does advil make a patch...?
Stabbing headache! In the morning! Part of this nutritious breakfast!!
I overslept this morning. I'm not sure why. It's one of those days when you know you must have hit the snooze alarm 3 or 4 times, but you really can't remember doing it.
I just sat here and did what I need to do to get ready for my classes... I think. Astronomy will be brief today. Maybe. I dunno. I'm not really "into it" this semester. Can you tell?
Monday, January 30
low battery...
Yeah... the laptop too, but mostly me. Not much downtime today... our usual Wednesday science meeting got moved to Monday. The I only have a tiny bit I need to do for tomorrow, so I can rest on the train tonight. Being this tired at 4:00PM doesn't exactly bode well for my big "nights on the town" next week, does it? Maybe I'd better scale down my plans a bit... scrap the city and head home for a nap, then TV, booze and PlayStation.
Yeah... the laptop too, but mostly me. Not much downtime today... our usual Wednesday science meeting got moved to Monday. The I only have a tiny bit I need to do for tomorrow, so I can rest on the train tonight. Being this tired at 4:00PM doesn't exactly bode well for my big "nights on the town" next week, does it? Maybe I'd better scale down my plans a bit... scrap the city and head home for a nap, then TV, booze and PlayStation.
flying on "instruments"...
It's so damned foggy this morning that driving felt not unlike flying a plane at cloud level. I drove right past the fucking train station.
I feel a little more caught up at the beginning of this week than I did last week. I have my handouts all ready for my two classes today, and tomorrow too. Well. Kinda. I mean, they are written up, I just need to print and copy them. Oh... but I might want to print out this Michelson-Morley paper for my physics class. And this encyclopedia entry on the luminiferous aether from 1911. So maybe I'm NOT so ready. See... that's how it always happens. One minute I'm all ready, then I think of 3 more things I have to do, and...
Last night I had this vision that I might find myself AHEAD this week, since I had finished planning Tuesday's astro course. But then I remembered that I have to write the HW assignment for the team-taught course, so... so much for being "ahead". Maybe if I finish that this morning, I can still be a half-day ahead.
Or not.
At least I don't have to talk much in my acoustics class today... I'm making them derive the sine curve by measuring triangles with rulers. We draw the sine curve so often when discussing waves and stuff... I think it's important that students not lose sight of where it comes from. It ain't called "trigon-o-metry" for nothin'. They are going to hate me. I actually already scared 4 of the students out of that class, which was of course, my intention.
Anyway... time to make the donuts... I mean... the COPIES.
It's so damned foggy this morning that driving felt not unlike flying a plane at cloud level. I drove right past the fucking train station.
I feel a little more caught up at the beginning of this week than I did last week. I have my handouts all ready for my two classes today, and tomorrow too. Well. Kinda. I mean, they are written up, I just need to print and copy them. Oh... but I might want to print out this Michelson-Morley paper for my physics class. And this encyclopedia entry on the luminiferous aether from 1911. So maybe I'm NOT so ready. See... that's how it always happens. One minute I'm all ready, then I think of 3 more things I have to do, and...
Last night I had this vision that I might find myself AHEAD this week, since I had finished planning Tuesday's astro course. But then I remembered that I have to write the HW assignment for the team-taught course, so... so much for being "ahead". Maybe if I finish that this morning, I can still be a half-day ahead.
Or not.
At least I don't have to talk much in my acoustics class today... I'm making them derive the sine curve by measuring triangles with rulers. We draw the sine curve so often when discussing waves and stuff... I think it's important that students not lose sight of where it comes from. It ain't called "trigon-o-metry" for nothin'. They are going to hate me. I actually already scared 4 of the students out of that class, which was of course, my intention.
Anyway... time to make the donuts... I mean... the COPIES.
Sunday, January 29
i'm sure i'll be having MY first soon as well...
Well... it's a busy weekend at the Dr. Dave household. And not all in a good way. First up, my wife's Dad had a heart attack late Friday night... minor, mostly. A little blockage, a little catheterization, he's fine. It made for an unpleasant Saturday morning of frantic phonecalls, though.
The GOOD news, although I am suffering from major guilt for considering it such, is that the wife is taking the kids to Chicago to visit him next week and leaving me alone for 4 days! I'm already compiling a mental list of things to do, and moving all the bad action flicks to the top of my Netflix queue.
Here's what I have so far...
- play drums all day Saturday, or until right leg gets too tired
- spend an afternoon recording and composing w/GarageBand
- watch "Underworld" on DVD
- go see "Underworld: Evolution" at the movies
- watch "Constantine" on DVD
- go see "King Kong" at the movies
- go see "Walk the Line" at the movies
- stay late in the city on Monday - go to a museum
- stay late in the city on Tuesday - do... something else.
