Florida seems to be in trouble from another hurricane. (And some people wonder why I don't like it here.) At any rate, I'd like to present to you some examples of hurricane wackiness:

*Anyone who is against the cancelling of the SCA event that was slated for this weekend in the center of the state. Most people camp out at these things, while others stay in cabins. Not the safest place to be when a storm that's as big as the state comes calling. Also, do we really need to be driving on the interstates when folks are trying to evacuate? One knucklehead posted in a SCAdian's blog that by the time the storm reached the campsite, the winds would be "down to 85 mph", like 85 mph is a cool refreshing seabreeze.

*Storm stalkers who want the thing to hit so they can study it. Or insist that the track they are predicting is the only right one. Or have a favorite meterologist from NOAA, and get all excited when they see his or her name on the latest advisory. Like every other place on the web, even people who like chatting about storms need a reminder to be civil. They're all in their element, so to speak. It's kind of cute, in a geeky way. How can you resist a weather web site called Barometer Bob's Hurricane Hollow?

*"The authorities" aren't saying where Frances is off to, so they advise everyone to stock up on batteries and plywood. This is great news if you own Home Depot stock. When these storms go off track and away from major metropolitan areas, the media people actually seem a little sad.

The outer bands of the hurricane aren't even here yet, and we've already lost power! We haven't found our nice camping flashlight yet from the move, so I ran out and bought a couple of flashlights. Sure, candles are classy, but if we're going to be without power for any length of time, we should probably have a tiny bit of technology. The power was out for about a half an hour, as you can probably guess it's now been restored or else I wouldn't be posting this.

Frances is going to emerge from Tampa and head up here next. Right now it's a nice day, sunny but quite breezy. My students will be oh-so happy if classes get canceled for Tuesday; will have to figure out how to handle the schedule as they have an essay due next Monday. Oh well.

I'm not sure if I'm ready for this storm - I didn't buy any Spaghetti-Os. We don't have a charcoal grill, though I did buy a flat of bottled water. I hate going overboard on the preparedness thing. I'm guessing we'll get wind and lots of rain, but one can never be sure. We do have a bottle of rum though. Maybe I'll make rum cake and boil some peanuts before we lose power again. I'll try to keep you all posted.

I was crafting an elaborate rant about my predicament here, when an unforunate series of key strokes erased my work. So now I'm too angry to reconstruct it - I'll just have to forgo the cleverness.

There's a rather large hurricane out there, and many forecasts indicate that it's indeed 'heading right for us'. You won't hear the TV meteorologists say this, because for whatever reasons, they seem to like large-scale panic amongst the citizenry. Must be good for ratings. Now, this model forecast is the sort of thing I'm finding on the Internet, long known for its reliability where information is concerned. Note that three out of five possibilities take it to my current location. If you squint at the map, you can see the turn to get to the apartment marked clearly for the hurricane to see. (Oops, I forgot and slipped in a little humor - my bad.)

Remember my student loan issues? Well, SALLIE MAE found yet another issue with my loan application (note to self: pen exhaustive anti-SALLIE MAE rant later for all the WWW to see), the end result being that the funds won't be available until Wednesday.

Wednesday, when this storm may be arriving.

You see, I was really counting on that money to pay some bills. Bills like renter's insurance, which has lapsed because of the whole becoming-a-grad-student-and-taking-an-enormous-pay-cut-thing, and at one time I was assured that funds would be available August 26...but I digress...I have already received one advance from the university, I may be able to get another, but will it be in time to reactivate my renter's insurance? Don't insurance companies have clauses in tiny print to the effect that "if a big storm is targeting you, you can't get insurance right away"?

Seriously, I'm not sure what to do at this point, I really am trying to avoid panic, but after watching two storms rip into this state, it's hard not to worry. At some point, I will place my most treasured books in one of those giant plastic bins and hope for the best.

P.S. - whose bright idea was it to name a storm after an infamous despot? I suppose next year we'll have Hurricane Adolph to contend with.

