End of the year meme!

EcoGeoFemme at The Happy Scientist and ScienceGirl at curiosity killed the cat tagged me for this meme.

1. Will you be looking for a new job?
Yes!! As of today, I have one campus interview and one phone interview planned for Jan. I'm hoping I'll hear back from my outstanding applications in the coming weeks.

2. Will you be looking for a new relationship?
I loved EcoGeoFemme's response: "I'm always looking for new friends, especially women." From now until I leave LargeUtown in Juneish, I'm absolutely NOT looking for a relationship. (I'm not ruling out "boys for fun", however.) Focusing on myself this last year has been fantastic.

3. New house?
no. I will rent for the first year, until I feel out my new job and/or scope out the area.

4. What will you do differently in 08?
Date, like for reals! Like go out to dinners and stuff. Be wined and dined. And not by sucky people.

5. New Years resolution?
I very much don't like resolutions.... that said, I really need to get my IRA going (I know, I know!)

6. What will you not be doing in 08?
Hmm....well...at the rate that my (nonexistent) love life is going....

7. Any trips planned?
Yes! To Deutschland in the spring, to Various States for interviews in JanFeb (I hope), and a possible road trip with Mr. Bear after we both get doctored (teehee!) from LargeU and WarmU, respectively.

8. Wedding plans?
Gah, I hope not. Certainly not my own. I've got at least until 35....or was it 28?) before I invoke Back-up Marriage Plan with Mr. Bear.

9. Major thing on your calendar?
Thesis defense! Becoming Dr. Reaction!

10. What can’t you wait for?
To graduate.

11. What would you like to see happen differently?
Hmmm....not really sure.

12. What about yourself will you be changing?
I'll be going to church more. It's hard here in LargeUtown because people are either bible-beaters or eye-rollers. It's difficult to find middle ground.

13. What happened in 07 that you didn’t think would ever happen?
Teehee. I didn't think I'd be as introspective as I was.

14. Will you be nicer to the people you care about?
(would anyone actually say no?) Of course.

15. Will you dress differently this year than you did in 07?
Absolutely. Somehow I don't think my usual hoodie-with-jeans look will fly in a TT position.

16. Will you start or quit drinking?
Heck no! I will maintain my social drinking status. :-)

17. Will you better your relationship with your family?
Yes. Dad and I are back to speaking (posts later, I'm sure)

18. Will you do charity work?
I'll continue to do science volunteering and donate to my favorite charities.

19. Will you go to bars?
I'm a grad student, aren't I?

20. Will you be nice to people you don’t know?
Of course! I'm a southern gal, after all! (Didja guess that one??)

21. Do you expect 08 to be a good year for you?
yes.

22. How much did you change from this time last year till now?
A lot! I've become ready to get my Ph.D. and move on to the next phase in my life. This time last year, I really didn't think I'd be ready to leave in 2008. I've also improved the balance between work and play. I'm still a semi-neurotic workaholic, but I sometimes take Sundays off.

23. Do you plan on having a child?
OMG, no! Not that there would be a possibility, if the last bit of 07 is any indication (see #6).

24. Will you still be friends with the same people you are friends with now?
Yes, but I don't classify casual relationships as friendships. So those that are friends (vs. the bazillion LargeUtown "acquaintances"...like people that I'll drink with, watch football with, etc etc but not housesit for or drive to nearby state airport)

25. Major lifestyle changes?
Hopefully a faculty teaching job. Preferably somewhere warm. Possible big purchases: new car.

26. Will you be moving?
yessssssss!

27. What will you make sure doesn’t happen in 08 that happened in 07?
I'm going to take more vacation time. In 2007, I took six days off in the summer to travel to central america, and nine days off for Christmas. That is not. cool. Already for 2008, I will be traveling home twice in the spring for graduations and going to Germany for a week. Post-LargeUtown, I hope to do a wine country trip and a possible road trip to the Dakotas....but those depend on Mr. Bear.

