Rush Hour in the Great North Woods

This was my commute this morning.  I stopped for turkeys?  Why did they cross the road?  To strut their stuff!

In other news, the crocus smile has started.  It was up a bit before, but it's sort of more visible through the snow right now.  (Look for the bits of yellow.)

Coughing and News

I've had a cold for about two weeks now, it's all stuffy nose and coughing.  Ugh.  It's not as bad as the one earlier this academic year, that lasted until I took antibiotics (prescribed by a PA) after a couple of months of hacking.

But coughing gets very old, very fast.

I haven't practiced my violin for about three days.  It feels like months.  I keep coughing and sneezing, and it's really hard to play anything when I'm coughing and sneezing.  I've also spent a whole lot of time trying to sleep, wishing I were asleep, and on the verge of sleep.  It's hard to sleep when I'm coughing, and that makes me more tired, which makes me go to be earlier, and get more frustrated when I cough instead of sleeping.  And it probably doesn't help much with getting better.

I had two pieces of good news this past week.  One was the official notice about my sabbatical.  The other was that the search I chaired has finalized a very good hire.  I blogged a little about diversity issues in hiring here (Hiring Faculty of Color) and here (Diversity Statements) this fall.  I'm very pleased with our hire, and so is pretty much everyone else who's talked to me about it.  (I've been stopped in the halls, gotten emails, and such.)

But can I say, as someone who's in a department that teaches writing, and so, one would hope, is likely to attract people who've been trained in writing and stuffs: holy cow, some people in our field can't write their way out of a paper bag.  It's not the majority, but there are definitely some.

Here's a hint: if the ad says that the ideal candidate will show evidence of X, then by golly, show us some evidence of X.  If X is teaching excellence, talk convincingly about your teaching excellence, about the work you do to teach well, and so forth.  If X is doing handstands, talk about doing handstands. 

Can I also say, our HR department is a real mess right now with all the retirements and people leaving for better jobs.  Their messiness added a lot of stress to certain people's lives in regards to the search.

I've had it up to here (hand at forehead) with colleagues who don't do some basic aspect of the job, but who expect the rest of us to fill them in.  And when these same colleagues make snotty comments about the job we did in their absence, I don't want to hear them.

On the other hand, I'm going to Kalamazoo!  When I started back to school to study English, one of my first teachers was a medievalist who talked about what a great conference Kalamazoo is, and for the first time, I'm going!  And that teacher and I are going to be able to get together and catch up a bit, which will be splendid.  She's one of the best teachers I had, and was always super encouraging to me.

All Occasions do Inform...

Of course, they don't. 

But, it's barely the second week of the semester, and I feel so bummed.

I didn't teach yesterday, but was on campus for a meeting (which I chaired) and to do a bunch of related paperwork afterwards.  Then I needed to set up the grade books and enter the first grades.  I'd almost finished that when a student appeared in my doorway, in that way some students have, expectant, like of course I'm just there waiting for them.

It was an advisee I've seen once before, whom I had to prompt to remind me of her name.  (Hint: if I've met you once or twice over a month or two ago, introduce yourself again.  If I remember, I'll graciously say so, and if I don't, I'll be very grateful for your courtesy.  If you appear at my door, I assume you know who I am.)

And because I try not to be a jerk, I talked with her.

She wanted to talk about her schedule for next semester, so we did.  At which point I noticed that she isn't taking the courses this semester that I recommended, but instead, has switched from an upper level course (suggested) to a lower level course.  The problem is, a student can only take 2 lower level courses in the selected electives area, and she's already taken those, so this course won't count towards her major requirements.

You know that will be my fault, somehow.  When she doesn't graduate in a timely manner, the advising folks are going to look at that course and blame me for bad advising.  So, yep, I made a note in the file.  (I hate that I've learned to think this way about advising, too.)


You know how it is when you put two and two together, and it comes up four?  Well, yes.  One of my friends over in [Mathematical Forestry] mentioned giving a talk in [another place] recently (in an email), so I asked what the talk was about.  And heard nothing.  Okay, so usually this friend is pretty excited about their work, and happy to talk about it. 

And then I realized, this place/time doesn't seem likely for a conference.

And my friend is in a fairly small field.  So, yeah, I looked at the job listings, and sure enough, there's a job there, and my friend would be superb at it, and geographically, it makes such good sense for them.

