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July 28th, 2009
04:03 pm - Electricity
Jon and I are dealing with a very frustrating electric bill situation. Our April utility usage was 186 kwh, May was 218, and June was 951. Obviously, this is a huge difference, and we were concerned.
First, some background on our electricity usage. We did not use the air conditioner until May, and we keep the apartment between 85 and 90 degrees when we do use it. We turn it off while we are away from the apartment (although I am unclear as to whether that actually saves energy, I figure that it can't hurt). We use a fan when we are in a room and turn it off when we leave. We have a few clocks, radios, and lights plugged in mostly permanently, and of course the microwave/stove/oven and refrigerator/freezer are always on. We unplug my computer and everything attached to it after we use it, which is usually only a couple times a week for a few hours, we don't own a TV or video game stuff, and we have fluorescent lights in most of the sockets. I say that both to make myself feel good and to say that we always had very low electric bills when we lived apart, and now that we live together, we expect and, until this last one, have had, low electric bills.
Back to the situation at hand. We were concerned that there was an error in the bill, so we emailed the company. Here is the email exchange.
Us:
We are concerned that there is a problem with our June electric bill. We used 218 kwh in May, and the current bill shows 951 used in June. We were out of town for most of the month (June 8-July 9), and we unplugged almost all of our appliances (not the refrigerator or range) and turned the air conditioning off before we left, so it is extremely surprising that the meter showed such a high reading. Is there a way to have this checked? We certainly want to pay what we owe, but we feel that it is very unlikely that we used four times as much electricity in one week as we did in the previous month and would like to have it checked out. Thank you.
Them, in red because their email was and to help you, dear reader, tell us apart: There was a tenant complaining the lives beside your unit that their bill has been outrageous. Our maintenance found that when we had an issue with their air conditioner, an outside technician crossed wired your air conditioner and they were paying for your unit. I kept wondering why your unit was so GREATLY below usage below any other townhouse or one bedroom at the property, now we know why. You have been getting a fabulous rate and deal due to not paying for your true usage. There is not way of going back and figuring out what your savings has been but we are cutting the tenant that has been paying for your usage a huge cut back. Hope this helps in explaining the difference in monthly rates. Us:
Thank you for the information. What was the date of the air conditioner repair that caused the crossed wiring?
Them:
Before you took possession…June 2008 I went back and looked at your electric bills; you guys have been billed lower than a one bedroom sine you have taken possession. Nothing we can do about it now. I feel sorry for the person that was paying those bills for so long, but I had no clue. Here ends the exchange. Some of our thoughts:
-It is inappropriate to try to make me feel guilty that another tenant was paying part of my electric bill. One of the benefits of renting instead of owning is that certain things are taken care of by the landlord. In our case, they have some sort of deal with an electric company, and the entire complex gets a low rate on bulk service from them, and they bill us. Not all apartments do this, but that is the case with us. This means that they are responsible for billing the proper amount to each tenant. Also, they are responsible for maintenance, and if someone miswires some air conditioning units, that is their problem, not ours. (That's why we pay them.) I am glad that they feel sorry for the tenant who was paying too much, but the situation is not my fault, and I feel like they are trying to make me feel guilty for it so I won't try to make sure the bill, and our future bills, are right.
-Even if, as they claim, our bills have been artificially low because of the wiring problem, there is no way we should have used 951 kwh in June, given that we were out of town and definitely turned off the air conditioning altogether before we left. Their claim is that the former billing problem was just an air conditioning unit mix-up, so our other electrical usage should have been about the same as or lower than the month before, let's say 200 kwh. So somehow we used 751 kwh of air conditioning in a week. With the rate that we get, that is about $112. We were told that the average monthly utility bill for the former tenants was $150-170 in the summer. If we had had the air on for four weeks, that would be $448 just in air conditioning. Since I doubt that the former tenants kept the temperature as high as we do, I feel like there must be some mistake. Possibly the opposite air conditioning wiring problem has happened, or there is something terribly wrong with the air conditioner that should be fixed, or there is some amount of misinformation being given to us. I hope that they have not decided that we should pay for some amount of what had wrongly been charged to the other tenant and not telling us.
