vignettes of teenage life

Last night we went out to dinner - me, Catherine, Sam and two of Sam's friends with whom he had been playing pick up soccer for six hours (no school yesterday or today). Afterwards the boys wanted to go bowling so I dropped them off. Proof that boys of that age are wildly different sizes.
Bowling lane employee: "What size shoes do you need?"
Boy 1: "7"
Boy 2 "7 and a half"
Boy 3 "12"

Then Catherine and I went over to the high school parking lot and I let her drive for the first time. She was great!

we have work to do

Today was our department's retention, promotion and tenure meeting. This is the most serious forum in an academic department - the place where careers are made or not. As chair I attend in a purely listening and question answering capacity. So when I hear things such as what I am about to recount, I CAN SAY NOTHING. They were discussing someone up for a crucial review. The candidate has an absolutely exemplary record. There is much praise and discussion of the candidate's stellar research and phenomenal teaching and then one of my thoroughly unreconstructed male colleagues (someone my friend Catherine would describe as "out of compliance with North American standards" remarks: "And she is an excellent mother. She has those two small children and is just superb at balancing all the demands of her life."
I noticed one of my senior and feminist colleagues approaching the minutes taker after the meeting and I am sure it was to suggest that certain comments wouldn't be missed if they never appeared in the formal minutes of the meeting...

smut mongers beware

So, we had a person whose job, among other things, was to order films for faculty. She is no longer with us, in large part because technology had moved on so much since she was hired that we couldn't get her to learn what we needed. Latest discovery reveals that she had developed some technological skills we had no idea about. We also often wondered what she did with her time all day every day with little to show for it. Well, now we know. Turns out that over the years whenever a faculty member would order a film, she would screen it and edit it to remove any salacious content. No wonder she never had time to do anything else. I guess all the movies we think we have in the library are actually sanitized versions...

we have a floor

Craig has been toiling all weekend and we now pretty much have an entire floor. We just need to put up base boards and move furniture and we will be back to having a nice habitable space.

prima donnas

So, I had an email from a faculty member asking who should move two folding trestle tables from our building to the neighboring building for a reception next week. The list of possibles included, the custodial staff or our staff. I replied that I thought we faculty could do it.
Here is the reply. Names have been omitted to protect the feeble.



Thank you for your consideration of this matter. However, you might not
have considered all implications of this decision: As far as I remember,
________ has terrible back problems as it is; _______ has a shoulder and neck
injury; and I am simply not willing to carry tables and possibly get
injured in the process. In addition, asking a junior faculty member (who
might not feel empowered enough to say no) to carry tables has all kinds
of problems of its own.

I have advised the caterer to bring his own tables and reduce the amount
of food to offset the cost.

its finally paying off

I am enjoying Catherine this school year. She is doing really interesting work at school in the pre-International Baccalaureate program and is working very hard. We have had many conversations about the John Knowles novel, A Separate Peace, as she has worked on various writing assignments connected with it. It is magical to see her maturing into a thoughtful student.

students...

Hello professor:



I'm afraid I have to beg your pardon, again, and ask for that lady's E-mail address, the one that schedules which cultural event we'd like to attend.

I had to walk home in the rain and my backpack got wet. I thought it was more water-proof than I found that it was. The piece of paper that you wrote the E-mail address got wet and your ink ran; I couldn't make the address out.



Thank you again,