DC Cherry Blossoms 2012

We've had an unseasonably warm winter, and as a result, the cherry blossoms in DC were out a bit earlier than normal. Since I was already heading to work my normal every-other-Saturday shift at the temple in DC this past Saturday, I made quick plans to stop by and see them. I was a little worried when I heard there was a rally planned on the National Mall that same day, but the crowds didn't end up hampering my travel at all. And I lucked out with the weather, since the rain held off until just as I was leaving.

Here are some pictures of the tidal basin and Jefferson Memorial:





Some close ups of the blossoms.



Washington Monument in the background:

Proof I was there. (Fortunately there were enough people around that someone was willing to take my picture.)


Here's to springtime! One of my favorite times of the year.

Home Internet

I mentioned in my last post about how I don't have internet at home, but that I was getting it installed this week. Well, they came this afternoon and got me set up. I'm posting this from my laptop, AT HOME. This is the happiest of days.

I was more excited than I thought I would be. Last night I was having dreams about it. Ahhhhh! It's like sweet, sweet freedom. Now I can be more productive and unproductive at home than ever before!

Now to remember how to set up my wireless router... (Here's hoping it still works and is compatible with my modem. I bought this router like 5 or 6 years ago and haven't used it in at least 3.)

And yes, this should mean that I will post on my blog more often...


UPDATE: Wireless works! I got it up and running.

New Haircut

Last week I finally got around to doing something I've needed to do for awhile. I got my haircut. I found a salon near campus that had good reviews on Google, and I liked them a lot. And their prices are so cheap, I feel like I'm in Utah again. I've found myself a salon. Wahoo!

My hair was getting too long to be manageable (which also means the curls get weighed down and don't curl very well). I decided to cut off a lot, like 6 - 7 inches, maybe 8. I think the length is super fun and I like the spring I have back.

Here's a picture:


Also, this week I'm doing another thing I've been needing to do for awhile. I've decided to finally get internet at home. I imagine you're thinking one of two things (or both): (a) Wait, you've lived in your apartment for over five months and haven't had internet?? (Answer: yes. I don't have a TV either.) (b) How did I possibly go this long without internet at home? (Answer: Well, I do have it on my phone, so I'm technically not without internet. But sometimes not having it on my computer was annoying.) Maybe I'll write more about that later, after they come to install it on THURSDAY this week. I can hardly wait. I think my life is about to change.

Also...I just noticed. In the background of that picture you can see my cupcake painting. I blogged about it once. Yes, it's hanging proudly in my room.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

While I was home for Christmas my family and I went to lunch at one of our favorite places, The Dairy Keen, a fast food (but better than regular fast food) place up in Heber City, Utah, owned by my aunt and uncle. They had a chicken enchilada soup that was really tasty. We didn't get the recipe from my cousin (though maybe we will still try?), so I set out to find one to try. (I love the internet.)

Here's the recipe I tried. It is really awesome. Even though in my regular enchiladas I prefer flour rather than corn tortillas, making this with corn is fine. It's pretty interesting actually, the corn tortillas actually provide a way to thicken the broth. Reviews I read online say that flour tortillas DON'T do that well, but that they end up more like glue than a nice soup. I haven't tested that. I might not because I like this way just fine.

Chicken Enchilada Soup

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups chicken broth
• 10 (6 inch) corn tortillas, cut into 1/2 inch strips
• 1 cup green enchilada sauce
• 1 (10 oz) can red enchilada sauce
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 4 cooked, boneless/skinless chicken breast halves
• 1 cup half-and-half

Directions:

1. Combine chicken broth and tortilla strips in a large pot. Cook over medium heat until strips soften and broth thickens somewhat.
2. Stir in enchilada sauces and cumin.
3. Stir chicken and half-and-half.
4. Serve with tortilla chips. Optional garnishes also include: diced tomatoes, sour cream, cheese, avocado, jalapeno, etc.

Notes:

• I prefer making it with a little bit more broth. Maybe 1.5 cups.
• It says "large pot," but my saucepan was fine. A stock pot is too big.
  
• The time I made it, I used most the breast meat from a rotisserie chicken I bought, which a decent amount.
• I made it once with 8 tortillas instead of 10 and that worked fine too. Just a little less thick (but not that big of a difference).
• When the tortilla strips are soaking in the broth, don't stir it too much (if at all). Stirring will come later. Every time it's stirred, the strips break up a little more, so save your stirs. (And part of the fun is the chunks of tortilla strips.) Just make sure the heat is not so high that they burn.
• With fat-free broth and fat-free half-and-half, this soup is surprisingly calorie friendly. (Yet so creamy and satisfying!)
  
• Definitely serve with tortilla chips! Yum!
• Recipe says it serves 4, but with a little more broth and less tortillas, I got about 6 1-cup servings.
• Also makes good leftovers!
  

The Thermodynamics of Sarcasm

We've got one week left of classes the semester (yay!!) and so my classes are winding down. The last unit in my physics class is thermodynamics. Last night I finished the last homework for that class (I like to make sure I work all the problems before making my students do them) and got the assignment posted. As I worked problems about heat engines and entropy I remembered why I hated my thermal physics class so much. (Although looking back, I wish someone would have told me how useful and important statistical mechanics was in astrophysics. I mean, seriously.) But as I went home (driving my car with an internal combustion engine) and turned on my heater to warm up my cold apartment, I was grateful that someone loves it, as thermo actually is a pretty important part of our lives. (*end physics teacher PSA*)

As I'm preparing my final three lectures, I actually pulled out "Thermal Physics," the text we used for my senior level, undergrad thermo class. I randomly opened up to a page, and laughed at all the notes I wrote in it. I don't actually make notes in textbooks that often. After leafing through a few pages, it was clear how silly, sarcastic and maybe bitter (about the material) I was while in this class. (Remember that one problem that had like 15 parts?! And the time Kevin drew an analogy between particles moving to an evacuated space and letting loose third graders from one side of a gym when there is a table full of sloppy joes on the other?)

Anyway, I just have to share a few of these gems with the blogosphere.

The first page I saw today. Clearly my mind was on energy and entropy as I read.

I also noticed that a common theme was that I would write notes in the margin, as if I was having a conversation with the author. (Who I have, incidentally, met in real life, since he teaches in the physics department at Weber State where my dad taught. But our encounters were all way before I became a(n) (astro) physicist.)

And in this one I like the edit of "statistical mechanics" to "sadistical mechanics."





One of my sillier moments....

I still haven't read that book....

But as you can see, I wasn't sarcastic or bitter about it all the time.


So on this cold, December day, I'm grateful for thermodynamics and heat engines and the transportation of heat. And even more glad that I'm not the one that has to work those problem out. (At least beyond the intro physics level!) (Of course, I likely just jinxed myself to get a job where I'll eventually be asked to teach thermal physics. Blergh.)

The one where I remember I have a blog

I had this realization on Monday that Thanksgiving is next week. NEXT WEEK! How did that happen? I have absolutely no idea. I just finished up my last lecture before the break, which means it's 9am and I am DONE!!! (Except that I'm never really done...I always have something I should be doing.)

So what have I been up to in the last, oh, month since I posted? Most of my life is consumed by teaching and trying to stay on top of lecture prep, grading, homework/test writing, etc. Even though things have gotten a lot better since the beginning of the semester, I've still been snowed under most days. (Actually getting access to the instructor resources and changing my physics class over to the online homework system (=no grading!) made my life SO much better; that was the time I got to start sleeping again.) It's been crazy, but I'm loving teaching, so it's not all bad. Let me give some random updates.

1. My physics class. I still love it. I love it more all the time. I'm strangely surprised by how much I love it. I can hardly wait for next semester.

2. My GSci class. It's going okay. I'm realizing that I tried to cram WAY too much in over the course of the semester. And teaching things I'm not an expert in (e.g., chemistry and geology) might not have been the best idea I've ever had. I'm actually looking forward to that class being over.

3. My physics students all want to take the second half of the class (E&M) from me. My section was the first to fill up, and I still had 19 of my current students request overrides. (The department admin was awesome and let them all in.) This is in addition to at least 5 or 6 students I help in the learning center who talked to me about wanting in, but might not get in. (At least not right now; maybe at the beginning of the semester when everyone is shuffling again.) This makes me feel good because I've put so much into the class that it's rewarding to know the students appreciate it! And that they like me.

4. Science Math Learning Center. I tutor there 2 days a week (3-4 hour shifts) as a part of my teaching load. This is a total throwback to my days in the tutorial lab as an undergrad and I really love working there.

