Blustery day

Today was the kind of blustery day I adore. I awoke with gusts of wind dashing rain against the bedroom window, and as I drove around, wet leaves kept getting blown off trees and the tops of leaf collection piles, dancing across the lawns and streets. We had D's first parent-teacher conference, then I went directly to work for a colloquium by Steve Woods from the Univ. of Nottingham (which, curiously, has a campus in Malaysia too). His topic was "Improving the Prediction of Job Performance from the Big 5 Using Metaperceptions." The "Big 5" is the set of standard personality traits that research psychologists work with (as opposed to, say, Myers-Briggs), and usually one asks, "To what degree would you describe yourself as ____?" for a long list of adjectives. Or phrasing to that effect. Metaperception just means how you think others see you, so he was just talking about rephrasing the question as, "To what degree would your supervisor (or best friend or whomever) describe you as ____?."

I envied JG for her view of the storm (corner window office), but it was just making her worry about all the trees on her property. JF told me he plans to force my mother to adopt a cat, and I more or less approve. She loves cats and needs something to look after; it's impossible to fathom why she is refusing to have one. I bought myself a gorgeous New Zealand calendar for 2006; July is the river that starred in The Two Towers as the Anduin. The drive home featured my favorite local scenic view:

Wisps of clouds wreathing Spencer Butte: