1 Feb 07

Time:

Left my floor 1155, arrived school site for student-teacher supervision 1223.

Money:

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More interesting things:

Spotted the pair of deerhounds I wrote about here awhile back, this time with a man significantly taller than either the dogs or the lady who was walking them last time. Of course, it's a little harder to be clear on whether you've seen the same dogs twice than it is to do the same with humans, but how many pairs of enormous gray deerhounds in red leashes wander around the Village on a regular basis?

Heard someone described by another person who I will not identify here - not even by code name, although now that I've said that it does narrow down the options a bit - except to say that the speaker manages to combine both an extensive enough everyday vocabulary and a foul enough mouth to use the phrase "officious bitch" in a sentence.

Read at my desk for the course I'm teaching. The cover of the text caused a faculty member to stop and make faintly gushing remarks about the book and its author and so on and so forth; once she had gone around the corner, she called back, "Is she [meaning the author] the instructor?" I had coffee in my mouth at the time, so the first coherent sound to be made in response to that question came not from me - I was limited to the noises of someone trying to avoid laughing to the point of either choking or spitting - but from Professor Charlie, who turned around instantly to look at me and held his belly, cracking up. Once I had managed to swallow, which was a purposeful coordination of smooth muscle if ever there was one, I called back, "No, I'm the instructor!" in as light-hearted a voice I could come up with; this wasn't difficult because I was to the point of cracking up myself, and I wasn't insulted, just a little surprised. She responded with some oops-related comments, and Charlie laughed again, shaking his head and saying, "'I'm the professor...' - I like the sound of that! I like that!"

Went to a supervisors' meeting run by Professor Alpha. This was fun for many reasons, including some slightly stomach-turning ones (other supervisors verbally batting their eyes at him, with questions like "Oooh... where are you gonna sit?" and all this; retch on the one hand, but amusingly reminiscent of my earlier comments about the P-ster and the EE pimps on the other) and some just plain funny ones. One of the supervisors, whom I could have identified as a bit of a prima donna even before we started talking about work, was complaining whinily yet vigorously about someone who had found her own placement, and my goodness but how does that take HIM into consideration? He went on about this at length, only hedging his comments to avoid looking like a TOTAL schmuck in a very perfunctory way, before Alpha finally stopped him. Leaning across the table, with head down close to the tabletop, snarly face on, one arm thrown out wide and the other attached to a hand making decisive little chops on the surface of the table, he addressed the supervisor by name and said, "Yeah. Yeah. [As is his custom in dismissing someone or something any other time.] Well, I said it was okay. And I talked to Frank, and he said it was okay. Jay said it was okay, and [some other guy] said it was okay. So we made that decision without you, and that's the way it is," snarl snarl grunt grunt. It was a little scary, because as Anne later noted, he is a big guy, and at this point there isn't much reason for him to hold back, but it was utterly hilarious for its incongruity.

Had an interesting but very sad conversation with Professor Number Four. I wanted to ask him about an email he'd sent me, so I knocked on the door and he answered. I was on my way to class, so I didn't have much time, but I saw what looked like more applications on his desk. Before discussing those, however, I told him that I had really enjoyed being in the meeting the day before. He asked why, with that characteristic appraising look on his face, and I told him that of course it was interesting to think that my name had been in the stack the year before but that even more I enjoyed getting..., at which point he interrupted with "an inside look." I agreed, we made a few more remarks of consensus, and then he explained that the applications he was working with at the moment weren't for our program but that he was serving as a "second rater"; who he was reviewing behind he did not mention, but I can read upside-down - even messy handwriting - and saw that it was someone who shall remain nameless for these purposes, which doesn't matter because this certainly isn't something I ever plan to forget anyway. Number Four said that the first reviewer had just run through and designated each one as a possibility, rather than a definitive go or no-go, even though there was quite a large range, and concluded, based on this experience and, I have no doubt, many others, that the first person was somewhat "useless." I asked why, in light of that observation, we first-years had been urged to do in the first semester what we did, to which he responded that it was useful, "you know it was - that's a superstar we're talking about." And here's where the awful part came in: he finished that paragraph with, "You know - that's who you want to be hanging out with. The big guys, not us in the bush league." Uhhnnh: the sound of someone punching you in either the solar plexus or the brain - it hurts to listen to someone you desperately admire talk about himself like that, even if it wasn't altogether serious. I didn't make that noise, though; I just resorted to the RJ Voice and told Number Four not to say things like that and, furthermore, that he should be glad I like him so much, because if I didn't I would have had to kick him in the shin. He laughed and said "Well..." or something and gave me two books as I inched out backwards. I told him that I appreciated the books but that even more I was glad he had opened the door, and he stopped me cold with a sentence that despite its relation to the same clear-cut issue served as a good antidote to the earlier statement. He said to me, "Now, listen, I'm being serious, okay? You understand? Really serious. [I indicated that I understood.] The thing is, I mean, not only are you entitled to this [hands waving back and forth between us, presumably to stand for our present mode of interaction], but that's what we want to do - that's how you're supposed to be able to learn." Going back to the apprenticeship thing, of course... and how, in this moment of clear cutting, do the young trees remaining feel about apprenticeships? Does it even make sense for a journeyman to have an apprentice? I think not.