RBOC: Retreats Are Much More Exhausting and Boring Than the Name Would Indicate Edition

• So the retreat wasn't too terribly painful. I arrived about 40 minutes after the "continental breakfast" was to start, and I was concerned that the actual agenda would have begun, as it was supposed to have done, when I sped up in my little car. But no! I planned things perfectly, as we didn't get started until a full 10 minutes after that. Apparently 5 years on the tenure-track is good for something, as I apparently understand the rhythm of my department well enough to be able to sleep in a little bit :)
• The retreat itself was ok. Good conversations. Will be interesting to see if anything practical actually emerges from them. One can only hope.
• In other great news, I came home to two things of note: 1) I'll be reviewing a manuscript for a Very Good Journal for which I've never reviewed anything before, which I know is invisible service, but it does make me feel like I am Fancy and Have Stature in the Profession, and 2) My cousin and his wife are having another baby!!!!!! This is very exciting news, as I love their kids, and I've always wanted them to have more babies (they've already got 3 kids), and so this means that I shall have a new infant to coo at in 6 months' time. Hurrah!
• All systems appear to be go with putting up my online course without the aid of the Useless Office Whose Responsibility It's Supposed to Be to Help with Such Matters. I love my colleagues in my own department, who are generous and helpful and the most efficient and wonderful people ever.
• Well, except some of the colleagues who aren't all those things, but I don't have very much interaction with those ones, so they don't bother me one way or the other.
• I'm also very excited for classes to start next week, other than the whole online fiasco, because even the one that is, arguably, the least attractive is full to the gills. I am popular! Really and truly popular! (So now the next agenda item is to be so mean and scary the first day that a few drop each of the courses. We'll see how that goes.) I'm also very excited about seeing some of my favorite students in those courses. (I almost just called them "repeat offenders" but that perhaps sends the wrong message :) )
• But so now I have work that I should accomplish, but am feeling a bit drained from the whole "retreat" business. Perhaps a nap is in order?
• I don't think I actually have a cold. I just needed a cocktail of allergy meds to alleviate the effects of the Poisonous Weed Allergens that fill the skies.