(no subject)
New Year's Resolution: update moar. Also, work from home less. Which I'm doing now.
So, over Christmas break, I went to a UAH Choir rehearsal on a whim, at my old alma mater. They have a new conductor, who is pretty cool, and who is taking the group to Italy in the summer -- to sing, among other things, Sunday morning Mass at the Vatican. Y'know, for that bastard in the big hat.
And, apparently -- she wants me to go.
To sing second bass, since she's short of them.
Apparently baricountertenors in Arizona are a suitable replacement for the basses that apparently don't exist in Huntsville. :) So I might be going to Italy this summer. I have to make sure it won't conflict with my Ability to Get Shit Done, though -- especially since two weeks after the tour, there's the International Symposium on Fancy-Sounding Physics in Sardinia. I'm toying with the idea of just staying over there in Europe for those two weeks (hostels are cheaper than plane tickets) and finding something else to do (not hard in Europe), maybe heading to Germany or Britain. Or Scandinavia, which I've always wanted to see, although I don't speak a lick of any of those languages that put slashes through their O's. All of this is pending on getting permission from my advisor, though -- they've not yet figured out when the MILC summer meeting is yet, although it's looking like July.
I went to Madera Canyon on Saturday, where there was a huge snowstorm. Took lots of pictures of the snowy scenery, which I've got hosted on my webspace in an impromptu slideshow thingie I hacked up (since picasaweb hates me). The best, though, was a hawk down in the grassland under the mountains:
(Those links go to the gallery on my webspace)
I'm teaching a computational physics class this semester. My first experience with freshmen in a while, and, well -- some of them are smarter than others. I have one guy in particular who's so far behind (not because of a lack of background, but because of a lack of smarts) that I don't quite know what to do with him; I can't afford to go slowly enough for him to catch on to things in class, because then everyone else gets bored. He'd better come to office hours!
So, over Christmas break, I went to a UAH Choir rehearsal on a whim, at my old alma mater. They have a new conductor, who is pretty cool, and who is taking the group to Italy in the summer -- to sing, among other things, Sunday morning Mass at the Vatican. Y'know, for that bastard in the big hat.
And, apparently -- she wants me to go.
To sing second bass, since she's short of them.
Apparently baricountertenors in Arizona are a suitable replacement for the basses that apparently don't exist in Huntsville. :) So I might be going to Italy this summer. I have to make sure it won't conflict with my Ability to Get Shit Done, though -- especially since two weeks after the tour, there's the International Symposium on Fancy-Sounding Physics in Sardinia. I'm toying with the idea of just staying over there in Europe for those two weeks (hostels are cheaper than plane tickets) and finding something else to do (not hard in Europe), maybe heading to Germany or Britain. Or Scandinavia, which I've always wanted to see, although I don't speak a lick of any of those languages that put slashes through their O's. All of this is pending on getting permission from my advisor, though -- they've not yet figured out when the MILC summer meeting is yet, although it's looking like July.
I went to Madera Canyon on Saturday, where there was a huge snowstorm. Took lots of pictures of the snowy scenery, which I've got hosted on my webspace in an impromptu slideshow thingie I hacked up (since picasaweb hates me). The best, though, was a hawk down in the grassland under the mountains:
(Those links go to the gallery on my webspace)
I'm teaching a computational physics class this semester. My first experience with freshmen in a while, and, well -- some of them are smarter than others. I have one guy in particular who's so far behind (not because of a lack of background, but because of a lack of smarts) that I don't quite know what to do with him; I can't afford to go slowly enough for him to catch on to things in class, because then everyone else gets bored. He'd better come to office hours!