Back on Track, er... Sidewalk

4.49mi - 33'20"

Well, it's certainly a different kind of running here in Newtown. Hills. Wow. Again, I didn't realize that there were so many hills here. There's the sharp quick ones that make you stare at your toes and the long gradual slope ones that make you rethink religion. I think this is a good thing, but it'll take some getting used to.
Lots of crosswalks and glancing around for cars making right turns without turn signals. On the plus side, there are a lot of runners out there, or at least there were this morning. I looked online and found a whole lot of running routes, and some even go into some kinda green areas, but most of them are longer runs. I think I need a few mid-range runs to get me back into stride before I do that.

The roommate is coming today. I really thought I was past the part of my life where I would have roommates, but I guess that's poverty for ya. He says he's bringing a table and some chairs and maybe even *gasp* a couch! Maybe it's not so bad a thing after all.

Anyway, before he comes, I'm going to head out and do a photo walk. I might not have any free time once school starts up next week, so I'd better do it now, right?

The Trend Continues

It's funny how something you half expected to happen can really hit you hard when it does. I just talked to my ex-girlfriend last night. We used to joke about the fact that the last three women I dated got married within a year of breaking up with me.

Last night she told me she got married in June. I'm still processing it, and I am really happy for her, but damn. It hurts a lot more than I thought it would.

Another Oopsie Nominee

Best description of someone who went mad:

"She became mentally absent."

The Oopsies

Final Exam Oopsies*

Best spelling error that spell check isn't going to get you out of:

Nominee #1
The nation was run by technicians and bearcats.**


* In the best tradition of the Oscars, Tonies and Razzies, the Oopsies are the awards given to outstanding achievement in inadvertently making the instructor laugh.

** Original sentence altered to protect those who don't proofread.

Bullets Over A Street Other Than Broadway

Random new school thoughts:

• Smoking? I thought we we past all of that. Old uni was a very anti-smoke place. There are many more smokers here. Grr...
• biking with earphones is going to be a thing of the past. The streets here are much less bike friendly. I did get a helmet today.
• hills? I didn't know this place had hills! I walked for about 3 hours yesterday adn I felt the calf burn this morning - yea!
• Getting my ID card was spookily simple. The photo is passable.
• You can't pay for laundry here with coins - it has to be through the ID card. I kinda like that. I don't like hoarding coins to feed those beasts
• Roommate still isn't here yet. I'll keep you updated. :)
  

The University is Gone! Long Live the University!

I finally made it to New to You U. That's not going to be the name, by the way. As proof of my move, I give you a photo of my new neighbor:



Look at those teeth! Big sharp pointy teeth! But, he (she?) could probably use some of those whitening strips. I thought about photoshopping them white so that they poor dude wouldn't be embarrassed, but in the end I didn't.

The move went surprisingly well considering all the trip-ups and silly mistakes I made. That's a story for another day. On the completely cool upside of things, there was a massive blogger meeting (which also happened to be a family gathering) and much fun was had by all. Again, I'll post more about the move itself later

The campus here is very nice. We've got the 'old and ivy-covered' niche pretty well taken care of with a healthy dose of 'holy crap where do they get the money to buy the new buildings' sprinkled in to taste. There was a mild aggravation when I tried to access the internet from my new place. It seems that they need you to install a piece of spyware that monitors your computer to make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date. That's evil, but understandable. problem is that their spyware doesn't support Windows Vista. hehe advanced spyware protection, wot?

Aside from that hiccup, things have gone pretty smoothly. I've wondered around quite a bit and taken a few pictures. I think I need to block out a good long photo-tour though. Of course, most of you folks wont get to see that 'cause you'd figure out where I am and come stalk me. :)

So now I'm off to try and get some grading done. I've escaped the old place, but not the old place's work. Sigh.

What's With All This Dust Everywhere?

It's not you, it's me. I'm not ignoring you, I'm just trying to work some things out for myself.

Hehe. Actually, I'm just insanely busy. Let's try out the patented Bullets of Blah!

• Today is the last full lecture for the summer and this Friday after I give the final, the packing enters its full-on panic phase.
• It looks like Saturday is the DAY OF THE MOVE.
  
• I'm really excited.
• I've slowly been carting my books home from the office and putting them into boxes, but it seems like there's always more junk in the office and at home. Can I just dump it all? Feh, I guess it's always like that, right?
• Naturally, no running going on either, so I'm feeling flabby and very low-energy.
• Ok! Lecture in 30 minutes!
  
