Tomorrow

Our dept. has a number of typical academics and a number of famous academics. The latter types are the ones who do a ton of traveling, collect insane honoraria for giving talks, enjoy the royalties from their fifth and sixth editions of various books, and gather honorary degrees like they're candy. There is one guy who wears all of his special honorary degree stuff at graduation time, which is not uncommon, so he's got a fancy hat and various medals and he even has a sword. A sword. I can't remember which university bestowed the sword upon him for the honorary degree, but it wasn't in the U.S.

Anyway, Professor Sword has always been a really nice guy to me. Way back in the day, many years ago, he gave me advice to help me negotiate my first raise. This semester he's on sabbatical. But tonight he just sent me an email: "Amy, I know that you are anxious (you told me) but for me, from Sweden, I think it is a shoe-in and I said so in my absent ballot."

What a nice guy, to send me that email from Sweden. (And to go to the trouble of voting absentee for my case.)

It also means a lot to me because Professor Sword is a postmodernist and my work is decidedly not in that camp, and once upon a time I used to worry about that and whether it would harm me. It is nice to know that in this case, it is not a problem. As for the rest of the faculty...?

This is just the department vote, so there is a bigger hurdle still to come in a month, but it is the vote that is the most personal since all (tenured) members of my department will either be voting for me or against me. It feels very personal.

Mentor: "You will see my smiling face come to the project meeting with the good news!" He is so confident. Sometimes I wonder if the confidence is partly a show for me.