science friday...
From Dave's inbox... Some people at our University seem to be working with Ira Flatow of NPR (or if you prefer, "Newton's Apple"! Come on, readers, who is old and nerdy like me?) to seek funding for a major science media center that will be based in NYC. Apparently Ira has also been "given my name" during a discussion of science plays. This is what I need in my life right now... a meeting with Ira Flatow. (Have I mentioned that Science Friday kinda bugs me?)
Anyway... back to my own personal science Friday. Off to write!
Friday, March 31
driven to distraction...
10:03 AM: So. It's Friday. No classes. Slept "in". (7:00 vs. 5:20) Took the kids to school/preschool. Drove to Borders. Ordered a large tea. No pastries allowed until I write something of substance. And NO BROWSING the books until after noon. (starting word count - 1395)
10:42 AM: Dave gets a little bored with writing. Dave is distracted by the screaming kid in the Children's Book section. Dave realizes that he is eventually going to have to move to a chair by an outlet. (word count - 1707)
10:45 AM: Dave is distracted by the guy at the next table who sounds like Joe Pesci. (I mean, like... ALL the guys in New York sound a little like Joe Pesci, but this guy... WAY more so.) Dave gazes longingly at the books. (word count - 1707)
10:48 AM: Dave is distracted by a really hot bookstore chick in ripped jeans. Dave decides it is time for a short break. (word count - 1707)
11:07 AM: Dave returns to the café, buys a cinnamon scone, and returns to writing. (and eating.)
11:45 AM: Dave is distracted by cellphone interruptions by his wife. (twice!) Dave is distracted by "The Best of Genesis" playing over the cafe sound system. ("Tonight, tonight tonight... oh-hoooo...") Dave realizes that the section he was going to write about black holes should not go in this chapter at all, but in the chapter on gravity. Dave begins to wonder how he is going to replace those missing 1500 words, but is glad that he had not already written them before making this realization. (word count - 1990)
12:09 PM: Dave is distracted by a hot bookstore chick in full Hot Topic regalia. Dave is tired of thinking about relativity. (word count - 2260)
12:34 PM: How the hell many hot chicks work in this bookstore? Jesus. Dave decides to go move over by the outlet in the chair facing the wall. (word count - 2413)
12:56 PM: Writing the biography part is boring. Dave is hungry. Shit, is it really almost one o'clock? (word count - 2488)
1:10 PM: Dave has a sandwich. (Turkey and provolone) (word count - 2488)
1:23 PM: Dave's focus is officially lost. Three hours at the Borders café is apparently his limit. Dave decides to walk over to Target for no particular reason. (word count - 2492)
10:03 AM: So. It's Friday. No classes. Slept "in". (7:00 vs. 5:20) Took the kids to school/preschool. Drove to Borders. Ordered a large tea. No pastries allowed until I write something of substance. And NO BROWSING the books until after noon. (starting word count - 1395)
10:42 AM: Dave gets a little bored with writing. Dave is distracted by the screaming kid in the Children's Book section. Dave realizes that he is eventually going to have to move to a chair by an outlet. (word count - 1707)
10:45 AM: Dave is distracted by the guy at the next table who sounds like Joe Pesci. (I mean, like... ALL the guys in New York sound a little like Joe Pesci, but this guy... WAY more so.) Dave gazes longingly at the books. (word count - 1707)
10:48 AM: Dave is distracted by a really hot bookstore chick in ripped jeans. Dave decides it is time for a short break. (word count - 1707)
11:07 AM: Dave returns to the café, buys a cinnamon scone, and returns to writing. (and eating.)
11:45 AM: Dave is distracted by cellphone interruptions by his wife. (twice!) Dave is distracted by "The Best of Genesis" playing over the cafe sound system. ("Tonight, tonight tonight... oh-hoooo...") Dave realizes that the section he was going to write about black holes should not go in this chapter at all, but in the chapter on gravity. Dave begins to wonder how he is going to replace those missing 1500 words, but is glad that he had not already written them before making this realization. (word count - 1990)
12:09 PM: Dave is distracted by a hot bookstore chick in full Hot Topic regalia. Dave is tired of thinking about relativity. (word count - 2260)
12:34 PM: How the hell many hot chicks work in this bookstore? Jesus. Dave decides to go move over by the outlet in the chair facing the wall. (word count - 2413)
12:56 PM: Writing the biography part is boring. Dave is hungry. Shit, is it really almost one o'clock? (word count - 2488)
1:10 PM: Dave has a sandwich. (Turkey and provolone) (word count - 2488)
1:23 PM: Dave's focus is officially lost. Three hours at the Borders café is apparently his limit. Dave decides to walk over to Target for no particular reason. (word count - 2492)
Thursday, March 30
what's a 6 letter word for SHUT UP...??
This is the second time I've wound up on the train sitting next to these two women who sit across from one another and read the entire NY Times crossword puzzle OUT LOUD to one another.
Ladies... I will BUY one of you your OWN newspaper subscription if you will just fucking quit it.
This is the second time I've wound up on the train sitting next to these two women who sit across from one another and read the entire NY Times crossword puzzle OUT LOUD to one another.
Ladies... I will BUY one of you your OWN newspaper subscription if you will just fucking quit it.
Wednesday, March 29
eets notta tooma...
I don't know what it is. I walked in ready to lecture a class this morning that I wasn't even scheduled to teach. (It was the team-class... it wasn't my turn yet) Then later today, I had this exchange take place inside my own head...
(hears music) "Hmm. I wonder where that music is coming from? Hey! I like this song!!'
"That's your own cell phone, Dave".
I'm just feeling mildly cognitively impaired is all. No big deal. Although someone more hypochondriacal than I might add this fact to the frequent headaches and occasional episodes of double vision on the List of Mounting Evidence That I Have A Brain Tumor.
But I choose not to do that.
I don't know what it is. I walked in ready to lecture a class this morning that I wasn't even scheduled to teach. (It was the team-class... it wasn't my turn yet) Then later today, I had this exchange take place inside my own head...
(hears music) "Hmm. I wonder where that music is coming from? Hey! I like this song!!'
"That's your own cell phone, Dave".
I'm just feeling mildly cognitively impaired is all. No big deal. Although someone more hypochondriacal than I might add this fact to the frequent headaches and occasional episodes of double vision on the List of Mounting Evidence That I Have A Brain Tumor.
But I choose not to do that.
Tuesday, March 28
getting it started...
Despite the fact that I woke up with a violent headache, I'm trying to write this morning. I churned out maybe 500 words on the train. I'm trying to just pull out the filters and WRITE, and save the organizing and rewording for later. I have a hard time with that. I'm very meticulous with my wording... especially when writing fairly difficult science stuff. I always feel like there is a *slightly* better way to say something just around the corner of every sentence, so it can take me forever to finish a paragraph. I don't have that luxury right now. I'd like to produce 1500-2000 words a day this week, that way I still have the weekend to clean stuff up and do rewrites.
Plus, given that this is for a "textbook", I have to put together things like a "glossary" and a "reading list". Bleah...
Anyway... I'm thinking a well-timed cup of caffeine this afternoon might be able to fight off the narcolepsy that usually hits me on the train every evening. But I can't drop everything for this, since I still have little or no plan for most of my classes this week.
To spur my creative juices, I've taken to writing in OmniOutliner instead of Word or Pages. What's nice is you can write in sections then "collapse" them to focus on one at a time, or to see the layout of section titles when you're organizing the whole piece. I can't even tell you how much I love this program. It turns a number of unenjoyable tasks into fun little organizational puzzles. And everyone knows I enjoy organizing my work far more than actually doing it.!
Despite the fact that I woke up with a violent headache, I'm trying to write this morning. I churned out maybe 500 words on the train. I'm trying to just pull out the filters and WRITE, and save the organizing and rewording for later. I have a hard time with that. I'm very meticulous with my wording... especially when writing fairly difficult science stuff. I always feel like there is a *slightly* better way to say something just around the corner of every sentence, so it can take me forever to finish a paragraph. I don't have that luxury right now. I'd like to produce 1500-2000 words a day this week, that way I still have the weekend to clean stuff up and do rewrites.
