Moving

One of my coworkers just compared moving to childbirth. If you remembered how bad it was you wouldn't do it again school of thought. Well I signed my very first lease in many, many, years so I am unlikely to be moving for at least a year. However, I feel like with each new place, I am reborn. I can make new decorating choices and I am free of how I had organized myself in my last place of residence.

I used to get this feeling every fall when school would start up again. Yes, I probably was one of those annoying classmates who actually wanted to go back to classes. Well there is nothing wrong with taking the opportunity to start over again. In truth, isn't that something we should let ourselves do more often?

Professional Development = Demoralization

There is nothing more painful than presenting your work to others who are completely objective and have no interest in saving your feelings. Yesterday, I went to an all day training on developing better online instruction. Now normally I love tweaking my WebCT class and I feel real accomplishment when something actually works the way its supposed to. During the training we were to take a course that we created and apply a very sensible evaluation rubric. I got through the first three levels of the rubric having failed to meet the standard even once.

Recognizing that this process is one of self-improvement, I really should let up on myself. It just burns when I realize that I could have had a much better course for my students than I have already developed. I will spend more time using the rubric to make changes to my course and to develop a more useful resource for my students.

Signs we would like to see

The local free weekly newspaper, the Houston Press, hosts a blog called Houstoned on their website. Apparently Yoko Ono has created an exhibit that will be coming to town soon. To advertise said exhibit, she rented a billboard along a Houston freeway interchange, I-10 and I-45, that reads "Imagine Peace". The post author developed some other slogans that they thought might be more effective here in Texas.

Home, Home on the Range

Hallelujah, I have signed a lease on a townhome and I have somewhere to live come October. The townhome is a one story, two bedroom, two bathroom, 1100 sf place that is reasonably close to work. I am feeling immense relief and a little buyer's remorse. Signing a one year lease means that at the very least I won't be getting a reference if I flee back to Canada before it officially ends. Not that I am a dishonest person but when I first applied for credit in the United States I was told that I couldn't be given credit because a) I could run across the border and my debt couldn't be collected or b) as a non-resident alien I didn't meet residency requirements.

One clothing store L*** Br**** went as far to say that my social security number didn't exist. Now that I have credit I really wonder about the logic of these justifications. Canada is really far away from Texas so maybe they were referring to the Mexican border. If I didn't meet residency requirements why do I have to pay income tax, social security, and into the Medicare system? Sigh, it does seem that being a law abiding (that ticket didn't count), tax paying, non-resident resident certainly doesn't win you any perks in this society.

Special place in Hell

I am frequently asked to house/pet sit for various people. I enjoy helping others out and quite often I bond with the animals that I am babysitting. Ergo my instrinsic motivation is spending (borrowed) time with other people's animals. Sometimes I get paid to do so and sometimes I don't. It depends on the situation and what is being requested of me. Being in a somewhat precarious housing situation I said yes to a colleague without asking many questions. What was to be a simple two week assignment has turned into a nightmare. I feel like I am working in a vet's office and I have developed a set of tools for cleaning up after four incontinent, inappropriately trained animals.

One older cat unable to find the litter box I can understand but when all the animals have taken to using whatever floor surface is convenient I question the statement "oh, its only the one cat who uses the newspaper." I just last night saw (for the first time in a week) the newest house member who immediately sprinted off to hide under the bed. There is absolutely no way I am checking under that bed to see what the condition is there. I am still composing in my head what response I will have for my colleague upon their return. Maybe I will say nothing, hand over the key, collect the rest of my money, and smile sweetly. For truly there must be a place in hell for irresponsible pet owners who mislead others who are doing them a favour.

A Memorial Steve Irwin wouldn't want

There was an AP story today on the discovery in Australia of at least 10 stingrays which have had their barbed tails cut off. Perhaps these not so well meaning people don't get that Mr. Irwin was a conservationist and this would be the last thing he would want. Why would anyone think that this was a fitting remembrance? The story mentions that fisherman sometimes will cut off the tails of stingrays if they get caught in their nets. Plausible explanation, doubtful.

Library Porn? You Decide!

I belong to an email list that hosts a fair number of conservatives. When one of them posted a message entitled "Library Porn" I was a little concerned that was exactly what it was. I will say that the images on this website are not for the faint of heart. You decide, are they too much, do they overwhelm you?

Foot Fetishists @ Your Library

I was searching for legitimate (for my class, people) Youtube library videos when I ran into more than I expected. Apparently posting videos of library patron's feet is more popular than you would think. I watched two short snippets and this one actually incorporated some music while the other did not and somehow was more creepy for it.

The reason I find this interesting is that our library is home to not one but TWO foot fetishists. Apparently the standard MO is to ask young ladies to remove their shoes so that the individual can check something about the carpet or furniture. My first thought is who would actually take their shoes off for a complete stranger and the second and stronger thought is EWWWWW. In any case our feet guys seem relatively harmless but our female students are usually upset when they realize that there was no reason for them to ever remove their shoes.

Mysterious computer messages

Today my computer was taking forever to log on. Frustrated by my two minute wait, I restarted it with a cold boot. When it chose to actually allow me access to my desktop there was a DOS window open on-screen. This message was one of the lines of text.

Please check to see if the printer exists.

Now, I assume that our printers aren't suffering from existential angst but I could be wrong. I would like to have a discussion with the person who thought up this text but I think it would be safe to assume that they wouldn't find my interpretation amusing.

Elusive brother sighting

Well, I now have photographic evidence that my brother actually came to visit me in Houston. I have lived here for almost five years and he has lived overseas all that time. Currently he and his wife teach at the Singapore American School and it is a long trip to come visit. It was very nice to have him here even for a brief time. He actually wanted to see the books in the library, shocking! I guess that it is my turn to go visit him in Singapore (duty calls) and I hope to do so next Spring.