Pandora

I've been listening all evening to streaming music from Pandora, a branch of the Music Genome Project. Pandora asks you to enter an artist or a song, then uses info. gathered by the MGP to match your choice to similar music. (I've had more success with entering an artist than with entering a song, although the concept of basing a search on an individual song is interesting.) The result is a streaming "station" that plays music that I like but don't necessary own, and haven't necessarily heard before. So far, I have two stations, both of which are excellent background music for when I'm working at my computer or doing work around my room.

The one drawback is that the program apparently doesn't include any classical music; it got really confused when I entered in "Mozart." A program that could compare classical music to contemporary pop music would make for a much more interesting "genome" project, I think.

haiku

I'm hiding* in my
classroom because of its great
air conditioning!

Feel free to respond with a haiku of your own.

*i.e., posting

And remember, this is for posterity, so...be honest.

Every quarter there is some distinct quality about the class I am teaching by which I end up remembering them. Last quarter was the Girls Who Couldn't Care Less About Jane Eyre class. The one before that was the Happy Morning People class. Spring '05? Those Who Wrote Mathematical Languages Better Than They Wrote English.

I am afraid that this class might be the Untidy Bunch. My suspicions began last week when I received one paper with an attached draft that appeared to have been dunked in coffee, and another draft that was covered in . . . sand? Something like sand. Then today, I noticed when I was leaving class that there were clumps of dirt on one section of the floor, and pine needles on another. My students don't seem very sporty (that was Winter '04), but they are impressively messy.

*


















"I'm sure you've discovered my deep and abiding interest in untidiness. Presently I'm writing the definitive work on the subject."

* Note: Count Rugen and his subsidiaries are in no way officially affiliated with this post, nor does this writing reflect his true opinions.

work habits

Now that I am reading but no longer taking classes, I have started to learn more about what working styles fit me best. No matter how hard I tried to pace myself while reading for coursework, I almost always read and wrote in binges before things were due. Lately I've been working much more in moderation, getting into a routine of reading a short text or substantial section of a larger text a day and writing about 2 pages of notes. It isn't yet too impressive, since I've only been in this routine for about a week, but if I keep it up I should be in pretty good shape for the exams.

I've also, somewhat reluctantly, realized that in terms of work I'm definitely a morning person. Late last night I spent about two hours trying to grade papers but spending most of the time daydreaming or reading e-mail or watching TV. I ended up grading only one (very short) paper. This morning, I forced myself to wake up early and go to a coffeeshop where, voila!, I graded eighteen short papers in an hour and a half. Ah, the power of caffeine and a place with few distractions. (I'm beginning to think spending $1.50 every other day on tea in a coffeeshop wouldn't be too much to spend considering how productive I am there.)

Finally, even though I like not having to take classes for a while, I feel really lucky that I have a friend to meet with once a week who is basically at the same stage of reading as I am. She and I tend to complement each other well - when one of us has a question, the other tends to have some sort of answer. We also feel comfortable venting frustrations with readings to one another, which helps the tendency to feel isolated when reading for exams. Hooray for Emily!

verbal snapshot of the day

Picture this:

Me, wearing a cardigan set and skirt and heels, walking toward the elevator in the school library, dragging behind me with my left hand a large rolling-suitcase-style briefcase that is nearly stuffed with graded papers and teaching materials while my right arm precariously balances a stack of 8 books on Swift and Pope on top of a book on eighteenth-century female fashion that I picked up just for fun. I don't shout GEEK at all.

crazy casting

Check out the cast list for the upcoming movie The Farce of the Penguins, written and directed by Bob Saget. (And narrated by Samuel L. Jackson! Ha.)

It looks like a Full House reunion!

thoughts in a sandwich shop with Wi-Fi

* That man over there is using the only outlet in the entire room. He has been in that seat by the outlet since I arrived here two hours ago, when he appeared to be already comfortably settled into the seat, so I imagine he has been here for much longer. He is dressed up in a suit and tie. I wonder what he does for a living? He obviously doesn't need to go to an office. I'm going to guess that he travels and meets with important clients (whom he largely converses with over the Internet), and that he has a vital meeting to attend later, with no time between the sandwich shop Internet work and the meeting to return to his hotel and change clothes. Therefore he has to look formal at the sandwich shop, even though for all I know he might just enjoy dressing up and playing solitaire in public places, which would be kind of weird.

* Everyone is gossipping here. It is much more exciting to listen to the high schoolers in the booth across from me than to continue reading Jonathan Swift, even though I usually don't mind Swift.

* Important Tie Man has gone outside to use his cellphone. He hasn't unplugged his laptop, though.

* Why am I so good at grading here? The shop's noisy and kind of distracting, but I've gotten more papers read than I did last night and this morning combined, in much fewer hours. Maybe it's because I'm much better at restricting computer and TV viewing here. Maybe it's the air conditioning--my warm apartment just makes me want to sleep and eat popsicles.

* ITM is back at his laptop. He will not leave until I do.