Saturday, December 06, 2008

Cold Day/Surprise/Pandora

Today it was incredibly cold--16 degrees. I gave it almost everything I had in the bundling up department: wool socks, wools slack, a wool sweater, my down coat, a scarf, a hat, gloves, and the hood of the coat. I was still cold, but only a little bit!

I went down to U of C today for a talk. It was by someone I did not know, but talking about the text my dissertation is on. At first I listened very politely. Gradually I thought to myself, they should have hired me instead of this guy. Still polite, though, I raised my objections in a gentle manner. The guy himself was also disarmingly humble. Afterward, I went up to talk to him... and it turned out that he was not faculty as I had thought, but a first year graduate student! Then I was really really glad I hadn't been meaner with my objections. I talked to him for a long time, and gave him as much advice as I could think of.

Got good news today: my application for a dissertation writing support grant was accepted so I have a little extra money with which to arrange my interview (logistics are nightmare due to my unwarranted pessimism) and do things like: buy a suit. (Eeek.)

I have been playing with Pandora. It is online radio that learns your preferences and it is incredibly fun. You start by giving it a song or an artist, and then it gives you songs that it thinks are similar. You can give them the thumbs up or thumbs down, and gradually it learns your taste. I love it. Who needs to even own music anymore? But it's also a good way to get to know new music. I used to like listening to the radio in my car back when I drove. This is better though, no ads.

No comments: