Written by a practitioner of mathematics, philosophy, taiji, gluten-free cooking, chant, meditation, gardening, and renovation, with no particular end in mind. Were there an end, it would come too soon, and the Path would cease to Wander.
I somehow managed to sprain, or maybe just strain, something in my thumb. It's not the joint that connects the thumb to the hand. I think it may be the muscles/tendons connecting the two other joints. I'm not really sure how I managed to injure it, but I have a few guesses.
It started on Saturday. My shoulder had been twinging, and at roughly the same time, I felt some tingling in the tip of the left thumb. At the time, I figured something in my shoulder was just pinching a nerve. Then Sunday evening, the area between the two outer joints was very sore and tender. By Monday morning, it was noticeable swollen. I made a makeshift splint out of a chopstick (broken down closer to lenght) and the tape from my desk. This was a trifle odd-looking, but it kept the sore part from moving and reminded me not to use that thumb. After I got done teaching, I stopped at the dollar store. No real thumb splints there, but there was some self-sticking wrap (the kind often used when people donate blood) and a package of tongue depressors. From that, I was able to construct a splint that looked a bit more professional, and kept the thumb immobilized for most of the day, and most of Tuesday.
It's quite a bit better this morning, though I'll probably immobilize it before heading to work, and I think I've figured out part of the cause. I'm still missing a piece, though. On Saturday afternoon, I went to Westwood Discount (they get damaged/clearance/overstock goods, mainly, plus some stuff like you'd find at a dollar store) and didn't bother to get a basket. I was holding my items awkwardly, and my shoulder was complaining from it. I suspect I was using the left thumb to put pressure on something to keep it from falling and either overworked or overstretched something along the back of the thumb. As it wasn't swollen the next morning, it wasn't actually injured yet. That morning, I printed out some D&D tiles and spent some time cutting them out with an Exacto knife and a straight edge (tip: get a straight edge with cork backing; they don't slide nearly as much), and probably used that thumb to keep the ruler from sliding. As the pain didn't start until evening, either there was some final thing that sent it from "overused" to "sprained" or it was just very slow coming on. My bet is on the former, but I have no idea what the final trigger might have been.
Ah well. It wasn't a major sprain, since one of the described symptoms is "unable to pinch thumb and forefinger together." I could pinch, it was just painful to do so for very long.
I've discovered a list of things that are much easier to do with a functioning left thumb, now. "Putting contacts in" is at the top of the list. "Putting ice trays in the freezer" is next; I'm much less proficient at that with my right hand and spill a lot more water. "Adjusting the left strap of a backpack." "Wearing gloves." "Buttoning trousers." I'm sure there'd be even more if it were my right hand, however.
And I keep meaning to post some of my self-made dungeon tiles here... I've borrowed freely from stuff I've found, so I might as well add to the available resources with the ones I've made.
As usual, I was roped into turning pages for my mom for her church choir's Christmas Cantata. The music was less objectionable this year than in years past, but the narration was absolutely horrid. The last thing you want to think of during a Christmas cantata is a "used car salesman," but that's how the narration came across: as a sales pitch. Blech. Last year Kim suggested leaving out the narration, and everyone objected. I doubt Robin would have thought of leaving it out, but it would have been vastly improved that way this year.
As for me, I'm perfectly happy to see Christmas as a solstice celebration, with a "rebirth of the sun" theme that Christians take to a rather odd extreme. Something that still puzzles me... If there is only one Deity, and if that deity created everything, then if someone worships something other than said Deity, that something must have been created by the Deity ... so how can there ever be such a thing as worshiping a false deity under those premises? There's plenty more that puzzles me, but I'm not in the mood for making a list, let alone checking it twice. ^!^
It's only "one down," btw, because I also have to help turn pages at the candlelight Christmas Eve service. I like the candles, and generally the singing, depending on the carols chosen. The rest I can do without.
