The first question in this week's Miss Manners column brought back a memory. When I was in college, I was invited to a friend's house for dinner. He was from an "elite" family - or at least upper middle class. Educated parents. Classy neighborhood. The dinner was formal, and the two sons even changed into white shirts for the occasion (both were the jeans and tee-shirt type). When anyone spoke, all around the table put down their utensils and focused on the speaker with rapt attention. I was afraid the food would get cold if I talked too much! It was something I had never experienced before; in my family someone is constantly talking and vying for the floor. I never considered whether dropping everything to pay attention was proper etiquette, but it did seem excessively polite, and to have my conversation be so respected made me feel important. Later, however, sad life events regarding my friend - their son - made me wonder if the reason they did it was because they were unused to dinner time talk - if they sat silently eating through most meals, and having lighthearted chatter was a novelty?

Nothing much to write, except that is very cold here. I checked the Old Farmer's Almanac, and they said: "Nov 18-22: Sunny, seasonable." In 1953, Elwyn Davis reported the weather today to be "62 at 12 PM. Warm dark murky drizzling rain set in early PM. Strong southerly wind developed evng with showers." For 1934, his weather entry was "Continued foggy, gloomy, warm, misty. Brisk south west winds evng. & partly cloudy." The 1975 entry: "41 at 7:20 AM, 34 at 8 PM. Colder - cloudy AM, clearing - sunny PM. Wind northerly - starlight evng, still" while in 1926 it was "Mostly cloudy, Raw cold air, light winds."

I guess the State's situation is so bad...that we needed three more $178,000 / year Governor's office staffers. What a hypocrite. Why do I suspect they will be exempt from "the pain" of forfeiting their raises and lagging a week's pay?

Student presentation week. It's a time of the semester that I like a lot, and not just because for me, it involves less work in terms of preparing for class. (Critical right now because this is also a time when I have a lot of other work to do - both grading and advisement.) I get to see some really stunning student efforts. Most of the presentations are really, really impressive. Many are quite nervous, but they do a good job. Unfortunately, there usually are a handful, especially in my lower-division class, where the lack of effort is glaringly obvious, and this semester was no different. I'm quite irritated at a few of the students in the lower division class, in fact. I require peer assessment, which causes some consternation - both for the slackers and for those who put in serious effort. It even generates some "smart mouth" when I explain the rules. But, most of the good students appreciate the opportunity.

State budget is dreadful. Lots of rumors. I can't worry about it, though. (Easier said than done.)

I managed to download some of my files before it happened, but AOL hometown went away on Friday. I didn't download all of them, unfortunately. I do have them all saved, on an old USB zip drive (which I am keeping my fingers crossed will still work). I had already established space on Verizon to transfer the files over, but my webpage creator (Adobe PageMill) only works on "old faithful" (my Win 98 computer) and I haven't ever purchased anything to use on my XP machines. I can't just FTP the old pages to Verizon, because the links need to be changed to reflect the new address. Plus, the site could use a face lift, and I may as well tackle it with this change. Using something new to develop the site will require a learning curve. Verizon includes one of those easy site builders, but it isn't very flexible and there will be a lot of re-work regardless of what I do. In any event, I am not going to have the time right now to really focus on this - although I may do something quick in the interim. Not sure. This is crunch time in the semester, when there is so much work that I hardly have a minute to type this. So, to all of the folks who arrive here via searches for One Room Schools, or the Battle of Saratoga, or Bungalow Houses (there are others, but those are the popular search terms that come to mind) ~ I'm sorry! I'll restore everything as soon as I am able. It might have to keep until January, though (but I am not sure I will be able to make myself wait until then). Stay tuned.

Today was World Youth Day at church. The teenagers do all the "jobs" (lector, usher, etc.) and the band plays. The music was so beautiful. A cute little boy with super thick glasses was sitting behind me, and during the handshake of peace, he stuck his hand out eagerly to every person surrounding him, while wearing a big smile. It was such a beautiful fall walk home, and all I could think was "it's great to be alive."

Difficult week on campus. I handed out a sheet the university asked us to distribute about safety and also listing the offices where students can go for help if they are depressed. They also asked us to give the students a chance to talk about it if they wanted and when I did this in last night's class (I doubt many other faculty do this, to be honest), I got an earful. The students are scared, and they don't feel as if the university does enough to keep them safe. I have to do it again on Tuesday, and I guess after that I will take the remarks I wrote down to my department's chair for him to report it to the dean or someone else. I doubt it will help, but I promised the students that is what I would do.