Plus, given that this is for a "textbook", I have to put together things like a "glossary" and a "reading list". Bleah...
Anyway... I'm thinking a well-timed cup of caffeine this afternoon might be able to fight off the narcolepsy that usually hits me on the train every evening. But I can't drop everything for this, since I still have little or no plan for most of my classes this week.
To spur my creative juices, I've taken to writing in OmniOutliner instead of Word or Pages. What's nice is you can write in sections then "collapse" them to focus on one at a time, or to see the layout of section titles when you're organizing the whole piece. I can't even tell you how much I love this program. It turns a number of unenjoyable tasks into fun little organizational puzzles. And everyone knows I enjoy organizing my work far more than actually doing it.!
Monday, March 27
zzzzzzz...
I was really supposed to work during the ride home tonight, but... fuck, I am just too tired to think straight enough this time of day. Faking your way through two back-to-back unprepared lectures can be pretty damned exhausting.
I don't know what it is about this book project. I can't seem to get my brain started on this essay. It's the same old self-sabotaging bullshit, I guess. but it's gotten to the point that all of a sudden, 6000 words seems like an awful lot, given the looming deadline.
(A glance at the project sheet reveals that the target length is actually 6250 words. Oh well... I've got the 250!)
I'm going to have to lock myself away all day Friday, and part of the weekend to get this done. It is not going to be a fun week.
I was really supposed to work during the ride home tonight, but... fuck, I am just too tired to think straight enough this time of day. Faking your way through two back-to-back unprepared lectures can be pretty damned exhausting.
I don't know what it is about this book project. I can't seem to get my brain started on this essay. It's the same old self-sabotaging bullshit, I guess. but it's gotten to the point that all of a sudden, 6000 words seems like an awful lot, given the looming deadline.
(A glance at the project sheet reveals that the target length is actually 6250 words. Oh well... I've got the 250!)
I'm going to have to lock myself away all day Friday, and part of the weekend to get this done. It is not going to be a fun week.
ooooohhhhh.... fuck...
It's not like I didn't get work done over break. I actually got quite a bit of work done. Of course none of that work involved giving a moment's thought to what I might teach my classes AFTER break. So here I am, after having a week off... winging it as usual.
Then there is the book deal, which I have completely neglected, and I have my first deadline in a little over a week. Any free time this week ALL has to be devoted to this task, or there is no way I'll be able to get it done.
Fuck.
And none of this is helped by the fact that my afternoon planning time is going to be eaten up by a meeting today.
It's not like I didn't get work done over break. I actually got quite a bit of work done. Of course none of that work involved giving a moment's thought to what I might teach my classes AFTER break. So here I am, after having a week off... winging it as usual.
Then there is the book deal, which I have completely neglected, and I have my first deadline in a little over a week. Any free time this week ALL has to be devoted to this task, or there is no way I'll be able to get it done.
Fuck.
And none of this is helped by the fact that my afternoon planning time is going to be eaten up by a meeting today.
Sunday, March 26
queer as clowns...
Dave isn't usually one for the hate crimes, but something about Rooney Doodle really, really makes me want to punch him in the face. It's not the gay thing.(**) Dave has no problem with the Gays. But I do hate clowns. I mean.... really, REALLY hate clowns. And there is something about the overt gayness of this particular clown that inspires a violent negative reaction more potent than any I've ever experienced towards a children's television character. Perhaps moreso even than the Purple-Dinosaur-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
(** If you think Dave is stereotyping a run of the mill clown as "homosexual" simply because of his flamboyant appearance, you've clearly never seen the show. But if you doubt me, you can check out Rooney's only other acting credit.)
Dave isn't usually one for the hate crimes, but something about Rooney Doodle really, really makes me want to punch him in the face. It's not the gay thing.(**) Dave has no problem with the Gays. But I do hate clowns. I mean.... really, REALLY hate clowns. And there is something about the overt gayness of this particular clown that inspires a violent negative reaction more potent than any I've ever experienced towards a children's television character. Perhaps moreso even than the Purple-Dinosaur-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.
(** If you think Dave is stereotyping a run of the mill clown as "homosexual" simply because of his flamboyant appearance, you've clearly never seen the show. But if you doubt me, you can check out Rooney's only other acting credit.)
Thursday, March 23
could it get some wind for the sailboat...
The concert was pretty enjoyable. A recap in bullet-point form...
* I'm always surprised at how contemporary Chopin sounds.
* Ethan Hawke actually did a nice job tonight filling the shoes of original beat-poet-narrator Alan Ginsberg, although he did remind me how much I really, really hate poetry.
* The newly commissioned piece at the center of tonight's performance was not by Philip Glass at all, but by some young female composer. The movements alternated between piano + male baritone singer, and solo violin. Now, first of all... I can handle about 3 minutes of solo violin before it starts to sound like something between fingernails-on-a-blackboard and party-balloon-squeak-fart noises. (If you know what I mean.) Second of all, I just really, really have little patience for operatic singing. I kept wishing the guy would shut up so I could hear the piano.
* As much as I enjoy watching Philip Glass play Philip Glass, I'm always amazed at what a MUCH better piano the other performers (the "professional" piano players) are. It makes me feel much better about composing things on GarageBand that I can't actually play in realtime without making mistakes. If Philip Glass can get other people to perform his compositions that he can't play himself without fucking up,. then I can do the same thing with a computer, dammit.
* The piece from Glass's new album "A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close" was really nice. I may have to buy the album if it's all solo piano.
* I need to buy the sheet music for Glass's Piano Etude #2. I think I could play it.
* Has anyone ever heard of a composer named "Messaien"? I hadn't, but the piece they played was very interesting. Modern, but listenable. (Despite the fingernail-squeak-farting of the violin. It's not as bad with accompaniment.)
* The finale from "Einstein on the Beach"? Fucking sublime. Seriously. Did I look like an idiot for singing along? ("1...2...3...4... (-)...2...3...4...5...6 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...") I don't even care. I know the whole work pretty well. I used to listen to it in the car beginning-to-end when I would drive from Williamsburg home to Baltimore during grad school. The finale is even more enjoyable when you haven't been forced to sit through the preceding 3 and a half hours!
* The mezzo-soprano who sang in the finale and one of the other pieces...? Hot!
* (in other hotness news) Crowd watching is always fun as well. Who the hell wears thigh-high leather boots to a classical music concert? Good God Damn...
* (and...) One may joke about German being a harsh and unattractive language, but when spoken by two attractive single young women sitting next to you in a concert... it can be pretty fucking hypnotic.
* (now back to the MUSIC...) A look at the Lincoln Center program reveals that in October, The London Symphony is performing all nine Beethoven symphonies over 5 nights. Fucking awesome. As much as I'd like to go to the whole series, I somehow doubt my wife would appreciate me not seeing my children for a week to do so. But they are performing #1 and #7 - my two favorites - on the same night! The day after my birthday!! Yay! A present for me!
--- --- ---
So... that's that. It's 11:30 now and I'm at the Secaucus Junction train station. One problem with living out in the fucking mountains where I do... once rush hour is over, the trains leave like... once every 3 hours. So I got here at 10:50 and the next train leaves at 12:11. I'll get home at 2:30 in the fucking morning. Yeah. Kinda sucks.
To recap the rest of the day... I did indeed get all my exams graded, which fills me with... ok, maybe not "glee" but at least a deep, Buddha-like calm. I still have a decent-sized stack of homeworks to work on, but at least I've met my short-term goal. I didn't do much of the other stuff I was planning to do. The grading took more time than I thought, and my coworker wasn't there to take out to lunch, so I just went by myself to Pizzeria Uno around 3:00. Then back to my office to finish the grading, up to the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble for an hour... nothing too exciting.
Crap. I'm not sure my laptop is gonna last all the way home with this hour-at-the-train-station beforehand. Maybe I should go sit on the floor over there and plug in.
I was just going to write about how I'm really not as tired as one might expect... and then it just snuck up one me... just like that.... just because I thought it. Stupid brain...
The concert was pretty enjoyable. A recap in bullet-point form...
* I'm always surprised at how contemporary Chopin sounds.
