15 December 2006

School ender; Ginger downer; Neighbor cuffer

I've got all but one student's grades submitted now. That student really REALLY should have opted for a medical withdrawal. She's been unable to take the final twice due to doctor/hospital/etc visits. This is after missing more than a month of classes anyway, so her chances of passing are slim to none. Looks like we're trying again on Monday. We shall see how it goes.

In other news, apparently I need to stop using ginger altogether for a while. Again. It seems to result in severe depression in even small quantities at the moment. This sounds worse than it is, I suspect. Basically, there's pain and misery, but it doesn't feel like MY pain and misery. I can tell that it's "drug" induced. Which makes it relatively easy to counter by keeping busy. If it were true depression, I wouldn't WANT to do anything. Or so I hear. This seems to be a very VERY rare side effect of ginger (usually associated with high doses). I've also found instances where ginger has been used to TREAT depression. Anyway, last time it took two or three days to wear off completely. *mutters to herself*

Oh, it wasn't in tea this time. I generally spice fried meats with red pepper, cardamom, coriander and ginger. Looks like I'll cut back to just the first three until summer. Then I might give ginger another go. If it starts bothering me then, it's just going on my verboten list. Permanently.

One more random tidbit: I think my southern neighbor may have been arrested earlier this week. I have no idea what for. On Wednesday (I think) I came back to grab a few things at my house before running back up to my office at ISU. There were a lot of cars in the driveway south of my house (which isn't unusual). One woman gave me a very hard look as I went into my house, which struck me as unnecessary and odd. Then when I came back out, I saw my neighbor with his hands cuffed behind his back, talking a guy in uniform. A police car was parked in front of my northern neighbor's house, and a white car that was almost certainly an undercover police car (extra instrument above the driver's side mirror) was parked in front of the presumed arrestee's house. I left before I saw the conclusion, but my neighbor's truck has not been moved since that day, and it usually gets driven at least once a day.

I do know that said neighbor has been in prison before, but I have no clue for what. He used to come over to chat quite a bit (which we later found out was because he had a crush on my then-roommate, who was NOT happy about it; I mean, the guy's married and twice her age). Since she moved up to Oregon, I haven't had any major problems with him. From a distance, he seems a fairly nice guy. Loud, mildly abrasive, but overall nice. *shrugs* I seem to have inherited his cat once again, though. The cat doesn't seem to get anything to eat when this guy is gone (I don't know if his wife won't feed him, or if the cat won't take food from her).

No comments: