What follows is a collection of unrelated observations and notions
Yesterday I discovered that my employer simply forgot to pay me last month. And on the telephone I had to remind our payroll administrator that, yes, in fact, I am teaching a course this term and ought to be paid. When this person balked, I threatened to cancel class until I had a check cut for me (aside: I won a competitive university-wide fellowship to develop and teach this course, so it's actually been fairly high-profile within some sectors of the university). Luckily this tactic worked, but I still have the headache it caused. These ineffable feelings of invisibility within the department, however, have been confirmed.
The other day I filled up my car’s gas tank for the first time in several months. Cost me $22.00. Wow.
A new University of Washington President has been hired (the last one ran back to Rutgers after a flaccid leadership and infidelity scandal). His starting salary is $470,000. Take off one zero and several thousand, and that’s still not what most new faculty members earn at the same public institution.
Have you noticed MSG’s observation that the new Magnetic Fields CD uses the same theme as his Burning Ring of Fire CD from last June?
If you’re curious for a glimpse of Wedding Fever, check out
my sister and my brother on theknot.com. (Have I ever publicly mentioned that I'm the Black Sheep of my family? -- once known as "BS" to my brother's friends.)
And lastly, I find the concern over human rights violations within the military ironic. Of course I find torture inflicted on Iraqis by US soldiers deplorable, but I also find the larger military culture deplorable. I wonder if military action, itself, isn’t based on force, control, domination, and degradation. To this pea brain it doesn’t seem particularly far off from these reports of torture, rape, and abuse transgressions. But just writing such a banality makes me feel lame and bored with myself. Whatever.
Yesterday I discovered that my employer simply forgot to pay me last month. And on the telephone I had to remind our payroll administrator that, yes, in fact, I am teaching a course this term and ought to be paid. When this person balked, I threatened to cancel class until I had a check cut for me (aside: I won a competitive university-wide fellowship to develop and teach this course, so it's actually been fairly high-profile within some sectors of the university). Luckily this tactic worked, but I still have the headache it caused. These ineffable feelings of invisibility within the department, however, have been confirmed.
The other day I filled up my car’s gas tank for the first time in several months. Cost me $22.00. Wow.
A new University of Washington President has been hired (the last one ran back to Rutgers after a flaccid leadership and infidelity scandal). His starting salary is $470,000. Take off one zero and several thousand, and that’s still not what most new faculty members earn at the same public institution.
Have you noticed MSG’s observation that the new Magnetic Fields CD uses the same theme as his Burning Ring of Fire CD from last June?
If you’re curious for a glimpse of Wedding Fever, check out
my sister and my brother on theknot.com. (Have I ever publicly mentioned that I'm the Black Sheep of my family? -- once known as "BS" to my brother's friends.)
And lastly, I find the concern over human rights violations within the military ironic. Of course I find torture inflicted on Iraqis by US soldiers deplorable, but I also find the larger military culture deplorable. I wonder if military action, itself, isn’t based on force, control, domination, and degradation. To this pea brain it doesn’t seem particularly far off from these reports of torture, rape, and abuse transgressions. But just writing such a banality makes me feel lame and bored with myself. Whatever.
posted by MM at
5:32 PM
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