Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

One other quirk of our library is that it seems to have trouble with temperature control.  During the summer, when they have the air conditioning on, your fingers turn blue after an hour of library work.  We’re talking seriously cold.  In the winter, you frequently see people stripped down to tank tops and shorts while working in their carrels, and it’s common to get a bit dizzy from the stuffy air.  I’ve been bringing scarves to work with me recently, to combat the excessive air conditioning.  But today the radiator next to my desk is pumping out lots of hot air.  Have they really turned on the heat already?  Current temperature in Ithaca: 85 degrees.  They only change the temperature twice a year (I imagine some sort of massive switch that controls the temperature turnover of the entire university), so we may be in for a long hot season as we head into fall.

Erin

I finally found a film that I would really like to see, but Erin is refusing to watch it with me. Sigh.

. . . but they’re amazing work deterrents.  The main library on campus (also the humanities library) is old enough to be outdated but not old enough to be antique.  Since it was designed in the days before portable computers, there aren’t electric outlets at the graduate carrels.  Slight problem when, as with every computer I’ve owned, the long-life battery kicks out after a year and you’re reduced to working wherever a cord will reach.  But this year, bereft of an office since I’m not teaching, I’m coming in prepared.  In addition to my normal books and papers and computer, I went to the library with a series of extension cords.  Finally, a place to work.  So far, the library staff who’ve been by just laughed and shook their heads.  We’ll hope their amusement keeps them from thinking too hard about what the fire marshal might have to say . . .

Erin

Staff at the university are off today.  Professors and students are not.   Basically, that means the university is running without ready access to the people who organize the whole thing.  I can’t imagine how some administrators must be holding their breath.  For example, my department is closed, but they’re keeping open the copy room.  If the copy machine breaks or malfunctions, however, we’re stuck.

Likewise, Sydney and I have classes such that we’re on campus all of today and we were in too much of a hurry to pack our own lunch.  But it seems that nearly all of the cafeteria/cafe staff are out, so we’ve had to do some hunting around campus to find food.  Two couples we know have one partner as a grad student and one partner as university staff.  Half the couple is on vacation, and the other half is in the library.  It’s a weird world.

Erin

Today we hauled home flats and buckets of tomatoes of every shape and color.  As usual, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, but Sydney’s reveling.  Wallowing, actually.

Erin

But I had a funny moment on Thursday, which happened to be my birthday as well as the start of the new semester.  I walked into the 9:00 French class I’ll be taking every day this semester and sat down.  Yes, I’m taking a class with students who are of the same age I normally teach.  Apparently I registered this fact on my person somehow, whether it was the bloom of the new year that I showed in my complexion, or something that cried “wisdom and experience” in my countenance.  Or maybe I just looked appropriately cranky.  At any rate, the student who entered the room next made a beeline for me as soon as he entered and asked if I were the teacher.  So much for hiding out among the natives . . .

Erin

“Sydney’s making dinner, but I kind of feel like making something fun.”

(Thus begins the trouble.)

“I need to use up those limes I bought recently, so how about my favorite lime-frosted tea cookies?”

(Those limes will last for weeks.  The mounds of tomatoes, zucchini, and peppers, on the other hand . . .)

“Oh, and making the cookies will use up an egg, too!  Great all around!”

(Speaking of round, the egg in its shell is built to last.  We needn’t even get into the rounding of the female figure that is likely to occur after the eating of all those lime cookies.  And don’t even look to Sydney: he hardly gets two or three before they disappear.)

“And besides, I’m too tired and lazy to do anything terribly useful before the day is out.  Why not celebrate the start of the school year with some delicious cookies?”

(Perhaps a more appropriate celebration to the start of school would be some work on my dissertation prospectus, the second draft of which was begun yesterday and is now being rudely abandoned for the kitchen.  The cookie, it appears, wins.)

Erin

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Our camping trip in the Adirondacks went splendidly — much better than we could have expected. I worried that we would have to try canoeing in against headwind. There wasn’t any. I worried that all the campsites would be taken. We found a great one and the neighbouring ones were free as well. I worried that canoeing to Lows Lake in one day would turn out to be a bit much for relatively inexperienced paddlers but we got to our campsite halfway across the lake by around 1pm. And we still had enough energy left over to canoe some more and climb a mountain.

On the Bog River just after starting out:

This is our campsite — or at least the trees in front of it:

Another picture of it from higher up. The campsite is right at the centre of the picture:

Another picture of the lake from the top of Grass Mountain:

A floating island — the light-coloured island in the centre has drifted about a mile east in the last couple of decades:

One of the many loons whose haunting calls echoed across the lake all night:

The sunrise from our campsite:

Sydney

Erin brought the following, rather interesting title on MSN to my attention (it’s the one at the bottom of the image):

Heaven forbid that one criticize a position during a debate! Much better just to defer to the wisdom and expertise of a bunch of silly university presidents and enjoy the pleasantness and safety of a unanimous debate.

For some added entertainment, you can go to the website of the organization that inspired all of this and see how many fallacious arguments you can spot: http://www.chooseresponsibility.org/. Try not to get too sidetracked by the fact that the spelling and grammar on the site suggests that the writers might have been failing to drink responsibly.

Between curling up in my new sleeping bag (it’s one of those mummy-style ones, so I felt positively swaddled) and sitting in the tent that was set up in our living room, I’m beginning to feel a lot like an 8-year-old on his first camping expedition.  Childish glee is being spread all over the house.  Sydney’s just hoping it holds up all through the 15 miles of paddling he wants to do each day we’re in the Adirondacks.

Erin