ON LOOKING BACK

It was a longish day of work today. We spent the time selecting our buildings' staffs for the upcoming academic year. It's a surprisingly intense and frustrating process, as we need to make decisions on these students' futures; some will benefit from the training if they get the job, some will resent the department if they are not hired and not look for other leadership options. It's a very fine line.

I feel like the group did a pretty good job of evaluating the candidates based on merit. However, there's certainly a high amount of personal preference that comes into play...we all want people that will work well with our own personal preferences. [NOTE: My personal preference apparently allows for alliteration.] So it gets under my skin when people pick candidates I think...suck? I don't get why people on my "no way" list go in someone else's third round.

But then, after all the headaches (and the actual headache they caused), I came back and logged onto Pandora. And the first song to come up was Pearl Jam's "Rearviewmirror." And the day got less bad. I know that some people have a dim view of the arts, and funding for the arts, and things of that ilk. But to feel the change that music can make in a day, in a person...how is this not more of a priority? Nertz to defense spending - give it music programs. Teach kids how to express themselves - not to better themselves. To make ME feel better.