I went to campus today to run a few beginning-of-semester errands, including “I wonder where my classroom is” and “let’s see if anybody knows why I don’t have a real contract yet.”  In the process, I decided to stop down to find out where my mailbox was, because I…never actually used it last year, and I needed to have some desk copies sent to school.

Turns out…I don’t have one.  The lady asked me if it was going to be my first semester.  I said no, and she just looked puzzled and said she’d get her boss to Email me (which he didn’t do, but my hopes weren’t high on that front).  Luckily, I found out I can ship desk copies to the department office, so all’s well on that score.

Then, upon arriving home, I had a note from our accessibility services, notifying me of some things relating to my class list.  Immediately following that Email, I had a “welcome to the university, here’s what you need to know about the accessibility office.”

…Was I invisible last year?  Did I just end up as a figment of my supervisor’s imagination?  I know there are probably reasonable explanations for why I’m getting some of this stuff now, but it kind of makes me feel like I just hallucinated the last two semesters, and really this is my first time teaching.  I’d heard adjuncts were forgettable to some people, but I really must have done a spectacular job of being antisocial.  There seems to be no sign that I actually existed in 2012.

On the bright side, I did find the infamous faculty lounge!  The one where, when I asked where it was, I got the “…I have no idea” from two or three different people.  This, and the strange look I got from someone going in there this afternoon, kind of leads me to believe adjuncts aren’t really “welcome” there, but it is a magical land with coffee and hot water for tea and a microwave and a toaster and dammit I am not giving that up.

…I did not have the guts to take a brownie off the table. I want to challenge boundaries here, not stomp them into little pieces.  The social order must be maintained.

One week and counting…