Communal Living

Living in our palace, castle, house (all terms are used to describe our home for the semester) with 40 other folks with ages ranging from 18 – 60 is interesting, sometimes fascinating, and presently frustrating. I have some sort of flu bug that is rampant in the house. It is rumoured that this bug came attached to one of the many student travellers and we’re all reeling from coughing, sinusitis, fever (mild for some not so for others), and limited sleep. It has taken many of us by surprise without access to whatever remedies we normally keep in our arsenal. The interesting part of this experience is the shared medicine closet – literally there is this 6’ x 4’ closet housing loads of toiletries and meds that folks from previous sessions have left for use. We are all making due and getting better. Thankfully this is a short lived nuisance.

Part of our responsibility living here is “duty”. Not the Adam Sandler definition, but duty in the sense of taking care of our environment. All faculty and staff share breakfast and weekend duty and I am 10 minutes away from handing in my duty tools – namely a mobile phone and the keys to the kingdom. Not all has gone smoothly this week. You see I’m not very mechanical and I’ve managed to break a key off in a lock, run an industrial dishwasher without the plug, remove an overheated toaster from the kitchen before the Dalkeith Fire Department had to respond, and on Thursday I failed to forward the mobile phone number resulting in the previous duty holder getting all the calls. I’m sure he launched some choice sentiments my way. In essence I am living and learning a new organizational culture. It is an interesting reflection and filled with stories to share with students in my courses.

In the time it has taken to write this blog post I am now officially off duty! YPEE!