Long absence from bloggin

Hi all...

Sorry for the blogging time gap! I have a lot to update but just a little spare time at the moment so I'll start slowly. I have a busy day of tango dancing today since one of the largest tango festivals is going on in Portland this weekend. I plan to take some workshops, meet up with friends for dinner, then go to the grand ball for dancing with a large live orchestra tonight. Should be fun!

So the last time I posted was just after my boyfriend and I made the "boyfriend" thing official. Things have been going great between us - we spend every weekend together and even managed to sneak away mid-week for valentines this past week. We both work very hard during the week though. It has been hard for me to get enough done just during the week so we can enjoy the weekends - this weekend I brought a whole pile of work with me. It will wait until tomorrow though. We've been taking tango lessons, doing lots of hiking, eating out, cooking, and being silly with Audrey. She thinks he's pretty great - especially when he feeds her bacon!

Most of January, though, my time was devoted to teaching a 3 week intensive quantum mechanics course that met every day for 7 hours per week. It was fun to teach, and I had a co-teacher (thank goodness!) but it was exhausting. I have now really come to appreciate the fact that when I teach a MWF class, after teaching I don't have to think about class again for 24 hours. Teaching is tiring, and to turn around and need to prepare for the next day after just finishing a day of teaching was stressful. I just wanted a break! And the material took a lot longer to prepare because I haven't spent any time thinking about how to teach it. Fortunately the class was fairly well laid out with sample homeworks and labs we could modify. I think overall the class went well, but the students had terrific teachers all year so I'm not sure how well they liked me. They certainly knew I was new to teaching it, but I did feel we had some good days and they overall learned what they needed to learn.

I will be teaching another new class in the spring, but it will meet MWF all quarter instead of being intensive. It's a class on energy and the environment. I'm looking forward to it but I need to start reading up on popular literature to find out what's out there these days. I mostly know the theory behind production of energy and the pros and cons, but I don't know some of the current issues or debates. I want to make it a good class... I'm going to use my old advisers text book, which is pretty cool!

http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~aubrecht/energyblurb.html

I still have my 260 student intro course as well. That is going well overall. They occasionally get angry when I push too hard (I have given some very hard homework problems) and occasionally get rowdy in class, but overall they're pretty great, and I think they're doing well. I am learning to manage a crowd - it is not easy!

I need to get going to the first workshop. I'll post more details later, like about my little beach get-away last weekend, or the wine country retreat this week :)

I have a boyfriend :)

I just returned from Portland where I spent the weekend with my boyfriend!! I haven't had one of those in a few years... Things are moving quickly in terms of us getting to know each other's histories, values, goals, and opinions. We think a lot alike, and have an amazing match of common interests. I am completely smitten with him and am so looking forward to getting to know him even better - what a great way to start the new year! Speaking of new year's, we spent it together. I had gotten a hotel room so I could stay out with him late and not need to drive home. However, I felt too sick to go out, so instead, he drove back to his place, got my dog (we had taken her out together that afternoon), medicine for me, some triple cream brie, crackers, and good wine, and came back to my room so we could spend the new year's eve together. It was very romantic and sweet and I was totally impressed with his flexibility in dealing with the change in plans, how generous he was in taking care of me, and how enjoyable it was to quietly pass time together. This weekend we went for a hike - I caught a picture of him an my dog enjoying the vista. For those of you on flickr I have uploaded the photos from that hike (http://www.flickr.com/)

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. Other than falling sick the evening of Christmas day mine was terrific. I had a great time with family - my trip home was wonderful. I miss my family and it was good to have quality time with them. One of the fun things we did was take my nephew around Christmas eve to look at the lights around the neighborhoods - he is so delightful. It was also fun to see him rip into the presents - at 2.5 years of age he's totally got the hang of it!! My mom managed to pull the wool over my head and surprise me with a new ipod nano - I was convinced she had forgotten that I had asked for one. I also got a neat GPS unit for hiking - I can't wait to put it to use!! I think for the first time pretty much everyone in the family got what they wanted for Christmas - and Christmas dinner was delicious as well. Thanks, mom, for finding that great new sweet potato recipe! It's time to get back to work in Oregon - but I'm already looking forward to my next trip home this summer.

Culture Shock

I don't know if it's the changes I've been going though over the last year, or if it's how quickly I've adjusted to Oregon, but I've felt a huge sense of culture shock since leaving Oregon. There are little things - I've adjusted to quiet, small-town life with no traffic, and friendly people that aren't in a hurry, and nothing being crowded. Chicago seemed like a chaotic zoo to me! (Especially the airport.)

