CADIE has taken over all of Google.....
She has even taken over The Young Thinker!!!
At least she hasn't taken over this one yet. :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"—which means, "God with us."

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Matthew 1:18-25

Pumpkin Ginger Scones

Here is the recipe for the pumpkin scones my roommate made for the pumpkin week:

from the Taste of Home Magazine

Pumpkin Ginger Scones
2 c flour
7 tbsp + 1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp baking soda
5 tbsp cold butter, divided
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/4 c. canned pumpkin
1/4 c. sour cream

In a large bowl, combine the flour, 7 tbsp sugar, baking powder & soda, and spices. Cut in 4 tbsp butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Combine egg, pumpkin, and sour cream. Stir into dry ingred until just moistened.

Turn on a floured surface; kneed 10 times. Pat into an 8 in circle. Cut into 8 wedges. Separate wedges and place onto greased baking sheet. Melt remaining butter, brush over dough, sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 425 F for 15-20 min or until golden brown.

Challenge of the Week:

Bake a new recipe

Baking can sometimes be a relief for stress, we have found.
This week looks to be a stressful week.
Hence our challenge.
In preparation for this week, my roommate made pumpkin scones on Saturday.

Pumpkin Biscuits

I made these earlier this week:

2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 tsp. baking powder
3 tbsp. sugar
cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice to taste

1/4 c. to 1/2 c. pumpkin from a can of pumpkin
1/3 c. oil
2/3 c. milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
Stir together all the dryish ingredients.
Add the pumpkin.
Toss in the oil and milk.
Mix the whole thing until it is a nice thick batter-type substance.
Then drop spoonfuls onto a non-greased baking sheet.
Bake for approximately 10 minutes. Sometimes 12 minutes are better. They must look cooked and be rather brownish, you know, the way baked things always look when they are baked but not burned.

Do not eat them all in one sitting.

Challenge of the Week:

Eat more pumpkin.

How do we propose to do this?

How about pumpkin chili, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin yogurt, and pumpkin with sweet potatoes?
And maybe pumpkin bars.
And there was even a recipe we found for pumpkin/corn pudding!

Learn a New Word!

I learned a new word today.
I am so excited.
Here it is:

Diffusivity: "the property of a substance indicative of the rate at which a thermal disturbance, as a rise in temperature, will be transmitted through the substance."

So basically, you have a substance of something. And then you change a thermal property like the temperature. Of course it takes time for the heat to travel through all that substance and to completely change the temperature of your substance. And the diffusivity tells one something about how fast the substance will change.

observation of the week

The road should be patched before it gets repainted. Not after. It looks messy after. Especially when some of the patches are in the line down the middle.....

I passed the exam!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Leap Day

Does anyone have any sort of associations with this day?

I and my roommates all thought of "leap frog" but we thought there must be something else one could associate with today.
We brainstormed and even looked online, but everyone else thought of frogs too, it seems. It is most puzzling to be sure.

Isn't divisibility such a nice word? It has so many i's in it.

h

h is called the heat transfer coefficient. It is an interesting little thing that differs between the materials you are using. It partly depends on the velocity the substance is moving at or the air is moving towards the substance at. Also, it depends on geometry and sometimes temperature.
There is no specific way of finding the heat transfer coefficient of something. It is usually found by doing experiments. One of my roommates is working in a lab that is looking for the heat transfer coefficients of various substances. She is excited that I am learning about it.
h is used in as equation for finding the heat transfer of a convection process.

Q = hAdT

Q is usually written with a dot over it, but it is difficult to do so in a post. It is the heat transferred per time. A is the surface area of the substance that is exposed to the convection. dT is the change in temperature of the substance, from its initial temperature to its final temperature after losing or gaining heat. "Change" in something is expressed by the Greek letter delta, but there are no delta's on my keyboard, so I used a "d". It is not quite the same, but similar.

Now I must return to my studying. My exam is tomorrow, so 'tis imperative that I understand these concepts.

Shall I write a nothing post on the day of my twentieth birthday?

This is nothing.
It is not even worth the time I am spending writing it nor the time you are spending reading it.
But I am enjoying writing it anyways because writing nothing is more fun than writing something.
Especially when the something is technical or difficult or analytical and due soon.
Fortunately for me, I do not have anything of the sort due until next week.
In the meantime, I shall write nothing.

Perhaps you wish to know what I got for my birthday?
Well, probably you don't, but I'm going to tell you anyways.
I got a nice framed picture, two boxes of Thin Wheats (a cheap generic brand of crackers similar to Wheat Thins), and a small jar of cumin.

I am a Thin Wheat addict, I am sorry to say. No other cracker has just the right taste.
My roommates know this, in fact one of them shares my addiction, so they knew exactly what I would appreciate most.

The cumin was a spice that was horribly missing from our pantry. But now that has been remedied. I believe cumin is a must for any cook or pantry.

Thermal

I have the most lovely equation from my Thermal and Fluids class.

