Holiday hijinks

Our social calendar is booked this time of year! This weekend, before and after taking Danny to Chicago, we went to the Phi Sigma Biological Honor Society Holiday party and the ISU Children's Holiday Party. The Phi Sigma party is always great, but this year it was held in the Bloomingtion Center for the Performing Arts, which is a fantastic venue, so it was even better than usual. The event is potluck, and everyone around here is such a great cook that it was really a feast! There was free beer and wine with a professional cash bar for the other drinks.

There was even a band! The (unnamed) band was loud but good, and drove the old folks out. The kids had a great time: the room was so large and high-ceilinged that they were able to run around in one part of the room without bothering anyone in the dining/induction ceremony area. Santa came and gave some gifts, too.

Joseph's dance mix, including a little break dancing, some pole dancing and a one-man stage dive.


The supposed highlight of the ISU Children's holiday party is a performance by the Gamma Phi Circus, one of only two collegiate circuses in the US. The performances were a little uneven, with a little too much focus on athleticism and too little on showmanship? There were no major falls, just a lot (A LOT) of bobbles, drops and minor falls.

Sam thought that he was a little too mature for the circus. Luckily I wasn't, so I poked him until he enjoyed it in spite of himself.

Santa visits the circus! Also, Al Bowman, the president of ISU visited the circus. Now, if they had gotten Santa and Al Bowman to do the Russian swing, that would have been entertainment!

Joseph requested a snake from the balloon-bending man. Wow--you should have seen the guy sweating it out to make this finely honed piece of craftsmanship.

Our special little snowflake!

Much better

The sky is bluer, the grass is greener, the air is autumnier. Everything is just much better now. As the election results were announced, I could hear screams of enthusiasm coming from campus. (I am still not sure whether as an ISU employee with restrictions on my freedom of speech I would be allowed to join them.)

Joseph has taken down the hundreds of Halloween decorations that he has drawn and is starting to replace them with happy Obamas.

Beware the button police

Illinois State University has expressly stated that employees are not allowed to wear or display any political materials. Also, we are not allowed to discuss political views. Also, faculty are not allowed to attend political rallies on campus. Also, we may not perform activities of a political nature during our lunch hour. Also, we are not allowed to identify our affiliation with ISU in any way if we do any political work on our own time.
The pièce de résistance is that this week we were all required to take our 30-minute computerized ethics quiz. And on this quiz, they asked the question: "Can employees support a local political candidate?" And apparently, the correct answer was "Yes." Perhaps I misunderstand what they mean by support. Maybe we may be emotionally supportive, so long as we don't tell anyone or do anything about it.
So, I secretly, and on my own time, offer my emotional support to the candidate of my choice.

Fire it Up

This weekend was ISU Homecoming. Why is at that all of the fun things to do are always on the same day, followed by weekend after weekend of nothing to do?
Friday night we went to Mulberry school to decorate the school float for the ISU Homecoming parade. The kids had a great time and ate giant piles of ravioli.

Saturday morning I ran the Town Gown 5K which goes twice around the ISU Homecoming Parade route. I have never run in any kind of a race before, by my friend convinced me to do it, so there I was. I sometimes run more than 3 miles so I knew that I could do it. However, during the 5K, I saw someone throwing up on the side of the road which put the idea of throwing up in my head. As I was running, I kept checking myself to see if I was nauseated, which was distracting and probably would have eventually made me feel nauseated if the race weren't only 5K. As it turned out that I was faster than I thought that I was (although still none too fast). Danny and the kids were slow getting out of the house for the first lap (the parade route comes within 2 blocks of the house), but they saw me on the second lap.

Later, Joseph's school had a float in the Homecoming parade. Everyone had a great time throwing (and eating) candy. I was kind of tired from the 5K, so Argos and I rode the float. He got lots of pets and really loved sitting nestled in the middle of a bunch of kids.



Saturday night was Kids' Night at the Haunted Trail. Every year, the city of Normal decorates a part of Constitution Trail for Halloween. This weekend was the "not scary" Haunted Trail for younger kids. The trail is surrounded by tall trees, so it was already very spooky. There were a series of stations with people in costumes and props. For the little kids, the ghouls and witches tried to be cheerful and friendly rather than jumping out of the bushes. (I would bet that the "scary" version is pretty scary!) At the end of the trail, Sam had his face painted and the kids had hot chocolate. Joseph wanted to go again, but he'll have to wait until next year. The Haunted Trail is limited to 1500 people per night, and the line must have been 0.25 mile long!

20 outfits

When I was an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, I had this great Linguistics teacher. She was a young Iranian woman who was probably on her first teaching job. She was a fantastic lecturer and she was very committed to teaching us. However, I always found it vaguely depressing that she seemed to have only two skirts and three tops. Although she was always very smartly attired, the three skirts and two tops always made me think of how she probably came here with a couple of suitcases and maybe some boxes of books. Perhaps she was living in a sparse apartment filled with rented furniture. Perhaps the (1990's) unfavorably exchange rate made it hard for her to buy things here, or maybe she needed to send money home?
Anyhow, when I lecture, I always have the vague feeling that I am wearing the same outfit over and over again. So this time, I took a photo of what I wore for personal reference. I finished teaching this week. Here's a half-semester's worth of teaching outfits!

Circus!

We took the kids to the Gamma Phi circus, one of only two collegiate circuses in the US. The amateur quality of the circus made the show both more boring and more exciting. There were many interminable groan-worthy performances (Not so much into the Russian bar, the Lyric hoops, or the unicycles). However, seeing so many professional circuses makes one forget how difficult and dangerous circus acrobatics are. There were many dramatic bobbles and many performers fell and otherwise crashed and burned.
The finale was a guest appearance by Tony Steele a 71-year old professional trapeze artist. The "catcher" ended up dropping a few students, including one that ended up getting hurled into one of the side nets. We were all at the edges of our seats hoping that he wouldn't crack the old guy's head open. Luckily, he did not.

Tony Steele, the world's oldest functioning trapeze artist


The show was nearly three hours long and Joseph fell asleep. Also, the drunk undergrad in the seat ahead of us was threatening toward us because Sam was absently kicking his seat. But otherwise the kids had a great time.

Distinguished

My PI was awarded a ISU Distinguished Professorship. It was a lovely ceremony with lots of nostalgia and cricket sex. Perhaps he should wear the giant medal everywhere to protect him from vampires, stray bullets and administrators. Here's the link to the student newspaper. Note the use of "Evolutionay"--it occurs to me that more biological discourse should be done in the traditional scientific language of pig latin--Iologybay Ulesray!

incriminating picture of Saki as a grad student

Mythbusters

Last week the Mythbusters came to ISU. Mythbusters is arguably Sam and Joseph's favorite show. (Joseph is conflicted whether he favors Mythbusters or Dirty Jobs .) I think that Mythbusters is a great show--it is really the only show on television that breaks down the scientific process in a way that has dramatic appeal (explosions, robots, gore, etc). The premise of the show is to scientifically test the validity of common myths ranging from whether toast always lands butter side down to whether cell phones actually interfere with airplane navigation systems. The ISU newspaper reported that undisclosed team members of Mythbusters would appear. Sam was hoping for Grant Imahara , because he is the builder of Sam's favorite battlebot, however, it was Tory and Kari. At least 200 people showed up, and a good time was had by all. Sam's favorite part was a showing of Tory's screen test in which he tested the myth that women do not fart.

Grant, Kari and Tory


Grant and Deadblow