-Our electric bills have always been approximately what we expected based on our former electric bills. As stated above, we have always had low electric bills, and our usage has been what we would expect based on our old bills with some wiggle room factored in for the fact that every place is a little different. So when they repeatedly say that our electric bill is dramatically lower than anyone else's, I am not surprised in the least and don't think that that's a reason for me to pay the bill without asking more questions. I would be surprised if we did use as much as a typical one-bedroom because our habits and heat tolerance are different from most people's.
-If the other apartment was just paying for our air conditioning, it shouldn't have made any difference in their bill from October-April because we didn't use the air or heating, or if we did, it was only for a couple days at a time. I find it hard to believe that it would cause it to be this high if there aren't more things involved in the crossed wiring, and I am worried that perhaps
Now we need to decide how to proceed. Since rent is due at the end of the month, I think Jon and I might go together tomorrow to pay rent and discuss this further. I need to think about the points we should make so I won't get upset. I like the apartment very much, and I want to have a harmonious continuation to our relationship with the management company. I think we are good tenants. We pay on time, we're not noisy, we don't smoke, we have only asked for minor maintenance. I just want things to be right. We would like some information on electricity usage of the tenants before us, some sort of documentation that the alleged wiring mix-up did occur when they said it did, and the meter readings. We are going to try to find our meter so we can keep track of it ourselves and perhaps perform some simple experiments like what happens to the number if we leave the AC off for two full days. We would also like some sort of assurance that the wiring is currently right. I am worried that it may not be if they made this mistake before and only now noticed it. If the July bill is still sky-high, we would like them to fix the air conditioner because it should not be using so much electricity. We may turn off the air conditioner altogether and get window screens and fans for more of the rooms if the situation does not improve. (The management company refuses to get window screens for us because they are "unsightly", which is weird but not part of this post.)
I really hate situations in which I have to very clearly take a stand against someone else and be demanding because I am naturally a non-confrontational, easy-going person, but I don't want to pay for electricity we didn't use. If we are going to pay this much, I shouldn't be sweating in the house! I'm going to have to put on my big girl panties and deal with it.
Other things that happened today: Pyrex violently exploded in my oven (it's not broiler-safe) and a car almost ran me over by making a left turn into the wrong lane (the lane in which opposing traffic would be driving if there had been any opposing traffic besides me on my bicycle). I think she was trying to make a quick left right after the light changed so she wouldn't have to wait for the other cars to go through the intersection. She either didn't see me or thought I shouldn't have been there. Not fun.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/stars/yellow/grumpy_sy.gif) annoyed
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June 4th, 2009
12:41 pm - Phasing in the office.
Today they are testing the fire alarms in the office. There are two that I can hear from my office. They do three short bursts with a pause in between. They started out almost in sync, and I've been listening them to them phasing slowly since then. It is annoying because it is a loud, unpleasant sound, but I enjoy observing the slowly changing pattern.
Current Mood: minimal
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April 18th, 2009
02:18 pm - news
I started a food blog, evel8yn.blogspot.com. You should read it and feel sad that you don't get to eat with me all the time.
I also bought a ticket to go to France from June 8-July 8. Jon and I are both going to a conference in Marseille for a week, so we're making a vacation out of it. He would also like to go to Bonn for a few days. I may try to go to Taize, France while he's doing that, or I might just go with him. We will of course spend some time in Paris, too. We are flying into and out of Paris. I am looking forward to the trip. I haven't been to France or Germany yet.
My garden isn't dead yet. I ate my first strawberry this morning. It was delicious. I have baby tomatoes and baby peppers growing, and my herbs and lettuce have been quite prolific. It's a wonderful thing to have. I'm so glad I bought the plants.
I haven't updated my books recently. As time goes on, the task seems more and more daunting. But I might be able to man up and do it. I have read at least two that I haven't blogged about yet. One of them was very long (2^10 pages).
It has been raining like crazy here. I know we're behind on our rainfall, but I would prefer that less of it happened on weekends. I missed a lot of fun frisbee for it.
