31 Jan 07

Time:

Got up at 720, arrived at my desk (without going to the gym, obviously, but including breakfast) 825.

Money:

?

More interesting things:

Went to a curriculum committee meeting. I know that there will, probably, someday come a time when I really have no interest in actually attending these kinds of things, but I think that time is a long way off, and for now I think they're fascinating; I crowded observations all over the program "claims" sheet Professor Alpha handed out, so from top to bottom, approximately and with only a very few revisions for purposes of explication, they are:

• How did they do it so fast? How is that I can sit here and look around at Professors Number One, Number Four, and Alpha, scattered one to each side of the room (and with us "doc stu's" on the fourth edge of the square), and see them as so absolutely distinct from the people filling in the spaces between? As points of connection or familiarity or something they are so thoroughly... I don't know what the word is. But I looked across at each of them at different times and got a waggled eyebrow or a half a smile or a suppressed laugh that with any of the other faculty would not have had the necessary underpinnings to make for successful communication, and that stood out for me as prominently as if that sense had taken on a human form itself.
• "...my very first sabbatical." First of all, what a damn phrase. Second, it was used in the context of talking about student-teacher supervision at a school without even bathroom supplies; Professor Number Seven, who was telling the story, asked the school administration "Could you tell me the rationale, so I can explain to my student-teachers, for not having any toilet paper, please?" Next week: toilet paper.
• All this commentary on other contexts these grads go into ignores the very nature of being dynamic. The very best SF guys have the skills to fix themselves for any situation, where the next lower level is expert at one situation.
• Heard one of the most plaintive utterances I can think of, maybe ever: Professor Number One asks Professor Alpha, "Will the pendulum swing, Alpha? Do you think it will swing?" These sentences did not get their quality only from their words. It was also very much the quiet, simple way they were delivered, and their accompanying sense that Number One really was asking, really wanted to know, and really was hoping that big Alpha would have an encouraging answer for her.
• Decided that providing evidence for integrating, as per the claims, is hard because where it's integrated - that point where the two ends of the spectrum interweave and flow together - changes all the time, if it's done right! Visual: the way Windows or Powerpoint (or any computer program, really) blends together two colors. (At what point can you identify their integration?)
• Marisa grabbed my arm intently when someone started her interruption, "I'm sorry to change the subject, but we just have to address the elephant in the room that no one's talking about!"; it was very clear that we were about to discuss the impending clear-cut (snarl.) When the speaker continued by asking who would take over, Professor Number Four smiled at me and pointed directly opposite himself, which happened to be where I sat with my classmates, and the professor sitting next to him laughed and agreed, "Yes, the doctoral students," causing everyone to laugh, of course. The thing is, while it was very obviously a facetious comment, there was a small grain of something behind it anyway.
• Professor Number Four observed that the committee had been a place for collaboration and philosophical discussion, "not just a place for proofreading syllabi." I wouldn't have known enough about what is characterized as a "curriculum committee" in other places or at other times to make that kind of statement - that is, I wouldn't know that sometimes proofreading syllabi is all that happens in that situation. Did he experience it at some point?
• For some reason or other, there was conversation about ethical behavior, to which Professor Alpha responded, "Well, of course, if you're an ethical person, you don't want to be at a university!"

Rushed, in my Insane Day of Insanity, from that meeting to another, in which I was expected (by 33% of the assembly, anyway) to be able to speak coherently about what they were reviewing. Heh. Professor Number Four had all these questions which I could not answer the first time, prompting Professor Number One to make a comment about putting me on the spot, but Number Four either doesn't know when he's doing something that could be interpreted that way or doesn't care, and as I mentioned in a recent post I'm actually rather fond of that kind of thing, so he pressed on and by the second go-round I had it moving much better. In between those discussions, however, someone mentioned a student that Number Four described without turning from his computer as "something else," once again prompting Number One to rise to the defense; at this point, Number Four turned around and may even have raised his hands palms-out in surrender, saying, "No, no - I mean in a good way! Like a junior version of you," he added, gesturing towards me, "you know, sort of in your face wanting to do stuff." I cannot think of many things more complimentary than to be used as an adjective describing something good.