Elements song by Tom Lehrer, updated

(Also posted on Facebook)

I've been working on memorizing all the chemical elements (long story) and I've always liked Tom Lehrer's classic song. It was written in 1959, though, so it doesn't include the elements discovered and named since then. There are several updated versions online that add an extra verse, but I didn't see one that rhymed! That's a major drawback in a memorization song. So I made my own update. Probably someone, somewhere, has made a rhyming one too, but I think my version works pretty well.

Here are Lehrer's original six verses, an update of his final two lines, then a new verse and new closing lines. If you're not familiar with the song, it goes to the "Modern Major-General" tune from Pirates of Penzance. (And here's a video with Lehrer singing a slightly modified version.)

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,

Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.

And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.

These WERE the only ones of which the news had come to Harvard,
But we have to mention sixteen more that later were discovered.

There's tennessine, oganesson, meitnerium, moscovium,
And dubnium, darmstadtium, nihonium, flerovium,
[Deep breath and get ready to pack in those extra syllables]Copernicium, roentgenium, rutherfordium, livermorium,
[Now you can relax]And hassium, lawrencium, seaborgium and bohrium.

The seventh row is finished in the periodic table,
Further elements will be manmade and terribly unstable.

Books, Facebook, NaPoWriMo

Well, life got in the way of that reading challenge. I still hope to catch up on posting some good books I've read. Meanwhile, I have finally joined Facebook after putting it off for years, which may actually encourage me to post more here too.

And it's April, which means it's National Poetry Month, and this year we're trying NaPoWriMo again. I'm planning to post a poem per day, and A. may post some too. They'll be on our writing blog (link in the sidebar).

Reading challenge books 6-10

Challenge: Read a book you can finish in a day.

Wonder by R. J. Palacio - A children's book about a boy born with a genetic condition that affects his appearance. When he switches from homeschool to a private school in 5th grade, there's a lot of adjustment necessary for him and the other students. A very positive book. (There is some mild profanity.)

Challenge: Read a book you own but have never read.

The Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest - A collection of very old Welsh stories. I wanted to read it because when I was young, one of my favorite series was the Prydain chronicles by Lloyd Alexander, which used names and ideas from Welsh folklore. The stories can get a little tedious in places, but it was interesting in a historical context.

Challenge: Read a book with a color in the title.

Blackout by Connie Willis - A time-travel novel with historians from 2060 getting trapped in 1940s London during the Blitz. The detail is amazing and makes the 1940s world seem very real. This is the first of two books and ends with nothing resolved. (Moderate profanity warning.)

Challenge: Read a book with more than 500 pages.

All Clear by Connie Willis - The conclusion to Blackout. Much more satisfying as the loose ends are tied up and things become more hopeful. The thing I like about this book is the underlying message that everyone can become a hero by doing their best, helping others and determinedly facing whatever challenges life presents them with. (Moderate profanity warning.)

Challenge: Read a book based entirely on its cover.

The Outsmarting of Criminals by Steven Rigolosi - The cover resembled the old PBS "Mystery" drawings by Edward Gorey and led me to pick the book up at the library. It's about a woman who retires and moves to a small town, hoping to take up a career as an amateur detective, and promptly finds a body in the basement of her new house. The premise is fun and the writing style is enjoyable and humorous, but in the last fourth of the book the plot became quite unbelievable and left me vaguely irritated with most of the characters. Lesson: Maybe don't read a book based entirely on its cover.

Reading challenge books 4 & 5

Challenge: Read a book originally written in another language.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (translated from Italian)

A surreal set of short chapters about Marco Polo describing different cities (or the same city) to the emperor Kubla Khan. The writing ranges from beautiful to creepy, with a few off-color references.


Challenge: Read a classic romance.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

It was really fun to read an Austen book I'd never read before. Even better, I had never heard anything about the plot at all, so it was all completely fresh. I had heard the name of the main character, Fanny Price. The book is about how she goes to live with her rich uncle and aunt, where she's treated as an inferior, and what happens when an unprincipled young man decides to woo her.

