Undergraduates still talk in the library. While listening to iPods and text messaging. Must they do this? I've spent the week trying to figure out if those eating their giant gross lunches in the library is worse than just talking. Hey, I was really enjoying this book before you sat down next to me with your giant bag of chips and two liter of coke.

The current conversation taking place directly in front of me has progressed something like this:

Undergrad One: Dude....did you get the tickets for the game? Dude. I need to go to the bank.
Undergrad Two: Yeah, I need to hit that. Hey, so I got this credit card? Can you like, use those to deposit and take out money at like the ATM?
#1: You mean like to put money in?
#2: Yeah, like, can I take money out of the credit card? Dude, I just got this thing two weeks ago, and I already put $300 on it.
#1: Awesome.

It's like the best dream ever of every credit card executive.

spell check

I just spent 7 hours reading an essay by Heidegger. About a half hour ago, I feel confident saying that I was feeling a little brain dead, yet I still needed to write the response to send out to my class. So I type it up. Being, time, ek-sistence, metaphysics, blah blah. Just when I had enough, I thought "hey! I'll spellcheck! that's easy!"

Thank you Apple-Mail for your wonderful dictionary which immediately changed MARTIN HEIDEGGER to MARTIN HEADGEAR.

and now I can go to sleep.

en francais, s'il vous plait!

I'm taking French this semester (just me and 30 undergraduates) and one of the verbs that the textbook wants me to learn this week is: croire aux licornes. For those unfamiliar with the language this means "to believe in unicorns". Other verbs on task for this week: épouser (to get married to), fair fortune (to make a fortune), and tomber amourex (to fall in love with), which leads me to believe that this week in sponsered by 12 year girls who think France is teeming with princes on unicorns waiting to take them away to their gumdrop castles. Quoi?

dental health

There are very few distractions in my apartment. It's not a very big apartment, one little bedroom, with one decent sized living room. I usually don't spend very much time here, so it's not filled with any items which could take up my time (i.e. a television). I've been here a lot over the past three days, trying to finish (well, start and finish) two papers so I can end my semester and sit down with a stack of movies. Turns out that working for 12 hours straight is not very fun. So, every half hour or so I get up and wander around, looking for a distraction. Yesterday, I read the large majority of the New York Times Sunday edition. The only other distraction I can think of is taking a shower, which I used up by noon. I almost made some cookies, but then realized the next distraction would be eating the cookies, which would make me sick. So that was out. In the end, I really spend my half hour break staring at my teeth in the bathroom and flossing. That's it. That's my big reward for writing for a half hour.

If it wasn't so cold, I would just walk around the block. Really.

I seem to be trying to call it in

So far this morning I've learned that even though I have a laptop, I cannot write term papers in bed. Just doesn't work. Also, if I don't disable the internet sometime soon, this thing ain't never gonna be done.

Who said graduate school doesn't teach about real life? So many lessons learned.

Next question: just how long can I fool myself into thinking I can write a paper without coffee? (I give myself 15 minutes).

snowballs

Yesterday was both the last day of classes for the semester and the first big snowfall of the year. As I was leaving my last class at 8:30pm, checking my voicemail and trying to hurry for the bus without falling on the slippery, slushy snow that was accumulating, I looked over and saw three giggling undergraduates wearing vaguely matching winter hats. I squinted and thought they make look familiar, but kept going on my way. Seconds later, they threw three snowballs in unison, none of which made contact. They started laughing even harder, and which point I realized they were my students. "Hey! I'm still in charge of your grades!", I let them know. They then told me that's why they didn't actually hit me. And then they said "Have a good holiday!" and continued making snowballs. Cute!

At which point I thought: woah, I am totally a TA. I have students who throw things at me. Awesome.

this is why kurt coabin killed himself.

NEWSFLASH! 'ALTERNATIVE' MUSIC IS OFFICALLY DEAD!

I know this because the Yahoo! home page has a music station called 'Adult Alternative'. Add that to the ranks of Adult Contemporary. Adults certainly wouldn't want to accidently listen to 'Teenage Alternative' or 'Recent College Graduate Alternative' or they may become highly irritated. In case you're wondering, the station features Coldplay, Maroon 5, Green Day and more! (psych to Green Day.)

Everyone should now go listen to something loud enough to encourage a headache. My job is done here.