First impressions
Jan. 8th, 2008 19:12![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
torquillWell, I think this quarter won't be too bad.
It was soggy as hell up there, and cold this morning. Colder with the rain than yesterday was without. And yet more rain, yay, on top of the already-saturated soil; I saw a lot of minor flooding, and the mud is horrible. The groundspeople have been doing a terrific job of clearing up the mess from the winds -- some of the tree groves looked like boneyards, littered with small and sometimes large branches, and the walks were carpeted with twigs and pine needles -- but it's still a mess on campus.
This was the sort of day that allows me to justify spending $140 on a good raincoat. My Pintsize hoodie makes a great liner for it, so I stayed dry and (relatively) warm, even in truly nasty weather. Next time I take the gloves, though, even if the forecast is rain... the new ones are lined wool, and I keep forgetting about the possibility of cold rain. Numb fingers, whee.
The little shoulder-bag that my coat packs into turns out to be just the right size to drape over my bookbag when it's on the bike. It's waterproof, and I have to stash it somewhere anyway, so it might as well keep the rain off my bag. This is what's known as an "all-in-one solution"... :)
And yay for those sturdy Chipotle napkins. They're great for drying off my bike seat, and they last a long time.
My Plant Biotech prof yesterday was pretty average; an even-tempered Indian guy, nothing scary. Prof. Bloom, who runs the Crop Ecosystems class, is quite simply a goofball... he's silly in class, very enthusiastic, and he's full of odd and humorous tangents. He's been teaching this class for a long time, so he's fully aware that the phrase "I believe that exams can be learning experiences" creates a distinct current of unease in the class, and is amused by it. He may throw us some curve balls, but he seems good-natured for all that, and I don't believe he'll screw us over. (I have yet to find out whether his TA is as cute as he looked at first glance.)
Prof Resendez is handling Latin American History, and he's... young. Very young, by the looks of things, but serious enough to put ten years on his apparent age (which is lower than mine). It was encouraging that he chose the textbooks to be "accessible" and readable, and he is going to focus on the who and why of things, rather than just a litany of dates. My sort of structure. It shouldn't be too onerous.
I asked Resendez whether I could knit during lecture, and after a moment's thought he said sure, as long as I did it unobtrusively. Bloom told me sardonically that he learned to knit once just so that he could piss off a bad teacher, and after a little verbal tussle including my telling him that his "visual" approach to learning would keep me captivated only if it were more than one slide every five minutes, he agreed that I could knit... so long as I would tell him what I was working on. (I have this urge, now, to knit something naughty just so that I can see his reaction. Hee!) I don't think he was as resistant as it seems... he just wanted me to work for it. That's the way he is: justify everything if you want something from him.
There were a couple of people in my Crop class that I know from Plant Path, but the other two classes don't have anyone I recognize; the history class is full of freshmen, anyway. It was good to see Leslie and... the tall Englishman, whatever his name was, from Plant Path. Maybe we'll study a bit together. Leslie in particular is a nice lady.
I have to figure out how to feed myself during the 20-minute break on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the microwave in the basement of Olson is giving me some good ideas to start with.
It was soggy as hell up there, and cold this morning. Colder with the rain than yesterday was without. And yet more rain, yay, on top of the already-saturated soil; I saw a lot of minor flooding, and the mud is horrible. The groundspeople have been doing a terrific job of clearing up the mess from the winds -- some of the tree groves looked like boneyards, littered with small and sometimes large branches, and the walks were carpeted with twigs and pine needles -- but it's still a mess on campus.
This was the sort of day that allows me to justify spending $140 on a good raincoat. My Pintsize hoodie makes a great liner for it, so I stayed dry and (relatively) warm, even in truly nasty weather. Next time I take the gloves, though, even if the forecast is rain... the new ones are lined wool, and I keep forgetting about the possibility of cold rain. Numb fingers, whee.
The little shoulder-bag that my coat packs into turns out to be just the right size to drape over my bookbag when it's on the bike. It's waterproof, and I have to stash it somewhere anyway, so it might as well keep the rain off my bag. This is what's known as an "all-in-one solution"... :)
And yay for those sturdy Chipotle napkins. They're great for drying off my bike seat, and they last a long time.
My Plant Biotech prof yesterday was pretty average; an even-tempered Indian guy, nothing scary. Prof. Bloom, who runs the Crop Ecosystems class, is quite simply a goofball... he's silly in class, very enthusiastic, and he's full of odd and humorous tangents. He's been teaching this class for a long time, so he's fully aware that the phrase "I believe that exams can be learning experiences" creates a distinct current of unease in the class, and is amused by it. He may throw us some curve balls, but he seems good-natured for all that, and I don't believe he'll screw us over. (I have yet to find out whether his TA is as cute as he looked at first glance.)
Prof Resendez is handling Latin American History, and he's... young. Very young, by the looks of things, but serious enough to put ten years on his apparent age (which is lower than mine). It was encouraging that he chose the textbooks to be "accessible" and readable, and he is going to focus on the who and why of things, rather than just a litany of dates. My sort of structure. It shouldn't be too onerous.
I asked Resendez whether I could knit during lecture, and after a moment's thought he said sure, as long as I did it unobtrusively. Bloom told me sardonically that he learned to knit once just so that he could piss off a bad teacher, and after a little verbal tussle including my telling him that his "visual" approach to learning would keep me captivated only if it were more than one slide every five minutes, he agreed that I could knit... so long as I would tell him what I was working on. (I have this urge, now, to knit something naughty just so that I can see his reaction. Hee!) I don't think he was as resistant as it seems... he just wanted me to work for it. That's the way he is: justify everything if you want something from him.
There were a couple of people in my Crop class that I know from Plant Path, but the other two classes don't have anyone I recognize; the history class is full of freshmen, anyway. It was good to see Leslie and... the tall Englishman, whatever his name was, from Plant Path. Maybe we'll study a bit together. Leslie in particular is a nice lady.
I have to figure out how to feed myself during the 20-minute break on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but the microwave in the basement of Olson is giving me some good ideas to start with.
