The Temperature is Rising...

After a few weeks of snowy, icy, shut down the neighborhood dreadful weather, the tide has turned. It was seventy-eight degrees today, with an accompanying brisk wind. Shorts and sandals will dominate our college campus, and I will yet again experience envy and my annually sparked dread of aging.

I read a good book: How to Read a Sentence: and How to Write One, a thoughtful book that dissects the elements of great sentence-making. I got in touch with the author and we exchanged emails. What is most fascinating about that is the ease with which I could find him and his email address. One of many positive elements of the information age.

I have developed terrible allergies: all of a sudden, and to what I have no idea. It is incredibly frustrating and downright difficult to teach with my voice emanating from a clogged nasal passage.

The textbook reps showed up again. They ply us with bizarre compliments (you really should publish those Power Points you made!), and give us trinkets (pens, bookmarks) and lots of books for us to look at and keep. I generally give these away to students, because they can sell them to a nearby bookstore and generate some serious cash. The really excellent book reps bring bagels and doughnuts. I may start a bribery war by telling each about what the others have brought us. "McGraw-Hill brought two dozen doughnuts, bagels, and a variety pack of cream cheeses," I'll inform them.

I won a contest and I think it's the first time I ever have. It was a submission to an educational organization looking for new teaching methods to spark critical thinking. I get $300 and a "gift basket." I am hoping the basket has a $500 gas card redeemable anywhere gas is sold, some coupons for Panera restaurant, and some coffee mugs. That's what I need, more coffee mugs. Coffee mugs are an ever growing concern around my office and house: impossible to throw away, you realize. You can't just throw them out. They look too useful. So they collect in huge piles in the kitchen cabinets and on my bookshelves, choking the life out of all the other beverage containers. Surely we'll need them, I convince myself. Anyway, I bet I do get some more mugs, and maybe an apple or two, in this "gift basket."

As I wish for more cold weather, I realize that it's because I can hide my ever-expanding waistline with coats and my ever-diminishing sense of immortality. I'm just gonna have to deal with the rising temperatures.