I think I'm going to things in reverse chronological order. That means that I'm starting with today's crawfish boil. Let's get the good stuff out of the way: everyone had a great time and everything tasted pretty darn good. Now here's the bad stuff: we had 50 pounds of food and it was gone in about 30 minutes. Yes. 50 pounds. 30 minutes. Gone.
There's a certain amount of shame as a host when you run out of food. That shame is increased because of Asian-ness. And then increased some more because of Wong-ness (as well as Liu-ness from my mom's side). And bonus fail because this was a Southern thing (I believe Southern hospitality encompasses a certain amount of abundance in hosting). So I'm getting it from all sides. (Okay, not really. A lot of this is internal pressure that I'm applying to myself because I'm ambitious and don't like falling short in my ambitions.) But still... we ran out of food. And what makes this worse is that there's no redemption until next year. I literally have a full year to reflect on this. It's not really going to bother me, but it's really going to kind-of-bother me for a while. In the late evening, I was hungry and went out to Cafe Rio to get some food. That just shouldn't happen after eating crawfish. I can go on, but I won't.
The week leading into this event, I've been a little sick. In fact, I was sick enough to take an entire HALF day on Wednesday. I don't get sick that often, and it's been a long time since I've actually missed work from illness. So the week has been a bit of a blur. I know I went in to work and did some work, but my ability to piece that time and the energy spent on stuff back together again is going to be limited. It's worse because there are two days in my note-taking system in which there's just not that much information.
The annual review process is virtually complete. I've written them all, I've met with all the faculty (except for one), and the reviews have been sent out to faculty to be signed. There's a lot that can be done differently in the future, and I think it will lead to the process being better for everyone involved. I'm going to have a chance to talk through this with the other chairs and the Associate Dean, and with the four heads involved I'm pretty sure that a good resolution and a better process can be created.
We've fallen a little bit behind in the textbook writing process, so that we're not going to be finished by the start of May. But I think we'll be at least close. Maybe off by a week or two.
This last week was also a week of explosions on campus. Yes, explosions. But these were explosions that I got to have a hand in creating. We did this on behalf of a Visual Media project. They're making a film that calls for an explosion. So we looked into different ways of making safe explosions that could be used in this setting. When we were setting up for the first test, the campus police pulled up next to us. He looked around a bit, and said, "It looks like you're having entirely too much fun." And then he carried on with whatever it was he was doing before he pulled up. There's something that's empowering about the fact that as a faculty at NSC, I have sufficient respect and latitude from the campus police that I can be setting up explosions in the parking lot, and they aren't making us fill out paperwork. I guess I should say it isn't just me, but this is actually a collaborative project involving 4 faculty from different disciplines (math, chemistry, physics, and visual media).
Of course, we're doing it all as safely as we can. The first day's explosions were done inside of a concrete cinder block wall, and the second day's explosions were done in an empty parking lot with plenty of open space on all sides. We have about 100 feet between us and the explosion, and nothing in the explosion is expected to create any dangerous shrapnel.
And with that, here are the three video tests of the different types of explosions we created:
When I entered into academia years ago, I would never have imagined that I would ever be involved in this sort of stuff. And it's not lost on me that this is kind of special. Being in academia on its own is already somewhat special, and then when you add in the uniqueness of what NSC offers, I simply have to step back with a little bit of awe and acknowledge that jackpots like this are the result of a lot more luck than it is either skill or intentional positioning. Right now, I'm just very, very lucky to be here doing this type of stuff. And I'm going to ride this hot streak as long as I can.
The stuff for Oaxaca is building up. We're just about to have our informational meeting, and hopefully we'll be able to pull together a nice little team to go down this summer. I haven't mentioned the water rockets in a while, but I think we've got it all worked out. And it's surprisingly simple to do. It's just a schedule 40 PVC pipe that's been slightly melted in a strategic way, a cheap Bic pen for a nozzle, and a bicycle pump, and that's it. Mike Nalley and I ran it through its paces last Sunday, and I gave it a bit of a run with some of the kids during the crawfish boil, and I'm pretty sure that we can make this go off safely and reliably, and that we could probably build this thing down in Oaxaca without too much difficulty. For reference, here's the link to the instructions: Science Toy Maker Link.
This stuff only takes me back to this last Sunday. I literally have no idea what happened the week before that. The only thing that comes to mind was that we had the annual faculty and staff appreciation dinner. But other than that, I guess it was a pretty standard work week. Maybe something more interesting happened that week, but I can't seem to think of anything. So I'll just finish up here.
