Well, Christmas is over, and the manic consumerism that is "Boxing Week" has begun.
After a lovely and relaxing (if slightly marred by the flu) Christmas with the family, I am looking forward to the New Year and all the new beginnings it offers. New beginnings come from endings, and I am currently mourning the ending of something special to me...
... my favorite butcher shop is closed.
That's right folks, Bashaw Meats and Sausage has closed it's doors.
Along with the other new opportunities 2012 will have to offer, I shall embark on a quest to find a local, small-town butcher shop to replace Bashaw. Specifically looking for one not too far away, that makes excellent pork breakfast sausages.
With a slogan like "You can't beat our meat", how could you go wrong?
End of an era. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.
It's Christmas Eve! School is (finally!) out for the year, and it's time for me to get into a more seasonal, festive spirit. It would help if all the snow hadn't melted, but what can you do?
Spending the night at my parents tonight (how else will Santa know where to find me?) which means today and tomorrow will be filled with good food, great friends, and lots of laughs.
It will also involve the annual reading of Clement Moore's 1823 classic "A Visit From St. Nicholas"...
'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there; The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads; And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled down for a long winter's nap, When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below, When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer, With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name; "Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! on Cupid! on, Donder and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"
As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky, So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too. And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound. He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.
His eyes -- how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow; The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath; He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread; He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk, And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose; He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night."
One more day until Christmas break! Teaching until the 23rd is just mean... the kids all checked out days ago, and in high school it means we are crunched for time when we get back to finish before the semester ends.
When things get this busy and hectic, it's nice to sit back and relax with a hot cup of tea. At this time of year though, I find myself craving apple cider. I loke to make my own, as I can make it to whatever taste I happen to be feeling at the time.
I don't really follow a recipe, but this is as close as it gets..
In a skillet, heat 1 L apple juice and 2 Tbsp maple syrup over medium high heat. I often add 2 C water to make it a bit less sweet (I find apple juice incredibly sweet as is).
If you are fancy, you can use cheesecloth. Since I never have cheesecloth, I contain my spices in loose leaf tea bags. Put about 2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp allspice, 5 whole cloves, 5 black peppercorns and orange zest in a bag so it's easier to fish out later. If you are like me and also don't own a zester (for shame!) slices of orange rind work equally well.
Bring to a gentle boil, and turn heat to low for 10 minutes, stirring occaisonally. Remove spice bags and serve piping hot!
I love working in a big school - the large staff means there is always someone else who is interested in similar things as you. This past year, our lab technician and I have discovered a mutual love for baking - we will both bring in cookies (him) and cupcakes (me) for the rest of the department to nibble on and share recipes.
So I blame him for the events of the past week... in a moment of weakness I agreed to sign up for the Christmas Cookie Exchange... and then I discovered after that I was responsible for bringing 7 and a 1/2 dozen cookies to an after school event. On a Thursday. I don't have time for this!? Especially when I was in Jasper the previous weekend.
Plus, I am not one of those people who does things half-heartedly. Go big or go home. So of course I can't bring lame cookies to a cookie exchange... (I will not be the person who shows up with chocolate chip cookies! I won't!)
In wanting to bring something unique, something most people will not have tried or made before, I settled on rosettes. My grandmother made them every Christmas and they are definitely a family favorite. Because they are so light and delicate, my grandfather apparently used to eat several because they are nothing more than "wind, air and suction sauce". Whatever that means.
My parents came to the rescue, and loaned me there kitchen and their hands, since this recipe requires fair amount of work per cookie (but soooo worth it!).
Rosettes are a Scandinavian cookie that is made from a light batter (think pancakes) and then each cookie is deep fried in peanut oil on a cast iron form. You need a rosette iron for this, but they're really easy to find online or in specialty kitchen stores.
Rosettes
2 eggs
1 T sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 C flour
1 C whole milk
1 tsp vanilla
peanut oil for deep frying
1 C icing sugar
Beat eggs slightly. Add 1 T sugar and salt. Add flour and milk alternately, blending until smooth. Stir in the vanilla - batter should be about the consistency of pancake or crepe batter.
