Month: March 2008

Happy Pi Day!

pi.jpgIt’s Pi Day, people! Woohoo! It’s 3-14. And I didn’t even see it coming. (And here I just mentioned a book called Life of Pi yesterday. Of course, that was a pi-free Pi reference.)

Here are some tasty pi goodies for you to help you celebrate your day:

  • Be sure to check out the official Pi Day website. (Thanks to Tina of Omphaloskepsis (one of the grandest blog names out there) for pointing me there.)
  • I highly recommend the musical pi stuff, like pi rap videos, and the pi(ano) song, where someone has converted the digits of pi to a melody.
  • You can also see a hundred thousand digits of pi. Here’s a preview:

    3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716
    9399375105820974944592307816406286208998628
    0348253421170679821480865132823066470938446
    0955058223172535940812848111745028410270193
    8521105559644622948954930381964428810975665
    9334461284756482337867831652712019091456485
    6692346034861045432664821339360726024914127
    3724587006606315588174881520920962829254091
    7153643678925903600113305305488204665213841

  • Not enough digits for ya? How’s about a million?
  • Kate Bush has a song called “π”. Or “Pi,” if you must stick to ASCII. In it, part of the refrain is seeing 150 digits of pi. Shockingly, it seems that she has, according to Confusablility, gravely erred in her digits:

    I got hold of the lyrics and checked them against an online version of Pi. All was well for the first 53 decimal places but then Kate sang “threeeeee oneeeee” when she should have sang “zeeeeeeerooo” instead. She recovered for the next 24 digits but then it went to hell in a handbasket when she missed out the next 22 digits completely before finishing with a precise rendition of her final 37 digits.

  • Inga of Arbitrary Ruminations is celebrating the day with a list of Pie quotes, which may be safer.
  • Or you might want to watch a movie. Like Pi (1998). A movie sadly lacking in pie.
  • I think that later today, I will have to bake a pi. I mean, a pie. Seriously. I’ve keep meaning to bake a pie, but haven’t found the time. But now the pi forces are conspiring to make pi a piority. I mean, priority.
  • Finally, let me leave you with this classic pi joke:

    A young man goes off to college from his rural home. When he comes back for a visit, his less educated father wants him to show off his fancy learning. “Say something smart, son,” he commands.
    The young man thinks back to his classes, and figures a formula from math should sound impressive enough. He offers up the formula to calculate the area of a circle. “Pi r squared,” he says.
    His father looks embarrassed, and shocked. Shaking his head gravely, he says, “What are they teaching you, son? Pie are round, son. Cornbread are square.”

π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π π

stripey

Lions and tigers and bears! (Oh, my!)

Last week we covered lions. Not too long ago we covered bears. It seems about time I should get to the tigers. So here they are, populationg a ThThTh list in all their stripey goodness.

  1. Year of the Tiger. The tiger is one of the 12 animals of the Chinese Zodiac. The next Year of the Tiger is 2010, which is not all that far off.
  2. “The Tyger,” a poem by William Blake:

    Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
    In the forests of the night,
    What immortal hand or eye
    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  3. “Tiger, Tiger,” a song by Duran Duran off their album “Seven and the Ragged Tiger”
  4. Tiger. The nickname for Mac OS v10.4. I still haven’t upgraded.
  5. “The Lady, or the Tiger?.” A short story by Frank R. Stockton with a surprise ending. It has also become “an expression, meaning an unsolvable problem.”
  6. “Eye of the Tiger.” A song by Survivor. From the Rocky III soundtrack.
  7. Tiger’s eye: a chatoyant gemstone. Sort of stripey and brown.
  8. Tony the Tiger. The mascot for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes cereal, featured in commercials. Says of the flakes: “They’re grreat!”
  9. A variety of tiger folktales can be unearthed, such as How Tiger Got His Stripes, a Folktale from Vietnam, the Cambodian “The Origin of the Tiger,” and “The Tiger’s Whisker,” a Korean folktale.
  10. The Story of the Little Black Sambo, by Helen Banneman.
    A story about a boy who meets (and outwits) a bunch of tigers in the jungle. In the end, the tigers turn into a big puddle of melted butter, which the boy’s family uses to make pancakes for dinner. Originally written by a British woman in India, the story has a complicated story of its own, due to the controversy about racism and racial stereotyping in the character names and original illustrations. (The name of the protagonist, contained in the book title itself, is considered to be a racial slur.) Recent updated versions have kept the tigers, but lost (at least in many people’s eyes) the racist overtones. (To see how people respond to this book today, it’s interesting to read the reviews on Amazon of the original, as well as the updated books The Story of Little Babaji and Sam and the Tigers. You can also read the full text, without illustrations.)
  11. Eeny, Meeny, miny mo: A children’s chant, used to select (or rule) out people as part of a game. (To pick who is “it.) Also somewhat tainted by racial controversy, though I’d never heard of the offensive variants till I was an adult.