...that's all I've got for now. Any suggestions?
Also, we got an estimate back for our basement job, and we're taking out a $15,000 home equity loan to do the work. Which means a hectic week of bringing up everything in the basement and finding some kind of place for it on the main floor, or in the shed. Fun. Actually THAT'S probably what I'll be doing all next weekend.
Anyway... I did some work this weekend, and I'm pretty much prepared for tomorrow's classes. Yay for that. Maybe this week will be marginally less... "AAAAAAAGH" than last week.
Well... it's a busy weekend at the Dr. Dave household. And not all in a good way. First up, my wife's Dad had a heart attack late Friday night... minor, mostly. A little blockage, a little catheterization, he's fine. It made for an unpleasant Saturday morning of frantic phonecalls, though.
The GOOD news, although I am suffering from major guilt for considering it such, is that the wife is taking the kids to Chicago to visit him next week and leaving me alone for 4 days! I'm already compiling a mental list of things to do, and moving all the bad action flicks to the top of my Netflix queue.
Here's what I have so far...
- play drums all day Saturday, or until right leg gets too tired
- spend an afternoon recording and composing w/GarageBand
- watch "Underworld" on DVD
- go see "Underworld: Evolution" at the movies
- watch "Constantine" on DVD
- go see "King Kong" at the movies
- go see "Walk the Line" at the movies
- stay late in the city on Monday - go to a museum
- stay late in the city on Tuesday - do... something else.
...that's all I've got for now. Any suggestions?
Also, we got an estimate back for our basement job, and we're taking out a $15,000 home equity loan to do the work. Which means a hectic week of bringing up everything in the basement and finding some kind of place for it on the main floor, or in the shed. Fun. Actually THAT'S probably what I'll be doing all next weekend.
Anyway... I did some work this weekend, and I'm pretty much prepared for tomorrow's classes. Yay for that. Maybe this week will be marginally less... "AAAAAAAGH" than last week.
Thursday, January 26
ack... urk... grk...
I'm having this problem lately where I put my messenger bag over my shoulder when I leave the PATH train, but since I'm still underground, so I don't put my scarf on right away... I wait until I get closer to the exit. Then when I get back to the office, I try to take my bag off my shoulder, but now my scarf is OVER my bag strap, and the whole thing winds up tangled with my ponytail in this scarfy, strappy, hairy topological nightmare.
If 3 or 4 days go by without any posts from me, I suggest you head to Google News and do a search for "professor + scarf + strangled".
I'm having this problem lately where I put my messenger bag over my shoulder when I leave the PATH train, but since I'm still underground, so I don't put my scarf on right away... I wait until I get closer to the exit. Then when I get back to the office, I try to take my bag off my shoulder, but now my scarf is OVER my bag strap, and the whole thing winds up tangled with my ponytail in this scarfy, strappy, hairy topological nightmare.
If 3 or 4 days go by without any posts from me, I suggest you head to Google News and do a search for "professor + scarf + strangled".
a brief respite...
Know what I did during the whole train ride home, dear readers? I read a magazine. I read that fucker from cover to cover. Because it's Thursday and I have no classes tomorrow, and I'm hopping off the fucking hamster wheel god dammit, even if it's just long enough to read a fucking magazine.
It felt good.
There was also some napping, which also felt good. In fact, tomorrow I plan to sleep and sleep and sleep. And maybe read another magazine.
This is what I have to look forward to in my life... magazines and unconsciousness.
Know what I did during the whole train ride home, dear readers? I read a magazine. I read that fucker from cover to cover. Because it's Thursday and I have no classes tomorrow, and I'm hopping off the fucking hamster wheel god dammit, even if it's just long enough to read a fucking magazine.
It felt good.
There was also some napping, which also felt good. In fact, tomorrow I plan to sleep and sleep and sleep. And maybe read another magazine.
This is what I have to look forward to in my life... magazines and unconsciousness.
...
I'm flip-flopping about what to do in Astro class today, and whether or not to assign a particular reading NOW or wait on it, because if I WAIT that means we can't discuss Plato in class for another day and that will muck up my whole schedule. Maybe it's stupid to plan to devote a whole day to Plato anyway... since I never got around to inviting the colleague I was going to invite to speak about it, and I sure as fuck don't have an hour's worth of stuff to say about fucking Plato.
I HATE THIS SEMESTER!!
It just occurred to me that I should have invited the Religious Studies prof to come to class and discuss creation mythologies with us, too. Fuck.
And just now on the train I've wandered off through two tangents on my computer and wound up working on stuff that is REALLY NOT URGENT!! At least, not as urgent as planning the class I have to teach at noon.
