I was really sorry to see that Madeleine L'Engle died yesterday at the age of 88. I really enjoyed her books when I was a kid; they had this great mix of science, love, the universe, and purpose, and incredible imagination. I read a lot when I was young, being an only child, and much of what I read was different sorts of storytelling drivel that all blends together when you look back at it. But some books I read, and reread, stand out, and the images, events, and ideas from her books are some of the strongest memories of anything I read during that time.

What books made the strongest impression on you as a child?

I've noticed something. Since leaving Los Alamos, I've met a fair number of people who skipped grades in elementary/middle/high school, and ended up graduating young, or being younger than all their friends, or going to college at a young age, or all three. And all of these people have told me that they would never, ever, allow their children to skip grades. They cite social problems, academic unrest, and other difficulties from personal experience, and say that it isn't worth it. Mind you, no one I've talked to said it was too intellectually challenging, just that it brings a lot of problems that make life much more difficult.

Now, I feel just the opposite way. ( Read more... )

I have to admit, each night since I first saw the fireflies, I start peeking out my window as soon as it starts to get dark. Today I went out and sat in my backyard from about 8:30-8:50, in a wet deck chair with a slug on it, to watch them at their most active. It is so beautiful! I'm sure eventually this will seem blase to me, but right now I just can't envision it.

My work is moving along very slowly right now, because the cryostat I'm working on has too big a liquid nitrogen tank. I tried cooling it on Friday, filling it with LN, and it took about six hours to cool a copper cold finger to 180 K. That's pretty bad conductivity, but I figured I knew a few ways to pep it up a bit, and it would warm up over the weekend. Well, no such luck; on Monday it was still 180 K, yesterday it was 185 K, and today it made it up to 240 K. 295 K is room temperature, and I need it to be above freezing, 273 K, before I can open the vacuum. Hopefully tomorrow will be my day.

lcole00, you were right about vouchers being a huge hassle. I'm trying to use mine to go to Seattle, and I had to call them up and make reservations, which took about an hour, and then mail my voucher in. But the person who made my reservation didn't tell me to write anything on the voucher, so two weeks later it gets sent back to me. I called United, at first unable to find my confirmation number on my desk, and they informed me that there was no such reservation and I could either use my voucher to purchase tickets for a much later date or shell out $800 for the original seats I had (which they denied being able to find). I pushed and pushed, angry at having been treated so badly by them several times, and got nowhere. Luckily I found the confirmation number and called again, and was told that I could still get the tickets before June 25th if I go to the airport and use my voucher in person. Of course, today when I drove to PHL, ALL of the short-term lots were full and barricaded off, so I would have had to park in a long-term lot, pay a full day, and take a shuttle to the airport. I was frustrated so I came back home to take SEPTA, walked most of the way to the station, and realized I put my cash in the wrong bag. Argh. Hopefully tomorrow I will come home with tickets.

I'm looking for some new music; does anyone want to recommend a few songs they've been into recently?

Please respond to this post with an anonymous comment that has 3-5 facts about you. I have three chances to guess who you are. If I get it wrong, please add another fact.

Personal note: Um... please adjust obscurity of facts based on how well we know each other.

Also, this gives you the brief opportunity to post anonymously on my lj.

For me personally, I try to stay very in touch with everyone I care about. I call my parents or e-mail them pretty regularly, I call or e-mail friends from New Mexico if I've got their contact info (or read their blogs, those that have them), and I try to call or e-mail my friends from Berkeley now that I'm gone. I'm not perfect about it, and sometimes I forget or get busy or don't manage to get to everyone. It would be awesome if all the people I cared about were bloggers, but mostly they aren't.

The response varies a lot. I think Jeanine is pretty much the most responsive; she e-mails me sometimes or calls, and in undergrad she sent me an e-mail pretty much every week. On the other end of that spectrum are other people who take several calls to get ahold of, don't return messages or respond to e-mail sometimes. Most people are in between... they don't tend to call me first, but they're happy to hear from me and if I have to leave a message, they'll definitely call back and track me down.

I know that sometimes this is frustrating for me, because it makes me feel like I'm the only one making an effort to stay in touch. Most of the time I don't mind, though... it's important to me to do so I don't mind doing it. But it does make me wonder about the sort of mindset required to not stay in touch with the people one cares about. Several of my friends who are impossible to stay in good touch with assure me that they care about me, and we are friends for life, and that they're glad I try. But how do they view things so that their inaction makes sense? I'm a big believer in that everyone's actions make infinite sense from their own point of view, and it's essential to try to understand other people's mindsets. So can anyone offer some insights on how this internally makes sense?

Btw, I don't mean this entry to sound confrontational, just curious.

In an article in the NYTimes about makeup, they give the following statistics:

"In a 2004 poll by the market research group Mintel, 64 percent of American women said they sometimes use foundation, compared with 47 percent of French women; 81 percent of Americans use lipstick compared with 70 percent of French women and 59 percent of Americans use blusher, compared with 43 percent."

81% of American women wear lipstick?! Good God! I think the whole thing is kind of ridiculous. I know some of you women wear small amounts of makeup regularly, in a tasteful way, and that isn't so bad... I dunno, I've never worn any makeup regularly. I've done it on occasion for very nice outings or for performances on dance team and in ballroom (required for the performances), but as a day-to-day thing, it's too much effort. I also like to wash my face some during the day to get rid of dirt and oil, and if I had to reapply makeup... bleah. It isn't like I have particularly great skin either. I prefer the French emphasis mentioned in the article of taking care of your skin and trying to make it look good on its own. It can nearly go without saying that I think it looks a little tacky to wear unnatural-looking makeup.

Of course people try to make themselves look their best, which is why we have so many types of clothes, hair products, etc. I guess I feel that smearing colored products on one's face on a daily basis goes too far. The gender inequality chafes at me too.

EDIT: Now that I've alienated my female lj friends, most of whom use makeup, let me add that this is more my personal feelings. I've always had an aversion to makeup, and am sort of figuring out why in the discussions in the comments. But don't think that I am disappointed in you personally for wearing makeup. :P

Okay, guys, opinion poll. Say you are going to visit six of the following nine cities. Which six do you pick, and why? I'm especially interested in your reasons.

1. Paris
2. Geneva
3. Lyon
4. Marseille
5. Nice
6. Milan
7. Venice
8. Florence
9. Rome

Wow, maybe now that I don't have anything to say about graduate school, my writing will be interesting again. :)

My job is kind of boring now. I haven't been in the lab in nearly a month, partly because of my knee injury and my east coast trip, and also partly because Max desperately needs data, and is having lots of apparatus problems (which are my problems too), and leaves in less than a month. I'll have one more month after that, so right now it's all about planning my data-taking and hoping that I'll be able to get something done before I leave. I'll also have a student in May, a high school senior who's supposedly going to do an autofocusing script and hopefully won't just be a time drain. The time drain part is why I have a student instead of someone more important.

Based on some recent patterns I've noticed, does anyone have any suggestions as to reasons why, in a heterosexual relationship, it's frequently the woman who organizes social events, travel plans, etc. and not the man? If you say "women are naturally more organized" without justification, I may have to find you and hit you.