Heat at least 3 " of oil in a pan to 365 F. Place the rosette iron in the hot oil for 60 seconds to heat up.
Dip the iron into the batter, making sure not to allow the batter to run over the top (or you'll never get the darn things off). Immerse the coated iron in the hot oil and fry for around 25 seconds (until light brown).
Using a fork, slip the rosette off onto a paper towel and repeat.
Coat rosettes in icing sugar when they are cool and store in an air tight container. One recipe makes about 3 dozen cookies.
This past weekend, a group of friends went out to Jasper to celebrate my friend Dominique's birthday. Ohhh the times we had...
Since I don't downhill ski, I spent the weekend exploring Jasper. I hadn't been there in years, and it was a delight to discover! Still much less commercial than Banff, and everything within walking distance of our hotel.
Last post I mentioned that I was taking my students to West Edmonton Mall to do some real-life amusement park Physics.
We had a great day - the students had a blast (in and out of the park... some of my boys got bra fittings at Victoria's Secret... "Guess what!? I'm a 40-double A!") and it was great to get out of the school and apply the theory from the classroom.
Not such a high point was when I accidentally dropped my phone into a toilet. It survived... but definitely not one of my better moments.
Swing of the Century... Making teenagers sick one field trip at a time.
One of my favorite things about teaching science is watching students realize how neat the world actually is. Teenagers, especially, like to think they know everything, and are prone to acting nonchalant about new information. "Duh. Everyone knows that...." Sometimes accompanied by an eye roll.
But every now and then I can surprise them with something they've never had to think about before. It happens a few times in physics. Good ol' cognitive dissonance. People often think that the math in physics is what's challenging, but it's really not. If you can do algebra, you can do all the math you need to for high school physics. The theory is what's tricky... any one can put a number into a formula and get an answer... but ask them to explain why the water in the bucket over my head doesn't fall out when I swing it?
One of the more challenging concepts for students is the idea of "weight". How much matter is in my body is called my mass, and I measure it in kilograms. We are brought up believing that this is our weight, but it's really not.
Weight is the force exerted on you by the Earth's gravity. When you step on a weigh scale, the scale is calibrated so that it takes the acceleration due to gravity into effect and tells you your mass, not your weight.
Fair enough, you might think. So what's the tricky part?
The tricky part comes when you ask a student why they feel like they have mass. (I once made the mistake of rhetorically asking a group of grade eleven's why I feel heavy, and one of them shouted out "'Cause you're fat!" much to the shock and horror of his classmates. I laughed.) What causes you to feel like you have "weight"? Most people will answer with gravity. But if I ask what they would feel if I threw them off a cliff, they all know that they would feel "weightless".
Feeling like you have mass is a condition of being in contact with a surface, namely the ground. My mass pushes down on the Earth, and in accordance with Newton's Third Law (for every action there is a equal and opposite reaction) the Earth pushes back. In physics this is called the normal force, or your apparent weight. The Earth pushing back on me is what I feel, what gives me the illusion of having weight. The force of gravity is still pulling on me when I fall off a cliff; what is missing is the normal force.
My apparent weight can change under different circumstances as well. Accelerate me up in an elevator and I feel heavier. Start going down and I will momentarily feel lighter as the floor falls out from underneath me and supplies less normal force. It's a mind-baffling concept, because it is quite different from our every day perceptions about the world around us.
Tomorrow, I am taking my Physics 20 class to Galaxyland at West Edmonton Mall to make calculations and observations about different amusement park rides. I'm looking forward to having them challenge their existing beliefs and experience some of these concepts first hand!
The following is the video I used to illustrate how we can artificially create a "zero gravity environment" (really, there is still gravity... just no normal force, because the plane is falling at the same rate you are!). I hope you enjoy it as much as my students did!
I was having a rough week last week (just some of those days, you know?) and two things made me feel heaps better....
1. I bought myself flowers. Flowers just make me so happy! (I love my plants... but none of them are flowering right now...)
