New cell phone and updates

First, and less important: I have a cell phone again, with the same number as before. This time I had to pay for it, and I got the least snazzy and most affordable one. No fancy phone camera for me this time :-(

Second, Mark and I went to USF's annual end-of-year dinner tonight, held this year not on campus but in the Imperial Ballroom of Japantown’s Miyako Hotel. The yearly university dinner is usually a verrrrry tedious affair replete with mediocre food and hours of people you don’t know being praised and awarded for bringing good press and funding to the university; without being able to take advantage of the free bar, and anticipating my chronic rib pain acting up over the hours, the prospect of the evening was extreeeemely daunting to me. But this time, to everyone’s somewhat surprise, Mark’s program was awarded the college's first-ever “Collective Achievement” award by the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences! Dean Turpin made a very gracious speech and called each of the program’s full-time faculty members up to the podium by name, where they received a heavy glass statue award that looked like an Emmy or a Grammy or something along those lines. I felt very proud of Mark, who has had a lot to do with shaping the direction of his program, as the Director of Curriculum.

I was left sitting at the table, now vacated by all the faculty who’d gone up to accept the award. I was content as a clam, but to my surprise a kindly middle-aged waiter approached me with concern. He said, “You are not a teacher?”, wondering why I wasn’t up there accepting the award and basking in glory, too. I said, lamely, “I am, but….” I trailed off, finding it too difficult to explain the whole part-time/full-time distinction and not wanting to talk too much while the dean was talking. The kindly waiter said, “I’ll bring you another dessert.”

He brought me two: a chocolate mousse _and_ a lemon tart.

So I ate three desserts, and I also stole an extra roll (slipped it in my purse).