A Brief Glimpse

Hello there.

Thanks so much for your encouraging post this morning. It really was a great accompaniment to my coffee, which incidentally tasted particularly good this morning. Anyway, I made it through the day... but not without another migraine. First period, just after I scheduled a meeting with N through his secretary, I started strobing, then I started preparing for the meeting. I had no choice. In doing so, I found out that N's story was wrong. Either he didn't do his homework (and there's a high probability of that) or he changed his story once I had the facts. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

C came in with me as my union representative. (I said, "C is here with me so I can be on the record, and as a way to insure that I stay professional and not familiar.) Because I had done my homework I knew his need to usurp my authority unnecessary (kid isn't in jazz band, it's wind ensemble, and that has been a 1/2 credit course for the three years he's been in it; i.e, it's not a change N made and needs to repair)(oh, and btw, the recommendations he does have are POOR so he probably won't get in anyway). I backed off a little since I didn't need to resign, but I did make it clear that the executive decision he was proposing to make would have had ramifications I didn't think he had considered and would have upended the entire application process. I also let him know that had his original story been the case (it used to be an activity and now kids get credit) it would have required some review and evaluation by the NHS faculty committee. I said my piece.

Thing is, I don't think he gets it. I don't think he'll take even a minute to reflect and say, Wow, even Barb is coming in with union representation. I've alienated even her. Such a shame. At least I did my thing...and I kept my cool, thanks in part to you, to being able to process and prepare with you and D and C and F. Being prepared made it much easier to to leave my emotions (read: passion) aside and be businesslike, calm and collected. And right! Yay me.

That's enough of that.

Thanks for your white light about W too. He hasn't heard yet to schedule that second interview, but I hope it will be in the next day or two. And he is still on board for the creative visualization. Funny, he and I had kind of an unexpected tender moment last night--unrelated to this though, so new paragraph.

While I was at my mom's he sent me a picture via cell phone (that's not texting, so what is it?) of his new nephew, born in December. I've seen pictures already, and he is adorable, so I'm not sure what prompted it--other than maybe I was with my nieces and nephews and it made him think of his. As a joke, I almost texted, Want one? but I didn't want to give him a stroke. You and I know well that sometimes tone isn't conveyed via text or email. But later, when I got to speak with him I told him that whole bit, and he did the no thank you! and we laughed and that was that. Now W and I have talked about the fact that it's too late in our lives and a commitment we didn't think we could make to have children, so we've agreed--did from the beginning--we'd have no kids and but that's it. So I found it sweet when we talked again later (because we talk 10 times a day) and he brought it up. I know we're on the same page, and no thank you, but boy if we did, they'd be pretty, hu? , he said. Yes they would, I agreed, and continued, I guess if we had met 15 or 20 years ago, we could have seen for ourselves, but not in this life. I'm not quite sure why that meant so much, but it did.

Whoa. I am just clicking away with my keyboard diarrhea. Sorry. I guess I just wanted to fill you in on the N issue, but didn't want to end on that sour story. I wanted to end with something a little sweeter....

Thanks again for letting me vent last night and thanks for reading. Hope you're having a good day.

Love,
Barb