• A duck.
• A chicken. It's also worth mentioning that my friends bought the chicken in Chinatown and slaughtered it themselves in the backyard. There was some debate over the best way of doing it, and in the end, the stringiness of the chicken was blamed on someone's timid throat-slicing. But it was incredibly moist and fatty and delicious even so.
• Zucchini.
• Onion.
• Eggplant.
• Sweet potato. We were hoping this would crisp up like french fried potato, but it didn't.
• Mushrooms.
• Apple.
• Banana.
• Pear. Much more delicious than one would ever suspect. The pear was my idea, so I'm feeling just a touch smug, and also clogged with greasy goodness of course.

Most things we batter-dipped in Bisquick, which worked reasonably well. It was hard to get an even coating, though, and the results were on the bland side of tasty. Kinda like the stuff they use to cover sweet'n'sour chicken chunks at your local chinese fast food emporium.

And now that the dorm owns a communal deep fryer, are there any more suggestions (apart from ice cream)? Batter recipes? Bueller?

Gort! Klaatu barada nikto!

Oh, fine, I'll put away my zap gun. You're no fun at all, though - none.

Speaking of classic science fiction cinema, I've always been a bit underwhelmed by the Star Wars trilogy (the original; everyone was underwhelmed by Episode I). Which feels a lot like saying I was underwhelmed by Catcher in the Rye (I was) or the collected works of Mozart (ditto) - the usual response is that people point out all the technical virtues of the work, how many derivative works it inspired, how advanced and original it was for its time, yadda yadda.

I think it's all about timing. If I had read Catcher two years later, or seen Star Wars when I was five, or heard Mozart in the womb, I'd be just as misty-eyed as you are. Some art is just specific to... eh... something.

Hmm. What a fabulously insightful conclusion; I think I need food, and pants that aren't wet at the cuffs from rinsing out my tie-dye, then I'll maybe revisit this thread. It's hard to be a blowhard when your ankles are cold.

I spent the afternoon tie-dying in the sun, and now the back of my neck is raw. Pink, too, according to expert testimony, though I haven't looked myself.
But I can't be too sad when tomorrow will be like Christmas, with the unwrapping of beautiful new t-shirts and underwear. Whee!

http://www.umich.edu/~uac/threeweeks/monkey/

I was the only one in the computer lab, and when I left, I left that site playing along in the background. Came back after an hour and it was still going.

Hmm.

It's Kofi Annan playing with a stuffed monkey. Aww.

In the spirit of backhanded insults, someone has this to say:

Onetrickpony

Damn. If I'd'a known that having a broken space bar constitutes a "trick" I'd'a been a huge hit on the third-string carnie circuit back in high school. There went my one chance at fame and fortune.

I like a boat's keel.

I'm a prow person myself, but whatever turns you on, man.

I'm sick and tired of being a student, of having these wafer-thin boundaries between work and the rest of my life, of being in a position where people can legitimately claim time from every single part of my day for extra recitation sessions or labs or committee meetings or whatever other crap comes up. And I'm going to suck up and deal for another year, because I want that gilded diploma.

On a related tangent, this article has given me a passel of interesting thoughts to chew on - it's all about the difference between deep and surface learning, as the author calls it, and the pedagogical strategies which help promote deeper learning. You can all guess what kind of learning I've been doing for the past three years, right?

It's been incredibly frustrating to put so much time and energy into coursework that I don't really learn from; extra-frustrating because I want to take responsibility for my own education, even when a class is less than ideal. When a class goes badly I just feel guilty for not working hard enough, as though I don't have the right to make constructive criticisms until I've independently exhausted all other options. Then I feel guilty about feeling guilty and all of a sudden I'm on a therapist's couch talking about my mother. That's really a personal issue, though, and right now I'm complaining about an institution.

I have been astonished by the great variance in teaching quality at this school; it's part of what's drawn me to seriously contemplate a career in education. I know many professors who blow my socks off with their teaching prowess, their involvement with the undergraduates, their wit and their coherent outlines and their spanky multimedia presentations and above all, their drive to present the subject they love so that students can learn to love it too. I know many more who just stand at the board fumbling with some old notes they can barely remember writing, and when everybody's thoroughly confused they go home.

The current approved, institutionalized approach to poor teaching is to attack it piecemeal: approach each professor, by yourself or through an official go-between, and politely express your concerns. Even when all professors take all concerns as seriously as they ought, this is an inefficient, underwhelming, and downright red-herring-filled approach to the problem: there are too many lousy profs on this campus, too many new hires, too many who are suddenly shifted from advanced graduate seminars to innocent little sophomores.

The obvious solution is a bullet-pointed manifesto-slash-open letter.
(more...)

...and pamela points out that it's been a while since my last gratuitous monkey reference. So true!

You've probably seen the bit about how monkeys are about to conquer Japan - but did you realize it was all part of a conspiracy?

(links originally posted to Hesitant Firmness, which is the fun group blog that I normally don't cannibalize from like that but no monkey references for an entire week constitutes a small emergency and a good excuse. I have now joined a primate-talk mailing list, so hopefully this won't happen again.)

Part the First: I have randomly come into possession of a couple o' free postcards. If you want one, send me your post address; first come, first serve.

Part the Second: this girl will be staying with me this weekend as part of Caltech's prefrosh propaganda marathon. Her journal reinforces this creepy thought I've been having, that everyone keeps a secret online journal and we're all just too shy to talk about it, but that's all right.

Part the Many: I have decided to revert to a primitive counting system with three many numbers: one, two, and many. It makes my homework much simpler, though I don't know what I'd do if I were taking number theory - can something be two mod many?

Part the Many: I need to go file my tax extension form, since the telefile system refused to recognize my social security number (wanna know what it is? it's many!). Bah humbug.

Population: Me

The hairs in the picture to the left are both from my head. If you are clever, and not half-blind, you will note that one is - dare I say it? - much grayer than the other.

I actually think gray hair looks quite elegant. And when you're tired of looking elegant, it shows off bright green dye better than brown hair does. So, I consider this one hair down, 99,999 to go.