Who was that?

When my officemate unlocked the door to our darkened office early this morning, a man darted out of it. Nothing appears to be missing, but from the way my keyboard had been moved, he was probably sleeping in my chair with his head on my desk. I wonder who that was? Whoever he is, he must have a key and our alarm code.

Collisions

Today is the 18th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. When I mentioned that to my astronomy classes, a few of the students commented on the fact that they're eighteen years old, too. Most of my students don't remember a world before Hubble. I do. It was a quieter universe, beautiful and placid. We now know that is not the universe we live in, and I'm forever grateful to have seen the heavens through Hubble's eyes.

To commemorate today's anniversary, here are some colliding galaxies, from Hubble:

Discipline

You know, after a 13-hour day at work, I was thinking it would be so nice if my favorite musical artist would release a new single for free. What's that you say? Thanks, Trent!

http://discipline.nin.com

For the record

It was Greg's idea to have chocolate chip cookie sundaes for dinner last night. It was a splendid idea, in my opinion.

And so it goes

I had to yell TWICE at a group of students in one of my classes today. I resent having to apply discipline in a college classroom, and getting angry always leaves me unsettled and in a crappy mood. Needless to say, I did not have a good day.

However, when I got home, Greg made a yummy dinner, I baked chocolate chip cookies, and I received an email containing an apology from one of the troublesome students. Not such a bad day after all.

Benefit of the Doubt

My astronomy students turned in their first papers last week. The assignment is an article summary, in which they read a newspaper/magazine/internet piece on an astronomy topic and summarize it in one page. Nothing high stress, but rather my way of getting them to read science in the news. As part of grading, I mark spelling and grammatical errors. I did have a student object to this once, because I'm not an English teacher. Egads! I do think it is my duty to have them write as part of the astronomy curriculum. My physics students also have to write a short paper. I think it's important that students are held responsible for their writing skills, even outside the English classroom. After all, the goal of most composition classes is to prepare the students for their other courses, right?

I receive notices about students who take advantage of campus tutoring to proofread their papers for spelling and grammatical errors. One of these students turned in a paper full of errors. To whom do I give the benefit of the doubt - to the student, who perhaps did not receive the help she needed? Or to the tutor, who perhaps helped, but my student didn't follow through? Sigh. More hot chocolate is required.

Outcomes

On Friday, I attended a six hour-long meeting focusing on student learning outcomes. It made me ponder some recent examples I have of the outcomes that different people expect for student learning. All of these examples are from colleagues, near and far:

• The withdrawal and fail rates for these courses are too high. You need to figure out how to help more students succeed in these courses - a dean, remarking upon a track of pre-med/pre-professional courses.
• You guys need to fail more students. Not enough of the students are learning what they need to succeed in our courses. - a professor, remarking upon the same track of pre-med/pre-professional courses.
• I was concentrating on my music and my surfing instead of your class. - a student responding to a professor chiding the class on poor exam performance.
• Zero hours outside of class. Zero homework done. This class does nothing to prepare students for the tests. - student response to a post-exam survey asking for amount of time spent studying, amount of homework completed, and constructive criticism for the professor.

I think I'll go drink hot cocoa now.

Puny Earthlings

On several occasions this week, I found myself dealing with students discomfited by the universe. The Sun dying out was particularly perplexing for them.

"What will happen to us? What will we do?"

My reply was, "If we're still around in five billion years, we'll need an exit strategy." Truly, the students looked like I just killed their pets. The Greenhouse Effect also bothers them, but not in the "I should curtail my carbon emissions"-way.

"What will happen to the Earth if the runaway greenhouse effect happens?

"Um, nothing? The atmosphere will change, some living things will die as others flourish, and the rocky ball we live on will continue to orbit the Sun just fine. Oh, and the atmosphere has changed before."

Aiieee!

I showed a few of my favorite images: the Peekskill meteorite and the Chicago meteorite. Obviously, very few people were affected by these events, and thus they are considered to be of no consequence. My students did not consider these impacts to be trivial, and strangely, most had not heard of the possibility that an impact contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. One student has now deemed my class "creepy."

Since I was a small child, I've spent much of my mental life in outer space, so I guess I've become used to being part of the universe, a vast and awesome place. Just a part - not in control, not special, not important. And just amazed that from this tiny little land-locked corner of the universe, we can look out and learn so much.

Day Off

Today I am not going to do any work, not even open up my work email accounts. Yup, it's my Spring Break, and I think I deserve one totally free day! The week has been both full and fun so far:

• We drove up to Sacramento to celebrate my sister's birthday (a milestone) and my brother's birthday, too.(Travel tip - take Highway 99 instead of Interstate 5. Many more In-N-Outs.)
• Quick detour to Oakland to visit Tim, Heather, and sweet baby River.
• A lovely drive down the Pacific Coast Highway through Big Sur.
• An impromptu St. Patrick's Day party.
• Meals with family and friends.

And that's just Friday thru Tuesday! Much beach-walking has since occurred.

Other random bits:

• Congrats to ASU's men's and women's track teams for winning the NCAA championship. Special congratulations to my former physics student Jacqueline for her third (!) national title.
• My warm feelings towards my former students almost nullifies my rage at receiving a parking citation from ASU this week... you know, the place I haven't been since July? In a state I haven't lived in nor used my car in since July? Sigh.
• Titan may have a sub-surface ocean.
• I mourn the passing of Arthur C. Clarke, the author of the first science fiction I ever read.
• Congrats to David on the Hugo nomination!
• Congrats to my Greg on reaching yet more milestones this week!
• I somehow imagine that test grades would be even better for certain students if they curtailed the mj use. Still, the second round of exams went better than the first round.
• Why am I talking about grading?!?! It's my day off!