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March 18th, 2009
03:58 pm - balcony garden
I decided to start container gardening on my balcony. I have never had much success with plants. I really want to make a good go of this, and today I went to a real garden store to get some seedlings and advice. My balcony faces east, so it gets sun only in the morning. I would be surprised if it gets a full five hours a day because there is an overhang, so they recommended against tomatoes. I picked up some peppers, eggplants, and lettuces along with a LOT of herbs: rosemary, thyme, oregano, basil, Thai basil, lemon balm, lemongrass, cilantro, various mint varieties, dill, and some that I can't remember right now. I also got some good potting soil and fertilizer. I have never used fertilizer before, and I think that might have hurt some of my plants. Unfortunately the place I went didn't have cheap pots, and I think I'll need a lot of pots, so I'll need to go to Home Depot today or tomorrow so I can transplant them soon. I cook with a lot of herbs anyway, and I think it will be fun to start adding more fresh herbs to my salads. It seems a very fancy thing to do, and I love fancy salads. I might change my mind and go pick up some cherry tomatoes anyway and just see if I can grow some despite my lack of sun. I also picked up some seeds for plants they didn't have out, so I might try starting some beets, bok choy, chard, or edamame too. It might be a little too late for them for the spring, but I won't use all the seeds, so I'll try again in the late summer/fall. I'm going to try to be a good plant mommy this time so I can reap the profits (aka delicious salads) for months to come.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/stars/yellow/happy_sy.gif) cautiously optimistic
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March 12th, 2009
01:50 pm - very frustrating bank story
This is not my story, but it's noteworthy.
The day before we went on our spring break trip, Jon was looking over his bank statement recently, and there was a withdrawal for a larger amount than he usually withdraws, and he couldn't remember it. We thought back to that date, and thanks to my "picture a day" project remembered very specifically what we had done that day. We had gone to the bank a few days before, but that was the only time we could remember going during that month. He was very concerned, so he called the bank and asked for more information and to report possible fraud. The person he talked to eventually deigned to tell him that the withdrawal was made in Grand Prairie, which is at least four hours away. It was supposedly made on a school day, and we definitely didn't drive up to the metroplex to withdraw a large amount of money, so we were convinced that it was definitely a mistake/possible fraud. The person he talked to basically said "when we review the security tape and confirm that it was you, we'll call you back" and begrudgingly agreed to send Jon a copy of the transaction slip. He also refused to put a hold on the account, saying Jon would have to do that in person. Jon wanted to do that because he would be gone for the week and very reasonably suspected that someone had his account number and was using it. When we got the transaction, it was clear that it was not fraud but an innocuous data entry mistake. The name on the slip is not Jon's, and the account number differs from Jon's by one digit. The other honest bank user's driver license number was also on the transaction receipt they sent us. Enclosed with the transaction was a statement telling Jon that they would charge him for the document. Clearly, no one looked into Jon's case AND they gave us some other person's private information. That's just not acceptable. We are good people and won't steal this other person's account number, but we now have all the necessary information, and it was given to us by the bank itself.
It should be noted that this gripe is only with the phone people. Jon went into the local branch on Monday, and they said that it looked like a data entry error, they would look into it, and they would call him back on Thursday. I don't know whether they have yet, but they seemed much more helpful. I'm sure if Jon goes into the branch with the information he was sent, they will fix it.
This is probably a headache for the other person, too. They withdrew money, it's been over a month, and they are either worried because their account isn't balanced or they figured they had made a mistake and might overdraw when the error is corrected.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/stars/yellow/angry_sy.gif) angry
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March 10th, 2009
10:15 am - What goes down must come up
Jon and I got back on Saturday from our fantastic spring break trip to the Grand Canyon. A picture is worth a thousand words, but they fall far short of the real thing. It is breathtaking.
( Our trip )
Current Mood: happy
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February 27th, 2009
03:06 pm - the five steps to advising a student
Told to me by a Rice postdoc:
1) Think of a problem for your student.
2) Explain the problem to your student.
3) Solve the problem.
4) Explain the solution to your student.
5) Convince your student that she solved it herself.
My advisor is currently trying to convince me I just proved a theorem. But I'm not sure I even understand the statement of the theorem. To rephrase, if I knew the statement of the theorem, I would probably agree that I proved it.