28. What are your New Years Eve plans?
Not sure. Definitely football with champagne. Beyond ~10:30 remains to be determined.

29. Will you have someone to kiss at midnight?
Not anyone I know, unless there will be a midnight surprise visit to LargeUtown....but I dislike surprises.

30. One wish for 08?
Fall in love with someone in same zip code (say it with me now: awwwwwww).

If you decide to do this lovely meme, please let me know so I am sure to check it out! Happy 2008, all!


(yes, I am aware that I have excessively! used! exclamation points! in this post. Not sure why.

Things I learned on the road

1. The bigger your truck, the bigger your penis. Seriously. Don't believe me? Just ask the guy driving the monster truck with people-sized tires. Giant. Penis.

2. A woman (e.g. ME) in a small car passing a man in any car is a direct challenge to the guy's manhood.

3. Contrary to popular belief, diet coke, swedish fish, and regular flavor Pringles CAN in fact a meal make.

4. Turning on your windshield wipers when someone is unnecessarily tailing you (and thus showering their Escalade/Mustang/Tahoe in buggy, used window juice) IS as satisfying as it sounds.

Single Grad Female seeks new year's play

It's no secret that I usually date sucky men. (Case in point: Ex broke up with me in front of his therapist. Seriously.) So I spent 2007 single but occasionally having fun with a boy or two (erm...not at the same time).

It's been great not having to concern myself with a two-body problem while I look for faculty positions. I get to eat whatever I want (woohoo, shrimp raman! Yay breakfast of swiss miss rolls!) without any chiding (well, not in person anyways). And I always get the remote.

Recently I've been reconsidering the benefits of a boyfriend. LargeUtown gets very cold at night, so it sure would be nice to have someone to warm me up. There's something to be said for having someone to tuck you in when you're sick (which "fun boys" are no good for).

But the real kicker is the impending "holiday" of New Year's Eve.

Let's get real. New Year's Eve is good for two things: making out with your significant other or making out with a random hottie. Not having an SO or any readily available single hotties (pickings are slim in LargeUtown as I require a potential make out partner to be older than me and most boys fitting that high standard are already coupled) means that NYE is NSF. (NSF = not so fun....although I'm sure many of you saw that acronym and thought "crap! upcoming grant deadline!)


What do you think? Is NYE truly just for couples?


Ultimately it probably won't matter: there are bowl games playing until 11 that will likely result in me being too drunk to care about NYE anyways! ;)

Shhhh!

I'm the oldest of a large-ish family. My mom had kids in diapers for 8 years, one year off, and then another 2ish. (I'll blog later about being raised Catholic in the heart of the bible belt...) So obviously, she had very little kids for a number of years (actually, it wasn't until 1995 that we were all in school).

From a very early age, we learned how to sit still for an hour at a time. Church will do that for you. My parents would march us to the front of the church and plop us down in the very front pew. My mom claims now that our front-and-center status was to keep us kids involved in the mass, but I think she actually placed us there to ensure that the 450 eyes on us would peer pressure us into silence. We knew that we had to sit quietly for the duration of mass. (Once we got back into the car...well...that was another story)

So why is it that every time I actually go to church, I always end up getting poked in the back of the head by an overactive four year old, or distracted by a whiny six year old.

Don't think that I'm a psycho child-hating bitter woman. I fully understand that infants cry and toddlers fidgit. But please. There is a cry room for a reason! (For the uninitiated, the cry room is the room at the back of the church with a window to see in and a sound system piping in the priest's words.)

Of course, if any of you can explain to me why it is acceptable for three year olds and older to NOT know how to sit still, please feel free....and I will gladly eat my words (in addition to all the Christmas ham, cookies, and mashed potatoes currently contributing to my holiday gut).

I might get a job after all!

