The home stretch

The wedding is Friday! Just two days away. I'm very much looking forward to it, but I have to focus. I have work that I need to do before then. The problem with teaching is that since I have canceled class on Thursday, after class ended on Monday my first thought was, "I have nothing left to do this week." I also pushed their homework to be due next Monday, so they don't have to turn them in today. I could just do nothing, but no no no. I have to get stuff done.

My parents should be (at least close to) on the road by now, as they are driving up. Andre and Erin leave tonight, taking the red-eye and landing in Newark at 6:30 tomorrow morning (luckily it'll take them at least an hour and a half to get to the Bronx, so I don't have to get up that early). Maggie and them will be in the car with me and Dante as we drive up tomorrow to Rochester. Everything is in motion and now it is merely a matter of not forgetting anything. Passport. Ring. Suit. Dante's paperwork (for the kennel). Stack of business cards (who else would I give them to but family and friends?)

Check, check, check, check, and check.

Locked out

So I locked myself out of my apartment this morning. It happened when I was walking Dante right before heading off to work. So I called my super, who didn't answer. I buzzed the button outside to call him, and after a couple of minutes, one of the other building workers came to the door. (He's kind of like a maintenance man but not.)

I told him what happened, and he said in his practically non-existent English, "Follow me," and I did that. We went to the boiler room and he pointed to a big box of keys, saying, "Help look." We searched the entire box of keys to no avail. So apparently, they don't have a copy of my key! (Explains why the super always insists I be home when he needs to come by.)

Luckily just last week I put a spare set of keys in my office, so I called the secretary, who got my keys and met me at the entrance gate to campus (I did this just so that I could shave off ten minutes on this process, since I'd have to go to her office to let me into mine and so forth) with the spare set.

Of course, Dante loved the extra walk he got from this, but it definitely put a bit of a damper on my day. Alas, it all worked out just fine and I made sure to remember to put my spare back in my office desk.

Thankfully I live so close to work!

Grades

So I graded (all but one of) the midterms last night. The grades ranged from abyssmal (35) to spectacular (94), although nothing was too unexpected. But, being the generous guy I am, I am offering them a chance to get back points, by doing the following two things. First, they can get back all of their lost points on the multiple choice problems if they explain in detail why the right answers were right and the wrong were wrong. Then, unless they made a stupid mistake that only cost them a point or two on a problem (like a minus sign or a factor of 2 somewhere), they can get back half of their missed points by redoing the wrong problems.

This means that the person who received a 94 can actually get a 99 thanks to only getting wrong answers on the multiple choice (and one stupid mistake that cost him a point on the rest), while the person with the 35 can go all the way up to a 75. I think that's more than fair.

Now this one student has exactly 24 minutes to come to make up the exam.

Thank god for the midterm

I'm really glad that I'm giving a midterm today. It means that I don't have to teach anything, and while they all take their test, I can do my own work and not have to be "on." I say this because for some reason I did not sleep well last night, and woke up this morning with a pounding headache. This headache is slowly going away (thanks to some prompt pounding of Excedrin), and hopefully is won't come back.

I had dreams about the wedding. I had dreams about the TiVo which I bought and which is arriving today.* I woke up several times because it was so damn hot in my apartment (some of that waking up came from the heat turning on, which is very very loud). It's not really that cold yet, and I may have to shut the valve on the radiator right now because it's the perfect temperature at night with my comforter.

I only had a couple of panicky emails from students this morning, so I'm hoping they are all ready for the exam. I know they are dreading it, so I feel a little bad. At the same time, once it is over, they'll feel better. Of course, when I said that to them yesterday, one responded, "Haven't you ever heard of PTSD?" That's right. Apparenly my exam is like war to them.
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* This could be it, because of this arrival, it feels like Christmas. I cannot wait to get rid of the stupid Cablevision DVR because it is a piece of crap.

Sushi

You know, I was worried moving to Little Italy, where all the restaurants are Italian, and a large percentage of the population is hispanic (mostly Puerto Rican). Not because of a dislike of either of these things, in fact, I relish the fact that the neighborhood is so diverse. I was worried about my sushi options.