Reading challenge book 3

Challenge: Read a book you started but never finished.

Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy

I started this one a few years ago but only read about 50 pages, so I was glad to have an extra push to read the whole thing. It's a collection of short biographies of United States senators who showed exceptional courage in standing up for what they felt was best for the nation. Most of them were ridiculed and threatened, and many were forced out of politics. So the book is both a history lesson and a reminder of the importance of moral integrity even in the face of pressure.

Reading challenge book 2

Challenge: Read a book that scares you.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Not only is the writing creepily effective, but the ideas themselves are scary, though important. Do we all have evil inside us? Is it a separate part of us? Can we control it? When we indulge it and it starts getting strong, how do we stop it? How responsible are we for what our Mr. Hyde side does?

2015 Reading Challenge

In a moment of optimism, I joined a couple of reading challenges for 2015. One has 52 categories of books, the other has 12, and both let you choose your own books to fit those categories. I'm still finishing Shakespeare (Julius Caesar currently) but these challenges seemed like a good way to read some other books that I might not otherwise pick up. And here's the first one:

Challenge book #1 - A book with a number in the title

The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The book the Hitchcock movie was (loosely) based on, written in 1915, and very influential in its genre. Richard Hannay learns of a plot that could lead to war. He goes on the run to escape the plotters, as well as the police who think he's a murderer, while figuring out what to do with his information. It's a short, fun, fast-paced thriller full of convenient coincidences that drive the story along. Quite enjoyable.

Continuing Education

2014 has been a good year for my education in at least three and a half ways. I want to write about them here, not to brag, but to cheer for myself moving from "kind of, sort of learning some stuff" to a more structured approach that seems to be making a difference.

1. My Spanish is getting better. Early in the year I took some community-ed Spanish classes where I had to get over my fear of trying out the language aloud in front of other students and a teacher who was a native speaker. Those have ended, but I've been using Duolingo to work on vocabulary and practice translation, and I'm starting to use some new strategies from Fluent Forever that should help even more.

2. A few months ago I got our old family accordion repaired, got some instruction books, and started practicing. My family has been very patient (accordions are loud) and I'm having a lot of fun! The weirdest thing is that while it's always been hard-to-impossible for me to memorize piano music, accordion music is much easier to memorize. Which is good, because imagine having to turn pages during an accordion performance.

3. Early this year I was introduced to Coursera, a platform for MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) where you can sign up and take classes from universities all over the world for free. They're not for credit, of course, and usually not as rigorous as a regular undergraduate class, but they're a fun way to explore different subjects and get some brain exercise. Most of them run for 6 to 12 weeks, and my biggest problem has been trying not to sign up for too many at once. Here's what I've finished this year:

The Science of the Solar System (Caltech) - Serious science class with an amazing (and famous) instructor, Mike Brown (also known as Plutokiller). My second favorite so far.

Songwriting (Berklee College of Music) - This one was fun and took me way out of my comfort zone (I had to post my singing online for strangers to listen to).

Vital Signs: Understanding What the Body Is Telling Us (University of Pennsylvania) - All the things the doctor checks when you go in for a physical, explained.

Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World (University of Michigan) - I liked reading sci-fi classics like Frankenstein and Dracula, but I didn't like writing essays and trying to come up with something meaningful to say. That's one thing I don't miss about college.

Programming for Everybody (University of Michigan) - Easy introduction to the Python programming language.

Pre-Calculus (University of California, Irvine) - A great review of algebra and trigonometry and all that fun math I haven't used in years.

Fundamentals of Music Theory (University of Edinburgh) - Not the best-thought-out class (it got really difficult really fast) but it was fun to listen to the instructors.

Developing Your Musicianship (Berklee College of Music) - Some basic music theory, demonstrated by a super fun teacher who's clearly enjoying every minute, leading up to learning how to write and play a 12-bar blues.

Copyright for Educators & Librarians (Duke University and others) - Very specific topic that was actually quite interesting.

