Today is the last day of classes for fall term before finals week (not that most of us actually have classes on Fridays, but you get my drift), and today at 4pm is our informal department FAF (Friday at Four). FAFs used to be quite common for our department when I first arrived here nearly 14 (OMG) years ago, but they were rarely well-attended by our mostly middle aging, parenting or caring-for-parents faculty.
However, recently they’ve been better attended: as the unannointed FAF planner, I’ve reached out to faculty from other departments (fresh blood) and some of our new part timers find the FAFs the one place where they can see folks they rarely see at 8am or 7pm, or even at noon, since our department is unhappily scattered in four buildings around campus (and sadly will continue to be since the fine folks of our state have voted down another bond measure).
I enjoy FAFs for the same reason, of course: collegiality is so important to me since my academic life is such a big part of my life. Only during FAFs do I discover the details of my colleagues lives that I would never have learned from a hallway conversation. I greatly value the opportunity to get to know something new about the people I will probably be working with for at least another 14+ years.
On another note, my Food Fiction class final “feast” is next Thursday (see earlier post on Books that Cook), and I’m looking forward to what should prove to be a yummy one. So far, here is the menu:
- pita, hummus and babaganoush (a la Abu-Jaber’s Crescent)
- pot roast (Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant)
- spanish rice and beans (Like Water for Chocolate)
- soup (Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant)
- fried green tomatoes (naturally)
- salsa (red and green) (Like Water for Chocolate)
- assorted veggies for dipping
- various breads, tortes and cookies
- key lime pie (remember, from Nora Ephron’s Heartburn?)
From the Mixed Up Bloggings of Annie Em 