Filed under: Anna
My previous post and subsequent “blogersations” have gotten me thinking about ALL of the things that I have forgotten since college. Wow. Just to warn you, this is a rather intense session of self-reflection (just in case you are now contemplating a similar self evaluation). It is not for the faint of heart or those with already low or somewhat battered self esteem.
At the top of my list is calculus. The reason it is at the top of my list is because I remember absolutely nothing about calculus. When I say absolutely nothing…..I mean absolutely and totally nothing….not a vague but sort of shadowy idea…..not some of the stuff has faded…….ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. In fact, it took me an embarrassingly long time to come up with the words derivative and integral, which for those of you who have not ever had the pleasure of taking calculus, are VERY central, if not definitive, themes of the subject.
I took two years of calculus in high school, and performed well enough that I was able to take a test to receive college credit for some of my preparatory school efforts. Then when I actually got to college, I took their “introductory math placement test” and was able to test out of even more math. All-in-all, I only had to take one semester of calculus in college…..and somehow, miraculously….I was able to pull off an “A.”
Here is the truly amazing part. Not only do I not remember ANYTHING about calculus. I can’t even remember the class in college. I remember that I took the class, but for the life of me, I can’t remember what the classroom looked like, what the teacher looked like, what the book looked like, if the teacher was male or female……NOTHING.
How is this possible? I consider myself to be a person of at least average intelligence, but my memory (or lack of memory) is so baffling to me. My husband remembers things: trivia, historical dates, playing specific holes on specific golf courses at specific times, lines from movies that he has seen once, what color his sock were at a Christmas party when he was 8…… I, on the other hand, have “tabula rasa” syndrome in a major way. My slate is easily wiped clean, or at the very least it is highly selective as to which things are worthy of being held onto for extended periods of time. It is a running joke in our house that movies are “always new to me.” I can remember that I saw the movie before, but the plot will unfold with only vague recollection.
I guess this post has no real point (and will I even remember writing it tomorrow?). I have printed off a 21 page “basic calculus refresher” from a University webpage. It has been sitting on my desk for the last couple of days….. A small step.
Filed under: Anna
Amy’s comment on my last post sparked my curiosity regarding accuracy vs. precision….one of the many many many things that I once knew in college and have since forgotten……there are an awful lot of those things. I actually think that I have forgotten more things than I remember. I can’t decide if that is a sad commentary on myself, on the educational system, or just a cosmic truth that should be accepted without too much worry…. Food for thought. 
For those of you that are interested, see below (it might just be you and me, Amy).
ACCURACY AND PRECISION
ACCURACY
Accuracy describes the nearness of a measurement to the standard or true value, i.e., a highly accurate measuring device will provide measurements very close to the standard, true or known values.Example: in target shooting a high score indicates the nearness to the bull’s eye and is a measure of the shooter’s accuracy. Refer to pictures below:
PRECISION
Precision is the degree to which several measurements provide answers very close to each other. It is an indicator of the scatter in the data.The lesser the scatter, higher the precision. The pictures given below clearly describe Accuracy and Precision.
EXAMPLES
If we measure the length of a foot-ruler and get values of 12.01 in, 12.00 in, 11.99 in, 12.00 in. These numbers are precise enough for us to believe that if we measure it again we would get 12.00+0.01 in. These measurements are precise but necessarily accurate. The foot-ruler may actually be metric ruler of 30.0 cm long. Our measurement is precise but not accurate.
APPROXIMATIONS
Even though physicists usually try for a high degree of precision, there are times when only a close approximation is needed. Physicists some times make rough estimates for making tentative decisions. The accuracy of estimates depends on reference materials available, time devoted, and experience with similar problems.
ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE
Some times physicists make orders of magnitude calculations. In these calculations, the numbers may differ by a factor of ten. Example:106 m 10,980 m differ by two orders of magnitude.
Here is a cosmically relevant question for y’all:
Why are you always so much heavier at the doctor’s office?
Is this not always true? I have found this to be a cosmic, scientifically replicable truth….much like gravity. In the science experiment that is MY life, this hypothesis has yet to be disproven.