Learning How to Learn (University of California, San Diego) - Fairly good class with some good ideas about more effective studying and learning.

An Introduction to Interactive Programming in Python (Rice University) - My very favorite class so far. Each week we had a game to program, getting more and more complicated and ending with an Asteroids game - here's mine. (Of course they gave us step-by-step help and provided the sounds and graphics, but still, it was really fun to write the code and get it to work correctly.)

Introduction to Guitar (Berklee College of Music) - I gave this 6-week guitar course a good effort and can now say I have tried guitar. Back to accordion for me.

Social Psychology (Wesleyan University) - Quite a good overview of this subject, with lots of video interviews of well-known psychologists and clips from famous and infamous experiments.

Think Again: How to Reason and Argue (Duke University) - Logic, fallacies, evaluating deductive and inductive arguments.

How Things Work (University of Virginia) - Basic mechanics (physics) using everyday examples. I just finished this one today.

I'm kind of amazed at how long that list has gotten, just from spending some time on classes most evenings instead of watching TV.

3.5. The half is for the Shakespeare reading. Apparently my goal of reading all the plays in one year was a little ambitious, but I'm more than half finished and still going (The Merry Wives of Windsor, currently) so I know I'll get there eventually. And then on to Dickens, I think.

John Adams, a few thoughts

Finished!

Thoughts on John Adams by David McCullough:

1. It was difficult for me to get into it, more difficult than for most books. McCullough is an excellent writer, but maybe his style is a little more scholarly than what I usually pick up to relax with. I seem to remember that the same thing happened when I read his 1776. Once I got far enough, the story pulled me along and it was fine.

2. I feel like I learned a tremendous amount of history and will actually remember it pretty well now that I have Adams's life story to pin events to. I didn’t know much about his work in Europe during and after the war, or the strife between political parties during and after his presidency, and now those things are vivid.

3. McCullough uses a ton of original sources and shows Adams’s faults as well as his virtues. Adams himself knew and admitted his faults. But after reading this, I truly admire him. He was honest even when it wasn’t advantageous for him to be. He was brave enough to make hard decisions that he knew would bring criticism. Even though he wasn’t a military man, he fought for his country with the talents he had, and he gave most of his life to his country. It was poignant reading about his final years and his death.

Definitely a book worth reading. I will surely refer to it again, possibly even read it again someday.

John Adams

I'm finally reading John Adams by David McCullough. It's been sitting on our shelf for years and I've kept meaning to start it, but (1) it's long; (2) it's nonfiction, not that I don't like nonfiction, but at the end of a long day it's not what I normally choose to relax with; (3) it's David McCullough, so the writing is intelligent and complex, so see (2) on relaxing.

A few weeks ago I decided it would be good for my character if I did something about this vague intention. I raised the stakes by setting a deadline and inviting others on a productivity website to join me (not necessarily in reading John Adams, but any challenging book). I even started reading, though I wasn't enjoying it very much. But then things got busy and before I knew it, there were two weeks left and I was only on page 78.

Math time. I figured out how many pages I'd need to read per day to meet my goal. It sounded difficult but possible, so I decided I'd go for it.

Here's the interesting part. Now that I'm reading around 40 pages per day instead of 4 or 5, the story has been easier to get into and the writing is easier to read. I'm also remembering a lot more since I'm getting whole chapters in a day instead of spreading them out over a week.

Mostly, though, I'm learning to appreciate John Adams and what an amazing person he was. I've read a little about him before, but this book is showing me how little I knew about how important he was to the United States. I've only gotten up to the part where he's helping with the treaty negotiations to end the Revolutionary War, and already he's done enough to be remembered forever, and there's still plenty of book left. When I finish -- before the deadline! -- I'll post some thoughts.

