The Setting, the Cast, and my Moat

I do have a plethora of placement and assessment information to share.  It will wait until the next posting, as I am far too tired, tonight, to contemplate using my brain to that extent.

We have made it to day three of this Kellogg week, which naturally coincided with day three of Professor Morante’s mad trivia game.  The first night the 2s won.  Morante is a 2; he was thrilled.  I, along with my suite mate Nancy, am a 1.  Last night, the 1s won. (Ohhh, and  we learned that Morante does not take well to not winning.)  There has been a lot of wine and usually some odd snacks.  There was a monstrous tub of glow-in-the-dark puffed cheese balls and a box of wine tonight. (I drank water, and I sat far from the cheese things for fear of possible radiation.) 

Tonight’s game was so close.  If we would have known the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, not in 1962 – (Morante’s Trivial Pursuit game is so old that it doesn’t even know that the Berlin Wall is no longer a wall!), we would have won.  We didn’t.  Tomorrow night is the tie breaker and, thankfully, the last game of this Kellogg season.  

It’s supposed to be in the low 50s tonight in Boone, and we all have our windows open.  That’s a very good thing, as the air conditioner in my room had not been working well.  My suitemate tried to fix it.  We got it to blow cold air, but, in return, it has been leaking iky, cloudy water.  The carpet is awful, anyway – rippled, sort of – and it has been absorbing the water.  The absorption is surrounding the bed and desk and we’ve been calling it my moat.  Yes, I have a moat, over which I must now jump to get to bed.  And, it doesn’t smell very good, so I’m quite content with open windows and mountain breezes blowing in.  As far as I know, I have the only moat at Kellogg this year.

Our doors have little signs with our names on them that the Kellogg staff made before we got here.  They are really cute, as each one has on it the college or university logo of its occupant.  Mine has the logo and all, but whoever made it used the Edison flame thing as a border.  It’s sort of cool to walk down the hall and see everyone’s first names with their college logos.

There is a very nice group of people here, and we are gradually getting to know each other.  The women far outnumber the men, and the average age is about mid-forties.  It seems like a highly-educated group; most have doctorates or are working on them, and those who do not have been in the profession for twenty or thirty years or more.  Two classmates, Yumi and Diane, are farthest from home; they are from Hawaii and Alaska, respectively. My suite mate, Nancy, is from Pennsylvania.  She is an English professor, coordinator of her department, and has worked at the same college for thirty years.  She is very knowledgeable and easy going; I thoroughly enjoy her company.  There are two others from Florida, several from North Carolina, and three or four from California.  Other states that I recall include West Virginia, New Mexico, Minnesota, Michigan, New York, Texas, New Jersey, and Connecticut.  Most are from community or state colleges, but there are a few from universities.  There are a few deans, but the majority are either department chair or division coordinator types – just about everyone has significant responsibilities beyond teaching, and just about everyone I’ve spoken to loves the teaching part of their jobs more than anything.  I fit in well.

Denise is in charge of Kellogg, and she is incredible.  She already knows everyone’s name, and she is on top of everything.  Kate is her staff assistant, and she is great, as well.  Hunter has made appearances in the classroom the two days he did not lecture, albeit briefly.  He is such a very nice man and seems genuinely interested in each and every one of the “Kelloggers,” as I have learned we are called.

I have reading to do for tomorrow, and a posting to do to a Web thing that I have yet to access.  More in a day or so … thank you for taking the time to read my chronicle, and I truly welcome comments or questions! Anyone may comment; you need not be a registered user.