Wet but happy day

(Yeah, I wrote way too much about not all that much content again, sorry. Feel free to skip this one and consider it one of those entries I write for me rather than you guys :).)

Ah, it's good to be home.

Since I take the bus on the days when I have my own classes at York (as opposed to observing/teaching classes at ACI), I had to do some walking in the rain this morning and yesterday. Oh, but it wasn't just rain. Both days I was out there in a thunderstorm. Y'know, I used to like walking in the rain, bareheaded, no umbrella or anything...but one day something must have happened to my body because I started getting sick every time I did that, so I stopped doing it. Now I can sometimes appreciate the sound of the rain falling while I'm outside, but usually I'm just grumpy about getting wet and wondering if my notes/whatever else is in my backpack are getting wet. I also hate thunderstorms. You know those ZAP cartoons that used to be out there (and very occasionally still are) to teach electrical safety to kids? Well, I think I saw a few too many of those and took them a wee bit too seriously growing up, because, as childish as it may sound to some, I am still afraid of lightning (well, I don't like the loud, sudden noise of thunder, either, but at least I know thunder can't hurt me). Hearing freak stories of how sometimes lightning strikes come through wiring and so on and hurt people in their homes never helped, either. Oh, and I was reminded today that when you have to wear wet socks all day, eventually your feet start to hurt in the weirdest and most annoying way. And today I wore my good flat dress shoes to school, so it was even more annoying having to walk in the rain and get wet feet.

Why was I wearing my dress flats? Well, because today was the formal debate I've been mentioning. Ever since I read in a psych book last year that better-looking people are generally perceived as more competent (well, it can work against women, but let's go with generalities here :)), I find myself dressing a little nicer in situations when I want to be perceived well. I wore black jeans today, but with my dress flats rather than my runners (I don't actually have any shoes that go really well with black jeans at the moment, seeing as I live in my white runners, so that's part of the reason I hardly ever wear my 3 pairs of black jeans :-P), black socks (of course), a white blouse and a good burgundy V-neck pullover sweater. This is pretty dressy compared to what I normally wear for my own classes. I also put my hair up with a banana clip and barettes that blend in pretty well with my hair, and for once in a blue moon I wore earrings. I got a lot of compliments on my appearance today, which helped my confidence, and confidence (not overconfidence, though, mind you) can only help you when you have to do a formal debate.

We used an impromptu formal debate style for today's debate: each of the 4 debaters (in a particular order) get to do a 4-minute speech, each followed by 2 minutes of cross-examination by a particular member of the opposing team, then (after a 5 minute break) each debater gets to do a rebuttal, again in a particular order. Today I got to play the part of "first negative," so my speech was the 2nd speech, my cross-ex (i.e., the one in which I had to answer, not ask, the questions) was the 2nd cross-ex, my cross-ex of the "second affirmative" was the 3rd cross-ex, and my rebuttal was the first rebuttal, so I got to have my part over done fairly quickly. In preparing I found I was regretting heartily the fact that we only had 4 minutes in which to do our main speech (the only point of the debate when new evidence is supposed to be entered) as it meant I'd have to leave out so much of what I wanted to say. C'est la vie, I guess...there's never enough time to say all that you want to say, nor does the direction of any given conversation ever necessarily go where you originally intended for it to go.

Anyway, overall it went very well; I know there were things I could have done better and a couple things I wish I hadn't done, but 4 of the 5 judges scored my team as having won the debate so I guess it all worked out in the end (that's what you have the other person on your team for ;)) :). Of course, the debaters on the affirmative team did a super job as well. One of my classmates came in to watch the debate a little bit late and missed my course director's introduction of the activity, so at first he thought our debate was scripted...and was amazed when he realized it wasn't and that we had actually drawn these arguments out of the articles ourselves. My course directors are both in their third (and final--York likes to rotate fresh faculty through this program to keep its perspectives fresh) year of teaching our program, and one of them told our class that though this activity is done with our program every year, the four of us did the best of the debates in our program they had ever seen. Hey, nothing wrong with a little pat on the back, right :)? So that's the main reason I'm happy today--the debate I'd been dreading (well, I was actually much more confident before class started this morning, once I finally knew I had my arguments ready to go) is over, it went really well, and the class really enjoyed it. I should point out that just because my side pretty much won the debate does *not* mean that we have proven the resolution to be true...as my course director pointed out, debate questions are chosen such that it could be properly argued either way (since to have a question with a ready answer would make one team's job super-hard and the other's super-easy and wouldn't generate interest/controversy/discussion). Still, it's always nice to win :). Our debate was followed by some discussion about the issues we debated and the whole issue of "what is truth?"...and what the whole topic had to do with teaching (I don't know a lot about this yet as my course director ran out of time and we're going to continue the discussion next time).

