Annual Week of Panic

Yes folks, it's here. The week at the end of summer in which I berate myself for wasting time for the past three months, and scramble to put together my courses.

This year it includes a special visit to the new bookstore manager in which I tell her that I decided that the book for seminar isn't right and am ordering a new one. So, so, sorry, but the ones that she ordered, um, no one is going to buy them. The previous bookstore manager would thank me for letting me know. I'm hoping the new one is so overloaded that she that she hasn't ordered them yet. I can dream.

Yesterday I spent some time in the IT's guy's office. It isn't that I don't trust him to set up my course sites. It is just that I am more confident that he will do it promptly if I sit in his office and do his sudoku puzzle from today's paper.

This year it is going to be a bit more hectic than usual. I agreed to talk about the first year book and sadly, I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT. It is about how there is way too much garbage and we are all going to die if we don't fix it and it is probably too late. I'm thinking about talking about the philosophical "last man" puzzle. That's the one where we try to convince you that the world some has independent value because it would be wrong for the last human in a world-wide plague to push a button as he dies to blow the planet up. Because, you know, talking about that will show them how philosophy is relevant to real-life problems.

I only have to talk for 10 minutes. Still, all I got right now is "here's why all the different philosophical approaches come up with pretty much the same answer to a problem this general."

And I will miss the meeting in which the professors who are talking about the book meet with the "student leaders" because my OB/GYN Guy is having a meeting when I was supposed to be having my appointment with him. I don't think I mind though. (In case you are interested, I will be telling him that the hormone therapy results were unacceptable. Going from a pattern of one week off/one week on to a pattern of one month off/one month on doesn't cut it. I'm serious, by the way. Thirty-three freaking days "on.")

At least the boys are continuing to get along. Brian is really making an effort. Last night Gary came home from the gym to complain about the teacher. In the course of the complaining we learned that Gary isn't being treated well because he can take on any guy there and do just fine. He also said that he was going to find a new place to work out. He knows that the one he goes to is the best in the area, but he will find another and he willl MAKE it better. He can do that, because he is so good.

Brian, who was sitting where Gary couldn't see. He said nothing, although I could see it was irritating him. Finally Gary moved on to talking about something specific that the class teacher does that annoys him and Brian said something like, "I HATE it when he does that." And that was common ground and they talked about how the guy who owns the place is great, and wouldn't it be wonderful if he taught the classes instead. Also about how the guy who teaches is a awful and just in it for the money and the joy of power.

So they were criticizing a hard-working adult that they should have respect for, but they were having a conversation, not criticizing each other, and that is improvement.

But now I need to work on those course sites, and talk to the bookstore person, and maybe even decide what books to read in Ethics after the first section, and ...