Entry 5: In Which We Are Not Blown Up By Ignignokt and Err

Massive delays on the T this morning; bridges, freeways, and even the river shut down; and for what? A viral advertising campaign by Turner Broadcasting.

Here is a link to the news story. As Deval Patrick comments, it's really not funny.

Here is the statement from Turner Broadcasting admitting that they were behind it all.

They say they regret that the devices were "mistakenly thought to pose any danger", and I imagine they are sincere about regretting it. But my question is this: what did they expect people would think when they looked up and saw a circuitboard with blinky lights on the girder of a major freeway? What would your first thought be if you saw that? Would you think that it "posed any danger"? Or would you think, hey, I want to get a closer look at that thing way up there, 'cause it might be a clever marketing ploy to make me aware of some T.V. show?

News reporters keep saying that in this day and age especially, our first thought goes to terrorism. I would argue in this case that even before 9-11, most of us would be alarmed by seeing a device with blinking lights stuck up under a bridge. And I cannot understand how anyone thought that this was a good idea.

Is it true that even bad publicity is good publicity? Will Turner Broadcasting benefit from this media exposure? Was that what they were thinking when they started this?

Entry 4: In Which I Am Nearly Trampled In The Halls

Our winter break is a lovely five weeks long, during which most of our 9,000 undergrads vanish. A few linger to take a winter class, but most of them are gone. Faculty and grad students generally take a little time off, then return to take full advantage of the peaceful campus and lack of teaching responsibilities. Many of us get the bulk of our work done over winter and summer breaks.

It is always such a shock when the undergrads come flooding back on the first day of the semester. I'm simply never prepared for how many of them there are, and how rowdy they can be. It's not that we don't want them around; after all, without the undergrads there would be no reason for the rest of us to be here, and personally I do enjoy teaching them. But over break we really get used to being able to leave the lab door open without the constant distraction of noise in the halls, to get on the shuttle bus without being squashed half to death by the crowd, to walk out between buildings without catching a face-full of cigarette smoke or a stray hackey-sack to the head.

But there was no way to avoid it: yesterday morning they came swarming back, all 9,000 of them, with their sound and fury, their ipods and cell phones, their class schedules and campus maps. They've taken over the hallways, the campus center, the catwalks, the classrooms...... at least the labs and offices are still ours. If the madness of the new semester gets to be too much, I can always shut my door and pretend it's still winter break......

Entry 3: In Which Monday Happens

All I have to say today is: bleeaaagghh. Mondays bite.

Though I got a ton of work done today. So that's good.

But still: bleeaaagghh.

Entry 2: In Which I Suddenly Realize It's Almost February

So the new semester starts tomorrow. Since I am no longer taking classes, this is not as traumatic an event as it used to be, but it does mean my T.A. duties kick back in. T.A.ing takes up about twenty hours every week. On the plus side, it tends to be a nice distraction from all the thesis-related stuff. On the minus side, well, it takes up about twenty hours. As busy as I have been the last two weeks, things are about to get much, much busier.

My duties as a T.A. include six hours a week teaching labs (which I absolutely love), a few hours a week in meetings and office hours (which tend to be mildly annoying), and an open-ended amount of time grading papers (which is the most screamingly, mind-numbingly, neuron-destroyingly, hideously, excruciatingly dull thing I've ever had to do) (well, with the exception of proctoring a three-hour exam last semester, which I will thankfully not have to do again this time around) (I hope). I've never really decided whether the fun of teaching labs quite makes up for the agony of grading papers. But I intend to fully enjoy the first two weeks of the semester, before the first batch of papers is due.

So yesterday I sat down to my usual pre-semester ritual of filling in my day-planner with all my classes, meetings, etc. Actually, I had very little to fill in, since I don't yet know what days I'm teaching or when the T.A. meetings will be (I know, it's ridiculous, but these assignments are never sorted out until midway through the first week. At least this year I know what I'm teaching, just not when.). So all I could put down was a few upcoming meetings, school holidays, and the graduation deadlines. Ahh, the deadlines....

