Parents' Night on campus. The annual ritual of calling in parents of current year 1 kids to see for themselves that we're a decent college and that we'll take good care of their kids should they decide to stay on after 1st term.

Staff instructions are to "mingle with the crowd and make 'em feel welcome." Uh huh. Me? Mingle? When I already have problems mingling with my own friends when I get invited to their parties?

Well, I tried. I patrolled up and down from the staff room and past the wall of orbs to LT4 and back several times looking for any parent that might want to have a chat. No one did. A couple of my students waved in my direction, though their parents were engaged elsewhere, so after a while I began to feel like campus security instead of faculty staff. Yellow plaid short-sleeve shirted, college tie wearing campus security on foot patrol. No wonder nobody wanted to talk to me.

I hung around during the panel discussion with the Heads just in case Boss Lady got asked something she couldn't respond to about my subject. Fortunately, the parents were sensible enough to ask only a couple of basic questions about KI, so Boss Lady didn't need my help to field them. Otherwise, with a cordless mike in my hand...

Still, after formal talks had ended, I found myself face-to-face with a couple of my more enthu KI kids and their moms whom I spent some time bringing up to speed about this esoteric new subject their daughters had decided to take. Nice folks, neither critical nor cynical, but genuinely interested people. Hope I didn't get carried away and promise the moon again.

A well-deserved prata supper with Amy and HP. Long day.