Thursday, January 21, 2010

Durm und strang

That's what we've got around here, people, durm und strang.

The weather's been wild. On Tuesday, as I was driving to pick the girls up, the radio suddenly piped up with a tornado warning. Yup, you heard me right, tornado. None touched down in our area, but further north they did. Weird. It's been windy ("cyclonic", the weatherpeople keep saying), and there's been hail, and graupel (apparently quite the rare meteorological phenomenon, not to be confused with hail), and rain (almost boring after all those other things). We walked the dogs in the rain this morning, my friend and I, and we got WET. Of course, I'm loving it. But I think I'm probably the only one. And I'll admit that it was a bit shocking yesterday when I headed out to the car in what looked like sprinkles, only to get hailed upon before I'd made it through the parking lot. Ah, well.

Work has also had its share of storms. For example, late last Wednesday, the powers that be lifted the 13-unit cap that had been imposed upon students and told them that they could now register for as many classes as they'd like. Normally, that would give us several days to assess whether or not classes are going to fill before the semester starts. But no. We had Thursday. Because Friday was a staff furlough day, Monday was a campus holiday, and Tuesday was a mandatory furlough day, and classes started bright and early Wednesday morning. All I can say is that yesterday was one long drill in putting out fires. The class I needed to have opened to backfill for a cohort I'm teaching wouldn't open. I was told I could add students with permission numbers, but was given no permission numbers to give students. Meanwhile, none of my online class shells had been populated with students, and this on the first semester I've decided to go paperless with the syllabi. (The upshot of the students not getting populated is that they can't access the class syllabus. Now we know why I've been fighting the whole paperless syllabus trend.)

It goes from there, but I'll stop. The upshot is that while I've been hip-deep in it this whole week, my fiber activities have hit a lull. There's been very little knitting, except today, when I took an hour to go to my on-campus knitting group, and a well-deserved and truly-enjoyed hour it was, too!

Also? I got a nook. Heh. The kicker? Was when my SIL kindly wrote to point out that knitting patterns are pdfs, and I can put pdfs on my e-reader. Boy howdy! How happy was I? Very very happy.

16 comments:

EGunn said...

Oh, my. Things are off to a good start, huh? Hopefully that's all the drama for the semester right there on the first day.

I love stormy weather! (Though I'll take mine without the tornadoes, thankyouverymuch.)

Hope things get a little less stormy soon.

Lori said...

aw, snap! I forgot about putting knitting patterns on my kindle! COOL! That's brilliant, and now I know what I'll be doing this weekend as part of my leaving-for-my-conference preparation. Because after suits and paperwork, you've got to consider (a) which books to take (though less a problem with my Kindle) and (b) what knitting to take. Excellent idea, thank you SIL.

and 'durm und strang' - funny. :)

Wanderingcatstudio said...

I hate weeks like that. And I marvel at the poorly-thought-out decisions of management on so many occasions. Hope things look up soon!

Anonymous said...

The pdf reader sounds awesome, and I'm a bit jealous. As for work weirdness, I understand. I'm nominally in charge of our science dept without any actual authority, and we're having issues with a coworker, need to get state inspectors to sign off on the safety of our labs, as well as other general weirdness, and it's all my problem. I know it will look good on a resume, but I'm not sure the nominal stipend is worth it.

As for the paperless thing, we're so far behind on tech at my school that I don't have to worry about that for several years.

I hope your semester gets better.

Take care.
Sarah

Willow said...

This semester has been better for The Professor (so far) but last sem...I deleted what I had written...best left unwritten in a public forum.

My tutoring student's school was hit by a tornado today! Wow!

pdf's of my knitting patterns on kindle??! That might be a good enough reason to purchase one. May your Friday be filled with knitting!

twinsetellen said...

I've been thinking of you, hearing the storms hitting the coast. I'm glad you are enjoying getting west and have not been in the path of the meteorological tornado, though it does sound as though you are in the path of a different type.

Now I need to go figure out how to load pdfs onto my Kindle. thanks for that lead!

twinsetellen said...

It worked!!!!

FUZZARELLY said...

Durn and Strange.

That's how I read your title, and apparently, I was correct.

Rachael said...

Sorry to hear it's all madness and frustration at work. That can bring everything down.

Where I grew up we get graupel alot, but having never seen it written I imagined it spelled like scrapple, grapple. lol

And DUDE, YES to the PDFs, how awesome is that?? Now you can have a digital back up while traveling! That also makes me inordinately happy.

Rachel said...

Actually your weather sounds just like my cup of tea, I wish I was there, here it's quite disappointing so far,,,,

Mary Lou said...

Hmm, that may cause me to rethink the whole kindle thing. We are also have wierd weather. Warmish, so freezing rain instead of snow. I only hope the rain forecast for tomorrow turns to snow or we'll have serious flooding. When the ground is frozed and snowcovered, the rain has nowhere to go. UGH. Sorry for the bureaucraptic stuff. Don't you wonder if anyone thinks anything thru?

Janet said...

That suggestion of having knitting patterns on the kindle has me rethinking the kindle issue. Hmm.

Gwen said...

hugs and hugs and hugs and maybe some hard liquor to make the work foolishness go down easier.

And I was thinking nook like in front of a fire, which would be just about right.

We had little thunderstorms! And I got to be in the hospital when the power went out! (for only a minute, but still!) !!!! (and I've been driving around more this week for work than the past two months put together.

Lynne said...

Hope things get better soon.

I am not looking forward to the new academeic year - and I don't have to be involved in the organisational side at all! What I really need is a holiday/vacation!

Bea said...

Wow your weather is crazy. If you were here I would just ignore the tornado thing because that's normal, but...Also graupel sounds interesting. I clicked the link. Wow work sounds crazy too. Sorry so hectic that work is starting with such a bang.

Knitting patterns on the e-reader is definitely something I hadn't thought of.

Nana Sadie said...

You had to tell me that about the Nook?
(sigh)
The hard part? Do I buy new (smaller) clothing or the Nook?
lololol
(((hugs)))