Hand Slapping

Well, I've talked a little bit about how things have been challenging at work lately. Stupid bureaucratic stuff that would never happen in a corporation. First, I tried to get a study-abroad program approved. It took WAY longer than it should have and I lost my opportunity to offer the program this summer...and probably my opportunity to spend a good portion of the summer in Italy. The back and forth, back and forth process should have never happened, or at the very least, they should have told me to go ahead and advertise the program since we were so close. But no. Okay, fine. At least it was approved and I'll advertise it beginning next year.

BUT, I work for two different universities. My full time university and my part-time university. It's my part-time university that runs the program in Italy and I still want to try to fill the seats. I really only need to get ten people to go to justify my expenses. So, I tried to advertise it with my full time university...offer it as something that was offered by my other university but not yet endorsed by my full-time university. They said no. So, I went to the local Chamber of Commerce and asked if they would advertise the trip to the local population. They agreed to put an ad in the paper this week...seen by about 70K people. GREAT! Hopefully, we can get ten people to respond! The bad news is that when it came out over the weekend, it had the logo for my full-time university on it. So, D, one of the faculty members here who I'm having other battles with (which I will discuss in a minute), brings it to my Dean's attention...who, of course, sends the ad to me with a note attached. Obviously they are not happy. My only saving grace is that I really didn't tell the CofC to put my university's logo on the top and had no idea they were going to do so. Aaarrgh. Hand slapped again.

So, D is a faculty member who is very vocal about everything. You know the type. He's like a pitbull when he latches onto something. Sometimes he's right and sometimes he's not. He has decided that he is very against me teaching the online course that I teach in the summer. He's convinced that it is not in our students' best interest and he's doing everything he can to get it canceled. Suffice it to say that he's being a pain in the butt and his reasoning is not good. But, he squeaks a lot...and we all know what happens to the squeaky wheel. Hopefully, he will give up soon, but he remains a thorn in my side. It would be nice if he just decided to retire soon! But I suspect he will be here for a very long time.

On a positive note, the weather has been great and here are some new pictures of the kids! E is going to lose one of his top teeth very soon, so it looks like he's got a big space there. It's just the other teeth moving out of the way a little bit to make room!

e looking as beautiful as ever!e at the playground on the seesawThe neighborhood Easter egg toss...E and his partner won both competitions!The neighborhood egg raceE and e on the patio