What is your dream vacation for spring break?

 I take attendance by having students answer a question.

What is your dream vacation for spring break?

Actual places that are reachable with a 1-week break from classes:

• Ireland
• Bahamas
• Ibiza
• Italy
• Greece
• Japan
• Tahiti
• Hawaii
• Brazil
• Switzerland
• Europe
• London
• Barcelona

Trips that sound cool:

• cool hike
• home
• Death Valley, where I'm going :)
• bed

Infeasible:

• travel to Uranus

This post's theme word is anfractuous (adj), "full of twists and turns". May your travel wanderings be full of anfractuous adventure.

Mars Needs Women

A dangerous beverage, I'd guess.

This post's theme word is yardang (n), "an elongated ridge formed by wind erosion, often resembling the keel of an upside down ship." When we settle on Mars, we'll investigate the apparent yardangs.

Musée de Cluny

The Musée de Cluny (alternately, the Musée national du Moyen Âge; wiki) is a lovely museum in the center of Paris, focusing on the middle ages and on the grounds of a Roman bath/abbey/garden. I enjoy museums and I enjoyed traversing this one on hard mode, with no personal concessions to English-translated guides or material.

Some of the illustrations seemed downright whimsical and modern in their styling, for example this image from a combat guide:

"Traité de combat" from "Tradition de maître Johann Lichtenauer, Augsburg, 1490-1500"

The museum ticket was printed with one of several randomly-selected works in the museum, providing a solo scavenger hunt. My ticket was a piece of the unicorn tapestries, although no unicorn bits made it into the clipped ticket frame.

Foreground: ticket. Background: original tapestry.

For part of my visit, I was delighted to be stuck a few meters behind a group of elementary-aged schoolchildren getting a guided educational visit. I learned some easter eggs to look for in stained-glass windows (one guy is winking! look, the camel is sticking out its tongue!) and also got to practice my "guess what that specialty historical word is" linguistic skills. Luckily the guide was excellent and provided simple-words explanations for everything. I tried to stay in earshot but not interfere with the herd.

Eventually the school group diverged and I continued my exhaustive, read-every-plaque grown-up museum visit. I spent a long time in this completely emptied and desacralized chapel, which was used as a dissection room (with observing medical students!), among many things, throughout the years.

This panorama does not really capture how mind-bendingly awesome the room is. But it tries.

 The stonework is really superb, gently curving in really precise geometric formations, with insets of different stonework curves. All completely symmetrical, at least from the floor and to the human eye. I'm curious what tools/templates/techniques were used to construct this, but of course for that we'd have to go over to my favorite Paris museum, the Musée des arts et métiers (wiki).

The stonework, carved vines and leaves and grapes and branches, even includes a scattering of snails, creeping their way along. I lingered in this room looking to find every single one (I'm sure I missed some).


This post's theme word is pleniloquence (n), "excessive talking." A solo visit to the museum is leisurely and absent any pleniloquence.

Doppelgänger

 I spotted this doppelgänger while wandering a seemingly-endless, identical airport corridor.

Maybe it's an alternate-timeline version? Lost twin? Someone cosplaying as me? Maybe I am cosplaying as them?

This post's theme word is pishoge (n), "sorcery; witchcraft; spell." I saw my doppel but some pishoge prevented me from tapping her on the shoulder to say hello.

Things I miss about Europe

Things I miss about Europe (month 1, withdrawal edition).

Accents, and the mental work of untangling them.
Beautiful and old architecture.
Having the best baguette in Paris available, at my doorstep, baked fresh thrice daily.
Free blank-faced eye contact in public, with no requisite smile or interaction.
The added level of mental friction and difficulty of doing everything in another language. Things here seem easy (which is not to say straightforward or simple).
Being able to attribute any social misstep to my incurable Americanness.
Freshly-imported Italian delicacies.
Everyone expects to go to public parks to socialize, so parks are frequent and pleasant.
Inexpensive Swiss chocolate.
Being in a time zone ahead of GMT, so: always living in the future.
Children speaking foreign languages with perfect accents.
Reliable, fast, inexpensive internet connectivity.
An electrical wiring standard which does not threaten electrocution at every plug/unplug.
Cheese.
All my friends.

