Fifteen minutes

Been lazy with my blogging lately -- haven't posted on Duck in (literally) months, not because there hasn't been anything interesting happening lately, but just because I'm swamped. Swamped. Between grading and advising and letters of recommendation and the rest of it, I haven't had much time to even think a coherent blog entry, let alone write one.

So I'm trying something different: fifteen minutes, no more no less, every day from now until the end of the semester. Okay, that's only two weeks, but still. And I am taking Saturdays off as family time. But at least that forces me to write something every day for a little while, and see what happens.

Eleven minutes left.

Someone stole the digital projector from the classroom I use for World Politics. This is distressing to me for several reasons: we need a projector for Friday's showing of the student-produced films that everyone in the class has been busily producing over the past month -- which is distressing because now I need to somehow ensure that the proper kind of equipment is brought over for Friday's class; the installation in that room never worked right anyway, so even when there was a projector in there (which there was until last week), it was non-functional either because it was wired up wrong or because it was quite literally hanging from the ceiling suspended by only a VGA cable and a power cord connected to the unit -- this is distressing because it dampens my hopes of ever getting that room to work right; the classroom in question is in a residence hall, and hence is in principle only accessible to residents of the hall and to other students for whom they vouch -- which is distressing because it strongly implies that some resident of the hall knows something about this crime and isn't saying anything to any of the proper authorities; and the projector in question, as university property, is labeled and marked in a number of ways, so anyone trying to sell it will be unlikely to be able to do so -- which is distressing because it means either that someone stole the projector for personal use (unlikely, since the power cord remains in the room, cut through by the same wire-cutters used to detach the projector from the other cables) or, most distressingly of all, that someone stole a digital projector on a whim, as some kind of prank or childish act of rebellion. I mean, really: why the heck would you go and steal a digital projector that you probably can't use anyway? What possible point can there be to such a wanton act?

I hope that someone has the moral fortitude to own up to knowing something about the missing projector. Someone transgressed, and now everyone is going to pay the price in inconvenience and eventually in higher technology fees in their tuition bills. Obviously, the return of the projector in working order might help to alleviate some of that -- and it would be a wonderful demonstration of commitment to the community. After all, admitting that one has done something wrong is the clearest testimony to the power of the norm that one has violated.

Fifteen minutes leaves little or no time for proofreading or editing, either.