Back to School

Recently my life has pretty much been getting back into the swing of the semester and trying to get a rhythm going again. My new office is way on the edge of campus so I am getting a lot of exercise walking around campus to class. That also means up that I end up hanging out eating or wasting time on campus between classes, and I am realizing that I actually need that time so I'm going to have to work something else out. On the plus side, Alex and I have pretty much the same class schedule so I am usually eating or wasting time with him, which is nice. Things are still going very well on that front. The only major problem to have arisen is that his snoring wakes me up and makes me grumpy, but hopefully I will get used to that with time. It is interesting having Valentine's Day coming up and actually having it kinda mean something this year. I have a fun surprise for Alex that I will post about afterward.

I've also started up with my musical ensembles again, which is still really fun. Next week we are playing two songs as part of a benefit concert and I get to play this really kick ass piccolo solo in Sinfonians by Clifton Williams (picc part around 1:45). And speaking of music, I am serving as an outside member on a faculty hire for the music department and it is just totally ridiculous how tough the job market is. We thought we had it bad in the sciences but they definitely have it worse! It is amazing how well qualified the applicants are. It is also cool to get to see how they do things in a totally different department. Some of it is different, but most of it is exactly the same. (I'm kinda purposely being vague since the search is still going on.)

Also, at the risk of jinxing it, I thought I should mention the weather. Last year I spent a good deal of time on this blog complaining about the horrible weather and how cold and overcast and gross it was. This year has been so different and I probably owe the weather gods a shout out for changing things around for me. We have actually had a lot of sunny days, and not much rain or snow at all. Besides the freak storm in October there have only been two snowfalls, one that left less than an inch and one that was just a dusting. The temperatures have also been nice, cold days in the 30s but warm days up to the 50s. That is a vast improvement from last year's teens and 20s. I am definitely in a much better mood this winter and have not been afflicted by Seasonal Affective Disorder like last year - I haven't brought out my sun lamp at all. I do hope I'm not jinxing things (snow is in the forecast for tonight, but less than an inch), but since we are already into February I think/hope that we are over the hump.