talking about the H-R Diagram, the most important diagram in stellar astronomy. (And star clusters, which are my absolute favorite!!) To help explain it, I'm going to show a brief clip of a public talk by Jay Anderson, an astronomer here at STScI who is pretty much an astro-rock star. He talked about the HR Diagram and how we construct them. It's THE BEST explanation I've ever seen of it. And really cool animations too! I can't wait!

If you're interested in checking this video out, here's the link to the talk in the STScI public talk archives. Start at about 9:45 and go until 12:15. It's neat! (And if you're ever bored, I'd recommend watching talks in this archive. Some of them are really cool.)

Yay stars!

Sunshine in my soul

As many of you know, during my first year in Baltimore, I was severely missing the sun. My bedroom didn't have windows. My office didn't have windows. (And was in a part of STScI that we affectionately call "The Dungeon.") I really believe this lack of sun in my life affected my overall well being.

I'm happy to report, in July I moved into a new apartment and my room has two huge windows. It's glorious.

And, just as exciting, last week I moved into a new office. Check this out.

My new office is now in the Johns Hopkins Physics Astronomy building, across the street from the main STScI building. They let us use several of the offices there as overflow for ST staff. So sure, there are trade offs. Like how I have to actually get some fresh air and walk 2 extra minutes to meet my friends for lunch. But on the other hand, when I sit at my desk and look up, I see this.

So worth it.

Confession

A few weeks ago I went to Cincinnati to attend the wedding of one of my good friends, Kevin. It was a lovely weekend. I even took pictures. I swear I'm going to post them. (I also promise I'm going to post a lot of other things too. I've fallen a bit behind.)

Upon arriving in Cincinnati, I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond in an attempt to find a wedding gift for the happy couple. (They were registered there, so it made it easy.) After wandering the store for over an hour, including a 30 minute detour through a MAJOR bedding sale, I had to remind myself that I wasn't shopping for myself.

After awhile, I decided on a gift. I bought them this ridiculously cozy blanket. I loved it so much, I considered going to BBB when I got home to buy one for myself. I continued wandering through the store, and then found them something else that I thought they might like. (And more along the lines of what I'd hope to get them....something random, funny, and wholey unnecessary, but not completely useless.) I figured I'd just give them both gifts.

Long story short. I ended up giving them only one gift. I kept the blanket. That's right. I carried it all the way back to Baltimore with me. I'm kind of glad that I did because, as it turns out, I'm in love this blanket.

Sorry Kevin and Victoria. (I still love you guys.)

:)

I'm ready for some football!

Here's the thing. I don't have cable.

But I don't really watch much TV, so this doesn't pose much of a problem. Except for a small number of days a year, when it poses a BIG problem. And those days are upon us.

Fortunately, my gym has ESPN on one of the TVs in the cardio room. (Don't get me started on their poor channel selection and/or terrible/non-existent-on-most-the-machines sound hook ups.) And I have friends who have cable AND want to watch football with me. (Well, I assume I do. I still need to figure out who they are.)

Saturday afternoon, I watched most of the first half of the Texas game at the gym. Then down to DC to watch the BYU/Washington game with my good friend Rachel, who was visiting from Florida.

Monday night was the Boise State/Virginia Tech game, and I was really anticipating watching this one! My solution? I got to the gym shortly after the 8:00pm kickoff and parked myself on the elliptical right in front of the ESPN TV (and it actually had working sound connections! Score!), and pedaled during the entirety of the game. Except halftime. I took a short break to walk around, stretch, lift some weights, and get some water (a lot of water). When the game resumed, I was right back on there, pedaling and watching the game.

If I keep this up this season, I may be in the best shape ever by bowl season.

A couple things:

(a) I wear a heart rate monitor when I work out. By the end, it had recorded that my max HR was 180. (Too bad it didn't tell me WHEN that happened. Probably at the end.) I usually only achieve that when running sprints on the track. And watching heart attack inducing football, apparently. I noticed that my HR also jumped several times into the 170s during intense plays. Ha! (Makes me wonder where it would have gone had it not started already elevated.)