• We're dealing with so many terrible things - emotionally very very difficult things.
  
• Is it a bad thing that I consider a lecture successful if someone cries? Because that sounds bad.
• I'm off like a prom dress!
  

Oblivious

This morning, I met up with a returning-from-sabbatical professor who I TAed for a couple of years ago (years! geeze). We had a great chat about the class I'm teaching now (she's teaching it soonish) and about the 'FUTURE OF THE FIELD' and other 'IMPORTANT TOPICS.' It's an odd thing because I have distinct memories of feeling like the newbie grad student when last we talked, but now I feel like I'm being treated like a colleague. What a wonderful feeling.

We also talked a lot about me heading out to new and unknown lands to do the PhD. It's tough for me to talk in dept about things that cause anxiety (What a unique trait, eh?), but we talked a lot about the things that are worrying me - the ego minefield of a so-called more important university with so-called more important people and all the new stress of actually figuring out my field etc... etc...

Anyway, It was very nicely cathartic. I think I've always believed that it would all work out ok on some level, but it's another step forward to actually say it out loud to someone.

The title of this post is based on the fact that she asked me when I was moving and I thought about it for a sec before realizing that I'm moving next weekend. Good grief. That's way too fast. Expect a week or more of move-blogging - with special guest(s)!

I Know I'm Desperate, But Seriously...

The woman at the local greasy spoon who served up my omelet this morning had more disturbing news.

I apparently am a dead ringer for one of the actors on Desperate Housewives (one of the men). The thing is that I didn't ask which one. I took a look at the cast page and I still can't figure it out. The only 'You look like' kinda thing that I'm used to getting is Robin Williams, but I think that's more of a personality thing. Oh, and the hair.

So the closest one, I figure may be this guy, but my friend in the office says it has to be this guy.

So, you guys who know what I look like, what do you think? How Desperate am I?

Blasphemy

Cafe Snippit Coda

Is it simply impossible for a cafe to be run at a comfortable temperature? Are there laws that require either icicles or heatstroke?

For the record, I am a very un-skinny man with a deep and abiding love of wintry climes and a rich shiny coat of fur (raw eggs in the kibble, doncha know?), and I am shivering like Rush Limbaugh when his maid is on vacation.

On the plus side, grading is nearly done and as soon as I email these back I'm getting out of here. Either I'm going soft (probable) or the papers are getting better. It's probably the exhaustion. These student's don't know how good they've got it.

[edited to change Bill O'Reilly to Rush Limbaugh. I can't keep my wackos straight]

Cafe Snippit Redux

Ma'am (a different ma'am, this time),

I realize that we may not be in the swankiest of cafes, but exactingly laying down 40 or so napkins so as to completely cover your table before delicately placing your coffee in the middle doesn't actually make the place any more... posh.

I have to admit though, I had to stifle a laugh when you kicked the table, sloshing coffee all over your carefully-laid napkin table cloth. Then I sighed when you picked them all up, threw them away and started all over again.

The two women huddled over their two Mactops were also suitably amused. But it's best not to dig too deeply into their lives. All I've overheard over the cafe music and my own earphones was the line, 'My friends all do a lot of, seriously, like, hard core drugs, and people look at me, and they just think that I do too!'

Cafe Snippit

Ma'am:
I think after the third time you told the gentleman with you that he had to put some half and half in his coffee, and for the fourth time he refused, it's probably time to drop it. The fourth time, waving the thermos in his face, was probably not going to change his mind.

Sir:
Run. Run quickly and far.

The Overreaid

O Muses, I call but impotently on thee to express that which mortal mouths, by the nature of their being made of flesh and fed by course and earthy breads, cannot express! Oh! Would that ambrosia were the provender of this my form and these my fingers, that I might express in words the fundament of my tale in the fullness of its tragic scope!

Alas, I know well, that I am not loved by the muses. They deign not to enter my hands in spirit that I might weave a tale that might bind perusers in purple strands of profundity and wonder. Much less am I the blissful host of some god, who might grant clarity of expression allowing a man of dust to carry forth some divine grudge, spite or whim in the telling of histories or other diversions, and in this proxy action achieve glory and renown.

I am thus struck dumb, palpably bound as if with Promethean chains to the earth, loving, but fecund only for the fruits of toil, never to the stirrings of my pen or keyboard. However much straining upward, yet doomed never to reach the Olympian peaks, I resign myself to the unembroidered and pale purpose of my post without the aid that might assure the tearing of your clothes and gnashing of your teeth in sympathy.