2. We decorated the house for Christmas!
Our Christmas tree is so tall and skinny and silly looking because it was meant for an apartment building. Nothing says Christmas like saving space!
Because our tree came pre-decorated with pine cones and holly berries (which I found out Saturday night at 10 pm) we decided to keep the decorations simple and minimal. My parents gave us the old decorations from our childhood tree (which were old then) and we put up the cute little wooden ones. ... and a few other gems.
Because nothing says 'festive' like the Christmas Steam Boat.
Or the Christmas Winnie the Pooh...
I think my grandmother knit a whole trees worth of these one year... We had to put up at least one.
One of my favorite holiday traditions is watching Jim Henson's Muppet Family Christmas while I bake. If you haven't seen it, I highly suggest you do so. Now would be okay.
I have seen it so many times (several times a year pretty much since I was born) that I know all the words by heart. It has inflitrated my life to the point that, whenever any one says "Look what I've got!" my brain immediately follows it up with... "Christmas cookies!".
Sometimes I even say it out loud. And obviously in this way... (now is where you watch the YouTube clip, starting at 2:13...)
Well, yesterday was my brother's birthday. Which means it is offically the Christmas season as far as my family is concerned! We always wait until after his birthday to decorate and all that jazz.
Yesterday the family went to dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House downtown, for what was pretty much the most expensive meal of my life. (And this from the girl who once spent 31$ on a drink in Monaco.) It was fabulous, don't get me wrong, but it's the kind of place where you ask yourself "Should we get the wine, or pay the rent this month?" After we ordered some mouth-watering desserts (of course my mother and I shared the cheesecake), we found out that the restaurant does a birthday dessert, and we got this sampler tray. Chocolate mousse, berries in cream, and bread pudding in a whiskey sauce. SO. GOOD.
Awesome tree at my parent's house. *
My father really loves to decorate the house for the holiday season. Just last week he turned on the big tree out front, which has almost 1500 lights on it! (For a size comparison... that is my car in the bottom right... and tha lamp post is atleast 25 feet tall!) You can see it from quite a ways away, because it's taller than the neighboring houses.
We finally got snow, but the weather has been really mild. If my life wasn't so busy, I would be outside enjoying it! These snowmen are courtesy of the neighbor kids at my parent's. So adorable.
*Kate has been trying to figure out why some of my pictures won't rotate... I wish I could credit her here, but this one worked all by itself!
So I gave a quiz the other day to my Physics 20 class. Now, typically physics problems are pretty boring ("an object is accelerated at...." or "an object is resting on a...") so I try to spice them up in class.
I stink at drawing (although I've got pretty awesome at stick people) and my kids know it. Whenever we do examples in class that deal with an object, I always ask them, "What kind of object do I have?" and they'll give me "dinosaur", "penguin", or "lumberjack" and then laugh while I try to draw one.
On quizzes, I normally give them an entertaining object to draw, mostly because I like looking at them when I mark them. Some of my students are excellent at drawing, while others are happy enough making all of their objects boxes.
However, the other day I was tired of telling them what to do, so I gave them a fill-in-the-blank quiz. Instead of telling them that a box of armadillos was sitting on a 40° incline, I told them "a ___________ is resting on a 40° incline" and had them decide what the objects were.
I have never giggled so much while marking quizzes. This is definitely becoming a regular occurrence. Teenagers are so funny and creative. I thought I would share some of my favorite doodles.... More to come later!
A wagon full of giraffe...
A 16 kg Santa on a slope
My personal favorite...
a wagon full of 32 kg of "assorted fruits".
Huzzah! I have figured out how to rotate pictures! Go me! Thanks to Kate for the words of wisdom!
Well, winter has kicked in totally over here (it was -27 yesterday.... brrrrrr!) which means I want to bake. Constantly.
Since I don't really have time to constantly be baking, I have to settle for making a few old favorites to tide me over.
My paternal grandmother was an avid baker - she is the one who taught me how to make pies, provided me with the recipes for gingerbread, molasses cookies, tarts, cakes... you name it and she made it.
