7:01 PM:

My Third-Term Review was today.

I suppose the good news is that I'll be able to get the hell out of Ann Arbor next year.

10:30 PM:

Oy, with the poodles already...

So I got a second VCR. A very cheap one, from eBay. And while I'd like to be able to claim that I did so in order to occasionally copy tapes or that I have some other conventional reason for needing two of the things, the fact is that I have only one reason for this purchase: Buffy and Gilmore Girls are on at the same time, and having gotten hooked on the latter during this rerun season, I have decided that there's nothing to be done but to tape both.

Got back from New York earlier today. Lots of reading, writing, and grading to do, but the trip was worth it.

2:06 AM:

Okay, really briefly...

(1) Lots of work this semester; busy reading, writing, and grading. My God, the grading. I hadn't done the math before, and had no idea how long it would take to grade forty papers. (Over ten hours, as it turns out. And I have two days in which to do so every single week this semester, two days in which I also have classes to worry about, both those I'm taking and those I'm running. Meep.)

(2) That said, this year's going a lot better than last year so far. Which is damning with faint praise, I know, but, really... I basically like the classes I'm taking; the discussion sections I'm running are on an upward trajectory, I think; and I'm generally starting to feel better about being in this program.

(3) I'm rather unexpectedly making a whirlwind trip to New York for Yom Kippur, arriving there around noon on Sunday, and leaving early Tuesday morning. I expect to do homework in the airport and on the plane. Rosh HaShana services here were extremely frustrating, though; the airfare's a small price to pay for my sanity.