In the spirit of exodus from Sacramento...

Dayenu!

Had I just the angst of knowing that I would be moving, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, and that the UC was trying to undo some of the Real Doctor’s pay, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, and that the UC was trying to undo some of the Real Doctor’s pay, and that I’d have about four hours of sleep per night for the last week, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, and that the UC was trying to undo some of the Real Doctor’s pay, and that I’d have about four hours of sleep per night for the last week, and the movers arrived ahead of schedule, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, and that the UC was trying to undo some of the Real Doctor’s pay, and that I’d have about four hours of sleep per night for the last week, and the movers arrived ahead of schedule, and it started to hail when all of our stuff was out of the garage and in the driveway, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, and that the UC was trying to undo some of the Real Doctor’s pay, and that I’d have about four hours of sleep per night for the last week, and the movers arrived ahead of schedule, and it started to hail when all of our stuff was out of the garage and in the driveway, and I woke up on the last day of class with a stomach ‘flu, Dayenu!

Had I just the anxiety of knowing that I would be moving, and to a new state, and that we had to sell our house in one of the nation’s most depressed markets, and that our 90-year old house had termite issues, and lead paint, and that we’d be moving during finals week, and that the UC was trying to undo some of the Real Doctor’s pay, and that I’d have about four hours of sleep per night for the last week, and the movers arrived ahead of schedule, and it started to hail when all of our stuff was out of the garage and in the driveway, and I woke up on the last day of class with a stomach ‘flu, and with a migraine, Dayenu!

Dai, dai-yenu, Dai, dai-yenu, dai, dai-yenu, daYEnudayeNU!

(For faithfulness to the original, there should be some mention of miracles--I suggest tea and tylenol.)

The latest from the bleeding edge of trendiness

Spring is sort of here, so the Real Doctor and I were out for a ride on the bike trail. As we passed the usual cyclists, we caught a glimpse of what is certain to be the Next Big Thing. A youngish guy, in full racing lycra, riding at a good clip on a big-wheeled unicycle. With aero handlebars.

End-of-quarter kvetching

Darlene, the clerk at the grocery store, asked me if the quarter is winding down. I felt it was more accurate to say that it's winding up. Eight weeks in, students are confronting the grim reality that they haven't been doing so well and that maybe they ought to do something about it. Of course, in many cases, what they do is blame the instructor.

Coincidentally, this cartoon came up on the calendar.

I have to admit that to a certain degree, the students have a point. With the distractions of moving, I am not able to give the class the type of attention I'd like to. The class size (three hundred) and composition (all frosh) hasn't helped. For instance, I typically spend a lot more time on writing, but this quarter it simply hasn't been possible. I spent the weekend confronted with an enormous stack of short essays to grade. Normally, this is an opportunity for me to have a pen-and-ink dialogue with the students: this idea is poorly expressed, this sentence is off-topic, your notions on this subject are vague, this is really nicely put, I hadn't thought of it that way. Instead, I just gave scores.

But I always think of the awful pun on horticulture: you can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think. Even though I'm not performing up to my expectations, the students have the tools at hand to do the job. I provide lots of review material, podcasts, notes, a book, extra readings, and so on. In many cases, they choose not to use them. A week and a half after an entire lecture entitled "autotrophy," I gave the students a quiz question that featured the word "autotrophy." No less than a dozen of them asked me or the TAs what that meant. I did not give them the definition. I gave them the hairy eyeball.

This is good, and you should try it

It's spring, and asparagus is here. Our asparagus patch is still a little young. The spears that came up this year are thinner than pencils, and now we're moving away. Whoever gets the house will get a nice crop next year. Fortunately, the Sacto delta is prime asparagus-growing territory, and it's abundant at the farmers' market now.

