Summer officially ends today here on this esteemed campus of higher learning. Never mind that today will likely be the 66th consecutive day of 100+ degree temperatures, and that we’re still in a massive drought. Summer’s over when classes start.
Most years, it seems that I always have something to say about the massive influx of students. There is something disarming about the arrival of 40,000 students on campus all at once (and believe you me, they all showed up over the weekend). Our summer school numbers are pretty low here, something I’ve never quite understood since it’s an easy way to relieve that crowding over the rest of the year, but what do I know?
The Bible pushers weren’t out yet this morning when I came in. You may recall them from a post several years ago in which I lamented my inability to throw out holy scripture that I didn’t want. I’m sure I’ll see them this afternoon, unless their precious saved souls can’t quite deal with the heat. That’d be funny.
When I got to my department this morning, I was surprised to find new fliers up everywhere.
We have this professor–I won’t name him because he actually googles himself on a daily basis (and given his narcissism, there’s at least three or four entendres at work in that statement)–who has declared himself the only expert in the bizarre dialect of a language that he teaches. He’s declared his office the World Headquarters of studies in this particular language.
So, this morning, there are fliers up all over the place. He’s running some bizarre contest, and god alone knows what the prize will be. A copy of his most recent biography, I suppose. (Seriously: he publishes these random books consisting of his journals through one of those “publish it yourself” vanity presses, like we all need to know what his opinion of the canapes at a restaurant that no longer exists is … )
I saw another professor on my way out yesterday. We joke around the office that he taught Hebrew to Moses — seriously, the guy is almost 90 and still teaching. I’ve thought to myself that I suppose that I’d like to be that active at his age. (The other running joke is that he’s still teaching because he’s afraid that if he retires he’ll discover that, after all these years, he really doesn’t like his wife.) We have come in on Monday mornings and noticed on the switchboard phone that the receiver in his office is off the hook and wondered to ourselves if he failed to hang up properly again, or if this is going to be the time that we key into his office and find him still in there …
He’s also massively grumpy at times, when it comes to things like only four students registered for his class and it’s going to be cancelled due to low enrollment. This was yesterday’s drama, and he was complaining about it to everyone. The problem there is that the person he needed to complain to wasn’t in the office, so the rest of it had to hear about it at some length. He doesn’t talk very loudly or quickly, you see.
The kicker to all of the pre-semester faculty drama is that I had a meeting yesterday that included the faculty member who sent a particularly nasty message at the end of my trip to Cairo. She was very nice and sweet and pretended like nothing ever happened. I suppose that’s one way to deal with it, but … for god’s sake, if you’re going to be that bitchy, own it! Don’t brush it under the rug. Seriously, does no one understand the finer points of bitchcraft?
At any rate. I need to go see how we’re doing on the office pool: the first day of classes we always have a pool to guess what time the first panicked student will arrive freaking out because he/she couldn’t get into the class he/she wanted. Never mind that registration is over and that we’ve been here all summer long — there’s always a handful of them. I picked 8:45.
I hope your summer is ending smoothly 
