Mother Natural

School was cancelled Wednesday thanks to the Nor’Easter that blew in late-late Tuesday night. Call me crazy but I think the Mom in the Sky knew I needed a break from all things work. For starters, my department has been living with the smell of puke for the past four (four? four!) days. Fresh puke has a definite smell…four+ day old, decaying puke, well…that’s another story. I can’t even tell you how rancid the odor is. I simply can’t get into it. The biggest problem is we don’t know where it’s coming from. How disturbing is that? I’m ill everytime I try to sit at the reference desk.
Next, there’s the communication thing. Way back in the beginning when the New Guy took office he said future salaries and promotions would be dependant on merit. What did people think, that our little corner of the world would be exempt from the scrutiny? The fact that I’m *still* hearing about the reviews does nothing but irritate me now.
In light of the aforementioned “merit” scare I have done a little demerit dodging of my own. Last semester I sent over a teaching proposal to a much-in-the-dark department. I had culled ideas from my colleagues and included their original documents in the proposal packet. This week I get a call from the head of the department, “E., what is this crap? This page on ——? I can’t submit this! It’s full of typos; spelling, grammar, punctuation – you name it… and what’s with the justify center? It looks like sh!t.” My head was buzzing as I listened to him rant. I came this [] close to claiming the document as my own because even though it stated who authored the draft at the top (center, of course) I didn’t want the HOD to think I was calling him blind or worse, stupid. My name is clearly not — and he knows that. To point that out would be professional suicide. Luckily, I remembered my new motto, “Look out for yourself because no one else is going to do it” and I admitted it was a coworker’s report. To soften the blow of pointing out the obvious I added, “Maybe — forgot to put a name on it” knowing full well it was there. HOD grumbled and said, “well, if it’s all the same to you this garbage is going in the trash.” Ouch.
Then, there are the classes. I don’t mind them. Actually, I love-love-love teaching. I’m not standing in front of a class spouting the same crap everyday. I get to talk about different things depending on the class. It’s cool. What’s killing me is the schedule. Because I’m coming in to teach 2-3 hours early I’m putting in longer days. I’m getting out of sorts with life (as I bitched about earlier).
So, I thank the Powers That Be for giving me a reprieve from the current hell on earth.