Things I'm tired of, in no particular order:

• A lack of funds, thanks to the combined incompetencies of SALLIE MAE and my bank
• Reading a bunch of essays by freshmen who don't quite get the assignment
• Being menaced by gigantic hurricanes
• Did I mention being poor yet?
• Having to spend five hours a week in an "office" (read: basement) lined entirely in asbestos (note to self: buy stock in Ricola as a sore throat now seems a permanent part of the semester)
• Being slightly rearended at a stoplight, and not feeling comfortable calling the police because my insurance may have lapsed (due to the whole no-money thing) - note that car is fine and I am too, though the right side of my body kinda hurts...

And yet I'm still enjoying my new life.

Had a great day at school yesterday. My classes went well, I actually got my students to communicate with me! I got their input for their next essay assignment. Actually, I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted the assignment to be, but I got to look all magnanimous by asking their opinion. Plus, I played Beastie Boys on the room's speaker system before class, to start class with a nice funky groove (Ill Communication is quite funkariffic).

Then I met with Professor V during his office hour. I talked to him about the presentation I'll be doing in his class next week, and about a possible topic for my research paper, as well as my thesis idea. He said he remembered my paper from my application as he was on the admissions committee last year. Squeeeeeeeeeee! We had a nice chat about intellectualism being out of favor in our culture, and how academia is the 'real world' to those of us who like that sort of thing. Quite enjoyable. Oh, and I asked him something that I was hoping would come up (no pun intended, as you'll soon see) in class. See, we're reading these captivity narratives from people who were kidnapped and enslaved by the Turks. And they keep talking about being beaten by their captors with a bull's pizzle! So I had to ask, what's up with that? He says, "Well, you know what a bull's pizzle is, right?" "Yes, that's why I'm blushing!" So he didn't know if it was meant as an extra insult, but he figures they have been considered excellent implements of beating. (Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's at least one dirty joke in there. I'm not going to make it, though, as Professor V is probably going to wind up being my thesis advisor.) He loaned me some books on new historicism, I won't have time to read them all right now, but at least I can add them to my Amazon Wish List.

They decided, after much hand-wringing, to cancel classes today because of the hurricane. I figured it was alarmist thinking, I mean the thing was at least 200 miles away. It aggravates me, because they keep cancelling classes on the days I get to be a student, and I'm new enough to enjoy going to class; it would be another thing altogether if they'd cancel when I have to teach, which is still fun, but, since it's my job, I'd rather have a break from it, not discussing literature. Anyway, I don't think my jubilant freshmen realize that they may very well decide to extend the semester by a week. It's been really hard to get them into the swing of a regular academic schedule, I mean, the semester is one month old, and two of those weeks have been shortened. It's been difficult for me, too, because as an adult I own more stuff than most of them, so I have to worry about it potentially being washed away when these storms threaten.

Speaking of adult concerns, my student loan finally came in, and I immediately paid the car/renter insurance premium for the next six months.

I'm a bit behind in my studies.

In fact, I'm procrastinating by writing this.

Watch this space for further developments.

Some of my students are actually good writers. I'm seeing more of this especially with the second essay assignment that they are working on. I started off the semester with a "writing about technology" lesson plan (as brand-new TAs, we're asked to pick a prefab semester outline), but they did not take to it. So I've been forced to find new assignments. The first assignment was for them to discuss their on-line persona. This resulted in many bland statements about how cool the Internet was. The current assignment is to write a personal narrative - quite hard to mess up that one.

The department requires us to have two conferences with each student per semester. We get to cancel classes, so the students love it. It's hard work for me, but I get to know them a bit better. They're pretty interesting, even the guy who frequently has his head down on the desk in class. I enjoy chatting with them, not just about the assignment, but about more everyday topics. One student graduated from the same high school that I did. Of course, she was born two years before my senior year. Eeep!

I've been noticing more descriptive work creeping into this essay. I complimented one of the girls on a particularly interesting passage, and she said, "I put this in after the writing exercise we did in class Monday." Wow - I actually taught somebody something. How 'bout that?