I seem to have acquired another cat. She's not quite full grown, and is what they describe as a "tuxedo cat", meaning mostly black with a bit of white on the chest. I saw her hanging around the yard in the fall, kind of getting along with my cats, and fairly friendly towards me. Two nights ago, I went out to change the cats' litterbox and saw her again, meowing plaintively from under my car. I guessed that she was hungry, and opened the garage and put a can of food in there for her. She gobbled it up in under 30 seconds, so then I put out a bowl of dried stuff for her. I saw her again the next day, and showed her the rest of the dried stuff she'd left behind, and gave her another can of food last night.
This morning, she rather insistently barged into the house. It's about -10° out there, so this is understandable, though it was actually colder yesterday. Anyway, I was most worried about how Dovienya would react, but Dovi just ignored her. Pouncer seems mostly interested, but cautious. The two girls, Princess and Jilly, are rather unhappy about her. They've been having staring contests all morning. I think I'd better lock Tuxedo (hopefully a temporary name) in a separate room while I'm gone, as I'm not sure what they'll do without me around to mediate.
She's got the same snub nose as Princess, and similar ears and facial features to Dovi, so I'm wondering if she's possibly related to Dovi (same mother?). If so, this might explain why Dovi wasn't worried about her.
I think I've decided that taking two full classes while teaching full time is too much. The schedule just wore me down continuously through the semester. On the, er, ambiguously positive(?) side, I suppose, next school year that won't be an issue, "barring a change in administration." I need to get applications in for grad school over break, if at all possible.
As far as I can tell, anyone who actually gives a damn about undergraduate education despises what the Frank Burns administration is trying to do, and anyone with actual experience in such matters knows full well that ISU is not going to become the MIT of the midwest (which is a misnomer anyway, since the midwest is further east than we are). I'm not sure how I feel about the situation at this moment in time. But my strongest reaction is still relief that I'll be out while Burns sends ISU down the toilet.
It will be interesting to see what happens when I put in my math program application. On the one hand, there's not much Fisher can do about the administration's machinations; on the other, he still needs instructors. As a grad student, I would teach one or two courses (they didn't have much choice but to up the load), which would still lose them at least three overall.
They've also been playing fast and loose with the definition of "full time" for faculty, as an excuse to decrease insurance benefits. At this point in time, I really wish I could send one of my evil fictional characters to go play with Burns and his cohorts for a while. Of course, then I'd have to find a way to get them back out of the real world, and, well, I created them, so I know they wouldn't cooperate. *sighs*
My mom's out of town, going to a class to keep her accounting license current, so I've been taking care of her cats. Meanwhile, I've had a slight cold or weird allergies or something, on top of some* food item disagreeing with me sometime prior to Wednesday morning, so I haven't eaten much in the past three days, and it's starting to catch up with me. Still, we finally got the chest open in D&D tonight, so now I have to figure out what all Dovra saw. She was mostly focused on the chest, except when the harpie summoned everyone closer to it (rather idiotically as it turned out), and when Allonar took a crack at the chest for one turn, so she finally got to use her Healer's Mercy.
Inside the chest? Some sort of fire-elemental-in-a-rock, as far as I can tell. No clue why Blue Cheese put it in there. It's friendly, and can enhance flames (though Dovra doesn't actually know that yet), but I suspect it may turn out to be more trouble than it's worth. As we quit for the night, it had lured our dragonborn, who was supposed to be on guard duty while the rest of us slept, out to go "hunting." The DM assures us that they won't actually find anything to hunt, but... *shrugs*
There were other activities going on at the meeting place (a sort of weekly gathering that some of the group go to independently of D&D), but lack of food was massively catching up with me, and there was nothing non-poisonous there to eat. So I went shopping instead. At 10:00 pm. Eggs tend to agree with my stomach no matter what, and I was out of them at home. Now that I've had a semi-decent meal (two scrambled eggs and an apple), I feel considerably better.
*AM UPDATE: I am about 99% certain that it was the turkey stew I made from my family's leftover Thanksgiving turkey that upset my stomach. I did not eat any on Thursday, and had no major problems on Friday. I ate a small portion on Friday, and had some problems today. I'm not sure if it went bad in the fridge, as it caused no problems at the beginning of the week, or if there was just too much of something-or-other in it and my body got oversaturated with that. Either way, the stew is now going in the trash.
