Writing Lectures for Fun and Profit

I'm in a holding pattern with the start of the new year. My first meeting with a prof is, ostensibly*, this afternoon. Later I have the first lecture in the course I'm teaching in. Then I participate in the true vernacular of love: karaoke (granted, that's an extra-curricular activity.) Right now I'm sitting pretty for someone in the opening months of qualifying exam prep, because I have no book lists, AT ALL, because I have no communication with my committee members, AT ALL. So I'm totally not overworked and stressed out. Nice.

I'm T.A.'ing European intellectual history this term, which is to say, I'm teaching in my field for the first...time...ever. I get to talk about Nietzsche with undergraduates. I also get to do a full-length lecture on the existentialists, Raymond Aron, and May of '68. Lacking other semi-productive things to do yesterday, I started writing it (the lecture) up. I have this to say: not having to establish your own authority and not having to cite anything makes writing fun and easy. I could write lectures all day! I even get to use the terms "existentialism version 1.0" and "existentialism version 2.0" - because it's my damn lecture! Huzzah!

In other news, the CSI season opener really sucked. Its suckage hinged on the issue of plausibility. We the audience know that these scenarios are at variance with reality, that's not a problem. The problem is that for a show to be successful, plots must remain plausible within the context of the show. In this case, one of the main characters was trapped in the desert under a car, escaped, and then wandered off into the desert and almost died. It was deeply frustrating to watch because of all of the logical problems: it had supposedly rained 3+ inches in the desert the night she was trapped, then it was bone dry the next day. She's supposed to be a highly-trained, intelligent operative and yet she breaks every basic rule of being lost + getting found and every rule of basic survival (stay where you are, stay out of the sun, don't wander around aimlessly, etc.) She only had a few hours to walk but this massive team of search helicopters and so on couldn't find her. Etc.

Also, my man Grissom is looking a little old these days.

* Ostensibly, because he's, well, in the running for flakiest prof ever, and there's some serious competition in that field.