This may be the theorem I just proved:
Let M and N be a branched hyperbolic surfaces with k branch points of order 2. Let f be a harmonic map between M and N such that f is a bijection between branch points. Then f has finite energy, and the associated Hopf differential has at worst simple poles.
Or it could be:
Let M and N be a branched hyperbolic surfaces with k branch points of order 2. Let f be a harmonic map between M and N such that f is a bijection between branch points and such that f restricted to an epsilon neighborhood of each branch point is homotopic to the identity. Then f has finite energy, and the associated Hopf differential has at worst simple poles.
Or maybe I'm missing something and it's something else entirely. I am going to try to write it up before I leave for Spring Break because I won't remember what I was doing if I wait until I come back.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/moonsis/stars/yellow/achy_sy.gif) worried about homotopy classes
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February 23rd, 2009
09:49 am - Five lucky people
...get something made by me just for them. It can be anything I want, I get to choose. It can be silly or serious, edible or not, but don't plan on anything alive. There are a few rules involved.
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It will be done sometime this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be.
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange and/or silly.
The catch is that you must repost this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they've posted on their blog win a hand made, super creative, possibly lovely whatever in the world I decide!
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February 13th, 2009
03:08 pm - The Princess Bride
I rewatched The Princess Bride at the end of December and was pleasantly surprised to find it was a very entertaining film that didn't consist only of "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Somehow that was the only thing I could remember from my initial viewing of the movie. Jon had read the book a few months before, so I decided I should too. It was also very entertaining, and the book and movie are really good versions of each other. The book of course has a lot more details and fleshes out the backgrounds of the characters more fully, but the movie doesn't do it injustice. There's not a lot to say in a review, really, because the book is pretty much plot. I did think it was weird that the movie had the grandpa and boy reading the book when the story did just fine on its own, but that was in the book, where the side comments by the adult are a little (not much) less pointless. I must say Andre the Giant was a brilliant selection for the movie. I can't imagine someone else being the giant and pulling it off the way he did.
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February 10th, 2009
05:21 pm - Orlando
I am behind on book reviews. Oh no! I reread Orlando by Virginia Woolf in January. Jon gave it to me in December of the first year we were dating because he knew I liked androgyny and had enjoyed the book himself. It is a very weird little book. It's hard to know where to start on this one. It is the story of a man born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I who doesn't age and eventually becomes a woman. It's very episodic, and Orlando is an odd fellow/lady who occasionally sleeps for a week straight and wakes up somehow changed. He falls in love with a Russian princess who abandons him, is the patron for a poet who mocks him, is an ambassador in Turkey, where he becomes a woman, joins a gypsy caravan, gets back to England, has a lawsuit against her because she is either dead or a woman and therefore can't own property, meets a lover, has children, and is presumably still alive today. The book often seems like an inside joke that I am outside, and I've read up a little on Woolf's history and still don't "get" it. But it was fun to read, if not easy. I know that a lot of it is based on Vita Sackville-West's family history. Vita was Virginia's lover for a while, and it was quite the scandal. Many people describe the book as a love letter to Vita, and I can see how the character of Orlando could definitely be an idealization of one's beloved. I enjoyed rereading it, and I must try to reread more in the future. I definitely retained more of it this time. I am in the middle of two other books right now, but maybe the one after those will be another reread.
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January 16th, 2009
11:23 am - Thing 6
I remembered the sixth thing I made last Friday: Kale chips. These have potential, although I ruined most of them and nearly burned down my kitchen on the first try. I might try them again. My recipe had me coat some chopped kale in olive oil (not extra-virgin), vinegar, and salt and then cook at 350 for about 20 minutes or until they were dry and crisp. I turned on the oven, prepped the chips, put them on parchment paper-covered cookie trays, and put them in the oven right as the thermometer hit 349. (It has a digital temperature display that lets you see what the temp is as it increases to your setting.) About five minutes later, it still hadn't officially hit 350, but I smelled a little smoke. I figured it was because the olive oil had a lower smoke point than I thought and didn't really think anything of it. About five minutes later, the thermometer still hadn't reached 350, but it was clear that something was really wrong. The kitchen started getting really smoky really quickly, so I turned off the oven, removed the kale from it, turned on the fan, opened the door, and cursed myself for not knowing how to open the windows. Meanwhile, the smoke detector went off, and Jon removed the battery. The kale chips that weren't pure black were actually pretty good, and I ate those up before throwing the remnants away. The parchment paper was very black as well. Parchment paper should be oven-safe up to at least 400 degrees, which led me to formulate a theory that there was an oven malfunction. My theory is that after I put the kale in when the thermometer said 349, the oven kept heating up but for some reason didn't trigger the "stop heating up" mechanism, thus burning my poor kale. It worked fine when I made the meringues later that night, so I guess it was just some flukey thing. I would like to try them again because the non-burned ones had a really great crispy texture, and the combination of kale, salt, and vinegar is quite good. I have another recipe that only calls for a 250-degree oven, so I might try that, or I might try the 350 one again and hope that there is no oven malfunction.
