Downpours

The winter rain has arrived and proceeded to soak everything with its usual aplomb. While walking to class this morning, I was wondering how the local population of squirrels keeps from drowning in their burrows, or at least from going (ahem) nuts. The other TA for the class says that she was almost run over while cycling to school, and I think that it has a lot to do with the fact that this has been the first real rain of the season. It has also surprised me a little to see everyone with umbrellas. Living through the winters here for so long has made see umbrellas as something approaching a gesture of futility.

My main project continues to be grading the quizzes; I'm still trying to figure how to be consistent and give an appropriate grade. Of course being just the TA, there is an added pressure of trying to figure out the grade the Professor would give, not just the grade I would, and figuring out how to align the two. But of course, there are the articles to read for the seminar, so I off to entomb myself in either my shared office or the library, where I will slowly moulder in the sickly light of the florouscent bulbs burning above my head. To sum up in one word, Ack!