By the Numbers

Just a few Friday evening thoughts to share:

• inches of snow at my house: 6
• feet of fog on the road this morning: approximately 1.5
• days until I leave for the beach: 21
• students enrolled in my class for the fall: 72
• students on waitlist for my class for the fall: 6
• hours spent at the office today: 3.5
  
• RSVP's for my fabulous upcoming wine tasting: 8
  

VHS vs. Beta

My subconscious apparently decided to continue my stroll down memory lane this afternoon. A strange little stream of consciousness process led me to remember back, pre-high school, when my family did not have cable. Instead we had an antenna on the roof of the house for television reception. In the den (which, by the way, had some fabulous 70's-era wood paneled walls), we had a little contraption that controlled the antenna. It had a giant dial that we would turn causing the antenna attached to our chimney to rotate, and improving the picture on the TV. This was back in the day when we only had access to 4 or 5 channels. I don't really know what made me think of it, but I can picture the whole thing so clearly.

This of course led me to remember our first VCR. I distinctly remember my father waffling back and forth over whether to buy a VHS or beta tape player. He went with VHS. (Thank goodness). Apparently the masses thought that beta was the way to go at the time. There was only one place that we knew of in town where they rented VHS tapes when I was little; I remember driving across town to rent movies with my Mom. But back to the VCR. There was actually a pop-up part on the top of the 20 lb. appliance where you put the tape in. Kind of like an old cassette player. The "remote control" was actually a little handheld piece that could fast forward, rewind, and maybe pause. It was attached to the VCR proper by a very long cable. We thought we were so ahead of the game. It was able to record 12 channels (2-13). So no taping Fox, which was on channel 45 at the time!

Sadly, while my father was on the cutting edge with the VHS VCR back in the day, he made a bad call after that. Does anyone remember the laser disc player? Picture a DVD type disc the size of a big vinyl record. The laser disc player was a contemporary of the very first CDs in the late 80's/early 90's. It really never took off. I think my father still owns one, though. Perhaps he could sell it on EBay.

Blast from the Past

For reasons that still defy explanation, I pulled out my old high school yearbooks tonight. Yikes! I knew I was a geek back then (I say that as though I'm not pretty well geeked-out here in astrophysics grad school), I just didn't realize how super geeky I was. It was bad.

Among the enlightening comments my peers left for me, they said that I was "great to have in a group for class projects", "really nice", and "sweet". My Humanities teacher, Mr. Meyer, claimed that he enjoyed having me in his class, even when I went through my "grumpy phase". (Um, yeah. I have no idea what he was talking about). According to Beth (and other people I took chemistry with) I also had serious problems lighting matches in chemistry class. Who knew? Blake apologized for pulling my hair during English and somebody named Mike said he thought I had more potential than people gave me credit for. And if anyone remembers the Charlie Decker story, I think I'd appreciate it if they reminded me of it; it seemed rather important in my junior year.

And my high school crushes? I had forgotten about most of those guys, but apparently I took them rather seriously at the time. Gracious. How embarrassing.

Anyway, it was an interesting trip down memory lane. I am sure now I will feel no need to repeat the process for another 5-10 years. Plus, I at least can take comfort in the fact that I have come a long, long way since then. If nothing else, I can light a match now! :)

Hey You

So, I may not have brought everyone up to date. I am indeed teaching this fall. Yippee!! The class I have been assigned to teach focuses on the one area of astronomy that I know the very least about. (What's the opposite declaration of "Yippee"?) Waves of panic have been rippling through my world ever since I accepted the job.

The most recent panic has been over selecting a textbook for this class. We have already established that if I had to choose the one topic I am least comfortable with in astrophysics it would be the topic of this class. (Cosmology, if you must know). But I am teaching this class, by gosh, even if it kills me. Which it might. But I digress. While graduate students are often encouraged/required to attend seminars on effective teaching practices (don't say "um", use PowerPoint instead of the chalkboard), learning styles (learning by listening, writing, actively doing, and/or osmosis), and innovative interactive techniques for the classroom (dear god, please strike down the person who invented clickers!), these "teaching the teachers" classes often fail to give any insight into how to do the more mundane (yet extremely important) things like choosing a good textbook. I have had way too many horrible textbooks in classes to not take this responsibility very seriously. (I should someday link my friend Jeff's comments on Amazon regarding our Classical Mechanics book. Classic.) I found out on Tuesday that I was two weeks overdue in letting the university bookstore know which book(s) to order for my class. The class that starts in August, mind you. So I am frantically "reading" every cosmology book recommended by the last 6 instructors for this course to determine which one will be most effective in helping to illustrate the salient points of the course. Gracious. I am in way over my head right now.

And here's another quandry. What do I have my students call me? I won't have my PhD yet, so clearly Dr. and Prof. are right out. It seems like a bad idea to have them call me Meredith, as there are 75 of them and I need to establish some sense of the instructor-student boundaries off the bat. I cannot bring myself to tell them to call me Miss D., and Ms. D. sounds ridiculous. What am I left with--"Hey You"? "Bitter Graduate Student"? "Queen of Under-her-breath Sarcasm?" "Short, Brunette Person at the Front of the Room?"

These are the things I worry about in the evenings, rather than working.

Digitus Minimus

I got a voicemail message from my mom the other day. It sounded like this:

"Meredith? This is your mother. I need to talk to you." (very serious tone)

Pause.

