Work starts in the morning. Egads!

I have orientation tomorrow. And the next day. And for the entire week. I have had a hectic week getting my new apartment in order, and it's not entirely ready. How do I dress for an orientation? I am thinking about khakis, a short-sleeved shirt and a blazer I can remove (I get flushed in strange social situations).

I have indicated to my superiors that my class will be a version of earlier classes. As I design it, I am working out the outline for my book, which stems from largely the same premises as the class. This is a much-revered tradition among junior faculty, piggybacking your research and your teaching. In my case, the book is a textbook, so the two go together very well, I like to think.

Of course, the class does not worry as much as meeting an entirely new department chock full of new people, whose smells I have not yet differentiated. So, basically what I am saying is that tomorrow is butt-sniffing day. I imagine lots of promising young scholars circling one another indecorously.

There are orientations within the department, school and university over the next week. It’s a rather overwhelming and busy schedule. At the same time, I had some problems logging on to the university computer system today. My temporary password worked, but I had less than 10 minutes to fill out a form that never appeared. I was really frustrated. So I have no password. No direct deposit. Alas! Alack! Alarum! At least this time tomorrow, Shatner willing, I will have a high-speed Internet connection for the first time in my life. And cable. And a telephone. (OK, I’ve had those before.) Heady times, indeed, when my apartment is finally up to technological par with my freshman dorm room, a la 1994.

I have completed a final HJHOP summer podcast, which, if I get a minute at some point during the day, I will put up tomorrow.

I am enjoying putting together a new syllabus for this class, although I am not entirely sure about what the program is going to want us to put together. I have some good readings from popular culture that I think will be interesting, and an absolutely smashing one about the Bermuda Triangle that I found the other day. I also have some new conspiracy stuff.

Today, I came across a third proposed birthplace of Obama—I had heard Kenya (the ruling theory) and Indonesia (from Howse). There would never be any question about his origins if he were white, you can fucking count on that. It’s such a preposterous accusation, fer crying out loud. Since it really does not matter where he came from the point of view of the entirely worthless “birthers” (rhymes with “flat-earthers,” but lacks the dignity or standards of evidence), as long as he is not from the US, the word in the tabloid The Globe is that he was born in Canada so that his Kenyan father could benefit have a son with dual American/Canadian citizenship. Their sources? Bloggers and anonymous sources. Way to fail! It’s not even worth talking about. They say that the COLB provided electronically does not match any known pattern. But you need to take into consideration the resolution of the scan you are examining. As it gets translated and stretched and smooshed, artifacts of digitization and reproduction appear. We don’t know how many copies of what resolution are between the original and the image that the nameless “experts” examined or what appears in the paper. The other thing that they say is that the state seal is not embossed. Again, what’s the freaking resolution? That really could explain quite a bit, methinks. I mean, I have a photocopy of my birth certificate here (not for Internet dispersal---maybe when I come to power you can ask me to release my birth certificate and I will have you “disappeared”), and any depth to the notarization stamp is completely lost!

HJ