So a little bit ago I had my first phone interview, which was a little ahead of schedule for my discipline. I was surprisingly nervous, so I made sure to read up on the school, the department, and all the resources available to faculty. It paid off because the seven-person committee (7! people! Is this standard??) asked a few very specific questions that I was able to nail because of my preparation (score 1 for semi-neurotic people everywhere!).

The next day they called me back to tell me I made it to the next round, so in January this school will become my first site visit. I'm excited because although it's not a part of the country that I ever, ever thought I'd end up in, I've actually become quite excited about the school. There are a lot of resources available to instructors, and the classrooms have all the latest technology. Did I mention that class sizes, even for introductory ones, are <30?

Hopefully this will be the first of several interviews!

Cutting the cord

Over the years, I have taken far less than my month's worth of vacation time, partly because I'm a slightly neurotic, workaholic and partly because The Boss is reluctant to grant time off.

Over the last six months or so, I've had to go through a cutting of the cord process with The Boss. This entailed working "I'm graduating and leaving in May" into conversation at least once a week. When The Boss acknowledged this statement with rolled eyes or "I think Decemeber 08 will be a better exit date," I had to increase the frequency to nearly daily discussions about my graduation. After about two weeks of this, I finally got through.

The Boss never looked back.

The Boss has cut the cord, but now it's practically like getting kicked to the curb! I'm over-exaggerating (a bit), but let me point you to the latest incident:

I need to travel home on two different occasions this spring for two separate, two-day events. I requested 2.5 days off for each trip. The response from The Boss? "I think you should take more than 3 days." I didn't think anything of it (actually, I thought, "wow, that's nice!") until I looked at the group vacation calendar. There were 5 days and 6 days marked off for the trips! Way to get rid of me.

If The Boss is going to be so lenient about taking time off, perhaps I should just take advantage and plan a real vacation!

It happened.

Today I found out that someone at work, someone I am very close to (called C), has cancer.

It's cliched, but the room literally started spinning when I got the email. Because the information didn't come from C directly, I don't know what to do.

Do I say anything?

What can I do?

Is it better to wait until C tells me directly?


No one in my life has ever been truly sick (with the exception of my great-grandparents, who died when I was really, really little.

I have so many things to do before I leave town, but I can't focus on anything. Even wrapping presents (which I love love love) seems overwhelming right now. And I'm out of beer.

PSA

Attention all graduate students! (and former graduate students and soon-to-be graduate students and you-couldn't-pay-me-to-be-one of those graduate students)

If you haven't already read Psycgirl's awesome 14th Carnival of GRADudal Progress, then click on over!

You can read the old Carnivals here.


So please click on over, tell psycgirl what a great job she did, and maybe discover some new blogs! Enjoy!

It's the most! wonderful time! of the year!

Not because of the holidays. Not because I get to get out of LargeUtown for a week.

Nope. Folks, this is the most wonderful time of the year because today the undergrads have left LargeUtown, and they won't be back for 4 weeks!

Say it with me now: "woohooooo!!!"

No more dodging jaywalking pedestrians as I try to locate a parking spot.

No more playing avoid-touching-the-undergrad on the bus. (Duh, 'cause they're a little smelly and sticky. Seriously. There's this one freshman that always smells like bacon. Ugh)

No more averting my eyes from the PDA at the gym.



I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season (and for those of you at schools that are more similar to LargeU than TinyCollege, I hope you are enjoying your undergradless season, as well!!)

Proctoring

Things I should have done during my 3 hours of proctoring this morning:

- written up my Christmas letter and addressed Christmas cards

- caught up on literature

- written the key for the final

- written my year-end report for The Boss

- applied for another teaching position



Things I actually did during my 3 hours of proctoring this morning:

- semi prepared for my phone interview scheduled for tomorrow

- spent a sick amount of time on Facebook

- finished up grading (that was a good thing!)

- stared blankly at my students staring blankly at their exams


Okay, so I guess I didn't COMPLETELY waste the last three hours of my life. I will tell you this: I haven't been bored in a long time, but today I was ready to stab my eyes out. I wonder what I would have done without wireless???

