5:58 AM and I am still waiting for rosy-fingered Eos to step across the fields. Despite chairing a committee whose charge is to prove to legislators and the public at large that we are working, my personal concern is not that at all since there is no room for doubt.
I am informed that our effective salary cut over the past three years has been 7.5%. This does not include the reductions to retirement contributions by the university, the increase in health insurance premiums, or the further transfer to faculty of departmental operating expenses and routine research costs.
Meanwhile I have one bedroom dismantled. It had just been repaired and repainted from damage sustained in Hurricanes Gustav and Ike and now it needs some repainting again due to damage from Tropical Storm Lee. I haven’t had a chance to do it although men will come to work on the window that storm also cracked tomorrow.
Now the other bedroom is rendered useless as well since my house has been beseiged by trucks the last two nights, with loud generators. They are covered with hoses and labeled Enviro-Compliance, and my street is blocked off by pickup trucks from the electric company. I have no idea what they are doing and I am not sure inquiries would be welcome, since they may be sucking a classified chemical spill out of the ditches.
Fortunately I have a fancy sleeping bag, bought my senior year of college, so I can camp out in the center of the house. I would prefer to be less displaced. But when I am this tired I can tell by my reactions where and when I really think I still am, which is interesting.
The long distance bus that goes along the main road and is labeled Houston, I find myself thinking of as the San Francisco bus because it is going to my right. The students who look to be 23 or 24 years old, I think of as slightly older than me.
Axé.
coldhearted scientist وداد 