As it turns out, a student from good 'ole Calvin College was sitting right next to the Nigerian extremist who tried to blow up the plane in Detroit. You can read his whole interview with Chimes, the student newspaper, here.

There were two things I found particularly striking. The student, when he smelled smoke, moved the guy's blanket, sending out a plume of smoke, alerting other passengers to the danger, and perhaps interrupting a process that could have taken down the plane. The student also had this to say about the Nigerian, "He had extremist views and he wanted to kill us all, but he didn’t seem like that bad of a guy."

Hilarious quote on the hand, sobering truth on the other. Extremists are people too. Hatred and clouded clarity strike us all at different times. We would all vehemently argue that we would never blow up a plane full of people, but circumstances are surprisingly powerful. If you could save 1,000,000 people in New York City from a bombing by flipping a switch that caused a bomb-laden plane to divert harmlessly into the ocean but killing all 300 passengers aboard, you would probably think long and hard about the consequences of any action you might take.

The Nigerian probably thought he was helping people too.

Getting back into the swing of things has been ok so far. My classes look like they'll be a pretty fair amount of work (fair as in just as in right as in acceptable as in fair) this time around. I'm going to have to do a lot of reading, as per the usual, but I think I'm getting better at handling the volume (read: getting better at skimming for useful information and skipping the 98.4% that isn't useful to me in any way).

The professor that I'm TA-ing for this semester is only two years older than I am. It's a good thing he's a nice guy, knows a lot more than I do about psychology, and isn't really requiring a whole lot of me (grading, copying, and a few lectures), or I probably would have had an aneurysm at some point.

Speaking of aneurysms, the dog is ticked that we've resumed leaving him home alone all day again (and so are the cats, I'm sure). I know this because, yesterday when Sarah got home, he was so happy to see her that he peed all over her when she picked him up. I'm sure he claimed it was because of excitement. I suspect revenge.

It's funny listening to the news reports about the weather here in the South. Today the high temperature is expected to be somewhere in the range of 28 degrees, and the windchill will go as low as -4. Granted, that's cold weather. The coldest, in fact, in about 15 years in this part of the South. But relatively speaking, it would be considered a heat wave in some parts of the country this time of year, e.g., where I've spent the majority of my life.

So it's starting to get a little annoying the the "latest on the Arctic Blast" is not only the top story on the news, it is the only story on the news. Yesterday, they had a reporter stationed at a nearby school bus yard who was reporting on how it was cold, but on how there was nothing wrong with the buses and that there didn't appear to be any ice in the parking lot.

Really? No ice? This is news now?

Back to the routine.

We rang in 2010 with a bang. When I say bang, I mean that we gorged ourselves on homemade jalapeno poppers and seafood gumbo. And ice cream. Oh, and Ding Dongs. But mostly gumbo. In sum , the "bang" may or may not have been a giant gas ball from all the food. I'll leave that for your speculation.

The long journey back to the South begins tomorrow. Neither Sarah, nor I, nor the dog, are looking forward to 23 hours in the car. Hopefully it will only be 23 hours. It's been a good vacation. Like all, too short.

School starts for Sarah on Monday. I don't have to go back until the next Monday, but I'll probably have to spend most of my extra week cleaning out the cat boxes. I'm sure they're going to be overflowing. Nothing like 4 giant boxes of excrement welcome you home.