SP09 Prologue

It is a week into SP09 semester, and so far, so good.
Few things that happened in the past week:
1. I now have a thesis adviser! finally! I have been talking with this professor since last semester, and I made it final by putting her name and her signature on a piece of paper and handing it to the academic office. I am still working on the topic, but at least I have an area of interest I am researching under. And since I am planning to do 5 semesters here, I still have a bit of time - would be great to publish a conference paper or two though.
2. The course I am TA'ing for seems to have been affected by the budget cut... Last semester we had 6 TA's for 200 students, now we have 4 for the similar number of students. And 2 of the TAs are new to this course. OMG. So my teaching hours have been doubled, and surely my office hours will be doubled as well. And the exam markings will undoubtedly last even longer. OMG!!! The 12-hour horror!!
3. Got a new office assigned - I was in this humongous 11-persons office before, and I never liked studying in there because it was so noisy. During the winter break while I was in NY, a pipe that goes above my desk got burst and the whole office was flooded. So, after floating around with no office for 3 weeks (over the break so no biggie), I got a new office and this time it is a compact 4-persons office and I love it! It is still on the first floor where there is no service room for coffee or printers though. I have met those who share the office and they seem all very... quiet :D (so far just been saying hello and bye stuff).
4. Got a new camera! YAY!! My Canon Ixus i has been acting weird with its battery for a while and one day while I was in NY, it died after taking 5 pictures when I recharged it over night. It kinda still works time to time, like if I switch it on and off several times.. So, given my plans to visit Chicago again during the spring break and possibly overseas during summer, I thought I'll buy one and play with it a bit... clearly, they are paying me too much here :D.
Now, I'm a happy point-and-shooter and I think I took some good pictures with my itsy bitsy Ixus i. Plus I don't like carrying around a chunky dslr camera when I don't know how to use all the functionalities. I was eying the Canon G9, but I figured that for that much of money, I could easily buy a lower end dslr camera which will no doubt take much better pictures. So, I braved and bought Canon Rebel XSi (EOS 450D) with all the intention of learning every single feature it provides. So far, the wide angle and zoom I can get with my kit lens (well, compared to Ixus i) have blown me away.

Despite all these things happening and assignments and homeworks slowly mounting, I feel like I can do with a week more of holidays :p It's the post-holiday laziness I guess, and when things really start next week I'll whip myself into shape..