Change is in the wind

Dartmouth College announced on Tuesday that beginning in the 2012-2013 academic year, the fall term would be moved up so that classes start earlier in September and end by Thanksgiving. Currently, the first day of class is often as late as the fourth week of September and students return to campus following the Thanksgiving holiday for another week of classes followed by reading period and exams. I enthusiastically support this change, although neither Ellen nor I will be affected by it. Sending students home for five days only to recall them for a week and a half and then send them home again for three more weeks just doesn't make sense, and all the more so when you have as geographically diverse a population as Dartmouth does. The only potential downside is the overlap between Sophomore Summer final exams and the early sections of First-Year Trips, but that has always been an issue anyway and I doubt it'll be difficult to procure sufficient numbers of non-sophomore trip leaders.

As far as weird sporting happenings go, this one is right up there. The Rockies-Mets baseball game on Tuesday featured a rain delay, which is in and of itself relatively unremarkable, but the at-bat that was underway when the rain delay was called was a bit less pedestrian. Due to injury and fatigue (once pitchers cool down--as during a rain delay--they almost never go back out to pitch when play resumes), there were two pitchers and two hitters in a single at-bat! I'm with the sportswriter on this one; I doubt this was a precedented occurrence!

In other news, Gata Kamsky defeated Veselin Topalov in their quarterfinal Candidates match. His next opponent is Boris Gelfand of Israel; their first game today was a draw. Good luck Gata!