An open letter to LargeU undergrads

Dear LargeU undergrads,

I understand that it is cold. I also understand that you have more hormones coursing through your veins than your 100 lb bodies can handle. And I do understand that the combination of these two conditions make you feel the need to paw your significant other 24-7.

But you should remember that there are good times to touch one another and there are bad times to touch one other.

Some places where you should not be touching (you might notice that there are all in public, which is where the term "public displays of affection" came from):

- the running track at the gym

- the bus, during my 20 minute ride home

- the hallway of my building, while you wait for office hours

- the grass on the main quad

- my classroom



Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,

Unbalanced Reaction

Hypothetical situation

Here's a hypothetical situation for you. ('cause I would never write about my students. No, never)

Let's say you're an undergrad.

Let's say that you aren't doing so well in a class, and are on thin ice with your TA because of a recent cheating incident.

So you decide to make an appointment with your TA (on a Friday, at 5 pm, no less) in order to go over the last assignment of the semester (wow, you sure are lucky to have such an amazing TA!!!).

Now, do you really think it's going to impress your TA if you decide to skip class the same day of the meeting?




(No more classes this semester! As my students would say, "woot, woot!")

Cheaters never win (against me!)

Recently, my students had to turn in a one-page paper covering a particular topic related to the class. Unfortunately, one of my students decided to blatantly copy from two sources without any citations.

This isn't the first time that plagiarism has been an issue for one of my undergrads. My first year here, four out of 100 of my students failed another general science class because they improperly cited sources. In their case, each had directly taken text out of a source and then cited it, but omitted the quotation marks. All claimed that they were taught that that was okay in high school.

Now freshmen I can sort of understand. But upper level students? The problem with LargeU (and likely many other "R1" type schools) is that the science undergrads often leave their humanities courses (not that they have to take that many) until their last two semesters, and the science classes have very few, if any, written assignments--even some of the laboratory courses don't require written lab reports!

Coming from TinyCollege, which is a little-known liberal arts school, I find this shocking. Even my crappy science courses at TinyCollege required various written reports, summaries of current literature, etc. Hell, the tests often had short answer / essay questions requiring a demonstration of actual thought!

At any rate, I took this recent plagiarism issue as an opportunity to meet with the student and go over proper citations, etc. I could have filed paperwork to get a note in his file, fail him, etc., but I think the tears that welled in his eyes (and came very close to spilling over...UGH!) throughout our 30 minute meeting was punishment enough.


Is plagiarism an issue at your school? Do you think science majors get enough experience writing at these research institutions, that supposedly have stronger science programs than small liberal arts schools?

Rant postponed!

I was all set to write an angry rant about cheating and how prevalent it is among undergrads.... but then CoworkerFriend brought over pizza, we watched America's Most Smartest Model (seriously, you should watch it. Vh1. You will thank me.), and I rediscovered diet dr. pepper+malibu (seriously, you should try it. Yum. You will thank me).


Soooo.....I'm a wee bit buzzed, but I'm sure a lovely rant will appear at some point tomorrow, once I resume my grading (grrrr!!!).



In other news (but equally drink-worthy): I have a defense date!!! 5 months and counting....

If you jaywalk, they will build

Yet another puzzling thing about LargeU that I will never understand (but love): if you jaywalk, you will get a ticket. If you and all your friends jaywalk repeatedly in the same location, "they" will simply paint a new crosswalk.

Over the last few months, random crosswalks have appeared all over LargeU campus, at seemingly random, non-intersection locations. While I'm happy to not be at a ticket risk when dashing between buildings, it does pose a bit of a hazard. LargeU is not a closed campus; in fact, most of the campus is criss-crossed by heavily traveled roads, requiring LargeU undergrads to jump in front of traffic to get to their physics lab.

But...did you know that the crosswalks are more than just bars of paint on the road? No, they are so much more than paint. LargeU crosswalks are actually magic bubbles that protect one from an approaching vehicle. Well, at least that's what you would think if you drove through campus, what with all the undergrads running through crosswalks without pausing....and don't get me started on the bikes.

