There I was trying to ‘bujo’ my next few days (I’m so glad they chose that constriction and not just the initials for bullet journaling) when I realized I was running late for a faculty meeting. We have lots of them, at least one a month, and they can be quite tedious but at least they get us all in a room talking and making decisions. Now of course, when faculty gather to make decisions, there’s a certain fluidity to the process that means either a) we forget we took a decision and vote on the same things multiple times over several semesters, just to be sure, or b) like the people of Britain rethinking the referendum, we decide to hold another vote to undo a decision taken before. It’s endless fun, really.
No need for details, who knows who’s reading anyway, but I am regularly reminded of scenes from Russo’s Straight Man when I’m at work. For faculty meetings however, Malcolm Bradbury’s History Man captures it more pointedly — if ever there was a laugh out loud description of the foibles and freneticism of faculty votes, that book has it. It all came flooding back when I entered the scene slightly late today. Sometimes life really is like a novel. Glad, when I think so, that it’s an English farce rather than a Russian tragedy that comes to mind.