This morning I returned to my office after nearly a week of being at a conference followed by a weekend and snow day, only to see: A GIANT PLANT ON MY DESK. Well, perhaps not giant, but really quite large. I was very perplexed. I knew how it must have gotten through the door - the department's main office secretary often puts packages in faculty offices using her key - but not why. It turns out that one of my undergraduate students, for whom I wrote reference letters and otherwise gave grad school advice, after getting into her top choice program, decided to give me an
Phalaenopsis orchid, which is really very attractive, and one of the very nicest gifts I've ever received from a student. And all day people have been commenting on my orchid, including one senior male colleague, who one would think to be the least likely among my colleagues to know anything about orchids, but who casually remarked, "Yeah, that's a nice Phalaenopsis." And it's technically contraband to bring across the border, so in my office it will stay. That just leaves me with two questions:
1) How likely am I to kill a Phalaenopsis?
2) What should I name my Phalaenopsis?