Last Thursday I called the student union to confirm that we'd be using their display space starting Monday at noon. They made it sound like we'd be ready to move in yesterday. When my student showed up at 7pm, the other tenants were still using the space. I got fun calls from students and the boss. This morning I got to call and talk to a student at the union, who said things will be ready to go for us at noon today, and I left a message for the reservations director. She hasn't gotten back to me about reservations for rooms next semester either.
I've been working with our Printing & Design folk on a brochure of students' microcompany products. I have a happy-looking proof. All I need to do now is confirm with my boss that the pricing is acceptable, decide on a final number to order, and encourage P&D to get it done before Thanksgiving so students can take them home and advertise over the break.
Pricing confirmed - we'll order 1000 (400 more than we wanted, but we all know how profit margins work).
I set up my work e-mail's autoresponse message for when I'm gone Wednesday through Sunday.
Just printed out my handout for NCTE Friday. Many thanks to C & M for your input!
NCTE is this week! PIC and I met tonight to pore over the program, discuss what to do during downtime, and, of course, chat a little bit about our panel presentation Friday afternoon. Philadelphia, here we come. Road trip!
My presentation is ready to go. Just need to print it out tomorrow. My boss is having a guest speaker on Thursday, and I've arranged for a coworker to greet her.
Apparently talking to a real person last week about the display case and Making Sure we had it reserved for noon today wasn't good enough, so the boss and I are gonna have to take our written confirmation and kick some ass tomorrow. I'm not really looking forward to that part. I just wish people would do their jobs.
Enjoying Doomsday Book, though not as quickly as everybody else in my book club.
Hoping the mumsy will be able to come home soon. In the meantime, I've been enjoying spending time with my dad. And chatting with my brother as usual online and via text message. That's right - I'm with it.
I felt there was something of substance I had to tell you, but apparently I'm zapped of substance for the time being. I'll have my laptop and free WiFi during my trip, so if things aren't crazy (and I hope they will be), I'll have time to update. Hoorah.
I went to a great poetry event on campus last night after class. And I'll be librarying and amazoning the headliners as soon as I'm done writing this post.
Wow, except the photo editor is not working, so I can't upload the flyer to tonight's event that will feature mystic vocal performer Sunni Patterson and spoken word guru John Goode.
Chuck Palahniuk's Pygmy was dark, disgusting, and absolutely hilarious. It's the story of a young would-be terrorist from foreign country [redacted]. He narrates the tale of his arrival in a Midwestern U.S. town where he is taken in by a Christian host family with two teenage kids. Pygmy, as Agent 67 is called by his new community, has a nickname for everyone. He exposes the hangups of everyone he meets as Palahniuk attacks Christianity, Captialism, Consumerism, and everything else American, in true Chuckie fashion. Through his eyes, we watch him and his fellow "exchange student" operatives prepare for Operation Havoc. He goes to school, he gets in fights, he falls in love. It's a riff on your typical YA high school story, but it's twisted.
The satire is scathing and brilliant. Chuckie doesn't pull any punches, but he doesn't unilaterally beat up on American culture. He exposes some of our weaknesses but shows how dictatorial, freedomless fascist training is also flawed and damaging. I don't know if he goes so far as to promote a happy medium, but he certainly doesn't say that one side or the other is blameless. The ending is a bit "neat" and "easy" as he wraps things up at the end. I don't want to give anything away, but it is the process and commentary in the book that shine rather than the story arc and final product.
The writing style is postmodern, and I like it. I'm lucky that I picked up the audiobook version, because the reader did a wonderful job and I don't think I could sit through reading-by-sight the choppy, jumbled (though hilarious) "sentences" of Chuckie's prose.
I liked this book a lot. It is NOT for the faint of heart, and if you strongly dislike gratuitous and graphic violence, don't bother. The social and political commentary are not novel enough to make this required reading for anyone, but it's great escapism if you're into that sort of thing.
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