Week Ending
No, I’ve not forgotten you. It has been a rather busy and very stressful few days, and I’ve only just arrived at a place I can take a break, sit down, and type a bit to the blog. I do not know how long this break will be before the next thing comes up. I’m going to reflect a bit, with no particular aim in mind, so beware.
After a not too hectic Sunday, which saw me shopping and preparing the house for visitors, ending in a Holiday dinner gathering at the President’s house where I finally met Murray Gell-Mann (more later, I hope), things descended into a crush of colliding events. Monday saw a long job search committee meeting and then the big final exam for my Physics 151 class. Due to delays and various earlier logistical constraints on my part during the booking of the flight, the exam of course coincided with the landing at the airport of my mother, who is going to be visiting from England for a few weeks. So that was quite a hectic time, in the end (saved by some substitution help), as was the grading of the exam the next day, which involves (with my colleague who also teaches on this course) organizing several TAs, getting them to solve the problems first so that they can properly understand how to grade them, writing solutions, and so on and so forth…
Beyond that, Tuesday is all a blur, except for one sharp point that obscured everything else. While driving along from one place to another (yes, I do drive from time to time), there was a small dull thumping sound and suddenly my dashboard went a bit weird, showing symbols I don’t see during normal operations, followed by a loss of power steering…. I focused on getting home, as I’d left my mum home on her own all day (not very hostly of me), wrestling the car around the corners I needed to take – amazing how much we rely on power steering. Then the engine started to overheat, the temperature gauge measuring in the red… Was that a real reading, or […] Click to continue reading this post
