Fall Break

It's Fall Break. I've been working but it's been relatively relaxed - and let me tell you, that's been FANTASTIC. It's amazing to actually leave your office around 5 (it was a little after 5 each day, but still close enough). There's so much time left in the day. Monday I went and saw Harry Potter; yesterday I went shopping. Such a change from coming home around 10 pm and being too tired to do anything else!

I did have a LONG to do list and didn't make it through half of it. That means I'll probably be doing some work tomorrow and Friday or possibly go into the office on Sunday; but you know, that always happens. I'm apparently incapable of making to do lists that are actually realistic. Haha. I just thought, three days in the office without meetings with students - I should be able to do EVERYTHING, right? Yeah, not so much. But I did make some good headway on my weekend program and started writing a few of those reports that need to be done by the end of the semester.

I am duty again Thursday through Monday; I was on duty last weekend as well. At least those were the "quiet" weekends of the semester - or so I thought. No, honestly, it wasn't too bad. But we did have a power outage one day and people were completely overreacting. Sometimes I really struggle with understanding where our students and families come from. I mean, when the power goes out, you just wait - what else is there to do? Staff does extra rounds, the police or fire department may do a fire watch. But that's it. I don't work for the power company; I can't fix the power outage faster. I also don't have the power to relocate that many students - that power outage was affecting three of our residential areas. And I loved the comments that if they lived off-campus, there was more that could be done. Yeah right! As if a landlord is going to answer a phone call late at night, or fix a power line, or pay for an expensive hotel for them to stay in! Ha, I remember when we had a power outage at one of my previous institutions; it affected the town as well. On campus, we had the back-up generations running after one night - then they went off again for another night, but then we were back in business. Students living off campus didn't have power for a week. They didn't have hot water. We arranged for them to be able to shower on campus at the Rec. And what did their landlords do? Nothing; they waited because that's the only thing we all can do.

I guess I just don't know how we can get across to students that their expectations are unrealistic. Yes, this is a University campus and we have staff here, so we can help them out a little more; but we can't do and fix everything. I tried to challenge some of the things the students were saying to me, but I don't think I really got through to them. Maybe it'll just take that rough awakening, when they live off campus and something similar happens and there is NOBODY they can even call. Sometimes learning just takes some time, I guess.