Stand up! (& belly dance)

18 February 2011, 6:12 am by Giggles
Categories: Education, Exercise, Health, Learn Something, Work

Clear back the beginning of January I read this article on Scientific American – Can sitting too much kill you? Apparently it’s not just how much exercise you do or do not get that affects your health, but how often you get it and how long you spend sitting. Go ahead, read the article, see if you don’t stand up to at least just stand up at the end. I did.

So I started thinking about the class I was going to be teaching. It starts at 12:45 and ends at 3:30. That’s a very long time to be sitting. Add to that time the time they spend in their other class of the day from 8:00 to 12:00. That is a LOT of sitting in a day for them. And according to that article, their class schedule is killing them. And that’s just not nice.

As I was planning my first class (in which we would be covering all of chapter one and about half of chapter two), I decided that we were going to have three or four 30 second “breathing breaks” during the class. I even made a little countdown graphic to keep us within 30 seconds (it sits at zero for several seconds and then restarts if I don’t change the slide soon enough). I put it at different pausing points in my lecture slides to remind me that we need to take them so I don’t just keep going and going Energizer bunny style.

The rule for a breathing break is they can do anything but sit at their desk. They have to stand up. They can stand there. They can stretch. They can walk around. But they can’t sit.

The first day of the semester when I was introducing myself I told them that I enjoy belly dancing. During one of the breaks on the first day I was teaching they said it would be fun if I taught them some belly dancing during the breaks (it’s all females in the class). I decided that was definitely a possibility.

Now each breathing break has a belly dancing skill suggestion that they can try if they want but they don’t have to if they don’t want to. According to the comments they’ve made, this also makes me a very memorable teacher.

Breathing Break Belly Dancing Suggestions so far, in case you need some ideas while you aren’t sitting there:

  • Write your name with your right shoulder
  • Write your name with your left shoulder
  • Half circles with your hips to the front
  • Half circles with your hips to the back
  • Full circles with your hips, both clockwise and counter-clockwise
  • Forward figure 8s (scoop right hip forward, scoop left hip forward, repeat)
  • Backward figure 8s (push right hip back, push left hip back, repeat)
  • Downwards vertical figure 8s (lift right hip and drop, lift left hip and drop, repeat)
  • Upwards vertical figure 8s (scoop right hip up, scoop left hip up, repeat)

Next week we’ll be writing our names with our hips.

It truly is amazing how often belly dancing is used in my life. 😀

Go ahead. Take a break. Breath. Reconnect. Center. Maybe do some belly dancing to help your body not be so stiff. Just don’t sit for too long!

9 Shared thoughts

Go Watson!

16 February 2011, 5:09 pm by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech

:computer: I have thoroughly enjoyed Jeopardy the last three days in which a computer that understands natural language was playing against Ken Jennings and Brad somebody. Watson, while making some hilarious mistakes, did very well. I realized this afternoon, as I was super excited to come home and watch the final day of the game, that I could watch Watson answer questions for a couple of hours. And I’m not sure what that says about me. :what:

My own foray into AI was fifteen years ago when I programmed a computer to play Battleship, and it started beating me. While that was pretty good for my own level of computer programming, it was nothing compared to what we saw this week. And it definitely helps me appreciate the complexity of the problem of getting a computer to understand natural language, puns, jokes, and all that people just naturally pick up on. It’s a huge step even to get a computer to this level that we are watching this week. And it’s fun.

Some fun articles from Wired about the match:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1c7s7-3fXI

2 Shared thoughts

Elementary Valentine’s Day

14 February 2011, 4:21 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Food, Happy Things, Work

First, let me get this out of the way.

Now, on to the other stuff.

Elementary school has to be one of the best places to celebrate Valentine’s Day. You get to make a cool envelope for your valentines. You get valentines from everyone, including that cute boy/girl you’ve been having a kid crush on (I always hope that the little red headed girl gave valentines to her whole class, including Charlie Brown). There’s no pressure for presents or having someone special. It’s all candy and paper hearts. That’s the way to celebrate.

