Hello I'm stepwise girl and I'm a nerd

Yesterday, my godson and I ended up spending the whole afternoon listening to lectures about science. So that was me, a science lecturer and him, an engineering student.

We were at this science musuem and spent the afternoon going from lecture to lecture: electromagnetism, liquid air (my favourite), laser, and changing states between -220 and +110°. We had loads of fun! How nerdy is it though, as a weekend activity, for people who spend the week with their nose on science. Ah well, just shows we like it!

I guess it's in nice connection with the fact that recently I did spend some efforts reminding myself how lucky I am to do something I like (most of it!) and to spend time trying to understand the world around me, and to teach other how to do that. I've been needing to remind that to myself when I'm preparing lectures (as now) or painfully writing long overdue papers. Need to go back to that book for young lecturers, the part on writing... And the annoying bits come with the package and that's that!

The old film camera

Here is the beast. I love the challenge of using it. Very few settings (no zoom, manual focus, and just one light indicating whether you're under or overexposed) and of course no mean to see the pictures until you develop the film. I take currently either colour slides or black and white film and don't do any of the developing. I currently don't take a huge amount of pictures with it, but at least I took it out again! It's a family heirloom, my mum bought it when my brother was born (he's 6 years older than me) and at the time it was a very fancy camera. The only problem with it is that despite it being very basic it does require a battery of a type that has become very difficult to find and that contains mercury... also a reason why I am using it sparsely. But we're looking into similar option that take either more standard batteries or no batteries. ie fancy shmancy leicas mostly...

Crafty

When I was younger, I developped a taste and, I think, some skill, for craft making. I did all sorts of stuff, a bit of quitling, painting, painting stuff on walls or on fabric, making cards, pearls, making little decoration things, a bit of sewing. With my cousin, I even had a go at flower arrangement.

I no longer do any of that, or only on rare occasions... I can't even think of 5 things I currently have in the house that I made. (I'll try to look for some, take pictures, and post them!)

What has happened in the meantime?
-I have less leisure time;
-I have other comitments during my leisure time (I'm contributing to two charities of sorts)
-I have entered a phase in which I want less stuff and crap in the house (which means I don't want too many not-so-great stuff I'd make, and also I don't want to store too much equipment)
-I have a stoopid blog to write on and I read blogs. Or maybe I should say: I have developed an addiction to the evil interwebz.

Still, I haven't completely given up on developing a vague artistic side:
-I bake (as you can see by cliking on label cooking. Still have to post on the Devil's Food Cake I made a couple of weeks ago.)
-I took my old film camera out again (should scan some of the stuff I discovered in the roll left in there for... 5 years or so)
-I have done some sewing to recycle old t-shirts into kitchen cloths, and some fixing torn clothing.

But reading blogs has also taken me visiting some blogs where people present crafts or simply stuff they made themselves and I think the personality and the sense of achievement they convey is really nice. I'd love to spend more time making stuff, as part of my efforts to consume less or better...

My current crafts fantasies are:
-maybe learning to knit? (but my mum knitted sooo many scarves and jumpers that I have enough for the coming 10 years...)
-sewing. Only need to find sources for ecologically sensible fabrics.
-more baking, especially bread baking.
(the pattern is: useful/useable things)

And my utlimate fantasy that I know is rather unrealistic:
-basket weaving.

So there.

Back after a fantastic long weekend!

Away from the internet, no tv, just a fire to look at, friends to chat with, and fierce weather. Exactly my north Atlantic fantasy.

We were staying there, it was great! A lighthouse! (Well, the house next to it)






The boots were out...


Have you ever seen a river been blown backward by the wind? I hadn't. You don't want to move to close to the cliff edge.

Waves never look big on pictures. But I crawled on the ground to get this one, the wind was so fierce.


We got some more walkers-friendly weather too, which was nice too.

6 times sleeping and then we go there:

To be more specific: at the western most tip of this bit of land. Looking forward to some wild november ocean.

I've also decided to join INADWRIMO 2009, on the invitation of Dr Brazen Hussy of What the hell is wrong with you?

In November I want to:
1. Finalise a draft of Almost Forgotten Study. Some if it is written but I changed the orientation of analysis. Recylcing of old writing will happen but I'm targetting for 6000 words max.
2. Turn existing draft of Long Stay Abroad Study into submitable manuscript. Lots of co-authors comments to address.

Good luck to all participants!

