Today’s mail inspired a onesentence.org entry:
| Libra Baby
The envelope in today’s mail that I thought was going to be my first Christmas card turned out, in fact, to be my last birthday card. Tags: belated | birthday | Christmas | Card |
A birthday card from my ex-wife, with a $50 iTunes gift certificate in it. Yay!
I worked from home today, and had a brief instant message exchange with my manager late in the morning to substitute for our 30-minute one-on-one meeting scheduled for 2:30 today, as I had a school-related meeting with one of my professors this afternoon.
I listened to two Car Talk podcasts on the bus on the way to campus—both of which made me laugh out loud like a loony-bin on the bus.
I had a shorter-than-expected meeting with Jason about the expectations of the final three weeks of Verbal Data Analysis class, specifically with regards to the abstract due on Thursday, the submission of our (his and mine) abstract to the SIGDOC conference, and my final paper and presentation.
I left there feeling better, and less anxious, than I did when I went in.
I stopped by the NCSU Book Store, which for the next three days is hosting a “Grad Fair.” I had two goals there:
- To make sure that the cap, gown, and hood I’m borrowing for graduation contain the same colors as the ones they’re selling—not that they shouldn’t for any reason—but my take is that graduation day is not the day to find out they don’t.
- To purchase a Phi Kappa Phi honor cord to wear on my get-up.
Oh, this is reminding me that I never wrote about my sister setting me straight (as straight as a gay person can get) about those cum laude honor sashes I’ve been perseverating about: They are only for undergraduates! After all that…
Stage-setting: My sister has about 5 degrees, including a doctorate in education. She said, “One of our (the PhDs) favorite things to do at graduation when they say, ‘Everyone who is graduating Cum Laude, please stand’; then, ‘Everyone who is graduating Magna Cum Laude, please stand;’ and finally, ‘Everyone who is graduating Summa Cum Laude, please stand,’ is to watch all the graduate students who have been calculating their grade point averages to the fifth decimal place stand up for each designation when it doesn’t even apply to them.”
Hey! I resemble that remark! Now I will stay smugly seated during that part of the ceremonies.
Anyway, all that is to say that the only honor cords they had at the book store were the cum laude series, to which I said with satisfaction, “Oh, those don’t apply to grad students.”
At home, I went to the Phi Kappa Phi web site to see if I could order one of their honor cords. Of course I can, and they are only 10 bucks, which isn’t too bad. However, when I went to complete the order and they wanted to add $6.50 (that’s over 60% of the item charge!) for shipping, I said, “Fahgedaboutit.”
That’s just highway robbery. Those cords could probably be mailed in a first class envelope for $.58 (2 ounces), or $.75 (3 ounces), the most.
After work, but before Verbal Data Analysis class, I took a peek at the syllabus for tonight’s class only to learn that in addition to the chapters in our book that I’d already read (thank goodness), we had an article to read for tonight’s class as well. That’s what I did up until time to leave for class.
Class was good, and I was glad that I’d read the article. I was also glad that I was able to answer one of Jason’s questions about the reading: “What are the contrasts in this example,” as during our meeting this afternoon I’d told him that I didn’t really get the concept of contrasts, and he’d explained it to me. Love JIT learning…
After class, I spent an hour or so at Helios, mostly catching up my blog.
I also did a bunch of STC things today:
- Sent out a reminder about our Student/Faculty Roundtable tomorrow.
- Pinged the officers about their intended attendance at that event, and what they thought about a proposed announcement I’d like to send out to the organization on Thursday about our STC End of the Semester / Holiday Party at the Village Draft House on December 7th.
- Created a survey to get a consensus from the officers about a party just for us, which I’m going to cater and host in my home.