* Ethan Hawke actually did a nice job tonight filling the shoes of original beat-poet-narrator Alan Ginsberg, although he did remind me how much I really, really hate poetry.
* The newly commissioned piece at the center of tonight's performance was not by Philip Glass at all, but by some young female composer. The movements alternated between piano + male baritone singer, and solo violin. Now, first of all... I can handle about 3 minutes of solo violin before it starts to sound like something between fingernails-on-a-blackboard and party-balloon-squeak-fart noises. (If you know what I mean.) Second of all, I just really, really have little patience for operatic singing. I kept wishing the guy would shut up so I could hear the piano.
* As much as I enjoy watching Philip Glass play Philip Glass, I'm always amazed at what a MUCH better piano the other performers (the "professional" piano players) are. It makes me feel much better about composing things on GarageBand that I can't actually play in realtime without making mistakes. If Philip Glass can get other people to perform his compositions that he can't play himself without fucking up,. then I can do the same thing with a computer, dammit.
* The piece from Glass's new album "A Musical Portrait of Chuck Close" was really nice. I may have to buy the album if it's all solo piano.
* I need to buy the sheet music for Glass's Piano Etude #2. I think I could play it.
* Has anyone ever heard of a composer named "Messaien"? I hadn't, but the piece they played was very interesting. Modern, but listenable. (Despite the fingernail-squeak-farting of the violin. It's not as bad with accompaniment.)
* The finale from "Einstein on the Beach"? Fucking sublime. Seriously. Did I look like an idiot for singing along? ("1...2...3...4... (-)...2...3...4...5...6 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...") I don't even care. I know the whole work pretty well. I used to listen to it in the car beginning-to-end when I would drive from Williamsburg home to Baltimore during grad school. The finale is even more enjoyable when you haven't been forced to sit through the preceding 3 and a half hours!
* The mezzo-soprano who sang in the finale and one of the other pieces...? Hot!
* (in other hotness news) Crowd watching is always fun as well. Who the hell wears thigh-high leather boots to a classical music concert? Good God Damn...
* (and...) One may joke about German being a harsh and unattractive language, but when spoken by two attractive single young women sitting next to you in a concert... it can be pretty fucking hypnotic.
* (now back to the MUSIC...) A look at the Lincoln Center program reveals that in October, The London Symphony is performing all nine Beethoven symphonies over 5 nights. Fucking awesome. As much as I'd like to go to the whole series, I somehow doubt my wife would appreciate me not seeing my children for a week to do so. But they are performing #1 and #7 - my two favorites - on the same night! The day after my birthday!! Yay! A present for me!
So... that's that. It's 11:30 now and I'm at the Secaucus Junction train station. One problem with living out in the fucking mountains where I do... once rush hour is over, the trains leave like... once every 3 hours. So I got here at 10:50 and the next train leaves at 12:11. I'll get home at 2:30 in the fucking morning. Yeah. Kinda sucks.
To recap the rest of the day... I did indeed get all my exams graded, which fills me with... ok, maybe not "glee" but at least a deep, Buddha-like calm. I still have a decent-sized stack of homeworks to work on, but at least I've met my short-term goal. I didn't do much of the other stuff I was planning to do. The grading took more time than I thought, and my coworker wasn't there to take out to lunch, so I just went by myself to Pizzeria Uno around 3:00. Then back to my office to finish the grading, up to the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble for an hour... nothing too exciting.
Crap. I'm not sure my laptop is gonna last all the way home with this hour-at-the-train-station beforehand. Maybe I should go sit on the floor over there and plug in.
I was just going to write about how I'm really not as tired as one might expect... and then it just snuck up one me... just like that.... just because I thought it. Stupid brain...
Wednesday, March 22
not-so candid camera...
So my plan to take pictures of freaks and weirdos on the train is hampered a bit by the construction of this particular phone. It's a flip-phone with two screens - an inner screen and an outer screen, and when you put the thing into camera mode, BOTH of the LCD's show the picture through the camera. I guess this is to make it easy to flip the camera around and take pictures of yourself, but it makes it kinda hard to take sneaky pictures of people without them knowing... and isn't that half the fun of camera phones anyway? "Oh look at me, I'm just checking my voicemail... CLICK!" So unless I can find a way to turn this "feature" off, I'll have to find a sticker or something to put over that second screen. Because, as much as I want to share my adventures with you all, it's not worth getting punched on the train by a weirdo.
So my plan to take pictures of freaks and weirdos on the train is hampered a bit by the construction of this particular phone. It's a flip-phone with two screens - an inner screen and an outer screen, and when you put the thing into camera mode, BOTH of the LCD's show the picture through the camera. I guess this is to make it easy to flip the camera around and take pictures of yourself, but it makes it kinda hard to take sneaky pictures of people without them knowing... and isn't that half the fun of camera phones anyway? "Oh look at me, I'm just checking my voicemail... CLICK!" So unless I can find a way to turn this "feature" off, I'll have to find a sticker or something to put over that second screen. Because, as much as I want to share my adventures with you all, it's not worth getting punched on the train by a weirdo.
night on the town...
I have a long day ahead... hopefully involving equal parts work, fun, and fucking around. I've decided to start with the last bit... wouldn't want to "peak" too early!
I'm on the train heading for the city. Tonight at 8:00 I'm attending a concert at Lincoln Center - a "Premier Commission Gala"(**), if you believe the ticket, featuring some pianist performing various works, including some Philip Glass... as well as Philip Glass himself, performing with the aforementioned "some pianist", and Ethan Hawke of all people, performing the "spoken word" bit to "Hydrogen Jukebox", which Philip Glass wrote with Alan Ginsburg. There's other stuff in addition to all that... kind of a strange program overall, but I'm really only there to see Philip Glass perform in person. They are even going to perform the finale from "Einstein on the Beach"!!
All that aside, I figured that as long as I'm heading into NYC, I should make a day of it and get some work done. So I have my big stack-o-exams and other papers with me, and I'd really like to get a big chunk of them done with today. Grading both stacks of exams in one day will be tough... I may burn out after the first stack. I have a lunch break scheduled with a co-worker, so if I finish Stack #1 before lunch... treat myself to a bookstore trip or something... then come back to polish off stack #2... it's just barely possible I might do it. I have until 8:00 PM... which is like 12 hours from now, so there's no reason I shouldn't accomplish something significant.
The book project I haven't touched, which is starting to worry me (/slash) piss me off. These three little chapters are too fucking important to fuck up and not do a good job on. Maybe I'll set up some "writing blitz" time today to get some shape to the first essay. Because time is seriously running out.
I should add that my daughter's 7th birthday party is this coming weekend, which means that Thursday and Friday will be mostly occupied with cleaning up our shithole of a house. It's reached a critical stage of clutter where one human being can not possibly clean up any of the rooms faster than more clutter accumulates. I've picked up the living room three times in the past week, and 20 minutes later it looks exactly like it did before I started. I'll be glad when the basement is finished. At least we'll be able to "dilute" the clutter a bit. Given the size of the playroom we are building down there, I'm considering enforcing a "no toys on the ground floor" rule. It's an entirely workable plan, but I doubt that it will ever actually happen.
Work down in the basement is progressing nicely, although soon the ball will be in OUR court. The drywall guys are sanding today, which means soon it will be time to start slathering the $400 worth of paint we just bought onto the walls. It should be a quick job... no carpets, no doors, no ceiling... so we don't have to muck around with dropcloths and taping and whatnot. But still... it's a lot of space down there. The wife will probably handle most of that work, since she hates painting just marginally less than I do. Then I get to install the drop-ceiling myself. Oh, joy.
This is where the project is going to stall. Because seriously... when the fuck do I have time to install 1000 fucking square feet of ceiling tiles? This is not work I enjoy, people... nor is it work I am good at, which means that it is SLOW. I figure... one weekend to do the track, and another to cut and install the tiles, and that's for EACH ROOM. So... with 4 or 5 rooms down there, we're looking at 8 - 10 weeks... bare minimum.
I should stop thinking about that. It will only depress me. I have enough to be depressed about with the overwhelming grading pile without thinking about the overwhelming housework pile. Prioritize, Dave!!