Then there's the materialism. I've done a good job of starting to get rid of excess things and simplify my life. I am amazed by all the gadgets people have! When I was in the airplane and looking at the airmall catalog I saw it with totally new eyes. I couldn't imagine why people would want the things in that catalog - I mean, come on, do you really need a coffee mug that has a clock on the side? What if you go to read the clock and tilt it back for a better view, and spill all your coffee? These two things just do not need to be made into one... And do we really need a separate appliance for all the types of foods that we cook?

Then at the grocery store in North Carolina there was a whole section for cool-aid, when did that become a food group? And who eats those isles and isles of pre-boxed, ready to go meals? I want to go back to my organic food co-op in Oregon!

The first week of the holiday

I've been in North Carolina now for about a week. It has been a great trip so far. I have had a lot of fun dancing with my nephew. In fact I posted a dance clip online last night:

http://www.physics.oregonstate.edu/~demareed/dancing_with_ian.AVI

He is super cute! I love the butt wiggle he gives at the end of the video.










I've had a lot of good talks with my mom, and we did a puzzle together. I also helped my sister make soup to give to her son's teachers.

I went "up the mountain" to Boone and Blowing Rock on Monday to have lunch with one of the friends I made on an interview at App. State. It was good to catch up with people there, and I enjoyed finishing up my Christmas shopping before coming home. I also bought some gifts for myself :)













I've been catching up for work slowly in the evenings but last night that was at the detriment of my sleep, as I hit a productive streak and stayed up very late. Then my sister came over with her baby in the morning and of course I couldn't stay in bed with my nephew downstairs!

Finally having a good date

So I started exchanging some fun emails with someone via my online profile. It seemed like he was a pretty interesting guy though it's very hard to tell from online and just a few emails. However, I was insistent that I not let work run my life, and I should go out. I decided to ask him to meet me (he had suggested the same) because I thought it would do me good to go out and would be worth meeting him even if he wasn't worth meeting. It turns out this was a good attitude because I went on the date with no expectations, and was fairly relaxed and ready to enjoy myself no matter what. Turns out the guy was cute, and he was super great to talk to, and seemed very mature yet fun. I enjoyed meeting him so much I was ready for the 2nd date by the time the 1st one was over.

We did go out again, 2 days later. We were just going to meet briefly for drinks or something, but instead I got to town early (he lives in Portland) and we had dinner. We at at a very yummy Peruvian place, and the food was terrific. We shared a cheese appetizer, each really enjoyed our main courses and glasses of wine, then shared a trio of flavored creme brulee for dessert. He was charming, funny, and great to talk to. The best part of all was the next day when I checked my email there was a message from him saying that he looked forward to me getting back in town after the holidays.

I'm so glad I finally went out!!

The end of the Quarter

Wow - I am exhausted! I can't believe I survived teaching 250 students this quarter. My new job is amazing - I love it, it is more than I ever hoped it would be. I seem to relate well to my students. I have a lot to learn and there are a lot of things I want to do better, but I feel like I'm off to a strong start. I had a very low drop-out rate in my class, and my students did well. I feel like they really tried to achieve the things I pushed them to do. They also did pretty well on my final - I put a question on there that I thought would really challenge them and they averaged about 65% on it - which means that most of them actually managed to do it right.

I gave my students a diagnostic test to see how well we're doing in the courses before doing our curricular reform. I was worried about the results because it was my first time teaching a large-enrollment course and I was new to this student population. However, my students did great. They did far above the average large-lecture class (as compared to colleges across the country)! I am very proud of them, and myself. I feel like things are going well in the class because I relate well to my students - which is largely because I somehow fit in well in Oregon. I feel like I belong.

I also had my teaching evaluated by two senior faculty members in my department and one faculty member from the center for teaching and learning. There are great things they pointed out for me to improve on in the future, but they were also full of encouraging words and seemed to really enjoy what we were doing in the classroom. It was nerve-racking having them observe my class - but that day was very lively and I couldn't even pick them all out from the crowd so it was easy to forget I was being watched. I was a bit nervous though and accidentally dropped the brand new piece of demo equipment (that was just made by my request the previous week!) on the floor in front of all the students! Fortunately it didn't break :)

The funniest thing though was when I nearly knocked over one of my students passing a basketball to him (to show momentum conservation). I haven't passed a basketball in years - and I've been working out my upper body lately. I guess I have a lot more "umph" in my throws than either I or my students realized! I enjoy having laughter in my classroom... I am looking forward to getting back to my students in Jan.