I'm still here

So I’m feeling as though I’ve begun adapting rather well to life down in California. I now find temperatures below 12 C feel cold. It really kind of sucks, because I know that most of the people who read this blog are living somewhere that 12 C would seem like a hot day right about now. And in the past I would have agreed, but now that I no longer need to rely on massive amounts of internal body heat to stay warm I kind of feel cold earlier. I just hope that I don’t start packing on the pounds rather than translating that extra energy into heat as I used to.

It also seems that I’m losing track of time without an actual passing of seasons. I can hardly believe that we are closing in on the halfway point of December. What happened to November? I guess that also comes with being rather busy pretty much constantly. My class has been moving along quickly, I still feel that I need to work on my course material a bit, but seeing as there are no more classes left to the semester that’s obviously not a pressing concern. The only thing left is the final exam, which they will have to write on Thursday, so I have to write an exam for them between now and then. And I have to make it a nice one after I sort of accidentally broke their spirits with the two midterms.

On top of all that I was also on a thesis defense committee today. Obviously I’ve only had to defend a thesis before now, so it was a bit strange. I think I may have been almost as nervous as the student before things got started. Partially I was nervous because I felt that the thesis was incredibly poorly written. Sadly it seems I was about the only one with those concerns. Regardless the student will have to correct a number of aspects of the thesis before I sign off on it. Though in retrospect I think I let things slide a bit more than I should have, but it’s not like anyone ever tells us what the standard is for one of these things.

Oh well, I’m sure I’ll see plenty of more less than stellar theses along the way. I have to remember that the bar at this university is set a good bit lower than it was at any other university that I have dealt with since my own undergrad. Of course that doesn’t mean that I’m going to lower my standards as well. When my students hand a thesis to their committee members it’s going to be damn near perfect. Now, if only I had some students to work on a thesis project to begin with...