Much to celebrate

Matt and I had pondered going camping this weekend, but ultimately decided to delay the plan, in part because we didn't know where we might go, and in part because there was so much else to opt into this weekend. Our good friend W had the committee meeting to set his defense date (this is a HUGE deal), one of my coworkers gave a talk at a local meeting which required him to overcome crippling stage fright, and best of all- our soldier friend is home for two weeks of R&R. All of these are of course party-able occasions, so Friday night we went out with the coworkers for pizza and beer, then picked up W to see Zombieland (funny and gross). Saturday, we went to celebrate Oktoberfest- under the guise of R&R, which was a good chance to catch up and see everyone looking happy and healthy.

It is probably for the best that we spend a weekend at home. I've got big plans in the otherwise neglected kitchen- we had pancakes for breakfast, I am roasting squashes for some soups and there are apples just begging to be sauced. Matt is watching the game, and we might even be able to tame the mess that is infringing on the living room. How domestic of us.

Best Case vs Fears and Anxieties

The 'modern' thinking in course design is to think backwards- how do you get students to become inspired innovators for the 21st century? Or more likely, what do do students need to know before they can be expected to adequately describe the foodchain? As a student, I didn't realize that all classes weren't designed this way, but in retrospect, it does explain a lot of things.

Currently, I am reflecting on what I want my outcomes to be. In my dreamland, I inspire a generation of scientifically trained silver tongued mediators who descend on humanity to clarify the confusion surrounding modern bioethical debates. I am recruited to be a White House adviser, helping politicians understand science before they pass policy. More realistic though- especially for this first pass-, my pilot class is meeting from 3-5 on Friday afternoons. Ideally, they'll talk about it after we wrap up. Maybe some of them will sign up to take the real course. I won't have to do most of the talking (aha! I need more questions to ask, less 'things to tell them'). While my murky idea of success is marinating, I tried contrasting that to my worst case. No one does the reading. Not a soul talks, I say things that are embarrassingly wrong to fill the silence, debate gets too heated, students spend all weekend talking about the meltdown that resulted in f-bombs, tears or other unsuitable classroom material.

What I want is to filet the material, leave it out for the students to examine as raw as they can. At some point I am going to be asked to 'assess' this (what, give grades? Ack!), which means I do need to clarify what we are ALL getting out of the experience. There is a personal aspect to ethics, and bioethics is murky only in that it mixes the black and white of science with the personal and political. Not that it is too complex for undergrads to understand. I hope.

My first 'pilot' is set to be Oct 22. !! We are going to talk about Research Integrity- easily the MOST boring subject to tackle. This is the basic stuff of 'don't lie about your results' something that is not too distant from the 'don't cheat on your exams' stuff students get anyway, but something that is rarely explicitly stated in research. So, it must be done. I am going to take Noel's approach- try to help them understand that the public will believe them, as scientists, and that this gives them an onus to be responsible with the public trust. At the moment, what I mostly do is day dream and blog about it, but I like to imagine this is an essential component of the creative process.

I'm still feeling too full!

Matt and I got to have a great weekend too. On Friday, our upstairs neighbor hosted a neighborhood and friends Pizza tasting party we called the G6, to figure out who had the best tasting pizza in Squirrel Hill. We got pizzas from the 6 pizzerias in Sq Hill and sampled from all of them while watching the first hockey game of the new season. Great fun!

Saturday I turned into a vegetable, a nice change of pace from the fast-paced month of September, and what promises to be another fun busy month.

Sunday we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. All the joys of American Thanksgiving, but it arrives in October. How could we say no? J hosted, we've been eating turkey everyday since- hot dang! Life is good!

Other news, Matt finally ordered his new Netbook- the toy he has been considering for weeks now. My worm bin is still a work in progress, especially as the weather fluctuates in heat and humidity. I am excited to start piloting some modules at the end of this month- or early next- with the HHMI fellows in responsible conduct of research and bioethics. Still a lot up in the air yet, but it is coming up quite quick! Much like my pending trip to Toronto for the Canadian Science Policy Conference.

Preecscast #1

Hey, look what I did! I made a podcast with me and Jess! I hope you all enjoy it.

