windy week

The remnants of Ike blew over Ohio and knocked out powerlines all across the state. Trees are down everywhere. It looks like a tornado passed through. Good news though! My roses that were in pots in the front yard did not blow away and the tree outside my office window is intact! I can't imagine living in a hurricane or tornado prone area. The wind was bad enough for me! My thoughts really go out to those who have had their lives turned upside down by the storms.

I am busy at work prepping for the 5 survey courses that I have to teach, making sure that I have all my supplies and syllabi updated and prepared. I got everything into a binder and made some lists yesterday so I feel a little more organized. I can't wait to get the first week over with. P's about going nuts with his job. It's the first time he's ever really worked in a student affairs type job and it's hard for him to get accustomed to the fact that you have to really sit down and think through each step of each event in a logical order rather than just doing it all at once. He is so anxious to do a good job that he's having a hard time understanding that it's okay to block out some office time on the calendar to sit down and make a list of things to do or something for yourself. He feels like any time the phone rings, he HAS to answer it...even though he has a perfectly good voicemail system. So essentially what's happening is, he sits down to work on a project, the phone rings, someone walks in and he gets 10 emails. I told him he needs to start laying some ground rules for his staff and trying to get people onto his schedule a little bit more rather than him running around on 20 different people's schedules. He is, afterall, the director. I think it's funny that the things that now come naturally to me, after working in the haphazard student affairs environment for so long are not second nature to him because usually he is FAR more organized and logical than I am. His prior jobs have really been positions where he had so much autonomy and so little contact with others that he was able to just blast through projects and work on them with little to no interruption. It's quite the culture shock for him I think. I helped him organize his thoughts a little bit last night by taking each event that he has coming up and making a to-do list for them. Then we sat down and looked at what his two student assistants could have delegated to them. That's another area that P is having difficulty with....delegating. Ohhhh my love, it WILL get easier...I promise, I promise!!!
I'm kind of bummed because next week is going to stink. We're hardly going to see eachother because he has an event each night of the week and I'm going to be going to bed early so i can get up and be fresh for survey class and the craziness that is apparently our Autumn Quarter Start.

I bought bright green pants at Old Navy to wear with a navy blue shirt...and while I really liked it in the store, I'm not so much thinking I like it in my office. I'm feeling more self concious! They are REALLY green.

Ah well, time to go to staff meeting....be well all!