everyone behaving badly

From today's inbox. Forwarded email exchange between faculty member and student. Faculty member concerned that student might "follow up".

Hi ___insert faculty member's first name____, I believe i am suppose to contact you about meeting with you (or another faculty member) and filling out a tutor recommendation form. Please let me know who i can contact or when i can come by, the sooner the better. thanks __student___

Dear __student___,

Is this for tutoring through the department or through the library? If you are a Spanish Major/Minor, then I suggest that you get a recommendation from one of your current Spanish professors. If not, then I suggest that you come to my office during office hours (10:45 – 11:45) in order to determine your level of proficiency in Spanish. Additionally, please leave the recommendation form and a Curriculum Vitae/Resume in my mailbox at the front office beforehand so that I have an idea of your experience in Spanish.

A piece of constructive criticism: I suggest that you proof-read your emails before sending them out—your message contains grammatical and punctuation errors that reflect poorly on someone who intends to get a job as a language tutor.

-______insert signed Prof. _______

faculty first name again,

Thanks for getting back to me and taking the time to proofread and inform me of my grammatically incorrect email. However, i think you may have misunderstood the intention of my email, in which i was ONLY asking for help to get my recommendation filled out and not for the editing of my email.

However a piece of constructive criticism: If you think you might offend someone, keep your criticisms to yourself. You're email contain comments that reflect poorly on a Professor of language.

student

A good florist really makes a difference

Ellen sent me the most beautiful flowers as a thank you for help over what we are calling her "spell".

Our bathroom

For awhile now we have known that we have a problem with our shower. We joke that each day might be the day that one of us ends up in the garage while toweling off. I don't know how you decide that today is the day when you have been talking about the need to "do something" for months (or even years) but last night that moment arrived and we spent some quality time on demolition. We figure that if we have to replace rotting studs and moldy tile, we might as well just rip the whole bathroom out and get rid of all the dated and ugly gems the previous owners chose. Peach tile - going; hideous shower with fake stain glass decals on the door - going. We will also redo the whole sink area and the floor throughout the bathroom. One of my serious pet peeves was their idea that carpeting in front of the sink area was a good idea. Of course, being do it ourselvers... we expect to be showering elsewhere in the house for months....A satisfyingly large hunk of the peach tile.

two pictures

Catherine and friends trying to cheer themselves up during a crap day on the slopes. As the paper said today: "eastern snow conditions" which means icy.

I took this off facebook - one of Sam's friends snapped them on one of their evening rambles through the neighborhood. Snow is just a memory at the moment. We have been hit with positively balmy weather which feels odd.

A tale of two habitats

Last Sunday Daniel, Nancy and I went to Descanso Gardens and it looked like this. Temperate walking through camellia bushes and then koi ponds.
A few days earlier I snapped this picture of Ian and Judith trekking in Millcreek Canyon up the road from me.

Firsts

I realized yesterday that I have never actually rented a car by myself. Now I have. Also, I have never used a GPS, and now I have. I am loving that for LA driving. It is very reassuring to have someone tell me exactly what to do. As for LA, I know it is much maligned, but I am enjoying my visit so far. It is so temperate here. As I write this I am sitting outdoors in a courtyard at the Pasadena Hilton.

It must be a slow news day when....

all university employees receive and email that begins:

Meaningful and exciting changes have been made to the way W-2 forms
are now available to University of Utah Faculty and Staff.