5. I almost lost my perfect schedule for next semester. There was a scheduling snafoo and they had to do some last minute shuffling and almost took my physics class away from me. I almost cried. (Literally.) I convinced them to let me keep it. (I mean, having taught the entire physics series DOES help my CV and I AM looking for jobs.) After I convinced them they almost switched me to teaching a different section. (After all that trouble of getting all my students in my class?!) That change would have had me teaching everyday again, instead of my now-scheduled T/Th. But in the end, it all worked out and my perfect schedule is in tact. Whew. Next semester is once again awesome: teaching non-major astro (second half, JUST stars, galaxies and universe, awesome!), and physics. Both classes T/Th, done by noon. I can't wait!!!

6. I've never eaten out more in my life than I am right now. And it's not good eat out, it's like fast food eat out. It's terrible. I don't even like eating fast food that much. (Okay, that's a lie. But I don't like the way I *feel* after I eat fast food that much.) Every once in awhile is fine, but I prefer to eat real food that I cooked myself. Especially given how much I like cooking. But my brain is mush most of the time, and I can't even remember what I like to cook. And actually taking time to cook something? Yeah right.

7. I'm trying to have a social life, kind of. My social life tends to revolve mainly around my church friends, and there aren't many people here in the singles group that are my age. As a result, I'm outsourcing to Charlottesville where the LDS singles group is bigger, and people are more like me. (i.e., not 18.) I've been going to the family ward (congregation) here, but driving there for Institute each Wednesday night and other random activities on weekends.

Two weeks ago I decided to take the plunge and officially transfer my records to the ward there. Since Charlottesville is still in my stake, it's totally allowed. When I talked to my current bishop about it, he said, "I understand and I support your decision." Ha! Anyway, it's a lot of driving (about an hour each way), but it's worth it to have some semblance a social life and to actually be able to meet people. Sometimes people are surprised when they hear that I drive that far and they think it's not worth it. But those are also probably the people who haven't lived very far from the singles ward epicenter. (Like me, previous to this.) It's actually not that big of a deal. The drive is beautiful and it's nice to have some chill time.

8. I'm still working at the temple in DC every other Saturday. I really love it, although it also adds up to a lot of driving. (I usually drive there in the morning, work 12:30-5:30, then drive home that night. It's a 2 hour drive each way.) Good thing I got my car fixed before moving here! It's been running like a champ.

DC temple at sunset last weekend:

9. I love my apartment. It's perfect for me right now. Sometimes I miss having a roommate, but I probably wouldn't be a very good roommate right now anyway. I'm actually amazed at how well I do at keeping my place tidy. It's almost fun to keep an orderly house. Or maybe it's easy because I'm not there all the time. I don't own a TV and I don't have the internet. I'm actually amazed I've lasted this long without the internet. I have my phone to check email and Facebook at home. I'm getting really close to giving in though, especially with all the job apps and stuff coming due, and not wanting to stay at work to work on them.

I haven't posted any pictures of my place and I need to! So here are some pictures. Sorry I don't have more.

Kitchen:

Bathroom (this is the first time I've bought a fun shower curtain and I really like it and want to show it off):

Living room, including my couch!

Better shot of my couch. I've fallen asleep on it more times than I'd like to admit. (I'm sort of pathetic/ridiculous right now.) It's so comfortable.

I haven't decorated yet. I'm hoping to get to that over the break. I am going to try and continue with the National Park Series of photos and blow up some pictures from the adventure Michelle and I had this summer in Utah.

10. The sister missionaries serving in my ward here are like my bffs. Ha! I have them over for dinner every other week or so. The first time I did, I chattered on and on, you'd think I was stressed and deprived of human company. (That's probably true.) They thought it was a great time though, and came back. One day a few weeks ago I came home (late, as usual) and was surprised to find they had heart attacked my door. It made me day.

11. I finally went hiking in Shenandoah, although it was a quick hike on a Friday afternoon. The fall colors were stunning. I have no idea why I haven't been living there this fall. And I get to use my National Park annual pass, which is so awesome. I love having it so much that I might buy another when it expires in April, even if I only live by one national park. I just really like being someone who has a National Park pass.


12. The shelves in my office are still completely empty. I haven't had the energy yet to drag all my boxes of textbooks up here. It does make for a convenient excuse when those people come by my office trying to convince me to donate and/or sell my old textbooks. (It happens more than I expected.) "Hi, do you have any textbooks you don't want?" *pause* "Oh, I see you don't have any textbooks." Ha!