It's not like we're super duper close friends, and they've haven't told me they're on the market or anything, but it would totally make sense.  But I can't just say, oh, if you're going to give a job talk there, I know [an administrator] and they're a really great administrator.  (And I do know an administrator, and they're probably the best administrator I've ever worked with.)  (Besides, I don't want my friend thinking I'm stalking them in a creepy way; and of course, if they don't get an offer, then it's best not to talk about it.)

I'm so bummed at the thought of this friend leaving (for me, totally selfishly), but also, I know it would be a much better situation for the friend personally and professionally.  And given this university's devastating budget situation, everyone who can leave should.


Then there's the political situation.  I can't even begin...

It's cold and grey out, and I'm so ready for some warmth and good news.

In the Blink of an Eye, a Week Goes By

It's been a week, very quick.  I feel as if I've gotten nothing done, but of course, I did.

I worked through the parts of two history books I wanted to read to understand early modern slavery practices in Western Europe and the Americas.  Horrifying, as you'd expect.

I got frustrated enough with the ice forming inside at the edges of some windows to take action.  I started out using painters' tape and bubble wrap.  But then I went to the home improvement type store and bought kits and insulating tape, took off the bubble wrap and painters' tape, and taped up areas, and put plastic sheets over some windows.  There's a noticeable difference in the house, especially in my bedroom (the window in my bathroom was bad, and the sliding glass door, just as bad.  Now it's pretty darned good.  And the red room, which is the TV room.  It's a problematic room anyway, because it was built as a conversion from a second story deck; underneath is enclosed, but not heated.  It's got a tile floor, and six big windows, basically the three exterior walls are mostly windows, and they're sliding windows, which tend not to be really airtight, anyway.  (In summer, it's a delightful space, and it's got great light in winter, and is lovely for watching birds on the deck.)  It's still not exactly toasty, but at least there's not a breeze now!

I should have done this years ago.  The good thing is, I'll have a good idea where to put more caulk, and will put plastic sheeting up much earlier in the future.

Here's a housing question: from the way all the plastic sheets bow in slightly, like sails with a bit of wind, it looks like the air pressure inside the house is less than the air pressure outside.  Why is that?  (Wouldn't it even out very quickly from doors opening and closing?  Wouldn't the warmer air inside tend to make it higher pressure inside?)


I'm progressing on the violin pretty well.  I posted this in August, when I had a "test" to pass from Book 1 to Book 2.  Now I'm working on the three pieces for my "test" to pass from Book 2 to Book 3.  (Or, as I like to think, leveling up.  Ding!)

I should post more about practicing violin because it's really fun and interesting.  I've learned a lot.

First, I really trust the process.  I know that even if a piece is really super hard for me, there are three year olds out there who've learned it, and generations of Suzuki kids have learned it at my stage, so I can learn it.  That really helps.  Strings, my teacher, does a great job of breaking things down for me so I can focus on the one hard part first, or learn this fingering, or practice X to help with Y.  She's so good at teaching!


Second, I like scales.  I was having trouble thinking of a note when I played it, which was making playing certain things more difficult (like, you see an F, where do you put your finger, especially if you're not coming from an adjacent note).  So I found a chart on-line, and printed it out and filled it in.  It's in two parts, the sharp scales and the flat scales.  I filled in all the notes, and they're in order.  Now the cool thing with these is that each scale starts a fifth from where the last scale started; the sharps start a fifth up, and the flats a fifth down.

So on my chart, I start with a C scale (a weird one on the violin), and then move up a fifth to the G scale, adding one sharp, and so on.  And since the violin strings are a fifth from each other, it's relatively easy once you get the concept to follow on.  I practice either the sharps or flats every day, with broken thirds.


Third, Ševčík!  I have two practice exercise books, one for bowing, and one for fingering.  Holy cow, they're HARD!

The bowing book starts with long notes, full bow.  Then you practice with half bows, and then with two strings and some fingers, and finally, you do a full long note with a full bow, and then a quarter note with a full bow.  It's way harder than it sounds to make the quarter note not sound bad.

The fingering one is even harder.  It starts like this (link here):

And then, once you can do these individual measures (at different speeds), you play them more, and then you get to this (same source, different screen capture technique):

And that's just the first page.  There are more to come.  The thing is, I may be able to play the quarter note version with one bow (since these are slurred), but unless my fingers move pretty fast, I run out of bow before I finish the eight note version.  I'm getting way better, but I'm still on the first page.  (I think I started working on Ševčík in mid-summer.

