This installment of life's little triumphs is pretty overdue at this point. I've been meaning to blog about it, but this particular little triumph came at a time when I was trying to orchestrate a series of larger triumphs (spring semester final exams, then the GRE, then the start of a challenging summer session), and I've been distracted. But I think most of us need all the triumphs we can get, so better to write about this late rather than never!
It all started last fall when my old food processor finally bit the dust. It served its purpose for many years, but was never entirely satisfactory, so I decided to upgrade. I researched Consumer Reports and settled on a Cuisinart model. I was very happy when I first used it as it was clear that it was a marked improvement over my old food processor. BUT! Not long after my new food processor arrived, Cuisinart announced a recall of millions of its food processor blades. At that point, I wasn't too concerned because they made it easy to request a replacement blade online. I requested a replacement blade in December. Cuisinart didn't provide a time frame for the new blade to arrive, but I decided it might take as long as several weeks since it was right before Christmas.
What I considered to be a reasonable period of time came and went. I called the recall number in February. The employee who answered (and who sounded utterly defeated on the phone) told me that they hadn't forgotten about me and that my blade would ship in March. I decided I could live with that.
March came and went, and my blade didn't arrive. I emailed Cuisinart in early April. They sent me a response saying that (a) estimated delivery was "after April," and (b) I could still use all the attachments that came with my food processor except for the recalled blade.
This was not terribly encouraging news to me. In my mind, "after April" can mean anything from "the blade will arrive in May" to "your as of yet unborn great grandchildren will receive the blade sometime after you're gone." Also, the ability to use the other food processor attachments is useful only part of the time. I would no more grate chickpeas for hummus than I would puree potatoes for latkes.
This story ends happily, however, as my replacement blade actually arrived before May, if only by a few days! Thus, this mildly annoying saga in my life came to an end, I was able to use my new food processor blade in time for pesto season, and now maybe I can give hope to anyone else waiting for a replacement Cuisinart blade.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
Sunday, June 11, 2017
A Symbol Of Something I Dislike
I bought a calculator the other day.
And not just any calculator, mind you. It's a scientific calculator, complete with logarithms and trig functions.
I am aware that it's completely possible to find such a calculator online for free. But I needed a separate calculator for the purpose of taking quizzes and tests.
Yes, my summer is being blighted with math. Well, I don't want to make it sound worse than it is. I am taking an intro to speech and hearing science, which sounded pretty innocuous, until the first class when we were presented with a math quiz to see what we knew (remembered?) of various math concepts. I actually remembered some of the concepts on that quiz, but was faced with the uncomfortable reality that I had forgotten about the very existence of logarithms, and never felt like I had a terribly firm grip on them in the past, either.
In a way, it's funny that it has come down to this. I felt like high school was littered with classes I didn't really like, but had to take in order to get into a good college. I took AP calculus my senior year in high school with the hope of placing out of math in college. Somewhat miraculously, I succeeded in that endeavor, and as a result, spent college taking mostly classes I liked (with a few notable exceptions, of course). I thought that memorizing formulas and those dreaded logarithms (!) were firmly in my past. But here I am with math biting me on the behind, after spending my college and grad school years smugly taking foreign language classes.
I'm hoping, perhaps against all reasonable hope, that the math and formulas are front-loaded on the beginning of the semester and will be a distant memory by the end. But in the meantime, I'm hunkering down with my fancy calculator, and preparing to come to terms with topics I've avoided for years.
And not just any calculator, mind you. It's a scientific calculator, complete with logarithms and trig functions.
I am aware that it's completely possible to find such a calculator online for free. But I needed a separate calculator for the purpose of taking quizzes and tests.
Yes, my summer is being blighted with math. Well, I don't want to make it sound worse than it is. I am taking an intro to speech and hearing science, which sounded pretty innocuous, until the first class when we were presented with a math quiz to see what we knew (remembered?) of various math concepts. I actually remembered some of the concepts on that quiz, but was faced with the uncomfortable reality that I had forgotten about the very existence of logarithms, and never felt like I had a terribly firm grip on them in the past, either.
In a way, it's funny that it has come down to this. I felt like high school was littered with classes I didn't really like, but had to take in order to get into a good college. I took AP calculus my senior year in high school with the hope of placing out of math in college. Somewhat miraculously, I succeeded in that endeavor, and as a result, spent college taking mostly classes I liked (with a few notable exceptions, of course). I thought that memorizing formulas and those dreaded logarithms (!) were firmly in my past. But here I am with math biting me on the behind, after spending my college and grad school years smugly taking foreign language classes.
I'm hoping, perhaps against all reasonable hope, that the math and formulas are front-loaded on the beginning of the semester and will be a distant memory by the end. But in the meantime, I'm hunkering down with my fancy calculator, and preparing to come to terms with topics I've avoided for years.
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