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January 15th, 2009
05:31 pm - Friday cooking bonanza
I was going to write about this earlier, but I didn't. I was feeling really beat last Friday, so instead of going out for a friend's birthday I decided to stay in and cook a little bit. It ended up being about 5 hours straight. I remembered making six things, but I can only think of five, so maybe I'll have to update this sometime when I remember my last thing. I am presenting them one by one, but I worked on them somewhat concurrently.
Thing 1: Candied citrus peels
For Christmas, I made candies for many of my relatives. I made a pine nut-almond brittle and candied citrus peels. I now love candied citrus peels and plan to make them on a somewhat regular basis. They're quite easy to make. First, save your citrus peels for a while. For me, these were mostly grapefruit and Meyer lemon peels (see below), but there were a few regular lemons, tangerines, and oranges too. Get as much pith as you can off of everything but the grapefruit and cut into strips that are about the size you want your candy to be. This is easiest immediately after you peel the fruit, so I just do it before putting them in a jar in my fridge. Put your peels in a saucepan and "cover" with water. They kind of float, so interpret cover as you like. Bring to a boil and drain. Repeat three times, for a total of four boilings. Then cover them in water once again, add a ton of sugar (the recipe I use says 2 1/2 cups for 4 grapefruit peels; I put in between 1 1/2 and 3 cups depending not very strongly on how many fruits I used), bring to a boil, and simmer for 2 hours. Put them in jars with syrup and store in the fridge until you're ready to eat them. At that point, I like to drain them on a wire rack for about 16 hours and then roll them in granulated sugar. They're delicious and look pretty, too. You can eat them straight from the syrup if you want, too.
Thing 2: Meyer lemon curd
My aunt has a Meyer lemon tree, and for Christmas she gave me several lemons. They are plump and juicy, and the peel is really flavorful too. I have been using them in all my usual lemon places and finding reasons to use them. For dessert at Christmas dinner, she made a tart with a pie crust, lemon curd, and fresh fruit, and it was wonderful. I got the recipe from her and made myself up some lemon curd. It only uses 2/3 cup of lemon juice (about one Meyer lemon), but the lemon flavor is really strong. Here is the recipe:
4 Tbs unsalted butter, room temp
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks
2/3 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tsp grated lemon zest
In large bowl of mixer, beat butter and sugar about 2 minutes. Slowly add the eggs and yolk. Beat for 1 minute, should be thick and cream colored. Mix in lemon juice. The mixture may look curdled, but will smooth out as it cooks. In a medium saucepan, cook over low hear until it looks smooth-any curdled appearance disappears. Increase the heat to medium and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and reaches 170 deg. F. Do not let it boil. It will take about 15 minutes and should leave a path on the back of a spoon. Remove from hear, stir in lemon zest. Transfer to a bowl. Press plastic wrap on top and chill.
The recipe worked perfectly, and the curd is delicious. I like to eat it on vanilla ice cream with blueberries, or just with blueberries.
Thing 3: Paneer
I sometimes make paneer, which is a very simple, mild cheese, when I have leftover milk. It's a good amount of work, but it's really cool to watch chemistry in action in the kitchen. It's very simple to make. Just take a bunch of milk (over 1/2 gallon is preferable because most of it becomes whey, which you will probably discard), bring it to a boil, stirring constantly, over high heat. Add a dilute solution of vinegar until the milk starts to curdle. Pour into cheesecloth-lined strainer or small-holed colander, push as much whey out as you can, and let cool. The harder you push, the harder and more stick-together-y your cheese is. I used mine in Indian food on Tuesday night. It doesn't have much flavor, but the texture is really neat, and it tastes a little fatty and rich.
