Need to grow a thicker skin

So, a long time ago, I started working on an article that's kind of related to a pop culture phenomenon that's in the news right now. The wheels of academic publishing being what they are, it was finally published in May and my university PR folks, wanting to take advantage of the recent events issued a release about the article.

I found this out from my Google thing that e-mails me when Mommy/Prof or my real name is mentioned.

So I looked up the Google reference, and found references to my article on several different web discussion boards dealing with this pop culture phenomenon. And there are lots of comments. Some refer to how I am just looking for attention for myself. Others, how the pop culture phenomenon is obvious and why do researchers waste time studying this (this was the majority). A few actually read the paper, and one took issue with my methods, which is ok. There were different ways to do the study and I picked one. A lot were criticizing my opinion about the pop culture phenomenon, which isn't actually contained in the article and is actually rather different from what they think.

But I don't think I like this publicity thing very much.

So apparently I am an enigma shrouded in mystery...

or I write really hard tests.

I did one of those How Much do You Know About Me quizzes on Facebook. High score so far? 40%.

Back in town

We went camping this weekend with one of Spouse's brothers and his family. To say they are a little different in camping style from us would be an understatement. They have bought a great deal of camping equipment like a tent that is big enough to hold two air mattresses as well as a playpen for their 2-year-old to sleep in. They brought a gas stove/foldable kitchen thing, a charcoal grill, a bicycle, etc. At lunch Saturday, we were cracking our MRE and they were charcoal grilling hamburgers. I felt a little bad since we agreed that we would do dinner Friday and they would do it Saturday and we did bratwursts and canned green beans, while they did chicken fajitas.

They live in the more upscale part of Nice State, where there is a lot of pressure in a certain subculture to stay home with the kids and to compete with other Moms for how perfect you are. Apparently the summer form of this is how well your kids can swim how early. So we had to camp at a park with a pool and spend a lot of time there so their 4-year-old could get lots of practice jumping off the diving board into 8 feet of water.

I'm shocked

The Dad of one of the Girl Scouts in my troop was just arrested for sexually abusing the girl in my troop. I don't even know what to say.

Weirdness

So I visited friend's school in the state that is next to Nice State yesterday. It is also pretty nice.

I got a very weird vibe there - there was a great deal of faculty outspoken about how hard it is to work with the administration, but that's not necessarily atypical. But one senior guy said "Well, it's pretty good if you never say anything negative about the administration or the school. But if you do, it usually works to just hit the 'apologize' button repeatedly."

Then today, my friend e-mailed me to see if we are still hiring at PrettyGood.

Weird, huh?

Family troubles

So my Mom called last night with more bad news about my Dad - nothing life threatening, but he had a root canal last week, and that same tooth broke over the weekend. This brings their grand total to:

1. Bad stress test leads to cardiac catheterization
2. CC finds two blockages - repairs one on the spot.
3. Bad rxn to medicine given after CC means back to hospital
4. Pipe that takes sewage out of house breaks
5. Plumber takes 10 days to get there to start work
6. Computer monitor dies
7. Computer CPU dies
8. Car dies badly enough to require replacing
9. Tooth falls apart

I'm sure it's all been hard on my dad, but it may be even harder on my Mom who, at the best of times, has pretty major anxiety issues.

It is hard when you are so far away!

Got my girl back

The camp took Offspring late, so she got to go for a few days, and I picked her up today.

She was up until 2 a.m. watching HP movies, so she is asleep now, but she had a GREAT time.

The rest of the family is having trouble managing our recreation plans, if you can believe that. Worrying about how to maximize our two weeks left here in Nice State. I am going next week to look at a school in the state that borders here that will have a position to fill next year. I have a conference buddy who works there and he is putting in a good word for me, so hopefully I will like it - especially since they will have a job in Spouse's field next year as well.

Fingers and toes crossed!

Other things that suck

Summer colds for the whole family. Except for Spouse. So it sucks to be spouse.

But hey, it's not 105 here, so things aren't really so bad!

Things that suck

Waking up on the day that you are supposed to go to Harry Potter camp for a week with a 102 fever and a cough.

Poor Offspring!

A conferencing we'll go

So I came back to Nice State sick. We are looking at the end game of the summer now (Boo!) and, even though classes don't start for another 6 weeks, we have to plan for the big annual conference in my field. I have to come up with two posters and two presentations. I wrote the papers to submit, so it's not actually that bad, but I am getting the posters printed at PrettyGood with a grad student who is presenting them bringing them, so that's always dicey.

We take Offspring to Harry Potter camp next week.

Random, I know.

on the road

The housesitter is coming back and we are going back to nice state, where the high temperature today is supposed to be 20 degrees colder than it will be here.

I have left undone those things which ought to be done, but at least I will get to take care of it in a place that is pleasant to be.

My week

So this week has been spent back in Central State. I guess I accomplished my main goal, which was to get my master's student through her defense, which went really well, and I am very glad for her.

Not much else was done, however because a) we have no child care this summer since we are between daycares for Bun ( and not paying, so I am not complaining) and because b) I agreed to help with children's music camp at our church this week. It is fun to work with the kids and a good outreach for our church, but I get the job for which I am probably least qualified - leading 7-12 year olds in making the props for the show. This apparently means they do a small thing and then I make the props after they leave.

The problem is that I was, as Dave Barry so eloquently put it, born without the Betty Crocker gland. Seriously. I gave up leading the scout troop in part because I stink at crafts so badly. I don't have the patience to work a sewing machine. Hot glue guns frighten me.

This was a prop-heavy show and even though I was able to palm some of the difficult stuff off on Spouse who, bless him, has both the skills and inclination to be creative, I still had action items involving fancy napkin folding, modeling clay, hot glue and purple feather boas, among others.

