Assorted

On light.

Lately, it seems that mornings just get darker and darker.  After the winter solstice, we were supposed to be having longer and longer days, right?  Which should mean earlier sunrises, right?  

Wrong.

Tired of the alarm clock going off in the dark, I finally looked it up.  Although the length of time between sunrise and sunset has increased 32 minutes since January 1st, this morning the sun rose only seven minutes earlier than it did on January 1st, at 7:42am, in my city.  The sun set, on the other hand, a full 25 minutes later.  So although our days are getting longer, it's happening mostly in the evening.  

Which makes it harder and harder to wake up.  There are days I wish that artificial light had never been invented/discovered/whatever.  

But then I realize it would be difficult to read my computer screen if it were not back-lit.  

On colds and haircuts.

Tim's man cold is mostly gone, but it lingered for a long time.  Poor Tim.

Very recently he cut his hair again and donated it to charity.  So he no longer looks like a pirate. 

I like the long-hair Tim and the short-hair Tim.  He is a handsome guy.  I just don't like mustached Tim.  

And Jonathan got a haircut, too.  From me.  About a week ago.  It looks good.  I can't believe none of you readers have noticed.

On stuff to do.

I have lots of it.  

Among other things, I've been writing letters of recommendation, which is an indication of seniority.  Only people who have been around a while are asked to write letters.  Time to move?

First there were the job application letters, then the grad school application letters, then the summer program application letters, then more job application letters, and now more grad school application letters.  I am getting faster at writing letters.  But you know what slows me down every time?  Requests by various programs for me to assign some sort of a numerical value to the applicant.  For example, is their "initiative" in the top 2%?  Top 5%?  Top 25%?  And how many students are in the pool of comparison?  And what others are in this pool?  And has the pool water been chlorinated?  Is a life guard on duty?  

How do you rank "initiative" amongst your acquaintances?  I think, well, the person turned in all their homework, so they must be chock full of initiative....  But where does that put them in a ranking with the rest of the students who turned in all their homework?  I still can't turn that into a number.  And then I start to wonder, why are they even asking me to turn "initiative" into a number?  Are they trying to come up with some fake cutoff they can use to avoid reading all the letters they specifically requested?  I spent the time writing the stupid letter.  They'd better read every word.  

Losers.

I hate admissions committees.  Especially the fake ones I have invented in my head.  

(Sometimes I just leave those number questions blank.  What do you think happens to my letter then?)