My Advent Calendar Necklace

 

I forgot to mention that not only did my Advent calendar include a dig kit (which I used to retrieve the real crystal from the plaster "crystal"), it also included implements to make a necklace, a keychain, and other things. So I made a necklace out of the rose quartz crystal that I had to work for, since it was the perfect size and shape.

I wore it all day yesterday and today, and I'll probably wear it all week.

It was a very quiet day on campus. I saw nobody in my building, but I did have a videoconference with a faculty member. There are some travel planning emergencies going on, which makes me wonder what they would have done if I had taken this week off like I'd originally planned. I took a long walk at lunch, since it was finally bearable out, and as I walked along the Lakeshore Path, I heard a train whistle to the west. It was getting closer, so I broke into a run but couldn't keep that up too long. Still, I did manage to get to the spot where I was very close to the train just before it arrived. It was a very small train, just the engine and one car, but whoa was the whistle LOUD when I was standing right there! I didn't bother to make a video since it was too cold to take my gloves off. Then I went up a whole bunch of stairs, and that felt great! It almost felt like I worked off all the food from this weekend.

The one thing that went wrong (this isn't even a First World Problem but a Me Problem) is that I couldn't find the key to my coworker's office, because she has all the master keys. My office window faces east, so I could see from the reflection off the other buildings that there was a spectacular winter sunset going on. I wanted to go into a TA office that faces west, but I finally just went down to a lower floor with a window that faced west. Here's a photo I took:

It was probably even better while I was frantically searching for the key instead of just going downstairs right away. 

The Badgers are in some meaningless bowl (as a guy from Night Prayer said, "One of the top fifty bowls in the country!"), so I'm half-watching it. Travalon went with a buddy to watch it at a bar, which I'm glad about because he should watch it with someone who cares more than I do. I consider this bowl a participation trophy, because the Badgers weren't really good enough this season to actually deserve to play in a bowl, but now there are so many that practically every team with a mediocre record can be in one. It's just an excuse for rich alums to fly to Arizona and party.

Famous Hat