Those last two rank very closely. I'm not sure which is the more acute pang of separation. (Just kidding. It's cheese, of course.)


This post's theme word is escutcheon,

1. "an ornamental or protective plate surrounding a keyhole, light switch, door handle, etc."
2. used in the phrase: blot on one's escutcheon (a stain on one's reputation).
3. "a shield or shield-shaped surface bearing a coat of arms."

The buildings look naked without the usual crust of escutcheons to mark their history, ownership, and affiliation.

Gendered bathrooms

Paris is notoriously dense. Building footprints and space in the (x,y) plane are coveted and extremely valuable. (Bear with me.) So it is curious and inventive that the city of Paris manages to squeeze a lot of public-accessible spaces in around the private, closed buildings --- a masterful but slow game of tetris to improve the quality of life of all the inhabitants. I had heard that there are many public swimming pools, but the only one I've seen is the Piscine Joséphine Baker, visible because it is floating, exposed, on a barge in the river.

The weather is hot and that swimming pool is currently closed, so I sought out a different one --- Piscine Georges Drigny, which I must have passed every day for several years without noticing. Density. Tetris. It's squeezed in underneath a high school, and the space-saving is extreme: an entry desk, a locker room, showers on the side of the pool. That's it.

One locker room. Just one. There is no gendered separation of spaces, there is hardly any division of spaces at all. The entire facility has only three toilets. There's no space wasted, and space-wastage is not possible.

As with all things, I observed how the locals were behaving and just went along with it. No one was nude in the locker room (there is a handful of private changing stalls in niches in the wall), and post-swim I saw a fair number of people reaching inside their bathing suits to wash what was covered from sight --- everyone washes with soap and shampoo, bathing-suited, out in the public area. The entire thing is a public area.

And it is not a big deal.

No one was creepy in the communal locker room. It was not weird. Everyone just wanted to swim and then go to work, so the entire process was businesslike and smooth. Huge illustrated signs everywhere reminded patrons of the rules (cleanliness, no running, etc.) and the lifeguards were reading newspapers.

This was completely practical and a simple way to ease the space requirements for a public pool. I'm in favor of this being implemented everywhere. I'm also in favor of French manners, politeness, and public rules-conformity being broadly implemented, as this attitude makes for a much more relaxing public experience than the brash, self-interested American style, IMHO.

I'm enjoying the calm rationality while I can, here in a member state of the EU, where civilization, and its concomitant steady supply of fresh bread year-round, still persist.


This post's theme word is parastatal (noun or adjective), "a company or agency owned wholly or partly by the government" or "relating to such an organization." The parastatal pool was packed, but the process ran placidly.

National Museum of the American Indian

The exterior of the National Museum of the American Indian is a very appealing textured series of waves, spun to be vertical walls.

 There were many displays inside the museum that were aesthetically appealing, historically interesting, and truly shame-inducing (at least for me, inheritor of the benefits of many atrocities). While I was there, there was a choral group performing music in the atrium, which reaches up all floors of the building around the central open area; it was ethereal and gorgeous.

Some of the animal representations were in a stark line-style that I really like:

 It reminds me of the art style of Patapon.

The cafeteria at this museum was good! I recommend it for those assembling a National Mall itinerary.


This post's theme word is metanoia (n), "a profound transformation in one's outlook." The museum exhibits are carefully constructed to persuade visitors to a certain metanoia.

Views from Opéra Bastille

During intermission, the top exterior-facing balcony of the Opéra Bastille building provides wonderful views across Paris, through the wall of transparent glass windows forming the Bastille-facing façade of the building.

Stereotypical Parisian buildings and rooftops, stretching to the horizon.

In the sun-facing direction, the sunset-tending light provides a high contrast and high drama.

The sunset-lit angel atop the pillar at the center of Bastille.

The Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame visible.