I seem to be 90% over whatever I had/have. My mom is still feeling pretty lousy, though. She's got the sinus symptoms on top of everything else. A few odd things that I've noticed. With most illnesses, when my blood sugar drops below some threshold, I suddenly feel 10 times worse. This one started off that way, but since Tuesday, it's been the opposite. If my blood sugar rises too quickly (say from drinking something sugary, like juice), I become light-headed. I didn't realize that was what was happening on Tuesday, or I might have had a more pleasant day. Yesterday, I had some juice and shortly after that felt dizzy. Later I started on another serving of juice, but felt the same thing start, and stopped before I'd had more than a sip. So...no juice, or massively sugary snacks, until this thing is well and truly gone.
Caffeine helps, but I know better than to subject myself to large doses of caffeine too often. If I get too much, when it wears off it triggers a much worse case of dizziness than anything I've had from the flu. Think seasickness, where it feels like the floor is moving, but on dry land. I try to limit things containing large quantities of caffeine to once or twice a week because of that.
I did finally develop a very mild fever, but it was so mild that I don't know if it even counts. This was certainly not the worst illness I've ever had, but I may have just been lucky. And the more I think about it, the more I think it actually hit last Wednesday, not Saturday. Wednesday my head was feeling odd and somewhat painful, to the point that I debated not going to my philosophy classes after I was done teaching. I did go, and made it through them. Thursday I felt somewhat better, Friday somewhat worse again, then Saturday I felt like death warmed over. Lacking a fever, I assumed it was allergies...until I talked to my mom Monday and found out her diagnosis.
So the progression for me looked like: (1) Sudden sharp back pain (about a week before the rest hit) (2) Oddness in the head with headache. (3) Fatigue, lethargy (felt fine so long as I didn't move much) (4) Very mild fever (5) Milder fatigue, occasional head twinges (6) Subsidence
I have no idea if that's typical, though I have read that swine flu does not consistently produce the high fevers seen with most cases of flu. On the plus side, I've just caught and gotten over the worst disease known to be going around this year, so I should be scot-free the rest of the year. Hopefully. ^!^
I had to rescue Jilly from the roof of the garage this morning. I'm not entirely sure how she got up there, but when I went out to get the cats in, there she was. My best guess is that she climbed up the neighbor's fence and jumped from there. She was meowing plaintively, like she didn't know how to get down, so I went into the garage and got the ladder. I don't like ladders, but I can use them so long as I feel stable enough on them. I got her down, found Princess hiding between the garage and the fence, and took off for work with the wrong set of keys. Thankfully, the secretaries get here before 8:00 am and have keys.
My first real indication that I have a minor problem with heights came when I was seven or eight and at my grandma and grandad's house in Akron, Colorado. There was something we had to climb up onto the garage for, and I got nominated because I was the smallest and lightest. I hated it. Give me handholds and rocks and ledges, and I'm perfectly happy. Put me on a ladder and I'm miserable. I think it's the same issue as with the stairs: all the open space makes me feel unstable. On a ledge, I feel more secure because I have the rock-face/building/whatever right next to me.
Interestingly, having the cold and medication nullify the effect for a day seems to have resulted in it mostly abating. Or, it might be more accurate to say that I've found a way to feel stable despite the open air of the staircase, and I think that I would not have done so without that moment of drug-induced clarity. That let me know that it was possible for me not to feel the effects, so I went looking for a way to duplicate the "cure" without the drugs in my system. Essentially, it's a mental image of dropping my root into the structure of the stairs, rather like the sensation I get whilst rooting against a taiji push. I wonder if that would work on the catwalk at the Minidome?
In rock-climbing, we climbed up the catwalk, which runs across the very center of a large stadium. It's probably a 100-150 foot drop. Climbing up the catwalk was much harder for me than rappelling down from it. Okay, the first time I said something like, "I'm a little bit terrified here," to the person who was helping me secure my harness, but, seriously, the rappel down was fun. The climb up...not so much. Incidentally, part of the reason I took rock-climbing was to work on my fear of heights.
