Day 130

Remember my story a while back about a colleague who I believed would be wooed away by a sweeter deal at some other, stabler, private university? As it turns out, she left UC Berkeley for just such a deal within about a month of my writing about it. Before she left, she had taken over some of the duties of two of her colleagues who had been laid off and she consequently found the quality of all of her work slipping because of the added burdens. Her old department is now looking to replace her at 50% of the time she was working before. And to think that very soon, students will be paying 30% more for the services of that department...


I recently discovered an irreparable hole in my practical black dress shoes, but have worn them three times since then. My winter jacket has permanent ink stains down the front of it, but I wear it every day. I have had ramen noodles for dinner twice this week. And we are only 130 days into this furlough? I sense that my tax return will simply disappear into my financial abyss, assuming of course that the government doesn't send me an IOU instead of a check.