Thing 4: Toasted almond meringue bowls
Since the lemon curd called for two egg yolks, I had two egg whites sitting around, so I decided to make something with them. I thought it would be cool to make something that could hold some lemon curd, so I decided to make little meringue cookies shaped like bowls so they could hold the curd. I used Mark Bittman's meringue recipe and folded in some finely ground almonds at the end because I like lemon and almond together and it seemed less boring. I don't have a stand mixer, and it nearly killed my hand-held mixer. The motor kept making sad motor sounds and slowing down, and for a while I was worried that I'd never get stiff peaks. I think I added my sugar too quickly and it kind of overloaded it. I was worried that my peaks were never really stiff, but they baked up with a really nice, light, crunchy texture, so I guess I did just fine. I was really impressed with how much volume egg whites have when you whip them up. Two egg whites and 1/2 cup of sugar (and small amounts of other ingredients) made a dozen or so fairly substantial meringue bowls. So the bowls are really tasty, but I think that their flavor is too subtle to be appreciated with lemon curd. The curd is really tart and aggressive, so you can't really taste the nice toasted almond flavor. But overall, a success, especially considering I wasn't even planning on making it at the beginning of the evening.
Thing 5: Mysuostur (Brown Icelandic Whey Cheese)
I said that people generally discard whey, but you don't have to. I had heard that some cheeses are made of whey, and a google search led me to this website: http://icecook.blogspot.com/2007/08/brown-whey-cheese-mysuostur.html
Always up for a new culinary adventure, I decided to give it a go. It took a LONG time for the whey to reduce by 2/3, and when I added the other ingredients, it seemed like nothing was happening for a LONG time. Jon wanted me to give up on it, but I stuck with it until it started to thicken. I didn't really know how long to let it thicken, and I think I let it go too long because I would not describe mine as a "soft, spreadable cheese". When in the fridge, it gets as hard as a rock, so I have to microwave it to get it spreadable and then eat it really quickly before it gets too sticky. The taste is interesting. It is definitely very caramel-y but also a bit salty and tangy. I kind of want to try it again because I think I'll know to take it off sooner, but it was also a giant pain, so I might not. Does anyone know anything else good to do with whey? It seems like a shame to waste it.
So my evening ended up being very busy, but cooking makes me really happy, so I was glad I spent it that way. My Meyer lemon amaretto sour, which is currently my drink of choice, didn't hurt things at all.
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January 3rd, 2009
02:59 pm - Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
I finished Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman on New Year's Day. I guess he's some pop culture critic. Jon read a bunch of his books recently, so I wanted to see what they were like. It was OK. I felt very strange sometimes while reading it because he talked about a lot of pop culture stuff with which I am not familiar, but the way he says it, it's like everyone knows who these people are. Some of it was entertaining or maybe even insightful, but a lot of it just seemed kind of pathetic. Caring too much about pop culture seems pathetic to me. I guess that's what makes me an elitist. There were little "interludes" between the chapters that were often pretty fun. I don't think I'll read any more of his books. After about 75 pages, I just wanted it to be over.
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January 1st, 2009
03:13 pm - J. S. Bach
A couple days ago, I finished my bast book of the year, J. S. Bach by Paul Hindemith. I picked it up in a Half Price Books about a year ago because I like both of those composers. It seems to be a speech that Hindemith gave at some Bach anniversary event. It's always nice to be reminded that no matter how experimental and jarringly modern their music is, almost all musicians and composers love Bach and believe that he wrote the most perfect music imaginable. Hindemith talks a little bit about how we have built Bach an undeserved pedestal and that he was just a person, but he also venerates him appropriately.
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December 31st, 2008
11:24 am - End-of-year meme
I stole this from dsch.