So these new crosswalks are actually more of a hazard than a help because drivers aren't aware of them (indeed, there are no "yield to pedestrian" signs or other marks, making the white lines extremely hard to see at night), yet undergrads just assume that cars and buses will stop.

At TinyCollege, there was no pedestrian problem because the campus was closed to through traffic. I know it's impractical to shut down all LargeU roads, but surely there is a better solution than just playing "miss-the-undergrad" every time I drive to campus?

Time to play!

Good idea or bad idea: defending my thesis on my birthday.



Thoughts?

A MeMe!

I got this from EcoGeoFemme over at The Happy Scientist. (You should check her blog out; it is lovely.)

I love memes because they often give me more ideas for posts plus they give me an extra day or two to let my little thoughts percolate a bit more.


My answers are in no particular order, by the way.

8 passions
1. teaching
2. cheese
3. my research project
4. travel-- I love planning trips and love exploring new places and cultures
5. family-- I only see them once a year, but they mean everything to me
6. college football
7. blogging (mostly reading them)
8. flickring

8 things to do before I die
1. get married
2. have/adopt children
3. visit my sponsor child in Africa (the agency I go through absolutely supports/encourages this)
4. learn Spanish
5. cook for myself
6. live near my family!
7. go to Japan
8. wear a bikini in public

8 things I often say
1. seriously
2. like (it's soooo bad, I know. Luckily, this obnoxious habit usually disappears when I give presentations or have scientific discussions)
3. f*ck / sh*t (I have a terrible mouth. Bad, I know)
4. dude
5. nuts
6. no
7. oh, cute!
8. cool

8 books I recently read (yeah, I'm going to count magazines, too, because I seriously (see?!) don't read pleasure books except when I fly)
1. Newsweek
2. C&E News
3. The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton (finished by Marion Mainwaring)
4. Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics, and Kinetics by Engel and Reid
5. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
6. The Nanny Diaries by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
7. Sushi for Beginners by Marian Keyes
8. National Geographic

8 songs that mean something to me
1. “Brown eyed girl" by Van Morrison ('cause I am!)
2. “Maneater" by Nelly Furtado (do I really need to explain?)
3. Anything from Sound of Music. (It all actually makes me cringe, but it makes me think of my mom because she can watch that movie over and over and over.)
4. "I f**king hate you" by Godsmack (because sometimes it's necessary...this gets played a lot at work and at the gym)
5. “Crazy b*tch" by buckcherry (reminds me of a summer of years past)
6. “Every day should be a holiday" by the Dandy Warhols (because it SHOULD)
7. "Bueck Dich" or anything else from Rammstein's Live Aus Berlin album (reminds me of how I feel after finishing a manuscript--awesome!--because I seem to only be able to write when listening to really angry German music)
8. "Jugo a la Vida" by Los Tucanes de Tijuana (such happy, happy music!)

8 qualities I look for in a friend
1. loyal
2. smart
3. open minded
4. hard working (yeah, that might be a little odd, but I really have a hard time not judging people by their work ethic)
5. funny
6. kind
7. down to earth
8. common interests

8 people whose blogs I enjoy
1. an englishman in osaka
2. brazen hussy
3. disgruntled julie
4. female science professor
5. profgrrrrl
6. post doc ergo propter doc
7. the happy scientist
8. young female scientist

Stranger in a strange land

My mom came to LargeUtown to stay with me during Thankgiving. This gave her an opportunity to tackle one of my biggest flaws (in her eyes): that I'm not a cook.

Sure, I may be a whiz in the lab, but when it comes to the kitchen, I literally don't know how to properly chop an onion.

As we prepped the turkey (ew! ew! Are you all aware that you have to pull the NECK out? SICK!), we talked about a recent techie conference she attended. One of the speakers discussed the differences between younger and older generations in terms of their digital technological savviness and how one must take different approaches to educating the younger generation. This latest generation of students are so-called "digital natives," while others are known as "digital immigrants." For example, current college students grew up with cell phones and the internet. I'm just on the bridge between the two, so while I might say "I'll call your cell phone," a digital native (like my youngest brother) would say "I'll call your phone"--he was too young to remember when we had a landline in my house!

In the midst of our discussions, my mom kept asking if I had various cooking items, such as a meat thermometer (um, no), timer (doesn't the microwave count?), or a knife sharpener (I thought only hunters used those!). She patiently made do without until she asked me to hand her some flour.

"Um, yeah, Mom? I don't have flour."

"You don't have flour?! Who doesn't have flour??!"

Embarrassed, all I could stammer out as an excuse was "Mom! I'm a kitchen immigrant!"


She found this amusing, and I was off the hook (okay, I still had to get my coat to go out for flour, but at least I didn't get any more grief from her!).


Are you a digital native or immigrant? And do you think scientists should be naturally good cooks? Many, many people tell me "oh, you just have to follow protocols, you should be good at it"..... but maybe cooking just feels too much like work, so I avoid it at home? c

Gimme, gimme....okay, now I wanna drink!

Oh, LargeU undergrads.

They skip classes the Friday before fall break because they NEED to get home.

And then they come back early in order to drink bud light and take Jaeger shots.

So much for quality time with their families. GO HOME! I demand a full week of an undergradless town!

We're having a baby...named Tenure

On a recent weekend, I ran into some fellow grad students heading into the building as I was heading out to watch football. They (semi) jokingly chided me for leaving work so early on a Saturday (in our department at LargeU, the average work week is ~65 h/week, but in my particular area it's usually more like 75, getting in the upper 80s during grant time).

I (semi) jokingly replied, "No one in my group has to work weekends anymore, now that we have tenure."

"'We?' So you all get tenure once The Boss does?" They grinned at what they though was my misspoken pronoun.

"Well, yeah, actually. We all got The Boss tenure. So we are all tenured now!"


And don't you think that's only fair? We all stressed, pushed, and bled for The Boss to get the publications out in time for the tenure packet review (culminating in 12 papers submitted in 3 weeks, thank-you-very-much!). I bribed students in a class of The Boss with pixie stix and put in extra office hours to ensure high teaching marks. We all endured three submission rounds of The Biggest Grant ever, requiring 14+ hour days (for two weeks straight) to get data analyzed and figures made in time.

So yes, just like men often say "we're having a baby," I'm going to proudly proclaim, "WE just got tenure."


Unfortunately, I don't think that's something I can list on my CV, huh?

(Not) making the grade

Grading is becoming a huge pain in my ass. This particular class is full of very bright, (mostly) hardworking upper-level students. Although these particular students are blessed with good math skills, they are not-so-blessed in the handwriting department. To make it worse, many of them do their problem sets in very fine, flowing ink pen (on both sides of the paper!), making it nearly impossible to decipher a 7 from a 9 or "does not agree" from a "consistent with theory." Seriously.

So I usually try to grade homework in the hour or two immediately after class, sort of like ripping the bandaid off quickly. I was several papers into the most recent problem set, when I reached one student's assignment that I couldn't read at all.

Then I realized why.

The pages were full of upper level math proofs, most decidedly NOT what my course covers.

The next problem set in my pile contained much of the same. Apparently, as my class was leaving, the next hour's class had begun filing in. I was so preoccupied with answering one of my student's questions that I failed to notice that two of the incoming students had tossed THEIR homework on MY pile. (Now as to why a student would just place their homework in front of an unknown TA is beyond me, so let's just add that to my list of Things I Will Never Understand About LargeU Undergrads).

Of course, the two wayward problem sets had their owner's names on them. Unfortunately, each student gave a slightly different course number. One listed the class as in the math department, while the other placed it in a division of engineering. After scrolling through the LargeU course catalog, I failed to get a match on either. After calling the math departmental office as well as several other engineering offices, I finally managed to get the professor of the course on the phone.