Again, this is part of trusting the process.  There's no way to teach your fingers to play the violin without doing lots of playing.  If you do structured exercises (Suzuki, the Ševčík, etc), then you're trusting that a lot of smart people have spent a lot of time and found these effective.  You're not going to get some magical moment where you pick up the violin and ta da, you just whip off a concerto.  At least, I'm not.  (If you're good, of course, then you can make it look like ta da, but people aren't seeing the hours of practice, just the result.)


Four, I like the Suzuki music choices.  I already feel like I'm playing real music, little bits, sometimes simplified, but real.  I'm working on a piece by Lully, another by Beethoven, and another by Boccherini (the minuet).  But they're also really hard (for me), and I need to memorize them and play them well.  So, you know, I need to go practice.


Five, practice is actually really good.  Hard, but good, and satisfying.


Strings is away for break, and we talked before she left about my goals for break.  In addition to working on my pieces, I'm focusing on dynamics (playing louder or softer is so hard) and on bowing (using the full bow, which I tend not to do when I'm learning a piece, and then have to rework everything, but it sounds so much better when I use a fuller bow!).

Academic Anxiety Dream

I had an anxiety dream last night.  I was looking for my class on campus, trying to find the right building, figure out the room, and no one had a printed bulletin (no one has had a printed bulletin in years, of course), and I kept trying to find it.  And I didn't know what I was going to say if/when I found it since my syllabus wasn't ready.

And I kept thinking, wow, break went by really fast, I'm not usually this unprepared.  What am I going to do?

I haven't had an academic anxiety dream that I remember in a while.

***

I hope your holidays are/were good ones.  I got back home yesterday to a messy house; I'd been intending to clean it up before I left, but with snow incoming, I'd left a day early.  It's rather dreary and depressing to come home to a messy house.

I have much to do: pay taxes, clean up the house, de-ice the drive (since the snow just sat while I was gone, not much, but enough to get nastily icy), and yes, prep courses for spring.

I have a course reassignment for spring, for which I'm eternally grateful.  And my search is over, I hope.  (We did our part, and will only need to do more if for some reason a contract can't be made with an appropriate candidate.)

Searches basically are a black box at this point, for most of us.  We turned in ranked names and filled out paperwork.  The chair takes those names, and requests to hire someone (but may choose someone else that we didn't rank as high), and then paperwork gets done, deans dean, and so on.  A call is made, or more than a few calls, and then at the end, we'll be told (if we're lucky) that candidate X will be joining us in the fall.  And that will be that.  Fingers crossed.

At any rate, with the search over, and the paperwork done (I hope), and only two courses (and not composition!), this semester is looking to be better.

***

I got a bad cold in early October.  It went to my lungs, and stayed there, giving me a gunky cough for a couple of hours a day.  So the week of finals, I went to the clinic, and the PA gave me a prescription for an antibiotic.  Like a good patient, I took the whole 5 day course.

It seemed to be doing the trick, except yesterday I started having lung gunk again.  And today it's back.  I should call the clinic again.  Ugh.

***

I'm making a late start this morning, but now I'm on my way!

Dream

I dreamt last night that I was driving to Washington, DC, but then somewhere near Philadelphia, decided that I forgot something at home, and that the weather was so lovely that I'd go back home and go for a bike ride.  And this was all possible within a three or so hour drive, because that's how dreams work.

Imagine my disappointment on waking to below 0F windchill.  Yeah, even though it's sunny out, I'm not going out for a bike ride.  Nor am I within a three hour drive of Washington, DC, so visiting a Smithsonian, the National Archives, etc, is out for a quick trip.

The Great Winter Artichoke Experiment, part the second

Last year, in October, I posted pictures of the two artichoke plants I'd brought in, hoping to keep them alive for spring.

And then in February, I posted about some of the difficulties in keeping the plants alive, and showed pictures of the survival.  The biggest difficulty, it seems, was spider mites, which nearly killed the plants.  Then I got some spray, and they survived.

My friend also gave me a couple new artichoke plants that she'd done the pretend winter trick on to get them to act like they're second year plants and so produce chokes.

The problem this summer, for both of us, was that we got few chokes.  I got two, one off an overwintered plant, and one off a new plant.  She had similar luck.  We think (well, she thinks, and she's the expert, so I follow along) that they didn't get enough "winter" to think they should produce chokes (which is to say, to flower).  We had a quick, sudden spring, and maybe it just wasn't quite enough for all of the plants.  Mine I didn't put out until it was a bit warmer, and her new ones maybe didn't get enough cold.

