This Side of Lost

Life is all about change, to make use of a banal cliché. I've been making all sorts of adjustments of late and I'm sure I'll have to make more.

One of the more pleasant ones has been downloading Firefox and Thunderbird on my computer at work. I must recommend these products as being very pleasant to use and much more security oriented than their Microsoft counterparts. Clearly any software that is named "<insert natural phenomenon here><insert one syllable animal here>" is superior. Feel free to comment with some more awesome software names... the only natural phenomenon I can think of right now is hurricane, due to Brian walking to the library earlier today and quoting the infamous Scorpions song.

Another adjustment is to get back into the routine for doing classwork. I've had three of my classes so far, and none of them are really going to be slack classes:

• I590 - Information Retrieval from Chemistry and Life Science Databases (hereafter referred to as "Cheminfo Retrieval"). This is a seminar in the Informatics department taught by Gary Wiggins, one of the premier figures in chemical information in the country. Sweet. After I'm done with this course, if I can't find info about some chemistry topic, it can't be found.
• L528 - Collection Development (hrta "Coll Dev"). Taught by Yvonne Oliger, a real librarian with lots of real experience, and a real problem with meandering and rambling in her presentation. More news on this as events warrant.
• X507 - Survey of History of Science since 1750 (hrta "History"). My token HPSC course this semester to see if a dual-degree program might be for me. And it's a whopper. 11 books required for the course and we'll be reading one every week. That's a book a week. These ain't no 50 page paperbacks either. If I can keep up with this, I can do anything...

Last but not least is L570 - Online Information Retrieval (hrta "Info Retrieval"), tomorrow morning. And then my week's done. Yes, that's right, I don't have anything to do on Friday -- no work, no choir, no nothing. Let's hear it for three day weekends every week.

In other news (adjustment related or not):

• Sunday was an almost completely Freegan day (see this entry for definition of that term). The nice people at my church fed me for lunch, and I ate dinner courtesy of the Village Deli while attending their holiday party with Samantha. Sweet.
• I'm having to adjust from being a Harry Potter disparager to a Harry Potter enthusiast. Some of you will know how difficult this is for me. I'm on the fourth book now and trying to carve out some time to finish before my classes swamp me.
• I jogged a mile yesterday. (!!!) Can I adjust my schedule to keep this up? We shall see...
• Today marks three months that Samantha and I have been dating. :) This makes me very happy to realize. It also strikes me that it feels like it's been a lot longer than that.
• Quote of the Week 11: "It was this that made me realize that cicadas are basically land shrimp." - Brian Winterman, chatting about the infestation of cicadas in Bloomington last summer. "Land shrimp" has to be the funniest phrase I've heard all week.
• My History prof used the word "scads" in class today. Sweet.

Better run. Scads of reading to do. Peace, all.