A slight change

9:07 a.m. Well, I'm sitting in the faculty lounge for my department this morning. I'm trying a new schedule to see how things work out. Normally, I'm in the gym right now, sweating on the ski machine with my IPOD. But since it's usually a rush to finish the work out and then run across campus to make copies and review my lecture in a few minutes, I though that I would try heading to the department lounge and take my time to get the morning going. I plan to work out after my afternoon class. I am curious how this will affect my morning class and how it might affect my routine.

So far the place's ben rather empty. Only a few people have even stopped by for a moment and usually they simply smile silently and move on in a vague zombie-like state to get to their office. I meant to catch Sandy this morning to ask her to check on the repairs to the door for my first class; you can only open it from the inside. I've reported it weeks ago but there's still no sign of repairs.

Blah.

Feels weird not to be working out this morning. I almost walked towards the gym and not the admin building by sheer habit when I got out of the car.

Ahh, I hear people rustling out in the hallway. Ok, one person walking in the hall.

Oh yeah, the oddest thing happened Monday in Sociology. One of my students informed me that she was getting divorced from Brandon Hobbes. She had asked me if I knew he and Chris and I told her that I had grown up with them. They have two kids and she's divorcing him in the next few weeks. It's odd to hear anything about those two but even more odd to hear that Brandon got married and fathered two kids. The last I remember seeing him was years ago when he was like 8 or 10.

Yeah, it's a small town.

9:40 a.m. Sandy finally appeared so I could tell her about the problems with the door to my first class and I finished my read through before the class. My stomach is starting to twist into knots for some reason. I think it's probably just sinuses. The weather has turned quite cold and there's every indication that we'll get down to single digits next week. Brr.

Single... Digits...

That just sounds wrong.

So far the responses have been fairly common. I'm the new face and what am I doing around here. I knew that I should have started to hang out in the lounge from the first day to get to know the faculty better. Oh well, it'll work itself out eventually.

I'm trying to waste some time before I head over to my class. The class prior to mine is always late getting out of the room, sometimes holding them past the time they should get out. I never did like professors who did that. The students have other classes to get to even if they don't.

1:08 p.m. Well, I've finished my Soc review and got through this morning's class without any problem. I'm back in the faculty lounge and listening to one of the math professors, a Phillipino woman named Pearl, hum to herself as she warms up a micro-meal.

She seems like a very interesting person; very eager and curious. She's also the only person that has responded to any kind of conversation I've started. Manners. Sheesh.

I think I'm going to wander up to my next class here in a few minutes, but I'm going to swing by and pick up some chips or something to help settle my stomach. It's better than it was this morning but no so great since I am skipping lunch. Maybe I'll pack my lunch next week since I'll be hanging out in the lounge more often for my 2 hours of break. Everything is sort of based on the idea that I get paid for the first time this Friday. According to everyone involved, I should be able to walk down and pick up the first check that morning. The following paychecks will be automatically deposited into my account. I could, and may, have part of it deposited into a seperate account for back up. If I don't have it to spend in the main account, I can always fall back on things.

I've got to get my electric caught up, cable and my cellphone. Ugh. Bills.

1:45 p.m. I'm up in the next class and listening to my students flirt and cajole with each other while attempting to look like they're not interested. It's actually quite funny and if I could record it somehow and play it back as an example of societal norms and the symbolic exchange of non-verbal communication I would. There still a handfull of students who haven't picked up their test from last week. After today, there's a week and then we have the next test.