But before I could do this, I had to buy a new day-planner. Because, apparently, sometime during the last few weeks it became 2007, meaning that my pretty little '06 day-planner is, well, no longer useful. And you would not believe how hard it was to find a new day-planner! I wound up going to five different stores. Most places were sold out of calendars long ago. Evidently, most people plan far enough ahead to buy their calendars in December, or at the very latest, the first week of January. A few places had some left, but they were remarkably ugly. We're talking fluorescent colours, gaudy stripes, etc. And since I carry my day-planner with me all over campus, I want it to be at least marginally pleasant to look at.

In the end, I found one at FranklinCovey in an inoffensive sort of beige colour. Not exactly pretty, but decent. I went through it and filled in everything I could. Even though that wasn't much, I felt better for having done it. It's a familiar little ritual that has kicked off every semester since I first started college mmffmm years ago. When I closed the calendar I felt as though I were ready for anything. Anything at all.

Entry 1: In Which I Try To Talk Myself Out Of This

Reasons Not To Start a Blog:

1. My thesis is due on April 13. Do you have any idea how soon that is? Really, really soon! Rather than sit here typing nonsense on this blog thingy, I should be sitting here typing nonsense in my thesis thingy. (Not that my thesis is all nonsense.... really, it's a nice little thesis, but if you spend eight to ten hours a day thinking about the same thing, it eventually starts to feel like nonsense.....)
2. Do I really need a reason #2? #1 should really say it all. I just don't have time to blog. (That's a verb these days, right?)
3. I have nothing interesting to blog about. (excuse me: about which to blog.) Which is not to say my life isn't interesting. I mean, it's really interesting to me. Just not the sort of interesting that anyone in their right mind would sit around reading about. So why bother writing about it? Or at least, why write about it publically? Why not start a nice private little journal instead?

Reasons To Start a Blog

1. ????? No really, there must be some reason..... but I can't think of one..... hmmm.....
2. okay here's one: Because I feel like starting a blog. Gosh!
3. My own sanity. Now, I realize some of you might be driven insane if forced to read my senseless babbling, but I think it might actually help keep me sane in the midst of all this thesis-ing. (Now, I know that's not a verb. But whatever.)

So far, the reasons not to seem a little more compelling. And yet, here I am. Let's examine the sanity argument for a moment.

Here's what I did yesterday: spent 3 hours reading a non-parametric statistics textbook, one hour on another stats book, two hours skimming through research papers, and another hour or so trying to figure out how everything I had just read related to my own stuff. Five or six days of this a week would drive anybody crazy, right? I usually make time for plenty of fun/relaxing stuff to unwind from all the thesis-ing (hey, that's actually a handy word), though it was difficult to find the time this week. But I think it would help to do something that's not just fun, but also mildy intellectual. Like writing about something that's not related to my thesis.

Not that I intend to do any really deep intellectual writing here, but still, the act of putting together coherent sentences and thinking of things to write about will give my brain something interesting to do, and remind me that things like writing and thinking can actually be fun. Because really, when you think and write about only one topic all day, every day, all week, you sort of start to hate thinking and writing.

Is this making any sense? I don't know. It makes sense to me, but I may not be explaining it that well. Whatever.

So I'm definitely going ahead with this blog thingy, although given my track record for new projects, it may not last very long. However, in order to counteract Reason Not To Blog #1, I think I'd better limit myself to blogging only in the evenings (or on weekends), and then only if I've finished a significant amount of work during the day. That way this will hopefully not turn into handy procrastination tool. Hopefully.

Okay then, I guess I've talked myself into this instead of out. And I'm not sure how to end this post. Should I come up with some sort of nifty post-ending catch phrase? Those tend to be rather annoying..... Maybe I should just stop typing. Yeah, let's try that.