5 Apr 07

Time:

?

Money:

$3, egg-white sandwich and D.P., the usual place.
$0 (for reasons that will be explained momentarily), lunch, the usual place.
$21, shuttle to JFK.
$8 (I think?), pizza, soda, and bottle of water, that ridiculous (but, as I learned, decent) Italian place in the airport.
$2, Halvah, airport shop.

More interesting things:

Got to my desk early, since I had to meet Professor Number Six first thing and knew Professor Alpha had big typing plans for me later on in the day, which enabled me to overhear Professor Abercrombie’s morning phone call. These calls frequently make me smile, because he’s clearly a really nice dad/husband/friend/whatever, but this morning’s made me laugh out loud: he announced to whoever was on the other end – I think it was his daughter – that although we had moved from no. 11 to no. 14 on the ed list, it could not be argued that we are anything but no. 1 as far as schools of culture, education, and human development go. Spot on, sir, spot on.

Enjoyed a hilarious-as-usual conversation during my meeting with Professor Number Six, which began with him forgetting he had a meeting to start with. Among other things, we discussed the classroom “dividing line” (and, consequently, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this” along with a zipped-lip motion), his appreciation for spending time with “smart people” (to which I responded with false modesty I identified just a second later as false, causing him to laugh again), and my interest in the chart on his wall (which led to me observing that he would more likely get another boat before I got my first one, and, in turn, his invitation to be the first mate. Ha.) I also told him about my word game/logic model thing and that I was predicting what he would say next during class the other day, and then I got out of there so he could get on with his day. He, at least, is not going anywhere that I know of, and I am really, really glad.

Caught a quick (and ever encouraging) smile from Professor Alpha-and-a-Half as she darted onto our floor and into the ladies’, so I announced in passing Miss J. that it was so nice to see Alpha-and-a-Half around so much more frequently. She responded to this a little more excitedly than I thought – I guess she’d been looking for her – and asked me to wait so she wouldn’t miss Alpha-and-a-Half while she got some water. A.5 (that’s how I’m going to start abbreviating this one, since she IS around these days!) came out before Miss J. got back, so I put my hands up and said that I was on guard duty and it was my job not to let her escape before the secretary returned. She smiled again and agreed to hang out for a sec; when Miss J. returned I first called her attention to the good professor-catching job I’d done and then added that A.5 had been very cooperative and I’d be glad to baby-sit again any time, which rated not just a smile but a good laugh from the sittee – something I like to hear.

Typed like a maniac another “insta-speech,” as Professor Alpha described it. It was six pages long, much of which came out of his mouth at a higher rate of speed than it could come out of my fingers, but we kept it together pretty well and were proofing it by the time we were ready for lunch. The part that was a nice surprise came when I was fixing up the Word version according to our margin comments and Alpha asked what I took on my salad, so I told him and then thanked him, of course; his response was that it was the least he could do since I was “working [my] ass off.” For a millisecond I contemplating disagreeing with him and mentioning that in fact the whole tuition-and-stipend thing was probably enough, but since I’m quite sure this would have resulted in the yeah-yeah turkey noises, I opted not to – I just ate my lunch.

Read with a did-they-think-about-what-they-were-writing? snort a big banner advertising Southwest in the airport I landed at. It said, “From takeoff to touchdown, we get you there.” Now here’s my question, of course: is this supposed to represent a major departure from what they think other airlines do? I mean, I’m irritated with JetBlue at the moment, but I’m never worried that they’ll decide they’ve had enough of me when we’re 30,000 feet over Virginia and go on to “touchdown” without me…. Duh!