DISCLAIMER... Written last week and posted later.
Where to start today? I traveled from my small town to a lovely city near us for a SOTL conference today. As part of service to the University, I agreed to moderate a session. While I have a great attention to details in some aspects of my life, in picking a session to moderate, I went mostly by time and the general title of the session instead of the full (and I will add "fine print") details about the session. So I ended up moderation a session about an online repository for chemistry materials. Before, I though well, this will be either fascinating or a long hour of my life. BUT it was great. I learned a lot that may be applicable to sociology and different organizations I am involved with. This will be a post for another time.
I also attended another session on internships, which was interesting. I coordinate internships for my department. I am also charged with revising this, which has been challenging being new and taking over something that has not had structure for a long time. I also met a colleague from my campus, which is great to speak to about these issues. Importantly, I also met someone in art design from another institution who faces similar problems and questions I do.
Ms. Knowledge has been quite "sheltered" in her new small town lately and during spring break, spent a majority of the time in her small, depressing rental house trying to revise papers. Ms. Knowledge started missing the Twin Cities greatly in thinking about how if she was bored she could just to IKEA and look around, go to a free museum, or another place, while here the options are limited. And she is still carrying around the guilt of moving her family here (spoken of in other posts and a post for later wondering about how the move affected her children).
So, going to a "city", not a major metro area, stopping by her favorite thrift store, and a better grocery store in the city, put a smile on Ms. Knowledge's face today.
Yet, I was called back to my campus for departmental obligations. After what we will call a meeting, some of the faculty were chatting. Our chair motioned at us. A colleague, whom I did not know as he had been on medical leave before I started, passed away today. The colleague died of cancer at a young age; the day this colleague was supposed to go to Hospice. Colleagues were in tears. It was a sad time.
I did not know the colleague as they were on sick leave by the time I came. However, this was a hard day. My heart went out to my colleagues for their grief. I also felt awkward as I didn't know the colleague. But it also brings up personal things. My father-in-law died of cancer two years ago. It was only 4 months from diagnosis to death and it was around this time two years ago we were making our plans to visit him for the last time, which we didn't know at the time.
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