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I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet.  The idea would be post a video every month for a ye...

Monday, October 26, 2020

Dream of campus visit

 I was on a campus visit and having a very pleasant experience. The people seemed very interested in me and all I had to do was be myself. Someone mentioned Stan Lombardo and I started bragging about how I knew Stan, that he and Judy ran the Zen Center here. My interlocutor had translated the Aeneid with Stan, he claimed, but it was clear I knew Stan much better. When he started explaining to me what the Aeneid was, I cut him off.  

I was getting progressively excited and was even planning on accepting the job, only wondering about how I would imagine the commute from Kansas to Kentucky. It was obvious that my partner would not move to Kentucky with me. I didn't have many details about the job I was applying to, and thought of asking whether it would be in the English department. 

We were getting in cars to go somewhere else. It wasn't clear what car I was supposed to get in, but someone eventually said to get in the middle back seat of one of them. In the front passenger seat was X, a woman from the Slavic dept. of KU. 

***

As I awoke I realized that I craved the intellectual stimulation of colleagues. I could have this here, where I am, as well, but I don't because I am only on zoom all the time. The elements that were attractive to me were things that are already here: Stan and Judy, other KU faculty... The initials of the school I was at, UK, are the reverse of KU.  (It must have been UK because I had flown into Lexington Airport.)  

3 comments:

Leslie B. said...

Hilarious dream, and so familiar, I have lots like this, with the same kinds of incongruities.

I am, however, in one good Zoom group and it is the proverbial kind of thing that would not have happened pre Zoom. I found out about it randomly and joined, it's study group where we read new books on and from Mexico every 2 weeks. Why it works: leader has the books in PDF so access is easy. You sign up each single time, so you can skip if needed, and you sign up for an amount to read that is reasonable for you. Then you have a seminar. It all works because it is so regular, for one thing, but also, the key: everyone is a professor, everyone knows how to be in class and be in a conference panel, etc. I didn't know any of these people before. But it works really perfectly, partly because it is well planned without TOO much work, but largely also because the audience-participants are so experienced in our role. The reading is of course great but the other thing learned is the format and also it is interesting to see how much having the audience know what it is doing matters.

Jonathan said...

Can i join?

Leslie B. said...

Yes, I think. It is alternate W 3-5. It's on contemporary Mexico. I will e-mail you.