I'm flip-flopping about what to do in Astro class today, and whether or not to assign a particular reading NOW or wait on it, because if I WAIT that means we can't discuss Plato in class for another day and that will muck up my whole schedule. Maybe it's stupid to plan to devote a whole day to Plato anyway... since I never got around to inviting the colleague I was going to invite to speak about it, and I sure as fuck don't have an hour's worth of stuff to say about fucking Plato.
I HATE THIS SEMESTER!!
It just occurred to me that I should have invited the Religious Studies prof to come to class and discuss creation mythologies with us, too. Fuck.
And just now on the train I've wandered off through two tangents on my computer and wound up working on stuff that is REALLY NOT URGENT!! At least, not as urgent as planning the class I have to teach at noon.
Wednesday, January 25
it could have been worse, i guess...
Given that Wednesdays have all the stress of Mondays, only with a science department meeting in between my classes, eliminating any shred of prep-time for the afternoon course. Not that more prep would have helped any more, apart from giving me more time to practice my FLAT OUT WRONG explanation of the speed of sound at different temperatures. I gave a very detailed explanation of the physical reason why sound travels faster through cold air, only to put the equation on the board, which clearly implies that sound travels faster through HOT air (**). So I had to dig my way out of that. Not that it's always a bad thing to make a mistake in front of your students. There are some important scientific lessons to be learned from that (just because an argument sounds convincing doesn't mean it's RIGHT) and some important life lessons as well (even brilliant physics PhD's fuck things up now and then) Still, I'd prefer not to start fucking things up during the first week of class!!!
The morning class went pretty well, though. I was worried about filling the class time with what I had planned, and I didn't... not even close... so I just plowed on to the material I had planned for next week. Damn the syllabus! Full speed ahead!!
Dr. Dave
** My problem was, I had been thinking of the problem only in terms of the density of the air separate from the speed of the molecules. Cold air is more dense than hot air, and all other things being equal, sound travels faster through a denser medium. But all things are NOT equal in this case. The faster velocity of the molecules in hot air is a more important factor than the lower density. Simple mistake, but still irksome.
Given that Wednesdays have all the stress of Mondays, only with a science department meeting in between my classes, eliminating any shred of prep-time for the afternoon course. Not that more prep would have helped any more, apart from giving me more time to practice my FLAT OUT WRONG explanation of the speed of sound at different temperatures. I gave a very detailed explanation of the physical reason why sound travels faster through cold air, only to put the equation on the board, which clearly implies that sound travels faster through HOT air (**). So I had to dig my way out of that. Not that it's always a bad thing to make a mistake in front of your students. There are some important scientific lessons to be learned from that (just because an argument sounds convincing doesn't mean it's RIGHT) and some important life lessons as well (even brilliant physics PhD's fuck things up now and then) Still, I'd prefer not to start fucking things up during the first week of class!!!
The morning class went pretty well, though. I was worried about filling the class time with what I had planned, and I didn't... not even close... so I just plowed on to the material I had planned for next week. Damn the syllabus! Full speed ahead!!
Dr. Dave
** My problem was, I had been thinking of the problem only in terms of the density of the air separate from the speed of the molecules. Cold air is more dense than hot air, and all other things being equal, sound travels faster through a denser medium. But all things are NOT equal in this case. The faster velocity of the molecules in hot air is a more important factor than the lower density. Simple mistake, but still irksome.
ouch... head...
I've come to believe that nothing good can come of a day when you wake up with this kind of headache. Even if the headache goes away... somehow things just never quite fall together into a not-sucking day.
Not to be a pessimist or anything.
I blame the treadmill. It was only 20 minutes, but I don't think one should go from sedentary to a full-out run like that. The headache is probably just my body's way of saying... "Dude... sit the fuck down. And don't do that anymore."
I'm facing down two classes today, both of which I have something planned for that I don't think will even remotely fill up the 1h 40m. So, I should really get on that, I guess.
I've come to believe that nothing good can come of a day when you wake up with this kind of headache. Even if the headache goes away... somehow things just never quite fall together into a not-sucking day.
Not to be a pessimist or anything.
I blame the treadmill. It was only 20 minutes, but I don't think one should go from sedentary to a full-out run like that. The headache is probably just my body's way of saying... "Dude... sit the fuck down. And don't do that anymore."
I'm facing down two classes today, both of which I have something planned for that I don't think will even remotely fill up the 1h 40m. So, I should really get on that, I guess.
Tuesday, January 24
incremental improvement...
