At the Logan airport / TA or not TA - a temporary problem

At the Logan airport

I did not had to remove my sandals. So, a very clever criminal could fill in the soles with Semtex. That would be a nasty trick and not that hard thing to do, either. One can also bring in large bottles of beer. Who knows whether there is beer in them? Is that visible in the X-ray. I am paranoid. But I do not know, why my laptop had to go in its own basket through the X-ray?
The restaurant next to the security checking (before it) serves good food. It is very slow, though, since the waiters have to spend most of their time using the fancy cash-terminal with a nice touchscreen. More time with that than with the customers. Muda rules!
Of course, there is no free WiFi here. It would be too good.

TA or not TA - a temporary problem

Professor John Sternman was (or maybe he still is) looking for TAs for his coming System Dynamics-course in the fall. Since I was recommended by Jim Lyneis (who taught the course in the summer), I went and talked to professor Sterman. I do think that system dynamics is interesting, but the work/reward ratio of being TA was not good enough for me this time. The total compensation would have been about $9600, which is not good enough for a task, which most likely would take almost 2 full workdays the whole fall term (attending lectures, running recitations, correcting up to 70 assigments, etc). So, after some hesitation, I decided to reject the possibility. Of course, I did not even know whether I would have got the position, for there were other applicants, too. The main reason is that I need to get a job anyway next spring, and when I get one, I will earn this $9600, which I now plan to borrow from my bank. I hope they are still willing to provide me with a study loan.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs from July to September 2005".