    Eeny, meeny, miny, mo
    Catch a tiger by the toe
    If he hollers, let him go
    My mother says to
    pick the very best one
    and you are not it.

  12. Life of Pi, by Yan Martel. The main character gets to know a tiger when both are shipwrecked.
  13. Shere Khan. Mowgli’s nemesis (a tiger) in Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book stories.
  14. Leo the Late Bloomer, by Robert Krauss, Jose Aruego. A picture book about a tiger cub who takes his time growing up.
  15. Hobbes. Calvin’s tiger companion. Looks like a stuffed toy when other people are around.
  16. Tigger. The beloved and very bouncy tiger from A. A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Woods. Close friend to Winnie the Pooh.
  17. “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” (2000). A movie directed by Ang Lee, and one of my favorite movies. (It’s a movie with kick-ass women, to boot.) It doesn’t really have any tigers in it, aside from in the title.

stalking_tiger.png

allow me to bore you

YTSL of Webs of Significance tagged me (ages ago) for this “unimportant things” meme, the task of which is to list six unimportant items about myself. Seeing as I talk about myself all the freakin’ time, it’s become harder to come up with lists of things about myself that I haven’t revealed in a post. (cf. 6 weird things about me, 7 little known things about me, and 6 guilty pleasures I indulge in.) Whereas it would greatly amuse me to make things up, and maybe I’ll do that one of these days, I have decided to dredge up more insignificant factoids.

  1. I sneeze when I eat dark chocolate. As in the really dark, 70% cacao or above, kind. Strong mints have the same effect. If I eat white Tic-Tacs, I will sneeze exactly once per Tic-Tac that I eat, within a few seconds of putting it in my mouth.
  2. I don’t like bell peppers. I particularly don’t like green bell peppers. I find it irritating that a lot of vegetarian food has lots of peppers in it.
  3. I have crooked teeth. Not hugely crooked, but enough that you will rarely see me smile with my teeth visible in photos.
  4. My body doesn’t self-regulate its temperature very well. My hands and feet tend to get very cold in the winter. In the summer, I often overheat, since I tend to sweat very little.
  5. I have very dry skin. This, along with the previous item, makes me feel somewhat reptilian. (Well, not really.)
  6. But, speaking of reptiles, I like lizards. (I’ve never had one as a pet, though. They felt a bit like pets in Hawaii, though, the way the ran around on the walls. This may be the source of my appreciation for lizards.) I have somewhat of a collection of things with a lizard motif, but am glad they are somewhat subtle in our home. Some of my friends and relatives have given and/or made me some really cool lizard things over the years.

This meme comes along with some rules, which you can see at YTSL’s if you like. (Ha! I’m breaking a rule just by not posting them. I am a rebel!) But I’ll mention the tagging bit: “Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.”

I’ve decided to have a bit of fun with the idea of “six random people.” I have (more arbitrarily than randomly) chosen the last 6 people to use the tag “randomness” on WordPress.com at the time that I checked. I tag, and offer to you, this list of six lovely semi-randomly chosen lovers of randomness (along with their last posts of randomness).

  1. ladyhustler of Simple Complexities (how to write a Haiku)
  2. maddie of alive & amplified (This distance)
  3. theblossoms of Blossom-ing (schizophrenic)
  4. Carrie of in the process of living (Looking forward.)
  5. blandable of Bland Musings (Poetry Saga part Deux)
  6. Olivia of Olivia’s Total Randomness (Things I Love)

roar

lion2.pngHere’s my first ThThTh list of March. In like a lion, as they say. Or in with a list of lions, which they don’t really say. But I’ll say it. Or I just did. Here are some lions for you.

