Orts & Ephemera:

I have administered my Final Exams for the semester. Proctoring the exam, attending a departmental meeting, and showing up in court, all in a day's work.

Now the Final Exams need to be graded. Understand that these are essay exams for the "Writing Across the Curriculum" courses I teach. And, oh yes, there are also Term Papers to grade.

In addition to grading papers and exams, there are some submission deadlines for a group report, and I must also begin to draft the written materials for a continuing professional education course to be taught in a few months.

And then, there are the clients, one of whom I just spoke with this evening at shul. Yes, I am busy, busy, busy!



The posting of 6 December 2010 wondered how certain news rags aimed at the insular religious Jewish communities would deal with the story of Haifa police chief Ahuva Tomer and her death while trying to rescue victims of the big forest fire in Israel. Hamodia didn't mention her at all, but Yated Ne'eman told the story relatively straight. As always, neither of those papers publishes pictures of women, so Ahuva wasn't pictured in either.

Given all of the things going on in the world at this time, Ahuva is no longer front-page material. It would not surprise me, however, if she comes back to life, so to speak, in the news media, during the coming months.



I don't claim to be adhering to any formal 12-step program, but I am now in my 13th day of freedom from playing Killer Sudoku and Boggle online. These wasteful activities were keeping me up into the wee hours of the morning, detracting from my efficacy, and sapping my creative energies. I decided that I needed to curtail these activities. And so, after oversleeping following too many hours on the Boggle website, I woke up and decided that, just for that day, there would be no Boggle and no Killer Sudoku. My creativity has begun to recover, I am accomplishing more in a day, I am sleeping slightly (but only slightly) better, and I am less irritable.

There is an excellent chance that I will get through tomorrow without any Boggle or Killer Sudoku, thus achieving the 2-week mark.