A Few Quick Notes 243

-Most of today has been rather overcast, though this is a significant improvement on yesterday's weather, which saw us get quite a down pour. Amazingly, temperatures have stayed rather high, certainly much higher than I expected at this time of year. In recent days only a light coat or sweater is required if one decides to venture out-of-doors (something I avoid most of the time). The only definite signs of Autumn are the falling leaves and the progressive shortening of the days.

-Neil, Rebecca, and I made it over to the Grad House on Tuesday evening to watch the election coverage. As I made it to the venue a few hours after Neil and Rebecca I found the place blocked when I arrived. Fortunately, they Neil and Rebecca and associates had staked out an area so there was room for me to lay my coat and sit.

What is more impressive than the fact that the place was packed, was that it was such a contrast to the same location when they were showing the Canadian election results a few weeks ago. Not only was almost no one in attendance, the crowd was also much more sedate than they were on Tuesday. There was even a bit of cheering when CNN finally made the call (though every know the results before the evening even kicked off).

With regards to the CNN coverage, I wasn't particularly impressed with their use of technology. It seemed that they had all kinds of flashy effects but they were not put to great use. People popping up and digital buildings didn't really enhance my understanding of the situation, but rather served to cloud my understanding of things because I was trying to figure out what any of this had to do with the election. Furthermore, there was far too much focus on the in-studio team and very little emphasis on what was going on around the country, of course, aside from a few shots of the crowds in Chicago. It seems that they surely must have been able to come up with a few more locations and senate races to follow in some detail.

-Last Friday, I ended up speaking to a few students after my third and final lecture. As this took a few minutes I was somewhat anxious to get out of the classroom so that I wouldn't prevent the next class from starting on time. One result of my desire to vacate the classroom was that I ended up finishing one conversation with a student in the hall outside the classroom.

About ten minutes after finishing up with all of my related obligations I realized that I had forgotten to erase the blackboard. While under normal circumstances this would be bad enough, in this case it was particularly embarrassing as I had written my name on the board several times while giving examples of citation styles. Realizing it was too late to do anything I just hoped that the person following me wasn't too upset about my lack of attention to classroom courtesies.

That evening Neil asked me if I had been teaching in a particular room, the very room in which I had been giving my lectures. It turns out that his tutorial session was the next group to use the room and that he had recognized the writing (as well as my name). I guess I am glad that he was the one that found it, though I hope that in the future I will remember to erase the board.

-It is definitely crunch time for me. I somehow need to find a way to motivate myself to put in more and more effective hours in the coming weeks. I can't imagine that the coming weeks are going to be anything approaching pleasant.

-We will be having ham, oven roasted potatoes, and vegetables for dinner tonight. And though we won't be eating them, we will also be having guests for dinner tonight. Hopefully the potatoes will be done by the time everything else is, otherwise we may end up with some overcooked vegetables and a dried out ham.