This post's theme word is campanology, "the art or study of bell-ringing or making bells." A visual survey of the Parisian skyline displays the products of several eras of campanology.

Radical daylight savings

Daylight savings time is some kind of entrenched, slow-motion mass hysteria. Why do we all agree to lose and gain an hour? And, if we do all conform to this clock standard, why don't we all do it at the same time? Like leap seconds? I don't know of any country choosing to opt out of leap seconds, or Europe taking its leap second a few weeks after North America takes its leap seconds.

I protest.

Yes, it's springtime. Undeniably. Birds are chirping, tentative green nubs are emerging from the extremities of plants. Rain is abundant but less lethally freezing. But I refuse. You cannot take this hour from me!

In protest, I have chased my stolen hour across the ocean. Haha, take that! Instead of losing an hour, I have sneakily regained several. Clawed back time from the inevitable rotation of the planet. Bwa ha ha, etc.

I am tired from this pursuit, and will now attempt to use my extra time to sleep.


This post's theme word is wakerife, "wakeful, alert." I'm not jetlagged, I'm inappropriately wakerife.

Alien husks

The ways in which the inhuman and transitory artificial environments of airports are decorated always suggest strange alien decision-making processes. What effect is the art supposed to have? To hold passengers' attention while they wait? To brighten their days? To give them something to contemplate other than the unusual fluid dynamics upon which heavier-than-air flight relies?

Mimi Bardagjy's sculptures call to mind alien husks, the discarded shells of deep-sea creatures, or abandoned multi-creature egg casings. They are lit in a clinical way that makes them seem creepy.

Close examination shows (and the description confirms) that the ridges and indentations are human-finger sized, so that the entire thing is like a tube of putty gripped in an impossibly-many-fingered fist.

They are creepy and delightful.


This post's theme word is calyculus, "a cup-shaped structure." Behold these discarded ceramic calyculuses!

Traced against the sky

No matter where we walked in [the touristy part of] San Antonio, an orange squiggle followed us, always just catching the corner of the eye. It is La Antorcha de la Amistad,and it makes me think of a 3D-printed puzzle or unusual key. Maybe to a geometer's lair?

The color gradients across the sky and the sculpture were very appealing to me.

I'm not sure how the lock would work, exactly --- maybe you put the key in, turn slightly, move again in the z axis, turn again, then shimmy in a move given by a simple equation in polar coordinates?

Maybe it's the extrusion of some more complicated being into our space, and the intruder is trying to be polite and not move in the hopes that no one will notice.


This post's theme word is bidentate, "having two teeth or toothlike parts." Thank goodness the tentacle was only bidentate.

Austin dawn

The fact of living on a sphere, and gradually rotating to face a flaming ball of plasma and gas, is occasionally lovely and dramatic.

Just look at those early-morning colors, splattered across the bottom of the cloud layer. So neat. Plus, thematically appropriate: Austin orange, everywhere.


This post's theme word is purl, "to flow with a rippling motion," or "the sound or curling motion made by rippling water." The sunlight streams across the purling clouds.

Seasons change, decades pass

Another couple months, another set of life experiences and retrospective thoughts about them, posted to the internet for all of noisy posterity to (send robots to read, process, glean, and) enjoy. The daylight is noticeably shorter now, we rolled our clocks back in the historically-inherited acknowledgement of centralized time-measuring standards, and tonight everyone dresses up as something else and begs strangers for carbohydrates.

Seems like a reasonable time to reflect on the past decade.

It involved me leaving a lot of things behind: several countries, my life as a student (never again!), relationships tried and broken, and between 10 and 20 pounds.* Oh! Also my original (birth) ACL, gone forever, consigned to history and oblivion (although its replacement's image is immortally online). Now I have a gauche unmatched pair of ACLs. Most of these changes require no special comment; I do reiterate, here as elsewhere, my strongly-held belief that knee injuries should be avoided and knee surgery is not a suitable pastime. (Exceptions possible for knee surgeons.)