The show is tomorrow, and I will be most glad to return to Nice State on Monday.

I'll leave you with this blast from the past.

You might be working on a play if...

you are very excited that the Dollar General in your tiny town has lavender feather boas, thus saving you a trip into the city.

Waaaaah!

That is me whining, most of the contents of which I will not share with you.

One minor highlight - it was over 100 degrees here and I hates it, I really do. Plus, I am not getting diddly done for various reasons I will not whine about.

I got back to Nice State on Monday and I am quite ready.

Drives me nuts

Listening to the radio on the way home from the store, Offspring in the back.

The radio station that plays music I like most of the time (sadly, I'm kind of in the "adult contemporary" bracket now!) also plays John Tesh and his intelligence for your life feature.

The reporting of research with bad interpretations drives me insane. Tonight was 10 ways to not have a heart attack, which included things like "Eat room-temperature watermelon!" and "Count to 10 before you yell at someone!" These were accompanied with statistics on how much you lower your risk of heart attack (what does this really mean anyway? Compared to what?).

So, according to my pal JT, you can lower your risk 60% if you exercise at least 2 hours a week. You can lower your risk 54% by drinking 5, 8-oz glasses of water a day.

As I was expressing my opinion on this kind of science reporting to Spouse, Offspring says "What's wrong with it?" I told her it looks like you can lower your risk by exercising or by drinking water. Do you think the two might be related, I asked.

She figured out on her own that people who exercise a lot probably get thirstier and drink more water. "So the water might not matter at all!" she said. "Do you know," I ask? "You can't, with the way they said it," she said.

While I love my logical child, I am sure there are poor schlubs out there who are thinking...Well, I could get out and exercise more and lower my risk. Or I could sit on my butt and throw back a few glasses of water and lower my risk almost as much...hmmm...which to choose....

Ugh.

Momentous decision

Although I have hated being back here this week, it has inspired me to make a very important decision.

This year, I will be grading in turquoise. I now have a good reason to visit the office supply store.

That is all.

People are selling tickets to Michael Jackson's memorial service on the Internet

Is anyone really surprised by this?

Really?

I miss it

So we spent the 4th traveling from 55-degree darkness in Nice State to 100+-degree awfulness in Central State, our adopted home.

It is not unusual for us to be on the road, but we usually try to be at my folks' place when we can. They live right by the beach in New England, and, even though the town is over-run with residents of a nearby city who are wealthy and rent summer places for huge fees, they do a pretty good ersatz New England Day with the community band playing Stars and Stripes Forever, families setting up picnics on the beach (and losing children - at least once a year, they make announcement that "we have a little boy named Matthew here at the lifeguard stand and he doesn't know where his family is"). They have fireworks that they shoot off from a barge offshore and you can smell the clambakes and the gunpowder and the Coppertone and it's just a really nice time.

Back in Mid-sized city

*sigh*

Wherein life imitates Dilbert

I used to be what Scott Adams pegged as the "bitter, inefficient secretary." When Spouse first started graduate school, I left a job in the field I now teach to follow him to Prestige U, which proudly bills itself as centrally isolated, which means that pretty much every student and faculty trailing spouse is hideously underemployed.

We needed money and health insurance (at that time, even in Spouse's technical field, GA salaries were less than $10,000/year), so I got a job working for the university, serving as secretary for this fairly major research lab. I ordered supplies, did receptionist stuff, figured out how to Fed Ex body fluids to other countries and other fun tasks. I hated it for a number of reasons, and would often put off the most-loathed tasks (reconciling the lab budget with the university's records and ordering obscure lab supplies) longer than I should.

Karma is now biting me in the butt.

I have 3 grad students who got papers accepted to the big international conference in my field. Hooray for us. The chair agreed to pay for registration and airfare. Since, you know, I don't get paid over the summer the, I was hoping that maybe administrative staff in my department could ask them when they wanted to fly and go ahead and buy the tickets with the university's money. I have given up on our students, who are master's level, and make $2500 a year on the best funding package we offer, advancing the money for tickets for several months until PrettyGood decides to pay them back after the event.

Yesterday, I get an e-mail from one of our administrative people saying the other one called a travel agent who quoted them more than $1000 per ticket to go to this other US city for the conference, which is too much, so they can't go. End of discussion.

I don't know what kind of travel agent they quoted, but the going rate from Mid-sized City to Conferenceville is less than $300, and I couldn't even find a fare as high as the travel agent quoted.

So I think I am going to have to buy their tickets and effectively loan PrettyGood $900 for the rest of the summer, while they aren't even paying me.

Karma. It bites.

My graines

So I get these weird migraines where I don't get any pain usually, but I have a small part of my vision disappear in my right eye and I sometimes feel funny on that side (kind of like the side of my face and arm have fallen asleep). Because of the missing vision that other parts of my brain know are there, I get dizzy if I turn my head fast or when driving.

To put it delicately, they are "hormonal," and thus part of a really fun package.

Some months I have more trouble than others, and in the worst months, I will go about a week with about 4-6 of them a day, with each lasting about 1/2 hour. This is one of those worst months. Boo!

Don't bring me down

Well, my grad student who I thought was finking out on defending pulled it together, so that is good.

But another that I hired for the summer really let me down.

Plus, all this niggling work stuff keeps popping up, which would be ok, except that if I am working for free in the summer, I'd rather be doing stuff that advances my interests, not putting out fires caused by other people's incompetence. Also, everything is moving at summer pace, which is kind of like running a race in molasses, so the support I need at PrettyGood to do stuff for PrettyGood isn't always there.

Does intrusion of work into the summer irritate you? Or have you made peace with it?