Technically I am in an elementary school again now. On Thursdays I go out to an elementary school where a cohort of elementary ed. students are taking their classes and I teach them. It’s really great, highlight of my week. Today they were having a Valentine’s pot luck during their lunch break. They decorated the room and made their envelopes during their lunch break last week. Unfortunately I had meetings and office hours on campus during that time, but I did take the opportunity to make some cupcakes for them, using my brand new baking pan.

Mitali was a real sweetheart and sent me this sweetheart rose pan because I guessed the pie chart flags on her blog. I seriously spent about 20 minutes going through the “flag” page on wikipedia trying to figure out those last two. I was expecting a small prize, so the big box really threw me. But it’s wonderful. I’m already thinking of other things I could make in the shape of rose buds.

I took in two plates like this:

and made little cards that wished my “budding” teachers a happy Valentine’s, because I’m just clever like that. :apple:

Brett and I are celebrating later in the week. It just makes more sense. A crowded noisy restaurant is just not that romantic. Plus I’ve seen 1 dozen roses that were selling for $10 last week anywhere from $15-$18 today.

2 Shared thoughts

Beans!

13 February 2011, 7:29 pm by Giggles
Categories: Food

I’ve done it. I’ve figured out Brazilian black beans in the pressure cooker. And nothing has blown up yet!

  • wash beans
  • soak beans for about three hours
  • roast diced onion and garlic in the bottom of the pressure cooker with olive oil (the olive oil, aside from adding flavor, keeps the skins of the beans from breaking up and clogging the pressure valve)
  • put in beans and three cups water for each cup dry beans
  • add bay leaves (and sausage, but I don’t do that every time)
  • bring to pressure with medium heat and let sit at pressure for 6-8 minutes
  • remove from heat and let pressure drop

I could do it without soaking them too if I let it sit at pressure longer. And if I do a quick release of the pressure I have to let it cook longer too. But I figure the natural release gives me time to get the rice finished.

Then I found a recipe on NPR for collard greens to go with them. Yum!

Now to find a recipe for farofa and I’m set.

Beans and rice. Mmmm. Good stuff.

5 Shared thoughts

Sewing in 2010

8 February 2011, 4:45 pm by Giggles
Categories: Old Jeans, Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting

Last year when I was setting my goals I decided I wanted to finish more old sewing projects than I started new ones. I have so many UFOs (un-finished objects) from when I worked at Hancock that I don’t need to spend money to get my sewing/creative fix. I just need to get better at finishing things I started. That’s not to say things don’t come up in the sewing world, because they do, and I was going to allow for that, but I needed to start crossing things off my list instead of just adding them to my list.

And I did it!

Here’s how the projects worked out:

2010 Old Projects

  1. :check: Swim Suit – For our honeymoon I made myself a swim suit. I bought the fabric in 2009 so it counts as an old project. I’m still not the greatest at sewing stretchy materials. I haven’t found the right combination of thread and needle yet. So if you look at the inside of it, it doesn’t look that great, but when I’m wearing it you can’t see the seams so it’s just fine. No pictures of this project. Sorry.
  2. :check: Messenger bag – I needed/wanted a new bag that would fit my netbook better. I’m doing as much as I can with school paperless now and a smaller bag works better. Plus my mom got me ten yards of black corduroy several years ago (I’ve already made a jacket and skirt out of it, and I’ll be making at least one more bag with it eventually too). I shrunk down a larger pattern (McCalls 5824) and added a few more pockets. I really like it.
  3. :check: Pumpkin fleece blanket – I’ve had the brown hemmed for this for forever. So one evening I pulled it out and sat down and finally cut out the pumpkin, leaves, and vines. I sewed it together the next afternoon. It looks great over our couch in the fall.
  4. :check: Tree fleece blanket – This one is double layered. Green on one side white on the other, making it extra warm. For the tree I sewed the shape and then very carefully cut the pieces out of the white fabric and then stitched them to the other side. So it’s a green tree on white background on one side and a white tree on a green background on the other. I bought the fleece for both the pumpkin and tree blankets four to five years ago.
  5. :check: Names on stockings – I did this the morning we flew to Indiana for Christmas. The trick was figuring out how to transfer the writing to the fabric so I didn’t have to free hand it. I think they look great. I added the gold and silver ricrack around the cuff this year too. It serves a functional purpose.
  6. :check: Post cards – I made a set for birthdays. Most of them ended up with a plaid background. I had a lot of fun doing the backgrounds. It’s just different widths and lengths of zig-zag stitches and other decorative stitches to make the patterns.

