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My nephew's 9th birthday is this weekend. Saturday, I made the perilous trek to Idaho to bestow upon him a variety of tiny Danish plastic pieces. No amount of toys, however, could top what his mother got for him today.
And so, ladies and gentlemen (and Weevil), please meet Tank, a temporarily tiny yellow lab.
Tank currently seems intent on finding out what, exactly, is hidden beneath his water dish, and will try to dig through the bowl, spilling and splashing the water all over. His best friend at the moment, aside from his new boy, is a squeeky hedgehog toy picked up as an afterthought while buying the puppy food.
I would hope that many of the people I know read this can understand my desire for a camera this morning.
I begin fall quarter out at EWU on Wednesday. The folks at the SFCC fitness center have said it would be quite alright for me to work out with them today and Tuesday, even though classes have already started at SFCC. Kind of them.
With the beginning of SFCC's quarter comes the arrival of the exchange students from Japan, a few of whom decide to show up for morning workouts.
Today, a trio of tiny Japanese girls (I could probably carry two or three of them at a time around with me without breaking a sweat) showed up for a nice workout on the treadmills and stationary bikes, followed by some of the most... interesting yoga stretches I have seen. I have come to understand these are called "bridge" poses and "dog" poses and other such things that do not matter. At least not nearly as much as the distracting effect on the lucky fella who happened to be in their midst as they stretched.
I will miss SFCC because of moments such as these.
Benjamin Disreali and Mark Twain are both credited with describing the three types of information. Similarly, Winston Churchill warned people not to "trust any statistics you did not fake yourself." I wonder where polling would fall into this. With polling, the way a question is presented can impact the responses.
I saw a poll on one of the news channels asking if racism was responsible for criticism and resistance to the President's policy efforts. The poll was in response to Jimmy Carter suggestion that racism is a factor, though perhaps not a driving motivator. The impression I got from the exceprts of Carter's message was that the racism he was discussing was more of an unconscious response that explicit action and attitude.
Anyhow, back on topic. The poll went down predictably. I believe something along the lines of 65% said "no," about 20% said "yes," and a perpetually confused 15% replied with the wonderful "not sure."
This might be one of the most useless poll questions ever devised. People whose resistance is racially motivated may not be aware of it. More people who are aware of racist feelings may not be willing to admit them. Those who want to find racism in any sort of opposition tend to find it wherever they decide to look. Then, of course, there are people who oppose the policy decisions because they genuinely believe these decisions are not the best choice.
Of course, these poll results were supeficially discussed for a good 15-20 minutes before moving on to something equally useless. Since I was at the gym, on the treadmill, my options were either to watch this news report, or stare at the timer, watching my distance tick slowly up toward my goal.
Perhaps I should have stared at my odometer.
In about three weeks I begin the second half of my undergraduate education at Eastern Washington University.
I still have a bit of preparation to get out of the way, but I noticed a disturbing trend. It seems that every application form I've filled out has:
a) been approved
b) had a confirmation letter sent to me informing me of the approval
c) had a follow-up letter sent to me asking if I still intended to follow through.
This afternoon, I have to drive out and submit a form essentially saying "yes, I want to receive the financial aid I applied for, was approved for, and have been awarded." I have to drive there because they did not provide an address or contact person for this form.
I am concerned that my university of choice is so insecure. I had girlfriends back when I was in junior high school who were more confident than this institution seems to be.