There is a sushi restaurant in the neighborhood, but I was skeptical. Monday night though, C and I toughed it out and tried it. And let me tell you, I was really happy. I realized that living in small-town Virginia, where the good sushi options were very limited, I came to love one place that I really do miss, but a large part of why I miss it is the people. They knew us there, and knew what we ordered, and it was always a great experience. And I even got to the point where I loved the sushi.

But now I remember what really good sushi can be. Now, I don't swear that this place in my 'hood is the best ever, but there is a marked difference (largely I think because the fish seemed a lot more fresh) than in VA. And, it's cheap!

So it's all good, I can live happily knowing that a five-minute walk from my place is a great sushi place.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, here we call it Columbus Day but this past weekend was Canadian Thanksgiving. I know this because our wedding venue had 10 weddings this weekend for the holiday. Crazy.

C was down for the weekend, and we got myself a suit for the upcoming occassion, which was good. I like the suit and it was on sale, always a plus.

Really though, the highlight was seeing Kristin Chenoweth in Promises, Promises on Saturday. The musical itself was just okay, although Sean Hayes did an amazing job, and of course Kristin can do no wrong. This was the first time I really cared about waiting by the backstage door for an actor, and it was pretty awesome. She's first of all even more adorable in real life (if that's possible), and also just super nice. I got a hug from her and told her that I had lived in her home state for a while (well, just a summer, but still). She was so great because she basically didn't rush through anyone, and would talk to anyone. She was impressed I think with C, because he said she does the best performance of "Glitter and be Gay" ever. I imagine most people hadn't heard her do that, so in case you haven't:

Departmental politics

No department is without internal stress. I would venture to guess that no one's job is really without some office issues, whether or not it's some people who don't get along, major differences of opinion about how things should be run, or whatever. I learned last week that this department is no exception, and in fact found myself in a very odd situation.

There are two non-tenure-track members of the department here, and clearly there are some people who would like to promote them to "tt" positions. Of course, this is generally not allowed without a full (inter)national search, and then the internal people could interview and thus get hired. When I interviewed I assumed one of them would be also on the short list, which made my getting the offer that much more surprising.

During the departmental meeting, their names were brought up as we are doing another search this coming year. What was interesting about this, was that I was later told that during the search that ultimately got them to hire me, they couldn't decide on which of the two locals to invite for an interview, so instead chose neither of them, and invited me. Why they didn't invite both (it wouldn't cost anything since they are as local as you can get), I do not know. In the end, there is no animosity towards me as far as I can tell, but at the same time there were moments during the meeting where I really was feeling a tad awkward.

Finally, the big problem now is that the search essentially excludes either of these two being hired (long story), and this is what caused a big ruckus at our meeting. Again...awkward.

Who needs a social security card?

I think this dream came from the fact that a couple of friends of mine who just had a baby posted a picture of their new son's mail from the social security administration, indicating that he's received his social security number. Last night I had a dream where I decided I didn't need my SS card anymore so I just tossed it away. I mean, really, how important is it, anyway?

In other news, C has his ring again, and it's the right size this time. I'm feeling better because it was a little nerve wracking waiting (again) for it to be delivered. On the phone last night whenever it was mentioned we had to put them on, because, well, I don't want to wait another three-and-a-half weeks to wear it!

He's coming to the city this weekend, which will be nice. We're going to see Promises, Promises on Broadway, with Kristin Chenoweth (oh yeah, and Sean Hayes, although I'm more interested in KC), which I'm psyched about. This will be the first time where I will really want to go wait after to the show at the stage door and meet an actor. Maybe she'll realize immediately how awesome I am and become my new best friend. I mean, who doesn't need a gay physicist for a best friend?

One can always dream.

Not too soon

The wedding can't come soon enough. Nightly I have had dreams about it, and while none of them have any anxiety in them, I wake up sad that the day is still so far from today. Okay, three weeks from Friday, but still.

But let's not fret about that (although I do really want to just wear my ring at this point every day, but noooooo). This weekend was fun. I had a vegan brunch on Saturday with Maggie and Kelly (which was actually really good even though brunch is generally difficult to do with only vegan cuisine), and did more shopping. Other than that the weekend was filled with not much excitement, which is really how I like it.

Now I have to finish with the solutions for my homework assignment that I gave the students.