School's out!

Here is a prime bit of end of term suckage, too: it is mid-December in Minnesota, and it is raining. Raining! If I wanted to live in a place with cool wet winters, I'd move back to Seattle.

It's mid-December here in Aotearoa and wonderfully sunny. Gloriously sunny. Mmmm-mm - I was just out eating my lunch and soaking up that sun.

And it's only going to get better for the next few weeks. Girls in bikinis anyone?

Paul wrote:
"it's just grading until my eyeballs evulse."

A loving God has granted you two wonderful gifts: academic tenure and scantron machines. You have taken advantage of the one, why not the other? How do you think I got through 5 classes a day for 33 years?

I hear ya PZ. It's in the mid 50s here on the Left coast and it's driving me nuts. We're coming home (south central Minnesota) for the holidays and I expect to see two feet of snow and sub zero temps. I'm still waiting for that tenure track position in Antarctica. I have no doubt that teaching penguins can be be rewarding...

tom neal...

just a b movie fan, or something more?

Come on, professor. I am actually beginning to enjoy the weather. When I first moved to MN the winter was my biggest fear. Thanks to EL Nino or whatever(my understanding of climate science is next to nil), my rides to work this year have been a lot easier than last year.

I know what you mean about the weather. I'm in Worcester, MA and it was 60 out today without a cloud in the sky. I might as well have stayed in Texas, at this rate.

Claire wrote:

"I'm in Worcester."

Great diner town!

Ya got your Blue Bell on Prescott St, the Boulevard on Shrewbury, Charlie's on Plantation St. and of course Miss Worcester on Southbridge. I wish I lived there. But I'm stuck here on Maui, where it's (yuck!) 82 and sunny.

I feel your pain CZ. I just finished the finals in my Lower Div. Courses. Liberal use of scantron there. I am starting the reading of the final papers in my Upper Div courses. My eyeballs will be in evulse mode by this time tomorrow. Then the e-mails from the disgruntled. All the best in putting Fall06 in the books...Damn only 4 more weeks to get the syllabi ready for spring.

The only final paper I ever had to write was a freshman seminar one on bioethics. Do you have any TA's, PZ? I've noticed that all my profs who give written essay/diagram exams tend to have lots of help grading them. :)

And I must say that after taking a horrific immunology exam today (oh, the humanity! Oh, the T-cells! Oh, the cytokines!), I'm not in a very sympathetic mood toward those who must now grade said exam. But I gave them good semester evaluations.

Curiously enough, the weather is unusually unpleasant in the Seattle area at the moment, lots of rain and high winds.

We're also experiencing flooding in my office up here in Kirkland, in addition to the wind. I'd still take this weather over Minnesota politics, any day of the (rainy, oh so dreary) week.

I have gotten used to seeing a lot of rain in December. In Finland we usually get a lot of snow for a few days between November and December after which it quickly melts. The permanent snow won't come until January.

Here's how things looked right out of my window on October 31st:

http://msdn.planetduke.gamespy.com/lunta.jpg

I hear ya PZ. I'm back home in the midwest for the holidays, and it's going to be near or above 50 for the next week or so. This is NOT supposed to be happening.

Tom Neal wrote:

A loving God has granted you two wonderful gifts: academic tenure and scantron machines.

Is this deliberate irony?

Pity the poor TA, for lo, we must both grade and write exams at this time. We must also bear the appeals of the whining masses, without control over their actual grades... blargle.

Ah, it's all part of this "Liberal Plot" called Global Warming" and it doesn't exist, really!

Actually, I suggest you look: HERE and see what government scientists, who have access to the longest continuous set of waether/climate data are saying.

PZ, you know God has declared cephalopods to be abominations. Global Heating is punishment for the Sin of Squid-Worship. As you may recall, God promised (with a rainbow) that he would never again drown all humanity in a Noachian deluge. This leaves Him with no choice but to Boil all humanity. Soon Kent Hovind will be Commanded to organize his flock, and build a Giant Refrigerator to hide in, so that the Faithful will be protected from the Wrath of God.

Since Zombie commented earlier, it's gotten even worse here in Seattle. The windows are rattling like castenets and the water is pouring down. They closed the 520 bridge at 10pm and the Hood Canal bridge shortly thereafter. This global climate change thing really sucks.

MKK

Quit complaining about the damn weather, y'all!
Down here in the Sunshine state It's been raining, hot, sticky and downright muggy for days now. It seems I'll have to put up with temps into the eighties and thundershowers well into next week. All that on top of putting up with the snowbirds who are here in droves to enjoy the cool dry Florida winters and don't know enough not to drive down flooded streets. Yeesh! Oh, BTW, most of them seem to be driving SUVs, but guess what, they don't float very well, he he he.

Here in the heart of the Sonoran Desert it will get up to about 25 C today and about 10 C overnight and looks to be sunny for the next week at least. Payback for the lovely summers we have here in Yuma.

Exams are over and just waiting for a couple of grades. My boss cannot seem to let go of any grading, I have offered to help, so her eyeballs are probably evulsing by now.

Cytokines! Ouch. Heartfelt condolations.

Cytokines! Ouch. Heartfelt condolations.