Grades are IN!
Published on May 9, 2008 at 11:39 am.
3 Comments.
Filed under college teaching.
I have now turned in my grades for the semester, along with a mountain of end-of-semester paperwork. Wow. It feels good. This was a particularly busy semester, and the last two weeks have been especially rough. But, now it is over. Now, I am not totally free, of course. I have a publication deadline that I have to meet next week, and I need to prepare for the summer classes and get everything posted online for my students. I will try to get the syllabus posted soon so that they can find out the textbooks needed and try to get them online, or off campus, or someplace cheaper than the campus bookstore. I am using the same textbook as last year, but the publishers have new editions out since last summer.
-Astroprof
Final Exams
Published on May 5, 2008 at 2:39 pm.
4 Comments.
Filed under college teaching.
It is now final exams week here at my college. The students and faculty are both stressed. There are mountains of papers to grade. And, of course there are the students who are trying unsuccessfully to turn in an entire semester’s worth of work today, as if all I had to do was to grade only their work tonight. I have well designated due dates, but there are always students who feel that the rules don’t apply to them. And, I have my own deadlines here to turn in things.
And finals are rough on even the good students who keep up. This week, they have exams in all of their classes. I was there, so I know what it is like for them. This is the time of the semester when faculty have to council students who are at their wits end. Some simply don’t handle the stress well.
But, it is nearly over, now. Grades are due at the end of the week. Then, there is a short break, and then the summer term starts.
So, you will have to excuse the lack of posting here. As usual, I am totally swamped the last couple of weeks of the semester. But, of course, I am used to it, since I’ve been in this position for over half of my life. That still doesn’t make it fu, though!
-Astroprof
May Day
Published on May 1, 2008 at 12:44 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under calendars.
Today, May 1, is often called May Day. It is a festival day in many parts of the world. For us at the college, it is just another day before the end of the semester where we are all frantic trying to get everything done that needs to be done by the end of next week.
May Day festivities trace back to ancient times. Here in the United States, we celebrate seasons according to astronomical events, such as the equinoxes and the solstices. Spring begins at the Vernal Equinox and ends at the Summer Solstice. Summer begins with the Summer Solstice and ends with the Autumnal Equinox. Autumn (or Fall) begins with the Autumnal Equinox and ends at the Winter Solstice. And, Winter begins with the Winter Solstice and ends at the Vernal Equinox. This is how we do it in the USA. But, even as a child, these dates didn’t make sense to me. After all, it gets cold before the Winter Solstice, which usually falls about December 21. And, it starts to get warm and leaves start to bud out on trees and weeks start to grow well before March 21, the typical time of the Vernal Equinox. Yes, it can still be cold in March, but around here, it is often warming up by then. And, it is often hot by the middle of May and in June. In fact, some of our hottest days come end of May, June, July, and early August. By September, it is normally getting cooler. So, it is getting hot before summertime, and it is getting cooler again before Fall arrives. So, the seasons all seem mixed up.
Well, that is because in this country we are stuck on those dates (the equinoxes and solstices) when well defined astronomical events are happening. In may parts of the world, the seasons have historically been a bit out of sync with those dates. One common way of doing the seasons is to set fix the seasons not to the equinoxes and solstice, but to the dates midway between the equinoxes and solstices, called cross-quarter days. That makes more sense to me, because it makes the seasons more symmetric. The Summer Solstice marks the longest day of the year. A few weeks before and after the solstice, the length of days are the same. So, wouldn’t it make sense for those dates to be the same season? That would make the summer start in early May and the Fall start in August. Here in Texas, it is often hot until the middle or late part of August, but for most places farther north, the summer heat is breaking in early August, so that works well. So, if the seasons start at the cross-quarter days, then the Summer Solstice would mark midsummer. Indeed, in some cultures, it does coincide with a midsummer festival.
May 1 is about midway between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It is not exactly a cross-staff day (that is a few days later), but it is close, and it is the first day of a month. That makes it a convenient day to mark as a dividing line between spring and summer. It is no wonder, then, that May 1 has an ancient link to seasonal celebrations.
Since we officially mark the seasons at the solstices and equinoxes here in the US, May Day has little meaning in terms of seasons. But, there are still communities here that do May Day celebrations, but not as festivals marking the beginning of seasons.
But, May Day has another, more modern, association than as a season marker. It is also International Worker’s Day. The US does not celebrate it as such, because we have our own Labor Day holiday at the end of the summer. But, many countries celebrate it as their labor day. May Day is also claimed by communists as a day to celebrate the worker. Since communism claimed May Day, and since the Soviet Union had May 1 as a holiday, May 1 has also been celebrated in this country off and on as a sort of counter-communist day. It was first “Americanization Day,” and was celebrated in the 1920’s as a counter to May Day celebrations, which were deemed “too communist.” In 1958, in the height of the cold war, the US Congress declared May 1 to be Loyalty Day. It is an official day, but it is not a federal holiday, so banks are open and the post office delivers mail, so people often don’t notice it. May 1 is also the National Day of Prayer.
But, May 1 has another meaning to me. It is also the day that Byrd received a second chance at life with an organ transplant. So that makes it special for me.
-Astroprof
End of the semester approaching
Published on Apr 28, 2008 at 4:44 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under college teaching.
… and I can’t wait!
As always, the last two weeks of the semester are a bear. There are a mountain of papers to grade, exams to write, and end of semester forms to fill out to keep the college’s administration happy. A large part of my time spent in these last two weeks is bookkeeping. And, of course, there are the end of academic year meetings. Technically, the academic year runs through the summer, but many faculty are not around much in the summer. Our teaching contracts are nine months. Teaching in the summer is extra. So, some faculty teach, some do other things around here, and some just disappear until the fall semester. I have never been able to take off summers. I rather like the extra income that teaching summers provides. This year, with higher than normal gasoline and electricity prices, that is extra important. But, with some faculty not here, they make all of the academic year paperwork due now. And, you can’t fill out the forms early when you actually have time, because they are only just now sending out the “new and improved” forms that we are to fill out this year.
Of course, there are also plenty of students who are expected extra time with me these last two weeks. I will gladly spend time with them in the 14 weeks before. But, now, I am under the gun to get everything done in the last two weeks myself. So, when they bring me an entire semester’s worth of work to grade, I simply point out that my policy on late work is laid out in their syllabus about late work. That is there for a reason. I do not have time to grade an entire semester’s worth of work in the last week. They adults, so I don’t feel that it is wrong to hold them responsible for not turning in work when it is due. And, of course, the policy is in the document that they got on the first day of class, so it should not be a surprise.
Normally, I really like being a college professor. However, the frantic stress that happens at the end of each semester, and the double stress that happens at the end of the spring semester, always gets to me. But, of course, I am not alone. Everyone else around my department seems just as frantic. I see some faculty in other disciplines, and they seem to be going along quite smoothly, and I can’t figure out how they manage that. Everyone here is beside themselves.
So, for my regular readers, expect a significant drop off in the number of entries on my site for the next two weeks. I’ll post when I get a chance.
-Astroprof
CoS 51
Published on Apr 24, 2008 at 1:45 pm.
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Filed under blogging.
This week, the Carnival of Space (CoS), the 51st edition, is being hosted at AstroEngine. I have been amazingly busy lately, and I have not had time to keep up with blogging much. So, I didn’t submit anything to this carnival. However, it showcases some of the better space related blog writings of the last week. There are over two dozen entries. So, go over there and check them out.
-Astroprof
Earth Day 2008
Published on Apr 22, 2008 at 8:54 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under Earth, politics.
April 22, 1970, I went to school as on any other day. Only that day, many of the lessons were on Earth and the environment. That was the first Earth Day. I remember that we had an aluminum recycling contest going on in the school that had been going on since Christmas break. Whatever class had collected the most recyclable aluminum products (mostly cans) would get a prize. The deadline for collecting was Earth Day. That Earth Day was supposed to be a wake-up call to throw light onto the problems with the environment. The air was polluted, the water was polluted, and the sense that we young people had was that there wouldn’t be any clean air and water left by the time that we were grown and had children of our own.
