SOOOOOO COOOOL!

A few friends went to visit the Museum of Mathematics in New York City right before Christmas. It is a new museum, and it makes me want to move back to NYC in a few years so Epsilon can enjoy it fully in his late elementary school years.

My friends took their nephew with them, who got to play on a bike with square wheels (pictured on the website), a fractal wall that projects a fractal image of you that you can move around and play with, and a giant room of spacial logic puzzles. What a brilliant idea!

Their only complaint was that, as the museum has just opened, not all the exhibits are up and functional now, so maybe give it a few weeks to work the kinks out of its system. Oh how I long to be in NYC again. If you live near by and happen to visit, do leave me a comment about how you liked it.

Lessons from the Arctic

I've just returned to the warm from a week of vacation above the Arctic Circle. I've learned a few things.

1) A clear winter's solstice sky during day (= twilight) is much more spectacular than the possibility of a northern lights after sunset.* 7 hours of twilight is nothing to scoff at.

2) Snowshoes aren't magic devices that let you walk on the surface of a snowdrift like the recent birthday boy's ability to walk on water. Neither being related to a deity, nor being good at snow shoeing, I sink in snowdrifts.

3) The only clear shadows above the arctic at this time of year are cast by the moon. Reflected by the snow, the forests look very alien. To bad I couldn't get the following out of my head.

*Perhaps this is because we only say a weak northern lights show.

Something about the season

Something about this time of year makes me intensely grateful for the circumstances that I live in. A time and place where, when three years ago, it was time to give birth, I had a sterile hospital room, and not a cowshed.

Online Forms .... RAGE!!!

I've spent a good chunk of the last 2 weeks applying to jobs and writing letters of rec for my students applying to grad school. I HATE online forms.

Let me start with the positive:

There is one system (ApplyYourself?... I can't remember) that makes life very easy for the letter writer. One username. One password. They send you the link, you see ALL of the students you need to write letters for in this system on one screen. Click on student. Fill out school specific questions. Upload. Submit. Click on next student. Continue until done. LOVE!!!!!!

I am applying to several posts at University A. I have a login for their jobs page. It brings up all the positions at this university I have EVER applied for. It gives me an option to copy all the personal and rec details from a different application if I choose. I change the relevant information. Upload the appropriate documents. Done. LOVE!!!!!

There is another system for uploading letter that sends me a username with a jumble of letters, and a password that is my last name. I click on the link. IT ASKS ME TO CHANGE MY PASSWORD! Why, I ask you. All the security is in my username. I'll never be able to log in again without my link. I'll only use this username for ONE student. Once I'm done, you can trash the login. I've had three different logins in this system this year. A-NOY-ing!

University B's graduate admissions fails to recognize the domain of my previous academic e-mail. REALLY?! This took my poor student a week to figure out. That's okay, I have a different academic e-mail. I do get the link sent to this address, BUT.... I can't upload the letter. Each time I try, my connection times out. Ah, but they have an option to cut and paste the letter into a box. I try this. The connection times out when I try to submit. I really hope they are checking the general contact inbox for the admissions department for letters. If this is a new system, I really hope they fire the group that developed it. RAGE!!!

I am applying to several posts at University C. Their jobs website is down for servicing for one of the job deadlines. I get permission to submit when the page comes back up, but since the deadline has passed, the job is no longer available in the on-line system. I get the appropriate forms from a poor administrator dealing with many requests like this. They require that I download and fill out an application form. The application form is a .doc file with fields. Some of the fields show up as read only when I open it in Open Office on my Ubuntu machine. Trying to save the file crashes OO. But exporting to pdf works. When my partner downloads the form to OO on his windows machine, he can't see the check boxes. I can't set up an account with my current e-mail address. Luckily, I've already set up an account from my previous academic address. When I upload the documents, I can't click on them to check if they look okay. Something about a header information problem with the webpage. OMG I HATE THIS!!!!!!

I really hope to be done with all this nonsense by Saturday.

Waiting for Tuesday

The term is winding down. Work is not. That's the funny thing about not having any teaching. My work schedule seems to have nothing to do with the student schedule. This will take some getting used to.

I have 70 more comments to go on an R&R (many many thanks to the thorough reviewer), a few more letters of recommendation to write, and talk to prepare for tomorrow. All the rest can wait. Tuesday evening is the start of my vacation. Events this year have conspired to keep me from sending work related e-mails to colleagues on the 24th and 25th of December. Instead, I hope to be spending much of those days skating under a near full moon a sky full of stars.

I can't wait. There's too much to do, and not enough time and too many days until my flight takes off.

Silly me

It's time to give out teaching assignments for the term.

Female grad student (FGS) sits down with her advisor (A) to talk about what she felt comfortable TAing. FGS tells A that she has no problem teaching any of the subjects he has proposed, but could he please make sure she is not assigned to work with Post Doc (PD). When A inquires further about her request, FGS explains that she feels uncomfortable around PD because of his attempts to hit on her and his misconception that her face hovers somewhere in the region of her breasts. A decides to grant her the request, but tells her to be careful in the future not to create a situation like this with any other of her colleagues.

Somehow I still manage to be shocked by things like this. Naively, I believe that stories like this can only happen if one of the actors are 20 or more years older than me. Silly me.

The hard choices

It's snowing outside.

I should wear my princess boots. They'll keep me warm.

These are like Cinderella's boots!

But I'm Rapunzel. Rapunzel goes barefoot. I can't wear these boots!

But I'm a princess. So I should wear princess boots.

It's cold outside. If I don't wear boots, I'll be cold.

But Rapunzel doesn't wear shoes!


Sometimes, I feel sorry for Epsilon.