The whacking continues....

Jared and I switched sides of the bed last night. Turns out that Ramen is partial to the side of the bed, not the actual recipient of his whacking. So this morning, it was Jared that got hit in the face with claws about 10,000 times starting at 7am. Lucky guy. He invented a face-blowing technique to ward off this behavior that appears to have some promise. I don't know how we're going to decide who sleeps where from now on since we know what the consequences will be. Perhaps we'll employ the sort of algorithm we used to decide where to go to school. Man do I love quantifying that which cannot be quantified.

Hmmm, in other news, I'm trying to figure out what to do my masters project on. One of our visiting professors has some data that she has been working on about radioactive contamination in England. One of the risky behaviors is eating "winkle"!!! so funny, even after I found out that winkle is a fish. The cool thing is that she said it would definitely be publishable in a small journal called "radioactive contamination in england" or something equally specific and obscure. Another option is working with something called EM Algorithms that are apparently incredibly slick and very hard to understand. We'll have to wait and see how tuff i am...


Jared's cousin is having twins very very soon and since I can no longer justify buying things for myself on Ebay, I've started shopping for lots of baby clothes. So fun! I'm trying to get like 100 onsies for a dollar. Is that weird?

Please tell me they are PRETENDING to be this bad!!

Why are my students so bad at following directions and writing in complete sentences?????

Half of the time they don't answer the question they have been asked, but the question they wish they had been asked, namely: uh, what do you think about this data stuff?

Are they drunk while they do their homework??? Their sentences trail off into nowhere. Here is a typical sentence: The data is skewed and it is hard to determine the center through visually

WTF?? I understand that this is a required class and most of them don't really care about it but i'm starting to get really violent with the red pen. They have been explicitly told over and over and over and over and over to write their answers in complete sentences within the context of the problem. When asked about the shape of a distribution, I get something like this:

Well the data start around 40 and then go up and there are 4 bars at 70 and then a bunch more at 80.

The worst part is that these are the AMERICAN kids. The foreign students write things like this: The distribution of the number of games Wayne Gretsky played during his career is left skewed with most of the games falling between 75 and 80.

Why are americans so stupid? or at least lazy??????

Ok, sorry, I had to vent. Now I can go back to grading and perhaps I won't strike with such force using the red pen.

p.s. no actual homeworks were quoted here...in reality, they are much worse.

Rufus and Ramen

The most notable elements in my life in the last week have been Rufus Wainright's new album and Ramen wacking me in the face every 15 minutes after 8am.

On Rufus, the album is amazing. Antony from Antony and the Johnsons also makes an appearance which we love. There is a song that goes: "An old whore's diet gets me going in the morning," and damn does that song get us going in the morning. There's something about gay boys singing ballads about whores that really makes your morning better.

On Ramen, he has just been a giant pain in the ass lately. I love the little guy but I NEED TO SLEEP IN!!! He doesn't do it to Jared, he just wants ME up. He sits on me and meows and wacks my face with his paw. So today, I thought I'd outsmart him. I got out of bed, tired of hiding under the covers with no air and my own halitosis, and came out to the livingroom and went back to sleep on the couch. I thought he'd be satisfied because I was no longer in bed and in a different room. Whack. Apparently not.

He's just irritating everyone lately, even Irma.

On Comments: I LOVE THEM, BRING THEM ON but jimminy crickets! if you don't log in at least sign your comment so I know who the hell it came from. I've been having to do linguistic comparisons of syntax and you know I don't have time for that. Lots of law and order to watch and papers to grade.

ok, i have to go hold a baby now. i do it once a week for $5 for one hour. its a pretty sweet deal.

Latest kitty related injury: scraped my forehead on a branch trying to trap Irma and bring her back into the house after a foray in the yard. my students are going to think that my cats abuse me. or that i'm a giant klutz.