Old year, new year

Is it just me, or did 2013 go by on fast-forward? It's been a strange but good year. We've had a daughter start college and start driving (there is nothing quite like the feeling of riding in the passenger seat knowing exactly how inexperienced the driver next to you is). We've had children get older and taller and smarter. We've had the big change of my mother moving to a care center, then having the care center and its staff and residents become part of our lives as we visit. This change caused some major readjustments in our family and home as I realized how much of my time and focus had revolved around caring for and worrying about her for the past several years.

This year may bring some big changes too, but right now I'm fine with not knowing exactly what they'll be. I have plenty of ongoing goals and ways I want to improve this year, little by little. My house is slowly getting decluttered again and I need to do the same with my time. Right now, though, if I can get all the dishes washed and update the budget and cook our belated Christmas dinner, the day will be a success.

Shakespeare year

Last month I decided I should finally get around to reading all of Shakespeare's plays. I work best with a time limit, so I wondered if it would be possible to read them all in one year. It's surprisingly difficult to decide how many Shakespeare plays exist. There are the ones we know he wrote, the ones we think he wrote (or wrote part of), and of course the ones he wrote but we don't have.

After looking at several sources, I settled on 39 plays for my list. Of these, I've already read approximately 23 (one summer Shakespeare class in college is still a blur, so I'm not sure about a couple of plays). But I also want to be able to remember which is which. Some of the comedies, especially, blend together in my mind. So my goal is to read or re-read all 39 plays by the end of October 2014, write a one-sentence synopsis for each, and be able to match each synopsis with the correct play.

I started with Taming of the Shrew, which I was already reading for a book group. Then things got busy, as they usually do when I set a lofty goal. But I just finished Cymbeline, the second on my list and one I had never read before. (It's not going on my favorites list.) I chose a somewhat random order after discovering that experts don't agree on the order the plays were written or performed anyway, but I do plan to read the long string of English-king plays one after another, hoping they'll make more sense that way. Next is Timon of Athens, another new one to me. Stay tuned for updates.

New tenants

This is Ned...

And this is Nemo.

We adopted them from the Humane Society on Wednesday. They're brothers, about three months old. I'd forgotten how hard it is to get photos of young gerbils -- they hardly ever hold still! We named them from the book A. is reading (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea) after quite an involved voting process. (Runner-up names were Mario and Luigi, very popular among a certain demographic in our household.)

Hiking, part 5

Week 11 and 12 - Sort of a massive combination of hiking, walking, driving and riding. Can you guess where? (Oh, all right, answers are at the end.)

(1-Wyoming state capitol; 2-Deer at nature center in Lincoln, NE; 3-Liberty Jail visitor's center in Missouri; 4-Haun's Mill memorial in Breckenridge, MO; 5-Goat trying to play with us in Breckenridge [tried to get into our car, too, when we left]; 6-Mark Twain historical site in Hannibal, MO; 7-Mississippi River in Hannibal; 8-LDS temple in Nauvoo, IL; 9-Joseph and Hyrum statue in Nauvoo; 10-Mississippi River in Nauvoo; 11-Joseph and Brigham statue in Nauvoo; 12-Carthage Jail in Illinois; 13-Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD; 14-Mount Rushmore; 15-Mountain goat and kid at Mount Rushmore; 16 & 17-Rushmore Cave, SD; 18 & 19-Trail ride in the Black Hills, SD; 20-Railroad museum in Hill City, SD; 21-Western music show at Circle B Chuckwagon in SD; 22-Martin's Cove visitor's center and Devil's Gate, WY.)

Hiking, part 4

Week 8 - Aspen Crest camping

This week the girls went on a hike at their church girls' camp, and on the weekend there was a church family overnight camp. So we didn't do a family hike, but we did get to enjoy the outdoors and the cool mountain air.

In the morning, T. went on a short walk with Mike and me up a trail by the campsite. For some reason the girls felt they'd had enough hiking for the week.

Week 9 - Lake Mary - moderate

Back up to Brighton to beat the summer heat. It's amazing how you can drive less than an hour and have the temperature drop so noticeably. Gorgeous scenery and clean air - this is one of my favorite places.

