You guys alive? I know I'm not one to talk with how irregularly I update, but I noticed that in the past four or five days I've had one friend post show up on my friends page amongst several community entries and that's somewhat unusual. What y'all up to?
Meme time! ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
train_lindz gave me seven questions. If you want to play, say so in a comment and I'll give you seven random questions.
( It's like I'm being interviewed. )
train_lindz gave me seven questions. If you want to play, say so in a comment and I'll give you seven random questions.( It's like I'm being interviewed. )
For all the Harry Potter Auror fans:
This past week I've:
* decided the woods where I go hiking all the time are trying to kill me. They've twisted my ankle twice, once so badly I don't think it will ever be 100% again and the second a more minor thing caused primarily by the lack of 100% ever again bit. Now they're trying to give me Lyme disease. I was using Deep Woods Off (25% deet), and coming out covered in ticks. I found six in one day and am definitely over 20 for the year thus far. Now I'm using something that is 98.12% deet and I'm still getting a couple or three ticks every time I go out. I find most of them before they bite, but I am getting some bites. I've resigned myself to the strong possibility of Lyme disease before the end of the summer, but that's not the best bit. Ticks are boring so the woods had to step up their scare campaign. They threw a rearing, hissing venomous snake in the middle of the path easily in striking distance of my leg before I was aware of it a couple of days ago. Groovy. I ran away very quickly and let the snake have the path.
* finished all my grading! Hooray!! That means today I get a piece of Blueberries and Cream Cheesecake that I've been eyeing at Barnes and Noble for a couple of weeks. Since I'm not teaching in the summer or fall so I can focus on my dissertation, this means I won't be teaching or grading for the rest of the year at least. That's a weird thought.
* received my third review on Rate My Professor. I check there periodically out of curiosity. The most recent review ends "Be careful though, she is really hot so you can get distracted during class very easy."
* saw one of my best friends again after almost a year. He finished his dissertation in August and is now teaching in Wisconsin but came back to walk in the graduation ceremonies this weekend. I didn't get to see him much, but it was absolutely fantastic having him around again.
* had a huge scare over my niece. For a few weeks, everything she eats has been coming back up and she's been hungry all the time, never sleeping, always cranky, etc. My sister has been pressing the doctors to take it seriously but they didn't really until this week when she actually lost weight between checkups rather than just barely gaining any. At just over two months old she was still only like 7 pounds. Everyone thinks she's a newborn because she's still so tiny. Anyway, Tuesday they did some tests and admitted her to the hospital. Wednesday they did some more tests and decided the most likely cause was that a muscle at the bottom of her stomach was enlarged and completely blocking off access to her intestines so she was basically slowly starving to death as nothing could get all the way through her system and had to come back up and out. Her stomach, on the other hand, was becoming completely distended and pushing all her other organs out of the way and causing all kinds of secondary problems. They did surgery Wednesday afternoon which showed that was the problem and they fixed it. They finally released her from the hospital on Friday. My sister is beating herself up over not pushing harder, sooner, but my mom and sister both say getting this solved is the best Mother's Day present they could imagine because since the surgery she has gained more weight than in the month before and is sleeping better, smiling and laughing more, and generally seems like a completely different and much healthier and happier baby.
My plans for this next couple of weeks are: clean the house and do other chores and errands I've been putting off around finishing grading, move out of my campus office, get organized and slowly ease back into my dissertation, and maybe work on some fanfic. I'm grading the American History AP exam essays this year (What did I just say about no grading for a year? Oops!) and that will be the first week in June. It sounds like it will be one week of hell (you are supposed to do an exam every 20-30 seconds or something) for a really good paycheck. I figure I'll hit the dissertation hard after that.
* decided the woods where I go hiking all the time are trying to kill me. They've twisted my ankle twice, once so badly I don't think it will ever be 100% again and the second a more minor thing caused primarily by the lack of 100% ever again bit. Now they're trying to give me Lyme disease. I was using Deep Woods Off (25% deet), and coming out covered in ticks. I found six in one day and am definitely over 20 for the year thus far. Now I'm using something that is 98.12% deet and I'm still getting a couple or three ticks every time I go out. I find most of them before they bite, but I am getting some bites. I've resigned myself to the strong possibility of Lyme disease before the end of the summer, but that's not the best bit. Ticks are boring so the woods had to step up their scare campaign. They threw a rearing, hissing venomous snake in the middle of the path easily in striking distance of my leg before I was aware of it a couple of days ago. Groovy. I ran away very quickly and let the snake have the path.
