Wintertime.

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!

Diagrams.

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!

Oatmeal Crispy Cookies.

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?

...

"Damned if I know."

I know exactly who I want to be when I grow up.



Snow.

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!

Remembering.

"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."

-excerpt from Laurence Binyon's "For The Fallen"

Poppies.

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."

- Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, 1915

Gingerbread.

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....?

ATASC Conference 2011.

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!

My room. Oh yah. Lake view!

Glacial Lakes.

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.

Movember.

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...