Catching Up

I promise, I haven't forgotten the blog. I'm still struggling with scheduling, though at least some of the giant scheduling errors weren't actually mine. Of course, all of this is fueling doubts: if I'm having this much trouble, am I cut out for this job at this place? Or is it just the first term at a new place?

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Of course, I've recently been convinced that family is the worst committee I've ever been asked to serve on. The meetings are always painful, the solutions always half-assed and obvious. And as someone pointed out, the work always gets pushed off on the person not in attendance.

My sister has developed blood clots, a few of which are near her lungs. And because of her, shall we say, "slacker status" health care is, of course, an issue, as is how she's going to get things like disability without raising all sorts of red flags. But it's the family questions that are most vexing because my sister and my parents have had such an adversarial relationship over the years.

So you can imagine my irritation when my father called the other evening to tell me that he'd heard that my sister was in the hospital and did I know anything about it. I didn't. And to my surprise, he had no idea of what hospital she was in. My father gave the phone equivalent of a shrug and said he'd wait to hear from her then.

Mind you, they're in the same city.

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And there's all the madness here. In the last week, I've helped with an open house, schilling for prospective students, put one course in to the curriculum committee, submitted two for special status, started the scheduling process on my evaluation process, and attended two campus film events.

The best moment of awkwardness in all of that: after one of the events, I stopped to chat with a colleague and was asked "Are you going to the thing after?" I didn't know there was a thing after, and in new-faculty-panic-mode that I might have missed someplace I'm expected to be, blurted "There's something after?"

Their reaction, naturally, was to make the face of someone who just mentioned a party you're not invited to.

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The great Twitter experiment continues. It was funny, initially, to realize that Twitter is where people go to spam you about teeth whitening. It's an impressive notion really - e-mail for porn and Viagra, Twitter for teeth whitening and ponzi schemes. What is it for blogging? My favorite new trend: watching right wing Twitter folks sign up as followers the minute sexuality is referenced in a tweet.