Life continues to be rich and full here in Enoughsvile. We are in the thick of April, which I have always found to be a deeply intense month in my academic calendar. April is the month in which everybody on campus realizes that "if we don't do it now, it doesn't get done, . . . so we better do it now!" And it's also the month when we realize we're going to have to say goodbye to people so there are celebrations, ceremonies, and gatherings galore.
Because so much is going on, it's hard to do justice to any one event. I got to go to an amazing panel discussion on redistricting in Pennsylvania – an incredibly timely topic – with fewer than half a dozen students in the audience. That, right there, is April for you.
My days continue to be full of meetings, many by Zoom, interspersed with email triage. A junior faculty member who I was meeting with one day told me "I looked at your Google calendar, and it scared me!" I guess I'm getting used to being an associate dean, because the pace feels familiar to me. Heck, I'm even doing a little bit of math research on the side, partly as a way of maintaining my emotional equilibrium amid all the administrative ups and downs. Last week I visited (by Zoom) several talks from the big math meetings, including an amazingly inspiring talk in a session of "math with no words". One of the speakers went above and beyond the requirements of the session, which was to have pictures but no words or equations on the slides, and gave a talk with a series of pictures, but no words, not even talking! It was amazingly well done, and made me want to go back and rewrite several of my own papers still in draft form, to make the diagrams much more visually accessible.
Inkling got to go to an in-person knitting retreat, which is good for her soul, in the same way that math conferences are good for mine. She has made it through Round Two of Sock Madness, successfully completing socks that have pockets in them (because why not have pockets in your socks, I guess?). I don't know if she was allowed to use words or equations in making them, but they're still very cute, those socks.
April showers have canceled many of my early morning runs with my friends, but the showers are doing their requisite job bringing forth the flowers all around us. For this I am grateful. In fact, I drew daffodils on my chalkboard just for decoration.
I'm still working hard on bringing together a faculty/staff performance, and this show includes one scene that involves small children playing the roles of parents. One of these small children is my own granddaughter, who dropped by the house after rehearsal this week to draw this lovely picture on another of our chalkboards, inspired just a little bit by my own chalk drawing of daffodils.
My guy continues to help pack medical kits for Ukraine; he's really enjoying the chance to do something that feels incredibly useful, and that also involves him in such camaraderie.
Oh, and travel. As I write this, my husband is in Texas at an engineering conference, and I am at my dad's house, visiting him with my sisters for Easter weekend. Being with my sisters is great fun. We're not packing boxes for Ukraine, but we did sift through boxes of photos and memorabilia, marveling at photos of my mom back when she was younger than we are now. I'm turning into my mom in many ways; when I put on her visor and glasses and pile my hair on top of my head like she did, it was a twinsie kind of a tribute. (Thanks, Mama!)
And that's the news I can remember off the top of my head from our family, which continues to be wealthy in our adventures. May you and yours be similarly prosperous.
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