Most boring office ever. I'm actually getting embarrassed when students or colleagues come by. Goal over the break: bring up my books.

13. Right now I'm not good at doing things that I used to be really good at. Examples: I've gone to the gym roughly 3 times this semester. (I've been a faithful 5-days-a-week gym goer for at least the last 6 or 7 years.) I don't drink enough water. (The water fountain is just SO FAR AWAY. And I forget to drink it when I have a jug of it on my desk.) I'm a few days behind on writing in my journal. (Will catch up over break.) I often fall asleep on my couch at night while working, waking up in the middle of the night and then going to my bed. (Except Wednesday night when I slept on the couch all night, because when I woke up, I didn't feel like going to my bed.) I'm kind of pathetic. But what can you do?

14. Jobs. Oh man. Applying for jobs is the bane of my existence. And here I am, in the throes of it again. Why does it feel like I just applied for jobs? Oh yeah, because I *did* just apply for jobs. My job here ends next August, so I need a job for the fall. The department is hiring a tenure-track position, but they seem to really want a computational theorist, which is not me. They're also hiring another temp position (2-3 years), but after a recent conversation I had with another prof here, I don't know if the department would actually hire me. He wasn't purposely discouraging me from applying, just advising me to "be careful," since being in a temp teaching (not research) position for 3-4 years might look bad on my resume when I try to get a permanent job. (I know, academia is weird.) So one of those, "we're making you leave for your own good." I don't really know.

The learning center here is also looking to hire someone full time to split time between being the physics faculty tutor and teaching classes in the physics department. (The current guy just got hired full time as the planetarium director.) My supervisor told me about the job opening and I think they'd love to keep me working there, and it does sound awesome. Although I don't know, because it would mean no time for research and it's not tenure track (but likely not going away). I just haven't decided yet if that's a track I want to jump on. Or rather, I haven't decided if the full professor track is one I want to jump OFF. I actually really love working in the learning center and sort of wish I could have it both ways.

I'm applying for a mix of small college/university teaching jobs as well as a couple post docs. Sometimes I think doing another post doc would be good for my career, so that I can gather research momentum again and form some more collaborations. But....I don't know if I really want to. But it might be what's best for me in the long run. Sigh. Don't know! We'll see how things play out this year.

Since I've been so buried with teaching, I'm behind on applying and I've actually missed a TON of deadlines. But I've finally combed the job listings and now have a solid list to work from right now. I'll be working hard over the break to get things together.

15. Research. Yeah, this so hasn't happened. I'm still mad at STScI for wiping all the software off my laptop. I've lost a LOT of time trying to get up and running again. Anyway, I have this awesome data set on a globular cluster that I need to publish, but I have to redo all the photometry measurements since HST released new flats (calibration files) right before I left. Blah. And the data go public soon and there's a real threat of being scooped. Double blah. I imagine my supervisor at STScI is going crazy. He emails me sometimes to check in on how it's going and I never have good answers. Triple blah.

16. I'm addicted to frozen yogurt. I'm not even kidding. This semester they opened one of those self-serve fro-yo type places between my house and work. I go there several times a week. Sometimes I eat frozen yogurt for dinner. My favorite flavor is cake batter because it makes everything I put on it taste like cake. Oreo cake! Brownie cake! Chocolate chip cookie dough cake! Kit kat cake! (And if you know me, you know I kind of love cake batter, especially dry cake mix.) A couple weeks ago they ran out of punch cards, and so they've been giving people a punch on their receipt to be transferred to a card when they come in. It's been like 3 weeks. I haven't counted how many I have, but I'm almost too embarrassed to turn them all in for real punches once they finally do get the cards in. Before that I filled up two punch cards.


17. You know how I love the Cracker Barrel? ("Where comfort meets food!") Well, on the two long drives I do regularly (i.e., to Charlottesville and DC) I pass THREE each way. (Three different ones.) I've been wanting to go for like 3 months. Finally I broke down and went two Fridays ago. I put my name on the list, and they would call people over the loud speaker as so: "Cracker Barrel would like to welcome Carla, party of three." Or "Cracker Barrel would like to welcome Daniel, party of six." I thought, oh man, how lame am I going to look when they announce that I'm a party of one? Well, the hostess realized that and said, "The Cracker Barrel would like to welcome Elizabeth!" Awesome! I wanted to tell her thanks, but she was talking to someone when I went by. And my chicken friend chicken and biscuits were awesome, by the way.



