Why the dishes are still in my sink

There are a few things that have been preventing me from posting a blog (and cleaning my apartment) over the past few days. First - fixing stuff. Second - the last few days of teaching. Third - miscellaneous things like German lessons and going to see a Rockabilly band (Al and the Black Cats - they're from Michigan, so go see them if they happen to go through Atlanta).

The speed-vac lives in my lab, and unlike the lovely electric pumps that I used to maintain, this one has a nasty oil pump. No one except Melissa is interested in this, but oil pumps are a pain in the ass. While they are powerful they are also finicky. They complain about the least little thing. For example, should someone one of the connections leak so that air is sucked into the pump all night, the pump might release smoke, which might set off alarms, which might result in the fire brigade being called into the lab in the middle of the night. Hypothetically speaking.

To prevent such an event from happening again... um, I mean, to prevent it from ever happening, Matt and I changed the system. The speed-vac also functions as a freeze-dryer, so various parts can be bypassed by turning certain valves. It looks very complicated and sciencey now - but better than that, tubes no longer have to be disconnected and plugged in somewhere else.

See! Look at all the tubes. Pretty exciting, isn't it. I don't have pictures of the oil change, but it was as messy as expected.

The other thing that was fixed was my bike. Through a series of events, I had a flat tire. Matt and Carsten were nice enough to fix it for me. The problem is that it makes me die a little inside to conform to gender stereotypes like that. I was the damsel in distress, they were the big strong men who came to my rescue. I should have taken it to the bike shop, but that means that I have to speak in German. I remind myself that it's because they're my friends not because they're men. Anyway, thanks again Matt and Carsten.

As for the class, I taught the last one today. Tomorrow is the exam. I wrote the questions for the seminar, Georg decided they were too hard, and we revised them. We'll see how the class does. I'll write more about it later (and possibly post a version of the test), but this can't be done until after the exam. I think it's extremely unlikely that anyone in the class is aware of this blog, but they're clearly very crafty.