He had a very pleasant, British accent, so it instantly neutralized my growing annoyance at myself for being so anxious to get these stray homeworks into the proper TA/prof's hands. He thought the whole thing hilarious, and even offered to fax over the key so that I could grade them if I wanted.

I passed.

But seriously, are my expectations of LargeU undergrads too high? Is it too much to expect them to be able to recognize their TA (at least in a classroom setting...it still freaks me out a bit when I run into students at LargeU bars) and get their much-labored over (or perhaps copied) problem sets turned into the proper person?

Gimme, gimme more vacation!

There is one thing about LargeU undergrads that I will never understand (okay, so there are MANY things about LargeU undergrads that I will probably never understand, but let's just take one at a time).

LargeU students have a whole week off for Thanksgiving. A week. Seven days.

Yet most LargeU students feel entitled to take off the Friday (as in tomorrow) off as well, like this is a mandated travel day (I should point out that most live within three hours of LargeUtown, so it's not like they have to compensate for flying time or anything). In fact, they act completely shocked if you decide to have class at all. You can't even THINK about having homework due, a quiz, or, God forbid, an exam.

Back when I was an undergrad at TinyCollege, we only got Thanksgiving Day and Friday off. Think I ever made the 12 hour drive home? No way. Did some of my friends skip their afternoon classes on Wednesday to fly home? Sure.

But a week? A freakin' week?? If they had two weeks off, there would probably still be LargeU students skipping classes.


Oh, and I should mention (I think some of you will find this amusing) that after this week's only slightly unfair exam, Prof. Teacher decided to cancel class this Friday. Sheesh.


How about at your school? Do undergrads expect classes to be cancelled to facilitate their holiday plans?

Do grad students get sick days?

Small hint that my raging head cold is making me look and sound as bad as I feel: the pharmacists at the drug store noticed and expressed their concern.


BIG hint that my raging head cold is making me look and sound as bad as I feel: my STUDENTS noticed and expressed their concern.



Is it bad that my motivation for getting better is solely driven by the desire to watch a lot of football this weekend with a clear head and not wanting to get back to delicate experiments or write coherent job applications?

Out of bounds?

The course I'm TAing for this semester is the second half of a bigger sequence. The two courses are extremely related in overall concepts yet are distinct in their individual content. I recently sat down with the professor to discuss the upcoming exam. Prof. Teacher was upset at the students' lack of participation in a lecture this week, so Prof. Teacher decided to make the test very hard and including material from the first half course (which was not taught by Prof. Teacher).

I argued that this wasn't a fair treatment of the current material, which of course got Prof. Teacher a little perturbed (since TAs are supposed to agree with all Prof. Teachers, even if their opinion is asked...right?).

But is it fair to test students on material from a previous course, without warning? The way this sequence is set up, it would be very analogous to testing a history class covering post-Enlightenment topics on information from the pre-Enlightenment class.

We're meeting again later this week. Do you think I should just give in and agree with Prof. Teacher, or is PT expecting too much?

Time to unplug?

Facebook didn't come to be until after I graduated college, so I'm only a recent convert. I've enjoyed reconnecting with high school friends, seeing how many of my college friends have babies, and even linking up with grad students I meet through work.

But sometimes I think I might need to unplug.

Take tonight, for instance. I scanned my Friends' status updates, and saw one from one of my closest friends from high school, who also happens to be finishing up his own graduate work. "Mr. Bear is almost done with experiments," it read.

I shot off a quick FB message to him, jokingly asking if he meant he was done forever or just done for the night. He messaged me back that he was indeed done taking data. Next stop, dissertation.

I'm happy for him.


Really.


Deep down.

But seriously.... first people were using FB to post status updates about prelim status, now job interviews, and now thesis completion? For my own sanity, I might need to log off of Facebook....at least until I have a job offer to update my status with.

