This place looks familiar, somehow

Back in the 'port! Which can mean only one thing: the new semester starts on Monday.   (And I have a committee meeting on the first day of classes.  This may be a record.) Time to finish up those syllabi. 

This semester will be interesting: the campus has rejiggered its scheduling so that our classes have become shorter (losing anywhere from ten to thirty minutes, depending on the original length).  There will be a lot of experimenting this time around to see how much I need to cut out of lectures and/or my usual run of assignments.  The new schedule also means that my classes will now all be clustered in the afternoons, as the department needs to have morning slots open to round us all up for meetings and suchlike.  (Strangely, not everyone seemed overly enthusiastic about department meetings at 8:30 AM.  Perhaps the chair needs to supply coffee, or maybe chocolate-covered espresso beans.) 

Alas, my deep philosophical objections to winter are, once again, in full force.