Weekend emails

and baking. Pumpkin cake. It ended up being very crumbly (unusually so - I baked this thing before), but still yummy. Got a whole pumpkin from my dad this weekend, so it was a pumpkin soup, curry and cake fest.

What about weekend email? What do to do (if you are as bad as me and check and read them)? Reply? Wait for monday?

Can replying emails of the department chair make you look good (or like someone who has no life, and is reliable on emergency things. "let's organize a meeting, reply asap")

I reckon students should not be answered on weekends - but I did it recently out of pure self interest to secure myself a good student as a master student (mission accomplished). Other emails I tend to ignore.

The truth is: I should use my weekend for something else, and more interesting if it has to be work I suppose...

The salt of the earth

I am very proud of myself: I made bread from scratch this weekend, for the first time.

I think it was in 2007 that I made the resolution to make how to learn how to make bread...

This is soda bread, so it does not require too much kneading. It was actually alright, edible and all. So next I'm hoping to try to for proper yeast bread.

People who swear by bread machines will probably think I'm nuts, but the only appliance I used was the oven. I actually have no interest in using a bread machine: this is not just about getting a slice of bread, it's about learning a skill and going through the process of doing it. And kneading is great fun.

Glamourous

Last weekend, after Husband and myself had worked way too much for a sunny weekend, we decided to go to the nearby park and have a picnic. As you can see, on the menu: gin&tonic and crisps. Mh, and very nice break in the beautiful weather. That was as much outdoors as my hay fever allowed me to have comfortably over the past week. Sneezing and itchy nose hell was unleashed tonight after I spent 15 minutes in the wind on a more countrysid-ish train platform. Stoopid me.

Two unrelated notes.

I have noticed that Students seem to mostly refer to themselves as "pupils". Isn't this weird? I think when I was a Student, I would have been so proud to refer to myself as a Student, and not a mere pupil. Pupil is for secondary school, no? No wonder they think we need to hold their hand all the time if they refer to themselves as pupils. Ahem.

I've helped my godson (for default of a better term, really, he shouldn't count on me for uncritical religious education) for preparing his english exam. They seem to be talking about way more glamourous stuff than I did when I was at school. A sample: Sharon Stone and the media, cosmetic surgery, speed dating. We were watching TV movies of Miss Marple stories.

My immunity result

So here I took part in a study that took advantage of people visiting an exhibition on infectious diseases.

They finally posted the results. This particular gene they're looking has two versions: one that will trigger an immune response to malaria and another that won't.

It appears I have two copies of the gene that triggers the immune response, but this comes with also a potentially high level of inflammation. The most efficient combination might be to have a copy of each, so you get the immune response and not too much inflammation. This result is the pink part of the pie, ie the largest part.

There you go, I'm common.

Thank goodness I don't live in malarious area.

Yum

Minded my parents' house and animals this weekend, and could harvest the very first strawberries of the season in their garden!

They were the delicious.

Must go again next weekend when there's more!

Exhibition on infectious diseases

A few weeks ago we travelled to a place where the Science Gallery is having an exhibition about infectious diseases, but one that shows also links with arts.

The whole place is decorated as some emergency outbreak station and all the staff is wearing some sort of protective gear. When you enter you receive an electronic tag showing whether you are infected or not - and this is related to a display and depends on interactions between visitors.

There were some cool stuff there, but it lacked a thread through it all and some of the more scientific displays really lacked explanation or animation. Between Husband's and my vague knowledge of these things we could take some stuff out of it, but I wonder what the random non-scientist can really take out of it.

One of the cool things was a mini-lab there taking DNA samples from visitors for an immunity study, which I thought was really cool - I'd never seen these things and these machines!

Here's my sample:

Still don't have the result though.

Many displays were pre existing things, such as this one that I think is really cool:
www.gemviz.org

I've wanted to bake these for about 25 years

A few years ago, my mum gave us a collection of cooking books that she wanted to get rid off. They are really nice because they show you a few basic things step by step with pictures, and then have a long collection of related recipes. Each book covers a specific topic and when I was a child I would flip through the one on biscuits and through the one on candies. And drool on them. These spiral biscuits in particular have been a fantasy of mine since I spotted them then. And today I baked them! They're quite nice - although much less regular and circular than those pictured in the book... My mum never enjoyed cooking sweet stuff very much, and we never baked them.

Last weekend, I also prepared these carrot savoury waffels, also from one of these books. They're apparently finnish but the use of a waffel maker is my own twist on them. They were nice, but they need to be eaten instantly, really. We tried them also with cumin, which really improved them.

