Post #9 January Summary - February Goals

Motivation

I was sick at the beginning of January, and unfortunately had to take a number of days away from the office. In my recovery I popped a number of Halls cough drops (they are my favorite cough drop). Recently, Halls has included 'a pep talk in every drop' on the wrappers of each drop, so I would like to write out a couple here:

1. Turn "can do" into "can did!"

2. You got it in you.

3. Don't wait to get started.

4. Tough is your middle name. 

Stuff I finished this month:

1. A circle skirt (to be revealed in the February sewing blog)

2. Three makeup looks (Post #8)

3. Chapter 1 in Gurnett and Bhattacharjee

4. A first & second working draft of my first first-author paper

5. A first working draft of my thesis proposal

6. Weeks 9 and 10 in the C210k Trainer = 34.15 miles

Stuff I am hoping to finish in February:

1. Sew my first dress (will also be in the February sewing blog)
2. An alien makeup inspired by a deep sea creature

3. Chapter 2 of Gurnett and Bhattacharjee

4. Submit my first first-author paper

5. Have my thesis proposal mostly done.
6. Finish the C210k Trainer

Overall January was pretty productive, there is room for improvement, as always. February might be a short month but I am going to make it a good one. (I even rearranged my 6 goals for February to match the categories of stuff I finished in January, yay organization!!)

Post #8 I'm no Ve Neill, SFX makeup (Hobby No. 2)

Blog 1.3 - Suzanne's FaceOff projects

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to complete at least one makeup look a month, but turns out I made this a weekly adventure. This will be a three part blog, with lots of picture, and a decent amount of words.
#1 Old age make up. (01/07)
#2 Mudblood cut from Harry Potter (01/14)
#3 Adventures in Contouring - is it really worth the effort? (01/21)

Stage Makeup: Mehron's old age makeup. 

Why an old age makeup? 

1) My sister got me a kit from Mehron for old age makeup.

2) It will give me a chance to work on contouring. 

3) It's a fairly basic makeup that I should master.

So on Christmas I decided that an old age makeup would be my makeup look for January. I bought a wig (that I am hoping to reuse for a cosplay I might do just for fun in the month of February), and I have started a Pinterest board to give me some inspiration. I also rewatched a video from one of my favorite YouTube makeup artists (MadeYewLook). She is amazing!

Without further ado, the before and after, plus some of the funny faces I made to get my wrinkles:

Before: 27 (almost 28)

After: older than 27

So I feel like I look like Alan Rickman in this one

After doing this I realized I have less wrinkles on my forehead than other people, the wrinkles there are called 'worry lines'. I guess I don't worry as much as others. Hakuna Matata.

Also, this Mehron kit is definitely more suited to create a STAGE old age makeup. It gets the point across from a distance, but up close it doesn't look very realistic. I think I will try again with a different color to enhance my wrinkles. 

Special Effects makeup: Playing with scar wax.

My sister got me more scar wax and a spatula for Christmas too. Here is a good way for me to practice my fake cut making. Below is my homage to JK Rowling's Hermione.

Materials: Graftobian scar wax, Graftobian stage blood, Nars foundation, Ben Nye bruise wheel, vaseline, setting powder, red cream paint, spirit gum.

Beauty makeup: Smashbox Light Effects pallet (aka adventures in contouring)

About 2 months ago I thought I would play with contouring, to see if it was worth the effort. Contouring refers to the makeup technique that alters the appearance of your face (skinnier nose, more defined cheek bones, slimmer face, etc.) just using makeup. There are people in the world that do this on a daily basis. I truly believe that it is too much makeup on my face for daily wear.
Sure I don't leave the house without makeup on, but this is too much for me but, I suppose, I can see how someone would want to put their best face forward.
Below are the before and after... I'll stick to MY everyday.

A word to the wise: this much makeup on one's face has had some not so cool side effects. My makeup free face looks more 18 than 28. The contour and highlight makeups made me break out!!!

Left: No contouring, Right: Contouring

FaceOff on SyFy starts tonight at 9pm, you all should tune in!!

Post #7 Introduction to Sewing (Hobby No. 1)

Blog post 1.2 of 2017, my first stitch fix. 

Outline:
1) Introduction to my Sewing Machine
2) Altering my NYE dress

So this was my big Christmas gift this year. I am so excited. I am hoping to change my sporadic sewing into a real hobby. So far I have completed one project, but I am getting ahead of myself. This is the Singer Simple 3221 sewing machine. It is a simple little thing. Does about 12-15 stitched and includes a button hole foot, which is pretty awesome.