It was a beautiful weekend. It is a great year for foliage. Yesterday, we went to Golden Harvest and got apples, we also took a tour of their new distillery, where they make vodka. I made apple crisp! It is so easy, much faster than pie, and it came out delicious. I think I am feeling a lot better re: Lyme Disease, but I still find myself extremely tired at times.

I think if I was still keeping a paper journal this would probably be one of those dry spells where I could cast it aside for months, if not years. Part of the problem at the moment is that the things that are on my mind are not things I write about here. (Mostly about students, but also about a few other things as well.) So maybe the reality is that a private, paper journal would be more useful to me right now.

I decided to figure out where I will be hosting my website. I wound up buying space from Verizon, since the 10MB I get with my account won't be nearly enough. It was something of an aggravating process, in that I couldn't remember my user ID, password or even email address, and resetting them meant I had to change my router settings...and guess what? I couldn't remember the password for that either. Finally I got that all working, and then I contacted AOL to determine how much webspace I would need, and they couldn't easily answer that question. So, I wound up simply multiplying the number of AOL screen names by the amount of webspace. I don't know if I am using that much but at least I know I couldn't have been using more than that. Now, to find the time to transfer everything over, which will mean making revisions since the address will have changed, and the links won't work otherwise. It is way past time for a complete overhaul anyway, but spending time on that when grading essays is the priority will be a challenge.

Bummer.

I got a message yesterday that AOL is closing down hometown and FTP. I guess this means I will have to find a new host for my website! AAAAAHHHHHHHHHH! How irritating. Hopefully either Verizon or Time Warner includes space. But even having to transfer the files is annoying. Not something I have time for!

After two days of barking and equipment noise, the crew has moved up the street and the hounds (make that one full-hound and one half-hound) can get some much needed rest. Edna was able to prowl the yard. All is well.

Make that all is almost well! Reading the paper this morning, in Dr. Fox's column a voluntary recall of Mars dry cat and dog food is announced due to possible salmonella contamination. The dogs eat a homemade diet, Edna eats Wellness canned and Fancy Feast dry, but Ande, who eats Wellness dry food (although he is not at all a big eater), adores Natural Temptations. I got a free sample when I bought Wellness, which is the only reason I tried it. So we give him many treats per day, because he expects one when the dogs get a cookie and it is so cute. Natural Temptations are made by Mars! Although I haven't noticed any signs of illness, in the article, "Natural" is one of the brands listed in the recall.

So I went to the website and luckily, "Natural" is a Sam's Club brand; Natural Temptations aren't listed. What a relief!

Two pieces of good news! I think I finally found a decent hosting service for my audio files: Box.net, and I located a few pairs of Supreme Softspot Trek shoes in my size! (Not linking since I don't want anyone else swooping in to buy them :-).

Major work is being done on our street - it is a long time coming, so I'm not complaining...but today, they tore up the part in front of our house to put in new drainage pipes. This is how my day went: Equipment Noise Dog Barking Equipment Noise Two Dogs Barking Construction Worker Yelling Two Dogs Viciously Barking Equipment Noise Two Dogs Barking Equipment Noise Dog Barking Quiet for a Moment Dog Intermittently Barking Equipment Noise Two Dogs Barking. Lunch Break. Repeat.

I have been cooking the last things from the garden. Yesterday I made butternut squash. I don't think I have ever had it before, and didn't know what to expect. It was delicious!! Tonight I am making zucchini parmesan.

Yesterday at church, an adult was baptized. I've never been to an adult baptism before. I know it is common in some churches because they either don't accept baptism from other religions, or because they don't believe in baptizing babies, but neither is true of the Catholic church. Apparently this young woman had never been baptized, and as an adult she has decided to become Catholic. She will make her communion at the Easter vigil. It was an interesting and beautiful ceremony. The woman and her sponsor went up to the altar, the priest read a blessing, the sponsor made the sign of the cross over various parts of the woman's body (forehead, eyes, lips, hands, etc.), and then after each, the choir and congregation sang. We have some really talented people who serve as cantor, and also in the choir. The music often brings tears to my eyes and yesterday's ceremony did too (and I am not much of a crier, so that is saying a lot).

All in all, it was a good birthday...went to Franklin's Tower for dinner; that has become one of my favorite restaurants. Got home, and a friend had surprised me by leaving a fall wreath on the door. Once inside, I discovered that on the answering machine, one of my brothers left a message, where he sang happy birthday. Then, over the weekend, my mother made my favorite food, eggplant parmesan and I had a big meal at my parents' house with other family members. I got a watch, a St. Brigid's cross necklace, a box of Krause's candy, a sweater, a pottery vase, a bookmark, a Korean coin necklace, and a few cards. I swam Saturday (the water was 63 degrees, but felt fine), again briefly on Sunday (60 degrees, and it felt very cold) and then we closed the pool. No regrets, I think that is the latest I have ever taken a swim! We got some second cut hay in on Sunday. An unexpected thunderstorm rolled in toward the end of haying and soaked us! I was especially tired when we got home on Sunday night - what with the remnants of Lyme Disease, such an active weekend and the late night.

