October 8, 2007.  After a month of preparation, our home theater system is in place.  We are now enjoying high-definition TV and viewing DVDs on a 58-inch plasma screen, with a six-speaker (plus subwoofer) surround system.  Though I still may need to do some tweaking of the audio, pending the arrival of speaker stands for the surround speakers, it's a system that I would have thought unimaginable five years ago.  At least it's something I wouldn't have expected us to have.

I do get flustered and impatient at times.  Though the basic functions of the new equipment are easy enough to learn, we have a lot of components (brand-new, relatively new, and older), many of which have multiple functions.  The greater capabilitites of new technology create greater complexity and a longer learning curve.  Our system comprises (besides the TV):  DVR/receiver connected to TV-labd via fiber-optic cable, a VHS/DVD recorder/p;ayer, a standalone CD burner and player, an audio tape deck, a phonograph turntable, and an audio receiver that is the heart of the sound system.

At times like this, I tend to think back to times when entertainment was simpler.  One went out and bought a TV, plugged it in, and attached either rabbit ears or an outdoor antenna to it.  That was that.  When color TV came along, we thought it was complicated, because it took a little adjustment to keep people on the screen from having blue or green complexions.  (My in-laws never quite got the hang of it, and people on their TV always looked seasick.)  When VCRs came along, some people took weeks to learn how to get them to record anything; others never learned.

If I hadn't kept up with advancing technology step by step, I would probably be utterly lost now.  In fact, with this rather serious upgrade, I still feel intimidated.  So far I've used the Tivo-like box that receives the TV signal only as a simple cable box.  I know it can be used to record programs and to pause and resume them in real time so that I'm watching what I missed five minutes after it was broadcast, but I'm afraid to try it out.  Of course, I will – but only after I've studied the manual and only when I'm in a very good mood and feeling unusually patient.

October 13, 2007.  I wonder if anyone else hates assembling furniture as much as I do – the stuff that comes in about 50 pieces, with either assembly instructions that require translation or a diagram that looks like a map of the New York City subway system.  Nowadays, for some types of furniture (dressers, desks, computer work stations, book cases, and the like), that's about the only way one can buy the stuff, unless one has the extra cash to pay furniture-store prices.  (Even so, furniture stores carry mostly sofas and easy chairs already assembled.)

I intensely dislike this kind of work, even when all the pieces fit together properly and the instructions are clear (both rare circumstances, in my experience).  I am not a carpenter; if I were, I would build my own furniture.  It would also be made of real wood, not some synthetic coated with paper that peels or tears.  Alas, I am one of the "manually challenged, in whose hands a tool, even a manual tool, is a dangerous weapon.  Power tools frighten me, for good reason.  Given the damage I have done with an ordinary hammer ot screwdriver, any sane person would rightly conclude that no power-driven tool should be placed in my hands.  I have, on occasion, used a handheld power drill, but it is no wonder that people run to another room and start praying whenever they see me with it.  Even the cat hides under the bed.

Those people who are more adept than I am can assemble a prefab book case in a relatively short time.  I take hours, a portion of which is spent swearing or applying band-aids to cuts and abrasions.  Watching me is a grand spectator sport, if one happens to be a sadist; otherwise, it's better not to watch and to stay out of earshot.

October 31, 2007.  It has been difficult to keep up with this blog because October has been a busy month.  Besides having all the work on our new "media room," the middle third of the semester can be a rather demanding time for my class.  It's when those students who are going to crack down start working but not yet the time when those who are going to "phase out" have done so.

Some students, alas, waste a lot of my time – and theirs.  They don't study but hand in hastily written essays that probably take longer for me to mark up than they spent writing.  However, even if the students aren't conscientious, I am.  It's a weakness on my part.  I feel an obligation to give them my best, even if they haven't given me theirs.  That's why I'm there, and I often wonder why they are there.  Why do they pay tuition for a class and then not do everything they can to get the most of it?

I think of one extreme case.  One student has written nothing since her first essay, which she failed.  She has attended six or seven of the first ten classes (the class meets once a week for about three hours), but she seems to be hoping to learn writing by osmosis, not by writing.  Finally, two-thirds through the semester, after repeatedly promising to make up the work, she informs me via e-mail that she will miss yet another week, but "I'm going to make up the work."  She never got the message that the critique on each paper is supposed to teach her something so that the next paper will be better.  Obviously (it's obvious to me if not to her), if she hands in all the essays at once, they will all contain the same errors.  This is procrastination in the extreme.  My guess is that one reason she failed her first paper is that she has been doing this sort of thing all her life and has learned nothing.  However, since high school teachers passed her just for being there (which she was probably forced to do), she continues to let everything slide.  At age 19, she knows nothing of responsibility.

It has been said that a good part of life consists of just showing up.  There's more to it than that.  Besides showing up, one has to do something.  It doesn't have to be brilliant or even outstanding; it just has to be an effort.  It's very sad to observe in the classroom how many students fall by the wayside not because they cannot perform but because they do not genuinely try to perform.  That's something we teachers cannot teach them.  Only life's experiences will, and for many by the time life clobbers them with the baseball bat of reality, it will be too late.

November 12, 2007.  Autumn Thoughts.  Where we live, the trees have usually shed most of their leaves by the second week in November.  In fact, they have usually done this by Halloween, when their branches make spooky silhouettes against the grey, twilight sky of fall.  That is not so this autumn (global warming?); though some of the leaves have begun to turn, most are still green.  A tall, fast-growing tree by the corner of our house (my wife says it is a tulip tree) has usually created a carpet of leaves across our front yard by this time of the year.  Now it is still green with only a few traces of gold and brown.  The same is true, with few exceptions, of many of the trees that we can see from the bedroom window.

A couple of weeks ago, the truck that picks up the leaves that people rake to the curb came by, making the first of the three trips that it usually makes in the fall.  There were few leaves to be collected, whereas by that time almost everyone has a small pile.  During the last week in October, I went to a "green acres" place in Princeton with the intent of photographing some fall foliage; however, there was little color.  Some trees had abruptly gone from green to brown, but most seemed to think it was still September.

On the other hand, it has not been particularly warm – not lately at least.  I imagine that the weather bureau's records show that, except for a few unseasonably warm days in September, temperatures have been at about par for autumn.  There's enough of a nip in the air, especially at night, that we've broken out our sweatshirts and at least moderately heavy jackets.

If autumn is prolonged, I don't mind.  I'm in no hurry for winter to arrive.  The brisk air is invigorating; the frigid winter air is not and just makes me want to curl up in a cozy comforter and snooze until spring.  I love the colors of fall, and I find particularly delightful the dim, soft light of a late autumn afternoon or early evening.  Even though I'm a night person, I find the prolonged darkness of winter depressing.  In winter, darkness seems to descend too abruptly, whereas in the fall it seems to ease in more gently.  It would be nice, though, if there were some color in the trees.