(b) I tried to be discrete, but sometimes I couldn't help it. Especially at the end. I had several reflexive outbursts. Fortunately, at the end when BSU scored their miracle touchdown, the cardio room was pretty empty.

(c) I'm really thankful the game didn't go into overtime. I could have kept going, but the gym closed at midnight and we were already pushing it on time. I was the last person to leave the cardio room.

(d) My feet really hurt by the end.

(e) And yet, when the game was over, I still stayed there to watch the highlight reel on Sports Center. (Which was pretty long, by the way. That game had a lot of highlights!)

(f) I'm really, really happy that Boise State won. :D

(g) I think I'm going to sleep really well tonight.

(And a picture to close: me and one of my favorite football buddies, back during our Austin days!! At a Longhorns game at DKR Memorial Stadium with Shaleen!)

Germany and Switzerland

The last week of the conference went pretty well. There were some interesting talks, and I learned a lot. I gave my own talk on Tuesday and it went well.

Wednesday was a half day, and we took a trip to Switzerland to visit Rhine Falls. It was about a 2 hour bus ride. We stopped in Schaffhausen, the nearest town to the falls and went on a walking tour of the city. The city thrived back in the day as a result of the falls because people shipping goods, etc. down the river were required to take things out at Schaffhausen and move them on land until they'd passed the falls. Today it's a fairly quiet, small town.

A few random pictures:

A fancily painted house, one of the few left in the town.

A cool astronomical dial that shows you a bunch of stuff, including the phase of the moon, the time, etc.

I thought these sheep statues were funny.

From there we went over to the Rhine Falls. Here's our first look.

Taken from a closer, slightly less obscured view.

Me and the falls.

The Rhine Falls were pretty cool. We got to take a boat over to that island in the middle, and in this picture you can see the stairs we climbed to get a better view. With all the astronomers that were there and the small space at the top, we couldn't stay up there long, unfortunately!

Getting closer to the falls.

Me at the top.

Also, I heard people figuring out that the amount of water flowing over the falls is the same amount of metals that is infalling on this particular white dwarf star with a debris disk around it with material falling on it. What nerds! ;)

Back in Tubingen, toward the end of the week, the sun finally came out!

A picture of me and the flowers and river in downtown Tubingen.

I really like this necklack and I wear it a lot, but....well, has anyone ever seen Thoroughly Modern Millie? Ha!!

Deutschland!

This week (starting Friday afternoon) I am traveling to Germany. I am attending a conference in Tubingen, where I will be giving a talk on some of the results from my thesis on Tuesday morning.

Hopefully there will be more than one installment of the Deutschland 2010 series, but after today the week will get pretty boring. (I mean, boring from the standpoint of the blogosphere. From a scientific point of view it will be interesting...) We'll see!

In the meantime, I present the highlights of the first two-ish days.

First off, let me just say that I have dreams of being a minimalist. My goal for this trip was to pack light enough that I didn't have to check bags. This is an experiment, to see if this is sufficient. When I told my (now former) roommate Amanda that I was only taking carry on, she didn't seem nearly as excited as I was. She said to me, "That tells me that you don't have enough outfits." Well...like I said, this is an experiment, so we'll see how it goes. This is all the luggage I brought.

The trip began Friday morning around 7:00. I got ready and drove to a friend's house, where I'll be leaving my car while I'm gone. She drove me to the train station where I took the train to DC, then transferred to the metro where I met up with Amanda, who drove me to the airport. I flew out of Washington-Dulles, had a layover in JFK, then on to Frankfurt. My flight to Frankfurt was delayed 2.5 hours. Mechanical problems, switching gates/planes, etc. But we made it. Upon arriving, I took the train (yay European trains! How I love them!) to Heidelberg. (Many thanks to my fellow post docs, Veronica and Davide, for the recommendations!) I left my luggage in a locker at the train station and went out to explore.

Heidelberg is beautiful!

First stop: LUNCH! I went to this place V&D recommended, especially because they had a special on schnitzel on Saturdays! Yum!