--------------------------------
(** Lying in bed this morning, it occurred to me that my college-prof uniform of jeans+dress shirt+rumpled blazer may not cut it for a "Gala". So I got up early and rooted through the closet for a pair of "slacks" that actually fit. I even brought a tie. We'll see if I'm "feelin' it" tonight with regards to the tie, but I'm at least marginally better dressed than usual. Although I had forgotten just how much warmer jeans are than grown-up pants. Brrr...)
I have a long day ahead... hopefully involving equal parts work, fun, and fucking around. I've decided to start with the last bit... wouldn't want to "peak" too early!
I'm on the train heading for the city. Tonight at 8:00 I'm attending a concert at Lincoln Center - a "Premier Commission Gala"(**), if you believe the ticket, featuring some pianist performing various works, including some Philip Glass... as well as Philip Glass himself, performing with the aforementioned "some pianist", and Ethan Hawke of all people, performing the "spoken word" bit to "Hydrogen Jukebox", which Philip Glass wrote with Alan Ginsburg. There's other stuff in addition to all that... kind of a strange program overall, but I'm really only there to see Philip Glass perform in person. They are even going to perform the finale from "Einstein on the Beach"!!
All that aside, I figured that as long as I'm heading into NYC, I should make a day of it and get some work done. So I have my big stack-o-exams and other papers with me, and I'd really like to get a big chunk of them done with today. Grading both stacks of exams in one day will be tough... I may burn out after the first stack. I have a lunch break scheduled with a co-worker, so if I finish Stack #1 before lunch... treat myself to a bookstore trip or something... then come back to polish off stack #2... it's just barely possible I might do it. I have until 8:00 PM... which is like 12 hours from now, so there's no reason I shouldn't accomplish something significant.
The book project I haven't touched, which is starting to worry me (/slash) piss me off. These three little chapters are too fucking important to fuck up and not do a good job on. Maybe I'll set up some "writing blitz" time today to get some shape to the first essay. Because time is seriously running out.
I should add that my daughter's 7th birthday party is this coming weekend, which means that Thursday and Friday will be mostly occupied with cleaning up our shithole of a house. It's reached a critical stage of clutter where one human being can not possibly clean up any of the rooms faster than more clutter accumulates. I've picked up the living room three times in the past week, and 20 minutes later it looks exactly like it did before I started. I'll be glad when the basement is finished. At least we'll be able to "dilute" the clutter a bit. Given the size of the playroom we are building down there, I'm considering enforcing a "no toys on the ground floor" rule. It's an entirely workable plan, but I doubt that it will ever actually happen.
Work down in the basement is progressing nicely, although soon the ball will be in OUR court. The drywall guys are sanding today, which means soon it will be time to start slathering the $400 worth of paint we just bought onto the walls. It should be a quick job... no carpets, no doors, no ceiling... so we don't have to muck around with dropcloths and taping and whatnot. But still... it's a lot of space down there. The wife will probably handle most of that work, since she hates painting just marginally less than I do. Then I get to install the drop-ceiling myself. Oh, joy.
This is where the project is going to stall. Because seriously... when the fuck do I have time to install 1000 fucking square feet of ceiling tiles? This is not work I enjoy, people... nor is it work I am good at, which means that it is SLOW. I figure... one weekend to do the track, and another to cut and install the tiles, and that's for EACH ROOM. So... with 4 or 5 rooms down there, we're looking at 8 - 10 weeks... bare minimum.
I should stop thinking about that. It will only depress me. I have enough to be depressed about with the overwhelming grading pile without thinking about the overwhelming housework pile. Prioritize, Dave!!
--------------------------------
(** Lying in bed this morning, it occurred to me that my college-prof uniform of jeans+dress shirt+rumpled blazer may not cut it for a "Gala". So I got up early and rooted through the closet for a pair of "slacks" that actually fit. I even brought a tie. We'll see if I'm "feelin' it" tonight with regards to the tie, but I'm at least marginally better dressed than usual. Although I had forgotten just how much warmer jeans are than grown-up pants. Brrr...)
Tuesday, March 21
dear idiot cellphone makers...
If a bunch of guys can write a freeware bluetooth module for OS X in their spare time to make your cellphone Mac-compatible, there is no fucking reason you can't do so yourself. I was about *this far* from taking your phone back to the store before I stumbled on an open-source solution to a problem that shouldn't really exist in the first place.
Sigh...
Anyway, in anticipation of the impending flux of photos, I'm thrown a Flickr "badge" over in the sidebar. Keep an eye there, if you're interested.
If a bunch of guys can write a freeware bluetooth module for OS X in their spare time to make your cellphone Mac-compatible, there is no fucking reason you can't do so yourself. I was about *this far* from taking your phone back to the store before I stumbled on an open-source solution to a problem that shouldn't really exist in the first place.
Sigh...
Anyway, in anticipation of the impending flux of photos, I'm thrown a Flickr "badge" over in the sidebar. Keep an eye there, if you're interested.
Monday, March 20
"break", my ass...
Well, it's time for the ritualistic grading process to begin. Cafe. Tea. Stack of exams. Pavarotti.
Ok, the Pavarotti is actually pretty fucking distracting. Luckily I brought my iPod.
Today's goal... attack the Astronomy midterms, maybe do a stack of homeworks, and then if there is time left, blog a little and maybe work on the book project tonight.
Ambitious, yes... but it's broken up into chunks. The most important bit is the exams, so... off I go!
UPDATE: Two hours, one grande tea, and one slice of carrot cake later, the Astro exams are done. Grades ranged from 100 down to 69, with a reasonable distribution in between. If I grade the two stacks of outstanding Astronomy homeworks, that class will be all graded. That would make for a nice afternoon's work.
Well, it's time for the ritualistic grading process to begin. Cafe. Tea. Stack of exams. Pavarotti.
Ok, the Pavarotti is actually pretty fucking distracting. Luckily I brought my iPod.
Today's goal... attack the Astronomy midterms, maybe do a stack of homeworks, and then if there is time left, blog a little and maybe work on the book project tonight.
Ambitious, yes... but it's broken up into chunks. The most important bit is the exams, so... off I go!
UPDATE: Two hours, one grande tea, and one slice of carrot cake later, the Astro exams are done. Grades ranged from 100 down to 69, with a reasonable distribution in between. If I grade the two stacks of outstanding Astronomy homeworks, that class will be all graded. That would make for a nice afternoon's work.
Thursday, March 16
Wednesday, March 15
bizarro dave...
I'm not sure what the deal is... I feel incredibly productive and "on top of my shit" this week. Maybe it's just having fewer teaching demands. I did have things like exams to write, but all that has been done well ahead of time.I've even had time to grade homeworks and other stuff in between. I'm not sure what's causing it, but it's not at all like me.
*** *** ***
I just took a peek at the exams from my Musical Acoustics class, and it looks like people did pretty well, all things considered. At least it doesn't look like too many people completely tanked. This is all I hope for in an exam, really... at least one A and no more than two F's. (Usually one close-to-a-D, and one horrifying F.) Hopefully this one will be better than that even. "Better" means NO F's and 2 or 3 A's. But if too many people get A's I start to feel like I'm not being enough of a bastard. That seldom happens, though.
*** *** ***
Heading home to a bit of chaos. The wife has a PTA meeting, the house is a disaster, the kids need baths. So I have to play the domesticity game for a couple of hours. Oh well. At least I get to watch "Lost" afterwards.
*** *** ***
It's fucking cold today. It got really nice and warm for a few days, now it's cold again. No fair going back to the "lion" part, March... there's nothing in the aphorism about that!
I'm not sure what the deal is... I feel incredibly productive and "on top of my shit" this week. Maybe it's just having fewer teaching demands. I did have things like exams to write, but all that has been done well ahead of time.I've even had time to grade homeworks and other stuff in between. I'm not sure what's causing it, but it's not at all like me.