So, here's to another try.  This year, I've brought in all the plants.  I cleaned them out, took out the leaves that seemed to have spider mites, and sprayed all of them.  Right now, they look pretty good.  I may have to get another set of lights.  These were enough for the two plants last year, but spread out, the light's a bit less concentrated, if that makes sense?

Here are a couple of pictures.  Wish me luck!  (The plants in the blue and green pots are the ones that were in last year's overwintering experiment.)

As you can see, my deck really needs to be powerwashed!

I got little roller platforms, and plastic water things, so hopefully I can water without making a mess all over everything. 

Avoiding Despair

I'm teaching an intro to the major course this semester, and one of the small assignments I've given involves asking individual students to each do some minimal research and write a short (like a page) paper explaining a particular period or literary/intellectual movement.  And then they do a short presentation in class, so that everyone gets the idea.

I made up a timeline that we're filling in, and gave each student a copy to fill in as we go.

The idea is to give them the beginnings of a framework about literary movements and such.  So, for example, they should know that the Romantics didn't just pop up out of nowhere, but responded to industrialization, the Englightenment, and so forth.  If they have a basic, rough, narrative, they can learn more start to understand more subtle ways of seeing things in other classes.

So, they handed the printed versions in, and I started grading them on Tuesday, thinking I could get through the pile in a day, since they're fairly short.

I got through about a third of the pile before I was driven to despair.  Some were confused a bit, but mostly my despair was driven by the almost complete lack of acknowledgment or connection between what they'd gotten from their sources and what they'd written.  So, for example, there'd be a paragraph about Romanticism (I don't think I actually read the Romanticism one, so I'm making this up), with now acknowledgment of sources, and then at the end, a numbered list of sources.  Or maybe a "Works Cited" section with two URLs.

I couldn't even bear to read further.  That doesn't often happen to me with grading, but this just really bothered me.  I think of the third of the pieces I read, one earned a passing grade.  (Because I can't in good conscience pass a written piece of college work that uses sources without acknowledging those sources.)

This wasn't plagiarism in the sense of stealing ideas, but, I think, plain confusion about how to acknowledge sources for this sort of assignment, or laziness, or something.  That didn't make it acceptable, though.

I spent a lot of time Tuesday afternoon pondering, and being frustrated, and by Tuesday evening, I came up with an idea.

On Wednesday, I started our two hour class session by asking them to freewrite about why we cite sources, about what the point is.  And then I had them take their freewriting to groups, and they made a list, which we compiled onto the board at the front of the class.

So, I did my best to make sure that they had good reasons why we might want to cite sources, and that they knew they knew the reasons (at least collectively).

Then I talked about my despair at reading their papers.  And then I asked them to help me avoid further despair by revising their work and turning it in again, with full and appropriate citation, which I would then grade for real.  And I wouldn't look at what had been turned in, or count it, unless they felt they'd already done so well on the assignment that they didn't need to revise, in which case they could let me know.

We spent the next chunk of time working out how to resolve specific citation questions or problems using OWL at Purdue and examples.

They agreed.  Next Monday I'll get the results, and I sure as heck hope they're much better.

Snow!

No, of course we didn't have a snow day at school.

Working through a Question

The other day I helped teach little kids cross country skiing.  I'm the third adult, a helper, with a group of about 11 kids, all about 5-6 years old or so, I guess.   (There are four little kid groups, and I don't know how many older kids speeding around in groups learning higher level skills.)

Mostly, the kids have fun.

There's this one little girl, though, who just couldn't stop saying how cold she was.  And I believed her.

Now, the first thing we do is try to get the kids moving, because that gets them warm.  And we figure that sometimes a kid starts out whiny, and then forgets about being whiny because they're having fun skiing.

But this little girl just kept saying how cold she was.

I asked the other teachers if I couldn't take her back to the warming hut, because I thought she was just being miserable, and that being miserable would make her hate skiing.  She was so upset she was holding up the group, not learning, and so on. 

One of us (me) would have had to stay with her at the warming hut, of course, but that still would leave two adults with ten kids, and that seems pretty reasonable, doesn't it?

Anyway, the teacher and the other helper overruled me.

