A late 'Merry Christmas', and then I'm off to Chicago

Well, this is yet another week away from the cornfield. I worry a little about the plants I've left behind, but two of the three are cacti, and the third is ivy, so hopefully they'll all be alive when I return.

Although I've been unable to water my plants on a weekly basis, I have been able to do plenty of baking and cooking, repeating the potato cheese bread I made over Thanksgiving and whipping up plenty of cookies for my family. After all, this week the calories don't count. Or, at least, that's what I tell myself as I promise to start swimming laps with my friends in January.

And, in keeping with tradition, I made my own project cookies, or, at least, something from the book. So in addition to all the other junk food we already had, we now have gingerbread white chocolate blondies (26). These are basically like chocolate chip cookie bars, but with all the gingerbread spices: ground ginger, cloves, cinnamon... and, of course, lots of molasses. Oh, right, and white chocolate instead of semi-sweet. Tasty.

I shared a bunch of these with my family, and I'll be taking the rest with me to Chicago tomorrow to share with my friends.

So why am I going to Chicago tomorrow? The reason is simple: I'm going to attend this conference. It's a conference for Christian Graduate students, which is very exciting to me because when I went to Urbana (a conference in St. Louis) as an undergrad, I felt left out from the focus because of my academic aspirations. After all, working in a lab or teaching Physics isn't an obvious way to do God's work. But it still is what I'm called to do right now.

I am excited, but I'm also a little concerned. Graduate students tend to be too smart for their own good, and so I worry that people will be too concerned with facts and searching out knowledge instead of wisdom. We'll have to see, though. I think that I should definitely pray instead of wasting my energy worrying.


We'll have cookies again next week, on or slightly before schedule, depending on when I decide to do my next leg of travel.

In the meanwhile, safe travels to all and I hope you're having great vacations!

Pause for breath

Yes, I realize it's been three weeks since I've posted. Oops? I tend to put too much thought into things like this, and so when I haven't the time to think, I forget to post.

I did, however, make my cookies as I planned, and even took pictures of them!

My three-weeks-ago cookies were chocolate with white chocolate chips, shredded coconut, and walnuts (9). When I first made them (since I like to brave the risk of salmonella and taste the dough), I was concerned that the white chocolate would make the whole thing taste too rich, but after they were cooked, and especially after the flavors were able to mingle for a day, the taste came together nicely.

That weekend was also the first time I had to grade quizzes for the classes I TA, so perhaps the brain-numbing nature of that experience is what kept me from posting. In fact, I graded last weekend too and didn't post. This weekend I did laundry yesterday and have yet to do my grading. I'm sure after I get to it I'll lose all will to have a life for the rest of the day.

I exaggerate a little, but grading can be a real challenge. My hope is that I can be an effective teacher and that my students will understand the stuff they're supposed to understand. While I realize not everyone keeps up (or makes the effort? I'm not sure), I still feel a little sad when quizzes are really tricky and when people do poorly on them. Clearly, I need to get over this or else I'll never be able to be real teacher.


But that was a few weeks ago. Last week I deviated a little from my egg/baking soda based recipes, to make citrus cornmeal shortbread (10). It's amazing to me that the taste of shortbread depends on the quality of butter and vanilla you use. After making it and seeing that it pretty much is all butter, the idea becomes less amazing, and the cookies go on my list of things I really shouldn't be eating. This particular recipe also has some cornmeal involved, and orange zest, which really makes for a fantastic taste. These cookies were so dense, and the flavor reminded me of the shortbread cookies you buy from the store.. which I guess is good, or at least a little nostalgic.

In addition to grading last weekend, my mind was occupied with questions about what it means to be a Christian and a Physicist... Not that most scientists don't claim some kinds of religious beliefs, but I've been thinking of it more on a personal level - so, things about keeping up spiritual discipline, and how to be humble and to serve God while I'm doing problem sets and research. It's been helpful that I'm currently reading C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, which spends a lot of time discussing morality and the motivations for it (for atheists, agnostics, and Christians), as well as talking about how the Bible calls for Christians to live on fairly practical level. I'm finding that reading this book really challenges me to be intentional with pretty much all aspects of my life, and it just helps keep me focused.

And so that bring me up to this week, where yesterday turned into a mix of excessive baking and excessive laundry. My normally scheduled baking consisted of the ginger cheesecake bars (11) pictured on the right. There's finely chopped candied ginger in the cheesecake part of the bars, and the crust is composed of ground up ginger snaps and butter. Yes, you read that correctly, these cookies (well, bars) are cannibalistic. I like ginger, so while this isn't my absolute favorite recipe, I enjoy its kick.

I also took some time to whip up bran muffin batter and bake a dozen muffins, but that's from a family recipe and they're for personal use. Thankfully, the batter keeps in the fridge for up to six weeks. Now I'll have muffins available for breakfast or whatever when I need them. And if it gets close to six weeks, I can always bake the muffins and freeze them for later use.


Overall, life is kind of like a hamster wheel right now - the moment I finish a problem set there's another to do, as soon as one week of teaching is over I have to move on to next week's planning, and I bake on Saturdays. I think it's manageable right now, and I'm pretty happy as long as I don't fall behind. We'll have to see what else gets added in as I get involved in GCF and in the community at church.

it's not about aptitude, it's the way you're viewed...

I will begin this post by promising that I am not baking cookies so I can be popular. I will also promise that I will not start doing Kristen Chenoweth yodels, if only because I am not a coloratura.

Classes here begin this Monday, so I have been savoring my free time. This fall I am taking two upper-level undergraduate courses and a graduate-level course, plus teaching three sections of Physics 101, which is about as basic as it sounds. My courseload is somewhat heavy for a TA, but I'll survive, as I always do.

It turns out that this year I am sharing a grad student office with two other first-year women. We have decided to make an effort to make our office more comfortable. So far this has meant getting rid of a desk and purchasing a coffee maker from the YMCA garage sale thing. Next weekend we'll probably try to find a small sofa. Right now we're having some difficulty with people coming by to hang out in our office (it's good because I like people but it's bad because it makes work nearly impossible), so it might become harder to be productive when there's a couch.

Oh, right, and another reason why too many people will come by next Monday is that I made cookies (7)! These tasty morsels are made with a basic cookie dough (flour, sugar, eggs, butter...), and then have white chocolate chips, sweetened flaked coconut, old fashioned oats, chopped walnuts, and golden raisins added in. I have to admit that this recipe called for a little more elbow grease than is typical of a cookie recipe. It was worth it, though: I usually don't like nuts or raisins in my cookies but the blend of all the ingredients is phenomenal. In any other cookie I think the white chocolate would be too rich, but the coconut and oats really beef up the cookie such that the chocolate is a nice addition. Plus I can lie and say that they're healthy, because there's raisins!


I think that's about it for now... I should get to sleep so that I can continue my church shopping in the morning. I know there was something I was thinking about a couple days ago that I wanted to post here, but I've forgotten it. If you're lucky, I might post my thoughts about church shopping. Or TAing, although FERPA forbids me from referring to actual students (by name, at least.. I've got to check those rules out).