I just took a peek at the exams from my Musical Acoustics class, and it looks like people did pretty well, all things considered. At least it doesn't look like too many people completely tanked. This is all I hope for in an exam, really... at least one A and no more than two F's. (Usually one close-to-a-D, and one horrifying F.) Hopefully this one will be better than that even. "Better" means NO F's and 2 or 3 A's. But if too many people get A's I start to feel like I'm not being enough of a bastard. That seldom happens, though.
Heading home to a bit of chaos. The wife has a PTA meeting, the house is a disaster, the kids need baths. So I have to play the domesticity game for a couple of hours. Oh well. At least I get to watch "Lost" afterwards.
It's fucking cold today. It got really nice and warm for a few days, now it's cold again. No fair going back to the "lion" part, March... there's nothing in the aphorism about that!
"semester" as a relative term...
I should NOT spend too much time bloggering this morning, given that I'm giving two midterm exams today, neither of which I've actually WRITTEN. It's not a huge problem... The first one is mostly done, and I'll have plenty of time to write the second one while I'm giving the first one. Still... it would be nice to have it DONE this morning.
I graded two stacks of astronomy homeworks yesterday on the train, despite having a nap. I'm on a roll here with the grading... my new goal is to have it ALL done by the end of Spring Break. I've decided to start envisioning my classes on the "quarter" system, and just pretending to start a brand new class after Spring Break. Because all of my classes really do have a logical break in topic right at midterm. In physics we switch from relativity to quantum... in astronomy we switch from historical models to the 20th century... in the music class we switch from sound production to sound perception. So mini-semester #1 is coming to an end, and mini-semester #2 is about to begin.
It helps me to play these little games with my head.
I should NOT spend too much time bloggering this morning, given that I'm giving two midterm exams today, neither of which I've actually WRITTEN. It's not a huge problem... The first one is mostly done, and I'll have plenty of time to write the second one while I'm giving the first one. Still... it would be nice to have it DONE this morning.
I graded two stacks of astronomy homeworks yesterday on the train, despite having a nap. I'm on a roll here with the grading... my new goal is to have it ALL done by the end of Spring Break. I've decided to start envisioning my classes on the "quarter" system, and just pretending to start a brand new class after Spring Break. Because all of my classes really do have a logical break in topic right at midterm. In physics we switch from relativity to quantum... in astronomy we switch from historical models to the 20th century... in the music class we switch from sound production to sound perception. So mini-semester #1 is coming to an end, and mini-semester #2 is about to begin.
It helps me to play these little games with my head.
Tuesday, March 14
75 gig of crap...
For the most part, I pride myself on my hard-drive organization. Seriously... it's the most organized part of my life. Everything has a folder and a logical place. I always know where to look for stuff. Mostly. There are a couple of places where things are getting out of control.
One category has to do with articles and links... interesting readings I come across online that are about astronomy or the history of science or whatever... that don't directly pertain to any PARTICULAR course (so they don't go in my course folders) but that I want to keep around just in case. Right now, these are all lumped into a folder called "Science Articles and Links", which currently has 100+ items in it. Well... that's no good. I've considered adding a subfolder hierarchy inside that folder, but there are so many hard-to categorize papers, I wouldn't know where to begin. I need some kind of personal Davey Decimal System or something.
(Actually, that's not an awful idea...)
The other place I have problems is with images. I have jpegs all over my computer, ranging from family snapshots to pictures of galaxies to Photoshop mockups of paintings I want to someday paint. Again - the problem is, too many wide-ranging categories. I'm not even sure if I WANT them in the same place. I've considered importing every image file on my laptop into iPhoto and just setting up albums there, but... I don't even really LIKE iPhoto.
And I'm not going to go on some kind of big "Hard Drive Restructuring Kick" now... I have too much work to do. But the dissatisfaction is growing... I can feel it.
For the most part, I pride myself on my hard-drive organization. Seriously... it's the most organized part of my life. Everything has a folder and a logical place. I always know where to look for stuff. Mostly. There are a couple of places where things are getting out of control.
One category has to do with articles and links... interesting readings I come across online that are about astronomy or the history of science or whatever... that don't directly pertain to any PARTICULAR course (so they don't go in my course folders) but that I want to keep around just in case. Right now, these are all lumped into a folder called "Science Articles and Links", which currently has 100+ items in it. Well... that's no good. I've considered adding a subfolder hierarchy inside that folder, but there are so many hard-to categorize papers, I wouldn't know where to begin. I need some kind of personal Davey Decimal System or something.
(Actually, that's not an awful idea...)
The other place I have problems is with images. I have jpegs all over my computer, ranging from family snapshots to pictures of galaxies to Photoshop mockups of paintings I want to someday paint. Again - the problem is, too many wide-ranging categories. I'm not even sure if I WANT them in the same place. I've considered importing every image file on my laptop into iPhoto and just setting up albums there, but... I don't even really LIKE iPhoto.
And I'm not going to go on some kind of big "Hard Drive Restructuring Kick" now... I have too much work to do. But the dissatisfaction is growing... I can feel it.
Monday, March 13
one for the "soundtrack geeks" out there...
The other day I stumbled on Scarface while I was flipping channels and watched almost the whole movie.
Today I walked past a parked delivery truck that was blaring "Maniac" from Flashdance from its stereo.
Somehow I've found myself in a cosmic game of Six Degrees of Giorgio Moroder. Do these encounters come in threes? Should I be on the lookout for "Highway to the Danger Zone"?
The other day I stumbled on Scarface while I was flipping channels and watched almost the whole movie.
Today I walked past a parked delivery truck that was blaring "Maniac" from Flashdance from its stereo.
Somehow I've found myself in a cosmic game of Six Degrees of Giorgio Moroder. Do these encounters come in threes? Should I be on the lookout for "Highway to the Danger Zone"?
exam week...
Caught the early train today, which means an extra 15 minutes of quiet office time this morning. For some reason, I actually feel like grading today... there is a manageable pile of stuff I could get through, and since I don't have any lecture planning to do this week what with exams and all, I figure... might was well jump on some of it now and leave my Spring Break open for grading the EXAMS, which will take a while.
I still have to write 2 out of my 3 exams, but for some reason that doesn't seem as urgent as it probably should.
All in all, I feel good about the next couple of weeks, and NOT overwhelmed for a change. I've actually been doing some semi-recreational reading, which for me means - the same kinds of nerdy-science books I'm always reading, only I'm not reading these to plan for any particular class I have to teach. I even updated the reading list in my sidebar for the first time in months - that shows you how much spare time I have right there.
Haven't worked much on my book chapter... nothing concrete anyway. I'm doing that back-of-the-head writing, though... organizing the piece, imagining topic sentences and transitions. (This is work best done in the shower.) At some point this week, I should start doing little bursts of actual writing, though... get a couple thousand words OUTSIDE of my head.
I submitted a conference abstract this weekend. It's for the American Association of Physics Teachers conference over the summer. It's in Syracuse, which is fairly drive-to-able, so if I get accepted I won't need to beg for very much money from my university in order to attend. I really have no desire to GO to an AAPT conference at this point in my life, but the CV padding is pretty important. Plus, contributed talks at this conference are only 8 minutes, so... it would involve ZERO work. Which isn't to say it isn't an interesting and useful and important paper I'm contributing... I think it is. It's just a question of... putting this out there at this particular time has more to do with my pending contract review than it does with any desire to disseminate this important educational work.
Anyway, this is all just boring work crap that is scarcely worth writing about. Maybe I'll some back with something a little more "fun" later. That's me.... "Doctor Fun".
Caught the early train today, which means an extra 15 minutes of quiet office time this morning. For some reason, I actually feel like grading today... there is a manageable pile of stuff I could get through, and since I don't have any lecture planning to do this week what with exams and all, I figure... might was well jump on some of it now and leave my Spring Break open for grading the EXAMS, which will take a while.
I still have to write 2 out of my 3 exams, but for some reason that doesn't seem as urgent as it probably should.
All in all, I feel good about the next couple of weeks, and NOT overwhelmed for a change. I've actually been doing some semi-recreational reading, which for me means - the same kinds of nerdy-science books I'm always reading, only I'm not reading these to plan for any particular class I have to teach. I even updated the reading list in my sidebar for the first time in months - that shows you how much spare time I have right there.