And I really think I should have just taken her back anyway, and apologized later to the main teacher.  I'm ashamed that I didn't, in fact, because I could have helped her be a lot less miserable, and being miserably cold is horrible.  Why didn't I stand up for her better?

Hope for Spring: the Artichoke Saga

Back in October, I posted a couple pictures of artichoke plants I'd brought in, hoping to keep them alive for the winter.

Poor artichoke plants!

In November, suddenly a bunch of the outer leaves died off.  I was sad, but hopeful that the rest would survive. 

And then in late December, the rest of the leaves started to die off.  Happily, in early January, the friend whose expertise with plants made growing artichokes in this climate possible was by, looked at the plants, and diagnosed them with spider mites!  SPIDER MITES!  Ugh.

So, in desperation, I went to the local little hardware place and the hardware person helped me get a dormant plant spider mite insecticide, which I sprayed.  And then I waited.  And things seemed a bit better, so I waited.  After a couple of weeks, there were little leaves starting from the center again, so I cut away the deadest of the old leaves and sprayed again.  And then I waited some more.

Today, I cut away the last of the dead leaves and took a couple of pictures.

Now if you compare them to the October pictures, they look awfully pathetic and sad.  But if you compare them to how things looked in early January, then they look pretty hopeful.

As my friend pointed out, it's a good sign that they're putting on new growth.

She also pointed out that since the other artichoke plants we've grown have been first year plants tricked into thinking they're second year plants, if these plants make it into the spring looking this good, then I'm way, way ahead of the game.

Looking at the October pictures, I realize that I didn't take a picture of the light set up.  In those, there's one bulb.  But early on, my friend suggested that one wouldn't provide enough light, so I moved a different lamp there, one of those lamps with five bulbs on sort of moveable stem things, all of which are now lined up and pointing down at the plants.  They're also right in front of a big window which does afford some natural light, though it being winter, not much.

Back a couple of months ago, my neighbors were going to drop off their dog for the weekend; usually, in winter, the dog's crate goes right in front of the picture window where she can see out at the birds and the neighbors.  But because the plants are there, I asked them to put the crate in the summer spot (which is fine, but doesn't have birdTV and isn't in direct, hot sun to keep her from overheating in summer) because of the artichoke plants.  And she was so funny about asking if that was the light that's always on in that window. 

Yep, I'm growing artichokes, but I think my neighbors thought I was much more interesting agriculturally.

As you can see in the background of the first picture, I've also forced a couple of bulbs.  The hyacinth did great, one is pretty much done flowering, and the other is in full bloom.

The crocus seem to have died, but the daffodils seem to be starting.  Here's the currently blooming hyacinth.

I'm at that point of winter where I can't quite believe that it will ever be warm again.  But yesterday, I went out in the afternoon (about 4pm) to try to see the local snowy owl (no luck), and realized that it was light until WAY later than it had been in January when I went out to try to see it and it was getting dark by 4:30 or so.  So there is hope, right?

In Praise of Triple A

I've gone several years without needing to call Triple A, but I've called twice this month.  Once when my car died on the freeway earlier this month (I was able to get well off to the side, and the wrecker came and towed it to the dealership, which was able to fix it in a day), and yesterday, when I went out owling (we DID see a snowy owl, too!).  The owl flew as soon as we saw it, and I thought I'd do a U-turn (on a quiet road, with good visibility), but what I thought was an okay drive turned out to be not so okay, so I ended up stuck.

I have this to say: the sheriff officer was pleasant about it, and helpfully hung out with his flashing showing (helpful especially as it was getting to be late afternoon), the Triple A wrecker was pleasant and pulled us right out.  And best of all, the friend I'd gone birding with was, as usual, just wonderful company, and kind about my mistake. 

If you're going to drive off the road, do it as I did: at a very slow speed, not too far off, with soft stuff around, in cell phone reception, and with a good friend around.

More than one person stopped to check that we were okay and offer help, too, which I greatly appreciate.  It's really helpful to feel like people have your back even if they don't know you and you're a crazy birder.

Chores

I have a few days to myself, and I've been getting stuff done in a relaxed way.  And somehow, more gets done when I feel a bit relaxed.

I've done banking sorts of chores, and tax prep sorts of chores, cleaned my home office, started one of my course calendars for spring semester, replied books in better ways, and so forth.  I've done some reading, too.

I'm about ready to do more work on the course calendar I've started, and probably soon ready to start the next one.