40lbs of veggies and a dysfunctional crisper

We went to "the world's largest garage sale" today. a better name would be "missoula's largest collection of damp junk in a parking garage." Most of the stuff was pretty bad but I got a new bike seat and an angel food cake pan all for $2.

Jared and I realized we'd reached fantasy dork heaven when we found a clock made of a giant shelacked (sp) piece of wood with a painting of a wizard riding a unicorn through space while fending off a dragon.

There was a whole creepy scenario at one particular stand where a young couple with a baby were looking at a keg. The dad was holding the baby while the tiny mom was freezing and carrying 50lbs of electronic equipment that looked to be recently purchased. They inquired about the keg to the creepy stand couple who replied that it still had beer in it. The man was super grissly and chainsmoking. The poodle permed, sweatpants lady claimed she used to drink until she had a stroke (she looks about 30).

Then my grandparents came to take us out to lunch. Jared hadn't met them yet and was sort of nervous. They arrived while he was taking a big dump which he didn't appreciate. They both had on head to toe denim and my grandpa was wearing a skater type fishing hat that said "TRUTH" on it. pretty intense.

I mentioned wanting to come work in the garden sometime this summer and never got around to it, so they brought me some veggies. I thought it would be just a few. It was a huge box I could hardly pick up. Potatoes, garlic, tomatoes, cucumbers, green peppers, and TONS of carrots. Our fridge is already packed to the gills and our crisper doesn't work....as in, the drawers don't really open. So, if anyone in town is reading this and needs a carrot or 50, let me know. All of this is in addtion to the corn i bought at farmers market 2 weeks ago and still haven't eaten because it sounds like too much work.

We took my grandparents out to Jared's grandparents' house so Frank could tell them about his yard and septic tank and actually have a captivated audience for once. My grandparents like yards.

School Days

So, school has started. Everytime we go outside Jared claims it feels like school, something about the sun and the crisp air or something. He loves it and hates it at the same time. What can I say, the kid is mixed up.

I'm teaching a new class this semester, stats, which regardless of the comp I just passed, I really don't know anything about. So i'm always just marginally one step ahead of the game. I attend lectures, yet I find them so boring I fall asleep. I'm hoping things will get better.

I took the kitties to the vet yesterday....that was an experience. Jared and I have opposite schedules this year so I had to take them by myself. I put them in their little cardboard carriers, each with a fuzzy toy. I had cut some extra air holes in their carriers so they wouldn't be so hot and freaked out. I forgot that we have fierce little dudes who are impervious to cardboard. Ramen was out before I could get him in the car. I chased him into the bushes. Luckily, his method of defense when being chased is to lay down.

On the way there in the car, Irma escaped her carrier and LORD the noises. I have never heard anything like it. So upsetting. When I got there, I had to throw them inside individually and then go outside and turn off the car. The people in the vets office thought I was just throwing in cats and taking off.

And here's the kicker: Apparently, Ramen is too fat. We were blinded by our love for him and thought he was just big boned. Even more surprisingly, Irma is chubby. So now the kitties are on a diet. We have a chart above their food so Jared and I don't just take turns indescriminately scooping food into their bowls everytime Irma asks for it.

They were pretty good for the vet. But when I was trying to leave, I had this guy from the waiting room come with me to make sure that Ramen didn't escape the car when I put Irma in. I hadn't made it two steps out of the door before Irma starts freaking out and scrabbling and scratching me and leapt out of my arms and started running. The man dove into a bush and caught her and wrapped her up in his shirt. It was very adventurous.

Needless to say, we are going to be investing in a hardsided pet carrier in the near future.

I PASSED!!!!!!!!

The results are in and I passed! I'm so happy/relieved that I don't have to do that again because that was one of the worst weekends I've ever had.

Things are good. I switched out of algebra and into another statistics class which lessens my workload and increases my marketability.

Jared is good....he only has a 3 day week. Every week. I'm trying not to be jealous.

I just realized I'm exhausted. $5 hot and ready pizza for dinner.