7:00 (I) AM

That is what the sky looked like this morning when I got to lecture. It was light this morning, but soon it will be dark at that hour. Fall is here.

I could not go to sleep last night. I finally nodded off just before 2:00 a.m. and my alarm going off at 5:30 was not a welcome sound. I got up, started the kettle, took my meds, and lay back down for a few minutes. When I got up again, I fed the cats and got in the shower. I made coffee (and put it in a travel mug) when I got out of the shower. That turned out to be a bust, though, since I realized when I got to school that I had left my coffee sitting right where I put it on the kitchen table. Sad.

Lecture was lecture. We started class with a little five-point quiz this morning. We had to grade each others' quizzes, something I hate doing. I gave the woman sitting next to me the chance to correct one of her answers as the teacher was rambling at the front of the class before he gave the quiz answers. She had half of the correct answer and she crossed out the wrong part. She had also left an answer blank but to her credit she didn't try to write something in, even though she had looked up the right answer after we exchanged papers. I totally wouldn't have cared if she had though. I mean, she cared enough to look up the right answer right away so I thought that was worth full credit. Besides, it's not my job to police other students (which is why I hate grading other students' work).

One of my old physics instructors who worked at one of the big national labs during the day and taught at night used to have all of his quizzes and tests open book, open note. His reasoning--one that I agree with--was that he was a professional and he would never hesitate to look up information he needed. As far as he was concerned, it was a useful skill to be able to find the information you needed in a book or in your notes. Besides, he said, if you have never opened the book or studied the material or done your homework, you're not going to be able to find and understand and explain the material or successfully work problems during an hour-long exam. And if you do find it and can understand it enough to explain it on a test (without just copying the answer, which of course he would give no credit for), then great!

There's something to be said for memorization and recitation, but there's also something to be said for being able to seek out an answer you don't know.

Okay, enough about that then.

After class, I went up to say hello to Kelly. We sat and chatted for awhile about various things. There are a lot of interesting lectures about water conservation (an important topic here in the desert) coming up. I want to go hear some of the talks, especially the one about the water treatment plant. I'm curious about how that place works. There's also a lecture on composting. Dave and our little worms do all the work to make that happen, but it's still an interesting topic.

There's a woman, Pashon Murray of Detroit Dirt, who has a great composting scheme going. She collects manure from zoos and food scraps from restaurants all over Detroit and composts them. The resulting dirt is used to grow food in community gardens. She's awesome. She made this (car) commercial:


Cool, no?

Anyway, after I left campus, I came home via Walgreens.

My eye has been bugging me since last night when I, without thinking, rubbed it as I was doing dishes. I rinsed it out with some sterile eye drops I had, but it's been itchy and inflamed ever since. I went by Walgreens to get an eye rinse and some more eye drops. My eye is still irritated, but my eye is not red and the tissue around it is not red or swollen. I can tell that my lymph nodes around my eye socket and ear are minorly involved, which probably means something not good. Anyway, if I notice any worsening of symptoms, I'll to the eye doctor, but for now I'm keeping it rinsed and lubricated. God, what a stupid thing. The hypochondriac pessimist in me says that of course I'm going to lose my sight or lose my eye entirely over such a stupid thing. I swear.

I rinsed out my eye then took a long nap. When I woke up, I was craving a burger, so I went to Blake's and ordered my usual, a double-meat Itsa burger combo with seasoned fries and a large drink. (Today I mixed lemonade and a bit of iced tea with a bunch of water). It's my last night of non-vegetaran eating--Dave comes home from a business trip tomorrow evening, so we'll go back to our vegetarian diet--so maybe I need to follow that up with a steak tonight. Not that I have a steak in the house, but I could always go by the co-op.