Wednesday, September 12, 2018

More decorations

I posted a photo a couple of days ago of a nearby street with Spanish flag pennants in strands from building to building along the street. I speculated that it had to do with the imminent start of the school year. However, today some kids with different decorations and a ladder went along our street and hung similar decorations:

I asked Mario about it and he ranted a bit (lightheartedly) about how people in Sevilla hang decorations off of other people's balconies without asking all the time. This one is in preparation for a "procesion" held by some or other local Catholic organization on September 15th. The streets along the procession route all have these decorations. I can tell you that the owner of the tapas bar across the street in the building that literally was just painted was not pleased that random people were coming along and leaning ladders on the fresh paint and hanging things off of the building, haha. If looks could kill...

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In other news, I took a bit of a different route this morning on my walk. The orange trees lining Av. Concejal Alberto JimĂ©nez-Becerril are beautiful:
More rowers:
This outflow seemed to be related to the cleaning of a fountain located above this point on the bank of the river:
Finally, I pass by this church almost every day when I walk with Laura to her language class. While it won't be interesting to anyone else, I was struck by how perfectly symmetric the light and shadow on this alcove happened to be. I supposed this symmetry happens once a day, but the change of daylight as the year progresses to winter made it so this symmetry occurred at the moment I happened to walk by:
The shadow cast by the arc of the alcove frames the cross in an almost symmetric shadow.

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I haven't had a chance to jump back into my data science competition. Partly because I realized as I sat down to refine my effort that keeping track of those refinements was a challenge. I decided to step back and develop a method for systematically tracking the dozens of trials and modifications one performs in competitions like this. My goal is to have students doing this when I get back to Whitman. As a teacher, I have to provide them with the tools they need to be successful at the process. It's been nice to have the time this year to really dwell on the development of this class and on my own research.