Even my fellow crack-of-dawn gym women have commented on the kilograms, though ("Vous étiez ronde... vous avez maigri"). Two sides of the coin (as usual: ignore the metaphorically inconvenient edge). The nice: Of course it is always nice to receive compliments from humans. Robots, not so much. Second, the cool part about converting fat (voluminous) into muscle (dense) is that my skin nerves are closer to my muscles, so I can feel in my skin when I contract my muscles (as well as the normal nerve feedback from the muscles themselves). For some muscles in particular this sensation is novel and thrilling (intercostals!). The irritating: Buying all new clothes is a chore and so everything I've bought is stretchy, it'll fit me as long as I avoid supervillain shrink- or giganticize-rays. Also, now I am even less imposing, and so rush hour subway commutes are a continual struggle to evade crushing and obtain access to enough oxygen at my elevation. Maybe a subway snorkle? Then I could breathe, plus everyone would know there is definitely someone there in that spot-that-looks-like-it's-empty-space-between-tall-people.

I've retroblogged a little recently, but a lot is sliding because it is job-application season in academia.

• I cleaned some photos off my phone and reminisced about snowy winters past. Oh, Canada.
• Shaun the sheep is a clever and adorable schemer, but my true love for inventive scientist Gromit is unmatched.
• Japan trip: not a crêpe, burned down/fell over/sank into swamp.

I have a lot more photos from Japan, and the queue is full of all photos chronologically following that trip. Yes, I evilly withhold content from you while informing you of its existence. I am the gatekeeper of Lila-related ephemera, kneel before me! etc., etc.


This post's theme word is gloze, the transitive verb "to minimize or to explain away," the intransitive verb "to use flattery; to make an explanation; to shine brightly," or the noun "a comment; flattery; a pretense." His gloze glozes, but it is a gloze rather than glozing.

*As a theorist, I acknowledge that a factor-of-two approximation may dissatisfy others, but it depends if you measure from the maximum in the time interval or the average. High variance in the past decade, is my point. Yes, I have the data (much to my theorist shame).

Statuary at the Victoria & Albert

The Victoria and Albert Museum is a beautiful, well-lit, thoughtfully arranged collection of art and art-like objects. It breaks with the stereotypical joke about British museums: most pieces are accompanied by a title plaque which indicates their provenance. (British Museum, I'm looking at you: "basically an active crime scene." - John Oliver) The day was too beautiful to spend much of it indoors, but I did sneak in and poke around the astonishing collection of statuary and... statue-like things:

The scrolling scenes on the pillars tell a story.

The rooms containing these items were themselves pretty, although a bit toned-down and plain, I think to divert visual focus onto the art. Solid-colored walls, understated balcony railings, beautiful square skylight grid.

Door decorations, things to hang on the wall, and freestanding... art? of religious significance?

The pulpits, excised from the cathedrals and collected like medical specimens.

The museum entrance is luminously bright, with a giant open space. In the center of this space was hanging a special... piece. Not quite a chandelier, since it served no lighting function, but in the place a chandelier would go and of similar size, vertical style, and eye-catching details.

The view from below as our tentacly overlords dangle the bait.

I don't remember finding a title placard for this piece of magnificence, but I think of it simply as "default hair behavior without intervention". Yes, in blues and greens.

Level side view of the glassy fuzz of curls.

Across the street from the V&A sits the Natural History Museum, which sprawls over a much larger footprint and is completely and totally delightful. Again, since I was in London for The Single Sunny Day of 2015, I did not spend much time inside. But still... I spent several hours. It was very, very cool. I went on a quest for the whale skeletons --- large, but surprisingly difficult to locate in the museum's people-flow maze. Their full majesty was impeded by the extensive scaffolding supporting the scientists employed to clean and stabilize the whale skeletons, in what must be the coolest boring job title in the city: Blue Whale Rib Duster.

This open space filled with a fine lace of metal and wood.

This post's theme word is crepitate, "to make a crackling or popping sound." The suspended cetacean skeleton's crepitating boded ill for the giraffes and hippopotamuses below.

