Anyone second the motion? Anyone?
:: Crickets chirping ::
Hello?
Seconded!
yawn.
Excellent. I’ve already drafter the introduction.
“Four score and seven years ago, Cecil Adams brought forth upon the newspapers…”
I have finished the third draft of my thesis proposal and turned it in. Hopefully it’ll pass muster, or else this is going to be a looooong weekend.
Yesterday some of us went to the open forum with our university president. UChicago has to be one of the least political campuses in the world, and it showed yesterday in how disorganized everything was. All the stupid undergrads would talk about was how the university would not divest from companies involved in Darfur, and that we were basically supporting genocide. Which is, granted, an important issue, but it was already quite clear that the trustees had made up their mind that they weren’t going to divest, and there were so many other issues that needed to be mentioned - grad student funding, the lack of student diversity, interdisciplinary committees that needed more support, etc.
I have to say, though, that the reasoning behind the decision not to divest from Darfur sounded odd to me. They said that if the University took a political stance on such an issue, it would threaten the environment which made disagreement and free inquiry possible. Dude, whatever. NOT divesting is also a statement in itself. I wish they’d just grow some balls and admit that it’d be too much of a financial loss for us if we divested.
Off to make some fruit salad for our department’s potluck lunch today.
Happy Friday everyone!
I’m working 1/2 a day today then flying home. A bunch of my college friends and I are getting together for an annual hockey game that we all go to. I’m going to be out there for almost exactly 48 hours (5 pm Friday until 5pm Sunday) and I’ve got the time jam-packed with people to see and things to do. My schedule looks like this:
Friday dinner with a grad school friend.
Spend the night with church friends.
Saturday morning visit my godmother.
Lunch with former coworkers.
Afternoon with a couple college friends.
All college friends meet up for dinner.
Hockey game.
Sunday morning church and show everyone my wedding pix and talk to 5 zillion people.
Post-church Dunkin Donuts run (a bunch of people do that every Sunday and I had just become part of that group before I left)
Lunch with my parents.
Hang out with parents for the afternoon.
Catch a flight back here and get in around 7:30.
Spend Monday recovering. (Fortunately, I had the forethought to take Monday off work!)
Cute cats/dogs/husbands. Great knitting pix. I can’t even begin to imagine doing that. Snowy wishes to those who want it and not to those who don’t. Back to work now!
Back in the day when I ran the campus buses there, I used to read the Maroon all the time, and I got that same sense from the University’s leaders - for all the posturing and chest thumping they do, they never seemed to have any balls and actually TAKE A STAND. One of your deans there is a pal of mine from those days, and he used to get frustrated over that too, even worse because he had to defend decisions others made, and try to explain them to me with a straight face.
BIG BUS NEWS, if you’re a Bus Guy today. The british parent of #2 school bus company in the US, (and for whom I used to work - in rigs-land) has bought the #1 company in the US (and for whom I used to work back when I hung out in haze-land). This now means that since I contract 50 buses from # 1 company, and they’re now owned by #2 company (technically making them # 1 I would guess) that in some way - BOTH of the companies I used to work for, now work for me!
**
Bwahahahahaha! Feel The Power!!!**
:dubious: What you say, foo???
kai, Keeeeeeee-ute doggies! 
Way keeeeeeeee-ute skiffman. Now I know why you hang out in that there banya so much. Yeah, yeah, aches and pains, uh, huh. 
So who’s up for Monday? Did I hear the crickets yet???
I am officially unemployed. I found out an hour ago. More later when my brain can actually function.
What!? Are you okay?
Huh? Whuh? Swampy, what’s going on???
Whoa! Swampy, I hope this is not as bad as it sounds.
Puggy - Okay, her pugs are goofy. All whipped into a frenzy when company comes by, snorting their snubbed noses for all their worth. It makes me giggle.
swampy - Whoa, wait, backup, what’s all this then? Laid off? Fired? I should hope you weren’t fired, 'cos the evil bastages will pay for their erroneous ways. I hope you’re okay; I hate losing jobs, whether being fired or laid off. But with your mad skyllz I’m certain you won’t be out of circulation for long.
I got so diverted by worrying about Swampy that I forgot what I stopped by here for. We finally have insurance, yay! So now I can get prescriptions without having to pay full price, and my surgery can go off without a hitch. Or so we assume. I saw my family doctor for clearance today, and I’m in glowing health. Except for my cholesterol, which we couldn’t check because, bad me, I put milk in my coffee before I went in to see her. 
Back to worrying about Swampy!
What? How can that be?
swampy, check in as soon as you can.
Swampy, please check in and let us know what is going on. I’m so concerned about you I forgot what I came in here to post.
Y’all are the best. Thanks for all the concern. I could use some of that right now. Interestingly enough I’m not mad. I should be but I’m not. Georgia is an “at will” employment state so one can be terminated for reason or no reason at all. What I was told is that my position is being eliminated. So, there ya go. Now, I file for unemployment, dust off the ol’ resume and find another job. Who knows, maybe I’ll see if I can find sump’n entirely different. Maybe I’ll move. I’m not going to confine job searching to just around here because I have a chance to find out what’s out there now. At any rate y’all will have interesting tales of a job hunt. So, Jah and Drae I join y’all in the hunt. I still have some sideline stuff I do in the mean time so there is that.
Tigs yay on the insurance!
**Mindfield ** I work on the tube but a lot of lines are part underground, part overground (part wombling free).
Eleanorigby, I think it was just karma. Four bad trains in a week is amazingly bad luck.
Drae, do we get to decide what name “that baby” is going to have or will Sarah be deciding for you? 
Wow, Swampy, that just sucks. I am sorry to read about it. I’m glad you checked in because I was very concerned.
It’s good to see that you’re trying to look at it as an opportunity to do something different. I’d be freaking out, but that’s just me. I am a huuuuuuuge worry wart.
Best of luck in the job hunt.
Oh! And super big hugs to you. I know I’m a girl and all, but sometimes a hug is nice no matter who gives it to you.
swampy - that’s a crappy thing - that ‘at will’ business. Illinois is the same - 'round here, we all sign one year contracts and about March/April we either get a new contract in the mail to sign, or a letter thanking us for our service and clean your desk out by the end of June.
ya wanna drive a bus?
Oh, I’m fairly certain the baby will be deciding for herself, if she shows up. I’m looking on the bright side. If she’s right, that means I get to have sex sometime in the foreseeable future, so yay for that, I suppose.
swampy, unemployment’s not so bad in small doses. Give yourself a week to lie around in your jammies and drink beerverages and watch Buffy, then go on the hunt. 
My sympathies, though–it blows when they just pull the rug out from under you like that. Ouch.