one short, one long
Yesterday, getting off the subway, a young girl I see in my Physics class came up to me and started asking me about our lab TA. She, too, is somewhat unhappy with him. (I see him as a perfectly good physicist who hasn't been shown how to teach.) Among other things, she said it was surprising that he didn't explain, in our first lab class, what it meant to do a lab report, how one writes one, what its substance is. I said something to the effect of: Yeah, I'm winging it, I haven't had a lab class since 1985.
She: jaw-drop. "I was two then!"
Last night, I had the strangest dream.
I was briefly back in my old office, from a bazillion years ago (HYGNet, for those who recall). Not in my office, but a room down the hall from it. For some reason the room was stuffed full of old hardware I used to work on, VAXen and SPARCs and old PCs and such. And there were giant stacks of SyQuest disks, so many I kept knocking them over as I opened and closed the door.
When I got home, it was this house, my house, where I live now, but on TV was some sort of show about PlayStation games, and for some reason I walked in to see some screens of Final Fantasy 8, then something from Kingdom Hearts, then something about a Lion King game I haven't seen. (I realize Simba's in Kingdom Hearts as well.)
My dreams have been weird recently, which I chalk up to my sleep being poor recently. After no small effort I finally have medical coverage again (you'd think, having paid ~$1000US cash for it, that would have been enough), so I am going to the doctor today to schedule a new sleep study to get my CPAP titrated, and you don't really want to hear about this except that the lack of good sleep is making me stupid and crabby and groggy sometimes.
On the other hand, classes are going very well. I am shooting for As this semester, and I think that's possible. In Linear Algebra, I messed up some arithmetic and just missed an A on the one exam we've had. In Physics, we've had a bunch of quizzes, but (idiots!) we don't get to see them, or see our grades, until after we've had the exam which covers their subject. So I have more or less no idea how I'm going to do there, but I'm crossing fingers.
We've joined a synagogue. This is the first synagogue I've actually joined. It feels pretty nice, although I need to get up to speed. Jennifer already knows much more than me, and she's learning to read Hebrew very quickly. I am looking forward to learning from her, and to practicing more. (And while I am willing to have a Kosher house, I am certain G-d will understand if I can't give up sushi. He wouldn't have made it so delicious if He didn't want me to eat it.)
And now, having put virtual pen to on-screen paper, I must get dressed and off to class.