In the coming week, I start a four week series of sessions at the local library on early modern lyric poetry.  I've selected the poems, but have work to do prepping for the first week.

On Monday, I'll start an 8 week commitment to teaching little kids cross-country skiing.

And later in the week, a friend's dog will come to stay with me for a couple of weeks while my friend is away.

Meanwhile, I saw my first snowy owl on the 1st, which seems like a good way to start the year.  Just before dusk, I was driving along a backroad slowly, looking, and it flew across and landed in a field far away.  The light was dim, and it was FAR away, and it was cold, but I took a picture anyway.  And the picture is predictably blurry, but I think good enough to be pretty sure it's a snowy owl, anyway.

The owl is just to the left of the irrigator tire, which at least gives you an idea that it's a darned big bird.  And it's the right coloration.

Happy New Year

Because I seem to do this, here's the bike run down:  9734.7 on the odometer, which means I rode just over 700 miles this past year, a miserable number.  (726.9 to be more exact.)  I fell totally short of my goal for the biking year.

This year was a fairly reactive year, rather than a proactive year in many ways.  I hope to make 2014 more proactive.

More biking.

More skiing.

More good times.

Less crankiness.

Within a few days, I should be able to get they keys to the new building, and get started getting my office ready sometime after the 10th or so.

This past year, I spent pretty much all my time out of town visiting my Mom.  That's good, and all, but also not good.  I need to get away and do other things, too.

Stir Crazy

I hope everyone's having good holidays.

I had a few colleagues over for dinner last night.  I'm not a very confident cook, and was worried about the food.  It tasted like cardboard to me, a bit, but I think that was more my anxiety.  I had a ham sandwich for breakfast, and it was good, so the ham at least must have been okay.

Irony:  My mom complaining about someone talking about hirself too much.  (And yes, I recognize the additional irony of a blogger who writes mostly personal stuff saying that about anyone else.)

I need to get out and be by myself, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.

You'll Know it's Me...

... when you see someone driving in mid-winter with their front driver's side window down.

Yeah.  It's minus hella cold here, but as soon as my breathing makes the windshield start fogging up, my side window has to come down.

BRRR!

(I took the car into the shop yesterday, but I'll need to leave it over night, and that's best done on Monday.  Apparently it's so cold that before they work on certain sorts of stuff they need to have the car warm or things are brittle and break.  Who knew?)

Cold

So, yes, here in the upper Midwest, it's unseasonably cold right now.  If the past is any hint, it's unlikely to stay this cold for long.  But yes, it's cold.  (Though not as cold as some places!)

We have a number of new colleagues in various roles and departments around, and I'm rather amused at the facebook posts I'm seeing and our encounters in the hallways.  Early on, several of them were sort of laughing when we asked if they had winter clothes, assuring us that they were from really cold areas, so no worries.  And now, they're facebooking (look, I made a verb!  Surely I'm not the first.) about needing boots rated for arctic expeditions and such.

Somehow, I've found myself in the rather odd position of comforting them about the relative pleasantness of winter in the teens.

For those who know me in meat-space, you're probably laughing at that one, because I'm notorious for putting on long johns sometime in September, and wearing them through nearly to June.

Then there's the shock of ice on the sidewalks.  With a wet, heavy snow, followed quickly by a cold snap, we've got hellacious ice on the sidewalks and such.  But again, experience tells me that people will scrape, and salt, and ice will sublimate, and before long, the sidewalks will be clearer.  (To be honest, yaktrax are my friends all winter long.  But for now, it's too cold for road salt to work, even.  Brrr!)

One of my students was in shorts and flip flops yesterday.  I still can't quite believe that most people in the upper Midwest somehow grow up with all their fingers and toes intact.  But he seemed sanguine.

Inured

In fall, when it hits 45, we all talk about how cold it is.  In the spring, when it hits 45, we're out in shorts (well, many of us) and thrilled with the warmth.  Somehow, we get used to being cold and dealing with it, and even if I'm wearing the exact same clothes in fall and spring (because my wardrobe is that boring), I feel very differently in the same temperatures.

It occurs to me that this explains a lot about why I always felt cold in the winter as a kid, even though I grew up in a moderate climate where getting a freeze over night was newsworthy.  Unfortunately, it also suggests that if I move back there somehow, I'll still feel cold in winter, since I manage to lose whatever cold endurance I acquire over the winter by the next fall.  A few short and glorious months of warmth and I'm a beginner at the cold once again, every year.

