end of semester random life update

* in the past week my car cost me $500 plus 5.5 hours sitting around at the car repair shop... i made use of that by writing out 106 christmas cards. they get mailed saturday. if you're reading this and i actually know/keep-in-touch-with you, you probably have sparkly mail coming soon. :)

* tomorrow is my last day teaching this semester. i'll miss my students, but i'll also enjoy having spring semester off from teaching. keeping on top of material in an "i can explain it in 10 different ways if necessary" way and keeping on top of grading 90 kids' work every single week is a LOT.

* my first monthly lunch meeting with the carnegie institute teaching fellowship people (see here) was earlier this week. i'm looking forward to the next year of forum discussions and other such fun with them. it'll be good for me to have other people who are worried about quality of education to discuss and enact things with.

* research wise, i've managed to sucessfully procrasinate my way through the two weeks since thanksgiving... that amounts to a lot of fun reading and TV watching lately (SOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited scrubs is back now, you have NO idea)... and a day in manhattan last weekend oogling at christmas lights (how can you not love the rockefeller tree?)... it also means i really need to do a TON this weekend so that i have something besides excuses to show my advisor before the semester is up.... doht.

* no finals for me anymore, but i'm hanging around for two weeks to get paid extra for grading other courses' finals, and to help my students study for their final... after that i've got the craziest christmas break to date planned:
dec 21-22: drive to memphis
dec 23-26: in memphis
dec 27: drive to chicago
dec 28-29: visiting g-ma
dec 30: drive to indianapolis in time for heather m's wedding that afternoon
dec 31: in indy
jan 1: drive to memphis
jan 2-3: in memphis
jan 4: drive to new orleans
jan 5-8: national joint mathematics meetings in new orleans (see here)
jan 9: drive to memphis
jan 10: in memphis
jan 11-12: drive back to jersey

here's to hoping for safe weather on the driving days -- there's no TIME for me to get a day behind!

* after weeks and weeks of reasonable weather, we're only getting up to a high of 34 tomorrow and a windchill of more like 15... NOT excited, unless it comes with snow.

* scott owes me about 4 margaritas from doing his computer work this semester... that means there's a very fun non-math night in the near future. :)

... and that's my december. tons of fun, right?