coquelicot

Me v. the blog prompt
I think that each and every blog prompt we are given is something that is relevant for us to think about and consider. However, my problem is this: the prompt is always such that I feel the need to think about it, chew on it, mull over it, etc. So I don’t do it right away, but rather decide to think about it for a few days, especially when it is a difficult prompt like this one. It will happen that I am just outside walking around and then I find myself thinking, “what are some oppositions and solutions that surround me?� And I will spend some moments in this thought. But then I will go home, get distracted, and forget all about it. Then I remember it again just as I am about to go to sleep on Sunday night, which is bad. However, I can remember some of the thinking I did about this prompt this week. For example, I was downtown this weekend. It was kind of cold and windy, which is pretty much the usual state of downtown. However, looking around me, I saw many solutions to this problem. The bus shelters on Nicollet Mall, for example, are all enclosed and have heaters inside. They are ugly as sin, but they serve their purpose quite well. Also, I spent some time enjoying the famed skyway system. Overall I would say that the opposition of the cold was dealt pretty well.
Another opposition I thought about was that of me v. the stupid people that invaded my home this weekend. One of my roommates had some friends come to visit from Wisconsin, and although 2 of them were okay, the third was ghastly enough that the entire experience was soured. He was a very loud person, all the time, for some reason. So I found that in the short space of 2 days, my body, not wishing to be awakened by that jackass, had adapted itself in such a way that I was sleeping on my side, with one ear into the pillow, and then with my arm over my head, covering my other ear. I was personally rather impressed with the fact that my unconscious self came up with this solution to the problem. I say this because the best solution my conscious self could come up with was to throw him out the window. At any rate, they are gone, and I am enjoying the peace and quiet of having only four people in this apartment as opposed to seven.

Posted by Sarah Bloom at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The difference between iron and steel? Really? I wasn't aware that anyone remained unaware that they were different materials after 8th grade science class at the latest.
This is what i knew when this blog was assigned in class:
-iron is an elemental metal. True iron is made up entirely of Fe atoms.
-steel, however, is generally an alloy which contains iron and other elements as well, such as nickel. it is generally also much stronger than iron.
However, since i have not regurgitated this information in about 6 years, my memory of what exactly the difference is beyond that was a little rusty (pun intended) so i decided to look it up on Encarta (the standard edition on the CD-ROM, not the online one that can be edited)
This is what i learned:
1) steel has a carbon content which is much higher than that of iron.
2) steel was "invented" sometime after the 14th century when iron smelting processes were getting more and more sophisticated, and wrought iron would be heated with charcoal to create these early steels.
3) many food packages are created using thin sheets of steel and then coating it with even thinner sheets of tin. this is not really relevant, i just found it slightly more interesting than the rest of the article.
4)there are 5 classifications of steel: carbon, alloy, high-strength low-alloy, stainless, and tool
5) steel is often used instead of iron because it is generally stronger, more resistant to corrosion, and, perhaps most importantly, prettier and shinier.
6) steel is generally hardened by using heat treatment. before this process it is a mixture of three things: ferrite, cementite, and pearlite, none of which i found interesting enough to bother detailing here.
So what did I learn today?
-the one unifying characteristic of steel as compared to iron is that steel has a carbon content which is considerably higher. So that is the difference.

I was assigned to the Marcy Open School. Though I missed class on the day when the community partners were visiting and everyone was filling out forms and stuff, the people over there are pretty on the ball and have already matched me up with a teacher. Her name is Amy Johnson, and during the time that I am available she has two different classes. The first is a math class, which she says is doing basic things like multiplication and division. But the second is the one that I am excited about, because she has a French class, and I speak French! Yay! Exciting! I've been taking french for about 5 or 6 years now, and I test as "fluent," but I don't think I am, but it doesn't really matter because she said that they are just learning basic conversational stuff (which I know) and that she will be glad to have the help so she can maybe spice it up a bit. At any rate, it is looking like I will be going down there this Thursday morning, so we will see how it goes.

P.S. I think that the image of steel beams working together to create something larger than themselves is pretty much the perfect picture for this particular blog. An example of two seemingly dissimilar ideas really not being that different after all.

Posted by Sarah Bloom at 8:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Trying to be original on this prompt was difficult. Trying to be patient when the website thinks it is funny to delete your entry every time you try to upload a picture is even more so.
I was thinking to myself, what is a phenomena? We are all familiar with "natural phenomena." What, however, is an "unnatural phenomena"? Is there such a thing? Or does nature have a hand in all of them? If something "phenomenal" is created without the help of nature, is it even considered special anymore? Is that even possible?
At any rate, i was having great difficulty even thinking of a phenomenon to talk about, so i decided to look for "phenomena" on Wikipedia. It said that "a phenomenon is any observable event." Since this does not even match up with what we talked about in class, I quickly discarded that. I then got a little morbid and started to think about sociopathic disorder as a phenomenon. It actually matched up quite well- the things included the chemicals in the brain, the framework the sociopath's personal framework, and the clockwork the process that leads to their behavior, which is the phenomena itself. However, this is a little dark and sad to use for a blog prompt that can be used to write about something as beautiful as the aurora borealis, or as destructive as a hurricane. So this idea too was discarded.
In the end i gave up and decided to just write about my favorite phenomenon, the tides. I have never spent much time by the ocean myself, but i think it is amazing to think of such massive amounts of water being moved as a result of the moon, thousands of miles away. It obviously involves things and clockworks (water and the moon of course operates on a schedule). The frameworks are of course there as well. The relationship between the water and the moon is invariant. Therefore, the tide is a phenomenon. However, it is now after 4 am, so I am going to try to go to bed soon.

Posted by Sarah Bloom at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The place that I will be describing is Orange. Orange is a breakfast restaurant in Chicago that my good friend Kari and I discovered this July when we were visiting the city together. It is located on West Harrison Street, about 2 blocks away from the Hotel Blake, where we were staying and which is located on South Dearborn Street. Both are located in Chicago's Loop, more specifically, in the area of downtown which was once the city's red light district. The outside of Orange does not look like much, with a small sign and an enormous orange awning. Upon stepping inside, you are overwhelmed by this feeling of light. Under the orange awning, there is a wall of glass blocks. When paired with the large windows underneath, the result is an entire wall of light. Along one wall is a long counter, confirming the building's former incarnation as a bar (it was, after all, in the heart of the red light district). A table right inside the door was covered with juicing paraphenalia and fruits, and there was more of the same on the bar and also behind it. The seating was simple, with a long bench on the wall opposite the bar and tables and chairs from IKEA. On each table there was a small metal bucket with paper juice menus and golf pencils inside (the procedure for these, we discovered, was that you pick a base juice and then add other juices to it to make your own custom mixture). Colorful art was all over the walls, including a clear flat mannequin (the kind that is always hanging on the walls in stores) that was painted with a rainbow, red on the top, down to purple on the bottom. The wait staff all had political stickers all over their little folder thingys (you know, the thing that gets dropped off at the table with the check inside). The atmosphere of Orange is very interesting. It is artistic, political, relaxed, welcoming, and comfortable, all at the same time. On the walls in the hallway leading to the bathroom, there are drawings and notes from the patrons of the restaurant. It makes you want to be a member of the club. Kari and I left our own on the table, and I hope it was included in their collection. Everyone inside seemed so comfortable, and the food was amazing. At the top of the menu it said, "no substitutions, no build-your-own. Trust us. We know what we are doing." At the time that I went there was a special that had four different Chicago neighborhoods interpreted in breakfast, including one for Boys' Town (the gay neighborhood) that included pancakes "with large nuts and edible glitter," no joke. I got an omelette the first time, and the Chai Tea French Toast the second. I think the amazing food contributed to the calm atmosphere because everyone must have been stuffed to the point of total complacency. Kari has gone home to Norway since our trip, and i miss her terribly. But I can now say that I think of her every time I taste good breakfast food. And that we have already decided to go back to Chicago as soon as we can.

Posted by Sarah Bloom at 2:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)