“If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the Angry Dome.”

[quasigeostrophy]

“The Angry Dome” is going to be my new name for ranty posts. Like this one, where I’m just griping about stuff to get it out of my system. I’ve had plenty in the last few days about which to rant, at several levels of importance.

• The Fall Semester TA Schedule. I last looked at the preliminary schedule last week, and updated my fall calendar accordingly. I was originally supposed to be grader for the undergrad atmospheric thermodynamics class and teach the accompanying first semester synoptic meteorology lab. I realize it was a preliminary schedule, but it has never really changed in past semesters, so when the new one came out yesterday I was taken aback. Now I’m still grader for thermo, but I’m no longer teaching the lab. Instead, I’m co-TA for the seniors’ observations and measurements class, a class which is a HELL of a lot of work (2 TAs are usually assigned, and those I’ve known in the past are overloaded by it anyway) and meets 3 times a week (sometimes 4) instead of 2. I was supposed to take my 2nd required semester of seminar this semester and no other classes and have time to get my research to where I could write my prospectus, the precursor for taking my preliminary exam. Ha. This could affect my completion timeline, and I’m running out of semesters in which I can TA (Ph.D. students are limited to a maximum of 7 – the upcoming semester for me will be # 5). Time to meet with my advisor again and see what can be done.
• Already I’ve heard from the prof for observations & measurements, and he wants to meet every day next week from 2 to 4pm to prep for the semester. Going to ask if it can be done earlier in the day, but not holding my breath.
• Toni found out today she’s probably going to have to drop to 4 days a week until September 23 because of cutbacks on contractor spending, cutting her income to 4/5 normal.
• SyFy canceled “Eureka” today. Yes, it’s just a TV show, and the anger for it doesn’t rank in importance at all near the two items above, but watching it is one of the things I look forward to when it is on, and, while it will be on through next summer before it ends, I’m also annoyed at how several of the cast and crew found out (via Twitter), and I’m not so much angry at SyFy as I am their parent company Comcast. It’s another reason to dislike them, as I’ve believed all along that a media/infrastructure provider like Comcast should never be allowed to own a content provider like NBC Universal.
• Maybe this isn’t so much an angryitem as an annoyed one, but I’m not sure I’m doing much better having dropped several of my meds over a week ago. I probably shouldn’t have dropped all five of them cold turkey, but I’m really bad at gradually tapering – it’s so easy for me to kick back up to previous levels. I have a bad sinus headache today (not like last Wednesday’s migraine, thankfully), probably from being outside quite a bit yesterday getting rid of all the recycling in the garage.
• I can probably link the “Eureka” cancellation and Toni’s hour reduction to the same brassa-frakkin’ thing – the S&P U.S. credit rating downgrade and the likelihood of it pushing us into a double-dip recession or worse. Yes, I’m talking politics here, in a sense, in violation of my own rule, but that should tell anyone reading this how much it pisses me off. First, the stock market’s reaction seems to have bounced back today by the same amount, and second, why should anyone listen to S&P anymore, anyway? They frakked up the numbers when they announced they were going to downgrade, and didn’t they have a part in the financial sector frak-ups of a couple of years ago? I’m so damn tired of the Republicans in Congress governing out of spite. Constituents and the country be damned – anything to make Obama a one-term president.

Originally published at Abnormality Locality. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Oh, no wonder SehFeh sucks. I had no idea Confast owned it. Dumb.

I had not thought of the link between Eureka and the mini-panic. Hmmmm. Sometimes politics is something to talk about. As long as there's no shouting.

Five meds cold turkey? *shudder* *_*

[quasigeostrophy.livejournal.com]

SyFy started belonging to USA Network. At some point they were bought by NBC and/or Universal (don't know when in relation to their merger), and NBCU was just acquired by Comcast. :-P One of the writers/producers of "Eureka" said on Twitter, "We are the network's golden child in every way, except profit margins. Fact is, Eureka is an expensive show to make and we could not maintain the quality of our show with the cuts it would take to make us profitable for Syfy's new parent company. Our creative execs at Syfy fought hard to keep us. Trust me, they LOVE us. We just couldn't make the numbers work." That told me it was Comcast's fault.

[elmegil.livejournal.com]

While you're at it, can you berate NBCU for their lousy website design? I wanted to buy some plush minions (Despicable Me), but I can go through the ENTIRE purchase process but the "submit order" button doesn't work.

[gremlin44.livejournal.com]

*thoughts*

Hopefully your adviser will be able to untangle part of this.

Allergens are extra horrible this year. Both my kids are suffering in addition to me.