1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
Many things but nothing profound.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I basically kept my resolution to floss my teeth every day. I probably missed 15 days or so due to forgetting the floss on a trip or being really tired.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but a lot of people seem to be getting pregnant. I'm especially happy for Chris and Renee.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
A close friend in grad school lost her brother, and that has been on my mind a lot.
5. What countries did you visit?
Canada (Vancouver and Victoria). I also visited some states: Rhode Island, New York (twice), Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Washington.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
A metal spatula so Jon will shut up about how we need to get one. A theorem.
7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I failed my advanced exam on July 15. I passed it on August 27. Jon and I started the moving process on August 11.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Passing my advanced exam.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Not working more diligently on math after passing the exam.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I had a bad cold for the first few days of 2008.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Just Raspberries.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Jon's, as usual. My family was on very good behavior over both Thanksgiving and Christmas.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
A couple school friends.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Rent, food.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
The symphony on September 26.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
Not sure.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Probably happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? Probably the same.
iii. richer or poorer? Not sure. Rent is slightly higher now, but I'm pretty good at saving.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Thought about singularities of harmonic maps between positive-genus Riemann surfaces.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Procrastination. Worrying. (Answer accurate but stolen from dsch.)
20. How did you spend Christmas?
We left Houston at 10:20 and got to my grandmother's house in Dallas around 2:20. We opened presents and ate Christmas dinner with my grandparents, parents, sister, aunt, uncle, and cousins. My cousins and Jon taught me and Rachel how to play Texas hold 'em. Then Jon and I went to watch the Mavs game with high school friends. The next day we did Christmas with my mom's parents and hung out with friends again. We also went to a wedding and saw more family and friends while we were in Dallas.
21. So nice of you to ask a deep question here...
22. Did you fall in love in 2008?
No. But I stayed in love.
23. How many one-night stands?
None.
24. What was your favorite TV program?
Lost. It was also my only TV program.
25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
I'm not a hater.
26. What was the best book you read?
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving.
27. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Not sure.
28. What did you want and get?
Ramekins.
30. What was your favorite film of this year?
Get Smart was a lot of fun. The Dark Knight was really good too.
31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 25. It was a Saturday, so I played frisbee in the morning. Then Jon and I threw a housewarming birthday party that evening. It was pretty fun.
32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A theorem.
33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Jeans and a t-shirt. Sometimes jeans and a polo shirt. I did some more sewing this year, so I also wore a bathrobe I made a lot. My favorite outfit of the year was the dress I wore to the wedding. It is deep red and fits me perfectly because I made it. I wore it with black flats, a black cardigan, and a silver and black necklace.
34. What kept you sane?
Jon's love and encouragement. Cooking.
35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
John Lithgow. I got his autograph after seeing him in All My Sons on Broadway.
36. What political issue stirred you the most?
Am I a bad citizen if I don't really have an answer? I'm glad there is no chance Sarah Palin will be president in the next four years, but I didn't get too worked up about politics this year.
37. Whom did you miss?
I'm not sure. I saw a lot of friends this year. I wish I had gotten to see Jo more.
38. Who was the best new person you met?
Elena the new post-doc is pretty great. She is good at frisbee and sent me a postcard. I met many of Jon's relatives. They are all good people.
39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008:
Failure is possible. The world keeps going with or without me.
40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
No thanks.
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December 29th, 2008
12:05 am - The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Yesterday night I started and finished The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling. First, a note on the physical book. It is very short, the type is large, and there are only sixteen lines of text on each pages with rather narrow margins. Clearly she's a creative lady and could have written more stories. It just looks scammy. Maybe she was going for a younger demographic? Anyway, the stories are OK. The fake notes by Dumbledore are odd but cute. The stories themselves are typical fairy tales. They're fun because it's fun to imagine living in the wizarding world. It's a good book to read on Christmas break if your mom happens to have a copy in the house already.
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December 28th, 2008
11:54 pm - M. Butterfly
A couple days ago I read the play M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang. It won a Tony in 1988, and John Lithgow played the lead on Broadway. (He and I have a cosmic connection: I got his autograph once.) It is a wordy play, not an actiony play. It is based on a true story and set in the mind of a French ambassador who used to work in China and is now in prison for giving secrets to a spy who was his lover and secretly a man. He is a Madame Butterfly fan, and the way he tells his story has it parallel the opera. The play talks a lot about treatment of women and oriental fetishism. I liked the play. It managed not to sound dated. A few times that it could have, it was satirizing the character who talked like that. The story is, of course, titillating, but that's part of what kept my attention. I felt sorry for the main character but not too sorry, which I thought was just right.
