Les Houches / The Alps--in the mode

Catching up this blog is my treat for the day with only some in-class stuff to quick-mark. I was thinking about buying a telepherique pass and trying to hit a lot of high points, but am realizing that is probably not a good idea, even if today's weather is likely to be better than Friday's, which is our "free day in the Cham area." It's an interesting calculation, to be up in this incredible place with all these opportunities (a half dozen of my well-heeled ducklings arose unthinkably early for them, and are off to tandem-parapente before the weather packs in), and I am thinking strategically: I can derive more energy from little walks or runs, as well as simply by being up here in this beautiful place, and not expend myself on non-Tour activities. Strange but true, but this race is a not a sprint, and I have to husband my resources for the last week of Rome madness.

I'm enjoying a cool morning after waking up well before 6, having Done The Right Thing last night and turned in early--looked at myself in the mirror and said, "You look tired!" and then realized I could just ... go to bed, even though it was still light out. So I did. I'll send this from down in the bar-lounge where I will hold my office hours later today, because one of the wireless routers is nearby--in my room the connection is much more tenuous, especially since so many students have netbooks or BlackBerrys and are uploading photographs to Facebook. Of course, our Tour has its own page, but I haven't been added to it for some reason, which is not altogether tragic: I am still reluctant to add another time sink to my menu, even though it's strange to see this new phase of people from one's past coming out of the woodwork with their "friend requests," similar to the flurry of such contacts that occurred when e-mail / the web first became popular in the early 1990s).

Yesterday was tougher than expected, as I had slightly more papes to mark than I had calculated, but I was completely dogged about it, sitting in my room with the door closed against the "sultry" heat (I love the English they use in the Cham meteo) before the afternoon T-storms that rattled the building during my class at 3. I had a bad episode of opthalmic migraine as well, always depressing, worst in months as the blind spots and sparklies dominated my right hemifield, and especially trying because I just need to tough it out and finish my set of scrawled essays before class (most likely this was the reason for my bleariness that prompted the early turn-in). As it was, I marked one during the in-class writing, and deferred the other until after class using the excuse that it was so scrawly (admitted to by the writer when he turned it in) that I had him read it to me tutorial-style after class on the terrace, a good experience in rubbing-the-puppy's-nose-in-it I think, but totally teachable moments from this UCSB guy who has got that glibness without real substance that slowly began to dawn on him as he tried to decipher his own scribbles, and once he did realized there wasn't much there there anyway.

After that tutorial I lit out for a local trail (everything is ouf-uphill from here) and did a most welcome run (up to the level of a peculiar statue of Jesus blessing the valley about 200m above us), then showered and went to the dinner-buffet, at 7:15 this time instead of the later sitting, to accommodate our hosts who had a big group coming in.