flying solo

uh oh. My other half in the land of chairdom has to fly home to a family emergeny in Spain so I will be ON MY OWN for the next six days. I have to run a faculty meeting on Thursday and, more horribly, spew out the first couple of our several letters of support for faculty sabbatical/grant/leave applications. This latter I was planning to take the lead on anyway, but it just feels a tad daunting knowing that editorial support will be in SPAIN on a significant time difference. Perhaps this is why I am well on my way through a bottle of red...or maybe I am just well on my way through a bottle of red.

ironies

So, last week we had to meet with an instructor whose last set of course evaluations were woefully poor. The meeting included such highlights as explaining that answering your cell phone during class on a regular enough basis to have it much noted in the evals, was just not on. There were also the usual laments about digresssions, homework never returned, and my personal favorite, the recomendation to get drunk before tests. Imagine my surprise when today I got through campus mail a notification of this instructor's nomination for a distinguished teaching award. I had to ring the person in charge and say I couldn't really see writing a glowing letter since I had just finished writing a summation of our little chat from last week and it was anything but a glowing endorsement of the person's teaching.