Warning: this entry ends in a joke so bad it might be hazardous to your health

Our department partially reopened today, although all the lecture rooms are still out of commission, so classes are taking place in the tea-kitchens instead (which, for anyone who usually makes tea and coffee as often I do, is the greatest tragedy of the storm so far).

I was one of the lucky ones and the only damage to my office is a lingering smell of wet carpet. (In a incredible case of bad timing, our building had just had its carpets steam cleaned last Monday.) One poor student down the hallway had packed up all her books and files into cardboard boxes ready to move offices, and everything got soaked right through (and then stood in 30+ degree heat for five days, turning it an interesting shade of furry). The many academics whose filing system consists of piles of paper on the floor also lost a lot of work.

The main library is still mostly closed, as apparently the ceiling on the top floor has caved in. The foyer with the returns desk is open though, and the whole place smells like a graveyard for rotting books and carpet. Our departmental library, on the other hand, was miraculously spared, except for the mysterious case of two books that were completely soaked while everything around them stayed dry.

While I was taking this picture and indulging in fond daydreams of selfless little books throwing themselves bravely in the path of the oncoming floodwaters to soak it up and save the others, ScaryLecturer walked past. He smiled gleefully and rubbed his hands, "The phonetics books are fine, you know. Are all the semantics texts destroyed like that? Because that would be *ahem* such a shame."

I couldn't help pointing out that while he might not think much of semantics as a field, he had to at least admit that John Lyons' arguments hold water.