Preecscast #1

Frequently Asked Questions:

1) Wow?
A: Yeah, wow.

2) It's not working!
A: That's not a question.

3) It's not working?
A: Yeah, I'm using a free hosting place and it looks like the server gets busy, if you get a message that the 'server connection was reset' just try connecting again. It should click in after a few tries.

4) How do I play this?
A: Once it connects, you can either download it to your computer and then double click (the file type is very common, you computer certainly knows how to play it) or just click the 'play' button and it will bring up a little audio player in a new window.

5) What music is that at the beginning?
A: Something I made in reason in about 10 minutes just to put at the beginning.

Let me know if you have any other frequently asked questions!

-N

Matt got a promotion!

In sticking with the theme of my great week, Matt took me out to dinner on Thursday to tell me that he got a promotion! He is now a Senior Drafter- which requires no extra work or responsibility from the work he already does above and beyond his position, but does look better on the resume. I've mentioned before, they seem to really like that Matt can be very independent, he is a quick learner and he likes to problem solve. As much has he ponders a career shift while we are here in Pittsburgh, his boss would obviously make a case to keep him around as long as possible. Hooray for the new Senior Drafter!

Fallingwater Or Frank's almost falling down house..

So yes, indeed, the Parents were in Pittsburgh and enjoyed the sophisticated dining of a cosmopolitan urban center with their Favorite grad student and her sweetie. I actually got a little tolerant acceptance from Raoul but not lap sitting or co-mingled napping, so I'm still jonesing for a kitty fix in Texas next week.

We did go to Fallingwater, the legendary Frank Lloyd Wright house on the waterfall in rural Pennsylvania that turned the thinking of architects forever away from stodgy traditions of design previous to that time. I embarrassed my family by asking Too Many Questions and truly enjoyed the exploration of a truly iconic structure, not unlike the Great Wall and Stonehenge. I am a little annoyed that this building gets such a breathless reverence from the architectural fraternity when, in truth it was fundamentally unsound. Wright broke new ground with the nature of his design, cantilevered, organic, original, open, and inspired. He just didn't do it very well. Early on in the project the owner experienced some concern about the soundness of the stunning cantilevered decks that mark this design and with the complicity of one of Wright's on-site interns had engineers evaluate and sneak in a bit of structural steel to stabilize the breathless expanses of seemingly floating decks that is the hallmark of the design. Wright was famously outraged at the interference and essentially walked off the project. Years later it became obvious that the structure was in peril of collapse in spite of the extra steel and heroic work was done to brace and tighted the structure to present soundness with high tension cable installed to close expanding cracks. I would think the first mark of good design is whether it will stand up for more than a few decades. Oh well, stodgy me....

We had a most fabulous Indian Dinner with the assembled friends and classmates from Pitt and about who then allowed this photo. We specifically saved Mexican and BBQ for Texas next week. We did embarrass ourselves trying to keep up with Rock Band and got nowhere following the bouncing ball, even if we did prsume to "know the words". Not our best skill set. Really a nice week.

I'm having a good week

And I haven't even blogged about it! Mom and Dad came to visit, and we did a million fun things- shopping at Ikea, eating Ethiopian, Indian, Italian, Mediterranean, looking for bathroom lights for the parents house, not going to work, visiting Fallngwater- what a hoot! As a result, I have a new light in my living room and a fridge full of doggie bags. Hooray! I also got to show off my new wood-fired ceramics, which mostly turned out really cool. I'll work on getting some pictures of this up, they have a very organic look which is different from what I've done in the past.

I didn't get pictures from Fallingwater, hopefully Mom and Dad will post some.

Everything is fine now, but a consequence of cleaning up and looking at all these new ceramics, I managed to chip a piece of glass into my eye on Saturday, a few hours before Dad got to town. It wasn't very painful, but it never did feel right until we went to the Optometrist on Wednesday and Dad held my hand (and head) while the doc used his deadly sharp tweezers to yank the glass shard off the front of my eye. And yes, I could see that. Thank god Dad was there, or I much more likely would have had a long procedure to remove the tweezers from my face. Eyeball is fine now- but don't forget to wear safety goggles!

It is also really nice to have the folks around for normal things like sharing meals and hanging out, makes me excited about going home for Christmas!