2010 New Projects

  1. Halloween costumes – We ended up being out of town for our ward’s Halloween party last year and so didn’t really need costumes. But I have everything for them now and I’ll get them made for this year. This is the only project I started in 2010 and didn’t finish.
  2. :check: Back door curtains – To keep things from fading so fast in our back room. The magnetic curtain rods made this project super easy. As did the fact that the window areas are roughly half the size of the width of the fabric. So all I did was put a pocket at the top, left the sides as the selvage edges, and then at the bottom I sewed a tiny decorative stitch and then frayed the bottom quarter inch of the fabric. Ta-da! Not the fanciest of curtains, but perfect for what we needed.
  3. :check: Luggage tags – Because Brett had basically already figured out everything he was getting for Christmas and ruined it in my mind, I needed to do something to surprise him. And since his work was thinking about sending him on a business trip this year, I decided personalized luggage tags (which I’d wanted to make for a while anyway) would be fun. I used old jeans for the denim and then bought bias tape (skinny for around the plastic and thick for the loop) and the plastic. They were super easy to do and I had a lot of fun personalizing them too. I basically used this pattern, but I edged my plastic with the bias tape before sewing the three sides down. This one I put his initials on the back. The other one I did a turtle, but that one is already on his suitcase.
  4. :check: Book Bag – I made a draw string back-pack for my nephew for Christmas so he can put books and things in. I don’t have a picture of that project either.

I’m trying the same thing this year. So far I’ve finished my red jacket. I’ve thought of one or two new projects I need to make this year (birthdays, Christmas, etc.), so that’s more incentive to finish even more old projects.

6 Shared thoughts

Beauty for a Sunday

6 February 2011, 6:21 pm by Giggles
Categories: Happy Things

I just thought I’d share some of the beautiful things that have come across my internets recently on this beautiful Sunday.

And this piece of music is so pretty and calming. And then there’s the beautiful drawings to go with it that are part of the music.

There is beauty all around.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.
Genesis 1:31

3 Shared thoughts

Tragedy! (and then it got better)

5 February 2011, 9:36 pm by Giggles
Categories: Science & Tech, Work

While we dealt with no heat and hot water on Thursday and Friday, there was another tragedy of modern proportions at our house, my lap top had crashed! The horror! 😯

It crashed while we were eating dinner on the 24th. It was fine when I left it to go prepare tacos so we could watch Chuck. After Chuck was over my computer wouldn’t boot. Sad day. Very sad. 😥

I took it in to be repaired the very next day (and bought kitchen chairs) and they told me it would generally take 5-7 days. I had high hopes I’d still be able to get all of my data off it. Luck for me my brother-in-law had introduced me to Drop Box and the files I desperately needed in the meantime were safely sitting there and I could access them from any computer with an internet connection. There were a few files I hadn’t backed up and didn’t put in Drop Box though that would be wonderful if I could get back, I’ll know better next time.

:apple: To make things difficult, I need my lap top to teach with on Thursdays. We went old school on the 27th and used the white board (there was a chalk board too I could’ve used, but it would’ve required moving the tables in front of it). And I crossed my fingers I’d have it back before class on the 3rd.

I called on the 29th and they hadn’t started diagnosing it. Still hoping I could pick it up before the 3rd. They called me on the 1st and told me the hard drive was dead and they were going to start transfering my files (yea!) to a new one and make sure that worked. I called Thursday morning to see if I could come pick it up already. Nope. So I winged it teaching on Thursday as well.

:computer: Today. Today they called and said it was ready and I could come pick it up. And now it’s back home with me and I’m typing this post on it at our kitchen table (with above mentioned new kitchen chairs). They gave me my old hard drive back so that I know that my data is not just out there somewhere. I mentioned making a coaster out of it and the guy said I could do some kind of ornament. Don’t even tempt me. We have ornaments made from old CD-Roms on our Christmas tree. I will do it.

So the lesson learned is back-up your files (seriously, get Drop Box! (and use that link and we both get free space)). And know how to wing it.

And now I can show Grover again in my classes. 😀 (I can’t really do this justice on a white board.)

2 Shared thoughts