office hours

i have one office hour for every hour i teach. i don't think that's unreasonable. but these kids! they keep e-mailing me! my office hours aren't good enough for them, and they want to make appointments! GAH! (there's a biggish assignment due on wednesday, and they think -- probably with reason -- that they don't know anything about phonology and need Help.)

happy birthday

to gloriana. :-)

in other news, there's a crazy person at the next computer here in the lab, talking to herself while she plays some tetris-like came. little nutty. i think i'll print out my handouts and get out of here.

randomalia

1. ooh, noel gives me goosebumps. and it's only 1/4 over.

2. my students had better give me good reviews, after how nice i am to them. the students in the lecture in general, i mean, but also specifically my own extra-discussion students. last week's assignment was utterly lame (you remember -- "um, ms. fox? aren't these definitions you asked for already on the handout?" "then it shouldn't be too hard, should it?"), and still they managed to get things wrong. about five kids out of 24 did not see where i asked them to define "distribution" and choose, for some reason, to identify "complementary distribution" instead. grr. argh.

3. i can never get used to seeing the commercials for this "vitaball", the vitamin gumball, and not seeing the energizer bunny come crashing through the place.

and more randomness

ran two errands this evening, which made me feel Productive:

1. took my curling-shoes-to-be to the shoe repair place. this is because i am not strong enough to conquer the thick white slider. there's nothing i can do that'll make that thing stick to the bottom of a chuck taylor sneaker and not curl, peel, or bubble. i could probably handle the gripper, but i figured, what the hell, i'll pay a guy a few bucks to basically re-sole the sneakers with the materials i brought him. explained the vital importance of the slider remaining smooth and unscarred, and will pick the shoes up next monday.

2. took my phone to the sprint store, because the alarm clock wasn't making noise (it'd light up with "alarm clock: ok/cancel", but a silent alarm clock is fairly useless for most of us), and also, the backlighting on the keypad was starting to flicker. am now owner of a new (but the same) phone.

3. my neighbor across the hall is having issues with her alarm clock, mixing up the am/pm-ness; friday evening at about a quarter to eight, it started going off and i could hear it from here. i went over there after about half an hour and banged on the door for a bit, but she was out. so i stuck a note in the door, and when she came home, she was appropriately apologetic. except now? it's happening again. i'm going to have to smack her. (but nicely.)