It's Wednesday today, which meant I only had a half-day of class. I was feeling pretty good when class ended, so I decided to take some time to go visit my old boss and work group from my research job days on campus. It wasn't easy to get to my group's offices/lab area, as the building our lab is in is having a floor added to it and my group is in the current top floor (the 3rd floor)...I saw from the outside that my boss' office light was on, though, and it wasn't all emptied out or anything, so I knew I could go up there even though the first stairway I tried to use to do so had the top floor blocked off. Once I got up there, I told my boss, "Coming to visit here is an adventure now!" Naturally, he told replied, "Try working here!" The whole construction thing has been pretty disruptive. One day, my boss came in and there was a hole in the ceiling of his office, allowing him to see the sky (he jokingly called it a skylight). The next day, that hole was gone. Then a hole appeared in his office wall. Then a pipe appeared connecting the two holes. Oh, and when I was doing research with him, part of my research had to do with air samples that came through a tube that ran through the roof into one of our labs. The fact that another floor is going to be added to the building means that tube now has to run completely through the new 4th floor in order to get to the roof (I would have thought it easier just to move the lab to the 4th floor so the tube would still only have one ceiling to go through, but what do I know ;)). Apparently it's going to be given its own closet so it will still be accessible in case it gets somehow clogged, needs cleaning/checking up on, or whatever. Anyway, it's interesting seeing this 4th floor slowly get added while not making all the building's current inhabitants vacate the place. I've never been through a major renovation so it's weird for me to even think about, but I guess people add wings and floors to their homes and so on all the time.

After a good chat with my old boss and a member of my ex-group, I headed home on the bus, but I still didn't feel I'd talked to people enough so I called my mom and talked to her while getting to and waiting for the bus and during the ride. It struck me later in the ride that while I am an introvert and not necessarily someone who normally seeks out conversation, I eagerly looked for people to talk to about my debate experience and other things today, and that all the homework and so on that I've been doing has isolated me to a certain extent such that I just really wanted to do some socializing for a bit. It may be, too, that something is coming out again that I realized earlier in my university career I had and that would be relevant to teaching...while I am not normally an extraverted "social butterfly," I really do get excited sometimes sharing things I've learned with other people. At this point the excitement must have washed away because I can't remember what I was so excited about earlier today, though (plus I ended up having a little nap on my keyboard a while ago so some of my memory got washed away in the weird dreams I had...apparently I was tired) :). Anyway, I'm thinking that while there is a lot of work to be done and I will probably still be somewhat isolated for the rest of this semester at least (we've heard the winter semester is easier), I need to actually pick up the phone once in a while and take a social break. So, if you've read this far and you are female (sorry, guys, it's just not like me to call up a guy to socialize, but then, you probably don't care as stereotypically it's the gals who enjoy that anyway) and I have your number and you are accessible when I feel like talking (this latter concern might mean I won't be able to connect a lot with the possibly one of you who is "ridiculously packing stuff into the next three months," unfortunately), you may actually get a call out of the blue from me one of these days (and if you're not able to talk when I call, that's cool, just let me know). We'll see. Hopefully I will still have time to do this and not be buried under too much work in the near future to try that out.

Ok, I'm going to go do some reading for pleasure now (only 9 chapters left in Eldest! Oh, plus the preview of the next book in the series, since I got the limited edition and it's in there). I do have more homework to do sometime, as always, but I know that I can afford to take a break for a little while, and I need to ensure I maintain my sanity throughout the year after all :). I hope you all are well today, and that the rain didn't dampen your spirits too much! Bye for now.