Victoria really, really loved Albert

Just in case you had any doubt, a huge tract of land in valuable downtown London is devoted solely to a giant plinth and statue of Albert. The perspective does not give scale, but this statue is massive:

I think the intended message is: "Look at Albert. He was wonderful. I seriously miss him."

But personally, I find the physicality of this statue (a short walk away in the same park) much more compelling:

This post's theme word is emulous, "eager to imitate, equal, or surpass another" or "jealous or envious." No royal love can be emulous of that between Victoria and Albert.

Nightvale and Jason Webley in London

The venue was gothic, lit for high drama or an alien invasion. It was a Welcome to Nightvale show, so the combination event was a quite reasonable expectation.

I wondered what the builders of this church would have thought, if they could see the future and extremely secular performances that would one day take place here. Hopefully, they'd be delighted that art and community are alive.

The stagecraft was great, which has always impressed me about Welcome to Nightvale. The professionalism. It's amazing how much of a show they can put on from an audio-only podcast. Cecil Palmer is a breathtaking performer. Last year, his creepy hand gestures alone gave me goosebumps; his voice made me sigh; his energy is direct and electric, even when he is simply standing still onstage and not even using his melodious voice at all.

If you haven't listened to Welcome to Nightvale, please do. Start at the beginning. See for yourself if it grabs you, or tickles you, or is simply a nice backdrop for washing the dishes.


This post's theme word is mithridatism, "the developing of immunity to a poison by taking gradually increasing doses of it." Over time, Nightvale exposure will inoculate against Lovecraft- and purple prose-sensitivities via mithridatism and the pure joy of Carlos.

France in the distance

Reputable authorities assure me that yonder, past the clouds and across the lake, France awaits.

It's a lovely view.


This post's theme word is lucriferous, "lucrative, profitable." All of Switzerland is mysteriously lucriferous.

Nourissez la poubelle!

Public campaigns are often dour, lots of carrot and not much stick. But this one to reduce garbage is magnificent: each public garbage can is decorated like a monster, with a gaping mouth, and a solar-powered computer detects when garbage is thrown out in the can and makes a NOM NOM noise.

Nourrissez la poubelle! (Feed the trashcan!)

Apparently there was a problem with overzealous children throwing out things that were not garbage in order to get the silly noise. It's weird when public service campaigns go too far.


This post's theme word is adhibit, "to let in," or "to administer" or "to affix or attach" (transitive). The monster-face stickers, once adhibited, were unreasonably successful in adhibiting garbage.

Lausanne pagoda

On the lakefront of Lausanne, there is a park.

In this park, there is a pagoda.

The pagoda is elaborate, gold-leafed, ornately painted and detailed, and entirely exposed to the weather (which by inference is mild).

It's an imposing sight.

But it's snugged away in a little corner.


This post's theme word is cote, "a shelter for animals," or "to pass by." What an eccentric cote, how lucky we didn't cote it!

Towards fluency

Further adventures in my quest towards fluency. (I have long since come to terms with the fact that I will never be as hyperbolically fluent, as precise, as witty, as referential, as in English.)

Part of my continued studies toward fluency involves studying samples of native speech taken from my ambient environment ("eavesdropping"). French-speaking adults are often so soft-spoken in public that it is impossible to hear them, even when they speak directly at one. Children, on the other hand, have not yet been inculcated in the practice of public quietness, and so are audible. Often from a considerable distance.

I was recently told that a particular colloquialism* I am using makes me sound "like a child." Huzzah! I sound like a native-speaking child! Hopefully my language skills will age faster than realtime; I've never heard a child give a presentation about the log-rank conjecture, but I subway commute twice a day so I have many opportunities to overhear such speech, if it ever happens.


This post's theme word is fomes, "an object capable of absorbing and transmitting infectious organisms from one person to another." The subway is a fomes of microbes and memes.


*The colloquialism: finishing sentences with "... ou quoi", meaning roughly "... or whatever." I'm using it as a substitute for words/phrases I don't know, so my sentences trail off but still try to convey some meaning. Sometimes the interlocutor guesses and luckily supplies the word/phrase I wanted, and then I acquire new vocabulary and expressiveness!