This has me wondering about my reactions to high, unenclosed spaces. The linked article discusses cases where the sight of stairs triggered seizures in some people. Now, it's not the sight of the stairs themselves that triggers my reaction; rather, it's the sense of being unanchored when I'm up high with no support structures in my field of vision. At least, I think that's what's going on.
But it has me wondering. Is vertigo itself a kind of seizure, triggered by a visual cue? Apparently there are cases of epilepsy where the form of the seizure is an intense sensation of vertigo, but that doesn't mean that all vertigo is connected to seizures. The thing that really puzzles me is the way it just disappeared last Friday when I had the cold coming on and was full of cold medication. If it were nothing more than a fear of heights, why would a physical change affect it? Also, I'm much less likely to experience vertigo if I'm up high on a naturally occuring structure, like a rock, or mountainside, or even a cliff face.
Okay, I've been habituating myself to the open staircases, but you expect gradual change from that, not a sudden reversal. It's come back somewhat since then, but not as bad as before. The cold is mostly gone now. I'm sort of wondering if the vertigo will come back full strength when the cold is completely gone.
Hmmm... one other possibility comes to mind. Vertigo can be linked to inner ear problems. Possibly I have these constantly but only notice when I feel unsteady due to external circumstances, and the cold medicine cleared out the inner ears enough that I no longer had problems. I don't know enough to know how plausible that is. *shrugs*
The annoying staircases at the Rendezvous Center on campus have given me a chance to play around with my minor fear of heights. I've figured out the combination that results in vertigo almost every time: looking up while being in a high, unenclosed location. The main staircases there are lined with a sort of mesh that does not block the view much at all. The lack of enclosure is what makes me feel unsteady when I look up towards the ceiling on those stairs. I have no problem looking down.
For comparison, I tried one of the enclosed staircases in the same building. Looking up from the midway platforms there doesn't bother me at all: those staircases are enclosed, so I feel steady. I'm not sure why looking down doesn't bother me on the open staircases, but maybe it's because the solid ground below also provides a sense of stability. I've also played around a bit on the way down the open staircases. There are some lights mounted high on support columns. So long as I'm looking down at them, I'm fine. But, even on the way down, as soon as they are higher than I am, I get that unsteady/vertigo feeling again.
In general, to go up those open staircases, I have to keep my eyes focused down on the surface of the steps below me and avoid looking towards any part of the railing that provides an upwards view. Amusingly, on Friday I had a cold coming on, and wound up climbing up those stairs. I could tell as soon as I stepped on them that something was different. That time, I could look up freely and feel no more vertigo than I do when looking down (not quite zero, but close enough). Between the cold medication and the cold, whatever it is that induces the vertigo wasn't functioning. I have no idea what to make of that, except to note that it's actually a rather nice view when it doesn't make you nearly lose your balance.
I mentioned before that the math department's paper budget is currently barely enough to cover printing tests for classes, let alone anything else. Here are some of the effects. And, yes, I've done all of these.
6. You raid the paper recycling bin for paper only used on one side. 5. You post everything to Moodle so that students can print it out on someone else's paper. 4. You start hoarding all abandoned papers and notebooks in classrooms. 3. You find an envelope on your desk and hoard it for scrap paper. 2. You look at the envelope and are pleased to note that if you unfold it, there is another blank writing surface on the other side. And finally: #1. You get junk mail in your mailbox and are ecstatic to see that one side of each page in the junk mail is blank.
I thought I had two more days, but I just checked my calendar. I've had 1000 straight days of practice (taiji, yoga, chanting, meditation) as of today. I wasn't sure I'd make it 10 when I started, let alone 1000. I really think the practice saved my life. It was a minor but useful thing that I could do even in the depths of depression and feel a sense of accomplishment.
There have been times when I did the bare, bare minimum just to check it off as done, but lately I've been expanding the practice. I'm up to 22 minutes of standing meditation now. Cheng Man Ch'ing is supposed to have said that one shouldn't even learn the taiji form until one could make 30 minutes; it strengthens the quads and teaches proper skeletal alignment. I can probably jump up to 24 minutes in the next week or so.
