The Family *roll

Alright, alright people, here’s another post. Stop your agitating. And well done everyone on refraining from posting your “mellon” jokes on the blog itself, instead e-mailing them our way, for the sake of Hanna.

Today was my first day on campus actually doing something. This morning I played in a jazz quartet for a group of visiting college students from Japan. I can tell you, in case you didn’t know, that long hair with bangs, dyed auburn is all the rage amongst Japanese college girls. The class was part of their American Studies course and if you’ve never heard a classroom full of Japanese students singing “The Sunny Side of the Street” then you haven’t lived. Although, as Em pointed out, it would have been much funnier to have them sing “Love Letter” or “Like a Lover.” That would have been ridcurous. In all seriousness though, it was a lot of fun and we’re rehearsing again tomorrow night in preparation for our gig this weekend as part of the Northfield Jazz Festival. After the session I went to my office (let me say that again: my office. Mmmmm — that sounds nice doesn’t it?) and did some real live philosophy. That also felt pretty good. So my professional life at Carleton is a go.

Last week we hung out with our faculty friend, Annette, who, through various odd coincidences, was known to us before we got here (that’s her holding Ellie). She is Canadian and so we briefly commiserated about the challenges of explaining where we work to Canadians. The biggest issue is that “college” in Canada denotes technical or community colleges. So undergraduates do not go to college. They go to university. As do graduate students. Everyone goes to university. Canada does have undergraduate-only universities, but they’re not called liberal-arts colleges. Rather, they’re called “primarily undergraduate institutions.” Trips off the tongue, no? Anyhow, when I first moved to the US and people asked where I went to college I couldn’t understand why everyone thought I went to college and not university.

I now face a similar challenge explaining where I teach to Canadians. The moment they hear the word “college” in “Carleton College” they assume it’s a community college. Why not help them along by calling it Carleton University? Because there is a Carleton University and it’s in Canada, so everyone has heard of it. So, I think I’ll just start calling it “Carleton Primarily Undergraduate Institution” when I’m back home.

And no, I’m not so vain as to think that you’re back on the blog to read about me. You’re here for more pictures. We’ll take more house pictures when we have things set-up a little more. Future posts: “First trip to the Cities”, “Fun in the garden” & “Considering vermiculture” (thanks to this blogger and her readers).