The new term for failure: “deferred success.”

My observation: in some students’ cases, their success seems to be deferred post mortem. Following this logic, we can also call dropouts “deferred graduates,” which should at least swell alumni association membership rolls.

Seen at Planet Debian:

I am John Sheridan, although I don’t have the thing for quoting Lincoln and Tennyson he has apparently. A related discussion is going on here; I’m sure Dan is very confused about who this “Zathras” character is, though.

My desk this morning:

I guess I’ll be cleaning again Friday afternoon, once classes are over.

Class Maledictorian is now Prettier Than Napoleon. Hey, that rhymes!

Well, almost nothing: I got my Flickr schwag in the mail today. Yay! Now to figure out what I’m going to do with this stuff…

I also got a report in the campus mail detailing the grade distribution in my classes last academic year. I don’t know what’s more disturbing: that my average grade assigned both semesters was a B (3.05 in the fall, 2.97 in the spring), or that this placed me well in the bottom half of the faculty in terms of average GPA (42nd percentile in the fall, 33rd percentile in the spring).

No, I haven’t done a Mungowitz on my dwindling band of readers… I just spent the weekend in Memphis visiting my mom and my grandparents and didn’t really feel like blogging much. Not that blogging would have been anything other than excruciatingly painful on dialup anyway.

On the other hand, if you haven’t visited the other place in a while there’s a couple of new(ish) posts there.

I feel like I actually achieved something this morning—I finished packing all the books in my office, except the ones I’m using for classes this summer (and the ones I’m bequeathing to my successor):

Now I get to deal with the shelves full of books at home.

I decided to go out for a drive today down the newly opened stretch of the Trace around Jackson, and ended up taking a bunch of photos (although none of the Trace itself). The highlight of the set, by far, is my favorite billboard in Jackson:

Of course, there are lots of others in my Flickr photostream, mostly from downtown Jackson but also a few from Raymond, the other county seat of Hinds County.

Glenn Reynolds takes heat for the Instapundit thong (though it’s apparently on the Father’s Day shopping list for some), while new-to-the-reciprocal-blogroll Memphian Serrabee wonders why nobody buys her underwear for Valentine’s Day while linking a story informing Britons that thong underwear can be bad for your health.

Maybe I’m weird, but I don’t think the particular style of underwear you’re wearing makes that much difference to others—now, it might make a difference to you (Lord knows I’d be embarrassed to be seen in a lot of the underwear I own, something I suppose I should rectify), and if that’s the case I suggest a change. But if you’ve gotten to the point that someone else is seeing them I think the main concern is going to be how easily they can be removed, not whether or not they give you a wedgie when you walk.

Then again, in this low-rider world we live in (apparently, the plumber butt look is “in”), maybe underwear matter more than they used to… but you’d think OFJay would have found some evidence of that.

I just got back from the dentist’s office after receiving the first of two fillings I’m due for. Except for the fact I can’t talk, and probably shouldn’t eat or drink for a while (not that the dentist told me anything), I think I’m fine.

Incidentally, there’s more personal crap at the other place, wherein I talk about helping Kelly move her stuff into storage last week. It’s probably rambling and overly detailed, and a healthy chunk of the more amusing stuff is omitted anyway, but the post is there nonetheless.

One of the perks of only having one student in a class (in this case, Introduction to American Government) is that when you’re done, there’s no need to pad it out, or reexplain things six times so it might penetrate the skull of the kid in the back of the room who’s half-asleep. My wallet would have liked it had he had some compatriots, but I suppose on a per-hour basis I’m actually coming out ahead on the deal. It also helps to be using a textbook that’s readable by humans with minimal handholding.

Incidentally, it’s funny but I’d actually somewhat forgotten over the past four weeks how much fun it was to teach.

In the space of two days, my two closest friends in Jackson have up and left to do cool summer things for the next few weeks—one is doing research in Central Asia, while the other is headed up north to work on some projects and hang out with friends and family.

