The changed the system at Rutgers while I was a student there (profs went from 12 months to 9 months of pay and got a fairly steep - though I think not quite 33% - salary cut). One responded by simply not coming into the lab from June through August. He was available by email and phone, and of course he expected his students (who were on 12 month fellowships and GAs) to do their work as usual. My prof (sarcastically) told the students to call the dean whenever we had a technical problem in the lab or wanted to discuss our research ideas. He still came in ever day.
Sister, I hope that you and yours are slowly feeling better.
My talks went well. The first one, at U. Wisconsin Madison, had a great audience, including the once postdoc now full professor who taught me elementary particles and fields. The second one, at U. Victoria, BC, didn't have quite as much fun audience wise but my presentation was a lot better.
You might consider renting "Kingdom of Heaven", when it is available. You can splice together about 15 minutes of trebuchet action from it.
Carl
What will you be researching in Lincoln, Northampton, and Huntington? I want to research vicariously through you. And all this talk of trebuchets (not a word I run across often) reminded me of something I read recently, on Boing Boing:
World's fastest plant
Canada's bunchberry dogwood is the fastest plant on the planet. The flower pops open in less than 1/2 millisecond to fire off its pollen, reports scientist Joan Edwards and her colleagues from Williams College and Oberlin College in this week's issue of Nature. From Discovery Channel News:
Images News Briefs 20050509 Gallery Fastplant Zoom "Bunchberry stamens are designed like miniature medieval trebuchets — specialized catapults that maximize throwing distance by having the payload attached to the throwing arm by a hinge or flexible strap," Edwards said.
The trebuchet allows the flower to throw pollen further than a simple catapult would, she said.
Yours, Liz
I have a large trebuchet on my patio. My son built it last summer in trebuchet physics camp, and I was the only parent mad enough to allow him to bring it home, so he got to keep it. There is also a ceremonial launching stick with a pineapple on the end of it. The child even has some incense. And, while we do not have a proper Episcopalian incense bruner, I do have quite a snazzy tea ball with a long enough chain to swing. I propose that you get into your regalia, we'll put incense into the tea ball which you can swing with one hand, add the ceremonial pineapple, and simultaneously launch water balloons into the nearby field (or at the neighbors, if you prefer). We can sing "Let the Bright Seraphim" meanwhile. Just come on over any time, now that you aren't working.
Never have understood why, in an age that claims to value sexual equality and individual freedom, among people who eschew religious constraint and preach the virtues of peace, anyone would want to dress up like medieval clergy and march around behind some guy holding a phallic symbol/war club. In my experience, most of the faculty wear mix-and-match regalia- doctoral hoods with bachelor gowns, Engineering faculty wearing humanities colors and trustees who barely earned bachelor degrees in doctoral robes. If this is done in respect for tradition wouldn't they, at the least, wear correct regalia?
A Commencement Ceremony survivor since 1961
Well, some of us think it's FUN, warpedknitter!
Sad to say I didn't get to hit anyone. I did get compliments for my mace-banging technique, though.
I suspect that there many like you, Dr. Cranky. I have a friend who claims that she chose her grad school based on the academic regalia. She was looking forward to being part of many commencement ceremonies- and wanted to be well regalia-ed.
Gee! And I thought all you did was sit around and knit!
Seriously though, Gregory has been on sabbatical all year and he's still hardly had any time to see ME!
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