Is there anyone you can appeal to?

No, that comes from the top. I was actually prepared for that answer since that was rumored to be true of people who took vacation days on Fridays during the summer, but I felt I had to ask. (Here in our library we've worked out a different scheme for the 1/2 day Fridays that allows us to take whole day Fridays, thus it had never come up for me before - but now they'll be looking closely at my leave time.)

Sparky, that is evil! I'm so sorry.

Just got an email from a student asking me to change his grade. Once again, no good reason given, just asking.

I think you should always be willing to change it downward.

In the Further Adventures of the Sinus Infection That Will Not Die, I'm having a CT scan of my head this afternoon, to see if there's anything in there. I suspect it's an alien embryo.

Seska, tons of ~ma. Golly. Sounds like the universe just ganged up on you and the girl. I see this like a wrestling match. The bad guy pile drives, jumps from the top rope, but you keep squirming so you aren't pinned, slowly regaining consciousness, until finally, you wake up in a rage, and quickly pin the evil guy.

Huh. I haven't watched wrestling in about 20 years. Why that image popped to mind, I dunno. I did just wake up, so, brain not fully working. Ya. That sounds good.

omnis_audis, I love the wrestling metaphor. (Or is it an analogy? Hmm. We should ask some puppets.)

Matilda sounds fantastic. I have a niece a bit younger than that. It's an incredibly cool age.

Appreciation for the ~ma thing, all. It may be working. I just finished the paper (FINISHED!!!) I thought I wasn't going to see the end of in time for deadline, and can now go home to London a bit earlier (well, sometime tomorrow) to help with packing etc. We're getting there. Only another 6000-word essay, a house-move and a legal battle to go.

Told The Girl she was in the wrong profession and that she should have been a teacher 'cause it's less stressful (and then I heard it). She laughed for about ten minutes.

And now, I am going to hear a lecture by Bauman. Bauman, dude. [link]

And now, I am going to hear a lecture by Bauman.

I'm so tired that I read that as "Batman."

I'm so tired that I read that as "Batman."

Damn. Now I realise it could be even more cool. Oh well. Off to get beer with colleagues before the relatively cool lecture...

heh. You've seen movies and TV with people driving across Memorial Bridge with the Lincoln Memorial in the background, and then suddenly turning left onto Pennsylvania Ave, and we think "hey, you're in Virginia".

Watching CSI: Miami you'd think the only way to get anywhere in Miami is to cross the Julia Tuttle or MacArthur Causeways. Because, you know, everything happens on the beach in Miami.

Well, doesn't it? Oh, wait, some things happen in nightclubs at South Beach.

Is there anyone you can appeal to?

Universities are evil about maternity leave for staff. For a while, you couldn't use sick leave for maternity. When someone mentioned this, I asked (out of curiosity) "well, what if you had a cesarean? That's an operation, so you should be able to use sick leave for that" There was a murmur, and I was then told that basically, departments "worked it out" @@. Ridic.

Universities are evil about maternity leave for staff.

God knows my own university mat leave was severely fouled up (and still, if I ask ten different administrators in Personnel exactly how much of what leave I should have been able to take, and whether my 300+ hours of untouched sick leave were available, I'll still get ten different and completely contradictory answers).

But Sparky's just seems like an extra level of malevolence. Docking her for nonexistent working Fridays during the single most physically and emotionally needy time of her and the Babyfrass's mutual lives is damn near inhuman.

But Sparky's just seems like an extra level of malevolence.

Frankly, I blame it on who is running the place at the highest levels. They don't share a dinner table with humans of the female persuasion so they can ignore this kind of thing (whereas my poor DH hears me rant every night).

At the moment, I'm boggling about how they seem not to know how the dependent care credit works.