Thursday morning random

* I think I'm going to start by asking the lady who plays the piano at church if she knows of anyone who is teaching and wants new students. (I doubt she is teaching; she's retired from pretty much everything other than playing the piano and directing the choir). I know her better than I know the piano professors here. And even if she doesn't know, she seems to know lots of people in the music community here (in town, not just at the university) and she'd be willing to ask around

* I think I still need a little time before I do that, though. I've worked with this teacher for five years and I really hate to let her go.

* It feels a little less Ice Station Zebra out there this morning, but it's still 17 C in my office. (For you all playing at home: that's not quite 63 degrees F. I know, I know: some people keep their houses at that temperature but when you're sitting trying to type exams and stuff, you get cold fast at that temperature). I just hope this all is triggering my body to make that "brown fat" stuff that is allegedly more metabolically active and supposedly munches up the bad kind of fat. I'd hate to be cold for a couple weeks and not get anything out of it. (For the record: I keep my own house between 70 and 71 F, down to 68 at night.)

(I probably already have some brown fat. From what I've read about it, it seems that exercise and a diet not unlike the one I eat can lead to its production)

* We might get freezing rain on Tuesday. Fingers crossed it doesn't come early as I have a field lab on Monday. I don't want to have to cancel but if the roads look unsafe, even if campus is open, I will have to.

* The big local news is that a man's body was found near the southern border of campus. They have verified that he was not a student (One news station said he had been identified but of course did not release the name, the other said he was still unidentified, so I don't know). The police are saying it doesn't look like foul play was involved. It's sad. I wonder if maybe he was one of the local homeless people who didn't have a place to shelter overnight and he died of exposure. Though I suppose he also could have been an early-morning jogger who had a sudden fatal medical problem. Of course the news channels are playing up the campus link - they always do when there's bad news happening anywhere near campus.

* This is making the rounds. Maybe that explains why I've been prone to more fits of grumpiness the past few years, since I've been tenured. (Though sadly, my desire for cookies has not decreased concomitantly):

It also suggests that maybe there's still hope, in just about 15-20 more years....

(I never did do a post-doc but from the experiences I've heard from others, yeah, Beaker seems kind of fitting)

* also: Academic Tim Gunn. One of those Tumblr things, but better than most, because it's not just content reblogged from elsewhere - photos of Tim Gunn are captioned with academic-related comments in his "voice." (Apparently no longer being updated, but, well, I haven't seen it before.)

I kind of want to hang this one up in the lab, but I suspect too many of my students wouldn't know who Tim Gunn is to find it funny:

Of course, as a die-hard fan of the Oxford (or serial) comma, I also like this one: