End of the first week of class

The bird of the day is the brown-headed nuthatch. I saw several of them on my ride to class this morning. Usually I hear them before I see them. They sound like rubber ducks and they're often in the tops of pine trees. We had a pair build a nest in a dead tree in Poplarville.

I spent the day working on my assistantship project. Wes is my co-worker and we've organized both the office and the files. I think we will work well together. He is from North Carolina and is new to Industrial Engineering. He wants to be a project manager for an electronics plant, thus his interest in I.E. His girlfriend is a PhD candidate in Psychology here at Auburn. We have a lot of work to do for the accreditation self study, but we're off to a good start.

Speaking of offices, in ISE graduate school, the department provides a work space (desk and chair) for each grad student. There are 4 or 5 rooms with desks in them and each student is given a key to a desk. Because our ABET project needs its own private space, Wes and I will share a meeting room dedicated to our project and we'll each have a computer along with our desk and chair. I think that will be much better than being in a room with 15 or 20 others.

My second day of class, Thursday, was better than my first. I have read all that I'm supposed to read and could easily follow the discussion in all three classes. I have not had homework yet and am a bit worried about remembering how to solve problems, but at least English is my first language--not so for the majority of the students. Wes said not to worry in the Econ class, it is just a lot of memorization. Obviously, he is not 58 years old!

For some reason, I think it is important to record the low temperature for the day. My grandmother always wrote the daily high and low temperature on a calendar. Maybe that's why I'm doing it. Anyway, it was 28 at sunrise this morning and 30 when I rode my bike to class--still needed bundling. But on the way home, it was in the low 50's. All in all, a beautiful day!

Brandon gave me directions to the bar where he watched Saints games. I'm just not sure I can stroll in by myself and feel part of the scene. I may end up watching the game with Coma here in my house. I'll see how brave I feel at 3:00 or so. Watch for Allan and Brandon--they'll be in that number at the Superdome!