Anyway, this song seems appropriate, though I doubt I'll be around long enough to make it to 1000 years. I suppose it's conceivable, but incredibly unlikely ... unless there really is something to the Taoist elixir of immortality nonsense and I've chosen the correct practice to find said elixir. ^!^
I've got a somewhat bizarre schedule this semester, and it's wreaking havoc with my sense of time. On Monday and Wednesday, I'm on campus for almost 12 hours: 7:30 a.m. to about 7:00 pm. On Tuesday and Thursday, I'm on campus for three hours (not counting taiji). This has led to me thinking of Monday and Tuesday as a single unit that ends Tuesday before noon, and that whole unit becomes "Monday," while "Wednesday" starts then and goes until Thursday before noon, at which point it becomes "Friday." It's a bit surreal, in point of fact, especially when it's still technically Wednesday and I keep thinking that "tomorrow" is Friday.
We killed the cavern chokers, and Heian eventually found their stash of loot ... while Dovra attacked walls with thunder randomly, once learning that a particular section was ten feet thick, and once dazing herself. Strangely, thunder isn't good to use against walls in very small, narrow tunnels. The rest of the party wandered off into the labyrinth, and managed to defeat 4 "wolfogryphs" (part wolf, part eagle), a giant ant, and two bloodrat-spiderswarms. No luck solving the labyrinth yet, but Dovra will head in there next time we meet. She's a bit irritated at the moment.
I gave the same test to two classes this morning. In the 8:00 am class, I had 10 or so students still hanging on as the class ended, and very very few who left early. I figured that meant I had made the test a wee bit too long. In the 11:00 am class, I only had 3 students still there at time, and only 2 kept working for the five minutes before I felt like I had to let the next class into the room. That's a reasonable number; 10 is not. I don't know if the 8:00 am students were less awake and thus slower, or if the 11:00 am students were just more interested in lunch and thus ready to give up more quickly. I'll have to consider grades very carefully on these.
In the Math 108 center, today was the first quiz deadline, so I figured we'd have a steady stream of business. We didn't. We never had more than 5 students in there at once, and for most of the time, it was just one student at a time. Usually in the fall, everyone's a bit panicked and coming in for last minute help, particularly on the very first quiz. I'm not sure why this semester is different.
In other news, apparently our misbegotten president, aka Frank Burns, has been quoted as saying he wants to turn ISU into "the MIT" of the something-west. This is a bit like saying you want to turn your rickety old garage into the Taj Mahal. The translation of the statement is that he wants ISU to become a top-notch research institution. To do that, apparently, lots of graduate students are required, and qualified instructors are an unnecessary luxury. It's worth noticing that he waited until after his 3-year contract had been renewed to start axing people randomly. The current thinking is that he's trying to pad his resume to get himself a cushy job somewhere far away from here when those three years are up. I want to see him crash and burn for this. ISU has been primarily an education institution. I don't object to increasing its research capabilities, but I do object to doing so at the expense of basic education. Also, Burns has overlooked one rather important detail: you also need faculty to, ya know, teach and supervise the grad students. Maybe he thinks that grad students just show up and create research with no guidance. Who knows at this point.
I was feeling all right on Thursday morning, but, when I glanced in the mirror, I looked awful: sunken eyes with dark circles. That afternoon, a dizzy spell hit me. It felt like the kind I get when I've overindulged in caffeine and the withdrawal starts to set in, so I expected it to pass. It did, but then morphed into a sort of cold. I say 'sort of' because there's almost no sinus drainage. There's a mild headache, a mild fever, and fatigue. The really weird thing is that my breathing is just fine. Usually that gets considerably worse when I've got a cold.
So I stayed home from taiji today, not wanting to infect my classmates or teacher, and ventured out once to see if Wal-Mart had Dexter, Season 3. They did, and at a cheaper price than Amazon. It was money well spent, and I'm about halfway through the season now. Still, that was about all the wandering I wanted to do today: on the way back to the car, my body let me know that little amount of walking around had overstressed it.
