The iPod I got from my uncle via my grandmother's rejection of it suddenly stopped working. It is, the service people say, unsalvageable. It's funny how many times a person can drop an object and have it work, then it suddenly experiences seemingly unprovoked catastrophic failure. Anyway, on the occasion of my trip to the iPod repair shop I took A's ex's 80GB 5th gen "classic" iPod too. They replaced the battery i hula. Good music. I want to resync the podcast directory, but I feel that would be an imposition. Then again, it was abandoned ~2 years ago. Probably I can not worry and just have my way with it.

I sensed today that I have not done any ab exercises in the past 3 weeks.

Also, I just discovered today (do I do this every year?) that I have a uit e-mail address to which students have been sending questions for the last 6 weeks.

Let me tell You, the only way to justify taking a cruise on the hurtigruten is teaching 3 courses here next year.

Dear Woman Whose Talk I Attended This Evening,

I didn't ask You that question at the end to be antagonistic. That is why I prefaced it with "I understand and support the point You are trying to make," and only then added "but I am not entirely comfortable with the argumentation You used." It seems to me that that should have been lead-in enough to spare me the righteous rant that followed. Truly, Ma'am, the reason I asked is that I actually *care* about this issue, and I fear that an intelligent but uninformed listener such as myself will be less persuaded if You use arguments that can easily be undermined by Your adversaries, who will, when they come, latch onto that point and derail Your message. The question was an opportunity for You to hone Your pitch, to take note of potential disruptions in the communication process. I wanted You to realize that imprecision in political debate is death. Too bad You didn't get that.

As usual, after consistent disinterest for the past 6 months, he swoops in one day and expects full service. Man oh man.

Today I ate breakfast at the Rica Ishavshotel in downtown Tromso. They have a "new and healthy breakfast," consulted with the doctors and dieticians for the Norwegian Olympic Team. The only thing that distinguishes it from the old and healthy breakfast, that I can tell, is that it includes kiwi-halves ready-stabbed with teaspoons for convenient consumption. But, whatever, their traditional pineapple juice blended with ginger and mint is like crack.