My Birthday Post

Well, here we go again.

As always, I have a few things to write about on my birthday. First of course, my recent annual tradition of the Periodic Table Birthday:

I just finished my Krypton year, and I must say I am glad to be done with noble gases, at least for another 18 years¹. But now begins my Rubidium Year. While I like the name Rubidium, I'm not sure the year looks good for me. After all, rubidium is "not known to be necessary for any living organisms." Crap. Just when I thought I was making a difference. In addition, rubidium is well-known as a polarizing element.

At various times in our lives, we are more reactive than at other times. I assume that now that I am back in the alkali metals group (where I haven't been since I was 19), I can expect these reactive qualities to pop back up. I don't remember being particularly reactive when I was 19, but hey, that was my Potassium Year, so what did I know? In addition, though it seems like it will start off rough, I am glad to be in a new row/period for a while.

Other than that, 37 is a pretty boring number. It is the human body temperature in Celsius, so I guess to be a completist I can try to make it to 98.6 years old.²

But here's what I do know: Today my students guessed I was 28, and when I told them "I wish," they told me that the oldest I could possibly be is 34. So I have that going for me.

---

¹Yeah, this means nothing.

² Or, if I am really ambitious, I'll try to live to 310, the body temperature in Kelvin.