Another hard week of work, although I got a ton of stuff done. A good chunk of the things I did are for the entire semester, so I will be reaping the benefits of my hard work for another four months.
What to do? Skye and I are seeing the Twins/Red Sox game on Saturday. I don't know what to hope for now. I really want the Red Sox to win the division, but I don't think that the Yankees are going to lose two out of three games. On the other hand, I really want the Twins to end up with a .500 record (they need to win all three games to do this). I might really be torn: do I root for a meaningless milestone for my favorite team, or do I root for my second favorite team to gain something of consequence at the expense of my favorite team. How are people supposed to make decisions like these?
I other news, I no longer care about the women's World Cup. Norway and the U.S. lost, and I don't really need to make much of an effort to see Brazil or Germany. Playoffs are infinitely more exciting when your team(s) is still in it.
Skye and I went to a dinner party on Wednesday. It was quite good, and I met storytellers. It said so on their business cards (I am not making fun of them, although I would probably say the same thing if I were). We watched the democratic debates. It was fun.
I am liking my two classes. This is all I have to say about that. Perhaps I will also mention that, if I work really hard for another week, I can probably be on semi-easy street for the rest of the semester. If I work really hard for three weeks, then I definitely will be good.
I have three more hours worth of meetings today. I have
Today is the first day of a semi-normally scheduled week. My second (and final) class starts today, and I have fewer (although a non-zero amount of) meetings that only occur at the beginning of the semester. So, actually, next week will be the first "normal" week...maybe.
Skye and I did a lot of work yesterday. I was working on the "pay yourself first" principle: instead of doing what needs to be done next, I did what was going to make my life easier later on. I ended up writing all my lesson plans for the rest of the semester, and this will make my life a lot easier. Up next: all worksheets.
I am rather excited because the third of my top three job choices just posted a position. I really can't believe my luck - this is exactly how you want things to go. Since they are all offering jobs this year, I will be completely satisfied if I take (what is now) my third choice, since I will know that my first two choices will have turned me down. Otherwise, I would be wondering if I should have been more patient and waited for the right opening.
Let's talk for a moment about Sally Field (I know that I am late on this one). She was censored for saying "If mothers ruled the world, there would be no god-damned wars in the first place" at the Emmys. First, let's point out that Fox doesn't, as a rule, censor the word god-damned. Second, Field is wrong. I refuse to believe that mothers love their sons and daughters any more than fathers do. President Bush is a father, and I have no doubt that he loves his kids. He still went to war. Margaret Thatcher wouldn't have had any problem going to war (she did it with the Falklands, although the situation was a bit different), and she was a mother. The problem is that the fathers/mothers making the decisions don't need to worry about their sons/daughters going to war. So let's not pretend that everything would be great if women ran the world. Fathers love their children as much as mothers do.
Skye's roommate and I talked about the death penalty yesterday, and she brought up something startling: the death penalty currently kills exactly who I wouldn't want to execute, and does NOT execute exactly who I think the best candidates would be. I am anti-death penalty, but if I were forced to live with it, I would want it to be used on people who could not be reformed. This is the opposite of what is happening. The people who get the death penalty are those who are found to have knowingly done something that was wrong; this means that there is a chance that they could be reformed, since they have an idea of good and evil. People who are not supposed to get the death penalty are the ones who do not know that they are doing something wrong, whether it be because of psychosis or extreme addiction. These are exactly the people who likely cannot be reformed, and would make the most sense to execute.
There are probably a million reasons why I am wrong about this, and I understand that it is cruel to execute someone who doesn't understand their actions. This is exactly why I am anti-death penalty.
The nordic countries are awesome. For further evidence, note that Norway advanced to the knockout round of the Women's World Cup. Sweden should have, but they changed the rules so that the first tiebreaker is "net goals" rather than "head to head competition."
The U.S. also advanced.
Here is a semi-entertaining and surprisingly educational videogame. I am also going to check out the emogame.
This weekend: building windmills, going to dinner, and with any luck: sleep.
I am halfway done with my first week of class. This week is a lot less hectic, as I only have 19 hours worth of meetings (so far - plus I teach for three hours this week). Next week I will be down to 14 hours, which should be the norm.
I only have one meeting tomorrow morning, and then I have a social lunch. I am likely to skip the lunch, since I still have a lot to do.
The Senate rejected the habeas corpus bill. Take note of the jerks who voted "Nay." They are apparently too good for the Magna Carta. Note that the only non-Republican to vote "Nay" was Independent Joe Lieberman.
I think that I might be out of the "work 12 hour days but really have nothing to show for it" stage of the year. That's not actually fair, because a lot of the work that I am doing is training, and does pay off - it's just not as immediately noticeable as other things that I would like to do.
I had 35 hours worth of meetings last week, largely concerning training. These were meetings that had nothing to do with writing syllabi, building webpages, preparing lesson plans/homework/worksheets, and preparing to teach; those things were all done in the time outside of those 35 hours. Tonight I have to train from 7-9 pm and prepare a lot of work for a meeting tomorrow. After that, things get easier. After this weekend, I think that I will have settled into the normal semester schedule - hectic, but not crazy.
