2007-10-15 - 4:30 p.m.

Monday's already gone...eegads.

Ugh - just finished a marathon faculty meeting in which we discussed a lot of visioning. It was brutal, although ultimately probably useful. Useful for me to hear (and try to understand) my colleagues.

Two interesting developments came up today, though. First is that my department is investigating whether or not I am, in fact, a partial Nobel Laureate as a former participant in the IPCC process. Hah! Wouldn't THAT be cool? (mind you it would make me one of about 10,000 recipients in that case...but hey, I'm still proud of participating in that process.) I smiled to myself when the department head announced this possibility at the faculty meeting. It was in such stark contrast to my previous department, where such participation would have been scoffed at (in fact, my previous department head 'did not believe in' global warming - a phrase that always makes me cringe, as it is stated to imply that the science of global climate change is somehow a religious belief rather than a body of evidence.)

The second cool thing that came out of today was a conversation with one of the students in my class, who told me that a group of students consider my class the very best of the ones they are taking this semester. She said that students look forward to the class - they find the discussions and material covered highly relevant. In fact, they frequently wish that the course were longer so that they could continue to dig into the questions that are being asked. You might imagine that I was exceedingly chuffed and startled (!) after last semester's experience! I want to go class now.

Last news: turns out that having cats CAN prepare you for having children. Miracle cat stain remover products - made of some organic enzymes to fight cat urine smells and stains naturally - is amazing at removing baby pee stains and smells. K is nevertheless still investigating replacement cover options (we are still a wee bit grossed out by all this).

But nice to know that we have a hard-n-fast cleaner for those finicky urine moments. Don't worry - baby will not be forced to use a litter box.