Life lessons

• When you take your computer to the service people and they say, "do you need us to save anything?", do not assume that they mean save any files that might happen to be open before they start poking around. Because what they mean is whether they should feel free to wipe your hard drive.


• Just because nobody ever told you that you were on the committee, doesn't mean you aren't on the committee.


• Blocking out 90 minutes on your calendar with the heading "No appointments -- encyclopedia work" does little to deter others from making appointments for you during that time.


• If a student has been planning privately for two years to teach a class in his final semester, or to secure funding for a trip during the last possible school break long enough for travel, he will feel entitled to fulfill these dreams despite having only informed those in charge about them too late to schedule the class or apply for the funds.


• E-mails are the easiest form of communication for the recipient to ignore. (Although I have mastered the art of ignoring voice mail messages, phone call slips, post-it notes on my computer, and certified mail as well.)
• To be empowered to make decisions is to have those decisions appear arbitrary to those they affect.


• The only way to be assured of having time to do what you love, is to make doing what you love into a job.