Yes, Kristin, I do catch the shenanigans in your work life. Good to see you're feeling upbeat though.

Did that help? It felt helpful.

Define 'helpful'?

I've been seeing moments of Wallydom as I've skimmed.

Look! Through the clouds! It's WallyWorld!!

Things have been unbelievably stressful at work the past couple of weeks (grades due combined with massive network failure at school...never a good combination...and also having to start teaching a new class and close out the grades from the last semester class and deal with a student who unintentionally plagiarized and...well, you get the idea), and I still don't have my car back and I think I'm getting sick...

Oof. How do you unintentionally plagiarise? Was there supposed to be an attribution that got neglected or something?

Define 'helpful'?

I could, but I'm distracted. I'm currently ploughing through some dodgy VBA code, that has a parameter for the Number of Observations. They've named it 'NObs'. My inner twleve-year-old is having trouble getting past it.

Say, Billytea, Bitches has gone all non-American all of a sudden! Shall we talk about cricket?

eta: I'm in Bitches, not Natter. Doofus...

Say, Billytea, Natter has gone all non-American all of a sudden! Shall we talk about cricket?

Not until we win the Ashes back. Apparently the English captain has been mocking our plucky wearers of the baggy green, although without actually mining the comedy gold of 'baggy green'.

Oof. How do you unintentionally plagiarise? Was there supposed to be an attribution that got neglected or something?

She's a fairly low-level reader, and she was trying to do an intensive analysis of a short fiction author. I told them to read at least on lit critic to get some ideas for their paper and to take a look at published analysis...well, she tried to write a paper, but what she ended up doing was just summarizing that critic's argument. She honestly doesn't understand the difference between original analysis and summing up someone else's analysis.

The whole thing sucks.

Say, Billytea, Bitches has gone all non-American all of a sudden! Shall we talk about cricket?

Standing right here!

Not until we win the Ashes back. Apparently the English captain has been mocking our plucky wearers of the baggy green, although without actually mining the comedy gold of 'baggy green'.

Um. Okay. I have absolutely no idea what that's all about as I don't follow cricket. It just seemed like a good England/Australia link that Americans had no interest it. Serves me right for being a smartarse.

So, does England have the Ashes, then? If memory serves, that's quite a novelty.

Standing right here!

Nuh-uh, you were being extra quiet! Even Aims has vanished.

So many awesome Buffistae in here, and I have to go pass out. Damn it. Smooches and hugs all around!

Disappears in a poof of glitter