If it weren’t for my students in summer classes, I’d be almost completely abandoned at this point (although I’ve seen a few soon-to-be-ex-colleagues around and I’ll probably have lunch with some of them later on in the month). Of course, if it weren’t for my students, I’d be off doing something else myself—more likely than not, spending late June and most of July in Ann Arbor with stats geeks.

Without students, I probably also wouldn’t have been up at 8:30 this morning either, come to think of it.

I like to imagine a little cash register sound going off every time one of these numbers increases. Never mind that cash registers don’t make that sound any more…

In related news, the reader for my intro class this summer is apparently lost in the ether, so I guess I’ll be making use of the library reserve a lot.

An act in two parts. I have to say I slightly sympathize with the kid—when you’re working retail, sometimes your brain goes into something like cash register drone mode—but this kid sounds like he was pretty far gone to begin with.

I have just discovered why horoscopes have that “for entertainment purposes only” disclaimer at the bottom:

If I believed a single word of it, it would be a word too much. Though I have to say that if I’d known before I got here that North Carolina was full of attractive young women, I’d have moved here eons ago.

I guess you can say I’m very conflicted:

What Kind of American English Do You Speak? (þ: Sarah Hempel)

I keep fluctuating between having 18 and 20 friends in Friendster, which is very confusing. Database replication is apparently a much more inexact science than you’d think…

A bunch of us went out this evening to wish farewell to our friend Chad, who is moving to Atlanta on Thursday. So begins the winnowing (or at least seeding into the wind) of our little circle of friends.

I may or may not blather on more about this later at Signifying Even Less, where I’m trying to move my more personal crud (saving this place for the political and work-related things I post). First, however, I have to watch House on TiVo delay.

The New York Times today attempts to get to the bottom of the question of the evolutionary purpose [or lack thereof] of the female orgasm:

[Lloyd’s preferred] theory holds that female orgasms are simply artifacts – a byproduct of the parallel development of male and female embryos in the first eight or nine weeks of life.

In that early period, the nerve and tissue pathways are laid down for various reflexes, including the orgasm, Dr. Lloyd said. As development progresses, male hormones saturate the embryo, and sexuality is defined.

In boys, the penis develops, along with the potential to have orgasms and ejaculate, while “females get the nerve pathways for orgasm by initially having the same body plan.” ...

The female orgasm, she said, “is for fun.”

Or not, as the case may be. (þ: memeorandum)

According to a British outfit called the Oxford Hair Foundation, the recessive gene that causes people to be natural redheads may disappear from the population by 2100, although other scientists dispute this timetable, but not the genetics behind it. (þ: Radley Balko)

The City of Chicago managed to lose 16,800 tons of asphalt last summer, apparently due to theft by paving contractors or the companies contracted to haul the asphalt to job sites. The weird part is that asphalt really isn’t worth that much; according to the article, a ton can be had for around $10. (þ: Dean Jens)

Triangle-area readers (or ex-Triangle folks): any advice on neighborhoods and areas to look at or avoid as I prepare for the Big Move would be appreciated. My vague preferences are for an apartment or townhouse that is a reasonably short commute to Duke’s West Campus, about 1000 square feet of living space, and an area where I won’t be the only semi-responsible adult in my building. I’ve seen a few promising possibilities on Rent.com and the Duke Community Housing website, but additional thoughts would be helpful too.

I spent all of five minutes on an elliptical trainer yesterday and my calves still hurt today. Not fun. I guess I’ll stick with the bike and treadmill.

Put a giant gaping hole in the runway. (þ: TigerHawk)

Tyler Cowen links a quiz that seeks to determine your position on three dimensions of morality. Here’s how I scored:

Your Moralising Quotient is: 0.27.
Your Interference Factor is: 0.00.
Your Universalising Factor is: 0.50.

Mildly amusing and not particularly surprising. You can play here. Jacqueline Mackie Massey Passey had similar scores to me, while Stephen Bainbridge’s scores reminded me why I often find his politics annoyingly meddlesome.