Hopefully out from under whatever rock I've been hiding under

Cough, cough..

Phew, it’s dusty in here...

Ok, so that was a long break. Been a while since I’ve done this. My blogging muscles are atrophied.

So, yeah, I seem to have fallen out of the habit of blogging regularly. Actually, I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing much of anything regularly. This teaching gig turns out to be rather time intensive. Still, I need to start being more efficient with my time, and what better way than by starting another time commitment?

Of course it is also true that my class is taking their 2 hour final exam, and I’m stuck here with very little to do on a slow news day. I’ve pretty much exhausted my usual web resources, at least the quiet ones. So this is perhaps just a brief flick while I wait for something more interesting. Still, I’d like to think it was a new beginning.

Yikes. This is pretty rough. I’m definitely out of practice. Brain is muggy and sluggish. I need to get back to zen too. The school thing pretty much knocked me out of all my other activities. I think I’m beginning to get on top of it now (now that the course is over!). It comes down to needing to be more efficient and decisive with my time. I need to spend less time dithering and more time doing. It’s an overhead thing. Not something that comes particularly natural to me though. I’m more of the steam locomotive type: slow to build momentum, slow to stop. It’s not a very 21st century metaphor, and indeed, not a very 21st century mode of doing. Needs must and so I must.

I wonder if my test is too long. It is certainly harder than the midterm I gave. But that was probably too easy. The students don’t seem to be complaining too much, so I guess I’ll just have to wait and see. Thirty-five minutes to go.

Brain gone.... awareness absent... not the absence of zazen but the absence of sleep, of oblivion. Sleepy brain. This must go. The sleeper must awaken. The spice must flow. The words must flow, but they are slow. They stop, they go... my mind blanks looking for more “oh” words. Screen full of snow, empty static. Although static isn’t. A snow filled screen is actually kinetic and stochastic. Anything but static, and yet that’s was we call it.

This stream of consciousness winds multi helix through the hills of questionable grammar and no particular direction. A random walk indeed. Stochastic me, like brownian tea, pinging my way through a Boltzmann sea. How now spherical cow?

Well that was fun, but the moment has passed. My concentration span is weak old man. (But apparently my random reference machine is overstimulated!)

Yawn yawn yawn (she loves you?)

Gorsh, I am feeling a bit goofy this morning. 17 minutes to go.

Blank. No verse. “Zeros. Zeros mean so much.”

Are you entertained? Spoken like a saturday morning TV presenter on the BBC in a tiny hotel room in the Kings Cross area of London.

Ping! “...and one of them means nothing at all (the number zero).”

Oh Dear...

I’m grading the final for the intro-level physics course I’ve been associated with. This is actually the highest-level intro course offered here at FSU. Dear oh dear.... this is not encouraging. Apparently, we haven’t taught the students much in the course.

Well, I guess it’s a learning experience... I will *NOT* be structuring my course in the same manner as this one. I must do better.

Sigh.

Be the way

And the days just slip on past. Welcome to the new faculty speedway. Yeah, it’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last entry, but there’s way too much that’s occurred to actually try and keep up with events. Probably best not to even try.

I had breakfast with the Dean of Arts and Sciences this morning. Apparently a thing that new faculty get to do. It was pleasant enough experience. I’m still new enough to this faculty gig that the novelty of being a grown up is fun. The Dean’s live on the other side of campus. The nice side of campus where all the old liberal arts buildings are. Quite lovely actually, particularly since the weather is cool today, so the walk was nice. I even got to keep the mug. Now I know why professors always have that coffee mug with college seals on their desks. They get it from having breakfast with the Dean, or some other such rites. Just one of the small rituals nobody ever talks about. But I’d guess here on campus, you’d be able to tell when the new faculty get their breakfast with the Dean by watching their desk for the appearance of a garnet colored coffee mug.

Garnet & Gold. The school colors of the FSU Seminoles, or ‘Noles’ as they are apparently referred to locally. It took us a while to figure out what noles meant. Just slow on the uptake I guess.

Anyway, finally settling into the swing of things. My office now has all it’s furniture, and even some books on the shelves. Getting into the rhythm of meetings and teaching and meetings. Still need to integrate some research into that somehow, but piece by piece it’s coming.

I’m actually quite enjoying my teaching duties. Thankfully, I’m relatively free of performance anxiety, which has always been a bit of a help. Talks and lectures are not a hurdle for me. Indeed, my current assignment is really quite pleasant, as I have almost no control over student grades, but work almost entirely as an enabler. I’m just there to help students learn the information, work their problems, pass exams, etc. I’m coordinating the labs, but the grad student TAs are running things there. Really I just have to herd the TAs and drop in to lab on Wednesdays and interact with the students a bit. Thankfully, I don’t have to grade the labs, or even stay for the entire lab session. Just enough to get a bit of interaction and then out again.

Ding... Time to wash my bowl.

Jumpy Little Black Dots What Bite the Boy!

So for those of you following the great spot mystery, here’s the update... After waiting for the ‘pox’ to develop, we discovered they weren’t. No blisters, no scabs. So we thought it might be hives, perhaps a reaction to raspberry jam. However, by this last weekend, the spots were multiplying again. A trip to the clinic led to the official diagnosis that they were unexplained red spots, “maybe some kind of viral infection”. Sigh.

However we’ve since discovered that we have a flea infestation, and that Laz seems to be particularly tasty to the little bastards. Unfortunately for the bugs, mom and dad’s Buddhist leanings toward non-violence end when the cheeky little buggers attack the boy. So last night we brought in the heavy weapons, (a vacuum cleaner built like a Russian tank, and chemical warfare in the form of a powder made of, amongst other things, peppermint and cinnamon oil.) Initial prognosis looks like we substantially reduced the population of the bouncy little buggers, though I suspect there will need to be a second wave to truly clear them out.

A Pox on Our House?

Egad! The boy’s got spots. Spots all over his legs and arms. Could it be the ‘pox? We’ll see... More news when we know... Meanwhile I’m off to bed, for I must away ere break of day to aid my students in their quest to conquer electrostatics.

My New Koan: Be the Fire Hose

When I was an undergraduate student at Caltech, a popular metaphor for the student experience there was that it was like drinking from a fire hose. I don’t know whether this image is related to the scene from the Weird Al movie UHF, or if it was unrelated but it was certainly an apt metaphor for the overwhelming wall of stuff that came at us.

Now I’m beginning to find myself feeling a bit in that mode again. The commitments and expectations from this new job are coming on strong and I’m beginning to get that old fire hose feeling again. The difference now is that the commitments are a great deal more creative than reactive. As a student, you’re primarily responding to the stimulus that is thrown at you. Now, many of my commitments are wanting something from me rather that wanting me to do something. I’m not drinking from the fire hose, so much as being liposuctioned by one.

Ah... there’s a pretty image.

Slurpy Little Widget What Gives Laptop Go Juice

The MacBook I ordered with my startup funds finally arrived today. Mostly it looks and acts just like the last one only a little lighter and quite a bit faster. But it’s got this weird power cord. It’s magnetic, so you just bring it in close and it sucks itself into place. Weird. I guess it’s supposed to reduce accidents from people tripping over power cords, or at least that’s what the mac commercials would have you believe.

Lot’s happening right now. Classes started this morning. I’ve moved into a new corner office. Sunshine and I are both attending new meditation groups, and Sunshine just joined a community choir tonight. Laz has developed a thing for fish. Actually, he’s probably had the fish thing for quite a while and we’ve only just noticed it. He also likes macaroni.

Much to cover but time is short, so tonight I will remain brief, and probably blunt. I must take up the quill again regularly though. My scribe is rusty.