Christmas and Hanukkah Wishes

First, I hope all of you have great holidays, even those who are not celebrating a specific holiday. Spend time with those folks who are important to you and to whom you are important.  Also, many times the holidays do not live up to expectations, probably due to unrealistic expectations. Please remember every moment you spend regretting what isn't happening, instead of appreciating what is happening, is a precious moment of life wasted.

Second thanks for the responses from nearly all of you re: your results and needs.

Third, I expect to be at Ridge on 1/3 and 1/13, mostly to help with the Physics Olympics.

Four, somewhat against my better judgement I have joined facebook. I will be friends with any of my students AFTER they graduate from Ridge.

The past weeks have been full of errands and shopping, some walks along country roads, but most of all wood working. I am trying to regain or improve on the woodworking skills I had  about twenty years ago, while building a gift for my wife.  Its amazing how many different kinds of errors I have made. I hope I can forget how to make them on the next project.

Last weekend I finished writing and modifying the last rec. Monday afternoon was spent copying and mailing. Tuesday my wife and I took a walk in a forest on the William Cullen Bryant estate ( a 19 th century poet who emphasized the importance of nature). It has not been logged in at least two hundred years and there are many magnificent trees and some beautiful streams.

Wednesday we bought groceries for, and helped serve at a Christmas dinner for the indigent, an annual gift from out Temple congregation to the community. I spent much of the afternoon, you guessed it, copying and mailing recs. Still have a few to go.

Thursday was more woodworking and picking up my son, Daniel, in Boston. Yesterday was more woodworking and shopping with Daniel. Tonight dinner with Daniel, and Chris (my stepson) and his family, including his sister in law and her family.  Jean (my wife)started cooking three days ago and now Daniel is pitching in. So much for weight loss.

On the physics front, I have reviewed matrix algebra and determinants and even derived Kramer's Rule on my own.  Back to general relativity soon. Currently reading about non local causality ( which implies events at one point can affect other events more than c delta t away) and will review the EPR paradox, Bell's inequality, and the Aspect  experiments sooner or later.

Application Results

I am writing recs for 38 students. Of these thirty one had early deadlines. I had told those thirty one that I would not send out any recs that had due dates beyond 12/15 unless I heard from them.  I need to hear from you about what has happened to all those early actions and early decision applications and what you want to do now. There are still about a dozen of you with whom  I have not had correspondence. I am not happy about this.


Let me remind you of a few things. I spend hours thinking of ways to say positive things that are neither untrue nor boring about students. I have to drive 23 miles each way to get your letters copied. I lick a few hundred envelopes because most of you don't use the self seal type. I spend time checking addresses that are faulty and correcting them. I fax applications when the post office or admissions offices lose the first ones I sent. I fill out forms that you were supposed to. I spend a couple of hundred dollars on cartridges, copying, paper, etc. I lose my correspondence with you because someone in the Basking Ridge administration closed out my email account without warning or explanation. What do I ask. I simply ask that you keep me posted on your results and your current needs. Remember, I cannot see any correspondence we had on my bernardsboe account, so if you need me to know something you need to make sure it reached my gmail account.

Urgent: Loss of Email

My email account at bernardsboe is not working at this time and I have not yet been able to ascertain why. I was hoping to sort this out before bothering any of you but time is getting short for the Dec. 31 and Jan 1 deadlines. In any case, at this moment I do not have access to the my inbox or the mailboxes that have all my correspondence on recommendations. This has three immediate consequences.

1) I have not contacted most of you whose name begins with a letter after "H" about which schools I have sent recs to. I'll try to recommence this process using the info I have from your folders.

2) I do not know what will happen to any electronic recommendation requests sent to my bernardsboe address. If they have deadlines coming up soon I suggest you revise your request to refer to my gmail address.

3) Please use my robertcherd@gmail address to keep me posted on where you were accepted and what schools I still need to send to.

Please pass this on to anyone you think I may be writing for or those who need to reach me for other reasons.

Early December

General

The unusually warm December has made construction work and furniture making more enjoyable in one sense ( I'm not freezing in the barn), but harder to do because the temptation to go for long walks is nearly irresistible. I'm not sure why I wrote nearly, having taken long walks on 4 of the last 6 days, including two with my wife. Nearly everyone who drives past while we are walking waves and a few even stop to chat.

We visited Historic Deerfield, a town full of original colonial and federal era structures, furniture and other artifacts, and home of the Deerfield Academy. I was there to study some details of furniture construction as well as enjoy the beauty and history of the town. I highly recommend it as a place to visit.

Thanksgiving was a real pleasure. Daniel was in from Ft. Collins and then off to a meeting held by the DOE on ideas for a high intensity neutrino source. He managed to stay here for a few days in between visits to his friends in Boston. It was something of a sacrifice because our terrible internet service makes it hard for him to get his work done. We also had Chris and Tracy ( stepson and daughter in law for those of you new to my ramblings) and their three children, (Audrey 11, Walter, 9, Henry 6) friends of Daniel's and their two children, and my middles sister and her husband. This is the smallest Thanksgiving group my wife has cooked for in 30 years. Daniel couldn't take his usual mountain of leftovers home, no nieces or nephews were here and we still ran out of pumpkin pie and turkey in less than a week. Life is hard sometimes.

We spent several days in the past few weeks stopping in at local artists and artisans, spending money because they made pretty and sometimes objects and we felt their skills and efforts deserve some support. We kid ourselves into thinking we know someone who can use the items or that we need them in our house. Maybe we are not really kidding , my feelings on this vary with the time of day. Some of the stuff is we bought edible and I know I will use that!

Speaking of purchases, someone please tell Bardia I bought a new tweed jacket. Couldn't resist since it was made in USA of Scottish tweed.

My Physics

I am continuing to read up on linear algebra so I can be fluent when dealing with the matrices in general relativity. The jury is still out on the faster than c neutrinos. It could be error or some new physics, but I'd be surprised if special relativity is overthrown by these results.

Ridge Stuff

I hope the Physics Olympics team is doing well. I expect to see you folks early in January.

Recs

Two more recs to write and then a bunch of mailing to do for those who have not ended up going to one of their early schools. I have heard of one success and one dis appointment so far. Keep me posted. If you had early applications (ED OR EA), I will not send out your later ones unless I hear from you. . I will let each of you know to whom I have sent recs. Many of you have already heard from me on this