Hypothetically Speaking

Let's say that you have a part-time administrative post that buys out part of your teaching load. And let's pretend that this post expects you to organize a series of meetings held on Monday, January 7 in preparation for the first day of the semester on Wednesday, January 9. Your role for these meetings is to reserve rooms, make a schedule, and to give a 30-minute presentation about the details of a specific course to a group of about a dozen people who will be teaching it, many of whom will have taught the course before. And further assume that you really want to be on the other side of the country on Sunday, January 6.

How gauche would it be to try to contact the people who will be teaching the course and meet with them individually in December 2007 and then to skip the mandatory meeting that you organize?

And would you fly back on the 7th? Or risk staying until the 8th?

And how silly is it to begin planning how you will spend your one-time, $1500 reasearch-and-travel grant before the money has been officially transferred?