I have to say that I have generally not been a meticulous scale watcher. I am pretty aware of the 5 pound window that is my comfortable “normal” weight. If I am feeling a little overindulged or chunky, I usually feel it first and then my suspicions are confirmed by my scale….better lay off the late night ice cream, okay….done.
Now that I am pregnant, I have been watching the scale with a little more vigilance. A week and a half ago I was horrified to discover, that according to the scale at my OBGYN’s office that I had gained 7.5 lbs! Yikes! (A quick reminder: at that visit we were at about 10.5 weeks….which means that the baby is the size of a large olive, and when they say “large” they don’t mean those famous 7.5 lb. olives that you hear about all the time.)
Now to put this in perspective for those of you who are not spending all of their spare time reading baby books, according to the books, a woman who starts at a “normal healthy” weight, should gain between 30 and 35 lbs. over her ENTIRE pregnancy. The majority of this weight is generally put on in the second and third trimesters (when the baby is considerably bigger than an olive). So, 7.5 pounds is not a completely ludicrous amount of weight gain for the first trimester, but it is on the high end of the first trimester scale.
Now that I have had a little time to adjust, I am feeling better, and upon further analysis, my initial shock and horror sprang from two major sources.
One (this is the one that I have reconciled): I have to assume that every first-time-pregnant-woman does a little bit of a double take as she first sees the numbers on the scale go up in a significant way. My little “growth spurt” pushed me over my own “emergency alert weight”. Every woman, perhaps every person, has one of these. It is the number that we silently keep in our head that means, “This is an unacceptable amount of weight gain, and it definitely has its root is too many cookies and frappuccinos….. No longer can this be blamed on bloating, water retention, or my unfortunate wardrobe choice of the-heaviest-clothes-that-I-own.” Now, being a relatively sane person, I have come to realize that pregnancy is going to require a re-evaluation of my “emergency alert weight,” and after some self reflection I feel that I am ready to accept this.
Two (this is the one that is sort of boggling my mind): My scale at home did not warn me ahead of time. In fact, according to my home scale, I had only gained a couple of pounds. So of course, one of the first things that I did after recovering from the initial shock of my doctor’s visit, was to go out and buy a new and much higher-tech scale….a scale that promised to be accurate within a half of a pound up to 330 pounds…….and SURPRISE…..it too registered a lower weight than the evil scale at the doctor’s office (although, slightly higher than the old discarded scale, but not over my “emergency alert weight.”)
So how do we reconcile this phenomenon? Someone has to be wrong. I have always assumed (although with no real grounds) that the doctor’s scale would win for accuracy….and I suppose in the end it doesn’t really matter, but it is an interesting phenomenon nonetheless.
As for my current situation, I suppose that the actual number on the scale isn’t as important a measure as the relative change in said number. So I guess I am okay with that…..and I suppose that I can accept the fact that I will always weigh 3-5 lbs. more on the doctor’s scale than I will on my own.
p.s. According to my new high-tech home scale, I am still under my “emergency alert weight;” although, just barely. Talk to me again tomorrow and it may be a different story.
Filed under: Baby Baeten
As it turns out, it appears that I am a fair-weather-blogger….. I suppose that extended absences in blogging are not a great idea if you want to maintain regular communication with your blogging friends. I would predict that extended periods of silence would cause the interest of your readers to wane….until no one even checks anymore to see if you have written anything new….. So perhaps I am now blogging to myself, which is probably still a therapeutic experience.
For those of you who may not have known, my extended blogging absence was due to the rather trying first trimester of our first pregnancy! Very very exciting (the pregnancy, not the 24/7 sickness that the pregnancy has produced). We have almost hit the magical 12 week mark (I believe that we are 11 weeks and 4 or 5 days). I am still waiting for the mythical morning of NO MORNING SICKNESS! It has not yet dawned, but I feel hopeful that it is near. It is written in the magical pregnancy texts that with the end of the first trimester comes relief from many first trimester pregnancy symptoms (nausea, extreme tiredness, headaches, etc.). I am hopeful that this is true and not an evil lie that they tell to pregnant women to give them hope. People keep telling me that I will wake up one morning with lots of energy and feeling great (as opposed to feeling green and wanting to sleep for 20 of the 24 hours). I will let you know when this happens. I do have to say that I have been feeling gradually less green (there are now periods of relief, rather than a full-on 24 hour onslaught of pukeyness) over the past few of weeks……so this gives me hope that the prophecy is true.