KE + PE + U = Q - W

Now perhaps you are wondering what on earth all those letters stand for?
Here are their definitions:

KE = Kinetic energy. This is the energy in something that is moving.

PE = Potential energy. This is the energy of something that has the potential to be moving.

U = Internal energy. This is the energy inside the system you have designated. It is a bunch of different things really. But I am still just learning what they all are. (which means, I don't totally understand it all myself, and I am just typing away quickly without looking up in my textbook for exact definitions)

Q = Heat transferred, I think. I can't exactly remember this one, but it does have to do with the heat that enters a system or leaves a system.

W = Work. This is work done by the system or done on the system.

I have mentioned "system" several times in my definitions. A system can be anything. Usually, we take a large complicated thing like a motor and we can call the whole thing a system, or we can break it into smaller parts and call each of those systems and so on. It depends on what you are trying to find and what choice of a system makes it easiest to find those things.

After nearly four hours of studying physics:

I don't really have any common sense. I only use equations.

Which is why I always fail these exams, and I have to wait until four in the morning to finish the homework. It finally makes sense then because I've stopped trying to use equations.

Soooup of the Eeeevening

Beauuutiful sooooup!

(and biscuits too)


I made a delicious smelling soup for dinner tonight. I hope it tastes as good as it has been smelling.

I took out frozen chicken pieces from our freezer at ten this morning. Then I let them thaw a little while I finely chopped onions, peeled potatoes, and carrots. At eleven, I put the chicken into a large soup pot and turned the heat on. I poured a wee bit of oil in to keep the chicken from sticking too much. After all sides were nicely cooked (the inside was still pink, however) I turned the heat off.

Then I pulled out a glass measuring cup, the kind that measures two cups at once and all in-between on the sides, except I think this one only holds one cup. Oh yes, it is called a liquid measuring cup. But I put flour in it first. Then I slowly dribbled a little water in and stirred it. I continued to do so, adding only a little water at a time. Soon I had a thick sauce. I poured this over my chicken in the pot.

Next, I sprinkled in a lot of different spices and seasonings: Bell's seasoning, parsley flakes, dried basil, dried oregano, a pinch of ground pepper, and some garlic powder. Then I threw in the vegetables I had cut up previously. I filled my liquid measuring cup up with hot water and slowly added it to the pot while stirring the mixture inside. I continued to add water until I thought the soup was high enough and soup-like enough.

It has been simmering on and off all afternoon.
I will be serving it soon with biscuits.

I need a new topic

Hurrah for rabbits and foxes!
They make such nice predator-prey equations that we can solve using various differential equation methods.
They tell us that the foxes eat the rabbits so the rabbit population decreases.
But when there are no rabbits, the fox population decreases.
So the foxes decrease exponentially and the rabbits increase exponentially and they form a cyclical graph.
And that was the end of my class. There are no more differential equations for this semester.

Wind Near My Ear

You see,
To me,
To be
A bear
With hair
Covering me
Sounds heavenly
Especially
When I hear
Wind near
My ear.

The Quote of Wednesday

This quote of Wednesday is brought to you by my differential equations professor concerning the achievements of great mathematicians in history.

"We could probably call them the heroes of civilization."

Sleep

Jo wants to sleep. I know this because she has told me so several times already this evening and suggested it as a topic for a post when I asked her for one.
I think she wants to sleep because she went to bed after twelve last night and had to wake at six-thirty.

Sleep is an important thing to talk about anyway. As a college student, I see the consequences of the lack thereof far too clearly. Too many friends think they can get by with very little sleep. They even pray that they will be able to function on less sleep so they can get everything done that they need to. I have a solution to that problem that does not involve less sleep. Do less. Really, that is what most of them need to hear (and follow).

I was telling my dad that I felt all my days and evenings were spent studying and when I was finally done, I stayed up late so I could get a little bit of fun stuff in. But I felt I had to cut into my sleep to do all this. He said it was similar to make a financial budget. After budgeting everything you think of some fun things you'd like to do as well. So you look to see where you can fit it in. You can't so you say, "Well, I suppose we could not eat..."
It puts a different perspective on things.

Another thing is that not sleeping is a form of pride. If you are not sleeping, you are not admitting that God made you human with a need to sleep. You are trying to be like God who does not sleep. So that is not a good thing either.

If you don't get sleep, you are more liable to get sick as my friend who slept only one hour a week ago did. She is dropping all sorts of things and not doing too well and she isn't getting the sleep she needs. At least, she wasn't. I believe she has realized her need for sleep after getting sick. But it is best to not get sick to realize such a thing.

Another thing that happens if you do not get enough sleep is that you fall asleep in classes. That is not always the best thing especially if you are having trouble understanding the content anyways or if you have been trying to impress the professor with your wide-awake awareness during class.

Anyway, I must work on some homework now while it is still fairly early in the evening. Then I can get some much needed sleep.