Moments of moodiness

I've been in a bad mood, on and off, for days. Or maybe it's not really one bad mood, but a series of them. No reason, really, except for the general mid-term blahs that seem to descend when it gets to be--you guessed it--mid-term. (Yes, professors get them, too. I know it might seem that we get to have all the fun--diabolically planning together to make sure that all exams and papers come due around the same time so that students can feel maximum stress. But no. If everything is due at the same time, that means we have a lot of work to do, too.)

Anyway, I thought I would make a list of mood-lifters I've experienced over the past several days. You know, just to see if listing them might add up to another one.

1. Hearing Maria Schneider Orchestra in Jesse Auditorium last Thursday. Beauty-ful music. She says she thinks of music as movement (which it is: the movement of sound in time), and her conducting is a kind of dance. Plus a last-minute fill in on reeds was provided by an assistant professor from (can you believe it) SIU.

2. Chatting Friday afternoon with Chris, who was in town to see his sister's last home game of the season.

3. Indulging in Dim Sum in St. Louis on Saturday with old friends from Carbondale (old as in went to grad school with them in Bloomington before being colleagues with them at SIU).

4. Learning that the SIU Salukis won the MVC Tournament on Sunday and so get an automatic bid to the NCAA men's tournament.

5. Laughing at some of Jon Stewart's jokes on Sunday night: I watched the Academy Awards to get a chance to see him, since I don't see him on Comedy Central, being cable-less.

6. But, really, laughing at Ben Stiller in his green suit was the funniest of all. Apparently, some people were embarrassed for him. But I guess it's the person who's willing to make a fool of himself that really gets my laugh.

7. Hearing that a current grad student who applied for one dream job got it. (Shh...it might not be general news yet.)

8. Hearing that another former grad student got into her top-pick PhD program.

9. And, yeah, writing this blog entry was fun enough.