I then went to a pastry shop my friend Kevin recommended, but this is what I found.... :( Maybe if I could read German, I could tell that the flier said, "We've moved across the street!" I don't actually know what it said because, um, I don't know German.*

* This fact has become painfully obvious in the last 48 hours. (But don't worry. Many people know English. They are, unlike me, very useful.)

My first view of the castle! (It took awhile to see it.)

I then walked up to the castle. Although maybe I should say HIKED up. The ramp that goes up there is steep! And continued up for, roughly, forever.

First stop in the castle is a balcony that gives you a lovely view of the city and the river. Here is it, in two parts, view to the left and to the right.


This girl walked up that hill in these shoes. I hope the boy she was trying to impress was impressed.

Random pictures from the castle.

(Cool sundial thing!)



Um, don't mess with this deer. (Creepy!)

Or this guy, who apparently had lions on his kneecaps.

And, of course, not to be missed in the castle: the largest wine barrel in the world. That's right, they're pretty proud of it too. One of my friends at work told me about this a few days before I left. Another friend said something like, "But if the barrel is that big, wouldn't the wine be kind of vinegary?" The response, "Yeah...why do you think Germans are known for their beer?" Ha!

Me and the top (/side) of the biggest wine barrel in the world.

Another cool thing you can observe at the castle. The stones have holes in them. They would put tools in those holes, and that's how they carried them.

Also, I learned by overhearing some guy on my tour talking to someone else, that the masons that shaped each stone would leave their mark on it, like a signature. Because they got paid by the stone, you would know who cut which one. Here's an example.

After running around Heidelberg all afternoon, I hopped on a train (did I mention how much I love Europe for their trains?) to Tubingen. It took about an hour and 45 minutes. Although I didn't mean to, I fell asleep, but fortunately didn't miss my connection or my stop.

The hotel was about a 20 minute walk from the train station. It was 20 minutes of this:

Pretty!

I remembered where I was supposed to turn because this street/path was named after my sister. Okay, a little misspelled, but close enough!

Then I was suddenly at my hotel. Yay!

They even left a chocolate on my pillow. (Mint? No way, this is Europe!)

And soon I managed to find dinner.

At first I thought this venue was just a sports venue/gym or something, not a restaurant. Well, it's both, and this was my view during dinner.

I decided to pass on the after-dinner rock climbing.

Sunday morning I woke up, ate breakfast, and headed out to find the church. It was about 2 km from my hotel, and I had to walk along a major highway to get there. On the way back I found the sidewalk.

The entire meeting was in German, which I don't speak, as we've already covered. I arrived during the opening hymn. (Love singing the hymns in other languages! There's something so familiar, yet so foreign about it.) Someone else coming in the same time as me shook my hand upon entering, and found out I was American and only spoke English. During the first speaker, he asked me if I wanted a translator. I said sure, and so he had Dennis, this German guy, come sit by me and translate. He apologized for his bad English, but he was actually pretty good. Then halfway during the second talk, I guess there were a few others who needed translation, so I was handed a headset, and one of the missionaries translated. (Great set up...you wear the headphones that have a wireless transmitter from someone speaking into a microphone; so the missionary sat in the back with the microphone, and you get the translation in real time. I think they use those for the Spanish branch back in my stake in Austin. But this was the first time I've used it personally, so it was novel!)

I didn't think I'd stay longer than Sacrament meeting, but ended up staying all three hours. An elder from Colorado came and talked with me for a bit, then offered to translate Sunday School for me. He has only been out for a year or so, so he's still working on his translation skills. Mostly what he did was give me a general idea of what was being said. I didn't mind, I wouldn't have had a clue, otherwise.

And I also went to Relief Society, but late, because after Sunday School I was talking to Dennis. Anyway, no translator in RS, but they did give me a partial copy of the lesson in English. Cool. People here are great.

Back to the hotel! On my way in, I ran into a bunch of people from the Texas group, who were just arriving. (And all super jet lagged.) We ended up getting lunch together.

I spent some time online, then took a nap. I woke up just in time to get to the opening reception only 45 minutes late. (Ha!) I saw lots of people I know. This particular conference is like a reunion, especially as it's held every 2 years and you see the same people there every time.

And now...sleep!