We had a quasi-birthday-to-me, with all kinds of Romanian gifts. Susie brought me a pottery vase, an embroidered tablecloth (it does not appear to be particularly washable), a "Ukranian" egg, a little woodburned plate, and a stack of nesting dolls. Also, she gave me a "tatty" plaid plastic tote, which appears to be much inferior to the ones from Mexico. That is a sad situation indeed, when a household product is inferior to what is available and widely used in Mexico. The very best gift was a Kinder Egg-- a chocolate egg containing a prize in the middle. My prize was a goofylooking plastic cow that had to be assembled and stickerized. When you crank its tail, its hat lifts and its eyes open and close and its tongue hangs out. Leonard and I went down to Somewhere in Time to buy my dresser, but it seemed uglier than before, and he wouldn't let me get it. I couldn't find another one, so I am still undressered.
Fri Apr 26 2002 19:38:
A landmark day! I beat Leonard in Scrabble, the second time in my life!
Gladys caught me up on her family-- son Tom getting married (finally!) and on the gossip at East. She says they miss me, and I told her to tell them I miss them! We agreed that JJ Kaiser should be English department chairperson. She says Jeana Widelock is very successfully teaching English and advanced drama and everyone just loves her, so I guess something good came of that debacle. The whole situation makes me so sad. Damn that HIV virus.
Fri Apr 26 2002 21:01:
Today's interesting conversations were with Phil Feldman and Gladys Stilwill. Phil and I talked about the-faculty-job-which-is-not-mine and about possible better uses of teaching assistant time, especially in the computer lab. I reported to him the gist of yesterday's meeting with the Dean and we formed various hypotheses about whether we (the faculty) were actually being given the opportunity to have input into some of the budget decisions, or have the choices already been made and they are just having a buncha meetings to try to make us "happy" (I use the word advisedly) with whatever the administration does. We agreed that if everyone could have a TA like MaryAnne, Utopia would bloom.