Wens-day mor-ning, clap-clap clapclapclap It's kind of cold in San Francisco. Not cold like an ice cube or a cat ear, but cold like it tends to be here in the summer. Temperate, but in and out come the winds and clouds. Since June, it's overcast in the mornings until the sun burns the clouds off, which is usually around noon; it's nice for about 3 or 4 hours, and if the wind isn't blowing you can sit on the grass and read a book or find a big bag of pot like I did on Monday (the third one I've found in this city: imagine the stoned dude who's pocket it fell out of, and his moment of realization). But around five the wind comes back with the clouds and I'm so cold when I ride my bike back from school/work. Dress in layers they tell us. In theory, summer here doesn't start until August, and September is one of the warmer months. Weather weather weather weather. Weather weather.

Here is an article about higher education that Cole put up on Google Buzz this morning, another article that basically says universities suck and degrees have no value, the teachers are overpaid, the administrators are greedy, text books are a rip offs, adjunct teachers (like me!) are slaves, etc. etc. and all of this may be true, but it's a little disheartening to read all these comments about money to say nothing of the value of an education or more fundamentally, the impulse to improve ourselves and the faith in unseen results that it requires. That said, it's supposed to be difficult. When I say it, I mean everything. In my case, it's freaking hard to teach. It's not hard to show up, but having been doing it for almost five years, only recently does it feel like I'm doing more good than harm. Maybe people who post on the internet experience a similar learning curve.

Anywho, the cats are cold. Kitty Girl is laying on top of Jinx. I've been slowly reading a book called The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work by Alain de Botton, which I've been enjoying. It's kind of pop philosophy about work, annoyingly overwritten but really funny because pretentious verboseness is a strange way to talk about the cookie manufacturing process in England. That probably didn't sell the book but oh well. That's the update. The semester ends a week from today and then I'll have three weeks off to gallivant about; do a little construction, spend time with old friends, and head back to the middlewest to see family. In the mean time:

p.s. you may notice that i've removed the "comment" tab that usually appears at the bottom of postings. two reasons: a better visual flow, and to get rid of the awkward decision to comment or not. please send me an email if you have a response. or, if you really want the comment option back, let me know.