Not in better spirits

Nice day today. I’m getting really tired of moderate weather. I want a blizzard. I want to wear my badass wool overcoats. Lately, I’ve been putting on a sweater to go outside. That’s just not very exciting. I’ve decided I have an annual tradition that started last year — on the first snow of the year, I watch “Amends”. I did it last year, but I didn’t know it was a tradition at the time. That’s ok — the Pilgrims probably didn’t know they were starting a tradition at the first Thanksgiving.

Technically, the first snow of the year has already happened in Providence, several weeks ago, but it was while I was out of town at the Virginia Tech conference, so I missed it. It doesn’t count. I haven’t seen it snow yet this year. There’s a real chance it might continue failing to snow until I leave for California, which is around the 19th or so, if I remember right. If that occurs, I won’t see any snow at least until I get back into town in February.

I like snow. I thought when I left Houston, I was leaving behind boring Decembers.

Today was the last meeting for Justin’s two classes. They were ok. I’ve sort of tuned out the past few lectures in the Wittgenstein course; I don’t know why, but I find myself repeatedly distracted by daydreams, or just spacing out, and not knowing what’s being discussed. There are definitely undergrads in that course who understand what’s going on it it better than I have been, lately. That doesn’t reflect well on me.

I ran out of checks a few days ago. I’d forgotten this, when I tried to write a check for my landlord yesterday, the first of the month. Oops. So at lunch today, I went to the local Sovereign Bank office, to ask for more. When I’d signed up for a free student checking account with them last year, they gave me a choice between free online billpay, and free checks for life; I elected the checks. The woman there tried to charge me seventeen ninty-five for fifty new checks, and I explained to her that I’d been offered free checks for life. “No, you have a student checking account. No free checks.” When I explained the choice I’d been offered, she said, “well, maybe someone was confused about the policy.”

Unfortunately, I failed to hold on to the form that outlined the agreement from last year. I checked my filing cabinet. Why do I have a filing cabinet, if I’m not going to keep such forms? I was looking forward to making a *serious* fuss about it. As it is, I’ll have to resort simply to finding a new bank. I’m pissed off that I wasn’t able to catch their lie red-handed, but damned if I’m going to keep giving them my money. I’ve been reading about good online banks. Anyone know any?

Anyway, after lunch, I handed out TA evaluations in Jamie’s class. We still have one more meeting. Hopefully, they’ll have liked me. I won’t be devestated if they haven’t, but I’ll be somewhat surprised and somewhat concerned. I announced that I’d hold extra office hours tomorrow, since the paper is due Tuesday. I really like TAing — it’s been very exciting and rewarding to see my regular students get clearer, smarter, and more confident throughout the semester. Hopefully these papers will be great.

I went for a run and to the gym in the afternoon. I should do that more often. Then dinner, and a BUGS rehearsal. Our concert is a week from today, and we’re nowhere near as good as I would want to be a week before a performance, but I do think we’ll pull it together. It’s a good group. Tonight, we worked solos and small ensembles, which we haven’t been doing nearly enough. Spencer, our pianist, is *amazing*. I want to get him a serious gift. He sightread “Jealous Torments” very well. Then he practiced for ten minutes, and played the whole thing very well. He’s a pretty good (not amazingly good, like Emily, but pretty good) accompanist, too, in terms of figuring out what’s up with the crazy singers, and staying with them.

I’m restless.