And, of course, there was plenty to worry about. The waterways were getting polluted. There was always trash and oil washing ashore at Galveston. Pristine and beautiful lakes that were tourist attractions had garbage floating on them. The Cuyahoga River in Ohio even caught fire from the industrial pollutants in it. The major cities all had a brown haze over them from the pollution. Buildings and statues looked dirty. Most gasoline sold in the United States had lead in it to control pre-ignition in engines. Landfills were filling up due to an increasing population turning to more ease of use throw-away items rather than reusable ones.
The idea for Earth Day can be traced to 1969 and Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson (who died only three years ago). Earth Day was to be a teach-in about the environment. The date for Earth Day was set for late April of the following year. The lead-up to Earth Day gave schools a chance to get ready. Millions of college and pre-college students participated.
Now, it is 38 years later. Earth Day was a big deal in 1970. Today, most people don’t know about it. But, the idea of raising environmental awareness is still sound. Some progress has been made, but how much depends upon how you look at it. Environmental activists have succeeded in getting a lot of polluting factories and manufacturing sites closed here in the United States. While that helps the local environment, it has done nothing to help the world environment. Those factories and that manufacturing have just moved overseas, to places like China, where environmental laws are even more lax than they were in the US in 1970. Cars are much more efficient today, and each car pollutes far less per mile and per hour driven. However, today there are far more cars, and most of them are driven far more miles and for far more hours than in 1970. Biofuels such as ethanol are being used more. But, that means more agriculture, often at the expense of native plants and animals. It is unclear what the actual environmental impact of these biofuels may be. I can go on, but you get the picture. Some advances have been made, but often these advances come at some cost.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we should all give up hope. After all, the air and water are cleaner on average than they were four decades ago. The key to truly having an impact on improving the environment is for everyone to do their part. While what you or I do to lessen our environmental footprint may be small, it would add up if everyone did just a little bit. To me, that is what Earth Day is about. It is reminding us all to take just a few steps to helping the environment. Combine your trips in the car to use less fuel. Turn off lights when you are not using them. Don’t use throw-away things if a reusable one would work. If you can use a reusable bag for groceries, then do that. Plant a tree. Buy a more fuel efficient vehicle the next time that you need to buy a car. These are all small things, but if enough people do that, then they’ll add up.
-Astroprof
377 Days
Published on Apr 20, 2008 at 10:16 am.
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Filed under astronauts.
Yesterday, when the TMA-11 Soyuz touched down in Kazakhstan, NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson was aboard. She was returning to Earth after having spend 192 days in space, all but about two of which was on the International Space Station. She was just finishing serving as the commander of the ISS Expedition 16 mission. Now, 192 days in space is a lot. But, it doesn’t quite match Michael Lopez-Alegria’s 215 continuous days in space from about a year ago. But, with this mission, Whitson has now accumulated at total of 377 days in space. That is slightly more than the 374 days in space accumulated by astronaut Michael Foale. But, what is amazing is that this is only the second space mission for Whitson. Foale accumulated his 374 days over six missions. The reason for this is that both missions that Whitson served on were to the International Space Station. These ISS stays are among the longest missions that NASA has flown, so just two of them have been enough for Whitson to rack up the record for the most number of days in space by any NASA astronaut. Her earlier trip into space was Expedition 5 to the ISS, from June 5 to December 7, 2002.
Peggy Whitson is 48 years old and has a PhD in biochemistry from Rice University. Shortly after receiving her doctorate, she began work at the Johnson Space Center, in 1988, first for a medical sciences contractor, and then eventually for NASA. She was selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996. In her two missions to the ISS, Whitson performed six spacewalks.
I should point out, though, that her 377 days in space, while a record for an American astronaut, doesn’t even come close to the 803 days in space record held by cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev. That is going to be a hard record to match, and I don’t see it happening any time soon.
-Astroprof