"Your brother is having surgery on Thursday."

Dramatic pause by my Mother. Dramatic thoughts of kidney transplants, bone marrow transplants, and/or brain tumors by Meredith.

"On his finger."

Huh?

"Give me a call when you get home."

Clearly, I call home at this point. David (aforementioned brother) broke his finger a few weeks ago playing football in P.E. My father, being a dentist, took David to his office and x-rayed the suspect finger. He saw a break in the pinky bone on the x-ray and wrapped David's finger all good and tight between a couple of tongue depressors and said it would heal.

And heal it did. In the wrong orientation. An orientation which prevented full mobility of said digit, including the ability to completely bend. David says that the doctor told him that the particular location and type of break in the bone would have required it to be re-broken and set with a pin or two, regardless of what my parents had done about it. (Like, say, if they had taken him to the doctor when the break happened). But still. You have got to imagine that my parents are feeling pretty badly about it now.

David and his digitus minimus survived the surgery just fine, by the way. And the doctor says that the finger bends now and everything! It's all bandaged up, though, and David is a little bummed that he can't drive for a while. But all involved will survive.

I'm Such a Girl

I heard a strange noise coming from my car yesterday as I pulled up to a stoplight. It was new and interesting enough that I decided to stop and check on it, thinking it was probably not normal. So I pulled in to a gas station, parked, and got out to check. My brilliant scientific mind quickly concluded that the noise was probably related to the complete lack of air in my back right tire. I knew there had been some pieces of something that looked like rubber in the road a couple of stoplights back, but I thought I had avoided hitting them. Apparently, I did not.

So, I did what I thought any normal person would do. I sat down on the curb next to my car and called my Dad. (Mind you, he lives 1800 miles away.) He confirmed, based on my description, that my tire was indeed flat and I did in fact have to put the spare on. Now, I have seen this done (and even helped a couple of times!) so I just proceeded to start pulling all my worldly possessions out of my trunk in order to get to the spare. I pulled out the spare doughnut, the jack, and the long contraption used to remove the nuts from the tire. Like any normal person, I also pulled out my car owner's manual to read the tire changing procedure.

So picture me, sitting on the curb next to my car with the flat tire. The spare tire and associated accessories are on the lawn next to me and my nose is pressed firmly into my tire-changing instructions. During this time I swear to you, no fewer than 20 people passed by me, looked at me, and continued on their merry way. From the time I first parked and noticed the completely uninflated tire on my car it took 15 minutes for someone to stop and offer to help.

By that time, of course, I had chickened out of changing the tire on my own. I was pretty sure I wouldn't be able to find the right place to put the jack, the car would manage to fall on my head (despite my firm rule never to place my head beneath a car or other heavy object), and I have pretty crappy university health insurance unlikely to cover such accidents. So I was a total girl and called someone to come help me. And to make it all a little more embarrassing, the only person I could call that lived within about a 30 minute drive from where I was was my officemate, whom I don't really like. (He's actually the one that stole my summer class). So I had to call him and his new wife on a Saturday evening and see if he could come hold my hand through the changing of my tire. Mortifying. Anyway, officemate+wife showed up about 30 seconds after a kind stranger finally offered his help.

I have to admit, I was pretty irritated that no one else ever offered to help me. I fully realize this is attitude of mine is ridiculous as I should have been capable of changing a damn tire by myself. I shouldn't have needed help (even if I did end up wimping out). But still. I think it's just common courtesy to offer help. I don't think it's asking too much. Alas, I don't live in the South anymore, so evidently it is asking too much.

Backup Plans

The past few days have been examples of the periodic low points in my life as a grad student. One of those times when the only thought in my mind all day long is "Why in the world did I decide to do this again?" So, in an effort to combat my impending depression at wasting my life away in a field I currently hate, I have been compiling a list of backup plans. If I'm going to quit, I need to have a plan.

Now, some backup plans are unrealistic. Moving to LA to sleep on my friend Greg's apartment floor and becoming Jack Bauer's nemesis next season, for instance. The likelihood of me becoming a television and/or movie star is actually quite small. (Sitting around a coffee shop mocking said celebrities, however, is much more probable). And I'm really not much of a badass. It seems I would need some badass qualities to be on 24. I probably won't be able to become a technical advisor for Alias either, though their science does need some serious help sometimes.

A bunch of grad school friends and I do have a more realistic plan of moving to Mexico, where we'll open a combination pizza parlor/coffee shop/scuba diving school on the beach. I get to be the barista. I think I could handle days filled with making some coffee and drinking some fruity girly drinks. That sounds right up my alley right now. Get some sun, re-learn some Spanish.... all good. Plus, there are about 8 of us in on the deal, so I wouldn't have to do it alone, either! We could sit back watching the sun set over the water with our tasty beverages, some pizza, and think back on how awful graduate school was and how glad we are to have left.

My actual fallback plan has always been to move to New England and open a B&B. I could decorate the inn, I could bake cookies each day at 3:00, I could do morning wonders with eggs and make holiday-theme shaped pancakes. There would be pretty leaves in the fall, snow in the winter, and little to no astronomy taking place. At all. Very little paper writing. Hardly any use of the computer ever. No review papers to read, no classes to teach... the words "publish or perish" would never enter my vocabulary. It really sounds delightful. Quiet.

In the end, I'm not sure any of it is realistic. I guess reality isn't really what I'm aiming for right now, though.

*sigh*