* finished all my grading! Hooray!! That means today I get a piece of Blueberries and Cream Cheesecake that I've been eyeing at Barnes and Noble for a couple of weeks. Since I'm not teaching in the summer or fall so I can focus on my dissertation, this means I won't be teaching or grading for the rest of the year at least. That's a weird thought.
* received my third review on Rate My Professor. I check there periodically out of curiosity. The most recent review ends "Be careful though, she is really hot so you can get distracted during class very easy."
* saw one of my best friends again after almost a year. He finished his dissertation in August and is now teaching in Wisconsin but came back to walk in the graduation ceremonies this weekend. I didn't get to see him much, but it was absolutely fantastic having him around again.
* had a huge scare over my niece. For a few weeks, everything she eats has been coming back up and she's been hungry all the time, never sleeping, always cranky, etc. My sister has been pressing the doctors to take it seriously but they didn't really until this week when she actually lost weight between checkups rather than just barely gaining any. At just over two months old she was still only like 7 pounds. Everyone thinks she's a newborn because she's still so tiny. Anyway, Tuesday they did some tests and admitted her to the hospital. Wednesday they did some more tests and decided the most likely cause was that a muscle at the bottom of her stomach was enlarged and completely blocking off access to her intestines so she was basically slowly starving to death as nothing could get all the way through her system and had to come back up and out. Her stomach, on the other hand, was becoming completely distended and pushing all her other organs out of the way and causing all kinds of secondary problems. They did surgery Wednesday afternoon which showed that was the problem and they fixed it. They finally released her from the hospital on Friday. My sister is beating herself up over not pushing harder, sooner, but my mom and sister both say getting this solved is the best Mother's Day present they could imagine because since the surgery she has gained more weight than in the month before and is sleeping better, smiling and laughing more, and generally seems like a completely different and much healthier and happier baby.
My plans for this next couple of weeks are: clean the house and do other chores and errands I've been putting off around finishing grading, move out of my campus office, get organized and slowly ease back into my dissertation, and maybe work on some fanfic. I'm grading the American History AP exam essays this year (What did I just say about no grading for a year? Oops!) and that will be the first week in June. It sounds like it will be one week of hell (you are supposed to do an exam every 20-30 seconds or something) for a really good paycheck. I figure I'll hit the dissertation hard after that.
My students have their final projects due tomorrow. I will have close to 70 projects, mostly 5 or more page papers but also drawings, raps, and I'm not sure what all else, to grade. Then half my kiddies have their final exam on Tuesday and next Friday the other half will take it. So that will be close to 70 exams with 1 comparative chronology (put a list of events in the order in which they happened), 6 short answer questions, and 2 long essay questions per student. I'll have about two weeks from Friday in which to grade all c. 70 projects and 70 exams. Today I am twiddling my thumbs and sitting around being bored because tomorrow's final lecture is written, the final exam is written, and no one has turned in their papers early so I can't start grading those. I'm going to be completely swamped with grading for the foreseeable future and right now I just have to wait for the storm to hit. I hate this.
 | Feeling: Bored Exploring: Barnes and Noble |
I'm working at Barnes and Noble, because that's what I do pretty much every Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday or Sunday or both. There's a family at another table with a little girl, maybe around 6 years old. A few minutes ago, she just suddenly burst out in a loud and excited voice, like she had just solved the biggest mystery of the universe, "But Daddy, you wouldn't have to pay for anything! We can just all wish for a horse and stable and everything for Christmas!" The entire cafe area went silent for a moment then every adult within a three table radius started chuckling. The little girl seemed to realize it was about her and looked around confused and slightly timid then said "If that would work, I mean." Her father, trying very hard not to laugh, assured her that it was a brilliant idea and they'd give it a try but there was no guarantee it would work. That seemed to satisfy her and she went back to eating her cookie. So cute and precious!
EDIT: Ok. This kid is awesome. Now she's flipping out about the amazing things she could build out of a Lego idea book she's looking at. Rock on Lego girl!
EDIT: Ok. This kid is awesome. Now she's flipping out about the amazing things she could build out of a Lego idea book she's looking at. Rock on Lego girl!
