Silver spoon meme

Seen (twice!)at R.E.S.E.A.R.C.H.E.R.S., bolded items apply to me:

1. Father went to college

2. Father finished college

3. Mother went to college

4. Mother finished college

5. Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor

6. Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers

7. Had more than 50 books in your childhood home

8. Had more than 500 books in your childhood home

9. Were read children’s books by a parent

10. Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18

11. Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18 see above

12. The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively

13. Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18

14. Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs
15. Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs

16. Went to a private high school

17. Went to summer camp

18. Had a private tutor before you turned 18

19. Family vacations involved staying at hotels

20. Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18

21. Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them

22. There was original art in your house when you were a child - yes, but it was stuff my parents bought from street artists

23. You and your family lived in a single family house

24. Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home

25. You had your own room as a child.

26. You had a phone in your room before you turned 18

27. Participated in a college entrance exam (eg. SAT/ACT) prep course

28. Had your own TV in your room

29. Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College - No, but I did invest my earnings shelving books at the city library in a CD

30. Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16

31. Went on a cruise with your family

32. Went on more than one cruise with your family

33. Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up.

34. You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family.

Bad MommyProf, Bad!

So guess who fell asleep at 9:30 last night and therefore did not get all of her grading done?

I wonder if students realize that the end of the semester is stressful on the professors, too? From the "What's my grade" e-mails I start getting 30 minutes after the final exam ends, I am guessing no.

Perhaps I could sent the monkeys back

It's that time again. Spring thunderstorms are rolling through Central State, adding a layer of unsettled upheaval that marks the end of the semester. Even Rate Your Students and The New York Times' Op-Ed section can feel the crushing ennui that marks academia trying to wrap itself up.

I wonder if there is a creative way I could use outsourcing to reduce the end-of-semester stress...Send the monkeys back to the jungle, as it were.

Things I have learned in the last 72 hours

Reviewing papers that use quantitative and qualitative methodology right after each other is dizzying.
How to say chicken meatball in another language.
Toddlers adapt to jet lag better than adults.
Grapes are too expensive this time of the year.
6 weeks of eating whatever I want will have consequences.
Central State depresses me whenever I come back to it.
It is possible to have a good class, even with 2/3 of the students missing.
It's fire ant swarm season. Goody.
Premium is worth the extra cost.
Even when it is an honors student and when they assure you that they know what they are doing, don't count on it.

Frakkin monkeys

Well, I'm back, and immediately have returned to monkey season.

This is the last few weeks of the academic year, where I have this perpetual feeling that I have a pack of monkeys on my back with names like grading, writing exams, grading, assorted university social obligations, grading, getting stuff in order for the summer, grading, the last few lectures, and grading.

Plus I have to do a passel of paper reviews in the next few days for a journal I'm on the board for and for the big conference in my field, get my grad students and their funding all squared away and do a bunch of grading.

Also, our house was invaded by ants in a big way while we were gone, so I have to do something about that, if we want to be able to eat in the kitchen any more. Also, the ants bite here. Also, we have no groceries, and I have a week's worth of laundry to do.

Monkeys.

However, one of the great pleasures of academia is the approaching end of the semester, when I get to, one by one, remove those frakkin' monkeys, and my sense of lightness of being increases steadily until suddenly, I am light as air and it is the summer.

And I can see it. Just around the corner, it looms large...long and hot, filled with fun with my kids and husband, with space to write and think, with trips to the drive in and hopefully several camping trips and many hikes.

I can almost touch it, but when I get close, one of those monkeys slaps my hand.

Home

18 hours of flying behind us and at last we are at home.

Sometimes, a shower is one of the best things in the world.

Still abroad

I am at the big event of the thing I am working at. Spouse and I are taking turns doing a real job and watching our kids and someone else's kid while keeping people out of a secure area. I am in the secure area right now.

Spouse's Dean is here nad wandered back to where we are and fell asleep on a couch here about an hour ago. This means I have to keep the kids extra quiet, but the Dean is in front of a large glass wall, so I do get to see everyone coming by and laughing : )

Mommy/Prof on the road

So I am overseas with the family at a professional meting that Spouse and I both work at. It's mostly related to Spouse's field, and he will be wicked busy today since he has a major, two-hour presentation this afternoon. But my skills are also useful, as several people have seemed to discover for the first time this year, as I am having a lot of requests for meetings from meeting managers and the sponsor.

That's great, but also a problem, as we did bring the kids with us. It's usually not a problem, since our worlds haven't overlapped timewise that much. But it's starting to be a problem. Next year it won't be, since the meeting will be literally next to Siberia in February, so the kids aren't coming. I can't see paying to drag them halfway across the world just to see the inside of a conference hotel - we can do that at home. For the long term, I am not sure about the viability of the Prof. family trip to this meeting.

The venue this year is really cool, however (both in social factor and in temperature!), so as we have had time to spend with the kids, we have had some educational and fun poking around, so I am glad they are here.

Not sure what is happening

So I had my two phone interviews for the late-posted jobs. One of them sounded like it was really two jobs that they were hoping to sucker someone into doing (here at PrettyGood, two and a half people have that assignment), so I wasn't interested in that.

The other, the chair of the search committee "stepped down," and was replaced by a new chair, who made me repeat the phone interview with different people. Then a few days later, he called and said they wanted to bring me to campus and to go ahead and find travel for these dates. But these other dates would secretly be better, since they had a department meeting scheduled for then anyway. Because MommyProf can take a hint, she found travel that completely sucked for her (5 a.m. flight out of a city 95 miles away), but that would be convenient for the department. She wrote to the newchair to say "Good news...yada."