I've been watching a ten-year-old British documentary called The Nazis that I got from netflix. It's very powerful, and I am learning a lot about WWII that I didn't know.

The last netflix movie I watched before this was Rent. I'd seen the show years ago and liked it a lot, and have the soundtrack which I also really liked, and unfortunately, overplayed. However, I didn't like the movie very much. The show didn't translate very well to film, even though most of the original Broadway cast were in it. The downside of having the original cast was that they almost universally struck me as too old for the parts. It also seemed extremely dated. I wonder why it wasn't made into a movie during its top popularity period of the '90s?

Earlier this week, I removed the plastic from The Chronicle of Higher Education, and a DVD fell on the floor. I don't remember anything free ever being included with the newspaper before. I looked it over and thought it contained a preview for a documentary called Obsession, but it turned out to be an hour-long version. It was pretty scary. It was strange that The Chronicle sent it out.

Just now, I got a robocall pushing a movie called Fireproof that opens next Friday. I don't remember that ever happening before.

Today I am 47. How can that be? My birthday is always kind of odd. Not that I mind getting older necessarily (I mean, I don't love it but it is better than the alternative and the truth is my life has gotten better over the years), but there is that bittersweet end of summer, back to school thing (even though I like fall), and then there have been a lot of bad things that happened in September. I am sure you could say that about any month; maybe I just notice it more because it is my birthday month. Other people's birthdays who are now gone, so their birthdays pass and it is a reminder. Mimmie, Aunt Jean. Rudy and Howie both died in September, and Rudy was born in September. 9/11. Don's death, and some other things I won't mention. This year, there is the resurfacing of that thing from the past that I hinted about already once. I brought in candy for my students to celebrate my birthday. It's the first time I've done that. I have occasionally brought in leftover Halloween candy, but not recently.

Rudy would have been 13 today. I thought I would still have him, instead next week he will be gone 3 years. Sniff. Happy birthday, Mr. Wuj.

Since Lyme Disease, I've been more tired than usual. I have been trying (somewhat successfully) to get more sleep. To some degree, I have no choice because I am SO tired. But I still have to be careful about letting myself stay up to late. I did some reading and was concerned that maybe it was "Post-Lyme Disease Syndrome" (I wasn't overly concerned because what I read says it usually resolves on its own after a while). But after I read more I determined that I don't have that many of the symptoms. My biggie: episodes of extreme tiredness. The syndrome seems to include neurological, memory, mood problems, etc. and I don't notice any of that. Maybe concentration / focus issues a *little,* but that always accompanies tiredness so I haven't really separated it as a symptom. Plus, the problems have to persist for six months after treatment and I haven't even been done with doxy for a month yet. So I guess this is just what is expected with Lyme Disease, and it will go away eventually.

The weather has been so warm that we left the pool open. I swam Friday night, Saturday (in the rain) and Sunday. I think it will have to be closed this weekend though. Although they are kind of shopworn, the gardens continue to produce. Tonight we are having fresh beets! Can't wait!!

Classes are great. I've had a couple of irritations, but nothing serious enough to lessen how good this semester has started out. My enrollment is pretty even so far: in the four classes there are 26, 28, 30, 32.

One thing I note, not just this Fall, but gradually over time, is the number of students who call me by my first name without asking. That's irritating when it is anyone other than a serious, well-meaning student. With wonderful students, I really don't care, even if I do believe they should ask me if it is OK (and I would say yes, even though I am silent on the subject in class - I mean, I don't prompt it).

But there are some who do it to show disrespect. They become overly familiar because they want to decrease the status differential for bad reasons. There is a problem and they claim it is my fault. Cheating. Not doing various assignments. Bad attendance. Missing deadlines. They think by calling me by my first name it will decrease my authority, and increase their control. I only say something when I am really pushed, and once this summer I told the offending student that I preferred to be called Dr. He continued to use my first name anyway. Very passive-aggressive. Would you have done that to the person who has the power to assign grades?

Second week of classes and it is so hot! Feels like early August. Speaking of classes, so far mine are awesome. The students seem very engaged. Lately - I'd say the past couple of years, I have been lucky with my classes. Either that, or after 8 years, I have gotten to be pretty good at this teaching thing. The Fall semester is always the best.