My dear friends drifting in the viscous ether of the blogosphere, much as pearls, having been cast into a broad salted sea, might slowly flutter lower, ever gleaming, hear me and bemoan my worldly ills. I have, in these several previous days, blest by glorious sun and the temperate clime of the nearby fields, taken repose in enjoyment of such splendor presented by the season.

I have, with a few and most excellent acquaintances, enjoyed the games of physical prowess for which those of my town are well-known. For, while I have no such skill myself, I take great joy in watching those who are so blest, and I have some small ability in the recording of their exploits.

I have also diverted myself in the viewing of films and reading of many an obscure text. Both these diversions being of a kind that both wearies the body and enlivens the spirit, I find myself restless of mind and yet heavy in body.

These activities are fitting and well for a man with leisure, and would that I were in such a situation, I could pleasantly sun myself as the cat is wont to do and enjoy a furtherance of these my diversions.

Alas, my fate is one much more cruel and ever so much the worse for being self-imposed. The tragedy of my tale lies in the cruel fact that I made bold enough to swear an oath to my several students that their papers that now crowd my hard drive, teaming with misspellings, lies and cruel logical incongruities, just as the maggots that infest a rotting carcass, such that even the birds of carrion dare not approach to feed, would be carefully read and commented upon before the resumption of lectures on Tuesday. I now have good reason to rue the oath, oh vile vanity that made me speak such words! and I now bring oaths of a more heavy and venomous ilk upon the head of him who, two days hence, knowing full well the burden, made such a hasty pact.

Alas, oaths, no matter they be made in whatever situation, be they imposed from momentary possession of some noxious spirit, an imbalance of the humors so ill-understood in our age of the interwebs, in the full-blooded blush of wine-induced friendship, or in the cold calculation of gain and profit, must be upheld, even if more colorful oaths accompany the fulfilling.

Thus I end my tale of woe. I beg of you, consider it as a tale to chill the bones, or frighten children on a crisp night before a fire, when shadows dance slightly outside of notice taunting the inner mind with possible shapes of balky projectors and their accompanying tech-support, and each twig snapped without visible cause might presage an approaching student who might ask you if they must cite their sources.

Take this also as a tale of caution! Heed my suffering and bring it not upon yourself! Know yourself, and keep this knowing tightly within your breast, that seeming-enjoyable procrastination as might be gained in such diversions as games, books, films, and aye, verily, blogs, while amusing and heart-lifting, carry a heavy cost. Be it e'en so, for my post is nearing its end, and yet, from those shadows, where the firelight reaches not, I hear the snapping of a twig, and I know not its cause.

I shall look to it, for I have given my oath, and dare not break it. But as boon friends, serve as my brothers and sisters, and, should I fall in the fulfilling of my oath, let not the students take my body and desecrate it, as has been done to others in times past. Fight with might and main around my fallen body that you may bring it back and lay it on a bier of fine timber with my laptop on my chest. Offer hecatombs to the gods, that I may find rest, but above all, heed my tale, and make no oaths to any, but those that you can fulfill.

Hot and Not

Hot:

Andre Agassi: Regardless of whether or not you've never actually seen him play or care to, that was a great match.

Not:

US Basketball Team: Further evidence that NBA players are just overpaid egomaniacal ball hogs who can't play as a team or the natural result of trying to throw together a team in too short a time? I vote both.

Rolloercoaster Me

Whew. The guest lectures went well, and the guest lecturer seemed to be well received by the students - he's one of our more popular folk over here.

It's very interesting to see the different vibe that comes out when someone else takes over in an environment that I've created with the students. I told him that they're usually active and questioning and curious because they are when I'm lecturing, but that's probably just because they're used to me.

That makes me feel really good, because either I'm misreading them completely, or they're actually engaged in my class. Who knew?

I'm sure this will help give away the secret location of my batcaves, but I'm still teaching summer session. I don't even start at the new cave for a few weeks. I'll end up with about a week to get everything moved there, grade all the finals and final papers, figure out how I'm going to live there and attend about 5 different orientations (free food there at least). All this in the week or so before classes start. Oh, yeah, and I'll be TAing, too.

