Sometimes it’s just fun to list the things that are happening in order to make life seem more crazy.
I just came home on what is Friday afternoon here. After finishing my last of five classes I came back to our office to find 10ish young women clamoring for extra grammar practice because our midterm is next week. Usually one or two might want some work; today there was a small army. I had copies of what they could want, and I some to the copy-girl (we hired students to work for us). I took the others up to make copies to work faster. I came back down against the flow of many other staff and faculty getting ready for a reception. Back in the office I handed the copies to a student. Then I met with another student who needed a CD with South Asian news burned for her listening homework. While I was doing that, someone yelled at me that the copier wasn’t working. Then someone came over and told me the machine wasn’t working. Then the copy girl came over to tell me the copier wasn’t working. We need more toner. So I went upstairs to teach the student how to use another copier. On the way up a student showed me some old work that she had questions on. I told her to get in line. Upstairs the authors of the news Bradt Guide Bangladesh were having a reception. Someone called me while I was upstairs and told me there was a bunch of students needing something. I asked them to be more specific. There were 12 others who needed copies. I went back upstairs to increase the number of copies, and grabbed the student who had asked for help and told her to help the copier. I had a cup of tea. Sir John Kelly called me to tell me that Hans got a shipment of bacon and ham in, and that we could get some from him. Back downstairs I copied 344 pronunciation audio files from a book CD for another student. I showed her the book and how to find the tracks. Then the rest of the copies came and we distributed them to the students. Somewhere in there I had a conversation about the journalism club, which a student asked me to join this week. I talked with a faculty member who is also in the club. In my office, before I left, I had a conversation about borrowing books from our library, and headed out. Later I am going to a poetry reading.
It’s not such a crazy afternoon except that it’s Thursday, and we do not have office hour on Thursday.