Haven't worked much on my book chapter... nothing concrete anyway. I'm doing that back-of-the-head writing, though... organizing the piece, imagining topic sentences and transitions. (This is work best done in the shower.) At some point this week, I should start doing little bursts of actual writing, though... get a couple thousand words OUTSIDE of my head.
I submitted a conference abstract this weekend. It's for the American Association of Physics Teachers conference over the summer. It's in Syracuse, which is fairly drive-to-able, so if I get accepted I won't need to beg for very much money from my university in order to attend. I really have no desire to GO to an AAPT conference at this point in my life, but the CV padding is pretty important. Plus, contributed talks at this conference are only 8 minutes, so... it would involve ZERO work. Which isn't to say it isn't an interesting and useful and important paper I'm contributing... I think it is. It's just a question of... putting this out there at this particular time has more to do with my pending contract review than it does with any desire to disseminate this important educational work.
Anyway, this is all just boring work crap that is scarcely worth writing about. Maybe I'll some back with something a little more "fun" later. That's me.... "Doctor Fun".
Sunday, March 12
moment of zen...
From the AP wires...
Oh crap... I hope he's not really lost alone in the woods, because I'm pretty sure NO ONE WILL HEAR HIM!!!
Bwaaaa ha ha haaaa!!!
Sorry folks, it's late.
From the AP wires...
March 11,2006 | KATMANDU, Nepal -- A 15-year-old boy whose followers believe he is the reincarnation of Buddha has disappeared after 10 months of meditation in the jungles of Nepal, officials said Saturday.
Followers of Ram Bahadur Banjan reported his disappearance and a police team has been sent to the jungles of Bara, about 100 miles south of the capital, Katmandu, to investigate, said Santaraj Subedi, the chief government official in the district.
It was still unclear when he went missing, but initial reports said he was last seen on Friday.
Oh crap... I hope he's not really lost alone in the woods, because I'm pretty sure NO ONE WILL HEAR HIM!!!
Bwaaaa ha ha haaaa!!!
Sorry folks, it's late.
Saturday, March 11
Friday, March 10
awesome tourette's (law textbook!) comment spam...
I got my first peice of comment-spam in another blog that uses Blogger's own commenting feature (unlike Haloscan, which I use for this blog.) I found it very funny for some reason... mostly because it sounds like a weird case of peculiarly textbook-focused Tourette's Syndrome...
Whee! Have a nice law textbook day!
I got my first peice of comment-spam in another blog that uses Blogger's own commenting feature (unlike Haloscan, which I use for this blog.) I found it very funny for some reason... mostly because it sounds like a weird case of peculiarly textbook-focused Tourette's Syndrome...
law textbook are so expensive. I agree, We have been looking for law textbook all night for a new law textbook class but havent been able to track down used law textbook that I can afford. Anyway, I enjoyed looking at you law textbook blog...
Whee! Have a nice law textbook day!
Thursday, March 9
time "off" for dave and his brain...
OK, well... that's it... no more "teaching" of new content until after break. Next week is all review sessions and midterms, and then Spring Break. My brain is doing that middle-of-the-semester thing where it starts wanting to think about next semester. It made me go to the NYU library today and check out a bunch of books on the philosophy of science. (Because nothing says "vacation" like Karl Popper's "Realism and the Aim of Science"!) And I have to tell my brain - "NO, Brain!! Spring Break is not for year-ahead planning! Spring Break is for GRADING and getting caught up on your classes and writing that fucking book chapter you just got hired to do."
You see... my brain believes that important work which is due in 9 months is somehow more fun to work on than important work which is due in 3 weeks.
What must it be like to be one of those people whose brain always seems to want to do the right thing? Because I think that's what it must mean to be one of those with-it, together, successful people. I think those people must have a Brain which says to them - "Hey! I know! Let's go to the gym." instead of a brain that says "Fuck, I guess I should work out even though I hate every minute of it" or better still... "Oh look! Cookies!" Or a brain that says "I'd really like to publish a successful textbook someday", rather than... "Christ, what is the LEAST amount of work I can do in order to give the illusion that I'm NOT spending all of my free time outside of the classroom downloading porn?"
I'm not sure you're BORN with that kind of brain, but I do believe that once you've allowed your brain to become MY kind of Brain... there is no going back.
OK, well... that's it... no more "teaching" of new content until after break. Next week is all review sessions and midterms, and then Spring Break. My brain is doing that middle-of-the-semester thing where it starts wanting to think about next semester. It made me go to the NYU library today and check out a bunch of books on the philosophy of science. (Because nothing says "vacation" like Karl Popper's "Realism and the Aim of Science"!) And I have to tell my brain - "NO, Brain!! Spring Break is not for year-ahead planning! Spring Break is for GRADING and getting caught up on your classes and writing that fucking book chapter you just got hired to do."
You see... my brain believes that important work which is due in 9 months is somehow more fun to work on than important work which is due in 3 weeks.
What must it be like to be one of those people whose brain always seems to want to do the right thing? Because I think that's what it must mean to be one of those with-it, together, successful people. I think those people must have a Brain which says to them - "Hey! I know! Let's go to the gym." instead of a brain that says "Fuck, I guess I should work out even though I hate every minute of it" or better still... "Oh look! Cookies!" Or a brain that says "I'd really like to publish a successful textbook someday", rather than... "Christ, what is the LEAST amount of work I can do in order to give the illusion that I'm NOT spending all of my free time outside of the classroom downloading porn?"
I'm not sure you're BORN with that kind of brain, but I do believe that once you've allowed your brain to become MY kind of Brain... there is no going back.
suck it, windows users...
My Mac was starting to run a little sluggishly this morning, plus there was a disc image that was refusing to eject, so I decided to restart the computer.
The last time I did this? 17 days ago.
It's getting to the point that I restart or shutdown my computer so infrequently, that when I do it feels really weird... like I'm doing something wrong.
Is there such a thing as an operating system being TOO stable?
My Mac was starting to run a little sluggishly this morning, plus there was a disc image that was refusing to eject, so I decided to restart the computer.
The last time I did this? 17 days ago.
It's getting to the point that I restart or shutdown my computer so infrequently, that when I do it feels really weird... like I'm doing something wrong.
Is there such a thing as an operating system being TOO stable?
Wednesday, March 8
i don't get students...
One of my students from last semester (who is also my academic advisee) emailed me saying she was having trouble with one of her classes this semester and wanted to talk to me about it.
Which is odd really... because she never came to talk to me about the D she was getting in MY class last semester! And that was a problem I may have actually been able to DO SOMETHING about.
One of my students from last semester (who is also my academic advisee) emailed me saying she was having trouble with one of her classes this semester and wanted to talk to me about it.
Which is odd really... because she never came to talk to me about the D she was getting in MY class last semester! And that was a problem I may have actually been able to DO SOMETHING about.
Tuesday, March 7
why my weblog is boring...
The problem is... I never DO anything anymore. My days are so booked, I never have time to walk to the Apple Store or the bookstore or the Asian place where I used to have lunch. I don't go to yoga class anymore, I don't do anything DIFFERENT on any day that would make it worth writing about. So my blog is reduced to...
1) I'm tired
2) It's cold
3) I have no idea what I'm teaching today
4) I sure need to do some grading
5) The kids are driving me crazy.
6) (repeat)
So...
This week is going to involve a couple of late-ish nights at work. I have a committee meeting today and a full-faculty meeting Thursday. Meanwhile the wife is having dinner with someone on Wednesday and going to the city with a friend on Friday. Hey kids! This is what life is like for your friends with DIVORCED parents!
What I should really be doing today and tomorrow is writing my midterm exams. Next week is the last week before break, and I have three midterms to give. So it should be a low-key week... no new topics to teach, just review sessions and tests. Which will actually be more of a break than the following week - the week of "Spring Break", where I'll have to GRADE these three stacks of exams and also get to work on the textbook project. At least the kids will be in school, so I'll have a few days to focus.