Undergrad reunion

I went to a reunion of people who did their undergrad at the same place as I did. The weather was fantastic, and we had a guided tour of the forest the University owns in a very pretty area south of the town. It was very interesting but I'm not sure I'd go again.

The people I was really happy to see are people I am staying in touch with anyway. I'd rather meet them in a more intimate context. Otherwise there were actually few people, and no one from my promotion.

Ah the truth is I'm not really enthusiastic for such things. They really bring out the potato couch in me. I decided to go at the last minute because it was my friend organising it (how's that for a poor reason to go). I also had a secret agenda of scouting for potential candidates for when (if) I get funding to hire a PhD student. But it was useless for that as well (yes there were that few people).

It wasn't too bad because I was going to visit my parents in the area anyway and the walk in the forest was good, but not a very successful trip on the whole, and I don't think I'd go again.

That was followed by a nice family dinner, so on average, not a bad day.

A nice exhibition

Today, we took a break from the usual sunday homeworks to visit an exhibition of young local designers. A friend's sister was taking part with her drawings and children books.

There was also this nice ceiling piece, even more beautiful because of the nice spring sky.

And I found a really nice and unusual outfit for a wedding we're going to in May!

It was a nice walk outside, and something different than the usual stuff.

This weekend was actually quite rich in nice things out since we also went to the cinema last night. We saw The Darjeeling Limited, which I recommend.

Keep the fuel coming

I can't help it. A nice cup of coffee, a piece of chocolate (preferably rather sweet) and a couple of biscuits are part of what I'm convinced help me preparing tomorrow's lecture...

Maybe good textbooks and inspiration are even better, but at least coffee is right at hand...

Good think I learned drinking coffe while on holiday in Italy three years ago. Italian coffee has made me a terribly fussy coffee drinker though. Instant coffee is not better than nothing, in my opinion. And here at home, we only use the Italian espresso maker. Fortunately I'm also still a tea drinker (and more so than a coffee drinker... cf banner...)

I'de better get back to what was my excuse for the coffee-biscuit extravaganza... so I finish before Husband comes back from a weekend away with some of his friends.

Another thrilling experiment in the kitchen

This weekend I got around to make one of my favourite sweet things in the world: caramel slice (aka millionaire). They are readily available in the UK but I have never seen them here. They are fantastic: a thick layer of shortbread, with then a layer of onctuous caramel, topped with a crunchy layer of chocolate. Butter and sugar-o-rama. They are great. But recipes are difficult to come around - or at least recipes that seem to work. My previous attempt had liquid caramel instead of onctuous, and that was not good at all. This time, the caramel was almost right, and the rest was fine. Fortunately I managed to distribute most of them to my parents and some friends, otherwise, I'd have eaten them all myself.

I think I could still improve:
-caramel texture and onctuousness,
-maybe replace dark chocolate by milk chocolate
-make a flat shortbread crust. Flat hands is not flat enough here.

Other than that, we visited my parents for Easter, and that was great fun.

Fun fun fun* in the kitchen

oooh I was dreaming about this for a few months.

Friday I finally managed to go to the appliance shop and spend the voucher we got from work for our wedding (last year!). We're not "good" consumers of household appliances. We've got the usual stuff, but we don't really have any fancy stuff for the kitchen. And when I had picked the toaster we've been talking about for months, I was still far from having spent it all... so I went for my current kitchen fantasy: a waffle maker...

So this afternoon I made waffles, and it was great fun! My mum makes them quite a bit, but it's typically the kind of stuff for which she doesn't really trust me, and I never really got to learn. But now I have my own! I made a nice pile of waffle, which we had with a bit of sugar. Completely bad for you and delicious...

This actually fits in with one of my New Year's resolution, which is to improve my cooking. On a daily basis, it's mostly Husband doing the cooking. So I tend to cook more on weekends. Because Husband, although a fab cook - much better than me!- doesn't really enjoy cooking sweet stuff, I have started specializing a bit more in desserts and such things. And also because... I love eating them! So the waffles fitted in the previous pattern of sweet stuff and of the New Year's resolution: I've done something new!

I look forward having people around and bake waffles for them. It would be fun in itself... but also two people is a small number for baking waffles... what you see in the picture was what was (and still is) left after we finished... I know what we'll have for breakfast tomorrow... and what will be the first task of the toaster!

*Thanks to flipflopflyin for title inspiration