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December 24th, 2008
04:37 pm - books 2008 in review
So far this year I have read 36 books, not counting the books I read for the math department children's book club. It's possible I will read one or two more before the year ends since I'm on break right now. This is definitely the least-booky year I can remember. I have enjoyed writing about my reading, although I often feel like I have nothing to say. It gets me writing, and as I'm reading, I often think about what I will write, which keeps me more engaged. I plan on continuing this. I am also going to try to read the stuff I've been putting off because it's intimidating, which means that next year might be low in number of books read, but hopefully I will expand my mind more than I would have otherwise. I also want to tackle the shelf of books to reread. I have trouble doing that because even though I want to reread them, I have so many books I haven't read the first time yet. I like having systems, so I might try to read two new ones and then one old one or something like that. Or maybe I'll have the first new book of the month be a reread. We'll see.
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04:29 pm - The Keep
I finished The Keep by Jennifer Egan today. I started it on Monday. It is not a great book, but it was quite entertaining, and I really wanted to keep reading it. I liked that characters ended up not being who I thought they were, both because they matured and because initial impressions can be misleading. Egan uses two first-person narrators over the course of the book, and one of them is also a third-person omniscient narrator, and I think she navigates it very well. After reading two chapters, I told Jon, who has already read it, that I thought the book definitely had the potential to make me think Jennifer Egan was a wanker, but I did not think that. I don't want to give away too much of the plot because the joy of the book is watching it all unfold, so I will just say that it was interesting and engaging. Very good school vacation reading.
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03:28 pm - Shostakovich: A Life
After reading two books in the middle of October, I didn't finish another one until a few days ago. It was Shostakovich: A Life by Laurel Fay. In part, this was because I started and stopped a couple other books first, which is rare for me, and in part because it was a much slower read for me than most books are. It's clearly meticulously researched, which sounds like a no-brainer for a biography, but it sounds like it was quite difficult because of the secrecy that surrounded everything done by the Soviets during his lifetime. The book is 488 pages, of which 286 are the text itself. There is also a very long Notes section, a glossary of people, a chronology of works, and an index. I read the notes that had content and not just a citation.
Reading the biography definitely made me realize what an important political figure Shostakovich was. For most of his life, he really was the face of the official party position on the arts. He was famously censured and accused of formalism for one of his operas as a young man, and there were occasionally other works that were sabotaged by the authorities, but his public remarks were mostly pro-government. Of course, we want to believe he was a secret dissident, and deep down he clearly didn't agree with government telling artists how they should create art, but he basically did everything in his power to get on their good side instead of standing up to them. I don't want to use the word coward because I have no right to judge people living under such an oppressive regime for doing what they had to do to stay alive. It is a little disappointing, though, because we want our heroes, and Shostakovich is definitely one of my musical heroes, to be heroic. He was just a man, and a sickly, shy, scared one at that.
I really enjoyed the section about the 13th symphony, Babi Yar, because I had seen Yevtushchenko, the poet, in September, so that symphony was in the front of my mind when I was reading the book. I also think the book did a good job putting the music in context. Now when I listen to different works, I have some idea of whether he had recently been censured, whether it was an occasional piece written for an official Soviet holiday, or what. I have recently come to realize that while all Shostakovich sounds like Shostakovich, there are many, many different manifestations.
I found the book somewhat dry, but I didn't mind it. I like to feel like I am given facts. Too much prettying them up and talking about emotions makes me feel like someone's trying to sell me something. I got the impression that Fay was trying to write an objective story of his life and act as a corrective to both the "official" Soviet version of his life and the "he was always a dissident" version portrayed in Volkov's "Testimony". I did wish there had been more music talk, but this was about the history, not the music. Much of the book was about the fact that the real story is somewhat hidden by the official Soviet story and that Shostakovich was a very private man. I am sorry that we will never know what was really going on in his mind.
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