I was combing my HD for texts on relativity to help me jump start this textbook essay and I came across a draft script from my old job (fucking fuckers) that was really brilliantly written. It occurred to me that if none of what I wrote ever made it to their final script, I could re-use this stuff without worrying about violating any copyrights. So I emailed the one guy at the old job who I would ever consider speaking to again and asked him to pirate me a copy of the production script. Unfortunately, even though most of what I wrote has been gutted and mangled... it's all still there in some form or another, so using this draft would result in a text that was too similar to be safe. Fuck.
Guess I have to actually WRITE.
Meanwhile, the wife was invited to lunch with a local editor who subcontracts with freelancers and he offered her a steady salary. Which was interesting, but the offer turned out to kinda suck. For one thing, he was never quite clear how many hours he would be expecting. Second, he offered her the salary that she mentioned as her bare minimum. (Way to bargain, dude.) And finally he said something like "And obviously if you're working for me, any clients you have now will move over to the agency."
Yeah... right buddy.
So, she politely declined but agreed to continue freelancing for him. One thing she DID get from the meeting was a glimpse into this guy's workflow, which involves various macro programs and some kind of crazy 51-key add-on keypad thing to run frequent macros with a single key instead of alt-ctrl-shift-X or whatever. So, she's probly gonna drop $200 on this editing gadgetry, cuz she's all excited about it. Which is fine. She's probably due for some computer gadgetry (as he writes on his shiny new laptop!) She's also decided to get more into medical copyediting for this guy, since it is supposedly more lucrative. Which means a few hundred dollars worth of medical dictionaries and whatnot. So... we'll see where all this "investment" gets us. She's having a pretty good year. It'll be interesting to see how much money she makes once BOTH kids are in school and she can work 5 days and not have to lose 1/4 - 1/2 of her salary to daycare.
While I've been writing this, I'm listening to a podcast of some astronomy professor from some college in Ohio. I'm stealing some of his ideas for my lecture today. He's not a bad lecturer, but I think I'm better. More "gripping".
Heh. And modest.
Yesterday I lectured my modern physics class on black holes for the second day running. I swear to god... I'm gonna work up an entire course on black holes and time travel. There is no topic that gets students going more... I don't care if they are college students or 3rd graders. I could teach it as an elective and get 100 students to register. We could watch sci-fi movies like "12 Monkeys" and talk about closed-time-loops and paradoxes and whatnot. It would rock. I wonder if I could fill up a whole semester with that material? Maybe if we started as far back as HG Wells... read some books and short stories... 4 or 5 days worth of movies. We could do both special and general relativity. I could work in the second law of thermodynamics someplace. Hmmm... I think I have an open elective slot in... oh... Spring of 2008!
In other future-teachy news, one of my classes is being used next semester to pilot a new format for science lecture courses. My astronomy enrollment is going to be bumped up to 30-50 students (from the 18-22 typical of our "seminar" courses). This means I'll get a lecture hall, which is cool. It also means I may get a "grader" of some sort, which... oh man... how cool would THAT be? It would be like teaching at a real university. Anyway, I kind of volunteered for this, so... smack me when I start bitching about it in October. It was probably a bad time to start this experiment - when I'll be teaching three courses - one of them brand new, and in a field that is not really one I'm trained in. What else is new...? At least it's one more thing to add to my teaching portfolio. "Look at Dr. Dave! Always doing interesting and new things! Give him a 5 year contract!"
Interesting thing #168: Got an email from my Department Chair last night... somebody at the graduate school is interested in putting together some sort of Science and the Citizen program for the public, and they've asked us to be involved. This of course means administrative and organizational tasks, which are the thing I am WORST at in life, and least interested in, but I should really step up. I need to organize something. Something high-profile. It looks good.
Ok. Maybe co-organize.
Anyway, there is supposed to be a lunch meeting over it next week. I'll come equipped with some articles on the "Café Scientifique" movement that is taking off in so many cities. There are supposedly some in NYC... places where people gather on a Saturday morning to have coffee and listen to scientists talk informally about their work. The problem is... in NYC, we're competing with places like Columbia that have actual REAL scientists. I'm not sure what our little college has to offer on that front. Anyway... I'm guessing what will come out of it is a public lecture series focused on some kind of environmental issue. Zzzzzzz...
Ok. Well. That was the whole train ride. So... no less boring, but at least it's LONG.
The problem is... I never DO anything anymore. My days are so booked, I never have time to walk to the Apple Store or the bookstore or the Asian place where I used to have lunch. I don't go to yoga class anymore, I don't do anything DIFFERENT on any day that would make it worth writing about. So my blog is reduced to...
1) I'm tired
2) It's cold
3) I have no idea what I'm teaching today
4) I sure need to do some grading
5) The kids are driving me crazy.
6) (repeat)
So...
This week is going to involve a couple of late-ish nights at work. I have a committee meeting today and a full-faculty meeting Thursday. Meanwhile the wife is having dinner with someone on Wednesday and going to the city with a friend on Friday. Hey kids! This is what life is like for your friends with DIVORCED parents!
What I should really be doing today and tomorrow is writing my midterm exams. Next week is the last week before break, and I have three midterms to give. So it should be a low-key week... no new topics to teach, just review sessions and tests. Which will actually be more of a break than the following week - the week of "Spring Break", where I'll have to GRADE these three stacks of exams and also get to work on the textbook project. At least the kids will be in school, so I'll have a few days to focus.
I was combing my HD for texts on relativity to help me jump start this textbook essay and I came across a draft script from my old job (fucking fuckers) that was really brilliantly written. It occurred to me that if none of what I wrote ever made it to their final script, I could re-use this stuff without worrying about violating any copyrights. So I emailed the one guy at the old job who I would ever consider speaking to again and asked him to pirate me a copy of the production script. Unfortunately, even though most of what I wrote has been gutted and mangled... it's all still there in some form or another, so using this draft would result in a text that was too similar to be safe. Fuck.
Guess I have to actually WRITE.
Meanwhile, the wife was invited to lunch with a local editor who subcontracts with freelancers and he offered her a steady salary. Which was interesting, but the offer turned out to kinda suck. For one thing, he was never quite clear how many hours he would be expecting. Second, he offered her the salary that she mentioned as her bare minimum. (Way to bargain, dude.) And finally he said something like "And obviously if you're working for me, any clients you have now will move over to the agency."
Yeah... right buddy.
So, she politely declined but agreed to continue freelancing for him. One thing she DID get from the meeting was a glimpse into this guy's workflow, which involves various macro programs and some kind of crazy 51-key add-on keypad thing to run frequent macros with a single key instead of alt-ctrl-shift-X or whatever. So, she's probly gonna drop $200 on this editing gadgetry, cuz she's all excited about it. Which is fine. She's probably due for some computer gadgetry (as he writes on his shiny new laptop!) She's also decided to get more into medical copyediting for this guy, since it is supposedly more lucrative. Which means a few hundred dollars worth of medical dictionaries and whatnot. So... we'll see where all this "investment" gets us. She's having a pretty good year. It'll be interesting to see how much money she makes once BOTH kids are in school and she can work 5 days and not have to lose 1/4 - 1/2 of her salary to daycare.
While I've been writing this, I'm listening to a podcast of some astronomy professor from some college in Ohio. I'm stealing some of his ideas for my lecture today. He's not a bad lecturer, but I think I'm better. More "gripping".
Heh. And modest.
Yesterday I lectured my modern physics class on black holes for the second day running. I swear to god... I'm gonna work up an entire course on black holes and time travel. There is no topic that gets students going more... I don't care if they are college students or 3rd graders. I could teach it as an elective and get 100 students to register. We could watch sci-fi movies like "12 Monkeys" and talk about closed-time-loops and paradoxes and whatnot. It would rock. I wonder if I could fill up a whole semester with that material? Maybe if we started as far back as HG Wells... read some books and short stories... 4 or 5 days worth of movies. We could do both special and general relativity. I could work in the second law of thermodynamics someplace. Hmmm... I think I have an open elective slot in... oh... Spring of 2008!
