Back when I was a student at my form-over-function private high school, we were required to keep agendas. The agenda was a little spiral-bound planner in which we were required to keep track of homework. Best of all, the agenda required a weekly parental signature, presumably so that parents could practice appropriate discipline at home and keep tabs on their kids. Of course, the whole exercise was completely pointless in my case, since I couldn't be bothered to write things down in the agenda and I did all my homework regardless (albeit at the last second). My mom recognized the futility, and eventually I just declared that I would thereafter forge her signature in my agenda to save us both the bother. And we all lived happily ever after.

In CEGEP, we were of course responsible for our own time management, and I dumped all agenda maintenance on the spot. The only time I hit a snag was when I was walking to pre-calculus one day and someone asked me if I had studied for the midterm. "Midterm?" I said, having totally forgotten about it. But seeing as how I scored over 100% on the test, I guess my forgetfulness can be forgiven. Life continued that way through university, where I could use raw brainpower to overcome lazy scheduling.

It seems that my lack of even the most rudimentary time management skills is finally catching up with me, as I feared it would. The life of a professor requires a lot of sudden changes of gear as one moves between a number of different responsibilities. This comes as a shock after the years spent in the deep, uninterrupted rut of grad studenthood. Finally, there's enough on my plate that I've got to organize it into piles.

And so I caved in and bought a planner (okay, an agenda). And I mean a vinyl-covered, spiral-bound pile of dead trees, not some glitzy PDA. I never really liked my Palm III except for games, and I don't think the technology has come far enough yet to warrant trying PDAs again. My planner is fairly utilitarian, with the rationale that I'll only invest in a prettier one if I can make this one work. We'll see how well I do.

The Thingos have returned from a week in Montreal and its environs. We had a great time, but I've got a little of that "need a vacation from my vacation" feeling. Not because I'm emotionally drained or anything; it's just that parts of the trip demanded a fair amount of energy.

Yesterday was by far the most physically demanding part of the trip. We drove from Montreal to Toronto, with a stop in Kingston for lunch. In Toronto we met up with my advisor and his family for a lovely dinner at a Japanese place in the College & Clinton neighbourhood (in fact, I believe it was at the corner of College & Clinton). Actually, we arrived at their hotel near city hall, and called them to discover that they were about to leave the Shoe Museum and visit the dinosaurs in the ROM. So we took the subway up to the ROM (with a quick stop at Whole Foods, of course). We looked at dinosaurs for about fifteen minutes, then walked from there to dinner through the UofT campus. After dinner we walked from the restaurant back to their hotel. I say walked, though really it was more of a run: my advisor's son seems unconstrained by any laws of thermodynamics, and ran along College to Spadina, and down Spadina to Dundas, pulling me all the way. He must have finally burned a small amount of energy by then, because he needed a piggy back from there to University. Whew! Once at the hotel, we fed Zebula and grabbed the rental car for the trek home. So I think it's reasonable that I'm a little exhausted now.

On the plus side, I returned to find that some exciting new things had arrived. One is a book about typography and writing called Letterletter: An inconsistent collection of tentative theories that do not claim any other authority than that of common sense. I love that subtitle -- I want to use it as a subtitle for every paper I publish from now on. I also love the author's last name, Noordzij. I have no idea how to pronounce it.

The other new arrival is a grad student who will be working for me. He's been in Canada for about a week, having just arrived from the Sichuan province in central China. He came bearing a lovely selection of gifts -- a teacup, some silks, and some small hangy-up things that bring good luck (I don't know what they're called). I have a student of my very own! I don't know whether I should giggle gleefully or cackle malevolently.

I'm no longer an Ebay virgin! Yes, Doctor Thingo has successfully sold an item on ebay.ca. Oh sure, Mrs. Thingo thought the whole exercise was futile and that the item in question should just be tossed in the dumpster. How wrong she was to doubt the great hordes of junk collectors out there in the world (or in Canada, at any rate).

And so, my pile of excess electronics continues to be depleted. The computers are the easiest to unload. I can get rid of them locally via usenet. Just advertise computers for sale on the local newsgroups and hungry students descend like vultures. The synthesizer equipment is more challenging, but this first experience has shown that no matter how obselete an item may be, there's always someone out there who wants it. I sold my old Yamaha keyboard. Next up is the drum machine. If that goes well, I'll move on to the greatest challenge of all, the ancient Roland sequencer that's not fit for much more than doorstop status. Then I'll have to seriously decide which stereo equipment to unload. That'll be the hardest part -- I'm reluctant to part with any of it!