My maternal grandmother on the other hand... well, she had a few trusted recipes that she made time and time again. Some of my most vivid memories of her involve eating cookies in her kitchen, at the avocado green formica table. She only ever seemed to make one kind of cookie, and the house always smelled of Oatmeal Crispies.
After she passed away, I kinda forgot about the cookies... I'd never made them, and we didn't have the recipe. A few years ago, however, my mother got the recipe from my aunt, and I've been making them ever since... they are so simple and tasty, how could you not??
Oatmeal Crispy Cookies
In a large bowl, cream together:
1 C butter
1C brown sugar
1 C white sugar
Add:
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
In a separate bowl, combine:
1 1/2 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 C oatmeal
1 C coconut
2 C rice krispies
Stir dry ingredients into wet ingredients. You'll need to get in there with your hands to really blend it! Roll dough into 1" balls, and flatten with a fork onto a cookie sheet covered in parchment. (They really spread out.. give them lots of space! And flatten them good... they puff up otherwise!) Bake for 6-8 minutes at 350. Cool slightly on cookie sheet, and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely before enjoying!
Be warned... this recipe makes a lot of cookies! Just how many is unclear. My grandmother was such a fiesty lady... when my aunt was getting the recipe from her, she asked my granny (who was about 85 at the time) "how many cookies does it make?" Grandma's response?
Ahhh... The first snowfall of the season! (Those of you who are unfamiliar with the Edmonton climate... this is unseasonably late.)
Come February, I will probably be complaining about the snow, but right now the world is coated in a fluffy white layer that makes everything seem magical. As long as you are inside with a nice cup of tea, and not out driving on the roads.
Here's a snippet from my favorite holiday movie, featuring the wonderful Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Bing Crosby himself singing about snow snow snow snow snow!
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."
Last weekend, my cousins from Denver came up for a visit. The two older cousins were both born in Edmonton, and are still Canadians at heart, even though they have lived in the States for a number of years. The younger sister (younger meaning 31) has lived in the US almost all her life - she considers herself to be an American. This past weekend was her first time back in Canada in almost 15 years. We local cousins enjoyed introducing a few new "Canadian" experiences to her.
To my surprise, one of the new experiences was wearing a poppy for the days leading up to Remembrance Day.
I don't think it ever occured to me that the US does not observe Armistace Day the same way the Commonwealth does... They have Veterans Day to be sure, but it was a bit strange to have to explain the symbolism of the poppy and why so many people wear them.
Poppies have long been associated with fallen soldiers; they grow abundantly in the fields of the Flanders region in France. As far back as the Napoleonic wars, soldiers have been laid to rest in Flanders, where poppies flourish but few other plants would grow (making them a weed, which, let's face it, is just a flower growing where it isn't wanted).
In the First World War, John McCrae was a Canadian soldier stationed near Ypres, not far from the Flanders region. He penned the most widely known war poem ever written, "In Flanders Fields", after losing a comrade.
Wearing a poppy is not a sign of supporting war or only certain contributors (much to the argument of those who support the "white poppy") but rather a sign of honoring all the sacrifices of the past. Saying to veterans and current troops (peacekeepers and soldiers alike) that we recognise and respect their courage in fighting for things they believe in, and fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves.
The saying "lest we forget" is often associated with Remembrance Day and poppies. The word "lest" means "for fear that". Poppies are the way we alleviate the fear that some day we might forget about the sacrifices of those who died for the freedom of others. As long as we continue to observe November 11th, the day the armistace was signed, we will continue to honor the memories of those who have served our country and others, through times of peace and war.
"In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high. If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields."
I love gingerbread. It always reminds me of Christmas and winter and decorating gingerbread men with my dad.
I pretty much love molasses cookies in general. Molasses is made from the leftovers during the extraction of sugar from cane juice. There are different types of molasses depending on how much of the original sugar remains from processing (be sure to use the correct kind of molasses! I once tried to use fancy molasses to make cookies... they were awful).
