Really quickly

I'm here at the Seoul airport on the way to China for work.

Blogger is blocked in China, so I'll be off for a week.

Y'all be good.

The point of 4

I see the interviews with individual faculty as being a little like speed dating. The things that you talk about aren't as important as giving the impression that you are the kind of person who would be ok to have in the office next to you for the next 30 years. That being said, most people find you more interesting if you are interested in them, which is why I do the homework.

But, JR, I do sometimes feel like Matt Lauer more than I like. In those cases, I try for really open-ended questions like "When you came to SuperU, what surprised you the most. And are those things still true today? Or, what's the best thing about working with SuperU students?" I asked the dean once what the biggest challenges were that the college is facing.

Interview thoughts

I know some of you who are reading are graduate students, and might be curious about how academic job searches go. I'll put a few observations here, and more as I think of them.

1. Ads. Ads are written by committee, and I've never been involved in a search where what they really wanted was exactly what the ad said. This is particularly true at institutions where the list of things they want is so hugely ranging that it is highly unlikely that any human could be all those things. (The ad wants an advanced specialist in rattan work, but also the ability to teach undergraduate basket appreciation, graduate sisal methodology two, fibers and soaking seminars for the extension homemakers and interpretive dance with basket.) The last job I interviewed for, I knew someone in the department, so I just called him and asked what it was they really wanted before I applied. I got an interview.

2. Inside candidates. It is not uncommon at all for departments at non R1 kinds of places to have someone in place that they want to keep for a position, thus the search is just a formality. These are annoying.

3. Organization. Academics are not event planners, and tend to suffer from the kinds of planning deficits that make things tough for candidates. Case in point: Interview at Snowbelt U where I had my Dean's meeting, followed by my demonstration class. I needed some stuff for the class, but they didn't tell me that it was in a completely different building from where my stuff was kept. Case in point: Most recent interview, they had a 1/2 hour of down time before the demonstration class, but no where for me to sit, so I ended up just standing in the hall outside the classroom for that 1/2 hour. I try to not take it personally, because this kind of stuff has happened to me every where I have gone.

4. I always make a point to read up on the people in the department, what they teach, what they have published, etc. I use this to come up with some questions to ask them or points for discussion. Since not everyone you talk to prepares for meeting you, this can be a real lifesaver.

Holy Mom Jeans, Batman

So while Offspring was at basketball practice tonight, I had one of my least favorite experiences ever - trying to buy jeans. You see, I am leaving for the frozen wasteland on Thursday and the jeans I have are those low ones that make your belly look a little flatter, but will leave a frostbite prone strip when I'm out in, say 30 below for, say 4 hours at a time. (You can't even imagine what I am doing, but suffice it to say, it will suck. Big time.)

I had a gift card, so I went to The Gap. They had some jeans that were $60((!)Holy crap - do you people really pay $60 for jeans?)), but were medium rise and a very soft, comfortable fabric. Only problem - the size that fits me in the leg and hip department has an inch and a half gap in the waist. The size that fits the waist is more than a wee bit snug in the, say, hips and thighs. Plus, I have been very sensitive about the jeans thing since this:



So, no jeans for me. Hello strip of frostbite.

People to see, things to do

We made a list yesterday of all of the things we need to do to get the house ready for the inlaws. It is 3 single-spaced pages. Plus, Spouse is super behind already after missing a lot of work last weekend and week.

I don't know how it is all going to happen.

Please to enjoy

Worry

So Spouse just got done getting his liver ultrasounded up at the hospital. Unfortunately, the problem that would be relatively easy to fix is not it.

Not sure what happens now.

*Update: They are taking the wait and see approach. It might fix itself, and they want to give it a chance before they order more invasive testing. I am definitely in favor of this.

The interview

I have gone on a quite a few interviews in my life, many of them when I was just getting out of college and interviewed at 5 basket workshops before my first job in the field.

That being said, I really enjoyed my trip and my visit.

Although I realize that all schools have their little pathologies (and sociopathologies), this school really seems to have its act together in such an impressive way. