A Few Quick Notes 365

-Though it seemed to be raining pretty heavily last night, and there were a few rain drops at various points today, overall today wasn't too bad a day. That being said, it is definitely fall now and the lower temperatures will mean that I will soon have to make the switch from my sports coats to a more substantive jacket in the coming days.

-Last night, though I don't know why I was move to do it last night, I removed most of my bean plants (as they were approaching death if they weren't already dead). This, at least as far as I am concerned, makes the balcony look a fair bit better. In the coming days I may try and deal with a few more of the plant pots as the end of the growing season is definitely upon us.

-That being said, just a few days ago we started to get our first blooms on the morning glory plants. Unfortunately, due to inattention, I missed the first bloom (but did manage to see the remnants). Luckily, when they started really hitting hard I did manage to see them, and even to snap a photograph of the whole affair.



It seems that in the days since this was taken thins have taken a turn for the worse with the plants. Actually, I imagine that they are all basically dead now as they have been outside in sub-zero temperatures.

-This afternoon I decided to make a batch of bread (four loaves). The first project gave me the necessary motivation to take on a second project, doing my laundry, as these two projects work nicely with one another because of their natural gaps and periods of inactivity. Now that I have sampled the bread and the clean duvet cover I think I can safely say that they both were completed successfully.

-The other major project of the day is some marking that I have to do for my TAship. I may also try to track down a few readings for my upcoming week's classes, though that might be a little more than I can handle in a single night.

-Yesterday, because Neil and Rebecca were attending a math conference dinner, I took the opportunity to prepare myself some marlin that I had in the freezer. It turns out that I think I really don't like marlin. The relatively small piece that I had prepared myself was about twice as much as I could stomach, which is rather unfortunate (though the good news is that I had only paid 50% of the original price for the fish). Anyway, I am just lucky that I had prepared myself 4 potatoes so that I had a satisfying meal even though I didn't eat much of the main dish.

-Last night as I was plugging away at a paper that was due this morning I turned around from my desk and got a look at my floor.



It seems that my filing system really is a little more floor based that I would like (as is my bed). I imagine that some people, upon seeing this, might have a hard time believing that I not only attended library school, but also passed.

-My bedroom plants seemed to have slowed down a little bit, but are definitely still growing. In particular, the tobacco taking up an ever increasing proportion of the window. I keep imagining that I won't even be able to see out, my view will be completely blocked by homegrown tobacco.



I guess the only thing I will be blocked from seeing is a relatively grey cement wall, so it might not be much of a loss.

-Surely there are more import topics on which I should be expounding, but I think I may have to call it for now so that I can get back to my grading and dinner prep (proper meals seem to have gone out of my schedule these past few days and I am hoping to bring them back).

A Few Quick Notes 160

-Today has been a beautiful day. The temperature has also been quite reasonable today, not like some of the frigid days of this winter. Unfortunately, some of the streets are still filled with snow from Saturday’s storm. This makes walking around town a little more difficult than normal.

-If my count is correct, I am now 6/25 on my Roll Up the Rim coffee cups. So far I have won one donut and a number of coffees. The general consensus among my fellow classmates seems to be that winning a boat would just be a pain in the ass, particularly as most of us don’t have anywhere to store such an item, or a car with which to move it.

-The aforementioned storm caused most of the schools in Montreal to be closed today. Apparently, they had to do some work on snow removal before they were willing to send kids outdoors.

While I think that this was probably overkill, this isn’t as bad as the fact that CBC is reporting that the extreme number of school closures this year (3) is making it difficult for teachers to fit in the year’s required content. At the moment, at least this is what is being reported, the schools will likely re-schedule in-service days rather than add days to the end of the school year.

I can’t believe that this is an issue (though I know that it is in many jurisdictions), as we all know that elementary school isn’t so much about learning a list of things, but about socialization and day-care. Missing 3 days, or even several weeks, really isn’t that big a deal at the elementary school level, one has years to make it up, and likely will without problem. I know that missing the last six weeks of grade six because of a teachers strike has not been a problem for me (though it may explain why I still can’t do long division).

-Last night I was doing some reading about library education and thought that it was somewhat disappointing that many of the complaints people had about such education many years ago are largely the same complaints that my classmates have today. I guess people like me are at least partly to blame, we see these problems and then proceed to do absolutely nothing about them (except complain privately).

-A few weeks ago I tried to make some falafel from scratch. While the final product was edible, it certainly was nothing that I would want on a regular basis. This did get me thinking about home-prepared falafel options though.

A few days ago, while shopping in Lobos, I saw a falafel mix for $1.20. Not only was this about the same amount of money that I would pay for the raw ingredients, but it was also in a format that would give me some sense of what the pre-cooked product should be. At the moment I am in the midst of letting it stand, which is to be done before the cooking process is to take place, but after the mixing process has occurred.

My current concern is that the resulting mixture will not be thick enough to form patties, as directed on the box. I may have to add some flour, or other thickening agent, to achieve the desired consistency (though this would then screw up my chance at figuring our the desired consistency based on the pre-made mix).

-As some of you, our vast readership, may have noticed, we now have new buttons at the top of the right side bar of the blog. These buttons, when pushed, allow you to contact us (we each have our own buttons). At least in my case, this button will direct you to a voicemail service. We should be able to post particularly good voicemail messages to the blog for others to hear.