I pretty much can't make anything with molasses without thinking about the Boston Molasses Disaster (aka The Great Molasses Flood). On a hot day in 1919, a huge tank of molasses exploded and an immense wave (40 ft!) of molasses swept through the city. I know this sounds funny... but it wasn't. 21 people were killed - caught and smothered in the waist-high flood - and around 150 people injured. Apparently the fire department attempted to wash the molasses away afterwards, but (as anyone who's ever cooked with molasses knows) adding water to molasses creates a nice foam... you need lots of hot water to dissolve it away.
While I'm sure it would have been an incredibly frightening thing to witness, I have private imaginings that a molasses-tsunami would move at the same speed it pours out of my carton... that residents would see this slow-motion giant wave bearing down on them... "iiiiit'sssss cooooooomiiiiinnnnnnng..... ruuuuuuuuuuun..... nooooooooooooooooo"
...
Anyways.... Here is my dad's gingerbread recipe! I like it because the cookies turn out nicely soft and chewy, but still firm enough to handle and decorate (no teeth-breakers here!) My mom and I made some last weekend when my cousins from Denver were in town.
Gingerbread Cookies
Mittens!
1/2 C shortening or butter
1 C brown sugar
1 1/2 C cooking molasses
1/2 C cold water
6 C sifted flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda dissolved in 3 Tbsp cold water
In a large bowl, mix together butter, sugar and molasses until smooth. Stir in 1/2 cup cold water. (will look funny as butter separates a bit!)
Dough. Looks like nothing.
In a medium sized bowl, sift together flour, salt and spices. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, mixing with your hands when the spoon gets to cumbersome. Stir in soda dissolved in water and form dough into a ball.
Cover cookie dough and chill. (I usually leave overnight. Turn it into a two day activity).
Roll out dough 1/2" thick, and cut out with your favorite cookie cutters (try not to use ones with really small pieces... these get dry quickly!)
Bake 350 on parchment lined cookie sheet. Do not over bake!! - only needs 8-10 minutes! (depends on your oven)
When totally cooled, decorate to your heart's content!
In honor of the Sanderman cousin reunion, I put my gingerbread
people in lederhosen. Because, you know, we're just so German....?
So, as I mentioned, I went to the ATA Science Council Conference mid-October, in Lake Louise. I mentioned one of our keynotes was Dr. Jane Goodall, who was phenomenal (no surprise there).
I also ate some fantastic meals, enjoyed the scenery and the beautiful facilities, networked with colleagues and visited with friends, and attended some pretty neat sessions on physics labs and one excellent one on encorporating story-telling into science classes. (History of science is one of my secret geeky interests... all the others are definetly not-so-secret...)
However, one of the surprise highlights for me was our Friday morning keynote speaker, Dr Joe Schwarcz. Dr Schwarcz is the director for the Office for Science and Society at the University of McGill, whose passion in life is dispelling many of the myths the public has around science, chemistry in particular.
Unsurprisingly, as he hosts a weekly radio show in Montreal and has written several popular books about chemistry, Dr Schwarcz was an engaging speaker -you really have to be, to keep an audience of 300 teachers captivated for an hour and a half... we really don't make good students. He addressed many misconceptions that the public (and our students) have around chemistry, and what we can do to promote critical thinking.
After one and a half hours of the chemistry of Barbie's hair and why we shouldn't always trust Dr Oz, I know what I want for Christmas!
One of my favorite parts about going through the Rocky Mountains is the lakes.
Lake Louise. Oct 2011.
Most of the lakes in the Rockies are glacier-fed. As glaciers pass over rock, they grind it up into fine pieces called rock flour, which is released in melt water. Most of the rock flour settles to the bottom of the lake, but some of it remains suspended in the water.
Mt Burgess overlooking Emerald Lake. Aug 2011.
This suspended rock flour is very effective at scattering light, making the water in glacial lakes and rivers appear a milky-blue color (much the same as air particles scatter light to make the sky appear blue).
Abraham Lake. August 2011.
