Socks+Coffee=Productivity

I love good socks. Since I'm relatively poor, I don't have that many (good socks can be kind of pricey), but they're right up there with things like milk and toilet paper in terms of importance.
I do have cold extremities pretty much all the time, and I do live in a kind of drafty old house in a chilly place. But it's not really that cold right now, and I'm still wearing some excellent REI hiking (or something) socks. The thing is, to get up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning so you can tackle your take-home midterms requires something to soften the blow - enough to keep you from crying but not enough that you just fall back asleep. I'm finding the combination of good socks and hot coffee extremely effective.

Good News, Bad News

Good News: Construction workers here may work late into the night, but they don't start their noise until 7am.
Bad News: My new favorite time to be in the office is before 7am.
Good News: I just copied 130 pages out of this book I borrowed - something I've been meaning to do for weeks - and it only took me 20 minutes. I'm a photocopying rock star.
Bad News: I'm a virtuoso photocopier. I'm also a stealth photocopier, because technically the department copier is for staff/faculty only.
Justification: It was for a language class, and I'm pretty much the only one in the whole place without a copier code, and 130 copied pages is a small price to pay for the fame I'll someday bring to this department.

Good News, Bad News Double Whammy

Good news: it's almost the end of October!
Bad news: it's almost the end of October!
Good news: I have the day "off," since my only class of the day is canceled. This means I didn't have to get up really early, ride the bus, or sit in an office full of diesel fumes. Also, I can snack, cuddle with Nick, and do laundry while I study.
Bad news: I still have a ton of work to do, with midterms for the next two or three weeks and finals seeming to start immediately thereafter. And working at home reminds me of non-academic work that needs doing, like sweeping and dishes and blog posts and dusting and giving Nick a bath and rearranging the furniture and hanging some pictures and learning to make a souffle.
What I have learned: I am still a procrastinator. November will hit me like a ton of bricks.

I heart bureaucracy

This week, my office (along with the hallway and several other rooms in our department) has developed hazy, stinky air every day around noon or one. Monday it was so bad we all abandoned ship with headaches and nausea, after asking our secretary to call facility management about the problem. There was speculation that it had something to do with the alleged struggle to turn on the heaters. The fog was back on Tuesday. It wasn't as bad, but two or three of my asthmatic colleagues were still having a hard time working because they couldn't really breathe, so the secretary said she'd call F.M. again. She said it was smoke, but "nothing's burning in the building." Today it's back again. We finally called the manager of the construction going on outside our windows, who said it must be diesel exhaust. The consensus now is that they got some machines (cement mixers and stuff) for a new phase of the project and probably just set them down so the exhaust shoots straight into the air intake for the second floor. Our department chair is having "an extended discussion" with the Dean of Space (I'm not kidding. That's his real title.) to resolve it.
Stay tuned to see what happens next.

This might be why I feel a little sick:

TO: GSD (my department)

FROM: Melody

Facilities Management tells us they plan to have the heat on in Folwell (my building) by this Friday, Oct. 19. This is not an easy process (see below), and every year at this time we seem to have some very cold days in our offices until the changeover is done.

In the meantime, be sure your windows are closed all the way & locked. This eliminates some of the drafts. Air conditioners should be winterized in the next few weeks; if you have one that hasn't been winterized by the end of October, let Jonathon know--this can also cut down on the drafts.

Wear warm clothes in layers.

Good news, bad news

In an effort to balance my occasionally overwhelming pessimism and entertain myself during lunch, I'm instituting the "good news, bad news" weekly feature, to remind myself (and all of you) about the cosmic balance of the world, the silver lining, the circle of life, etc. Since it's lunchtime....

Good news: Class got out last night before I got hungry, so I didn't have to eat my sad pb&j for dinner.

Bad news: My frugal nature and tiny paycheck mean that I can't just throw away a perfectly good sandwich, so I had to eat my so-sad-as-to-be-tragic pb&j for lunch today.

What I learned: Pb&j becomes exponentially more depressing in relation to the time elapsed since the sandwich was made. Thank goodness I didn't leave it until Wednesday.

Three cheers for medical advances

Today I got another shot in my round of Gardasil vaccines. Now I'm as sad as all four of these girls put together. I don't know what's in the shot exactly, but it burns like hell while they give it to you, and then your shoulder aches like it might fall off for three days after. A small price to pay, I guess, for a slightly better chance at not getting cervical cancer. If you have a cervix, look into getting this vaccine.

It's raining, it's pouring

It's raining again. I love the rain, but today I realized that this may be because I've usually had the luxury of spending rainy days somewhere cozy, with a blanket and a couch and often my dog. It's been a long time since I had to get up pre-sunrise (hey, it's Minnesota) and walk in the rain to catch a bus so I could get to my not-so-cozy office and work on conference planning. I might go home early.
I'm really (unreasonably) excited about this conference thing. It's kind of like throwing a smart theme party. Although our themes are kind of lacking so far. Consumption (of pop culture, ideology, material goods, etc.), perception/sensation, the grotesque/uncanny, How would you frame a conference theme? What approach would you take to the grotesque, or to consumption, or to perception (not necessarily related)? Basically, we need to hit just the right note to draw in people from other disciplines, and make it appealing to the (demanding) Scandinavian and Medievalist minorities within our own department. And come up with a catchy title. Ten points for every viable idea.

On the unpopular nature of suffix-based languages

• Exhibit A: Siz hala çekoslavakyahalaştıramadıklarımızdansınız? That long word is the longest word Zuleyha could think of in Turkish (their antidisestablishmentarianism). All I can tell you is that there's something in there about Czechs.

• Exibit B: Zuleyha's quizzes. Quiz #1 (two weeks ago) wasn't bad, I got a 95, and everyone finished it after 10 or 15 minutes, so I expected the same from Quiz #2 (today). Dumb. I didn't understand half of the words on it, to say nothing of the grammar structures. On the upside, I wasn't alone. No one handed it in until the end of the hour, when Zuleyha got up to leave, and when she asked how it was, the best student in class asked if we would have any opportunities to extra credit.

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• This will seem trivial someday when I'm perfectly fluent.

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• Petra brought me Austrian hazelnut wafers (Manner).

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• I should really get back to work.
  

Drama is universal

In Turkish class, we've been watching this (Turkish) soap opera called "Bir Istanbul Masali." It's a pretty good show, with a plot line sort of like the movie "Sabrina." I thought I was having a really hard time understanding any details, but this week, Zuleyha asked us to write a summary of an episode. It was a very useful exercise. Not only did I learn important vocab - to steal (çalmak) and to cheat (aldatmak) - but I surprised myself by being able to write more than a page. I guess those plot lines are universal....