Happy Saturday, everyone!

Perspective

It's good to get a fresh perspective - Earth and its Moon, as seen by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Veiled Planet

Lest you tire of sunsets, here is otherworldly beauty - Saturn, from Cassini

Sunsets

Instead of being bored of the perpetual sunshine, I'm just giving in.

Sunset at our secret park:

Sunset at Ocean Beach, witnessed by me, Greg, Jackie, and Chris:

Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nails just released a 36-track instrumental album called Ghosts I-IV on the website this afternoon. Ahhhh!!!! Ahhh!!!!! The servers are overwhelmed, so I haven't been able to complete my order yet, but the streaming audio still works. Ahhhh!!! Ahhh!!!!

Maybe I'll cancel class tomorrow - it's two hours of new music!!!! Ahhh!!!!!

Borrowed Content

A meme that's been making the rounds: "123" meme:

1) grab the book that is physically closest to you at this very moment

2) turn to page 123

3) give the sixth, seventh, and eighth sentences that appear on that page

He cleared his throat. "I am here, as I'm sure you know, because of Albus Dumbledore's will." Harry, Ron, and Hermione looked at one another.

Gee, that's obvious.

---

If you're interested in sports or the separation of billionaires and state, take the time to read The Sports Guy's mailbag of emails from Seattle Supersonics fans. If you're not aware of what's going on, the most recent owners of the Sonics have been holding the city hostage over a new stadium that they never really wanted, their true desire being to move the team to Oklahoma City. Not that OKC doesn't deserve a team (the city was a great host to the displaced New Orleans Hornets), but should that be at the expense of a city that has supported their team fiscally and emotionally for 41 years? Sports fans, this could happen to your team. And I think it's a horrible statement on the values of a society that allows billionaires to have their fortunes subsidized by public funds as we find ourselves falling into recession.

Lunar Eclipse

If you missed last night's lunar eclipse, SpaceWeather has an eclipse image gallery, including this lovely image from Iran:

Eighteen

Tonight Greg and I went to 1500 Ocean at the Hotel del Coronado for dinner. Our meal involved shrimp, braised short ribs, kurobuta pork, filet mignon, almond butter cake and warm chocolate chipotle cake. Tasty, fun, and worth the extravagance as we celebrated the eighteenth anniversary of our first date.

Thanks for eighteen years of fun and companionship, Writer Boy.

Commencing

It was a glorious brisk sunny day here, and we could see ocean to the west and snow-capped mountains to the east. I felt well enough today to go to Solana Beach and eat pizza, splash in the Pacific, and experience a donut incident. It was a nice start to a long weekend.

Ants

There are ants in the kitchen. My dear Greg commenced battle against them before I got home from work, but some still linger.

I'm not usually squirmy over bugs, but ants really bother me. I think it goes back to Winter 1986, growing up in Northern California. That year there was a lot of rain. The ground was saturated. Wind-blown rain was actually leaching through the walls of my bedroom. One of my bedroom windows didn't close properly, and sometimes I'd wake up soaked from the rain. Nothing wanted to be outside in that weather, including ants. I can still see them on my walls, on my floorboards, my bookcase... everywhere. The only time a bug ever lasted more than a millisecond in my mother's impeccably clean house were those ants, that winter.

I feel like they're crawling all over me, damn them. Hate ants.

Just super

Sat on the couch and watched the Super Bowl, while my good Greg brought me snacks. Some commentary:

• I didn't know who I was going to root for until the game started, and I automatically starting cheering on the Giants. I love how brains work.
• There's an athletic trainer for the Giants retiring tonight after 60 years with the team?!?
• Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were enjoyable.
• I wish that there had been a split screen with "Peyton-cam". Did you notice how he was standing all by himself, looking fairly nauseated most of the time? Looking relieved when Eli threw a complete pass? If there's a next time, networks, there must be a Peyton-cam.
• Super Bowl ads are mostly lost on me. My favorite was the Barkley/D-wade T-Mobile commercial, but that's part of an on-going campaign that is in heavy rotation during basketball games, so I at least understand it. I don't even GET most of the rest.
• Best ads - the Fox bumpers where the Terminator was dueling the NFL on Fox robots.
• Do y'all think they should retire the recitation of the Declaration of Independence? It's a little odd.
• Game over. Oh, I'm soooo pleased at this moment. Randy Moss didn't deserve a ring. If I'd remembered that he was on the Patriots, I never would have wavered over whom to root for. And yay for Eli, surviving New York media for these past few years. Soooooo happy.

But now, after such sweet brief elation, the long off-season begins. Sniffle. Must console myself with chocolate.

Decisions

It's Super Bowl Sunday, and I have a decision to make. It's already the saddest day of the year, with it marking the end of football season. I'm prepared for the game - snacks are in place, much of the weekend's work is done. But I haven't decided who I'm rooting for yet. Do I root for the Patriots, to witness history? Do I root for the Giants, to witness another sort of history, one with a twist? Let's face it, the Patriots have been annoying in their smugness and allegations of cheating. But I have no love for the Giants, a playoff nemesis of my 49ers from the 80s/90s. Perhaps I shall merely root for the game to be a good one and start my countdown to next season.