today: a hug - i wrote a letter of rec for a student to our nursing program. she popped by my office to say she had been accepted and to say thanks for writing the letter - the hug caught me off guard, but her excitement over this acceptance made me smile :)
sunday: finished this baby bib for my sister in law's baby shower next weekend (i love looking at both the front and back of the pattern)
saturday: i've gotten some friends addicted to Settlers of Catan (the trick really is to go easy on them the first couple times so they can win - then amp up your game ;) ) one of them had the largest army i've ever seen - 8 soldiers!!!
friday: i made some pumpkin and black bean soup - yum! also rented and finally watched the movie "slumdog millionaire"
thursday: "offended"
- i totally put my foot in my mouth in front of the chair of the engineering department and offended him as he thought i was insulting his department and engineers in general - i MUST learn to think a bit more before speaking... i did not at all mean to demean his students!
- that evening attended a faculty forum to discuss discrimination on campus and the "campus climate". it was disturbing/astounding/frustrating to hear how much people used the word offended. it seems to have a way of shutting down discussion rather than leading to understanding. i also think if we are looking for offense it is easy to find...
***i have remembered many times over the past couple weeks how i've been told that "dead things aren't offended and that as christians we are called to die to ourselves daily" - so i think we should be very slow to be offended (as we should also be slow to anger) - i desire to not offend others and to not jump quickly to be offended (but instead listen with grace and listen to the heart behind the words spoken)
wednesday: got to have a great talk with one of my students after my lab class - he is such a gifted student, but has some learning disabilities that we got to discuss. he wrote me later to thank me for the great "chatski"
tuesday: seems my animals had a bit of a wasabi craving! (they did all that work to get inside, but it was actually empty...)
monday: departmental meeting to divy up the summer research students and funding... i'm thinking it might be analogous to the nfl draft ;)
sunday: snow snow snow (after it had thawed away and i could see the ground for the first time this year)
saturday: got to watch the sunset over frozen lake michigan
friday: opened my hungry mouth (because i hadn't eaten lunch), uttered an opinion to the chair of the department (which happens to be the opposite of his opinion), got an excessively long email sent to half the department addressing the issue i brought up (in which it states i will send an email representing my opinion)...
lessons to be learned - 1) eat lunch, 2) be careful what topics you broach over the coffee pot, 3) think more before speaking
*also went to a really great lecture about "prophetic imagination" - i should blog about this soon
thursday: students square dancing to represent olefin metathesis reactions - "cotton eye joe" was played and there was much knee slapping - surprised at how much they enjoyed it!
wednesday: first day "back to work" after winter break on monday and tuesday... i spent a good portion of those days grading lab reports - lot and lots of green ink
tuesday: Wallace and Gromit for the first time... the rube goldberg machines were so fun
monday: visited the Dr Seuss art exhibit at our tiny Holland Museum (free admission to locals on Mondays!)
No comments:
Post a Comment