Weekends with Dad / FS conference

Hubby comes home tonight from his relatively faraway job. I look forward to Fridays so much. It's not that when the Hub comes home, we have grand times, nor does he hit the ground running helping with chores and such. he comes home tired from a week at work like we all do. But there's just some sort of burden that is lifted when he arrives. I am clearly an extrovert, and I gain energy from the company of others, so I suppose that when he arrives, a burden of lonesomeness is lifted. Its a light burden, since I do avail myself of the wonderful community that we are surrounded by (and another reason we would find it difficult to move to Big Suburb where Hub works). But nonetheless, there's a reason I married HIM in particular. His company is like no one else's. And that's why Friday's are so great. I suppose that for people who dislike their jobs, their Friday must also be a temporary relief of a burden, too.

But I don't understand that. Next week is Faculty Staff conference. There's usually a message from the Prez- a state of the University talk- which is helpful and not dull. There are a few mostly low-density (useful info/ ideas, but nuggets are interspersed throughout an otherwise un-useful talk) talks about other things going on in the University, and then we have a guest speaker. Last year the speaker talked about educating spiritual beings. Since this is a religious university, that's our mission to think of these things. And I like the bigger picture of that. Not only was it very insightful to hear about our students in a fresh way, but this guy's use of powerpoint was absolutely brilliant. He used a split screen with images on both sides and a few words of his main points (not bullet points, picture words). One side of the screen remained while the other one changed, so you saw his last point and his new one simultaneously. It was asthetically gorgeous. I loved his talk. In general I like the Faculty Staff conferences. They certainly aren't a total waste of time. Besides, I like the social aspect: seeing and talking to likable colleagues from other departments. I'm quite happy with the "community aspect" of this little University.

Now to contrast that with the things I read in the Chronicle, and hear about going on at Huge Teaching U in town, I guess I will take my lower salary with out remorse, since I consider myself content to "pay" an "anti-Machiavellian tax"