Blargh.

Not grumpy by any means - frustrated, mostly, that I fell asleep instead of going out for a jog like I'd planned. Woke up in time to catch most of the BTN's MSU practice special. It's the 2000 MSU-ND game now. That bilious green turf field in Spartan Stadium is certainly something else! And with the trend within the college football realm of having turf fields (which are nice to march on except that you keep finding rubber bits in your shoes afterward!), I'm pleased that MSU has a grass field. They do a stellar job on upkeep, too. Maintenance begins almost literally the second the football game ends with divot replacement and aeration. The weekend we had the "monsoon" (never mind that's a type of WIND, not a descriptor for a rain pattern!) last fall, we played Florida Atlantic and it rained the ENTIRE weekend. The turfgrass guys kept the field from getting utterly trashed during the game. The following game, the field looked a bit more ragged than usual, but it was hard to tell that it had been saturated and pounded the week before.

. . . I'm going through marching band withdrawal. Sigh. Hoping to head to South Bend to see the SMB kick some Irish ass. We'll see how much tickets are running. It's only a three hour drive from Champaign, so I think I can justify the trip. After all, I'm planning on driving 6-7 hours north to go to the MSU-Michigan game. : ) Now if I can just find a pair of tickets that I can afford!

Back to the present; TA training begins Monday, and I'm somewhere between excited and ambivalent about it. Some of the sessions sound interesting, and others sound downright . . . redundant. They are in place, however, because the school has to cover all bases, including the legal ones. The two days I'm most ambivalent about are thankfully Monday and Tuesday, getting easier after that. Not excited about the practice teaching session because it's being videotaped and I'd rather not have to watch a videotaped critique of myself fervently attempting to remove the foot that's somehow always stuffed into my mouth when I talk in front of groups.

Ironically, the best talk I've ever given in a class was the 45 minute lecture on the different tectonic processes of each terrestrial planet. The 15 minute talks, for some reason, have always been harder. Perhaps I shouldn't have procrastinated so much on those shorter talks! Or, moreso, shouldn't have gotten so worked up over them. Another of my concerns is finding the correct balance of classroom authority and likability as a person - it's not the easiest groove to find. Just another one of those instances where I'll have to jump in feet-first and correct as the situation calls.

On a random note: Going to try to make a heavy tempura with Bisquick to fry up some veggies with. I don't have any flour and I'm trying to avoid the grocery store as much as possible for the next couple of weeks, so no flour for a while here. We'll see how this goes. Ever since trying fried zucchini in Colorado, I've been interested in attempting it myself.

That's all from here. Maybe I'll be more productive tomorrow. Hoping Monday, among other things, brings a certain shipment of prescription meds from a certain mail-order pharmacy that I'd kind of like to start taking regularly again. Still can't decide what's better: Sending the new script into the Certain Mail-Order Pharmacy every 4 weeks, or butting heads with the real pharmacies over the validity of the scripts I bring in. Honestly, healthcare is bullshit. Yes, a LOT of people abuse this drug. Yes, it's chemically similar to a lot of illegal drugs and as a result strictly controlled. I don't abuse it. I need it. It helps me sleep normally at night so I can function somewhat normally during the day. It's not as effective if I have to keep stopping it so I can average some sort of medication schedule.

Okay. ending rant. Watching football. It's a good facsimile till the real deal kicks in soon.