Tuesday, April 17, 2007

A little of this and that

The weather appears to be coming around to what it should be like for spring. I'm hoping for rain this weekend--nice weather could be a death blow to local film festival attendance--but I'm not a fan of precipitation in regard to my street. If we get much rain, I'll be ankle deep (or deeper) in mud and...well, hopefully just mud. The city is replacing sewer lines.

Not much knitting news to report. I'm making good progress on the baby blanket and might be able to start decreasing tonight if I abandon writing a review for picking up the needles.

Knitting media watch: don't hate her because she's beautiful edition... In the April 6 issue of Entertainment Weekly Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova of The Cars videos and Her Alibi mentions that she knits. If her knitting ways don't demonstrate enough good taste, it seems that she's a fan of The Colbert Report. (She called Stephen "hot" during a Good Morning America interview, a clip that he got a lot of mileage from on last night's show. How that didn't make the episode highlights is a mystery.) I'd say that makes up for appearing on Dancing with the Stars, but I've never seen the show...or Her Alibi. This was supposed to be somewhat funny, but it's just dying on the vine. I'll quit while I'm behind...

I'll finish on an up note. One thing that helped make my day came unexpectedly. I was joking around with a couple students at work about how mean I was being in making them do something. That's when one said that I was the nicest of the three of us employed at the station. I seriously doubt I'd win a popularity contest. I don't work with a bunch of ogres, so it is a big compliment.

While I would like to think I'm relatively aware of how I'm perceived, this was not something I ever expected to hear. Maybe I'm stuck with a perception of a past version of me when people accused me of being unfriendly, which was really just quietness misinterpreted. My co-worker and I don't have good cop-bad cop roles, although I'm the tough one more often than not, which I figured didn't play in my favor. Being considered most straightforward with them I could see; the nicest, not so much. This student's comment meant a lot to me, more than she could ever know. More than any job evaluation, it tells me I must be doing something right and that I need to reassess how I think others see me. That's not such a bad thing.

3 Comments:

At 6:47 AM, Blogger Jennifer said...

What a nice compliment...that would make my day, too!

So, are you finding that the change in yarn makes the blanket more enjoyable to knit? I love the colors that Lion Brand Homespun has to offer, but I find that it's kind of a pain to knit with. Can't wait to see the newest one!

 
At 7:20 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's always great to get compliments like that. It must feel great. I know I'm not the nicest one on staff here, the other teacher brings in food to remember their birthdays and drives them to the shopping mall...and I get the job of telling them off when they are late. Hmmm guess I got the bad cop role.

 
At 9:23 PM, Blogger donnadb said...

Being an administrator means giving up on being universally liked, and that's tough for me because I am a pleaser. I love to be thought well of and hate to be talked about behind my back. It bugs the crap out of me if one student in my class says bad things about me on the evaluation, even if the other 18 have nothing but praise. I did have a moment like yours a few days ago when I was talking with a couple of students about my reputation for being a tough teacher (which I'm proud of). I said that everybody knew I was the second hardest teacher in the Honors College. They asked who I thought was the toughest, and I named a colleague. "Oh no," they told me, "she's not tough. People call her something completely different than they do you." I hate to say it but I took a little pleasure from that (I've had run-ins with this colleague in the past). And given that I think I had her present reputation when I first arrived at the university eight years ago, I felt somewhat good that it had now travelled so far from me.

 

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