In this corner...

At a recent conference, I had the opportunity to have lunch with several professors that are well regarded in the field. When I introduced myself with a brief blurb about my research project, one inquired, "Oh, is the X group still working on that? What do you think of their work?"

(X group as in the research group of Prof. X aka Person Who Publishes in High-Impact Journals on (often) Over-Interpreted Data).

I felt this was an especially odd/awkward line of questioning given that
1. I have published work directly contradicting X group publications

and

2. X group hasn't published in my area since early 2006.


I think that there are three likely explanations:

1. The questioner is currently reviewing an X group manuscript on the topic. (semi-likely)

2. The questioner is a huge fan of my project and has read all of my manuscripts many times over. (not so likely)

3. The questioner is well-read in the field and so connected my project with Prof. X and was merely being polite, but I over-interpreted the question due to a delightful combination of sleep deprivation and not-yet-arrived coffee. (quite likely)

Fumbling in the dark

I don't like Halloween. I (now) fully realize that this makes me somewhat of a freak.

While the undergrads of LargeU did kegstands in whoreish costumes and the LargeU professors trick-or-treated with their kids, I sat in the dark.

Many of my neighbors went all out this year, putting cobwebs on the bushes and hanging orange lights in their windows. And like little moths, the children were drawn to the twinkling jackolanterns and came begging for sugar.

I wanted none of it. If I'm going to spend my measly paycheck on candy, then I'm going to be the one eating it. Pumpkin carving is not for me; the feel of the pumpkin goo under my nails makes me queasy. I'm not a fan of things that go bump in the night.

So last night I sat at my kitchen table and worked on more cover letters. Thank goodness for my MacBook Pro's illuminated keyboard!

So how about it? Did you go on Halloween strike, or are you one of the many who claim Halloween as their favorite holiday?

Cheating the system (?)

Early in September, I submitted a short paper, a communication, really. This particular journal typically returns reviews on such communications very quickly, on the order of ~3 weeks.

After 6 weeks, The (newly tenured) Boss sent the editor a brief email inquiring about the status of my manuscript. A week later, we received a response.

Not an apology.

Not my reviews.

No, instead, the email stated that my communication had been accepted as is, and the galley proofs would be arriving in 5-7 days. The reviews weren't part of the email, and they weren't located in the online system, either.

While I should be very happy not to have to do any revisions, I can't help but wonder: is this really peer review?

Diving right in

On Tuesday I entered into (yet another) rite of passage for graduate students: I applied for my first job. Jobs, I should say. Three of 'em. I carefully scribed the addresses onto the Priority Mail envelopes, checking the zip codes no less than three times. I flicked through the packets to ensure that all the paperwork was accounted for (cover letter, CV, teaching philosophy, and transcripts). I delicately slid the pages into the envelopes, careful not to bend the pages (and I just as carefully slid them out, rechecked the pages, and reslid them back in). I even made sure to buy confirmation stickers so I would know the exact time of their arrival. The fluorescent green tracking number tabs were filed away for safekeeping.

This morning I pulled out my "applied for" folder and navigated to usps.com. One of my applications arrived in a southern state yesterday morning, a northeast bound app arrived at 10 am, and my third application was at the processing facility in Spokane, WA.

The latter would have been super if but for one small detail-- I didn't apply to a state bordering British Columbia. No, it was much closer to, say, Ontario.

And I live in the middle of the country.

Sigh.

While I'm (fairly) certain that the postal service will soon realize that my app was put on the wrong plane, train, or automobile, I can't help but worry: is this a sign of how this job application process will go?

Finding balance

Although I expect my students to always balance their reactions, when it comes to my own life, I am constantly searching for balance.

I'm wrapping up my PhD studies at LargeU, and I'm gearing up for the next chapter in my life. I have recently begun applying for academic positions, so perhaps this time next year I'll be a professor seaching for balance.

Stay tuned.