But other than my discomfort, everything seems to be going according to the grand plan. We have seen our little bean on the ultrasound and it is cooking away……trying hard to shed it’s alien appearance and grow into a more human looking little lump. I hear that we shouldn’t worry, and they do get cuter. It would be good if that is a true story too.
So….further updates to follow!
Filed under: Uncategorized
I had heard from one of my students that Fort Wayne was ranked right up there on the “Fattest Cities in America” list. Having lived here for over a year now, I would have to say that the claim did surprise me a little bit at first, but upon further contemplation, I thought….”well….” There are a lot of fat people in Fort Wayne, and once you start paying a bit of attention, there are A LOT of fat children in Fort Wayne.
So as a woman quickly approaching the age where serious weight gain can sometimes become an issue, I began to wonder why this might be….. First of all, Fort Wayne does love restaurant eating, and not really great restaurant eating……chain restaurant eating. For a city that has a lot of restaurants, the is a surprising lack of variety in the dining landscape. There are an outstanding number of Pizza Huts in Fort Wayne. Secondly, while Fort Wayne is a very nice little city, it is not a spectacularly beautiful city, and there isn’t an extraordinary amount of outdoor activity. In the neighborhood in Michigan where I spent my formative years, if you looked outside on a nice day you would see lots of people outside running, walking dogs, riding their bikes, etc. This is not as true in Fort Wayne. This leads me to believe that there is something in the scenery, climate, general city layout, or general city attitude, that is not outstandingly conducive to an active lifestyle.
Having thought about these things for several weeks, and plotting my exclusion from the Federation of Fatty Fort Waynians, I decided to do a little fact checking and see if we are in deed one of the fattest cities in the country. Because, while there are a lot of pretty obese people in Fort Wayne, I really don’t know if there are any more in Fort Wayne than there are in other cities. If you listen to the news it seems that the waistline of the entire United States is on a steady upswing.
Well, my preliminary research has been a bit inconclusive. Men’s Health lists Houston and Detroit as the two fattest cities in the US, according to their 2008 survey of such things. Fort Wayne was not even on the list of cities ranked. Inconclusive evidence. My first Google search has not turned up much evidence to refute or deny Fort Wayne’s national fattness ranking.
But, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again….and viola!
“Called the Dumbest City in America (by Men’s Health in 2005) and the Fourth Fattest City in America (by the Centers for Disease Control in ‘02), Fort Wayne has attractions that are somewhat subtler than Miami’s.” -Sports Illustrated 02/05/2007
FAT AND DUMB!!
“This heartland city of 255,000 has been dubbed the dumbest town in all the land by Men’s Health magazine. It came in dead last, losing out at the bottom of the heap to the likes of Laredo, Texas” -USA Today 01/19/2005
See what you learn when you do a little research into the place where you live? You are fat and dumb.
Obviously these two polls were tallied before I moved to Fort Wayne.
Filed under: Anna
Today my back feels good. Not 100%, but good. I feel confident that in one more week I will be fully recovered from my recent back trauma.
My recent experiment with extreme pain and immobilization has left me feeling very grateful for my, until now, pretty unblemished physical record. Upon examination, I have come to the conclusion that this is my first really serious injury. Being a very careful, clean, and rather wussy child, my early years were pretty uneventful in the realm of physical malady. No broken bones, or bloody noses for me. I do remember a few scraped knees, and once being run over by a bicycle on my way home from school; but by no means was I ever debilitated. As an adult, I have never had a physical injury that has kept me out of work for a full week. I have come to the very non-scientific conclusion that one incident in 28 years is pretty darn good….statistically speaking.
