Carpe Datum

Friends in High Places

A while back, I mentioned one of the guys on campus here (Greg) who is fairly important and can create opportunities for me to earn extra money, etc. It turns out this guy's son was in one of my summer class, and it really made a big impression.

I found out today that Greg was speaking at the opening luncheon for faculty yesterday. This is a lunch held in the campus coliseum for all faculty and the chancellor's way to officially kick off the academic year. I've never gone because it sounds like a buffet-style beating. Anyway, now I wish I had been there yesterday, because Greg singled me out by name as an example of the great teachers here, sharing a couple of stories from his son about my class. And this in front of our brand new chancellor! Oops. Shoulda been there, but oh well. Greg knows we have a new baby, so I'm sure he understands (not that I would've gone anyway).

I also fired up my iTunes at work again for the first time in a while upon returning to my old office (construction is now over in our building, hooray!). Turns out that the newest version allows you to share your songs in a read-only way over the local are network. So now I can listen to the music of a dozen or more other faculty, who have also dumped all their CD collections onto their Macs. It's a good way to try out new stuff.

And I was talking to a student this morning while we were all getting ready for our TV appearance. Someone made a joke about Fox, and she said she had just finished reading Franken's new book (you know the one, "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right"). Further conversation revealed her and her significant other to be frustrated liberals like myself, so I loaned her the VCR tape I have of Franken's appearance on C-SPAN where he ripped Fox's O'Reilly while everyone in the room was laughing. It's gold. Nice to know there are some students out there who can think!

First day of class went fine, too. Small bozo factor today, and I'm actually more prepared than usual (anticipating I'll have less time to prepare once Michelle returns to work). So far, so good!

Posted by Observer at August 27, 2003 02:09 PM