Another weekend!! Yay! And this is a 3-day-er so I'm in a pretty good mood. Add to that the fact that I went shopping this morning to reward myself for making it through a long week .... without strangling anyone even though they really deserve it. <--- That would be strangling anyone at work, not people while I was out shopping.

Shopping. *happy sigh* I love to shop. Hmmmm. Well, truth is, I love to spend money, and I love to get presents. Nothing raises my spirits like supporting our faltering economy. Probably I should get a medal for my efforts this morning. I didn't feel like I was going overboard, but I spent a sizable chunk-o-money. Totemo tanoshii.

Instead of typing this I really should be answering thank you notes from relatives. Probably I'll get to them this weekend.

My week was not too bad. I flew to Galveston (what's left of it) and gave a talk at the Galveston National Laboratory, went to lunch and then flew back. Made for a long day, but at least I wasn't gone overnight. I'll have enough of those trips coming up this year. Tuesday morning I lectured to the residents, who are irritating me. This group seems to have something of an 'entitlement' attitude that irritates me. They expect me to spoon-feed them test answers, rather than teaching them basic knowledge. It feels like I'm running into this expectation more and more as I go along. I wonder how much of that is the fact that we teach to tests in grade schools and high schools so they come to expect it. I don't like it. I can see why it's done. If your funding depends on the number of students who pass the standardized test, you make sure they pass it. Even for me at the college level, it's tempting. If our residents are doing worse than average on the standardized tests, don't try teaching them better, teach them the answers to the tests. I understand it, but I still don't like it.

Maa. I make it a habit not to spend time away from work fretting about work, so that's all the talk about work. The rest of the week was pretty much meetings and putting out small fires anyway.

It looks like it's going to be in the 60s here today. That's good because I don't like the 20s and 30s. It's been cold here this week. Cold for me. Real cold would be those poor frozen folk in the north right now. One reason I like living here is the relatively few times a year when it freezes. You'd never know now that I was born in Milwaukee. I hate the cold. I do visit relatives in Colorado around Christmas, but visiting the frozen north and living there are entirely different. My yard is dormant, so no mowing, etc necessary, although I should get out and cut back my rose bush. There's probably a list of stuff I'm planning to do this weekend. Shopping was first and that's accomplished. I also want to clean out closets and give my bathrooms a good cleaning, answer thank you notes, do some minor yard work, hang some posters, then the usual weekend cleaning routine of laundry, etc. *laughing* We'll see how much of the rest of it I get to, because despite my good intentions, I also have 12 books I'm currently reading (yes, at the same time), 16 anime series I'm currrently following and 3 computer games I'm currently working on. Guess what tends to fall to the bottom of the list of 'things-to-do'.

I should also get the oil and fliter changed in my car. I'll add that to the list.

I wonder if Monday is a PO holiday too. Probably. I'll have to go by there and get a package on Tuesday.