Filed under: Family
Booyah
(Abridged) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Booyah or Booya is a food that is prepared like a stew, but on a very large scale. It takes many cooks to prepare the food, and it is usually meant to serve hundreds or even thousands of people. The name booyah is also used to describe the event surrounding the meal, and is probably a degenerated form of the name bouillabaisse, or as a mis-interpretation of the French word bouillon by a newspaper reporter (see history).
In the cooking of booyah, one makes a base or broth derived from culinary bones to which other food can be added. Beef, chicken, and pork are popular meats for booya, and vegetables such as carrots, rutabagas, celery, and potatoes are also put into the mix. A wide variety of seasonings are often used.
The preparation of booya often takes up to two days, generally cooked in specially designed booyah kettles that can hold more than 50 gallons of the stew. Generally made for charity events, some community groups and churches have their own kettles, while other groups rely on municipal kettles.
The name Booyah likely originated in Green Bay, WI, by the booyah “pioneer” Andrew Rentmeester around 1905.
My Big Fat Green Bay Wedding Booyah
For those of you that don’t know, Troy comes from a very big, very Green Bay family. And for those of you that have never been to Green Bay….well, you will just have to come visit sometime because the experience is too difficult to relay with words.
In celebration of our recent Vegas wedding, Troy’s family hosted a celebratory Wedding Booyah for us over the Memorial Day weekend.
The Booyah is the acme of Green Bay get-togethers. The apex of all Green Bay social events. As the above Wikipedia definition describes, the word Booyah describes both the social event itself and the great vat of glorified chicken soup that is the nuclear substance of said party.
Important things to know about Booyah:
1. It is an all day event (two days if you count the preparatory time the day before).
2. The broth for the Booyah can be started the night before to save time. If you are especially well organized (like Troy’s mother), all of the veggies etc. can be pre-chopped and the Booyah kettle can be set up the night before as well. This makes the day of the Booyah run smoothly, thus fun can be had by all, including the host. Note: the Booyah kettle itself is a pretty amazing piece of machinery with much family history that may require it’s own blog entry at a later date.
3. Uncle Don will show up to your house at about 6:30 am on the day of the Booyah to start the Booyah (If you do not have an Uncle Don, substitute with the most appropriate uncle available). This early start is very important, as Booyah takes between 6 and 8 hours to create.
4. It is important to have well stocked coolers and ample bar supplies (especially those necessary for mixing multiple types of Manhattans). A party isn’t a party in Green Bay without a wee bit of booze. However, a Booyah is a family affair, so it is also important to have an amply stocked pop, water, and juice box cooler.
5. Generally, the immediate family will begin arriving between 11am and 1pm, with all of the cousins and extended family filtering in between 1pm and 3pm. A typical Baeten/Selsmeyer (the maternal lineage of the Baeten boys) Booyah will include between 30 and 50 people falling within three to four generations. There will be the occasional friend or two of a cousin, but it is mostly a “full family” event, with everyone related to everyone else through somebody’s sister or married to so and so, or the second cousin of the blah blah blah….. (To the recently initiated family member the task of remembering all of the names and relationships can be daunting, but I am assured that even those that have been married into the family for some time still get tangled up from time to time. Definitely reassuring.)
6. Between 2pm and 3pm the Booyah will be ready for consumption. It will be eaten all day and likely the next day and the next. Typically at our family Booyah’s 25-30 gallons of Booyah are made. Much is eaten, but even more is sent home with various family members for freezing to be enjoyed on another day.
7. Depending on the day, the party can last until 9 or 10pm, or it can burn all the way until the wee hours. Our wedding Booyah was over at a very modest 8:30pm, one for the record books.
Epilogue:
Our Big Fat Green Bay Wedding Booyah went off without a hitch. We are very blessed to have so much wonderful family to celebrate with us on this Memorial Day. We were especially excited to have my parents here all the way from Grand Rapids to help represent the Rosas clan and their recent fusion with the Baeten side of the family. (It was their first Green Bay and first Booyah experience….I think they survived with very little residual psychological damage). Also, Troy and Todd’s Great Aunt Anne and her husband Warren were present. It had been maybe 20 years since the boys had seen their Great Aunt. She is the only direct line of the paternal Baeten family line that is left. So that was an additional element that made this particular Booyah exceptional and special.