In the book "Coming into the Country," John McPhee described the result of successfully hunting a moose. Here's a list of consecutive dinners, courtesy of Google books:

Spaghetti with mooseburger
Moosesteak
Moosesteak
Moose roast
Moose stew
Moose meatloaf
Leftover Moose
Leftover Moose
Moose sandwiches
Spaghetti with mooseburger
Swiss moosesteak
Leftover Moose
Roast Moose
Moosesteak
Moose sandwiches and soup
Mooseburgers
Mooseburgers
Clam chowder
Fried Moose liver
Swiss moosesteak
Ground moose in Spanish rice

I could live on an asparagus farm, and happily eat just plain steamed asparagus every night. This just about happens during asparagus season, but once in a while I'll make something different. Asparagus pesto is really good, easy to make, and you should try it.

2-3 cloves garlic
about 2/3 c grated parmesan cheese
about 1/4 c roasted unsalted cashews
about 1/2 c good olive oil*
juice of 1/2 lemon
a pound of asparagus, steamed and cut up
a generous bunch parsley
S&P to taste

Put the first three in a food processor and frap it up. Put the rest of the ingredients in, and frap until it's the right consistency. Amounts are variable, to taste. Add more or less olive oil--more, it will be saucy and go on pasta, less, and it's dip. Either way, it's good, and you can make it in less time than it takes to boil the water for pasta.

Friday Flora

Some Nigella from our backyard. We planted a couple of plants two years ago, and now it's spreading. All weeds should be so lovely. The Tradescantia in the background complements it nicely.

on sudden devaluations of personal stock values

Occasionally, people will do things that just cause me to lose a lot of respect for them, and once this respect is lost, it's hard for it to be regained. Fortunately, this doesn't happen all that often, but yesterday it happened three times.

There is a student who is a regular participant at office hours. She didn't strike me as being particularly sharp, but she at least asked questions. However, her questions were getting more and more basic as the quarter progressed. At the last office hours, she asked a really fundamental question, so I asked her whether she had done the basic-review-of-facts worksheet that I gave out a week earlier. No, she answered without shyness, displaying a pristine worksheet and a cheery smile.

It's not good form to blow up at your students, so I didn't, though inside I blew a fuse. The subsequent lecture was about regulating gene expression. For a cell, having a gene and not expressing it is much the same as not having a gene. I pointed out that you remain equally ignorant by not having a review sheet, and by having a review sheet and not doing it. I doubt I will have as much patience for this student in future office hours.

Another student--also a frequent attendant at office hours, and a pretty smart one at that--experienced a sudden stock devaluation later that day. I gave the class a quiz, and she was seated near three other students who were also her sorority sisters. According to the TAs, the four of them were signalling like third base coaches at a baseball game--scratch the left ear, scratch the right ear, scratch the left elbow, scratch the right elbow, and when consensus had been reached, a sharp nod. The first student was merely being lazy; being a cheater places you many rungs lower on the ladder.

Tired from a busy day of office hours, lecture, meeting with TAs (and all the sturm and drang of moving), I headed home, but stopped in the loo on my way out of the office. There I met the third losing stock--a person who also teaches microbiology, and who should know better. He used the loo, and "washed" his hands afterwards by basically turning on the water for one second, no soap. Ignorant students might have an excuse for this, but not someone in his position. I'll be washing my hands after I shake hands with him.

Today should be better. I'm not going to be meeting anybody.

How to feel like a complete bastard

As part of the business of moving, we must sell our house. This means that we have to fix up a bunch of stuff to make it saleable--repair potential termite damage, replace a shingle on the roof, fix a leaky bathtub, paint, and fix up the front porch, which has these big cracks running through it.

This last issue means that we're going to have all kinds of conniptions on the front porch, which means that it's a totally unsuitable place for a hummingbird to build her nest.
Fortunately, she had just started--the nest was about 1/4 built, and there were no eggs. But we could watch her fly up with a bit of fluff, tuck it in, then sit in it and wiggle her butt to get it in place.
It had to go.

So, up the ladder I went, and down came the nest. It was mostly spiderwebs, and surprisingly solid in its attachment to the cable. But boy, did I feel like the lowest, meanest cur on this planet as I took it down.