No posts since December... I really am behind.
Here are the major events of the first part of this year.
In early January we bought snowshoes, and then we drove into the mountains to Golden Gate Canyon State Park only to have my car break down as we pulled into the parking lot. We had to get towed back to Denver (happily paid for by my AAA membership), where my car was pronounced dead. I spent several weeks riding the bus to work and failing to buy a new car, until I finally got one at the beginning of March through AAA's auto-buying service. It has a working radio and tape player, which feels like great luxury to me. I dug out all of those old tapes I could never bear to throw away, so I can drive to work in a cloud of nostalgia.
Somewhere in early February, at almost exactly the same time as last year and well into a horrendously busy term, my computer hard drive suddenly went the same way as my car. Had I learned my lesson and backed up recently? Well, I had at Christmas, at least.
In March we got our second cat, Palm of the Hand Kittie. She's both frenetic and friendly, and looks like Jiji in Kiki's Delivery Service.
I've been meaning for a while to write a few notes on things we've enjoyed lately. My last term was, as I suggest above, pretty hectic - I had an extra class to cover for a colleague on sabbatical, one I hadn't taught before - so I didn't have time to read or see anything much at all. Now I am being paid back, though - just one class to teach first thing in the morning, and then I can come home and do something more interesting instead. I've started reading Orhan Pamuk's "The Black Book," and am back to reading some Ishikawa Jun and trying to relaunch my research career. As to things seen: in TV I wholeheartedly recommend 30 Rock, a comedy series set in the NBC TV studios. In films, I recommend Coralline, the 3-D animation, which we went to see towards the end of last term (giving me just enough to hope to struggle through to the end...). It's by far the best thing I've seen in a long time, full of wild imaginings, magical gardens, strange circus scenes - very rewarding, even though the ending is a bit rushed and disappointing.
We've done a lot more in the way of listening. By way of brainwashing and sleep-deprivation techniques, I seem to have got J to like listening to BBC radio comedy at bedtime as much as I do. Our favorites from the last few weeks are Old Harry's Game (on both Radio 4 & 7 at the moment), and Nebulous (just finished on 7). The latter is a short two-series program that I'd listened to with half an ear in the past, but which this time round seemed hilarious. It's a sci-fi comedy set in a future time "after the Withering." The quotation heading this entry is from the last episode.
Here are the major events of the first part of this year.
In early January we bought snowshoes, and then we drove into the mountains to Golden Gate Canyon State Park only to have my car break down as we pulled into the parking lot. We had to get towed back to Denver (happily paid for by my AAA membership), where my car was pronounced dead. I spent several weeks riding the bus to work and failing to buy a new car, until I finally got one at the beginning of March through AAA's auto-buying service. It has a working radio and tape player, which feels like great luxury to me. I dug out all of those old tapes I could never bear to throw away, so I can drive to work in a cloud of nostalgia.
Somewhere in early February, at almost exactly the same time as last year and well into a horrendously busy term, my computer hard drive suddenly went the same way as my car. Had I learned my lesson and backed up recently? Well, I had at Christmas, at least.
In March we got our second cat, Palm of the Hand Kittie. She's both frenetic and friendly, and looks like Jiji in Kiki's Delivery Service.
I've been meaning for a while to write a few notes on things we've enjoyed lately. My last term was, as I suggest above, pretty hectic - I had an extra class to cover for a colleague on sabbatical, one I hadn't taught before - so I didn't have time to read or see anything much at all. Now I am being paid back, though - just one class to teach first thing in the morning, and then I can come home and do something more interesting instead. I've started reading Orhan Pamuk's "The Black Book," and am back to reading some Ishikawa Jun and trying to relaunch my research career. As to things seen: in TV I wholeheartedly recommend 30 Rock, a comedy series set in the NBC TV studios. In films, I recommend Coralline, the 3-D animation, which we went to see towards the end of last term (giving me just enough to hope to struggle through to the end...). It's by far the best thing I've seen in a long time, full of wild imaginings, magical gardens, strange circus scenes - very rewarding, even though the ending is a bit rushed and disappointing.
We've done a lot more in the way of listening. By way of brainwashing and sleep-deprivation techniques, I seem to have got J to like listening to BBC radio comedy at bedtime as much as I do. Our favorites from the last few weeks are Old Harry's Game (on both Radio 4 & 7 at the moment), and Nebulous (just finished on 7). The latter is a short two-series program that I'd listened to with half an ear in the past, but which this time round seemed hilarious. It's a sci-fi comedy set in a future time "after the Withering." The quotation heading this entry is from the last episode.