The newchair wrote back to say he needed to get a time for the administrative interview and not to book anything. There were then 5 days of silence.

Finally, yesterday afternoon, I get an e-mail from newchair saying the dean decided they can't bring me in since I am deficient in this way that was not mentioned in a) their ad or b) any of the phone conversations I had with them.

My thoughts are a) you offered a campus interview without clearing it with the administration first? b) it must be tough to work at a school with a micromanaging administration c) it seems like it would save a great deal of time and money if you knew what you wanted before you advertised a job.

Anyway, it felt like a combination of getting gut-punched and getting denied tenure all over again, but I think I'll live. The fact that I did our taxes this week, and I made less than half of what Spouse does didn't help. But I went ahead and signed an instructor contract for next year. At least I have a job, and that's not to be discounted the way things are at present.

Packing

So our big, international event starts soon, and the fam is leaving to travel 6 timezones tomorrow for a week. I have my classes all squared away, so that it a help. I have to get us packed tonight, and we have to bring a bunch of equipment for the event as well, so that may be tricky...

Sorry - my thinking out loud makes for a crappy post.

Here is an observation about students -

My students had a major project due yesterday at 5. I left at 4, so I put a box outside my door for them to put the projects into. I put the projects that had already been turned in into the box.

I came in today, and there were 7 projects shoved in the box on my door, and the secretary said several students wandered back to the faculty mailboxes, and then wandered to her, concerned that there weren't other projects in the boxes.

Um, yeah.

Back for a second

So we took a real quickie trip to the land of happy rodents and friends with Bun and Offspring over the Easter holiday. The kids did pretty well, and we opened and closed the park each day. Now we are all exhausted. but have miles to go before we sleep.

This is the time of the semester when I really wish I didn't assign so much darned work. Since I now have to grade it.

I'm back on Facebook since Lent is over and catching up on a few blogs. So much to do, so little time!

MP

Conversations with my kids

Bun, can you hop like a bunny?

(She starts jumping)

I hopping like kangaroo!

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from Offspring "I just want to do some of the fun stuff at home before we have to go away and have fun."

"Like what."

"Like. Oh, I don't know."

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(while dyeing Easter eggs)

"I'll do yellow, then red, then blue, then green, then orange (all on the same egg). Won't that be pretty?

"No, it will be brown."

"Oh, ok. I'll do red, then blue, then green, then orange, then yellow."

"Um..."

Can anyone remind me...

What did Austin Powers have to do to get his mojo back?

I think I may need to try it.

Death and Taxes

Re: Taxes

Every year, I wait until April to do our taxes. It's stupid, really, since we almost always get a refund, but generally, I am ready to go in late January, but there is always some statement or form that arrives late, and by the time it does, I'm well into the semester and without mojo to take on the project.

I use software, so it is not that complicated to do - really, assembling the paperwork is the most difficult part.

Re: Death

Two deaths in my extended family last week. The first was my cousin seconded or thirded and removed somewhat (don't know the exact relationship) who lived in Stratford Upon Avon in England. My great-grandfather emigrated from Scotland around the turn of the century, and because her parents were immigrants (my great-grandmother was from Germany), my grandmother always kept up with that side of the family. We visited them in GB, they visited us in East Coastia. I even took Offspring and Spouse over there when Offspring was 4, with a primary mission of meeting the family in our generation so that we can keep the connection going. I think Spouse's family thinks it's pretty funny that I have a cousin actually named Alastair.

Anyway, John, who died, was in his late '80s and was the keeper of "The Family Bible," or so I was told through my whole childhood. He was my grandmother's generation, and the two of them were actually kind of close (for relatives who lived across the pond from eachother). John came to visit her in the U.S. several times that I can remember. He lived in England late in life, and in places so small that you could put Cousins Jimmy and Margie, Puddlesmere, England on an envelope and it would get there. But he was born and raised in Scotland, and sounded just like Sean Connery on the phone.

Back to "The Family Bible." All the time I was growing up, I heard tales of this work, passed down from generation to generation, with a giant family tree inside the front cover that included Profs all the way back to the 1600s and even included me and Offspring. Well, when we made the aforementioned trip, we took the train from London to Stratford and I mentioned "The Family Bible" and how it would be neat if Offspring could see it. Turns out, there's no such thing. "Grandmother would mention it every once in a while," John said, thoughtfully. "I never knew what in the world she was talking about."

The second death was for more immediate family who live in Canada. My first cousin and his girlfriend were expecting a baby in June, but it was stillborn last week. You just don't know what to say in situations like that.

More pictures

As requested, my office (Bun is playing the role of me, while we wait for DaddyProf and Offspring to complete the race), a bookshelf (although I cheated - this is Offspring's bookstack of the major books we own that she has read since she was 4. She's read more, of course, but a lot of them came from the library. She got a $20 B & N gift card when the stack was taller than she is). A bonus pick as a tribute to Isis the Scientist is Bun's new kicks that I got her this weekend.

Enjoy.

MP

Upcoming

1. How I live vicariously through my kids
2. The rest of the picture post
3. Death and taxes

Victory

Mommyprof:4; Unsubmitted papers:0

(of course there is the two inches of grading, but I'm not looking in that direction right now...)