MIT Open Course Ware

It is entirely possible that I have blogged about this before and can't remember...but I have spent a bit of time looking at yet another very exciting website. MIT has put the syllabus online for pretty much all of their courses at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm through MIT open course ware. This means you can basically take any of the courses that MIT offers. Say you wanted to teach yourself Differential Equations?? You could go on, download the course, buy the textbooks and take the test that MIT students have to to take. I remember coming across the site about six months ago and thinking it was very cool - but I haven't really taken a look at it until now (because I was too busy with real school). I think any nerd like me couldn't help but get very excited about the possibilities of self education through this program. It makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. Tonight, I downloaded both Major Poets and Introduction to Cancer Biology.

On the homefront, we are all getting very geared up for Christmas; my family is coming over on Sunday and then we will spend Christmas Day with Ariel's family. Ariel has been reading the Christmas story to the kids each night and then letting them open up a stocking stuffer. If I can get off in time, I think I am going to take the kids to the local Methodist Church's Family Christmas Service. We don't have a regular church and I happen to be missing some of the traditions this year.

Whom to Vote For?

I passed my final exams, the kids are asleep, and thanks to a brilliant suggestion by my friend Matt to use Google Reader, I am finding myself with an extra twenty minutes today.  I am going to use that time to contemplate my choices for president - and I hope, maybe to start a bit of dialogue about what others are thinking. 

 I need to start the sorting of my thoughts with total honesty; in the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart I really want to live in Sweden.  I want everyone to have quality health care, I want children in inner-city schools to have AP and music classes, I want poor elderly people to have decent housing, I want prisoners to have gardens, and I want to cut our military-industrial complex to help eliminate poverty and build schools throughout the entire world. I am also completely comfortable with the idea of being taxed like crazy to pay for it. I also understand that this isn't going to happen anytime soon, and there may be a lot of really good reasons why it shouldn't - but it is still what I want. 

 So whom should I vote for? There are a lot of things that come to mind right away. I want someone who I feel is competent, and who I don't think would make me nauseated every time I heard them on television. I am trying to separate out my emotional reaction to individuals and see a bigger picture. I really like some of the policies John Edwards has put forward. I feel a little fluttering of inspiration in my stomach when I listen to Barack Obama. I think Hillary Clinton could be a very competent president (and she's a Seven Sisters Alumna, too), but there are a lot of buts to the idea of her as a candidate. I kind of secretly love Dennis Kucinich. I have been pretty impressed by both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee at times. 

 While my Dad is a major political junkie, I get worn out very quickly, but I still am excited about the coming election, especially if I can avoid watching any campaign commercials. 

A breather

School is finished for three weeks. I found out that I got on A on my evil, hated research paper. I don't yet know the results of my final - but I think that karma is lining up for me. In the meantime, I feel as if I have a bit of breathing room - and I am loving it. This weekend I didn't have to study, I slept in until 9 (Thank you Ar!) and ate a lot of Christmas goodies. We went to Ar's family Christmas party. I baked bread and made soup and our lovely friends Ryan and Elizabeth came over to eat it. I watched an entire DVD of Veronica Mars (judge not) and have begun to contemplate my presidintial choices. I read an entire New Yorker. It was wonderful. I don't think I realized quite how stressed and tired I had become until it was over. Above is the picture of the Isaacson cousins at the family Christmas party.

Sing O Muse.....

My Sister in Law, Aimee is a genius. I have known her since she was a dreamy ten year old, and I cannot believe how talented a cermacists she is. She made all of these projects for her community college ceramics class after only one year of classes. She has just the amazing combination of artsiness and a detailed perfectionism that makes her work incredible. I hope these pictures do her project's justice, because they take my breathe away, they are so good. She is going to have her own solo show sometime in the next year, hopefully.

I am actually the model for this one - which is why I consider myself her muse, although that may be a bit of stretch. I cannot wait to see what she produces next, or what her future will hold.

If you are interested in purchasing any of her work or commissing something, just let me know.

Pop Quiz

Which thing makes a day the least fun;
1) Having to take a really tough final and not knowing how you did
2)Having a not-so-great day at work afterwards
3) Getting a call from the ER saying your Mom is there (she is totally fine, she just had some chest pain that turned out to be pleurisy)
4) Coming home, trying to make a margarita and spilling the entire jug of mix all over the kitchen??

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God Damn it, you've got to be kind."
- Kurt Vonnegut

O Valencia

I think I have blogged quite a bit what a slog the last few weeks have been - but tonight I felt like I had a breakthrough. Instead of being cooped up at home, I took the kids to the local Y to go swimming. Ar thought I was stark raving mad to take the four kids myself - but it ended up being a blast, and on the way home we sang Old Macdonald at the top of our lungs. Then they actually went to bed without protesting too much (although I can hear them whispering very loudly to each other)....now I am embedding myself in front of the computer to finish working on my evil paper. I decided to post the video for The Decemberist's O Valencia. I have been playing this album the entire time I work on my paper. It is by far my favorite album this year (well, it came out last year, but I am not very hip, so it's okay)