The part with the family went...fine. Maybe a little better than expected. I wish I could say it was great, but I'm over sweating those relationships.

I realize I haven't checked in in ages. Lately I feel like I never know the right thing to say- I enter text and then hit 'message center' out of fear of saying the wrong thing. So know that I love you all but I seem to be in 'Lurk' mode for Bitches.

I'm getting annoyed. My students have a midterm coming up. All the students taking this course with any instructor take the same midterm. Generally, the procedure is that each class is assigned to a room, with all the classes that have the same instructor assigned to the same room. The instructor picks up the exams from the math office that day, brings them all to the testing room, gives them to the students, and collects them at the end of the exam time.

The exam room schedule was posted yesterday, and not only are my students not all assigned to the same room like they usually are, they're spread out among six different rooms in six different buildings. I asked how this is supposed to work, since I clearly can't give exams in six different places at once, and I was told that there would be proctors assigned to each room, and I would "float" among the rooms to answer any questions that the students had. This would work fine if my students were in a few different rooms in the same building, like some instructors have. But I've got six different buildings, which are pretty far apart from each other, so if I wanted to get to all of them during the exam time, I'd have no more than a minute or two in each room. Which is clearly not going to work. Every time I've tried to talk to someone to get a solution, or at least an answer to "If the rooms do stay like this, where am I supposed to be during the exam?" I either get told to talk to someone else (who I've already talked to) or told that the rooms are final and complaints won't get them changed.

WTF, Hil? Are they trying to make things impossible for you?

I just checked through the schedule, and nobody else has students in more than three different buildings. Most people are just in one or two, and several have all their students in the same room.

That's frustrating.

My computer died in its sleep. I've been planning to replace it soon-ish but not two days before I leave town and not without some research and, really, not without slightly more research. Possibly having backed up more recently too. Bother.

Condolences, Cass. Can you do without until you're back and then see what you can salvage?

Happy birthday, smonster! You did right by those kitties, no matter what anyone else says.

Happy birthday, smonster!

My computer died in its sleep.

Noooo! Oh, you so did not need that to happen right now.

Happy Birthday Smonster.

My temp work was good. The drive home was hellish. It took 1 1/2 hours to get home. Most of that spent going less than 5 mph. There was some construction but I also saw 3 cars broken down on the side of the road. And when I got back home it was in time for my knitting club so I went. And there I heard there was at least 1 major accident that must have been cleared up.

Tomorrow I'm going to take the interstate part way and go Rt 7 the rest -- it will take me through some towns and might be slower. But it can't be any worse than what today was.

The other good thing - is that my supervisor at the temp job said she could probably use me during the holidays. I decided not to go home, as much as I'd want to see everyone on Xmas I think it's better that I'm available to work and Xmas is always so hectic. Instead I'm going home for a visit next month.