The US healthcare law most often known as Obamacare is currently being debated by the Supreme Court therefore it is all over the news. I feel like many pundits on both sides of the issue are making a fundamental mistake in discussing this, one that happens all too often is UN policy debates. People don't seem to realize that the desirability or lack therefore of a particular piece of legislation does not correlate in any way with the constitutionality of said legislation. In other words, just because you don't like a law and think it is bad policy, that does not make it unconstitutional. Conversely, just because you like something and think it is a good idea, that does not make it constitutional.
I'd like to see hand guns completely banned in the US. I think that would be good public policy. I also think it would be unconstitutional, though I can give you a somewhat convoluted historical reading of the second amendment to make it appear otherwise.
I wouldn't like to see the US government ban the carrying of blueberries across state lines. I think that would be bad public policy. I also think it would be completely constitutional.
So, talking heads of the news media, if you think Obamacare is unconstitutional, tell me how it violates the constitution, not why you don't like it. If you think Obamacare is constitutional, tell me where in the constitution the authority for it is found not the thousands of lives and millions of dollars it will save. Thanks much!
I'd like to see hand guns completely banned in the US. I think that would be good public policy. I also think it would be unconstitutional, though I can give you a somewhat convoluted historical reading of the second amendment to make it appear otherwise.
I wouldn't like to see the US government ban the carrying of blueberries across state lines. I think that would be bad public policy. I also think it would be completely constitutional.
So, talking heads of the news media, if you think Obamacare is unconstitutional, tell me how it violates the constitution, not why you don't like it. If you think Obamacare is constitutional, tell me where in the constitution the authority for it is found not the thousands of lives and millions of dollars it will save. Thanks much!
I finished classes for today and for once in my life I have everything prepped for Wednesdays classes already, probably because I decided to have them do group work and then prepped a documentary to show for any left over time rather than writing a real lecture, and for the first time in weeks I have nothing to grade. Because I have all that done, printed, and ready to go, I don't have to think about classes again until 9 am Wednesday. 43 hours of sweet freedom! I have decided I shall...
(1) Go for a walk because it is a fairly lovely spring day in my neck of the woods.
(2) Take a long bath this evening and just relax.
(3) Definitely not work on the Sherlock-House crossover fic I totally didn't outline this weekend.
By the way, what's the proper punctuation for crossovers? I feel like it should be Sherlock/House rather than Sherlock-House as I typed above, but given that the names of the two fandoms at issue here are also the names of two characters, the slash might send signals I definitely do not want to send as to the contents of the fic. Ah, the perils of fandom.
(1) Go for a walk because it is a fairly lovely spring day in my neck of the woods.
(2) Take a long bath this evening and just relax.
(3) Definitely not work on the Sherlock-House crossover fic I totally didn't outline this weekend.
By the way, what's the proper punctuation for crossovers? I feel like it should be Sherlock/House rather than Sherlock-House as I typed above, but given that the names of the two fandoms at issue here are also the names of two characters, the slash might send signals I definitely do not want to send as to the contents of the fic. Ah, the perils of fandom.
I love my motorcycle. It makes me happy...
...except when I sneeze with the face shield down. This is why, as I've said in the past, I really don't mind trees having sex but really wish they'd stop doing it in my nose.
Good dogs, no matter how old and big, are always puppies.
In my new head canon, Dr. Gregory House is totally BBC Sherlock's father. I am definitely not half-way contemplating writing a crossover fic on this. Nope. Not at all. (Thanks tonikibee for the link to this awesome fanvid that first planted the idea in my head.)
Grading sucks but I'm almost done with the big midterm crunch and won't have anything major for at least a month, so yay!
...except when I sneeze with the face shield down. This is why, as I've said in the past, I really don't mind trees having sex but really wish they'd stop doing it in my nose.
Good dogs, no matter how old and big, are always puppies.
In my new head canon, Dr. Gregory House is totally BBC Sherlock's father. I am definitely not half-way contemplating writing a crossover fic on this. Nope. Not at all. (Thanks to
nikibee for the link to this awesome fanvid that first planted the idea in my head.)Grading sucks but I'm almost done with the big midterm crunch and won't have anything major for at least a month, so yay!
Stolen from mrstater
mrstaterI'm running a test to see who's reading my posts. So, if you read this, leave me a one-word comment about your day that starts with the third letter of your LJ USERNAME. Only one word please. Then repost so I can leave a word for you. Don't just post a word and not copy - that's not as much fun!
