The Life of Gerald

Wow - what a crazy few weeks it has been! We thought we were so very clever to make our tickets late to avoid as much of Ramadan as possible, but regretted this decision as soon as we arrived. Thankfully our jet lag was mild and Gerald and I were both able to report to work the morning after we pulled into town.

Gerald has been back at it with his graduate coordinator duties overshadowing the time he would like to use preparing for classes. He has done a great job of organizing and streamlining a very disheveled and growing graduate program much to the deep appreciation of the graduate students. Nonetheless, a whole troop of them insisted (or conspired to insist) they did not get his email this summer of thesis proposal deadlines and so he spent the first few days of classes wielding off students begging to have the due date moved.

Then there was the class-start date. Because they never know when religious holidays will be since this depends on moon sightings, classes were to start Thursday. When they found out Eid - the biggest holiday of the year - would be on Wednesday and the students would need the Thursday for travel - they moved the start date to Friday with a make-up day on Saturday. Of course, no one wanted to be there and it started the year off badly.

Gerald’s classes were also changed because of two professors leaving rather suddenly in the summer, but thankfully he has taught the new class before.

Happily for us through all this, one of Gerald’s favorite methods of procrastination is to cook. He has become quite the chef - always trying something new and always having delicious results. He has even become a ‘backseat’ cook when I am cooking, peeking over my shoulder while making recommendations and comments until I tell him to either cook it himself or find something else to do!

The first day of classes a young lady came into Gerald’s office. She had somehow managed to enter and register for the graduate program past the deadline and all in one day. She asked Gerald to be let into a class he had already closed and had told four other students they could not enter. When he told her this, she very politely said she thought she would be let in anyway if she talked to the president. Later Gerald talked to his dean about the situation who informed him the young lady is the sister to Princess Laila Salma (the king’s wife). Well, that explained a lot!