Use it or lose it

I’ve been away from the habit of delivering long orations, so today in my first class returning from a long break, I suffered from wobbly knees, and worst of all, I only made it halfway through lecture before my voice started to rasp and fade. Uh-oh. I have many more hours of talking ahead of me.

After class, I ran out and bought some chamomile tea, and also some honey lemon ginseng tea. I think I’ll bring a cup to my classes so I can lube up partway through. Does anyone have recommendations for habits/chemical reagents that I should use to strengthen my voice and to help me get through hour long lectures on very dry topics?

Shadows in the snow

I was walking home from the movie theater last night, when I saw the shadows of the trees thrown on the new-fallen snow by the streetlights. I thought it was pretty.

The movie I’d gone to see was Anaconda, the bonkers ‘reimagining’ of the original horror movie Anaconda from 1997, which had been bonkers already. All I can say of the new movie is that it was a goofy bit of fluff that the actors had fun with; I wouldn’t recommend either unless you just want to escape for an hour and a half. One strike against it, though: there is some graphic, brutal butchery of two majestically large CGI snakes.

Many people are turned off if a dog dies in a movie, I hope you feel the same about vicious killings of snakes.

Stare at my wall with me

Since some complained that my atheist creed video didn’t actually show the poster I had found, here — now you can see the poster. I also take a tour of my office wall.

That’s about the most boring thing I could imagine. It’s OK, we’ve had enough excitement here in Minnesota lately.

Tomorrow, though, I’m going to go to a protest nearby in Cyrus, and maybe to one in St Cloud on Sunday. You can look up ICE Out for Good near you and do something to voice your outrage. It’ll accomplish more than looking at a wall.