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[observer3]

I'm guessing others out there are facing an onslaught of students. We are way way over capacity. Including that our building is now surely in violation of health and safety sometimes, and things happen you wouldn't think about, like that by 11 a.m. there is no more toilet paper.

How are ya'l coping?

[empyrean_aisles]

O god, the onslaught is the right word to use. Struggling through corridors, up and down stairwell and even through public spaces seems even harder than it did this time last year. And once they leave for the day, there are huge amounts of trash everywhere, with toilet paper scattered all over bathroom floors (*why* do they do this?).

On the upside, I've got a class that is delightful - they've all done the set reading so far and will leap happily into discussion and say intelligent things. So while I feel physically exhausted struggling through the hordes to get to the classroom, once I'm inside the room and the door is shut, things are good.

[stickball]

With the return of the students, everyone in my building is either sneezing, wheezing, hacking, coughing, sniffling, trying to catch their running nose, or aching, and is a bit short-tempered.  Otherwise, it's a great start to the new school year...

[testingthewaters]

Seriously?

Toilet paper?

I hope someone is working on that in housekeeping. That just sounds unpleasant.

-testing, who is living the yearly onslaught but glad to be working in a faculty that caps its enrollment

[empyrean_aisles]

Seriously?

Toilet paper?

I hope someone is working on that in housekeeping. That just sounds unpleasant.

-testing, who is living the yearly onslaught but glad to be working in a faculty that caps its enrollment

It's not used toilet paper (or not obviously used anyway) - though after people have trodden on it, you don't want to touch it even to put it in the trash.

I feel very, very sorry for our hardworking cleaners. They must come in at the end of the day and feel like they are cleaning up a preschool rather than a university.

[testingthewaters]

Seriously?

Toilet paper?

I hope someone is working on that in housekeeping. That just sounds unpleasant.

-testing, who is living the yearly onslaught but glad to be working in a faculty that caps its enrollment

It's not used toilet paper (or not obviously used anyway) - though after people have trodden on it, you don't want to touch it even to put it in the trash.

I feel very, very sorry for our hardworking cleaners. They must come in at the end of the day and feel like they are cleaning up a preschool rather than a university.

I agree with your preschool assessment: the trodden on toilet paper doesn't deserve housekeeping's attention (or housekeeping shouldn't have to deal with it, anyway). I meant more the lack of toilet paper, which would seem to be something that housekeeping should be on top of. Though I guess there could be a relationship here- more TP on the ground = less on the roll or put to good use.

Sigh.

And I'm trying to teach my students critical thought. Apparently potty training is more the order of the day.

[scotia]

There were worries that the new visa requirements would decimate our postgraduate numbers. In fact, although I am assured we have made no more offers than in previous years, the class I am teaching this semester is at least 50% bigger than the same class this time last year. I have had to split them into three cohorts, and I still have 80 students in two cohorts and more than 50 in the third - which is the maximum capacity of the classroom we can get at that time. At some time in the past individual courses were too small to justify separate classes: now the whole class is way too large to be manageable with any sort of reasonable interaction.

Undergraduate admissions also seems to have made too many offers so we have a couple of hundred first years over target. The first couple of weeks have been a nightmare of trying to find big enough rooms, trying to find tutors to take on additional seminars, trying to calm down staff who have been getting over-excited about the fact they are being asked to move their class of 20 from a classroom capable of taking 55 students to a classroom with a capacity of 25 so we can accommodate a class of 50 that is currently trying to squeeze into the smaller room, trying to sort out the fact that Timetabling have scheduled two required courses for some third year students to run simultaneously and did not think to check with the department whether this might be a problem........

I am not sure whether I have a cold that has seemed to abate and then recurred twice in two weeks, or whether I am on to my third cold. All I know is I am working from home tomorrow so I can be away from the mayhem.