text: [Themes: modern]
  
  Who indeed. Well, I suppose we've had some pleasantries. Now I suppose it is time to sort the wheat from the chaff.
  
  As you are perfectly aware, the purpose of a sabbatical is to do research. The rules in the abysmal Faculty Handbook says that a faculty report, to be complete must
  
  a) clearly outline your goals and objectives. (Goals and objectives, mind you--you must have both)
  
  b) address how the afrosaid (sic) goals or objectives (backing away from the demand for both) were met as evidenced by the assessment of your goals and objectives (no, they want both)
  
  c) describe the factors that led to the fulfillment of your goals/objectives (!); also explain the barriers to the fufliment (sic) of your gaols (sic).
  
  d) reflect on what was completed during the sabbatical period and what remains for you when you return.
  
  So! We have our work cut out for us, don't we, if I am ever to hope to fufli my gaols.
  
  We'll have to hit those points. But before we do that, I suppose I ought to know who you are, to whom I am speaking. After all, a faculty member ought to receive a sort of different sabbatical presentation than an undergraduate than an administration member, I'm sure you'll agree.
  
  And this interactive sabbatical presentation, offered by special permission of the good Vice President Colin, would be a wasted exercise if I did not create a major fork in the road at this point, this beating heart of my presentation which will presently branch out into vena cavae both superior (administration) and inferior (faculty) and a thick aorta (students). And then we will have good fun with the minor veins and arteries and the cute little capillaries that my red word-cells are floating in, to give nourishment to your brain.
  
  So, again, not to be too repetitive, we only have twenty minutes, if I remember correctly, and I am almost surely on Route 128 at this point listening to "More than a Feeling" or something, Natalie's favorite song, you know.
  
  So who are you? If you are my very favorite creative writing professor, Whitney, of course, you are faculty, and I have made a special page just for you, since you are my protogee. Everyone else, choose. Now.
  
  > Administration.
  Good, good, good. This will be quick and pa--well, quick. This is the very smallest and cutest of my branchy narratives, with just a few little choices for you to make so I don't break your adminstrative brains.
  
  Hello, administrators, VP of Finance Jesse, VP of Recruitment Helen, other VPs, Associate Deans of Various divisions, provosts, the bursar for all I know, and Special Administrator of Assessment Burt, and especially, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences Colin Jarvis. Forgive the informality of using your first names, most of you, but we don't have that much time here.
  
  To expedite this presentation, please allow me to ask you to sort yourselves a bit--I have a particular executive summary for Vice President of Academic Affairs and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences Colin Jarvis, so I have provided him with an especial link all his own.
  
  > click if you are Vice President of Academic Affairs and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences Colin Jarvis.
  Dear Vice President of Academic Affairs and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences Colin Jarvis,
  
  First of all, thank you for your infinite patience with me as you all go through my interactive sabbatical report, against your express discouragement and disapproval.
  
  I know that I have not always been the most tractable of faculty, and you have been nothing but kind and fair to me, all jokes aside.
  
  You and I have had our disagreements, certainly, and you have come to believe (wrongly, I assure you) that I have done wrong. You believe things affecting your personal life, let us say. These rumors are not true. You know how rumors fly around this campus like flames through cheap wall insulation.
  
  Behold, I have in fact done the required and proper sabbatical paperwork, which I have submitted to you privately. It sits in your electronic inbox now as if by magic.
  
  In short, I spent the semester away reflecting and seeking to ensure that the disruptions of the past year do not repeat themselves. I have reflected. There was reflection.
  
  But I imagine your mind is made up about me already and my little words can't budge you. So go on then. This is an interactive narrative after all, even though the part devoted to you is the very least of it, with really just one big choice for you, lest I blow your mind with branching possibilities. You do, after all, hold your terminal degree in accounting.
  
  So make your one choice. Choose which official document you want written by me. Which letter best illustrates what you really think of me? Feel free to print out the one you like best. I will stand by it.
  
  > Gower's letter of resignation
  Dear Vice President of Academic Affairs and Acting Dean of Arts and Sciences Colin Jarvis:
  
  I hereby resign, effective immediately, from my position as Full Professor, Department of English, Division of Humanities, School of Arts and Sciences.
  
  While I have enjoyed my many years here, I have particularly enjoyed your administration, Colin, if I may indulge in a fond and minor note. I have taught a good deal, learned a good deal, met many colleagues among the faculty, and enjoyed my time with so many of the young women, and the young men, amongst the student body. It has been an honor to watch them learn, flourish, and grow, and sometimes semicolon properly.
  
  The life of a professor is always full of incident and novelty, and I deeply appreciate how much joy and rich memories I have gained in my time here.
  
  And so, in the words of our former motto, "Rise up, and fly high." I have enjoyed shooting for the stars along with you, Colin, and the rest of you all.
  
  Very, very, very warmly,
  
  [signed]
  
  Dr. G. Gower.
  
  P.S. All my very best to your wife, Colin.
  
  > An administrative leavetaking
  I trust that it took you some time to make that decision and that it took you a little while to read it. You always were a slow reader.
  
  I hope you have gone over that documentation carefully, making notes and plans for a future without me here.
  
  I picture it quite warm in that room. It was never a comfortable place to meet. As I recall, there were aged posters near the radiators in the back, on a bulletin board, celebrating athletes who had graduated several decades ago, one of which who had proved to be using substances to assist their long jump. Terrible fire hazard, I always thought. Terrible. That room could stand to be gutted and renovated, I think. And i know you think so, too, as you mentioned it once at a meeting years ago. It never happened though. Perhaps a committee could be set up to explore it.
  
  The temperature controls were always a bit wonky. Nudge the degrees down a touch. The walls are a bit warm too. Old heating system, no doubt, an antique building, wood-framed, with the bangy metal radiators. Ah well. It was nice in winter, at any rate. But it's just too, too warm in there in other seasons, like now.
  
  I hope you have enjoyed my sabbatical presentation and see! It was not as convoluted and annoyingly clicky as you expected when you first failed to approve my using an interactive presentation. And we have learned what you think of me, and what you wish for me, which is that you wish me gone, that you believe the school will be better without me. I suppose you feel I have failed to light the fire of learning under our students, and that I am dangerously unstable. I suppose there is no way I can prove to you that you are wrong.
  
  I am driving west, off to new adventures. I shall imagine this moment fondly.
  
  Yours,
  
  Gower