A Voyage Into the Unknown

This chance comes but every four years. Happy Leap Day, everyone! Especially to all those who are or have been though Hell recently. May things get better for you.

🐸

"If you put the temperature probe in your hand, the temperature will go up. I wouldn't put the probe in your mouth or anywhere else."

-Dr. W.

This morning, I was taking over for the Science Skills Lab, off in another building in the process of being renovated. (It was actually where I had my AP classes way back in the day.) Anyway, as I was starting, the person I was taking over for called to warn me that the police were doing some training and might be firing off guns. Let's just say that it was a good thing that I was told, because I did hear gun shots. I think they came from outside, but guns are not the type of thing you want to hear at work.

These last two weeks have kicked my butt.

Going back to work and cat sitting at the same time was less than ideal. The cat-sitting was made a lot worse by at least one of the cats deciding (before I started cat-sitting) that litter-boxes are over-rated*. Yeah. Fun times, let me tell you.

There was an off-campus meeting for all full time employees last Tuesday morning off-campus. Nobody was kind enough to warn anyone that ALL buildings would be locked all morning. (There were plenty of annoyed people; some students who wanted to get around, some employees who wanted to get to their offices.)

This week. I think my butt grew wings from all the flying by the seat of my pants I did. The first week of classes is always stressful but this one seemed worse than most. There were minor things that didn't help, such as not having a schedule for a few days and not knowing who is teaching organic lab. (I actually am not sure that said person has been officially hired yet.) There were more stressful things, like needing to gather lab materials in a fairly limited time. Then there was the unofficial teaching I got to do. One of the instructors was given the wrong times for her labs on Wednesday so didn't show up. I ended up filling in to the best of my ability. I had students go through the equipment drawers and talked a little about safety. I made copies of next week's labs for students who hadn't gotten a lab manual since it was sounding like they wouldn't be in by next week.

Today was slightly less crazy in some ways, though it had it's moments. More gathering of materials for another lab. It doesn't help questioning if x might work instead of y if I have NO CLUE what you are trying to do. Thankfully, they do not need the stuff for a little bit.


*Said neighbors had had floors redone recently and went to one of their mother's. Cats were most displeased. Suspected cat also had a tough past. She had initially been adopted by their older daughter, but daughter's roommate's boyfriend was caught torturing cat when daughter was not around. Therefore, cat went to a safer environment. Hopefully, roommate dumped boyfriend to the curb.

So, Sunday someone Dad knows from his involvement in all things Mark Twain was in town. Neither Mom nor I really knew the guy since most of the meetings Dad went to by himself. However, the first one was a family vacation way back in summer of 2001 up in Elmira, NY.

Somehow, it does not seem like that could have been twelve years ago. My mind went back to the Semester from Hell being over, being blissfully ignorant that no, it was going to be the Year from Hell. (Oh dear God, do not let there ever be a year like 2001 again.) I was oh so optimistic about physics and organic chemistry*.

This person was actually somewhat interesting to listen to. I got to hear about the differences between Jeopardy and Win Ben Stein's Money, which were many. (Jeopardy was very regimented in the taping, Ben Stein... not so much. Though they had no problem making you look like an idiot.)

Granted, the talkative nature of this friend meant getting less sleep than I would have liked. I woke up in an incredibly cranky mood, although that wore off as the day went on.


*The first semester of physics wouldn't have been as terrible with a better professor who wasn't operating under the assumption that we were all pre-med** and a TA who didn't have a stick up his ass about there being "no perfect lab reports, so he would give no perfect (20/20) scores. He also wanted super long conclusions with historical examples. Organic chemistry was probably mostly doomed from the start. Organic II certainly was, and needing to redo both in summer school very much worked in my favor in the end.

**No, I am not making that up. He had no concern about not covering thermodynamics because "thermodynamics from the physics end isn't on the MCAT."