It’s really great that some of the people I met there are still around – or recently returned to writing on the web, like Alwin. Hi Al! It’s good to see you again.

In honor of this weblog’s title, one serendipitous anecdote from today: This morning I opened the bathroom window after taking a shower at about 6:10am. It was still dark and quite cold, probably a few degrees below freezing. I heard a rustling sound outside and thought to myself that it was funny to hear a bird hopping through the frozen leaves on the ground this early in the day, so I decided to look outside. I turned on the light next to the back door and peeked through the window – and spotted a wild boar right in our back yard! It was foraging for acorns under the oak trees that separate the yard from the railway-turned-bike-path behind the house. The boar didn’t even react when I opened the door for a better look. Unfortunately it was too dark to take a photo…

We spent the remaining three and a half days of last week unpacking everything and re-assembling some furniture. By Sunday night we had finished the kitchen (stove, oven and fridge from the old kitchen installed in the new one, some other minor changes), the living room and André’s office. My office will have to wait a little while longer, but I won’t need it until I start my new job in February. Right now I’m sitting at an improvised desk in our old place, which feels strange and different without all the furniture.

After the long wait for my transfer reality is setting in and I’m starting to realize that I will have to say good-bye to my colleagues and students at the old school in three weeks. Even though I’m really looking forward to living with my husband full-time again and being much closer to some dear friends I’m going to miss a lot of people and some other dear friends, and my last day at my old school will be bittersweet.

André started a new job back in April. He’s working for a company near Karlsruhe, which is almost two hours from here by car. When he was offered the job back in January I applied for a transfer right away, but one of the few disadvantages of being a civil servant employed by the state is that you can’t just hand in your resignation and look for a job elsewhere, you have to wait for a transfer. Physics teachers have been in very high demand in Germany for several years, so it was no problem to find a school willing to take me on board, but the school I’ve been teaching at for the past eight years couldn’t let me go because there were only two other physics teachers. My transfer is further impaired by the fact that Karlsruhe is in a different state (Baden-Württemberg vs. Rhineland-Palatinate) and transfers across state borders are very complicated. However, Karlsruhe is right across the Rhine from Rhineland-Palatinate, so there are two schools quite close to Karlsruhe, and both were looking for a physics teacher.

For the past nine months André and I only got to spend our weekends together because he stayed in Karlsruhe during the week while I had to keep working here. Fortunately, it looks like I will be transferred to one of the aforementioned schools on February 1st, 2012 (when the new school semester starts), so we are going to be moving to Karlsruhe in a few days. André and I have spent every day since the 26th packing and disassembling our furniture and will hopefully starting to unpack everything in Karlsruhe on the 5th. I’ll then commute to my old school from a mostly empty house for the duration of January until my transfer, and André and I are both very much looking forward to everything being back to “normal” in February when we will finally be both living and working in the same place again.

This will likely be my last posting before the move, so happy new year, everyone! See you on the flip side!

I bought a jelly roll of Jenean Morrison‘s California Dreamin’ fabric line at the Nadelwelt Karlsruhe back in May and spent quite some time deciding what to do with it.

I wanted to try pinwheels and started making half square triangles, cutting the fabric on the bias in order to get bigger triangles. The other half of each square is made from Kona Cotton in white.

Once I had finished 220 squares I tried several layouts after deciding that pinwheels looked too busy without sashing (which I didn’t want to do). I came up with a layout consisting of diamonds that it somewhat symmetrical, but not overwhelmingly so – at least I hope so!

(Click the images for a bigger version.)

For the back I chose Kona Cotton in Spearmint, which coordinates nicely with the prints, and added one leftover jelly roll strip framed in Kona Cotton Olive for contrast. The binding is also Kona Cotton Olive.

I meant to have the strip intersect the back according to the golden ratio, but it looks a little off… maybe something went wrong when I basted the quilt.

As you can see on the back, I quilted inside the white squares, echoing the seams between white and color, to create a three-dimensional effect, which works quite well because I used a very thick batting.

This time I tried this technique to attach the binding by machine (instead of sewing it to the back by hand) which worked out okay but would probably have been better if I had practiced on some smaller projects before.

I also added a little tag to the lower left corner which I signed with my name and date. You can sort of see it in the second photo.

The finished quilt measures about 100 x 70 cm and consists of 216 squares or 432 triangles – whew!