  1. Leo. The astrological sign of the lion. Based on the constellation.
  2. The Cowardly Lion from L. F. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. (Also in the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz.) A lion who wants to get courage.
  3. Aslan. The lion in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the other six books in the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis.
  4. The Lion King (1994) . An animated Disney movie, and a broadway play based on the same.
  5. The MGM Lion. This lion mascot (actually several different lions since 1924) appears roaring in the MGM logo as part of the (much parodied) opening sequence of Metro Goldwyn Mayer film productions.
  6. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight“. A famous song with a more complicated history than I’d realized.. The original version “Mbube” was recorded in South Africa in 1939. Many versions, some also going by the name “Wimoweh,” have since been recorded around the world. Best known perhaps is the version by The Tokens. (Hear it on YouTube in a video with a singing hippo and dancing dog.)
  7. The lion’s share. An expression meaning “the biggest portion.”
  8. “The Lion’s Share“. A song off 10,000 Maniacs’ album Blind Man’s Zoo.
  9. Fed to the lions or Thrown to the lions. Expressions meaning that a person has been placed in a metaphorical position of danger or a situation for which they are not well prepared. (Ancient Romans threw people to the lions as a spectator sport, and in a less figurative way.)
  10. “The Slave and the Lion.” An Aesop’s fable about an escaped slave who removes a thorn from a lion’s paw, and thus gains the lion’s loyalty. And avoids getting eaten when he is thrown to the lions.
  11. “The Lady and the Lion.” A fairy tale told by the Brothers Grimm about a young woman who is held captive by a lion, who turns out to be a cursed prince. The story has much in common with versions of the “Beauty and the Beast” fairy tale. A retelling of the story is available as a picturebook.
  12. The Lion and the Unicorn. Symbols of the United Kingdom. The lion gets to wear the crown on the UK Royal Coat of Arms. There’s also the related nursery rhyme:

    The lion and the unicorn were fighting for the crown
    The lion beat the unicorn all around the town.
    Some gave them white bread, and some gave them brown;
    Some gave them plum cake and drummed them out of town.

leo2.jpg

rough night

Sorry if you are looking for a list, or even any sort of entertainment. It’s Thursday, and therefore I’m due for a ThThTh list. It’s in progress, but damn those things take a lot longer to put together than you might expect. A list will be up much later today. What follows can be happily ignored by anyone who doesn’t enjoy reading about the crankiness of dealing with a toddler.

————————————-

I’m feeling less-than-fully functional today. Phoebe and I had a bad night. I didn’t mention in last night’s post that John had to run off to get a meeting this morning. In California. So he was gone last night, and will be gone tonight. I also think that Phoebe’s been teething. The biting is one clue. She’s also been drooling and sticking her hands and other things in her mouth a lot, which she’s not generally prone to anymore. For whatever reason, she woke up twice last night. Once about half an hour after she went to bed, and then a little after midnight. (As in just when I was going to get to bed.) I just could not get her to settle down.

We talked. I dosed her with Motrin. I held her. I rocked her. I sang to her. But every time I went to put her in her crib, she’d cry again. I tried leaving her, and she screamed and screamed. I went back after a few minutes, and am not pleased with myself that I snapped at her that it was time to stop crying. (I was tired. Sorry. I have a temper.) So then I started right in with the soothing and snuggling and talking, and she seemed to settle. But still objected to going back in her crib.

I asked if she was sad that Daddy wasn’t here, and she said “yeah.” So we called John. (It was only 10:30 or so California time, and John’s ususally up half the night anyhow.) He talked. He soothed.

I put Phoebe in her crib. I sang. I talked about things she likes me to talk about. Then I said it was time to go, just like I do every single night. She usually lets out a sob as I walk out the door, just to pull at my heart strings, but then goes to sleep quietly. But last night, at 2:00, she started screaming. And screaming more. I haven’t left her crying for ages. I don’t even know how long it’s been. (Yes, we did a version of the dreaded Ferberization way back when. Dr. Sears can bite me.) But I thought maybe she’d settle down without me. I went back in after 10 minutes, and got her quiet again. But the screams started in once more. I went back in and she was saying “Mommy room. Mommy room.” “You want to go to Mommy’s room?” I asked. (I swore I’d never talk about myself in the third person, but deictic pronouns are tricky beasts.) She said, “yeah.”

