Elegant Diners and Visitors

It's been a busy, stressful couple of weeks. Our school is going through our accreditation evaluation. The visiting committee arrived yesterday afternoon. I met with the chair of the committee first, then took the committee (11 of them) on a tour of the school. At 5, they came to our annual fund-raiser dinner. This is our 6th year of holding this dinner. We raise $30-$40,000 each year. This year, it looks like it's more than $43,000! Not bad for a 3-hour dinner =)

Today, the committee arrived at 7:30 and worked all day until 5:30 when we went out to a nearby Italian restaurant for another delicious meal. I came home after that and crashed, as I was exhausted. I had to be at the committee's disposal all day long, including during my 2 hours of teaching. They even came to observe me, which I was not expecting, but which went well, thankfully.

So far so good. The committee will be here two more days and will give their exit report Wednesday afternoon. Until then, I remain on edge, even the though hard part for me was done a month ago when I sent off a 200 page self-study that I typed and edited myself (although I did not write it all).

And yet...for all the stress...I feel calm. We've done our best. Now, it's the committee's turn. (The beginning of May, I go off to upstate New York to do the same thing for another school. It's a very interesting experience.)

Photos: one of the centerpieces from the dinner; socializing at the dinner; my niece (who was home from college for the weekend) seranading the diners.