I was able to set it up pretty easily. I had two big issues when starting. 1) setting up the bottom thread, but now that I was able to get it it is easy. 2) starting to sew, turns out having the tension set at 4 is too high, I moved it down to 2 and now it's okay.

The first project I did was sew some straps for my NYE dress.





NYE Dress - Stitch Fix #1

Before - fat arms

Before - as high as I could lift my arm

So I got this dress at Francesca's on New Year's Eve eve (December 30th) because the dress I had bought from Lord & Taylor on December 27th wasn't going to be delivered in time (womp womp). But lemonade out of lemons. This dress was cute and fit me well, except for one huge issue, my arms. It was a structured off the shoulder dress, and my upper arms are fat, and did not look good at all. Not to mention I could not even lift my arms past my waist, there go my killer dance moves. But, as I stood there in the dress, knowing it wasn't going to work, and my sister saying how cute it was otherwise, I thought about what might happen if I tucked in the straps (I did that with the halter straps on my prom dress, why shouldn't I be able to do that with this one?). Well that didn't work 100% but it did give my sister and I the idea that I could alter the dress myself after purchasing it. So, I psyched myself up with a pep talk (You can do this, you are crafty enough!), and I bought it (plus another dress that I didn't have to alter).
So I got home that evening, and after doing some quick hand stitching on my sister's gala outfit, I set to work on my dress.

First Step was to take some really unflattering pictures of how bad the structured off the shoulder sleeves looked on me. I mean, if I stood a certain way and didn't move at all, it didn't look too bad, but I was going to a Gala, where I was going to dance, drink, and socialize with friends & strangers, I needed the ability to move.

Step 1.5: Setting up my sewing machine. I wanted to use my new favorite toy to help me with this project to I took the time to wind my bobbin and tread my upper and lower threads.

Second Step: I needed to psych myself up again, because the second step was the hardest. I needed to CUT the dress I just paid money for, and not thrift store money, (but not Lord & Taylor money either, it was <$40), but still. So I did it, I cut the straps.

Third Step involved me securing the remnants of the sleeves. I was going to do a quick straight stitch on the end of the cut strap with my sewing machine, but I failed miserably at my first sewing attempt (caused by having the tension set too high - see above). So instead of risking the dress I decided to hand sew the remnants into place. Repeat for all four areas that had remnants. One good thing about hand sewing this part is that I was able to keep the stitches in the black of the dress pattern so you couldn't see where I had stitched.

Step 3.5: Run to Joann's Fabrics to get fabric to make into straps because after cutting the straps off this dress it turned out that strapless was not going to work.

After - looks so much better

Fourth Step had me using my sewing machine correctly and I made straps!! Albeit they are slightly uneven, but hey, they worked.

After - right before the gala

Fifth Step, hand sew straps into place - breaking a pin in the process...

Overall I am very pleased with it:





I had a great time at the Gala, and it was a good start to my 2017.
I had planned to add a second project I am working on, but this post was already a bit wordy so I will have to save that for my February Stitch Fix post.

Let me add this; January projects -
~ My first Circle Skirt
~ lengthening a dress
~ shortening a dress

Post #6 A Physics Carol - Explained

Happy New Year! Welcome to blog 1.1 of 2017.

So since my freshman year of undergrad (Christmas 2007), I have been a fan of a certain collection of Physics Carols, a complete catalog found HERE. I enjoyed them so much that one year I had my fellow physics majors sing them at our Holiday Party, videos can be found HERE. But, also since freshman year of undergrad I have been working on my physics education, so over the past 9 years I have learned something about what the songs are referring to. 

Today, I give you 12 Days of Newton - Explained.

On the first day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    The acceleration due to Gravity 

Sir Isaac Newton (hereafter abbreviated SIN) studied the work of Kepler and Galileo, from which he was deduced a gravitational constant - which will be touched on more on the Sixth Day, but for now: the acceleration due to gravity is a constant that is dependent on the gravitational constant, the mass of the planet in question, and the distance from the center of mass. This constant is different based on which planet you are on, for Earth see Day Nine.

On the second day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Two torques a balanced 

Torque is a turning or twisting action on a body about a rotation axis due to a force. A necessary step when balancing torques in an introductory physics problem is summing all the torques, and this process is usually completed by invoking Newton's Second Law in Angular Form. (Newton's 2nd law can be seen on Day Three). 

On the third day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Three laws of motion 

Newton's Three Laws of Motion, quoted from Halliday & Resnick's Fundamentals of Physics:

1. "If no force acts on a body, the body's velocity cannot change; that is, the body cannot accelerate." An object at rest remains at rest, unless acted upon by a force. Conversely, and object moving will continue to move, unless acted upon by a force. Also articulated this way: "If no net force acts on a body, the body's velocity cannot change; that is, the body cannot accelerate."