Wow, these recipes make me want to cook a Thanksgiving dinner solely to have leftovers for these meals… and Thanksgiving isn’t even celebrated here in Germany.

A few years ago André made a “classical” Thanksgiving dinner for Christmas, using Take Control of Thanksgiving Dinner by by Joe Kissell as a guide. (I got to be the helper, yay!) It was really tasty, and I especially liked the stuffing. We should definitely do this again some time.

Der Lehrerfreund: Schulbuchverlage wollen Rechner an Schulen ausspionieren

“Die Schulbuchverlage haben mit den Kultusministern einen unheiligen Pakt geschlossen: Sie programmieren eine Software, mit der die Rechner an öffentlichen Schulen systematisch auf Urheberrechtsverstöße hin durchsucht werden – den “Schultrojaner”. Es sind zahlreiche disziplinarische Maßnahmen gegen Lehrer und Schulleiter zu erwarten, zumal wahrscheinlich auch Kopiergeräte mit durchsucht werden.”

Dort wird auf diesen Artikel verwiesen, zu dem es inzwischen ein zwei Updates gibt:
Netzpolitik.org: Der Schultrojaner – Eine neue Innovation der Verlage.

Mittlerweile berichten auch andere Online-Medien darüber:

Die Zeit: Urheberrecht: Software soll Computer an Schulen durchsuchen. “Schulbuchverlage dürfen Schulcomputer offiziell nach illegalen Kopien durchsuchen. Die Lehrer wissen davon nichts. Und Datenschützer erinnert das an die Staatstrojaner.” Von Patrick Beuth.

Spiegel online: Lehrer als Raubkopierer:
Verlage wollen Schulserver durchsuchen lassen.

Update: Auch mein Kollege Herr Rau hat sich des Themas angenommen: Schulschnüffelschoftware. Von dort aus bin ich einigen Links zu den folgenden Seiten gefolgt:

Stellungnahme des VdS Bildungsmedien zur Meldung auf netzpolitik.org: “Der Schultrojaner – Eine neue Innovation der Verlage

Offener Brief von Herrn Larbig: Betreff: „#Schultrojaner“ – Liebe Schulbuchverlage!

Martin Kurz spricht sich im Widerspiegel für Freie Inhalte im Bildungswesen statt Kampf mit einem Schultrojaner aus.

Heise Newsticker / Telepolis: Geplanter “Schultrojaner” sorgt für Wirbel und Schultrojaner-Vertrag – Rechner von Lehrern sollen künftig auf nicht lizenziertes Material durchsucht werden.

Gesamtvertrag zur Einräumung und Vergütung von Ansprüchen nach § 53 UrhG bei Netzpolitik.org als PDF zum Download

Die Kultusministerkonferenz und der VdS Bildungsmedien e. V. betreiben gemeinsam Schulbuchkopie.de, wo man alles über erlaubte und nicht erlaubte Kopien nachlesen kann. Was mir persönlich ein Rätsel bleibt: Wieso darf ich ein kopiertes Bild aus einem Schulbuch analog, auf Papier, in einem Ordner aufheben, um es auch nächstes Jahr an Schüler weiterzugeben, aber nicht das Arbeitsblatt mit einer digitalen, eingescannten Kopie des Bildes für das nächste Jahr auf meinem Rechner aufbewahren? Oder darf ich das auch nicht, sondern muss die Abbildung jedes Jahr von neuem fotokopieren und sie per Schere und Kleber in mein (digital oder analog) aufbewahrtes Arbeitsblatt einfügen?

Weiteres Update: Maik Riecken, ebenfalls Lehrer, schreibt dazu
Riecken und die Verlage – Teil 3.

Damian Duchamps’ Blog: Schule, Lehrer und Urheberrechtsverstöße

Und der Kultusminister von Schleswig-Holstein hat sich zum Thema geäußert: Bildungsminister Dr. Ekkehard Klug: „Wir lassen nichts an die Schulen, was den Datenschutzbedingungen widerspricht“.

And here’s how to move files between your iPad and Mac (Macworld.com).

“Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.”

There are some other interesting links in the comments, a mimic octopus alternately morphing into a flatfish, several sea snakes, and a lionfish and the oldie-but-goldie Where’s the octopus? (longer version than the one you may have seen years and years ago).

There’s more octopus goodness in this older thread, for example this anecdote about a pet octopus.