Happy Memorial Day Everyone!
Filed under: Anna
(an excerpt from an email to my friend Colleen)
I have to say that my meds are working pretty well. The cortisone shot definitely reduced the pain; although, I can tell when I move that it has not actually fixed the problem, just masked it, my range of motion is still the same. But masking is feeling pretty gosh darn good right now.
Things I have learned while being incapacitated:
I. Movie Reviews:
A. 21 dresses: Despite what you may have thought (sarcasm), this is not the intellectually stimulating emotionally complex movie that you were seeking. It is pretty slow moving; however, it isn’t the speed that is the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that the speed never changes. This movie is not offensively bad, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it. It is definitely an “11:30 pm, happen to catch the last half of it on cable” sort of movie. The one bright point of the movie is Katherine Heigel’s performance. She is charming and responsible for almost all of the laugh-out-loud moments.
B. Cloverfield: All I have to say is “huh?” I suppose this is supposed to be an attempt at artsy mainstream cinema, but I missed the boat. It is like the Blair Witch Project of alien invasion movies with no real plot. Okay. So if that is what you dig, totally go see Cloverfield. Also, it is only 1 hour and 15 minutes long, which would have made me really annoyed if I had paid to go see it in the theater. “Give me 1/3 of my money back!”
C. Untraceable: A thriller that I had never heard about before (not that I am really into the current media scene). It is a classic FBI vs. serial killer thriller, cut of the same cloth and same plot as most movies of this genre. But “serial killer thrillers” is actually one of my favorite genres (what does or doesn’t that say about me?) followed closely by “Catholic theology thrillers.” Go figure, I would like to think that it is normal and healthy fascination with the dark side, rather than something to cause conern. Untraceable is definitely not going to win any Academy Awards, but it was entertaining and definitely my favorite of the three.
II. Waiter on the Way: A service in the Fort Wayne area that will let you get “delivery” from any of the restaurants on its rather extensive menu list. The service charges a nominal (about $6) fee plus whatever tip you feel is appropriate to bring said food straight to your door step in about an hour. Excellent idea. Added ingenuity: the whole service is on-line (including all the menus) and you can even place your order and pay on-line. Cool.
III. Strange “middle of the day” TV: It is a strange mix of programming that is available to watch in the middle of the day. Interesting movies from the 80’s and 90’s. And by interesting I mean “I wonder how/why they selected that movie,” rather than interesting “fascinating!”
Filed under: Anna
I have somehow managed to SERIOUSLY mess up my back.
I have to say that this may be my first adult experience with serious pain and/or injury, and the stupidest part is that I have no real “incident” to blame for it. Somehow I would feel better if I had actually “done” something to myself: fallen down the stairs, slipped on the ice, bounced off of the hood of a car while saving a toddler and a small dog from certain death….some sort of interesting and mildly heroic story to justify the extremity of the pain that I now feel.
But alas, my story is about as banal as you can get…..a little bit of soreness following a not abnormally busy Saturday of teaching some of my “clingier” students (men will often subconsciously squeeze in with their right hand as they hold the lady in dance position), followed by a very fun introduction to Wii boxing (but only one round) Saturday night, and culminating with my first actual round of golf on Sunday. By the back nine on Sunday I had the feeling that something was “wronger” than usual. The little bit of pain on my left side was blossoming into something much more malicious….. and by Monday night I was kaput, actually having to cancel my last lesson of the evening. By Tuesday morning I was having trouble breathing, as the pain radiated around my left side to the front of my body. The 2000 mg of Tylenol that I had been taking was not even touching it.
And so began my holistic (and might I say idealistic) approach. Tuesday morning I got a massage. It made it worse, quite a bit worse. The massage therapist recommended that I see her chiropractor, who very kindly made room for me in his schedule that afternoon, even though he was supposed to have the afternoon off.