Suspended minerals also encourage small blue-green algae to grow, which gives these lakes their stunning turquoise appearance.
Natural Bridge over the Kicking Horse River. August 2011.
Well, it's the first day of November... which means the upper lips of men everywhere are soon to be adorned with all manner of 'staches!
I have mixed feelings about Movember... it's a great cause, and some men look good with moustaches. Others... others really should stay clean shaven. No one, and I mean no one, looks good with a perv stache.
Several of my students are planning on participating in Movember... I anticipate that coming back from Fall Break they will look pretty much the same as when they left.
Here, my favorite cartoon superhero discovers just what it's like to have a moustache...
It's Hallowe'en, folks! And unfortunately it falls on a Monday this year. Less than stellar showing of costumes at school, I'm sad to say (although I was rocking the pirate costume!)... but maybe it's because everyone got all costumed out this past weekend?
I have had a grand total of ZERO Trick-or-Treaters at my house this evening... which is bad, because it means I'm going to end up eating the chocolate bars I bought.
As I mentioned, this past weekend I was fortunate enough to attend a conference for Alberta Science teachers and it just so happened to be at the Fairmont's stunning Chateau Lake Louise.
Since I will probably never again be able to afford to stay there (thank you PD grant money!) I jumped at the opportunity. This hotel is stunning!
!!!!
This was the view from my room... Nothing like looking out over the emerald waters of Lake Louise at the Victoria glacier in the background. Lake Louise was named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (one of Queen Victoria's daughters) who was also the namesake of our province.
Beautifully clear lake, but sadly... clouds rolling in to block the glacier.
The Chateau was built at the end of the 19th century to try to lure wealthy railway travellers out west. While parts of the hotel burned down, were rebuilt and remodelled, it still retains a very old-fashioned look. This makes it very popular with wedding parties (an outdoor wedding occured while I was watching Jane Goodall speak. Who gets married outdoors in the mountains at the end of October?! Oh right. Last year I went to one on a mountaintop in February.)
Fuzzy picture of the lobby.
I loved all the details of the hotel. The main lobby is full of tapestries, the ceilings in the old wing are all painted, and all the guest room doors are painted with a bouquet of flowers.
Ceiling in the Painter Wing.
I was supposed to room with two other friends, but one had to back out at the last minute. The plus side to this was our room was gorgeous! The bathroom was actually huge. We could have partied in there. Two full sized showers? Now that's luxury. And the beds? Don't even get me started. I've never loved a pillow so much in my life.
The flowers on our door.
If you ever get the opportunity to stay at the Fairmont's Chateau Lake Louise, I highly suggest you take it. It is an expensive hotel, but you definetly do get what you pay for!
Large ammonite fossils on display.
Small ammonite fossil I bought myself for a necklace.
This weekend, I had the fantastic opportunity to attend the amazing ATASC Conference in Lake Louise. (more on those things later...)
Our headlining keynote speaker for the event was the inspirational Dr. Jane Goodall. The theme for the conference this year was "Inspiring Science" (ambiguous emphasis for a reason) and it is hard to find a more inspirational figure, particularly for young women in science, than Jane Goodall.
As a young girl growing up in England, she loved animals and always dreamed of learning more about them and (after developing a slight infatuation with Tarzan) studying them in the African jungle. When given the opportunity to go to Africa, she ended up working with the famous archaeologist Louis Leakey as an assistant. He was the one who gave her the opportunity to study the behaviour of chimpanzees in the wild, and later encouraged her to go to Cambridge to get her PhD so she could earn her way in the scientific community in her own right.
Dr. Goodall (or Dr. Jane as she apparently likes to be known) has spend most of her life since the days observing the chimpanzee's acting as a conservationist, travelling more than 300 days a year. While her own circumstances and rise to prominance were rather exceptional, she is a real role model to all, and a shining example of the power of compassion and hope.
(I am trying to upload a video of Dr. Jane talking about her source of inspiration, but blogger is fighting me. Instead, here's a really bad picture - we weren't allowed to use flash... and another of my friend Kerstin asking her a question!)
