The Omnibus Blog Posting

I know that it has been nearly two months since I've posted something of substance here, but I attribute it mostly to the fact that I'm in the daily grind of school mode. One treat this year, is that I give a lift to another faculty member who lives in San Francisco. She is the new Mandarin Chinese teacher, hired to teach the heritage speaking classes. If I were at student at school taking Chinese, I would be her student. I am getting the opportunity to practice speaking my Chinese three or four times a week. Granted, my reading and writing skills are not improving at all, and it is those with which I need the most help.

This past Friday, the 2008 HRS Annual Fair went off without a hitch. For the fourth year in a row, I was the lead in organizing the fair. Somehow, I have appeased the weather gods for it was another night of early fall twilight weather. Unfortunately, my planning of the fair was met by my own "October Surprise." In a moment for which I'm not proud, I lost my temper while at school. Here's what happened. I had received an email from BP reminding me that I needed to have a parking plan as well as a security plan in place. In reviewing my records from the past three years, I had done the parking plan once but two of those years, I didn’t create one. In none of the past three years, had I proposed a security plan. My guess is that in the past, upon submitting the calendar request, which I had forgotten to do this year, BP or CT, took it upon himself or herself to take care of this important task for me. However, with BP no longer in the position that she was until this past year, none of these details were addressed.

I promptly tried to get these taken care of but was stymied over and over. I was sent from one person to the other, who wasn’t able to break down who was in charge or what or whom I needed to contact. I was overwhelmed, frustrated and just plain angry (mostly at myself for having not even thought to address this major hurdle in the planning process.) I will not assign blame, but I think it would be quite useful for the players I was dealing with to sit down and figure out who is supposed to do what. In the end, I learned that the business office dealt with security, although I ended up hiring CC of the ASP to watch the Whittle Gate at $25 an hour. I learned that the administrator in charge is to help work with me on the parking plan.

This headache has led me to realize that I am ready to let another person have a crack at this leadership position. Therefore I have proposed to the administration to have them designate a person who will take over the running of the fair in 2010. I will organize the fair for a fifth and last time, with the this designated person working along side me next year to learn the ropes.

The fair wrapped up Friday evening, October 24th, around 930PM and I was home by 1015PM. At 4AM, I was in the car driving to the San Jose Airport to board a 615AM flight to Baltimore with a connection in Houston. I landed at BWI and promptly boarded Amtrak bound for NYC. Why you ask? Well, I'm officially going to go on record here and state that I am dating a guy named AW, who lives in Atlanta. Turns out AW was up in NYC for the wedding of a co-worker so I threw caution to the wind (and was in denial about how grueling all this travel would be) and took the train up to spend 15 hours with AW.

Sunday morning at 11AM, I was back on Amtrak to Washington, DC to make the 430PM wedding of my college friend Nora B. At the wedding, I was reacquainted with friends from college that I hadn't seen in over a decade. And for those who know David A., he still wears blue-button down dress shirts ONLY. Only in the past few years, have I really understood why the bride and groom always gush that my presence at their special day is all that they want. I've come to realize that it is one time in their lives that they have the opportunity to have all the important people from all the important parts of their lives in one place at one time, and perhaps for the last time ever in their lives. Because of this, I always make an effort to attend the weddings to which I am invited. Plus, I love watching inter-generational dancing!

My friends and I left the wedding around 930PM and headed to the DC Metro. From Foggy Bottom, I had to switch to the Red Line at Metro Center to get to Union Station. I can picture the next event in slow motion as it happened. I came up the escalator and turned to see the Red Line train with the doors open. I ran (well wobbled) as fast as I could to get the train. Three steps from the door, my phone falls out of my pocket, on to the ground and slides right off the edge of the platform into the gap between the platform and the train door. My phone is now on the subway tracks.

I am stunned in disbelief. I am in the Metro riding to the next stop, Gallery Place. A woman tells me that this happens all the time and that the station agents have long pinchers to pick up things that have fallen on the tracks. I get off, go back and I have the station agent use the long pinchers to retrieve my phone. And it still worked.

I made it to Union Station thinking I would catch a train up to the BWI area and then take a cab to the hotel where I had made a reservation. Arriving at Union Station at 11PM, I found out that the next train leaving DC wasn't until 315AM. Resigned, I trekked out to the cab line and it was 50 people long. At this point, a man driving a wheelchair equipped van asks where I'm going. I tell him the Red Roof Inn near BWI, he says $60. We're on. With his GPS unit, I'm there in 25 minutes and in bed by midnight. Five hours later, it's up and off to BWI to fly back home.