I caved. I brought her to bed with me. I was desperate for sleep. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. She eventually stopped squirming enough to fall asleep. At least, she appeared to be just waking up when she woke me up crying at 6:45.

Now I wonder if this will come back to bite me. She really does sleep best on her own. And she’s generally a good sleeper.

Happily, she went to daycare this morning, and I was able to get a bit more sleep. I am “working” from home today, but haven’t been able to defog my brain sufficiently. I do have a conference call at 3:30, so will need to kick into high gear.

I hope that tonight goes better, because I have to drive the two of us down to New York tomorrow. John’s dad is going back home, after over a year in various hospitals and rehab hospitals. John will be going right to New York from his trip, following his red-eye flight to Newark, rather than going home first, so that he can be there to help. Phoebe and I will go down later in the day. Our eyes may well be red, too.

bagel bits and bites

I really should get to bed. But I’ve been remiss in posting updates on stuff that’s going on. I’m not sure exactly who’s interested, but one of my goals of this here blog has been to record some sort of chronicle of my life. So I give you a bit more info on the ever-expanding bagel of my life, and some details about where all my cream cheese is going.

Things have continued to be pretty busy of late. John has been very busy with various things for work. I’ve been busy with things for work. Did I mention that all 3 abstracts that my research group submitted in the past few months have been accepted to conferences? This is thrilling, but also somewhat daunting. And while I have been heavily involved in the research for each of those three projects, none of them actually touch directly on the research that I need to be doing to work towards my degree. Which means that I’m also needing to keep busy with a fourth major project. And there are other less pressing ongoing projects going on, too. It all keeps me quite busy with the juggling. (And I’m quite clumsy with juggling. I blame gravity.)

And then there is always the ongoing project Phoebe. She is a lot of fun most of the time, but we have also been going through some rather trying times. She is a toddler, you see. And she is testing her limits. Just about every transition in activities, she raises an objection. She doesn’t want to get out of her crib, get into her crib, have her diaper changed, get dressed, get her coat on, go to daycare, leave daycare, get into the bath, get out of the bath. And unfortunately, she has expressed her frustration with such events by means of her teeth on more than one occasion. By that I mean that she has bitten. Sometimes she will bite a toy, but a couple of other times, she has bitten (or started to bite) me. And that really bites. Do you have any idea how sharp those little teeth are? It’s only been a few times, mostly limited to one day. (There was a previous time when she bit my arm while I was out shopping with a friend. Even through my layered winter sleeves, the bite broke the skin and left a bruise.)

On the positive side, Phoebe has been talking up a storm lately, and it is wonderful to finally learn what is going on in that little mind. I’ve been meaning to write a bit about what happened during and since our assessment for early intervention, but I haven’t been finding a lot of time and energy to write. The short version is that she qualified for services based on a 5-month delay in her expressive ablilities. (Her receptive language, on the other hand, was measured at being at least 6 months ahead of her age.) We started having meetings with a speech therapist in January, and also attending a “play group.” But by the time we had our first one-on-one meeting, Phoebe had already started to leap forward in her expressive language. And since then, it’s been pretty amazing to watch. She’s been talking a lot, and producing quite complex multi-word utterances. We’ve had so few meetings that it’s hard to attribute much of the progress to early intervention, but who knows. Perhaps it was just the push she needed. I hope to write more about Phoebe’s language development soon, because it’s so damn cool.

Would you could you?

green_eggs.jpgHappy Seuss Day!

Today was Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Last year, I celebrated the day with a list of a few things Seussy. This year I’ll offer up a small serving of green eggs and ham for your enjoyment.

  • Jesse Jackson’s inspired reading of Green Eggs and Ham. (Sorry about the poor video quality. It’s what I could find.)

  • Weird Al’s video of Green Eggs and Ham. (To fully appreciate it, you might want to check out U2’s “Numb” video.)
  • Also, be sure to check out this brilliant post from Books Are Pretty, which discusses this “grim tale of stalking and harassment…”