That clean air is also thinner up there, and one of us had a somewhat hard time because of that. The trail is well maintained but has a pretty steady climb and is steep in places with a little bit of scrambling over rocks. We took it slow, though, and eventually we all made it up to the lake.

Here's M., A., and T. starting back down.

We went through several patches of wildflowers and noticed this bee doing her job. (I also learned that if I'm going to take a bunch of photos of flowers, looking for just the right shot, I should probably do it toward the beginning of the hike and not the end when others are tired and just want to get back to the car!)

Week 10 - Parley's Nature Park - Easy

This week we had planned to hike to a reservoir in a canyon, but clouds were gathering and as we left the house it started to rain. It didn't seem like a mountainside near water would be a smart place to be if the storm got worse, so we quickly changed our plans and stayed in the valley. This is a popular trail for dog owners, which added to the enjoyment for us, since the only one in our family who doesn't like dogs was at work. (And a good thing too -- we saw a lot of dogs that day.)

The trail runs next to a freeway, but after the first little while you wouldn't know it at all. You go down into a hidden canyon and you feel like you're far away from the city.

We got rained on, but not too much, and it was great to still get our hike in despite the weather. We'll go up to that reservoir another time.

Summer reading

T. and M. with a little light summer reading. Apparently I have raised them well. T.'s book is Fahrenheit 451, which he was reading for the 5th time. (Last year when he first decided he wanted to read it, I bought a copy and went through it with a black crayon to clean up the language. Just family preference.)

Hiking, part 3

Week 7 - Pipeline Trail - Moderately easy

This week we wanted to go up into the canyons for a longer hike but not a strenuous one. So we headed to Millcreek Canyon to hike part of the Pipeline Trail. There are several sections. We started at Church Fork and went as far as Burch Hollow, then came back. From the trailhead it was 3.4 miles round trip. We actually parked along the main road and walked up past the picnic areas to the trailhead, which probably added another .3 or .4 miles total but allowed us to enjoy the shade, birds, and waterfalls along the picnic area road.

Once we got onto the main trail, it was fairly flat with a few ups and downs. There was quite a lot of shade and a nice breeze. Millcreek Canyon trails have a lot of bikers and people walking dogs, but all the ones we met were courteous.

Several pieces of the old water pipeline are still visible next to the trail.

Every now and then we would come out onto a bend and get a great view of the canyon and the Salt Lake Valley off in the distance.

With a longer hike this time, we got the chance to practice patience with each other. (Some of us practiced harder than others.) But we made it to the end with good moods fairly intact.

Now we're heading into the part of our summer where weekly hikes will become difficult, as various family members will be busy with activities. But that's still our goal -- we'll see how it goes!

Hiking, part 2

Week 5 - The U - Easy walk, trail at end difficult

Since we went to the Y, we thought we'd go see the U on the mountain too. It really wasn't a hike at all, but a short, easy walk along residential streets. A very short, steep trail leads up to the concrete U, and T. and I decided to climb up there. Very quickly we found that the trail was hard-packed dirt with no real footholds.



Going up was pretty easy, but then we turned around to go down...



Note how A. and M. wisely stayed at the bottom. The trail was slippery and so steep that we ended up sitting down and scooting a bit at a time so we wouldn't fall. Lessons learned: 1. Don't "hike" to the U without hiking spikes. 2. Always wear jeans to go hiking in.

Week 6 - Ensign Peak - Moderately easy

For our last week staying in the valley, we decided to hike to Ensign Peak as we have done many times before. It's about a mile round trip, but enough of a climb to be a little bit of a challenge.



It was very windy the day we went. T. was trying to stay out of the wind behind the monument. Several of us almost lost our hats (but had quick enough reflexes not to).



The view is the best part about this hike.



Next time we're heading up into the mountains again. It's getting too hot in the valley, and there are lots of places we want to explore in the canyons where it's cooler.