We look to be having a later spring than last year, with more snowfall.  That's great and important for our agriculture, and a little frustrating for everyone who's impatient for spring.  It's hard to believe that spring will ever really come when my yard is covered in snow and the shovel piles are chest high.

Gruching

I just got back from walking a change of grade form over to the Fort.  They have to be hand delivered by the faculty member, which is a bit of a pain for those of us who don't walk over there much.  Add to that the temperatures, which are up to "darned cold" from "[expletive] cold" and "really [expletive] cold," though still not quite up to "cold."

To follow the thread of my gruching: a student needs to take an incomplete, which adds work for me in arranging another exam time, setting up the exam, and so on.  Then I have the work of grading it separately, which isn't huge, but still is something.  And then I have to walk it over in person, even though the registration folks don't acknowledge my existence while I stand in front of the counter while they all three exclaim over and admire something on a computer behind the counter.  They finally did, and then it didn't seem like it mattered at all that I'd hand walked it over.  I bet a student could have.

I'm gruching, too, because we were shown the planned layout for our new offices.  I should be excited about a new office in a brand new, beautiful building.  But the planned layout includes one of those massive desk things with a built in computer in the back corner position (so that the user is facing away from the door) and a desk bit between the occupant and the student seating area for office hours.

I know some people like both of those things, but I'm not one of them.  I don't want to have my back to a door, and if I do, the door probably won't be open while I'm using the computer.

And I don't want to sit across a desk from students who come to chat during office hours.  As it is now, my main sitting desk is facing a wall, and student seats are next to it, with nothing between us, so I can roll my chair to nearly parallel, so we can look at a paper facing the same way.  Or we can semi face each other at an angle, but not directly across.  My old metal desk does have a pull out desky thing that I could use to face across with students, but I never have.  My current computer position is against the wall next to the door, so that I'm facing the doorway when I'm at the computer, and that puts me across from students, so they can see the screen if we're doing something on the computer.  I can also stand up and let them take my chair if they need to log onto the computer for something.

That's not going to happen if they have to loom over me to see the computer or come way into "my space" to log on.  I'm not likely to be comfortable enough, I don't think.

So I'm gruching about the new layout, and hearing that it's likely we will all have to have our offices with exactly the same layout, in exactly the same color, with accent colors determined by our floor.  My floor's accent color looks to me like "mud," but had some name like "nature" on the color swathes we were shown.  No more beautiful green walls in my office.  (The chair said zie had won the fight to get us multiple full sized book shelves, rather than the single three foot high three foot wide shelf the designers were planning.  But zie isn't certain that we'll be allowed to hang anything on our walls.)

So all the time that we're expected to provide personalized, individualized, caring work with our students, to the point of walking special forms over when they mess up and have to take an incomplete (which was the case with the incomplete I walked over today, though it's not always the case, of course), while the administrators treat us like standardized cogs.  I may be feeling a little resentful here.

Meanwhile, every administrator over in the Fort, from the one year replacements to the folks who stay even four or five years, gets to order hir own select furniture and layout for hir very special, individualized office.  And then when the replacement comes, that furniture goes to surplus and the next administrator orders a new fancy whatever, because heaven forbid they sit their butts in anything that isn't individualized to their own specific needs.

Yep, I may be feeling a little resentful.

I need spring.  Soon.

I Hate Winter

As you read this, you'll know exactly what a petty, self-centered so and so I am.

When I got home today, I got a form note from the postal delivery person (it's not an actual postal worker, because our mail is delivered by an independent contractor who drives a regular car around while he sits on the wrong side and drives half-assed) saying that my mail box wasn't accessible, and if I didn't fix it, they wouldn't deliver the mail any more.

The last time the city plow came through, it left a heavy berm of solid ice in the drive and along the road, a couple feet from the curb. (The mailbox top is even with the curb and chest high on me when I stand on the street in summer.)

So I spent about an hour and a half with my metal gardening shovel, trying to break the ice away, and then the show shovel and hands to move the chunks of ice off the road.

I don't know if it's adequate. You can see that I dug back about two feet and down about two feet, and about 12 feet long. (The box part is chest high when I stand on the street in the summer to get my mail.)

If it's not adequate, then the postal delivery person won't deliver mail to my house, and I'll have to go to the post office to pick it up. That's not actually so bad. I live in a small enough town that there's hardly ever much of a line at the post office. And I don't get much important mail, so it's not like I need daily mail.