Well, today was a marginally better day than yesterday... hysteria-wise anyway. But still, when it came time to teach my 12:00 class, something inside my head made it feel like it was already 4:00 PM. It was weird. The problem is a lack of anything even vaguely resembling downtime. I feel like I'm running on a little hamster wheel already just to keep up with these four classes... and I don't even have anything to GRADE yet.
A quick look at the rosters online reveals that I haven't even really scared anybody out of any of my classes yet. Damn my charismatic teaching!!
Anyway, the team-taught class went well. I did my "what is energy?" spiel that I do with 2/3 of my various physics courses... it went fine. I could do that in my sleep. Then I had my first History of Astronomy class, which was moderately scattered and poorly timed, but... I did what I needed to do. I'm taking at least part of this train ride to unwind with some music and writing and such, though, because I've been going non-stop since 6:00 AM yesterday. It feels like Thursday and it's only Tuesday.
Blah, blah, blah...
Maybe I'll just nap.
--- (one hour later) ---
Urg. That was refreshing in only the vaguest sense imaginable. Window/wall seats are much better for napping. Aisle seats, not so much.
With these four classes this term, there is no way I'm going to squeeze in any formal yoga classes. So now I'm back to trying to think of a way to fit in some sort of practice at home. Space and time the issues as always. Space may be less of an issue if we jump on getting the basement refinished. The guest room down there is going to be a perfect get-away spot. But that'll take a month even if we start tomorrow. Time is the bigger problem. Before I leave for work? Fuck, I wake up at 5:30 now... how much earlier could I even possibly get out of bed? Which leaves the evenings after the kids go to bed, and frankly... by the time 8:30 rolls around, the last thing I feel like doing is yoga... I'm ready for Sofa Time. Which I guess is part of the problem, really. Motivation versus inertia.
Then there is the whole issue of the treadmill/clothes hanger/eyesore cluttering up the bedroom. A few miles on that a week wouldn't hurt. Because even though I've finally stopped GAINING weight, it's not going anywhere by itself. I'd really like to get back down to the pre-depression-weight-plateau again. It probably wouldn't take a LOT of effort. Just some consistency. And less cake. (Mmmmm... cake!)
Well... my stop is coming up. Time to unplug. Maybe I'll do some treadmilling while the kids are in the bath tonight. Or some savasana... a coupla downward dogs. Or maybe I'll just hide under the covers.
Tune in tomorrow to find out which!
Well, today was a marginally better day than yesterday... hysteria-wise anyway. But still, when it came time to teach my 12:00 class, something inside my head made it feel like it was already 4:00 PM. It was weird. The problem is a lack of anything even vaguely resembling downtime. I feel like I'm running on a little hamster wheel already just to keep up with these four classes... and I don't even have anything to GRADE yet.
A quick look at the rosters online reveals that I haven't even really scared anybody out of any of my classes yet. Damn my charismatic teaching!!
Anyway, the team-taught class went well. I did my "what is energy?" spiel that I do with 2/3 of my various physics courses... it went fine. I could do that in my sleep. Then I had my first History of Astronomy class, which was moderately scattered and poorly timed, but... I did what I needed to do. I'm taking at least part of this train ride to unwind with some music and writing and such, though, because I've been going non-stop since 6:00 AM yesterday. It feels like Thursday and it's only Tuesday.
Blah, blah, blah...
Maybe I'll just nap.
--- (one hour later) ---
Urg. That was refreshing in only the vaguest sense imaginable. Window/wall seats are much better for napping. Aisle seats, not so much.
With these four classes this term, there is no way I'm going to squeeze in any formal yoga classes. So now I'm back to trying to think of a way to fit in some sort of practice at home. Space and time the issues as always. Space may be less of an issue if we jump on getting the basement refinished. The guest room down there is going to be a perfect get-away spot. But that'll take a month even if we start tomorrow. Time is the bigger problem. Before I leave for work? Fuck, I wake up at 5:30 now... how much earlier could I even possibly get out of bed? Which leaves the evenings after the kids go to bed, and frankly... by the time 8:30 rolls around, the last thing I feel like doing is yoga... I'm ready for Sofa Time. Which I guess is part of the problem, really. Motivation versus inertia.
Then there is the whole issue of the treadmill/clothes hanger/eyesore cluttering up the bedroom. A few miles on that a week wouldn't hurt. Because even though I've finally stopped GAINING weight, it's not going anywhere by itself. I'd really like to get back down to the pre-depression-weight-plateau again. It probably wouldn't take a LOT of effort. Just some consistency. And less cake. (Mmmmm... cake!)
Well... my stop is coming up. Time to unplug. Maybe I'll do some treadmilling while the kids are in the bath tonight. Or some savasana... a coupla downward dogs. Or maybe I'll just hide under the covers.
Tune in tomorrow to find out which!
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