Right Now

So as I type, I sit here in the astronomy lab waiting on students to show up and finish their make-up labs that they've missed. The apathy on show is quite remarkable, as people that have 4 or 5 labs missing just won't show up to finish them. It's not like they're going to pass with a 60 or anything. They're going to get an incomplete and have to either take this class over or take another science credit since these always serve as electives. Oh well, it's not really my problem that people could care less about their education. They'll just regret it in a few weeks when end of term grades come out and they don't quite get to move forward like they thought they would.

Reading a post like Philip's where the weather reached 80 degrees, I wonder if they would enjoy a cold snap like we've had here. It's been in the 20's overnight, lots of wind, and little sun. Not exactly my idea of what spring should be. Then again, I guess there's always the "Blizzard of '93" that came even later in the year and had us out of school for a week with the huge snowfall amounts. All I've got to say is that if it's this cold for a week in the middle of April, at least send us some snow to have some fun in.

The week that should have been progress in the lab turned out to be quite anti-climactic. After fixing the problem with the machine, another problem with the computer came up in that I couldn't run the program that controls everything. So most of Friday was spent attempting to fix things in LabView only to be continually stifled in those attempts. I emailed my supervisor who is in China, and through the wonder of the internet and remote connecting, he was able to solve the problem and hopefully fix everything that I couldn't. If there's something that I hope doesn't happen this week, it's that something else doesn't break on me. If everything stays good, I should have some good data by the end of the week. Here's hoping.

Tonight my middle school team is back in action. The A-team won their game last Thursday 2-0. I think that we've kinda figured out a good formation for them to use that gets our good players in positions to make plays and puts our supporting players in places where they can excel. It's essentially a 3-4-1-2 (in soccer, you don't specify the keeper, and you start from the defenders and work forward) giving our better dribblers the middle of the field and putting some people in the middle of the park where a lot of teams are still prone to go. Tonight will be a good test of it as we'll be playing a team that's pretty good, so we'll get to see how well it works out in a little bit more strenuous environment. The B-team lost 3-0 but played well, showing hustle and winning balls in the air. I was quite impressed with their performance, except for the inability to do a throw in correctly. I think we had about 6 turn-overs on throw in mistakes. How sad is that? That has got to be corrected today.

The riddle of the day is Coenobita Confusion:

I love to climb up high in trees,
digging holes, and feeling the breeze.
I eat eggs, apples, carrots, meat,
even peanut butter, is a treat.
Around the world, my kin are found.
"Chirping" is our signature sound.

So, what am I?

Also, I don't know how many of you have seen any books on visual tricks, but they are generally quite impressive. Take a look, and see what you think of this picture. If you're confused, use your mouse to trace out one of the spirals. You may be surprised by what happens.

At any rate, I'm not in to my last 2 hours of teaching lab as a TA, so I should probably go help the student who just showed up. Oh, and props to Josh and Amber. Congrats guys.