Reverence the Unique Dignity of Each Person

First week completed at the new job! It’s a real shame that the girl I’m taking over from is leaving because she’s really nice and it would have been awesomely fun working with her. C’est la vie. Anyway the university is totally twee and I love it. It’s very quiet at the moment due it being the summer hols and all so none of the students are around. They do have summer classes, about 24, which is nothing obviously compared to the 200 plus they have once fall semester starts at the end of August. This is a perfect transition time therefore. Plus at the beginning of August the department I work for, Education Technology Centre (yeah, yeah, me and computers, I know), is moving into new digs. The uni is building a very nice new building, the Pope John Paul II building – it’s a Catholic college remember – which will house the library, the ETC department and several other faculty departments. I’m particularly excited as I will have my own office with a view of the lake. Quite a step up from the cube world of corporate America! I’m getting to know lots of new educational software tools which is exciting plus it’s interesting seeing how the academic world view technology and its usefulness in the expanding world of on-line learning and computer-age teaching. The university is a Franciscan run college and has a nice set of values that everyone is entrusted to carrying out. Each year the uni chooses one of the five values as their annual mission so to speak. This year it’s “reverence the unique dignity of each person”. I really like this and find that as a daily reminder it helps me to be more cognizant of others, their individuality and hopefully more understanding and less critical/presumptuous. I’m working on this last one. Jay seemed to do great at playschool although by Thursday he had totally cottoned onto the fact that it wasn’t just a one-time thing and I did get some tears as I left. But he’s doing fine and seems to have a packed full day discovering lots and learning to speak with an American accent. So much for hoping he’d end up with a toffee-nosed English accent. Still I’m sure a few years at Winchester or Harrow will straighten that out! I would hate for him to think that z is zee and not zed. Along with the new job and Jay’s new school we are still working on our house. Still stripping the paintwork off the oak wood which is a slow process mainly due to the chemicals used to clean it after the bulk of the paint is removed. The fumes are pretty strong and both Keith and I are sure we killing Jay’s brain cells before they have a chance to grow. So this weekend in an effort to feel like we were proceeding with the house, Keith ripped up the carpet in our sunroom/library/TV room and laid wood floor. It looks fantastic and I am hugely impressed, mainly because he did it all by himself, save for the door thresholds that our next door neighbour Patrick assisted with. As one who is somewhat DIY inept I am always vastly amazed that anyone should be able to complete that sort of thing in a day and a half. So the next chapter starts with the new job and Jay away at school and we’ll see what it all brings. Am really looking forward to my visit back to Angleterre in September and am so excited about seeing baby Huxley or Huck as Jay calls him. Too cute.