Friday, February 24, 2012

Racquetball Friday and FAMUS

Every Friday I play racquetball with a few of the other GTAs. I can't think of a better way to spend Friday afternoon. It's a great stress reliever because you get to hit a ball around a tiny room and it's good exercise.

Today we were pretty even hit-wise. First, Eric hit me in the arm (the really tender back part.) Then I hit Zach in the back. He may have said it was the hardest he had ever been hit. Then Zach hit Eric in the leg. Next I hit Eric in the back of the head (softly this time.) Eric hit Zach in the eye and Zach hit me in the back. I had to leave early to be a guest speaker at FAMUS, and the "fun" probably continued after that.

FAMUS stands for Friday Afternoon Mathematics Undergraduate Seminar. I was asked to be a guest speaker. Basically Ian (another GTA) and I sat in the front of a room full of math undergrads and answered questions about what grad school is like, what a GTA does, why we decided to go to grad school, can you solve this rubik's cube (in 49 seconds no-less), etc.

Note: Today was not a normal Friday. Usually we hit the walls more than each other when playing racquetball. Also this was the first and likely only time I will be a speaker at FAMUS.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Sweet Potato Fries

I'm posting this recipe mostly for Amy. We made sweet potato fries over the weekend and they were delicious.

Sweet Potato Fries
4 large sweet potatoes
olive oil
salt
garlic
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t cumin

Wash potatoes.  Slice into thick wedges. Cover with a thin coating of olive oil. Combine spices and sprinkle over potatoes. Transfer to a greased baking sheet in a single layer. Bake at 450 until tender and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Long Overdue

As the title of this post suggests, a new post is long overdue. I've been pretty busy and haven't really done anything blog-worthy. Well that changed last weekend when Amy came to visit.

Her flight got in late on Friday so we stayed in Phoenix Friday night. Saturday we had a delicious and nutritious breakfast of Jamba Juice then tried to go hiking. I say "tried" because their first place we went to had no available parking and the second place was not a hike we wanted to do. But third time's the charm as they say. We ended up hiking Lookout Mountain.


We stopped by Sedona on the way back to Flagstaff.


When we got back to Flagstaff, we made some peanut butter cookies and then spent a couple of hours cleaning the kitchen in my apartment. The oven was the worst but I found some foaming cleaner that had noxious fumes.


In the evening, we made sweet potato fries.


Sunday we went to church in Prescott. After church we went to the condo and chatted with Don and Suzie Firchter for a while. When we got back to Flagstaff, we ate supper at Pita Jungle. I wanted to show Amy where all the true Flagstaffians (aka hippies) hang out. I ordered Chicken del Sol (Chicken of the Sun) and it looked like this:


Overall, it was a really fun weekend and I had a great time hangout out with Amy.