I'm wondering if this is the same cold that Melissa had earlier in the semester. In her case, it first manifested as a migraine, and it took her a while to realize it was actually a cold. So, inappropriately generalizing from a sample of two, perhaps this cold enhances some existing painful tendency as it begins, before settling down into a monotony of tiredness.
It seems to be better tonight, as I made it through 20 minutes of standing meditation with only a tiny bit more 'heat' than usual. Maybe tomorrow it will break and I can get back to a semi-normal routine. The problem is that I was feeling pretty well most of Friday ... pretty much until my blood sugar dropped too far for too long. That's classic for me and colds. So we shall see if this respite is in fact a sign of recovery.
There's a series of math talks on Octonions this semester in the math department. The first one was yesterday afternoon. It dawned on me there that I do still have an interest in math for math's sake, particularly when it has interesting applications. Octonions turn out to be useful in string theory, which I found in a general hunt yesterday, and the Wikipedia article mentions special relativity and quantum logic as well.
It's also the first group I've come across that is neither commutative nor associative. Commutative means the order doesn't matter: 3*5 = 5*3, 6+8=8+6, etc. Subtraction and division by themselves are noncommutative, but since subtraction can be seen as adding a negative, and division is multiplying by the inverse, you can get around that. Matrices are the first things most people see where order really does matter. AB need not equal BA for two matrices A and B. Associativity means, roughly, that where you "put the parentheses" doesn't matter. So:
3(5*4) = (3*4)5
In the first case, I get 3 times 20, which is 60. In the second I get 12 times 5, which is still 60. Multiplication of real numbers is associative. In fact, I can't recall ever encountering a group operation that was not associative until reading up on the octonions.
The other thing I noticed at the talk was that, despite not taking any upper level math for the past several years, everything still made sense to me. Also I was a bit amused that the current grad students, who have all taken algebra more recently than I, didn't immediately recall that you generally use divisibility to establish that if a prime divides a product, it must divide at least one of the multiplicands of the product (Yes, multiplicand is a word; I just checked). The other nice thing about math is that I know the majority of people in the department and I might get away with not moving my office again, particularly since we've had several people retire and the temporary dean of Arts and Sciences (the bastard who sent out the gods-bedamned 'terminal' notices) is against hiring any more lecturers.
Still, I'm going to keep working through my old physics books. I wonder if it's possible to do a crossover math-physics doctorate here...
One of the current theories about food intolerances is that people are born with a genetic susceptibility, and that circumstances, particularly stress, determine whether or not it actually develops into anything. I've had a minor sensitivity to soy for quite a while now, but it seems to have turned into a full-blown intolerance. I'm pretty sure it was the stress of getting the terminal contract notice that did it, too. It would be amusing if I had enough medical documentation to sue the university over it, but I have no proof whatsoever (unless chocolate wrappers with the ingredient 'soy lecithin' count as proof that I wasn't strongly sensitive until recently), so there's no case. However, this incident definitely lends credence to the susceptibility/trigger theory.
Soy is at least as hard to avoid as gluten, though I've already been minimizing my exposure as mush as possible. It used to be that only soy protein and soy oil caused a strong reaction. Now, it's pretty much anything with any sort of soy in it. People ask me if it's hard not to "cheat" on eating gluten, and now soy... It's not hard at all when the moment you eat it, you start feeling so sick to your stomach that you don't want to eat anything else for the rest of the day. The only major sticking point for me right now is chocolate. I'm going to have to start stocking up on the few soy-free chocolates that I know are out there, or else I'm going to go completely nuts. I'll probably links to the sites at some point. Whole Foods Market carries several good varieties, and there's also Enjoy Life.
Okay, so it's not 'garrison-troops-at-my-house' worse, but as part of the ongoing budget crisis the state-board has decided to change the way the "15-hour" rule is enforced. Full-time employees at ISU are supposed to be at 15-hours each week. The way the math department had been filling the extra 3 hours was by having us work in some sort of tutoring lab (math and learning center or math 108 center). Apparently that is no longer acceptable, and 15-credit hours is now considered a full teaching load. For those of us teaching 108, though, Fisher bumped it back up to a full class (3 credit hours), but with the catch that we have to work extra time in the math 108 center, so that each 108 class can count as 3 credits towards our load.
