bright eyes + blue eyes

Learning the Language of Statistics

I am doing a Master’s degree in statistics for social sciences, and I had kind of a revelation when I was studying last weekend. I’ve really latched on to the idea of learning statistics by thinking of it as mastering a new language. As a general rule, I feel quite competent and up to the task of learning languages. But statistics is a little bit more daunting, even though I’m interested in it and motivated to develop a solid base of understanding statistics and how to use them.

(Math-y type things don’t come naturally to me. I remember that in 3rd grade, or whenever you learn fractions, I just wasn’t getting it. So Daddy brought home two pies, and we spent a while at the kitchen counter, slicing pies up into various fractions. I think I wasn’t allowed to eat any of the pie until I had correctly identified the fraction thereof, or something like that…a pretty good incentive for tubby little Ellie.)

In my current studies, I’ve noticed myself glazing over at the formulas. When I see:      my inclination is to think ‘blah, blah, blah’ and skim past until the text starts again. But I can understand that formula if I slow down and ‘sound out’ each term in that expression. So reading formulas is the new pronunciation to tackle, and all the new terminology is simply vocabulary words that I have to memorize.

Theory is like grammar. Grammar shows me the reasons why sentences are structured the way they are, and learning statistical theory gives me the same scaffolding upon which to build my understanding of various techniques. Finally, I think the most important parallel that I’ve made between language-learning and statistics-learning is this: I have to practice in order to improve. I attribute my success at learning German and Swahili to pretty much having no shame. I just spoke and learned a ton every time I tried to string words together. With statistics, I can’t be shy about using what I’m learning, and getting frustrated by my mistakes will get me nowhere. It was easy to give myself grace when learning a foreign language because it was all new to me. How could I be expected to know that das Buch or kitabu means ‘book’ until I had learned that vocabulary word? Well, I’m in the same situation when it comes to statistics. I have to remind myself to stay patient and that everything I am learning will build up over time until, hopefully, I am able to say that I ‘speak statistics’.

Jamie + /// Nigella -

Two new BBC food ‘programmes’ started airing recently. I’m sure they’ll hit the Food Network sooner or later. Here’s my advance take on the shows.

Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals

Jamie Oliver’s new show is really fast-paced and practical. I like it. If you watch the video above, Jamie describes the concept in his loveable, tousled style. For me, personally, I think it would be a stretch to do these menus in 30 minutes, but they look so good, that I would gladly give it a go. About half of the menus look like they would be great for company. Even if it took me double the time, I would be pretty happy about making dinner for company (main, sides, dessert – everything) in an hour. Seriously, it usually takes me like nineteen hours to cook for company, no matter what I cook, it seems. So I am watching the shows when I can, and keeping track of the recipes and menus that go up the Jamie’s 30 Minute Meals website. I’m sure I’ll be cooking up some delicious 30 minute – 1 hour meals in the nearby future.

Nigella Kitchen

The second new show is called Nigella Kitchen, and it is simply bizarre. I used to like Nigella, but this show is putting me off her altogether. There are all these shots through a weird fuzzy lens, like cheesy wedding photos, with Nigella narrating in the background – like a cooking show dream sequence. In one segment, Nigella bakes a cake dressed in a black satin robe, and in another, she wears a trench coat while she prepares a soup. Strange. There are way too many lingering shots where her well endowed chest seems to be the only thing in focus. And to top it all off, she uses words in exceedingly odd combinations – a bit like she’s working on a weekend homework project to use interesting adjectives & adverbs. “Throw the salt, glisteningly, into the pan.” That’s really something she said. To me, this show is taking the celebrity chef / “food porn” industry a few steps too far.

Grocery Delivery

I’ve been talking about doing it for months, and now I’ve finally made my first order of groceries to be delivered to my door. It was so easy! This is a shopping habit that I will gladly integrate into my life. I ordered from Tesco, mainly because they offered me free delivery on my first order. (Normally, delivery costs £3 - £6, depending on demand of the delivery slot you select, which is a rate that still seems pretty reasonable to me.)

There’s plenty of good produce on offer around here, we don’t eat a whole lot of meat, and I’ve gotten into the routine of baking bread once a week, so I didn’t need to worry about those kinds of items. But it’s never much fun to carry heavy bags filled with beverages and canned goods or big bulky cereal boxes with sharp corners that poke out and scratch your leg as you walk. So I spent about a hour on the Tesco website on Sunday, trolling the online aisles for:

1. products that are heavy;
2. store-brand items that they don’t stock in the shoebox city centre stores (although there’s a lot that they do manage to cram into those small stores);
3. larger, more economical sizes of various goods

I selected a Monday evening delivery slot, which is a two-hour time frame, during which they promise delivery will take place. The driver called about an hour into my delivery slot, and I went out to our parking lot to meet him. My order was organized into green plastic bins, which were waist-to-shoulder-level high in his truck. So neither of us had to do a lot of lifting or heaving or lugging. He just slid the bins out of the truck, stacked them on his dolly and wheeled everything into my apartment. I unloaded everything on to my living room floor in about 2 minutes, and gave him his bins back.

It was about the easiest 87 kilos (191 pounds) I ever bought from the grocery store. (That fun fact was listed on my order form – the weight wasn’t too surprising, considering how much sparkling water and juice I ordered.) Next time, I should be able to place my order in no time, since all of my purchased items will be saved for me in my account. I’m a convert, and now I think I’ll do an order on a regular basis to stock up.

weekend homework

Superboy had the task of re-writing a familiar story. He was required to use interesting adjectives & adverbs. Here's how it turned out:

ants and grasshoppers: a familiar story re-told from ellie and abbie on Vimeo.
 

road trip: on the way back home

A bit of context...

• Gingi (my mom) helped us find a great lunch spot. I called her from the road in search of a Panera location. She gave me an address to punch in to my GPS. Yippee--our lunch was so yummy, and the kids wanted to thank Gingi for her help.
• We love baby chicks. At the Museum of Science and Industry, one of our favorite exhibits was the chick hatchery. On one side of the hatchery, we could see baby chicks emerging from their eggs. On the other side of the hatchery was a separate enclosure for bigger chicks (yellow, fluffy, and full of spunk.)

road trip: on the way back home from ellie and abbie on Vimeo.

 

chicago: lincoln park zoo

 

We had a great time at the Lincoln Park Zoo. This zoo is one of the oldest in the country (1868...to give a little context, remember that 1868 is only a few years after the Civil War ended...!) 

Also noteworthy: Lincoln Park Zoo is completely free!

 

The zoo is smack dab in the middle of downtown Chicago. You can see beautiful Lake Michigan from the East Entrance. If I was a mom living in the city, I'd definitely come here often. What a beautiful place to enjoy a picnic.

 

I particularly loved the Lion House. It was the most elegant Lion House I've ever visited. (By a long shot.)

 

 

 

chicago: metra

We rode the Metra into the city today and had a ball at the Field Museum.

We *almost* missed our train this morning....we cut it a little bit too close, but were saved by the fact that Uncle Gary knew the back route to the station.

Here's Pumpkin's recap:

chicago : on the metra from ellie and abbie on Vimeo. 

chicago: we're here

1. We're here! Had a great road trip up to Chi-Town. I'm sitting on Aunt Judy & Uncle Gary's couch at the moment--very happy to be here. The weather today was ab-so-lute-ly beautiful. We're going to have such a great week.

2. Fun in the car: We listened to Sign of the Beaver (the audio book.) It's a great book about a boy in the late 18th century who befriends a Native American boy about his age.

3. More fun in the car: While the kids were watching a movie, I listened to the RadioLab episode about Parisites. I'm now officially freaked out about blood flukes.

4. I cleaned my own windshield at the gas station--and missed my hubby! He's always so sweet about cleaning the windshield/windows for us on our trips.

5. We listened to Gary, Indiana (song from Music Man) when we were driving through Gary, Indiana.

6. The kids are now old enough to follow along on the atlas as we drive from state to state. I love that they can track where we are.

7. Another thing I love? Our GPS. Love it.

8. The kids know that they are allowed to pick out one souvenir during our trip. Theoretically, their choice is supposed to be something that is related to Chicago in some way, shape, or form. Well, we made it as far as the Cracker Barrel in Kentucky before they started asking "Can THIS be my souvenir? Please?" (while holding up a Webkinz.) Unless it is a Chicago Cub Webkinz or something, then the answer is no.

9. Lake Michigan is enormous.

10. I've got a big day tomorrow, so I'm going to sign off and hit the hay! We're headed to the METRA station in the morning to choo-choo our way back into the city.

gade

Some of my most treasured childhood memories revolve around time I spent with my cousins. I have three wonderful cousins on my mom's side, and two wonderful cousins on my dad's side.

This week, I'm particularly thinking about my paternal cousins, because we're about to get to spend some time together--hooray!

For many years, it was just the four of us girls. Ginger, Abbie, Debra, and Ellie. We had SO many great times together. We were like little stair-steps....four little girls all in a row. 

(Several years later, we were all thrilled with the arrival of my two little brothers.) 

One of the things we girl cousins did was form a cousin club. We named our club GADE. (First initial of each of our names.) 

One of GADEs activities was to re-create one of our favorite scenes from one of our favorite movies. The movie? Sound of Music. The scene? The part when Captain Von Trapp blows the whistle for his children and they all come running. They form a line, stand at attention, and then take turns stepping forward and introducing themselves, and then stepping back into formation.

The members of GADE would practice our introductions in the other room, and then indicate to our parents that we were ready for them to whistle for us. (Bless their hearts for humoring us by doing the whistling.) When we heard the whistle, we would rush into the room, line up in birth order as quickly as we could, and do our introductions with nary a smile on any of our little faces. (just like the movie, of course.)

Fun memories! My children haven't even seen that movie yet--now that's something I look forward to. (They already know the songs, because we love the soundtrack.)

Sidenote: Have you ever loved a soundtrack before watching the movie/play? I had that experience with Wicked. As much as you enjoy the music before going to the play, it cannot compare to AFTER.

After you go to the play, the words are so much richer and full of meaning.

My $0.02 is this: Living the life of faith is sort of like knowing the soundtrack of a movie before you see the movie. When Jesus comes back and brings full restoration to His creation, we'll understand everything so much better! We love the songs on the soundtrack right now (God's great goodness and love, our dependence on Him, how our hearts are made to worship our Creator, our need for community)....but one day....we'll really understand all of the lyrics so much more fully!

1 John 3:2, The Message paraphrase

+ + + +

My uncle spent some time recently digitizing lots of old family photos. We're all so grateful to him! They're so much fun to look through. Some of the pics I've never seen before.

Here's one of me & my cousins at the Memphis Zoo. Ellie, I think this was taken before you were born! That would mean this pic is c.1978 or so.

I love my cousins! Can't wait to see them soon.