Decades later, I'm finding that grove rather comforting - I'm short. 48 days until I can leave UU. This is a very good thing. The place is self-destructing around us, and the people who screwed me over last year are now facing their own existential crisis. The Prez is under fire not just from the faculty and staff, but even the Board of Trustees is after hir ass. The Dean had yet another blow up in a faculty meeting, got everybody (except me, cuz I'm so short) riled up over The Report and what it will do to the Arts & Sciences programs. Programs to be cut? Oh, you know. All the modern languages, most of the arts (studio, ceramic, etc). The university cabinet had sequestered themselves to make the hard decisions - but despite constant assurances of complete transparency, there is none. Nobody has any idea what they'll decide, when, how or if. Nobody knows if there are options for appeal. Turns out that the various Task Forces were instructed by the consultants to ignore the university mission as they determined priorities. How does that work? Dean is furious. And it turns out that - a year after they selected the consultant - that somebody finally looked at his CV. Seems he's linked to ALEC. Oh. Delightful. No wonder he wanted us to ignore the liberal arts focus of the university....
I'm back to doing glass. This is great news, as I've not been able to comfortably work on anything for months. All I've really done is fuse, and then turn the bits into jewelry. These are simply millefiori; all you do is cook 'em, and they turn out like this. Then I add findings, and all of these turned into earrings! Great fun, nearly instant gratification. Made 18 pairs of earrings and half a dozen pendants last weekend. Ran out of findings... so had to stop mounting. Then I ran out of millefiori, so had to buy more of those.
Now I need to start selling them, so that I can recoup my costs and support my habit. Gah. And keeping better records would help too...
