Thinking ahead...

Today is as good a time as any to begin my birthday/Christmas wish list. It would be a pleasant distraction from the day that's ahead of me: I'm finishing up really unpleasant readings for today's back-to-back-to-back teaching day. I'm also gearing up to wheedle a prof into letting me not supervise his final, now that it turns out that the final has been moved from its original time. Moved to the (Saturday) evening of my birthday, ending fairly late at night, right before I have to catch the earliest ferry to Vancouver the next day. I don't have very many TA hours left for him anyway, and am trying to convince him that he would rather have me use those hours grading for him, considering the fact that he always ends up co-supervising finals anyway. (Seriously: he'll ask you to supervise the final and then decide to come and sit there as well. When I'm only given a certain number of hours to work for him, I can think of better uses for those three hours.) And so I'm kind of grumpy because that night is the only night when we can celebrate my birthday, and I already have invited people to fondue. I really, really don't want to have to cancel my own birthday party so that I can make sure that students don't cheat on a final.

But I digress. My distraction for today is to begin keeping a birthday/Christmas wish list. I have three entries to start with, and will add more to the list through the day, as I find the time and as more points occur to me:

• Something for me to transport my tea to school and keep it hot all day. I don't love my current travel mugs, and they're not watertight enough for me to keep them in my backpack. I love my big vacuum-sealed thermos, but it's far too big and ridiculous to bring to school on a regular basis. If I don't get anything like this for birthday/Christmas, then I'm buying this from the bookstore. (Or perhaps something like this from Starbucks.) (Update: The philosophy factory says that the Starbucks mug is a bad idea, especially for storing it in a backpack, and so I'll say that I want this. Realistically, I'd love this or maybe this. Because I love Bodum.)
  
• Help! on DVD
• Black knee-high boots, with a bit of a heel and enough room for my toes.
• Queen-sized sheets
• Socks. Seriously, I could use some socks. So could Chris. Update: Chris doesn't want socks, unless they're awesome. But he could use shoes.
• More updating: a laptop bag! Something that's not too bulky (and very much doesn't have to be leather), but that's cute of the messenger bag type, which can (safely) hold my (14") laptop, a couple of books, and my future thermos. (I'm thinking that I really do want the Thermos brand 500ml vacuum flask.) I'm thinking of something that looks like this or this.