Almost a month and nothing to say? That seems extremely unlikely. On consideration, I am going to blame it all on statistics -- and a sinus infection. Each complicating the other in so many ways. It is difficult to concentrate on confidence intervals and rejection regions when you can't breathe and it is hard to get enough sleep when the current problem set is written in friulan instead of English. The course is over now, and apparently I did well enough, so I intend to enjoy the next few weeks before I have to start Stats II.
Taking graduate coursework is a condition of employment for my job. At the time, I thought "Such a deal! They are going to pay me to do what I always wanted to do!" Then they started telling me what I had to take. I'd been looking forward to taking that Shakespeare course I never got around to as an undergraduate, or maybe music theory or anthropology. No such luck. Education and math. And statistics. I used to think that statistics was a branch of math. Wrong --- the fact that it has its own course prefix (stat instead of math) is certainly a clue, but the biggie is that I actually like math, even (or especially) the difficult reality twisting types.
Oh well, the semester has ended, I have both awarded and received grades - and unlike most conventional workplaces, where one moves immediately from the present crisis to the coming crisis, we have a little downtime before the next semester starts. The part of my job that is not teaching continues during this interval - but that is actually a very good thing. It is a good thing a) because they continue to pay me that part of my salary and b) because it is possible to get some work done with students and most faculty away.
This morning I am sitting at my desk at home in my housecoat (with a $10 space heater at my feet) instead of hitting the road south. I'll be going very late today for reasons which are beyond my control (like so many things in my life).
There is a dusting of snow out there. I had to push the puppy out the door this morning, after all, why would he want to go out? He had already tended to business in the bathroom. When I brought the dogs back in half an hour later, however, he was having so much fun that he didn't want to come in - the big dogs were ready, though. The snow is barely falling but it is pretty chilly.
Snow is fairly rare around here. We get "Severe Weather Warnings" on our weather site and threats of 1- 4 inches of accumulation, but usually all we get is visible but not really measureable. I'm not complaining. I lived a few years in the frozen northern wastelands (anything north of an extended Mason-Dixon Line) and I can live without the miraculous white covering obscuring all imperfections, snowball fights, and snow angels -- and drifts the size of small cars in my driveway, knee-deep slush, and black ice. Every now and then we catch it, I have pictures of the swimming pool full of snow and a ten-inch cap on my old van - but then, I spent a Christmas in New Orleans with the temperatures never rising above 40 - as long as these things remain rare, I'm ok with it. I have driven to conferences over in the middle of the state and had to stop under every overpass to clean the windshield because the defroster in the car was not up to the situation. and on one memorable occasion it took me forty-five minutes to drive from the parking lot at the high school to my house - which I could see from the edge of the school property. Those who want it can have it, thank you very much.
