First day went fairly smoothly. (Then again - as I noted before, this begins my fifteenth year of doing this, so it's probably as smooth as it's going to get at this point). Fewer students this year wanting to know where "Room 106" was (We don't have a Room 106, or whatever. Our only 100-numbered classroom is 114, which is the GIS lab). People looking for 100-numbered rooms are almost always looking for rooms in the Science building, which houses physics, chemistry, and the few geology courses we have. We are Biology.
We are also a good fast seven-minute walk (I've clocked it on myself) from Science, so if you're here at 3 minutes of 8 looking for your class that is in Science....well, you're gonna have a bad time.
I did have two schedule issues - one easy, one not so much. The first one was someone who didn't earn a sufficiently high grade in my summer PI class and who wanted to take it again with me. (I am trying not to flatter myself there; it is possible the person thinks I will be recycling test questions, which I now know I cannot do). I managed to get them into my lecture, but my lab section is already oversubscribed, so they had to take the last-prize lab section. (Late in the day on Thursday: the last lab section for that class in the week)
Another person was within a semester of graduating and had (ahem) overlooked the fact that they needed a couple of really basic (like, 1000-level) Gen Ed classes to graduate - a social science class and a humanities class. Okay, in their defense, they are a transfer student and thought the basic-level classes they took would transfer....but transferring credits is a tricky thing and you have to CHECK to be sure the class you took was equivalent. I will also note, for those who don't work on college campuses - getting someone into a 1000-level class that EVERYONE must take at some point, when it is the first week of classes, is a real trick. The student originally wanted "Film Appreciation" as their humanities. (And I restrained myself from saying, "Not a snowball's chance, friend. Not a snowball's chance") but of course that one was full.(I finally got them into a section of American Music. Not their first or even second or third choice, but at least it was a Humanities that counted). And their social sciences class is going to be online, which they didn't want, but my response was, "At this point your choice is take this online, or come back in the spring for one class." I did send them to talk to the prof of that one just to see what the class entailed, and I did note (this is someone that I know lives off-campus and in the boonies) that a fast internet connection was probably necessary (hint, hint: do the classwork while you are up on campus).
***
I decided what fiction to read next. I pulled out the copy of MacDonald's "At the Back of the North Wind" that I bought last fall from Folio, started, and then said, "No, you need to finish (whatever it was I was already reading at that moment - probably Bleak House)." Yes, it's technically a children's story (though the vocabulary is at a higher level - the book was written in the 1870s). I'm not very far into it; Diamond has just met the North Wind and is trying to understand her, after going out to meet her one night and not finding her and deciding that she was pettish and angry because he stopped to greet the horse for whom he was named. (It gets a little confusing, I suppose, if you haven't read it). I did read the introduction which has the typical apologetic tone that these things do, "Yes, we know he moralized a lot. Yes, Diamond seems like he's too good to be a real child. Yes, it's sentimental." I don't know how I feel about that. On the one hand, yes, I could see some people rejecting the book on the basis of those three issues and maybe needing to be reminded, "But those were different times, then." But, I don't know. Apologizing for an author espousing some of the core beliefs of his Christianity, when anyone who knows anything about him know that's that's pretty much what his writing is about? Apologizing for him wanting to make a character who is better than "real" people are? As I said before, I don't enjoy books where all the characters seem to have mean streaks or where there's no one you feel you can root for. I don't mind the unreality of a too-good-to-be-true person. I'd rather read about people I'd have to aspire and work hard to be like, than read about people that I go, "Eugh! There's no way I'd want to emulate these people." (And if I am reading a book with a dysfunctional family or some such in it - and some of the mystery novels do feature that - I need the "one sane man" or "one sane woman" to balance it out. Fortunately, most of the Golden Era writers, at least, supply that)
I don't know. Literary criticism is a funny thing, I guess. Or there's no accounting for taste.
I will say I love the image of Diamond's little bed up in the hayloft - a little box bed his father built for him (the family lives over the stables and in their apartment there is apparently insufficient room for a bed for the child, so he sleeps across the way in the hayloft). During good times, when there is plenty of hay, it is all stacked up around his bed, providing insulation in the unheated hayloft. (He also has a skylight he can look up through.)
(I have already read Cold Comfort Farm - several summers ago. Found it very funny and sometime would like to see the movie based on it. And I think if I ever, for any reason, got myself a milch cow, I'd have to name her Feckless.)
***
I'm thinking about projects. I was most actively working on a pair of wristwarmers (Fishtail Wristwarmers) but then in tidying up, I found a long skinny garter-stitch scarf I've had on the needles forever. I felt the need for something dead-simple, so I started it up again. I'm just going to knit until it's "long enough" or I get sick of it.
I'm also thinking about starting a new sweater. Part of me says, "Finish up Basketweave first" but I admit I get bored fast with that sweater. (I have one sleeve and part of a sleeve to go, and then the finishing). So, I don't know. I might look at my various vest patterns and start a vest sweater. (It's unfortunate Jane Brocket never gave a pattern for the "slipovers" or "tank tops"* she featured in one book - she shows a couple nice cabled one but doesn't give a pattern or credit where the pattern came from. Ah well, I think Cheryl Oberle has one in her book...)
(*To me, a "tank top" means something very different - a little, unconstructed, usually t-shirt-material top with straps. The sort of thing a young and fairly fit girl wears on a hot summer day. Quite far off from the pullover-vest type of sweater I'm thinking of doing).
I also want to start my mom's Christmas present once the yarn comes, because I know it will take me a while to finish that. (Though....wait....Hitchhiker is simple enough that it could be invigilating knitting. Aha, killing two birds with one stone....)
***
I just realized that some of the stuff I bought at the Green Market this weekend might come in handy tonight (after the tooth-work). I looked, without a lot of hope, at their soups, and to my delight, found two Imagine Foods brand soups (one sweet potato, one "harvest corn") that came in reduced-sodium versions - one was 140 mg per cup, the other was 190. That's low enough for me to be able to eat them! So I bought a carton of each (they are those big "aseptic brick packs"). I hope they are good. If they are, I'm going to get a couple more next time I go and keep them as "emergency food."
I don't mean "emergency" like "The power is out for DAYS" or "zombie attack!" or some other unspecified emergency-emergency so much as I mean those days when I drag off campus at 4:30 pm and have a meeting that starts at 6, and I still want to practice piano some. Or for those times when I have a cold and just generally feel crummy but still need nutritious food that I don't have to do too much cooking of.
The new Green Market was nice. I don't think they're quite finished redoing it (the floor was still kind of rough) but wow, they had fancy cheese and a chocolates counter and even some microbrewed beer for sale. And they had Texas-raised organic milk - pricey, but actually cheaper than the Horizon or whatever it is I usually buy. Too bad they're an hour's round trip. I may try this fall to go there more regularly; they have some things I can use and can't find at other groceries.
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