ORE Kick-Off

Operation Reduce Expenses begins today.

I teach late on Thursday nights, usually, but it's "E-Days" here on campus, which is a three-day festival-type thing that happens every year at Mines, and is when our normally staid, quiet, nose-to-the-grindstone student body goes a little crazy. As in, I smelled alcohol on more than one student last night in class. And the amazing fireworks show was scheduled to begin right at the end of class. So I ended the three-hour seminar early and went back to my office to watch the show from my office window and finish grading papers.

Just then a message from the President of the college pops in my inbox. We've got an $11 million shortfall to reckon with, it says. I'm sure you're all wanting more information, it says. Not that they're giving us any.

I sighed and put my head in my hands and tried to remind myself that nothing has changed. I'm sitting here, still breathing, still with my healthy family and my house and with enough money to buy food and everything else I need for a pretty good long time. Nothing has changed.

Still, for the first time since this roller-coaster ride began, some fear got the best of me last night and I had to have a good cry over everything. I came home, mixed up a good, strong rum and juice, and sat in the dark, thinking about which expenses we can cut now to begin saving money for what seems to be coming. Nothing big. A lot of redundancies--the organic vegetable delivery, the newspaper, the cable. All these trappings of middle-class life that I've felt conflicted over anyway. We're not having to pull the girls out of school yet (that one will hurt) and neither of us has officially pushed the emergency button. But we're setting off down the path anyway, little steps at a time.

I know it's going to be okay. I know it is okay. I'm doing okay with the fear, generally. Writing this makes me feel better, even if it is whiny and self-indulgent, and faith in the path helps, too.

Are you all feeling scared? How are you dealing with it?

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