I am back

Drum roll please. I am back.
I have decided that there are just too many tasty morsels with no venue, except for a blog.
1) I have become addicted to Zumba. I am pretty lame at it, but I love it. While checking out the schedule for a class to go to tomorrow I see there is a new instructor. Name is vaguely familiar. Yes. Was one of my students three years ago in a survey course. She was a dreadful student so I am glad that she is good at something. I shall, however, not brave her class, at least not tomorrow. Perhaps, if I ever learn how to do that thing with your butt that they all seem talented at...I will reconsider.
2) Our department is being required to have a trained mediator at all our meetings. I am on leave this semester so have yet to witness this. But I did enjoy her email to us all on Friday which began:
"It was nice to see and meet with you again yesterday.  First, here is the link for the high conflict email tips I told you I would send." Good times continue.
3) Spent some quality time with Sam today shopping for clothes he needs to wear to the Homecoming dance next weekend. Nice trousers, shirt, and, of course, as always, a tie that matches some aspect of the girl's ensemble. In this instance, shoes, that appeared from the photo texted to us while in the tie section of Macy's, to be some shade of aqua, blue, green-ness.
Over and out.

Point and shoot

I am talking about cameras!  Not colleagues.
This evening I went to the first session of a short course I signed up for on using your point and shoot camera. Complete demystification in under two hours. I now understand what all those little setting pictures mean: you know, the little flower or the mountains or the action man. They adjust aperture and shutter speed to levels appropriate for portraiture with shallow field or landscape with deep field etc. Wow! Totally worth the price of entry.

student redux

For long time readers.... hello all two or three of you. You may recall the story from a couple of years back about the student who was contesting a grade in a Spanish class and forged a doctor's letter about illness. When I suggested that before we could meet, I would need a letter on letterhead and signed and dated by said doctor. To which I received the reply by email, "What is letterheaded?"
That student got an academic suspension after much wrangling with the football powers that be who didn't want him to "suffer" too much.
Tonight is the big Utah BYU game for Homecoming and I notice that our friend is back and big on the team. Hopefully he found out what letterhead is incase he needs to do any more forgery.

Not being chair

You can tell it has been awhile since a post when you log on and the entire interface has changed... took me a few seconds to even find a window to type in.
Not being department chair is a beautiful thing. It is as though I have been wrapped in wads and wads of cotton wool through which I can still vaguely hear and see annoying things, but not well enough for them to penetrate the cocoon.
That's not to say we don't have our own craziness at the Center. Today our poor office assistant got on the wrong side of a student who then proceeded to whip out her phone and start videoing their interaction. She even stalked her to the bathroom.
Then the Arabic TA who missed orientation and showed up late for classes starting quit today. Hers was a convoluted tale of "she was having a miscarriage so she couldn't come to orientation; then she actually wasn't pregnant so, whew, but then she was and "took some medicine" that caused her to have a miscarriage, so she has to quit the program...or so was the story told by her husband to our administrative assistant today. No one could quite follow and he kept interjecting that he was 'really fed up' with his wife. We agreed it was a trying situation.
The Center is up and running but we don't actually have any space. The remodeling project drags on, well, it has yet to officially start. But yesterday we picked furniture finishes and chair fabric and carpeting so it seems a little more likely to happen during this calendar year.

WOW

Long time no post. Partly I have been pondering whether to keep at it... The blog and its title were conceived at the beginning of my run as department chair and now I am no longer chair, so maybe no more blog? Not sure. Today was the annual fall departmental retreat and I did not have to attend due to my sabbatical. I cast about for an activity suitably opposite to sitting in a room listening to whinging and  bemoaning and flagellating....and I went to the local pool and sat in the sun and read a mystery novel. Bliss.

Love

What a super day. A lie in Mum's super comfortable bed with a plethora of down pillows. I enjoyed every cushy bit of feathery goodness. My down pillows at home have been banned because they make Craig wheeze...and I do miss them.
Then we wandered down to Starbucks for a delicious latte and then into Waitrose which is full of such yummy looking food. Bought some beet and horseradish soup for lunch and it was fab.
Then down to see mum's new neighborhood and peek into her new house. We have an appointment to see it for real on Monday. After that I boarded my train to York and three hours later, here I am. I am booked in to my cute little b&b. I got settled and wandered out to explore the neighborhood. Small streets with terraced brick houses. I couldn't resist Tony's Plaice which I happened upon just as Friday night 'fry time' was starting... a nice piece of haddock and chips -- delicious. They had signage up claiming that fish and chips is better for you than other fast food, burgers and chips etc. I decided to believe them.

Full Circle

Today is a super special day. Besides being Canada Day....I am no longer Co-Chair of my department. Yay!!!!!! Last night I dreamt that I got stuck on public transport two separate times each time with one of my least favorite colleagues who proceeded to tell me how much they hated my leadership and how relieved they were that it was over. In another weird dream scene, my most difficult colleague passed me in a speedo announcing that the new chair had suggested she join the swim team (I didn't know we had one) and how great that was that she had taken a personal interest in her extra-curricular development. I just kept thinking that seeing this person in a speedo was not improving my mood one bit.
I started this blog because of becoming chair; but no fear, I don't plan to end it. So stay tuned for continuing sporadic updates.