The Vikings lost. This is because they aren't a very good football team. I didn't watch the game, but I followed it online. In overtime, they had the ball at the 50 yard line on third down. All they needed to do was to run for no gain, punt, and let their excellent defense try to stop the Lions. This is what I was hoping for as it was happening (although I would have been thrilled with a first down, I didn't find that to be realistic). Instead, they fumbled. Good teams don't fumble then. Good teams rarely combine with their opponents for 10 turnovers; it sounds like the Lions aren't good either.
I forgot to mention: I got really excited last night because I saw that one of my two "dream" schools posted a job opening. This means that both of my top two choices are looking for people.
USA! USA! If I have figured this correctly, the U.S. just needs a tie to advance.
I had a good, long, productive night of work last night. A couple more of those and I should be caught up. However, I have two days of training that I am running this weekend, and so I might not have quite enough biodiesel in the tank to do this too many times next week.
Tsjaz has experienced a recent proliferation of spiders in his life; I have experienced a recent proliferation of flies in my life. There must be some sort of sybiotic relationship that we can strike up.
As was pointed out to me by many a pundit, removing 30,000 troops from Iraq merely brings the total down to pre-surge levels. Ted Koppel compared this to a business who raises prices, and then announces a sale. Americans love a "bargain."
I wasn't intending to write today, as I am trying to limit my writing to MWF. However, Interpol was so awesome last night that I had no choice but to write.
I am tempted to say that this was one of the five best concerts that I have ever attended. The only two things holding me back from saying that are
I left the concert feeling different most of my other concerts. This was my first arena concert, and I think that it had a very "individual" feel to it, rather than a "shared-experience." It wasn't bad, it was just different.
Nobody really cares what my favorite five concerts were.
I always thought that the lead singer's voice was kind of weak, and that they propped him up a lot in the studio. However, he sounded really good last night (I understand that the new technology can really make a singer sound better than he is in real time, but I don't care).
They are all very good musicians, and I like the fact that the lead guitarist (Daniel, who is my favorite) doesn't do normal lead guitarist stuff. It seems like lead guitarists normally do the things that are less repetitive, in terms of guitarwork; they normally play the one-off riffs and solos. Interpol, however, doesn't roll like that. Daniel's guitar mostly had a consistent, steady presence, and this created the kind of atmosphere that Interpol is supposed to create. I suppose that you could argue that Daniel is actually the rhythm guitarist, but I don't care.
I also like the fact that there were keyboards. Actually, I think that I like the fact that there were keyboards, but I couldn't tell that there were keyboards most of the time. Again, atmosphere.
I forgot to mention that I am excited about the women's World Cup. Team USA tied on Monday, and Norway won 2-1 yesterday. If either of these teams win, I will be very, very happy.
This was the first 9/11 since 2001 that fell on a Tuesday. This seems significant, but I don't know how.
I'm giving a presentation at a conference today that I am not quite prepared for. I will give myself one hour this morning to get ready.
Good for President Bush. I am pleased to see that he is taking advice now, and I am even more pleased to see that 3000 troops will be removed from harm's way. I don't know if reducing the troop size is the best thing to do, but it seems like it is to me.
The more I listen to Governor Mike Huckabee, the more I think that he is really a charming guy. He seems friendly and has a quick wit. I most want Ron Paul for the Republican nominee (his agenda is most similar to mine), but I think that Mike Huckabee is now second (even though we have some severe disagreements). There was no second place before now.
Let's talk briefly about the genius that is Adam Carolla. He has appeared on Bill Simmons podcast twice, and has proposed four script ideas to Bill. Three of them (Pediph Isle, Rings of Honor, and Snapper) were fantastic (check it out on iTunes). I decided to re-listen to the movie descriptions on Monday. As I was doing this, I got an email from Tsjaz linking to Snapper. What a fine bit of serendipity (I'm not sure if this is exactly the right use of the word since I already found it, but it is close and I don't want to use the word 'coincidence'). I'm going to try Carolla's podcast now.
This is the start of the second week of hardcore work. My day today is booked from 10 am - 5 pm already, including a four hour teaching conference and three one hour meetings. In addition to this, I need to organize two classes, a seminar, a talk at a teaching conference, and apply for jobs.
Congratulations to the Vikings, who beat an Atlanta Falcons team that is a prime candidate for a Ewing Theory year. This surprised me. I wished that I could have watched - I really like watching them. In fact, I think that football might be the best sport to watch. I have been denying this for years, but I think that this might be the case, and here is why: it has a good combination of regular action and relatively rare (and therefore, more exciting) scoring. There is regularly (but not constantly) something interesting to watch. Baseball doesn't have this, unless you are a complete student of the game and enjoy watching really good pitching; otherwise, it could be boring for much of the game. However, Baseball does have the quality that scoring is rare, and it usually pretty exciting when it happens. Basketball has regular action, but the scoring happens so frequently that it is somewhat of a non-event. Soccer and hockey are similar to baseball.
Speaking of baseball, the Twins are all but out of it. They are roughly 10 games out of the wildcard with about 20 games to play. They will not be in the post season. This is too bad, because I love the Twins.
Also, I saw another Twins cap in Cambridge last night. We had a little "thing" on the sidewalk.
We are learning that planning a wedding is hard. It is getting done, though.
I'll leave you with the video of the week: "Phantom Limb" by The Shins.
I got back from planning weddings in the Heartland. There were growing pains, but I think that we now have a plan.
I am concentrating on getting my work life in order right now, so I am not going to say a lot. I'm back, though, and it appears that the Twins are out of it.
