News and Updates

1. Day eight with the new furnace. Still warm. Further bulletins as events warrant.

2. I still haven’t been paid for work I did this past summer for one of the three campuses I work for. Mostly this is because nobody can figure out who is in my chain of command at Home Campus or the Mother Ship to sign off on it, and on those rare occasions when somebody is identified they either move to another position or get artfully fired (“reassigned to special projects”). The band is officially stumped. I suppose I should be grateful I’m being paid at all, come to think of it, but it does give me pause regarding whether I should accept further projects.

3. Speaking of work-related confusion, is there any conceivable universe where this would be considered a useful notification?

Just checking.

4. My friend Nick says that he wants to see one of those high-stakes political thriller movies where the nuclear access codes can’t be accessed except through DUO and nobody can get it to work because their browsers are the wrong version or their wifi is too slow for the timed-response approval. I’d pay money to watch one of those, yes I would. I’d probably be rooting for Armageddon, but I would watch.

5. We have not cooked an actual meal this week and may not do so until Saturday. It’s definitely leftover season. We’ve been alternating between Thanksgiving leftovers and gravy (spaghetti sauce to the non-Italians in the audience) and meatballs leftovers, and while it has been very tasty I think we’ll all be grateful for a change of pace.

6. I’m trying to block off some evenings without work, which is a rather foreign concept. Teachers in general have very poor life/work balance skills and mine are pretty much nil. There’s always something to grade or something to prep or something else to write. But there is also hockey to be watched and family to be hung out with and books to read, and that has to count for something.

7. I need to renew my driver’s license. Apparently it’s a “Real ID” – as opposed to the fake ones that you see so often with college students, I guess – so there are extra hurdles. Also, I need to give them my physical description, which is somewhat complicated by the fact that a) I no longer care to know how much I actually weigh and b) specifying a hair color is an act of nostalgia rather than observation. But they don’t really check when you fill things out, so I suppose I could just put down whatever I want.

8. I have acquired a nice winter hat in the approved Home Campus colors, and it is now cold enough to justify wearing it on occasion.

9. I should also get a Home Campus sweatshirt or two, mostly because this will allow me to wear sweatshirts to work. Honestly, the pandemic did quite a number on my eagerness to wear the standard Business Casual academic work uniform anymore. I don’t mind button downs and khakis, but sweatshirts are more comfortable.

10. It is December 1 and I am now willing to acknowledge the existence of Christmas.