blurred lines

When I go crazy, it's because I've lost perspective.  Things are going great, my dear husband and I are running in parallel lines.  We've been exercising together (not in series, or on a tandem) but parallel.  Also we've been riding the train and I just love the image of two rails extending indefinitely parallel.

Just because my husband is an electrical journeyman, I'll throw in the idea of resistance.  When two resistors (people who procrastinate) are in series, their resistance sums together.  When instead two resistors are in parallel, the resistance is a product divided by the sum.  For two resistors of R = 5, the series resistance is 10 while parallel decreases by a factor of 4 to R =2.5.  Surely this is why we are getting our house in order.

I've been thinking about divine shapes lately.  What is DNA other than two parallel phosphate backbones?  Amazing to recall my college humanities class and I remember talking a lot about the divine (perfect) circle.  Also been thinking about the triangle, without which I could not have won a set of Blocks & Marbles (thanks Grandpa).  It's trinity, symmetry and stability fascinate me!

I had a particularly great time recently constructing the unit cells and teaching students coordination number, packing efficiency, and radius ratio.  Without Pythagorean's theorem and the equation for the volume of a sphere, we wouldn't have been able to calculate our way out of a cube!


Before the semester started, I drew a Zinnia using the Fibonacci sequence and it made me happy.  Some idea that flowers cause a dopamine release was stuck in my head but it turns out that study was funded by the floral industry.  I miss my garden.  It's pretty grim looking at the moment, but these winter rains are starting to bring out the early spring greenery.  The wildflower box is already perking back up.  I haven't tended it since school started.

So, yeah, we've been taking the train this semester.  It's been a good change of pace.  I downloaded a bunch of 20 minute guided meditations for my mp3 player and listen to them on the way to school or on the way home.  It's a good way to avoid the rush-rush feeling that goes with commuting by automobile and taking advantage of the ability to close my eyes and focus on breathing.  Deeply.

Also had a great time frosting winter cookies.  Baked the Moravian Spice Cookies on Thanksgiving and frosted them with Royal Icing with the members of the Chem Club.  It was hexagon-tastic!