If you are not familiar with the Chicago weather right now, it’s cold. Today’s high stayed in the negative Farenheit. We appropriately taught a thermal lab today, Ideal Gas Law stuff. We used snow for ice. The chem department was also in need of ice and did the same. Great minds think alike? Share on [...]

My grad school classmates this year have no idea that I am a Middle Eastern dancer. Why? I’m not very close to them, and I think some of them will be misinformed and unfortunately will not try to be more informed and thus, will think poorly of me. Although I am not at all ashamed [...]

As my first small workshop this year, I went to Sonya of Arabesque to learn how to choreograph. I went, because I don’t really know how to choreograph and because Sonya is excellent at it. I thought the workshop was great, even if it involved no dancing. Sonya had us all introduce ourselves. I thought [...]

I stepped into the Complex Fluids lab yesterday for the first time as a research student. After getting a lay of the land, I got to see the microscope. Evidently, it’s powerful enough to see viruses; I want to bring in my bread starter (I’ve started making bread) to see what I can see. We [...]

Today, I took my oldest (now senior!) cat to the vet. Since I’m still sick and already feeling a teensy bit behind (3 problem sets have been handed out, one being due Monday another being due Wednesday, and the third being due Thursday), I wasn’t in the most pleasant mood. Neither was my girl cat. [...]

I keep looking at the Chicago MECDA calendar in hopes of workshops. There has only been 1 workshop posted between now and April. I think last year there were workshops posted at least once per month. It’s good for my wallet, but I hoped to attend as many workshops as possible, since I can’t make [...]

Bad News I’m sick again. We went to Wicker Park a week or two ago (when the weather was nice but windy), and I think we just got sick from the rapidly changing weather and walking around outside in the wind. I have an earache, my nose is running like it’s in the Olympics, and [...]

I like to see how people find their way to my blog. Yesterday, one of the search terms was “burn out physics grad school”. Since I feel a little bad the person didn’t probably find what s/he was looking for and that it’s an important topic, I thought that I’d address it today. So you’re [...]

I’ve been on a bit of an Aziza kick lately. I checked out what I believe is the only other Aziza DVD, Aziza’s Ultimate Bellydance Pratice Companion. This DVD offers mostly a good workout. I wouldn’t use this to “learn” Middle Eastern dance (I still thoroughly believe in using DVDs as a supplement to class), [...]

I’m not an expert, but I have been watching/playing with a lot of fusion stuff. When someone brings up what is good fusion, the most successful fusion pieces I’ve seen Blend the moves well together. I’ve occasionally seen people perform fusion dances that do 1 minute of Dance Form A, then 1 min of Dance [...]