I'll be honest and say that Fisher's personality grates on me, but he's been handling this situation about as well as anyone could be expected to, and I overheard some stuff that I would not want to share online that makes me a think a lot better of him than I used to. Suffice it to say, he's doing the best he can for his department in an impossible situation. However, I'm suddenly feeling even more relief than before that I should be out of it next year. At the moment, almost anything* sounds better. If the budget ever stabilizes, they might be able to put a sane system back in place, but for now... YECH.
And I'm still thinking that physics is the way to go. I see more places I can go with it than with math at the moment—at least, more places that I want to go—so I've dug out my old physics books and I'm going to start working through them again. I even found my old GRE-physics prep book. I should try to find some more recent versions of the test, but it's a decent starting place. If I don't get a decent assistantship with physics, there's still math, but I'd much prefer to make it into physics.
*anything not requiring me to work closely with gluten, at least. So, no fast food.
From out of the blue this morning, it dawned on me that if I go into a graduate program next year, it does not need to be in math. I double-majored in math & physics as an undergrad, so I've got a B.S. in both. Admittedly, my physics is rusty (so is my ability to spell physicis... that's the third time I've mistyped it, and I'm not fixing that one), but here's the thing: a doctorate in math will just put me back in the same situation I'm in now, unless I'm willing to take any university opening in the hopes of establishing tenure. I'm not. I have very specific areas of the country that I want to be in (Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado... more reluctantly, Montana, Oregon and/or Washington), and that's just not very compatible with an academic job search.
But physics... We've got INL right here, and they do busing out to their site. Having experienced INL rush hour once, I'd be just as happy to ride and save both stress and wear and tear on my car. Now, since I have been out a while, there's no guarantee I'd be accepted to the program, though I'm thinking if I brush up and take the physics GRE and do well enough, I'll be okay. I'll still apply to the math program, but the physics one gives me a heckuva lot more options when the future comes due. Also, the thought of physics courses fills me with curiosity and interest, while the thought of math courses just fills me with...um... See, there's a certain level of abstraction beyond which I stop giving a damn. I need to see a purpose to the thing I'm working on, beyond "it's part of your grade." So some classes I absolutely love, generally applied things like statistics and combinatorics, while others I get sick of as soon as I open the book. Yes, there's abstraction in physics, but there's a point to the abstraction.
FYI, my mind's been doing so much jumping around the past month or so that I may change my mind in another week. Still, this is one of the more plausible ideas I've come up with. It's also a tad ironic. My dad was working on his doctorate in physics at ISU, and his thesis project went screwy, and I guess he just gave up. It was something to do with DNA (using a laser to split it? I'm not sure.), and the foul-up, er, fouled up the department's air for a while, as in it stank to high heaven. I don't know why he didn't try again, or try something else. I'm not going to ask, either, because he's so deep in his schizophrenic paranoia that there's no telling whether what he said would have any resemblance to the truth or not. Hopefully it won't drive me mad. ^/^
Well, I was having a pretty decent birthday yesterday. Then my mom found a little notice in my mailbox that I had some certified mail waiting for me at the post office. Foolishly, I went to pick it up. It was from ISU. My 2009-2010 contract will be terminal, meaning that, "barring a change in administration"*, I do not have a job after spring semester 2010 ends.
So... now I have to find something else that will keep the bills paid. I was freaking out yesterday until it occurred to me that there was an interestingly ironic option available: apply for a D.A. fellowship and actually get my doctorate. I'm still not entirely sure I want it, but it's a fallback plan if nothing else materializes. Another fallback plan would be to get certified to teach high school, but for that I need to talk to a guy in the department who knew exactly which classes someone with an extant master's degree needed for that.
