This morning we woke up to about three inches of snow.  This is just 50-some hours after Amy and I spent part of an evening on our back patio in shorts and t-shirts, talking about our coming trip to San Francisco and swatting mosquitoes.

Though, I must add, I woke up this morning far earlier than usual.  See, around 4:55 am, I was awoken by a horrible, terrible disgusting smell, and I stayed awake because this horrible smell just wouldn't go away.  Turned out, one of the dogs had created some really nasty shit in the corner of our bedroom. 

So, I mobilized my cleaning energies and took care of the problem.  By the time I had cleaned this horrible diaherrea mess (which had woken up Amy, who then took the dogs outside) and shampooed the carpet, it was already 6:10 am and basically time to get ready for work.  We've been driving in together so that I can get more work finished during the day.

The best part of waking up, though, is definitely not cleaning diahrrea from plush carpet.

I drove Amy to work, came to work myself, and climbed the somewhat treacherous snow-covered hill to McGilvrey, getting to my office and deciding to fix myself a sandwich for a 7:20 am lunch, having been awake for nearly 2.5 hours already.  Of course, I noticed that I had left my skillfully packed lunch for the day in the car, all the way back down the treacherous hill in the parking lot.

Oh well.  There it stays, even now.

My head hurts and my stomach is growling, but I guess it's helping me stay awake even as my brain short-circuits.

This week has been a strange one, especially at work.  After one really shaky lecture in Africa class at Stark on Monday, I've put together a continuous string of what I think have been really effective lectures and classes.  It feels good to be on top of things, which doing most of my prep over break has helped me accomplish.

I also gave a presentation in Shawn's undergrad senior research seminar on Thursday of my "research."  It's coming so slowly.  He encouraged me to write this stuff down, because from my presentation he could tell I had gotten a lot of things figured out.  Of course, I thought, the writing part seems to be the problem.

But I have written this morning.  Well, not really written as much as read, and transposed. Well, I didn't even really transpose.  I've been writing important points from various books and things that I've checked out and read on to 3x5 index cards, dutifully recording abbreviated citations and smartly sorting them in this little index card box that I bought for this purpose. The box has a sticker I've installed on it, which I think originated with Kory, that says "CRAP" in giant black letters on a yellow field. 

Nothing like a daily pep talk, I figure.

You know, black on yellow is considered the contrast pair of highest legibility by most design texts?  Too bad it's so fucking ugly.

I've probably filled out maybe 30 or so little cars with important points.  When I get done finding points in the literature I have, I'm planning to go through the cards and sort them into piles according to my outline.  This is a far more formal method of organization than I normally use for my research, but I think it's making the task (at least) seem more manageable, which is more than half the battle, so far as I can tell.

From there, this thing will write itself.  I hope.

I really could go for some dinner right now.  Rumor has it (and I hope it's true) that we may order pizza tonight, in direct defiance of our pledge to only eat at home this week.  Pizza may be one of the more ingenious inventions in the history of mankind. 

This weekend brings a number of important duties that I must fulfill.  I have to establish two more lectures for Africa class next week.  That's the one class I put off during my working over Spring Break.  They will probably have a video on Wednesday.  I also have to write a paper (if not two!) for Gender class, which is due Tuesday.  I need to write exams for Africa and World at Stark, because on Wednesday I have to deliver exams to proctors, because they'll be held the Monday while we're on the train. 

Something tells me that I can't effectively give an exam from a train seat 2,000 (and growing) miles away.

Beyond all of these things, I have to hammer out my presentation for AAG.  I am presenting what I've pretty much determined is a dead end research project.  The Indiana and Terror project had such potential, using discourse analysis from politicians' use of "terror" combined with election results to show how politicians were achieving power in Indiana to project US interests around the world.  It's died for two reasons: one, no time to work on it.  Two, Indiana elected a Democratic congressional delegation to congress for the first time in years in 2006.  So, while that's a good thing, the effect on my project is generally negative, though... I could reverse the thinking, I guess.

Who knows?  I don't anymore, becuase I just came up with a decent idea in my blogging for this project!  I don't know if I have time enough to implement it, but it's an idea!

Revolutions always happen when people are hungry.  Revolutions never happen when the people are well-fed.  Maybe I should fast at work more often....

Oh, Amy and I are planning to keep a travel blog during our trip to San Francisco, for which we leave a week from late tonight.  It will not be continously updated while on the train (no internet access) but we will keep journaling while travelling.  We will plan to upload our train things when we get to San Francisco, we'll update while we're in the city, and then we'll keep more journals while we're on the train to upload when we get home.

And photos, yes, we'll have photos.

I've started a new blog for this purpose.  The design is, of course, evolving... it's not much more than the basic Movable Type template right now (plus a nifty repeating map background I made, partially as an experiment of cartography, and I think it's kinda cool).   I hope we can make this a habit, to work through blogs on our trips and keep them for posterity.  Plus, I just think it's a neat concept.

Now, if only I could design the blog worth a damn....