2. "The net force on a body is equal to the product of the body's mass and it's acceleration." Or, in equation form, which is very important for so much of physics, F = ma.

3. "When two bodies interact, the forces on the bodies from each other are always equal in magnitude and opposite in direction." This law is probably the most familiar to all people, even the Broadway people who might think that they don't know any physics. (Hamilton's Washington on Your Side) 'Ev'ry action has its equal, opposite reactions...' sings Jefferson when he complains about Hamilton. SIN is obviously thinking of something different, but hey it works.

On the fourth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Four apples falling 

Much like the story of George Washington and the cherry tree, SIN has his own illustrative adage. Albeit, SIN is believed to be inspired by an apple falling, but not that apple falling on his head, it does make for a good School House Rock song (Victim of Gravity - see HERE)

On the fifth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me: 
Five Newton rings 

The first four days I understood and knew why they were associated with SIN, but then came day five. It is fitting that it is the crescendo of the song. 
Newton Rings are an optics topic, SIN used them to quantify the quality of his optical telescopes. The rings are an interference pattern that is created by the reflection between a spherical surface and touching flat surface. SIN wasn't the first to discover this phenomenon, but he was the first to analyze it (53 years after it was first described by Robert Hooke). 
Newton Rings can be seen as the rainbow glimmer in soap bubbles or oil deposits.

On the sixth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Six point six seven 

As hinted on in Day One, 6.67 refers to the Gravitational Constant, abbreviated G = 6.67 x 10^-11 m^3/(km s^2). It is a necessary quantity for a large amount of classical physics, and some astronomy classes. It was July of 1687 that SIN published his Law of Universal Gravitation. This law is yet another version of SIN 2nd law; it states every particle attracts any other particle with a gravitational force. 

On the seventh day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Seven spectrum colors 

SIN chose to denote the seven discreet colors of the spectrum (made up of different particles of light), even though it is a continuum. But ROY G BIV is all SIN. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. As far as I know, (seeing as I have no direct connection to what they are teaching grade schoolers), elementary schools are not teaching it as ROY G BIV anymore, indigo is no longer part of the rainbow. 

On the eighth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Eight mints of money 

1696, SIN has been appointed the Warden of the Mint. He came into this position at a bad time for British money, coin shaving was a thing, but with the meticulous nature of SIN the mint was about to get a much needed overhaul. New equipment, plus SIN knowledge of alchemy helped turn around the grim outlook. Coin amounts were redefined, (aside: as an American, I don't understand British currency but way to go SIN for helping out), 21 shillings and 6 pence equals 1 gold guinea. SIN also used his position to cut down on counterfeiting and was an enforcer of the death penalty for counterfeiters, (hanging plus drawn-and-quartering, I wouldn't counterfeit). Credit: J. Lienhard

On the ninth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Nine point eight 

Another constant I hinted at on Day One, 9.8 is the acceleration due to gravity on earth. It is the a from F = ma, and is one of the first constants I memorized, I prefer to use 9.81 m/s^2, but Nine point eight one doesn't roll off the tongue as easily. 

On the tenth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Ten z-components 

Okay, this one is the one that throws me for a loop. The only z-component I understand is in coordinate systems. My first assumption is that there are not 10 of them, it just is convenient to put the z-component on this day. SIN's connection with z-components is the next mystery to solve... Okay this might remain a mystery. Any thoughts from any of my readers? I can come up with something like the sum of Forces and Torques rely on the sum of all components, including the z-component, if applicable.

On the eleventh day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Eleven speeds of sound 

Like Day Ten we are not talking about eleven different speeds of sound but instead we are referencing that SIN calculated the speed of sound as one of his numerous experiments. In 1687, SIN was the first to publish a value for the speed of sound (979 feet/second ~ 298 meters/second, which is about 15% smaller than the actual speed of sound). The missing variable was how temperature effects the speed of sound.

Sir Isaac Newton (12/25/1642 - 03/20/1727)

On the twelfth day of Newton , Sir Isaac gave to me 

    Twelve particles of light

Like Day Ten and Day Eleven, it isn't exactly 12, but Newton believe light was made up of particles. Wave/Particle duality is a common topic of debate throughout the history of physics. As far as our science has gotten us, scientists have shown how light acts as both a wave (Diffraction patterns when light is shined through a thin slit) and a particle (reflection and refraction through a prism). SIN believed light was made up of discreet particles.

I post these day on the 12 days leading up to Christmas, as a kind of countdown to the day of Sir Isaac Newton's birth. This, and the other carols do not need to be just Christmas carols, but can be used to celebrate a love of Physics and science all year long.