When I mentioned to Eileen that it seems like GVSU might have been trying to get me to quit taking adjunct assignments there, she immediately agreed with me.

Her reasoning was that they keep offering me class times that I have mentioned I don’t want.

If she is right, this is silly. I would have prefered they just stop offering than to play games with trying to get me to not take classes.

My reason is this might be true (I mean the fact that they might have been trying to get me to quit) is the weird way people (teachers and staff, not students) act at the GVSU Music Dept. I wasn’t around very much, but it seemed as though there was an awkward distance between me and everyone else.

I must have contributed to this. Since I have a tendency to wear my heart (and my mouth) on my sleeve, I sometimes go the other way and try not to say anything or act too weird.

I finally received my student evals from the last two terms. My social experiment of dressing in a suit and tie seems to have worked. These are the first evals where no one has mentioned my appearance. I had already concluded that blanding out my dress helped students by not confusing them or distracting them. So I guess reading the written evals confirmed this or something.

It’s hard for me to actually believe that GVSU was trying to get rid of me. I’m not sure they even knew I was there most of the time. Oh well, it’s not that big a deal now. I do keep examining my own actions. I want to make sure if by saying no to stuff, I am shooting myself in the foot I am taking good aim, so to speak. In other words, doing what I want to do. So far, it feels definitely like the right thing, but I do keep thinking about it.

The street musician project here in Holland started Thursday and I was relieved that I had not signed up for it this year. My reasoning for saying no to this was that last year was crowded and carnival like and they crammed in even more spots for musicians and other acts this year.

When music acts are close together, it’s hard to distinguish your music from the music of the people around you. And all of us seemed like barkers at a carnival trying to attract people to YOUR act. At least that’s how it felt to me.

The idea behind all of this of course has nothing to do with music and everything to do with getting people’s billfolds downtown to spend money in the shops.