In other future-teachy news, one of my classes is being used next semester to pilot a new format for science lecture courses. My astronomy enrollment is going to be bumped up to 30-50 students (from the 18-22 typical of our "seminar" courses). This means I'll get a lecture hall, which is cool. It also means I may get a "grader" of some sort, which... oh man... how cool would THAT be? It would be like teaching at a real university. Anyway, I kind of volunteered for this, so... smack me when I start bitching about it in October. It was probably a bad time to start this experiment - when I'll be teaching three courses - one of them brand new, and in a field that is not really one I'm trained in. What else is new...? At least it's one more thing to add to my teaching portfolio. "Look at Dr. Dave! Always doing interesting and new things! Give him a 5 year contract!"
Interesting thing #168: Got an email from my Department Chair last night... somebody at the graduate school is interested in putting together some sort of Science and the Citizen program for the public, and they've asked us to be involved. This of course means administrative and organizational tasks, which are the thing I am WORST at in life, and least interested in, but I should really step up. I need to organize something. Something high-profile. It looks good.
Ok. Maybe co-organize.
Anyway, there is supposed to be a lunch meeting over it next week. I'll come equipped with some articles on the "Café Scientifique" movement that is taking off in so many cities. There are supposedly some in NYC... places where people gather on a Saturday morning to have coffee and listen to scientists talk informally about their work. The problem is... in NYC, we're competing with places like Columbia that have actual REAL scientists. I'm not sure what our little college has to offer on that front. Anyway... I'm guessing what will come out of it is a public lecture series focused on some kind of environmental issue. Zzzzzzz...
Ok. Well. That was the whole train ride. So... no less boring, but at least it's LONG.
Monday, March 6
oscars...
Watched them, mostly out of habit, since the only two nominated movies I'd seen this year were "Wallace and Gromit" and "Walk the Line". At least they both won something. I guess I have to Netflix "Crash" now.
The show was ok. Jon Stewart was funny but not brilliant. The wife and I took turns drooling over various celebs. (Jake Gyllenhall and Salma Hayek, primarily.) But none of it was really worth the oversleeping that resulted this morning.
Anyways... busy-busy at work to day, so no time for the blog. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get some stuff out there.
Watched them, mostly out of habit, since the only two nominated movies I'd seen this year were "Wallace and Gromit" and "Walk the Line". At least they both won something. I guess I have to Netflix "Crash" now.
The show was ok. Jon Stewart was funny but not brilliant. The wife and I took turns drooling over various celebs. (Jake Gyllenhall and Salma Hayek, primarily.) But none of it was really worth the oversleeping that resulted this morning.
Anyways... busy-busy at work to day, so no time for the blog. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll get some stuff out there.
Saturday, March 4
this isn't cool... this sucks...
Flipping channels tonight (something I rarely do in the TiVo age) I stumbled across MTV's Headbanger's Ball (yes, there is still such a thing) and caught the second half of some kind of awful heavy-metal answer to "We Are The World" from the '80s featuring everyone from Dio to David St. Hubbins, with lots of members of Quiet Riot (and way too much hair spray) in between.
It all seemed vaguely familiar, until I saw the name of the benefit - "Hear 'N' Aid" and it all became... well, slightly more than vaguely familiar.
Anyway... it was a very Beavis and Butthead moment.
Then it got to more "contemporary" headbangy music of a type that I wasn't even sure anyone was still making anymore. It was bad. So... bad.
Which reminds me!! Does anybody out there listen to "System of a Down"? Because I'm having a problem. It's a recurrance of my "Flippance Detector" problem. I think I've mentioned it before. The latest... I was driving in the car and listening to the hard rock station I discovered during NPR pledge week, and they played this song... and I was utterly perplexed. At first I thought it was like... Weezer or something... because the lyrics were all... "It's the most loneliest day of my liiiiife... yeah, i'm so loneleeeeey, oh a day like this shouldn't even exiiiiiiist... the most lonely of days ever that waaaaaaaas" and then the guitar would go CHOONK-CHOONK-CHOONK "the most loneliest daaaaay" CHOONK! CHOONK! CHOONK!!... and then the guitar solo went "wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle...." and all the while I'm getting angrier and angrier and thinking - "IS THIS A JOKE???"
Because seriously... if it was a joke, then it's the funniest thing since Spinal Tap. But if it's not a joke... god help me... it's the most horrifying pile of crap that has ever been recorded. And then they back-announced the song as being by "System of a Down" ... which from what I know about them, doesn't really seem like a band with any kind of sense of humor. See... if it WAS Weezer, then I would KNOW it was a joke... but now I'm not sure and I'm very very afraid that it's NOT a joke. I mean - I know most "emo/screamo" stuff sucks... but... it doesn't suck THIS bad... does it?
I need a 19 year old boy around to tell me that it's a joke, becuase these kids today with their irony.... I just can tell anymore.
Flipping channels tonight (something I rarely do in the TiVo age) I stumbled across MTV's Headbanger's Ball (yes, there is still such a thing) and caught the second half of some kind of awful heavy-metal answer to "We Are The World" from the '80s featuring everyone from Dio to David St. Hubbins, with lots of members of Quiet Riot (and way too much hair spray) in between.
It all seemed vaguely familiar, until I saw the name of the benefit - "Hear 'N' Aid" and it all became... well, slightly more than vaguely familiar.
Anyway... it was a very Beavis and Butthead moment.
Then it got to more "contemporary" headbangy music of a type that I wasn't even sure anyone was still making anymore. It was bad. So... bad.
Which reminds me!! Does anybody out there listen to "System of a Down"? Because I'm having a problem. It's a recurrance of my "Flippance Detector" problem. I think I've mentioned it before. The latest... I was driving in the car and listening to the hard rock station I discovered during NPR pledge week, and they played this song... and I was utterly perplexed. At first I thought it was like... Weezer or something... because the lyrics were all... "It's the most loneliest day of my liiiiife... yeah, i'm so loneleeeeey, oh a day like this shouldn't even exiiiiiiist... the most lonely of days ever that waaaaaaaas" and then the guitar would go CHOONK-CHOONK-CHOONK "the most loneliest daaaaay" CHOONK! CHOONK! CHOONK!!... and then the guitar solo went "wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle-wheedle-deedle...." and all the while I'm getting angrier and angrier and thinking - "IS THIS A JOKE???"
Because seriously... if it was a joke, then it's the funniest thing since Spinal Tap. But if it's not a joke... god help me... it's the most horrifying pile of crap that has ever been recorded. And then they back-announced the song as being by "System of a Down" ... which from what I know about them, doesn't really seem like a band with any kind of sense of humor. See... if it WAS Weezer, then I would KNOW it was a joke... but now I'm not sure and I'm very very afraid that it's NOT a joke. I mean - I know most "emo/screamo" stuff sucks... but... it doesn't suck THIS bad... does it?
I need a 19 year old boy around to tell me that it's a joke, becuase these kids today with their irony.... I just can tell anymore.
things dr. dave did NOT need to know...
1) That professors can get accounts on the college student networking site facebook.com, since all you need is an appropriate name@college.edu email address.
2) That browsing the various profiles and photo albums reveals that a more appropriate name for the website would be "pictures-of-your-students-drunk.com"
1) That professors can get accounts on the college student networking site facebook.com, since all you need is an appropriate name@college.edu email address.
2) That browsing the various profiles and photo albums reveals that a more appropriate name for the website would be "pictures-of-your-students-drunk.com"
Friday, March 3
Thursday, March 2
it's usually temporary anyway...
I was messing around with various things on the computer this morning, and never got around to writing a blog post. I will only take this moment to note that for some reason I found myself in a very good mood walking to work this morning. I'm not really sure why, but I can say with confidence that it won't last, as we are supposed to get quite a bit of snow today.
Still... it's nice to know it's still occasionally possible.
(Postscript: almost the INSTANT I hit send on that post, I dribble-glassed half a cup of hot tea into my lap)
I was messing around with various things on the computer this morning, and never got around to writing a blog post. I will only take this moment to note that for some reason I found myself in a very good mood walking to work this morning. I'm not really sure why, but I can say with confidence that it won't last, as we are supposed to get quite a bit of snow today.
Still... it's nice to know it's still occasionally possible.
(Postscript: almost the INSTANT I hit send on that post, I dribble-glassed half a cup of hot tea into my lap)
Wednesday, March 1
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