I worked from 11 AM to midnight today, stopping only briefly for a pot full of Ramen noodles at lunchtime and some chicken for dinner, and the result is a pedagogy presentation that even a retarded chimp could enjoy (providing, of course, that the chimp had some basic freshman theory background, or the high school equivalence of it). I still have to do the second section on innovative exercises but that should only take another hour tomorrow. There have been one to two presentations per class since the beginning of October. The problem with being the last one is that there's a massive precedent to be compared to. As a result, I'm taking the extra time to ensure that my own is at least as good as the best one so far. The bonus of having extra time to prepare is moot, since no uses the extra time anyhow.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with some friends on why this News page is so highly sanitized of names and local current events. In the past, I've kept pretty much the same policy. I don't want someone to "discover" that they're being mentioned on the Internet and have a panic attack. I also know that some people simply would prefer not to have their daily affairs mentioned without permission, and it's easier to not mention them at all rather than get permission. However, I'll try to drop a few relevant names now and then to keep people happy.

My Thanksgiving was excellent. Yesterday afternoon, Mark, Mike, Kathy, and I went to Keely & Scott's house on the edge of town where we met up with Jim, and a variety of conductor-folk whose names I don't know. After the "Composer Assembly Line" technique of preparing a punchbowl full of mashed potatos, Keely took us on a tour of the house and introduced use to the two dogs, Laney and Gus, and the two cats, Charlie Parker and Nico. After Pictionary and watching Brad on Friends, most people went home. Mark, Mike, Kathy, Keely, Scott, and I played more games until around eleven in the evening. Then, I came home and read e-mail from Paige, Beth, Nikki, and Shannon.

And this evening, I started reading a book by Janny.

"Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement." - Frank Zappa