mixed up pics

The rest of my trini pics are up. They got mixed in with my TLA pics, so sorry about that. I've included a preview...

still digging

How very sad is it that I am now up to April 20th in my email purge? It is taking me forever to get through all of the listserv and other mail that wasn't urgent when I got back last Wednesday.

My wrist hurts.

In other news, I gave my hairdresser the candy I brought back from Trinidad. She was delighted and my hair is again back to normal shortness. She called me a chia pet because my hair grows so fast, so I in turn had to tease her about her picked out 'fro.

Sunday I got to see the Astros play, finally. We had such a grand time, my student worker/friend and I. The guy next to us was joining in with the general frivolity. Thanks to my friends who gave us the tickets! We got to sit at club level and have snack service from our seats. Very swank.

momentary chaos

We were talking a bit about how to stay in touch with what's coming up in the li-berry future, higher ed trends, etc. and I said it helps if you have some teenagers in your life. They brought themselves to us today. About 50 middle schoolers swung by during their day of college visitation to see what an academic li-berry is all about. My group was very well behaved, although some were clearly not excited, but my student's group had kids swinging from exit signs and generally acting like little apes. She said the teacher didn't say anything, so she said, "Stop doing that, sweetie!" My goodness, what are chaperones for, then, if not to prevent their charges from hurting themselves?

tiny bit of trini

Many of my Trinidad pics are now up on flickr, so go there and see them! They are mostly of flowers and birds. It would be hard to capture the country or even Port of Spain in just a few photos, although they'd have to include a lot of pictures of traffic. I came up with Trini Travel Bingo which would include items like:
broken left brake light
broken right brake light
skinny dog
shop where you can get your chickens plucked
roti stand
crazy guy yelling by the side of the road
ambiguous road sign, e.g. "no entry" sign smack in between two roads

More later!

back

So I'm back from TLA and Trinidad. Lots of tales to tell, but no time. I'm in a leadership training thingy for the next two days so my blogging time will be snatched during breaks.

in and out and in and out

Sorry, fans. I was out sick yesterday and still am not feeling 100% today. This afternoon I'm off to TLA. I'll only be back briefly before going to Trinidad. I'll be back & blogging regularly about April 25th.

tmi

We have a candidate for the position of My New Boss. Seriously, that's how it was advertized. No one applied, so they changed it to something cockamamie like "instruction and information literacy director". Jeez. Anyhoo, we went to a fairly fancy restaurant last night for dinner. I did it up. I had one piece of bread and one breadstick, a gorgonzola salad (lots of yummy greens), a huge piece of sea bass covered in some sort of weird crust and a sauce, sauteed spinach and a portobello mushroom. I didn't eat all of anything except for the spinach, but then I had a huge piece of grand marnier flavored chocolate cake. Along the way, the waiter kept refilling my wine glass with the bottle of San Pellagrino I'd ordered. That is my favorite sparkling water ever. It was so hilarious to see him splashing it in, swig by swig, throughout the night. I drank the whole thing!

The food was all tasty and wonderful but as I was walking to my car I felt the first rumbles... I made it home, but it was touch and go. One of my friends says that when this happens, it's all of the oil and butter in the food, not food poisoning. I'm willing to believe that, especially since I'm fine today, but it's disturbing nonetheless.

spoke too soon

I was all excited that I got so much done yesterday and then I realized that I was supposed to hold a training session this afternoon. Planning? Not so much, so I canceled it.

And now I am procrastinating on a bunch of other things.

whatever gets you through the day

Our campus newspaper always puts one of those "news of the weird" type columns at the end of the paper. Today's report was of a zamboni driver accused of drunk driving. He swears he didn't drink heavily until after his shift, but he did have a shot and two valiums before work.

Wow. Who knew that driving a zamboni was so stressful? Maybe he should pursue a low stress career, perhaps a job as a postal carrier.

all of the little tiny things

I have a bunch of little things to get done before I go to TLA and then to Trinidad but I'm having a hard time getting started. The weather is poopy and I am not feeling great and my desk is covered with paper. Still, by the end of the day I'd better have several things finished or I will be in trouble the rest of the week. Wish me luck.

Update
Done: new panels of Mr. A$$hat drawn, layout of webpage mocked up, book dummies asked for and delivered, copies of handouts for display copied (actually, my student is doing that), award announcement written, note to listserv sent (and resent--stupid listserv), various things read and filed. Phew!

Further update
After attending a meeting and eating a lot of cake to celebrate our dean's birthday, I sent in a proposal to present at a conference in October. When did I hear about this conference? Oh, about an hour before I sent in the proposal. Apparently I am on fire today.

seating

We ate dinner last night at one of my favorite chain-type restaurants. There is one particular dish I love and I order it every time. I have noticed something odd about this particular location though. We are always seated in the sort of back section (there isn't really a "back" because the kitchen is there) along with a lot of other people of colors other than white. The white folk are all sitting in the front section. Now yes, I am lily white myself, but the PIG is not, so I am default not white when I am with him. We got great service and weren't sitting by the bathroom or a swinging kitchen door but it still struck me as odd. I want to do an anthropological experiment by sending in people of various hues to see where they're seated. It could be just one hostess or it could be more pervasive but only a scientific experiment could tell for sure.

do the math

When it pays to look carefully at your travel allotment: when you realize that you've only been funded for 46% of the trip and the allotment is $700. Hmm, that means I was expected to shell out over $800 of my own money for this trip. Luckily I didn't spend nearly that, but don't these numbers seem scary to you?

duh huh, seriously

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Science/Math Nerd (Absolute Insane Laughter as you pour toxic chemicals into a foaming tub of death!) Well, maybe you aren't this extreme, but you're in league with the crazy scientists/mathmeticians of today. Very few people have the talent of math and science is something takes a lot of brains as well. Thank whosever God you worship, or don't worship, so thank no deity whatsoever in your case, for you people! Most of us would have died off without your help.
Social Nerd
Literature Nerd
Drama Nerd
Artistic Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Musician
Anime Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

the b*tch is back

Yup, back in town and raring to go. I posted all of my pics (a paltry bunch, I must say) to flickr, but I've included my favorite in this post. Yes, ladies and gents, that is me standing next to one of my cinematic heroes, John Waters. I must say he's a gracious man, letting us snap away and making sure we had enough space to get right up next to him. I heard he even signed one li-berrian's boob. Now, according to what he told us during his luncheon keynote talk, that is fairly tame in John Waters territory. The saddest thing about my trip is that I came away feeling like I hadn't gotten to see Baltimore at all. What I saw was the sanitized area right around the harbor, called Inner Harbor, and a bit north of there called Mt. Vernon, which is where the original Washington Memorial stands. Places I ate? Touristy. Places I visited? Touristy. People I saw? Baltimore folk who work in that area and tourists. The one thing that made me feel slightly better was being stopped for directions not once but twice.

I had a great roommate in my soon-to-be sis-in-law, aka the GF. I had the fun of dragging her into Filene's Basement and the joy of having her bring me chocolates while I was trying to recover between sessions and mandatory social activities. I can see why my sister was keen on keeping her around! Seriously, though, I highly recommend rooming with friends or family over folks who are simply work colleagues. It's much easier to tell them that you need some quiet or not feel too bad about creating a big stink in the bathroom!

Anyhoo, I'm so glad to be back. I found a gorgeous bouquet of flowers awaiting me at home and a very happy kitty, so I felt loved and missed.