I had never been to a chiropractor before, and to be honest the idea of chiropractic medicine makes me equal parts intrigued and nervous. On the one hand I have a very open mind to alternate and holistic medicine, and I fully and passionately believe that we live in a very over-medicated society. On the other, the idea of someone messing around with your spine is a little freaky.
I went to the chiropractor, a very very nice man who has been practicing for 28 years. Comforting. He spent over an hour with me, discussing my symptoms, telling me about spines, etc. etc. Basically his diagnosis was that two of my left thoracic ribs (#8 and #9) had somehow gotten a little twisted or pushed up near my spinal column. This misalignment is what is pushing on the nerves causing the intense radiating pain, and my inability to take a full breath. Additionally, or perhaps causationally (is that a word?), my whole thoracic area was a little tweaked out (technical term), probably due to lots and lots of things….both environmental and physical…..blah blah blah….slight curvature of the lower spine….blah blah blah…..dancing, Wii boxing, golfing……blah blah blah. So this all makes sense. It sounds good.
I shall spare you the details of the next part…..the adjustment. Ouch. More colorful words come to mind, but let’s keep it clean. This much I will tell you, I kept it pulled together at the doctor’s office, but cried in my car on the way home. It hurt. A lot. But I suppose sometimes things have to hurt to get better. I made a follow up appointment for the following morning (this morning).
I went to work in the PM (I had to cancel the AM, but we had Ingvar in for coaching so I had to go in the PM). I had three lessons (two couple lessons and one single)….I barely made it. And I mean barely.
Ice. Lots and lots of ice. Doesn’t feel to bad if I lie perfectly still with an icepack under my left side and keep my breath shallow.
This morning, woke up…..definitely not better……by the time we got to the chiropractor (Troy took me this time) at 9am, definitely worse. Tried adjusting a bit more, but didn’t get very far….cried inside the office this time, couldn’t wait until we got back to the car. Felt bad for the chiropractor. It must be awful to have girls in pain crying in your office.
Got to respect the chiropractor (Dr. Murdock), as he directed to to call our family doctor to at least get some pain medication. He did not tell me to eat grass and cleanse my seventh chakra or anything like that.
Laid perfectly with an icepack under my left side for several hours and kept my breath shallow.
Got in to see our family doc early this afternoon. He gave me a shot of cortisone in my back, which I have to say is working. Dr. Klein said that it should numb the area for about 6 hours. Ahhhh….. Gave me prescriptions for the triple whammy: vicodin, muscle relaxers, and a mild steroid to reduce the swelling.
So here I am: home from work, feeling pretty useless, sitting perfectly still on the couch with an icepack under my left side breathing shallowly, typing on the computer, waiting for all of my drugs to start working (starting to feel just a tiny bit loopy), and contemplating the pros and cons of holistic health care vs. paying homage to the pharma gods.
On the one hand I would honestly like to be a very appropriately and moderately medicated person, on the other, I will be SO SO SO SO grateful if my triad of pharmaceuticals works. Ah, the hypocrisy of it all! And just when I am starting to feel a little bad about my “homeopathic failure,” I accidentally inhale too quickly or fully and I the dominant thought in my mind is “YIKES! I sure hope this vicodin works and works fast!”
Filed under: Anna
As some of you know, I have recently started taking golf lessons. I have to say that I am really enjoying it, despite the fact that it is EXTREMELY difficult. I have yet to actually play a real live hole, but the driving range is keeping me entertained thus far. There is something very satisfying about pounding golf balls at the range. Learning golf has many many parallels to learning dancing, and one of my “side goals” is to use my golf lessons to make me a more empathetic dance teacher, renewing the feeling of learning a new and difficult physical skill.
One of the things that I really like about golf is the immediacy of the return. You immediately know if you hit a good shot or a bad shot. In this way it is not like dancing. In dancing there is not the same immediate validation of a job well done, no little ball flying with beautiful loft and determination into the air. Seeing your progress in dancing is a much more vague and subjective experience. You have to trust the opinion of your teachers and believe them when they tell you are on the right track to “better,” and eventually they are right, and things do tangibly improve. But it is never quite as definitive as a golf ball flying through the air.
