Yes, I'm here

I seem not to be able to write thoughtful posts these days. Hopefully that will change eventually.

School has started up for me. We have had four days of classes and 2% of our students are down with the flu. Getting confirmation for the type of flu is slow, but we are presuming it is H1N1. I pass around a sign in sheet in my classes. I send around a small bottle of hand sanitizer with it. So far all the profs and staff are still standing.

Not shaking hands with advisees, or anyone, has become standard.

No one has been seriously ill. The issue, as you know, is not that this flu is particularly bad. It is just that we have no immunity.

I'm intensely busy because the faculty are doing the biggest over-haul to the curriculum in our nearly 120 years of existence. That is not hyperbole. I am on the committee through which all catalog changes must go. I'm the person on that committee who is responsible for keeping track of what has been approved, whether people have done the things the committee told them to do in order to get approval. There is a computer program that helps enormously. Still, today I spent two hours on the web site typing things like, "You need to add two more learning outcomes to this program" or just clicking the buttons indicating that the proposal passed.

Also I have some of the largest classes I have ever had. Given that we were previously worried that enrollments would fall, this is not a bad thing.

Actually none of this is a bad thing. It just means that I am very busy and the blogosphere is not getting nearly as much attention from me these days.

Oh, and Gary has shingles. His pain tolerance is normally quite high. He doesn't complain much, although you can tell he hurts. He's still going to school. I find I really want to do something to make it better, but of course there isn't anything I can do.

Sunday we will be celebrating Gary, Evan, and Andrew's birthdays, as well as saying goodbye to Andrew. We will probably make homemade egg rolls.

Monday is a big day. Andrew is going back to college and I am having a medical procedure which I am sure one day will be regarded as barbaric. I anticipate being glad to have it done, it is just the sort of thing that makes you shudder when you hear it described.

Let's see, I think that is about it. We don't hear anything about the TPR process. I continue to have deeply mixed feelings about it. I don't seem to be able to sort them out in any meaningful way.