First staff meeting

I attended my very first staff meeting of faculty yesterday. There I discovered, when the doors of the august conference room had swung shut, the lights had dimmed, and all students had scurried away (except for the grad student rep) that: Yes, the staff are all lizard people.*

Yes, once again, I was unknowingly hired by lizard people.
Tom: How could that happen again?
Me: ???
Tom: You should really ask them at the interview, "Are you lizard people?"
Me: It's so awkward, you know?
Tom: Now you have to help them take over the world.
Me: They are starting by trying to get elected as the junior senator from Minnesota. I don't know how to begin to explain to them that that's just going to be very, very tricky.
Tom: The worst part for you is that they truly do not understand how the government works.

*This "lizard people" myth is used by, among other people, an anti semitic guy. This blog rejects racism and anti semitism. Refer to comments section.

Michael Burleigh's favorite word

maladroit |ˌmaləˈdroit|
adjective
ineffective or bungling; clumsy.

I am making my class read an 800 page book by Burleigh. I am taking this occasion to improve my vocabulary.

I think my class does not like the book so much, but I love it! And then I force them to say that they love it, too, by asking them in class what they think of it. Then they all name things about it that they appreciate about it in order to make me think that they in fact read it. Even though I know that secretly, many did not.

Oh, actually, I did have something to post about

Me: Wow, I am tired, and I don't know why! I'm just so tired. And I do not think I read that last email from the department administrator, about upcoming deadlines and stuff and forms we are supposed to fill out, but I will soon...
Dept. Chair/aka "my boss": You know, a lot of people just ignore those emails and those deadlines.
Me: Eh?
Dept. Chair: I mean, I am not saying that you should or anything. I am just saying, you know, that a lot of people just ignore them.

Tired again

Now it is the second week of classes and I am tired again.

Word of the week: Plangent (adj)
(of a sound) loud, reverberating, often melancholy.
When my student mentioned that his contribution to class discussion was courtesy of Wikipedia, my heart issued a plangent moan.

Sorry CBAM that I did not write back to your emails. I am so tired. That is so nice that you got me a present!

Why am I so tired?

Why did the first week of classes make me so tired?

And also: I survived the first week of classes!!!

In memorium, Michael Jackson

File this under that category, 'things that have made sense to you since childhood, but that you suddenly one day as an adult realize actually do not make sense.'

When I was six, Michael Jackson did a commercial for Pepsi which featured some pyrotechnics. During filming, his hair caught fire and he was seriously injured.

For years afterward, my mother and I boycotted Pepsi. I remember us telling one another and other people that we did not buy or drink Pepsi because "they set Michael Jackson's hair on fire."

Perhaps related to this boycott, which I remembered a few days ago and which seems to have originated from logic that I no longer feel that I can entirely explain, is a conversation that CC's friend reported having with students in a summer class that she's teaching.

CC's friend mentioned Michael Jackson's death to her class. In the course of ensuing comments, she realized that the students did not know that he was black. They thought he was white. She explained that he had begun life brown, but that his skin had lightened (unclear why) and he'd had plastic surgery.

They did not believe her.

How much is one less day of your labia itching like crazy worth to you, in dollars?

Ok, I know that you, sincerely appreciated reader, are not going to like this post, but my sense of justice compels me to describe the following. And it was either post or tell CC at length, and actually posting is probably better for my relationship.

When I was coming up many years previous, they made this anti yeast infection cream that you had to use for 7 days. It costed like 14. (It was expensive!)

Then they invented 3-day cream. Then, a super crystal-power option: 1-day ultra cream.

And, this being soul-less capitalism, they priced them incrementally. The 3-day cream is like 19$. And the 1-day nuclear treatment: a whopping 22$!

I feel this is unfair and unjust, the worst of capitalism: How much is it worth to you to have 4 fewer days of genital itching? What about 6 fewer days? Is it worth 8 dollars?? If you hunker down with cranberry juice for just 2 more days, you'll save 3$--yes, you'll net the cost of the juice!--or, uh, what the hell am I thinking?

No one should have to answer these questions.