Mommy's Day Out

It's been awhile, I know. It's been really busy, though, getting everything ready for school. Most of it is for me and my new school. There is an unbelievable amount of paperwork involved, including fingerprinting and a TB test. I finished everything in record time, only to be told that it would take a couple of weeks for everything to process. That means two weeks for me to get the keys, copy account, parking permit, and online blackboard access. Meanwhile, school starts in one week.

Last week, I spent one whole day at orientation for new faculty. Here's what it took:

1. Dig out trousers from under sweats
2. Find a blouse with no food stains
3. Take off ponytail scrunchy and brush hair
4. Change into another outfit
5. Dust off black leather shoes from black of closet.
6. Grab purse, notebook, directions
7. While driving, smear on lipstick (this is all the time I have for makeup, which is okay because college female instructors are - how should I put it - not into beauty regimes)
8. This is the hardest one: Set brain to Super Schmoozing mode and paste on gigantic schmoozing smile.

It was a total waste of time. They went on about all the different events that goes on campus during the year (festivals, etc) and new technology (eg. clickers - little voting machines the students use to answer any test/review questions that pop up during your lecture) instead of answering important stuff like when and where we get our keys, copy accounts, parking permits, and online access. I wasted two hours watching this tech guy clicking on the screen, telling us how to post our grades and hold discussion groups online, when I could have learned that in half the time if only they had given me my password. Still, it was good to just go somewhere besides home and be with adults, even if it was just schmoozing. It's definitely an art, almost a lost art for me. But hey, I'm really good around kids. Actually, just my own kids. Only when they're behaving.