My reactions have varied from disgust to terror to anger to, oddly, relief. The fact is that I'm a bit sick of what I've been doing. A break, even a forced break, might be a good thing. So long as I'm still able to keep the bills paid, anyway. Looking at the D.A. requirements, it will take at least 2 years, if I max out to 12 credits each semester, 3 years if I stick with the saner 9 credits. I won't be making as much, but I survived on the master's level stipend for several years, so I should be able to manage.
I'm still going to be checking job sites and such, and if I can grab something with full benefits that pays at least what I'm making now, I'll probably take it. INL is one potential option, and they are currently hiring people, but at this moment none of the positions are ones I can take. Unless someone wants to teach me to weld, stat. At this point, if something comes along that pays well and starts before my ISU contract expires, I might just be tempted to get out of the damn contract.
*I went to ask someone exactly what "terminal" meant, and he kept using the phrase "barring a change in administration." I sort of want to think this means that a change is likely, and if the rest of what I was told is accurate, there may be a mass riot soon. Apparently every contract lecturer in the College of Arts and Sciences got one of two letters: terminal or temporary. Terminal means your contract will not be renewed, period. Temporary means it might be renewed, if they feel like it. Now, at least half of the lower level classes at ISU are taught by contract lecturers, more than half in the math department. They're essentially saying that they don't give a damn if we come back or not. I realize that they're trying to get out of paying benefits, but I guarantee you that if they don't change their tune soon, they won't have any contract-lecturers left. They're probably hoping that some of us "terminals" will accept a part-time job, with no benefits. I'd like the chance to tell them exactly what they can do with their part-time jobs...
As for me, I'm sort of crossing my fingers that it's all a bad dream (and I suddenly have a rather literal appreciation for that phrase), but I'm feeling better now that I do have a fallback plan. I would be surprised if I did not get accepted into the D.A. program if I applied, and that would give me a few years breathing room. I'm not ready to leave Pocatello just yet. The other fallback plan is to try again to publish a book... thing is that most authors don't actually make enough to live on from their books. There are the top-tenners, and then there's everyone else. *shrugs*
I had a bunch of old rugs gets soaked by the water heater debacle, and I finally got around to washing them. Then I went to check on them, and the washing machine hadn't drained. It was still full of dirty water. Not really clear on what had happened, I tried to run it through another cycle. Nope, no drainage. The water was stuck inside. So I got the rugs out, found that nearly all the backing had flaked off of two of them, and started trying to figure out what to do next. I bailed the water out a bucket at a time, and in between runs checked on the internet. The most likely culprit was a clogged water pump.
So I kept bailing, and trying various things to get the "cabinet" open. This site was very helpful, but it's a bit too generic. Luckily when I (unnecessarily) got the control panel off, there was a schematic inside that gave instructions specific to my washing machine. It gave essentially the same instructions as the web-site, only it specifically said where the clamps were that held the front on. Incidentally, unless your putty knives are a lot more robust than mine, use a flat-head screwdriver to push the clamps in instead. The putty knife just bent, so that I wasn't even sure I was in the right place.
The water pump turned out to be an itty bitty thing, maybe 6" by 3" by 4", with two hoses coming off of it. I needed to disconnect the hose that drained the tub through the pump. I did not have a hex-tool that would fit in there to get the top clamp off, but I lucked into a good set for $10 at Fred Meyer. Then I discovered that the other wire clamp was much easier to manipulate with plumber's pliers, which I luckily had on hand. So I got the little hose off (it's 1.5-2 inches in diameter, but only about 8 inches long), and found that it was completely stuffed full of bits of rug backing. Yup. That was the problem all right. It came out fairly easily once it didn't have to go through the pump, and I ran a rinse cycle that drained just fine, so I think it's fixed now.
As for the socks, apparently it's not uncommon for socks to get into that drain pipe and clog it up. I didn't understand how until I had the washer apart enough to see that there's a gap between the drum (the part that the clothes sit in) and the cabinet. If a sock were on top, it could potentially slide over the edge, into the drain area, and eventually wedge itself in the pipe. My washing machine has not yet eaten a sock, however. I had a few other rugs in similar condition to the ones I tried to wash; they are now in the garbage bin. I'd just as soon not have to take the thing apart again.
