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it was a rather surreal day
Mar. 22nd, 2016 07:42 pmToday was the philosophy department's Post-Offer Open Day -- i.e., a day in which all students who have been offered a university place in fall can come and see the university, meet staff, and learn more about what the programme authors. It involves a couple of mini tutorials -- part "this is what it'd be like to be a student here" and part "here's why you should come to Durham" advertisement -- and then an informal meet-and-greet with refreshments. I was signed up to give one of the tutorials, a brief taste of logical paradoxes.
Over night, I dreamed that I was so tired, I woke up briefly in the morning, fell back asleep, and then slept through the tutorial. That was rather mortifying in the dream, and vaguely embarrassing upon waking.
Mine was the second of the two in my track (they were scheduled in two concurrent sessions), so I had time at home to change over last year's slides to this year's. Then, at shortly after 10:00, we got an email: "philosophy dept out of bounds due to suspicious package. Please come directly to ER207. We won't have parallel sessions now. Instead series/linear." Huh.
So I left home a bit early, not sure how things were going to be rescheduled, and took my usual shortcut through the parking lot to Old Elvet -- only to be firmly redirected by a policeman. The entire street was cordoned off, and it turned out that a suitcase had been left unattended in front of the Old Shire Hall (across the street from the dept.) I think had not the events in Brussels occurred this morning, it wouldn't have caused as much comment; but given them, they called out the military bomb removal squad from Cattrick. They did a controlled detonation, and it turned out to merely be a suitcase full of DVDs.
Of course, I found out all this later, after the tutorials were over, but while we were standing around in the coorridors somewhat uncertain of events, I found out that independently of this, the department had been broken in to over night -- someone threw a paving stone through the kitchen window. Who thinks "yeah, the philosophers -- THEY'VE got stuff to steal!"?
My tutorial was the third of four, and either I scared them off completely; or I convinced them all that this was in fact the place they wanted to come so that they didn't need to stay any longer; or three half-hour tutorials in a row is the limit of the incoming undergrad, but the room basically emptied after mine was over. I felt rather bad for the guy who followed me up!
Thankfully, the cordoning off of the street at the other end started just after the Dun Cow, meaning I could still grab lunch, and have a place to hang out, because there wasn't any point going home after the open day, because this afternoon was Gwen's Easter pageant at nursery.
Let me tell you, in the partitioning of life experiences into equivalence classes, children's pageants are in a class of their own. There is absolutely nothing like them.
Afterwards, Gwen should've had two more hours at nursery, but when she found out that D. was going home after the play, and hence if she didn't go home at the same time she wouldn't get to walk with D., she asked me so earnestly and nearly in tears if she could come home that I completely caved. However, I told her that daddy and I would still have to work, so she could come home on the condition that she go up to her room and play quietly by herself there without bothering us until I told her we were done.
And she did.
She came down once for a hug, and when I reached a natural stopping point between referee reports, I went upstairs to read her a story and be shopper to her shop-keeper, but she otherwise played up there by herself for nearly two hours.
I briefly got involved in a "history'sworsthairstyles" thread on twitter, which resulted in someone tweeting me this:
After dinner discussion revolved around the difference between "a sweet" and "a Swede".
None of these bits, individually, were all that unreal, but somehow, the sum totallity of them together in one day made for a very strange day.
Over night, I dreamed that I was so tired, I woke up briefly in the morning, fell back asleep, and then slept through the tutorial. That was rather mortifying in the dream, and vaguely embarrassing upon waking.
Mine was the second of the two in my track (they were scheduled in two concurrent sessions), so I had time at home to change over last year's slides to this year's. Then, at shortly after 10:00, we got an email: "philosophy dept out of bounds due to suspicious package. Please come directly to ER207. We won't have parallel sessions now. Instead series/linear." Huh.
So I left home a bit early, not sure how things were going to be rescheduled, and took my usual shortcut through the parking lot to Old Elvet -- only to be firmly redirected by a policeman. The entire street was cordoned off, and it turned out that a suitcase had been left unattended in front of the Old Shire Hall (across the street from the dept.) I think had not the events in Brussels occurred this morning, it wouldn't have caused as much comment; but given them, they called out the military bomb removal squad from Cattrick. They did a controlled detonation, and it turned out to merely be a suitcase full of DVDs.
Of course, I found out all this later, after the tutorials were over, but while we were standing around in the coorridors somewhat uncertain of events, I found out that independently of this, the department had been broken in to over night -- someone threw a paving stone through the kitchen window. Who thinks "yeah, the philosophers -- THEY'VE got stuff to steal!"?
My tutorial was the third of four, and either I scared them off completely; or I convinced them all that this was in fact the place they wanted to come so that they didn't need to stay any longer; or three half-hour tutorials in a row is the limit of the incoming undergrad, but the room basically emptied after mine was over. I felt rather bad for the guy who followed me up!
Thankfully, the cordoning off of the street at the other end started just after the Dun Cow, meaning I could still grab lunch, and have a place to hang out, because there wasn't any point going home after the open day, because this afternoon was Gwen's Easter pageant at nursery.
Let me tell you, in the partitioning of life experiences into equivalence classes, children's pageants are in a class of their own. There is absolutely nothing like them.
Afterwards, Gwen should've had two more hours at nursery, but when she found out that D. was going home after the play, and hence if she didn't go home at the same time she wouldn't get to walk with D., she asked me so earnestly and nearly in tears if she could come home that I completely caved. However, I told her that daddy and I would still have to work, so she could come home on the condition that she go up to her room and play quietly by herself there without bothering us until I told her we were done.
And she did.
She came down once for a hug, and when I reached a natural stopping point between referee reports, I went upstairs to read her a story and be shopper to her shop-keeper, but she otherwise played up there by herself for nearly two hours.
I briefly got involved in a "history'sworsthairstyles" thread on twitter, which resulted in someone tweeting me this:
@SaraLUckelman pic.twitter.com/dbg5ZLAsTs
— Carly Silver (@CarlyASilver) March 22, 2016
After dinner discussion revolved around the difference between "a sweet" and "a Swede".
None of these bits, individually, were all that unreal, but somehow, the sum totallity of them together in one day made for a very strange day.
