Birthday

We went for fondue

 

We had cake.

With promises to be more regular about blogging, here are a few end of terms gems.

1) Student failed for plagiarizing a final paper stands outside our advisor's office and makes a phone call in which she is heard to say the following:
"I need you to come down here and explain to them that when you read that stuff to me over the phone that I typed into my paper, you were taking it from the internet......" Because that in her view would exonerate her....
Shortly followed by: "No, I don't want my money back...."

2) Had the joy of being interviewed by an investigator from the Utah Labor Antidiscrimination Board about a certain plagiarist of the more mature variety... apparently his troubles had nothing to do with his actions but evidenced a pro-Arabist plot on the part of yours truly and others.

3) Am considering kidnapping my sister Alison who is gifted with a strong decluttering gene so that she can help me move offices this summer. This would be the moment to get rid of photocopied articles from graduate school...

4) Had to inform faculty member that no, he could not tell a student she was barred from majoring in Chinese because it is her native language. His response, "don't we have a department policy against this?" Nope, and you have been here longer than me and were even Director of Undergraduate Studies for two years.

Coming tomorrow - birthday pictures of Catherine's 18th.

check up

At work we have the option of participating in health screenings to reduce our monthly insurance premiums so in the spirit of the great weight loss adventure, I decided to subject myself to two. The first was a measure of RMR -- resting metabolic rate. As I understand it, this tells you how many calories you burn just being alive. The number does not include calories burned walking around, brushing your teeth, eating bon bons etc. The second test was the body composition one which takes place in a pod like contraption. In both cases a piece of paper is printed at the end that tells you things you might rather not have known.... Actually the RMR was on the encouraging side. I learned that I have a metabolism between normal and fast. The bad news is that means weight gain is really a function of wine and other things... I can't moan about my sluggish metabolism being at fault. The bod pod test was pretty depressing and its numbers shall not be repeated here. The good news here is that I am not officially OBESE. Yay. However, I am also not "moderately lean" which is where I would like to be. You do find out how many lbs of you are non-fat though and the idea is to go back after losing weight and hopefully not have that number decline just the pounds of fat number. Its all about the baseline...

Summer already

It appears that we have gone straight to summer. It was in the 80s today and yesterday; Craig, bless him, got the swamp coolers running. I bought a chaise lounge and Sam has taken to it with a vengeance. Catherine is continuing to use the treadmill, which continues to inhabit the garage. Apart from the fact that it will probably get too hot in there over the summer, it actually isn't a bad place to have it. We are continuing to eat our strange diet concoctions and a lot of grilled chicken and salad. Results are amazing.

the great traveling spate ends

I made a whirlwind trip to Springfield Missouri at the beginning of the week to do another program review. And that concludes the weeks of travel that had me in Canada, England, Arizona and Missouri. I managed to get back up to Silver status on Delta. Now we enter the party season. Our work end of year party is on the 28th followed by goodbye for someone on the 10th, goodbye to our chairship dinner on the 12th, and of course my and Catherine's birthdays.
We have been engaging in serious dieting thanks to my old high school friend Joan who is our coach. We both decided to enter this summer looking fabulous so stay tuned.
To this end, I bought a treadmill yesterday which was delivered and is ENORMOUS. I have it in the garage as we contemplate how and where to put it in the house. The plan was to put it in the basement so we can watch TV, but I think we will end up banging our heads on the rather low ceiling....
Catherine is so dedicated that she used it in the garage yesterday.

yoga

Back to my weekly yoga night with Craig after two weeks away. I was achy. Apparently I groaned unacceptably during 'cat-cow'. I can confirm that I ended the practice with a wobbly om.

gem

My favorite Dear Abby type columnist is Carolyn Hax.

This was the concluding line of her column this morning:

choosing actions consistent with your goals is a path to happiness, unto itself.