The Hiking Challenge

The girls are preparing for a pioneer trek in August, and a couple of months ago I said, "We should go on a lot of hikes this summer so you can be ready for Trek." They said, "Yeah, right. You always say that." It's true. Every summer we want to do a lot of hiking, but then I get busy and we end up going maybe once or twice the whole summer. So I decided this is the year we're going to change that. No more lame mom excuses! The challenge is on!

We had a homeschool group that met once a week and finished in early May. Since we already had that day set aside, it was easy to make that our hiking day. I talked with the kids about going hiking every week the whole summer (unless weather or emergency prevents us). They liked the idea. So the week after our group ended, we started our weekly hikes.

Week 1 - The Y - Difficult

The Y trail was quite a workout for our first hike. T. had done it with his dad before, but the girls hadn't, and I hadn't since I lived in Provo. I think I was in better shape back then, or maybe the mountain got taller and steeper in the last 20 years. But we made it to the bottom of the Y. We had planned to go to the top, but by the time we reached the bottom we were very happy to stop there. The trail is steep and climbs constantly with benches for resting at many of the switchbacks. We needed them!




































Week 2 - City Creek Canyon - Easy

Amazingly, after hiking the Y the kids were still willing to keep going on weekly hikes. (Maybe going to the BYU Creamery afterward helped. Mmmm, Coconut Joy ice cream.) So the next week we stayed in the Salt Lake area and went to City Creek Canyon. I've always loved that there's a canyon right in the downtown area where you can feel like you're far away from the city. We drove past the lower part of the canyon and started our hike at the gate. We didn't hike the whole trail (I think it's something like 6 miles each way) but went about a mile and a half up and then came back. The trail is paved and not very steep.


It was perfect weather, nice and cool with lots of birds chirping and the sound of the creek next to the trail. I decided that in the fall, when we end our weekly hikes, I'd like to come back and hike the whole trail (with whoever's willing to join me) and bring a picnic.

Week 3 - Silver Lake - Easy (moderately easy with snow)

We learned that in May, the Silver Lake trail can still have a lot of snow. It made this easy hike a little more challenging as we climbed over snow piles and tried not to slip.


But at least we didn't have to worry about mosquitoes! It was actually a lot of fun hiking in the snow under the trees. We've been to Silver Lake many times and we enjoyed having a different experience this time.

Week 4 - Sugarhouse Park - Easy

The snow convinced us that we should stay in the valley for a few more weeks before trying any more canyon hiking. So last week we decided to walk around Sugarhouse Park. There's a road that circles the park and it has a wide area marked off for pedestrians. The loop is only a little over a mile, but it was still a nice walk with some ups and downs. You can tell from the photo that one of us did not bring enough water and got hot and cranky, and another one of us was getting tired of listening to the crankiness. But we reached the car soon afterward and all was well.


Designating our hiking days ahead of time has made all the difference. And of course it helps to live so close to the mountains and have so many trails to choose from. I haven't decided yet where we'll hike this week, but so far I'm very pleased with how it's going.

Several goodbyes

Our gerbil Lily came to the end of her long life (over 3 years) on May 22. We buried her next to Stacy. All of us are still in the habit of looking for her and wanting to save paper towel tubes for her. We will miss her!

I realize I haven't posted anything for a long time. It's been a strange year so far. The biggest change has been that my mother is no longer staying with us. She was here for only five months and when she first came, she could go downstairs to the basement easily. Over time she lost that ability until she was scared and unsteady every time we would help her down the stairs. After a few near-falls, along with other concerns, we felt it was best for her to move to a place where she doesn't have to worry about stairs and can receive more specialized care. She is doing very well there and we see her often.

It has been an emotionally-laden struggle to make this change and to try to redefine normal life afterward. I feel like we're just about there, but now we have another change coming. M. has just finished high school and will start college classes in the fall. She's planning to live at home for the next year, so it's not really a goodbye yet, but the reality of soon having an ADULT child has started to sink in. And now that young women can serve church missions at age 19, there's a possibility of a serious goodbye before too long! I definitely don't feel old enough for all this to be happening yet.