Okay, well that's about it. I literally have no plans for Thanksgiving, and the funny thing is that I can hardly wait. (I have gotten an invite or two for the actual Thanksgiving day dinner though; don't feel too sorry for me or anything.) Last night I wrote on my fridge white board my goals for the week. I will get lots done! I will be a productive, balanced person again! If only for a week.

BashFest '11

During my first year of grad school at Texas the longtime director of McDonald Observatory, Frank Bash, was retiring. In his honor, they held a two-day conference where they invited promising post docs to give general review talks about the current state of their field. Everyone had so much fun that they decided to make it a biennial thing. And so, BashFest was born. (The real conference title is something like "New Horizons in Astronomy.") (The picture above is me sporting the official conference Tshirt. I like the design of it a lot. Way better than the shirt I have from the conference from 6 years ago.)

This year marks the 5th occurence of BashFest. Several months ago, I received an email inviting me to give a talk at this year's conference. It was both an honor and a bit overwhelming. My assigned topic was "late-type compact objects," in other words, white dwarfs. That's my dissertation topic, although I haven't really done anything new in that area in the last two years because my post doc work focused on other things.

I wanted to maximize my time in Austin, but couldn't really get away for too long because of my teaching schedule. So I flew out Friday afternoon. Had a great time seeing friends and eating good food. (Well, minus the UT/OU game. That was horrible. But the company was great!) Many thanks to R&W for letting me stay with them 2 nights! (And to their daughter E for being so cute and so much fun.)

Good food. Love Rudys creamed corn!


Also, I brought all the rain in Virginia with me to Texas. It rained so hard! It hasn't rained since like April. They really need the rain!


The conference had a small reception Sunday night and then was Monday and Tuesday. My talk was Monday afternoon. I kept putting off preparing it, and did most of the prep Sunday night, until my internet in the bed and breakfast I stayed in when out. Then I finished it up the next day during lunch. (We had a really long lunch break.)

I was the first talk after lunch. I liked the focus and theme of my talk: overview of stellar evolution and the creation of white dwarfs, and discussion of different white dwarf science in order of decreasing temperature: the hot ones, the medium-temperature ones, and the cool ones. I was feeling a little nervous before (I wanted to do a good job, and I'd worried a lot about whether or not I pitched my talk to the right level), but once I got up there, I totally relaxed.

Honestly, I feel like this was one of the best talks I've ever given. Maybe THE best one. It was so much fun! I felt like I was enthusiastic, informative, engaging, etc. In my introduction to stellar evolution, I showed the HR Diagram/color-magnitude diagram animation I got from JA at STScI. (I've mentioned it before on this blog, if you haven't seen it, watch it! It's super cool. Go here, watch about 9:15 to 12:45.) I knew people would love it and they did! After showing it, I got APPLAUSE in the middle of my talk!! That's a first for me for sure, and undoubtedly the last time it'll happen. (P.S. It never happens, astronomers are hard to move sometimes.) (Don't worry, I gave JA credit, for sure.) And everyone laughed at all my jokes, and I got some good questions at the end.

I felt terrific about how my talk went, and I got a lot of compliments! From fellow conference attendees, I got the following comments (among others):

• "Your talk was excellent!"
• "I loved your talk!"
• "Your talk was fantastic!" (- Frank Bash, namesake of the conference)
• "Your talk was fabulous!"
• "You talk was wonderful!"

(In addition to lots of people asking for a copy of the animation. I have to ask JA about that, since it's not really mine to distribute.)

Also, Rob Robinson, a former professor of mine, found me at lunch the next day to catch up and when I said I was teaching right now, he asked, "How are you liking teaching?" When I said I loved it, he said, "I can believe that. You just seemed to exude joy as you were talking yesterday. You can tell you love teaching." :)

Anyway, the conference was a great time, and I had to head back Tuesday night. I arrived at Dulles airport at 1:00am, back in Harrisonburg at 3:00am, and then had to teach at 8:00am! Yikes! And I think I caught a cold on the plane, which isn't awesome, but hopefully I'll get over it soon.

Oh, and I'm giving my physics class their second exam tomorrow morning. Yikes! Hope it goes better than last time! (The grade distribution on the last one was so broad, I ended up just curving it.)