By the way, I'm starting a PhD program. How crazy is that? I just talked to a friend who ran off to DC to get a real job, and she reminded me how absolutely insane this is. I mean, the MA was kind of mildly strange, but within the realm of the comprehensible. I'm going to try to get a PhD. Nobody does that. Nobody sane, at least. Crazy.

So, summing up. I'm happy about the good day, but increasingly panicked about the upcoming weeks (and years). So that's happy plus nervous. I think that calls for gastronomic therapy. Hmmm... maybe tacos? Ice cream? Both?

Nano-uk, Ah No, No...

For some reason my Nano doesn't want to turn off anymore. I dutifully held the play button like I used to, but alas, no love. I did a reset and nothing changed. I had taken to just leaving it plugged in except for my runs and commute. This morning, I finally did what I should have at the beginning.

Gooooooogle to the rescue!

A quick check of google led me to a Cnet forum where some other folks had the same trouble. The workaround is to pres the menu button to the top of the menu tree and then (and only then) will you be able to turn the Nano off like normal.

I tried it and it worked like a charm. Very strange that I can't turn the thing off normally like I used to, but I'm happy that I can actually turn it off at all.

What Will I Do With The Free Time?

Bonus Double Post!

A professor of utmost excellence offered to guest lecture a couple of times on things in which he is a specialist. And he came through! No lecture to plan tomorrow! Woot! Should I get sloshed?

Pheer My Leet OS

There was a brief window of opportunity (window! har har! I kill me) to download a beta test of the new Vista OS, so, since I was screening documentaries and films last night and would have plenty of time, I figured I'd give it a shot.

First impressions are fairly good. The install was relatively painless. The only big issue was that it didn't like the Norton Utilities I had and asked to uninstall them, which took a long time. Other than that, I was able to keep all of my programs installed and so far, they've all worked just peachy. In fact, Firefox seems much more peppy than it ever did under XP. I'm not sure what that's all about, but I welcome it.

I'm also beta testing the new Office suite, and all of those programs work much faster under Vista. All in all, things move along quite quickly, and this is on a laptop, not a big desktop brimming with high-tech digital goodness.

I think what I like most so far is the customization of Windows Explorer. You can change a lot there - how you see files, sorting and how you navigate folders and such. Very nice. The graphics do look nice too, although the flipdy-dip window thingie that I screenshot isn't particularly needed, even if it is kinda cute. The Gadget/Widget things are completely unnecessary too, but again, kinda cute.

Negatives - I did have one lockup after class. I closed the laptop after the slideshow, and maybe because I didn't unplug the projector first it wasn't happy. I've plugged and unplugged a scad of peripherals other than that, though, and no worries yet.

I let you know if it blows up or anything

Hot Topics

This post is for me, so I'm sorry if it doesn't make sense because I've edited out too many identifiers.

I had a mild epiphany as I was drifting off to sleep last night (actually I fell asleep almost immediately after getting home. Right in the middle of MNF, too. So, what I mean is that when I woke up again and spent a dreary few hours trying to reorient myself through sleep-gucked contact lenses, I eventually took those blasted things out and tried to get some work done. Eventually at about 2 or 3 in the morning I gave up and went back to sleep - heap o' healthy, I'm sure, but I digress).

I specifically chose my field to a a bit vague. I straddle two field that generally don't play well with each other, but they're intimately connected. I like dealing with both and think that they are mutually supporting. The classes I'm teaching now are supposed to be Introduction to Gruub Studies (Topic A), which is, incidentally, the name of the department to which I belong, both here and at the soon-to-be-named School Of The Fall.

The trick is, that in teaching this class I've come to the conclusion that I can't teach Topic A, without going deep into Topic B. Topic B is very poorly supported right now at this university, so the vast majority of students have no background whatsoever in it - we couldn't even have it as a prereq (which it should be). I've had a great deal of fun introducing Topic B, but it has taken time away from Topic A.

I've TAed for professors teaching this class a few times, and they've always glossed over Topic B, and the students hurt for it. As a TA, I was always having to shore up the shaky Topic B information before the students could get a grasp of Topic A, and frankly, I'm not sure they were able to really get the Topic A information because they didn't understand Topic B.

The reason this is all so important to me is that this really helps me define myself. I've always thought that Topics A and B were of absolute equal value. I understand now that, to me at least, B must come before A, even if they are both equally important. Maybe this seems obvious to the students, but it's a bit of a flashing lightbulb over my head that clears some things up for me, even if this post is completely unintelligible to anyone else.