So this was it, the finale: as requested I went back to my older office, did a good look around, made sure I hadn't left anything behind, took a couple pictures just in case I hadn't documented the big empty -- and my name on the door -- enough, and at about 3:30 pm I closed it up, locked it, and turned in my key. That's it, then; all that's left in the old office is my mailbox which I expect I'll visit to pick up assignments from still-confused students turning things in the wrong place. (There's a set of students who will imprint only incorrect or obsolete instructions; only the end of term, when they forget everything they ever learned, offers the chance for resetting their beliefs about what they're to do.)
I have to say this for the new department, it's a much chattier place, probably from just having more people and more chances for something to happen. I nearly grabbed a shot at being an examiner for a student's thesis, but wasn't quite fast enough to answer the e-mail (from one of the friends I had from going back a while, as it happens) looking for someone. Neither he nor I are sure I'm allowed to examine thesis projects, given my status, but I figure the more documents my name is attached to the better, this year.
By the sort of coincidence that seems to overfill my life, it happens to be three years since I finally moved out of Troy, and while the weather this and every February is much more enjoyable here, it does add to my general emotional mooshiness. More cheerily it's also four years since my iBook's purchase. And ten since I bought my wallet (well, a day short of ten years, or extra depending on your point of view: I bought it leap day, 1996). I don't know why my mind remembers this sort of nonsense and not, say, the saddle point method of evaluating grand canonical ensemble partition functions.
Also I realize now I forgot that M&M that was cracked just enough to have ants eat out the insides, leaving only the fragile shell behind. I trust whoever gets the office will enjoy the discovery.
Trivia: Numa Pompilius's (7th century BC) Roman calendar had 13 months, most of either 31 or 29 days, Februarius with 28, and Mercedonius, with 22 or 23 days, occasionally inserted between Februarius and Martius. Source: Mapping Time: The Calendar and its History, E.G. Richards.
Currently Reading: Armed Memory, Jim Young.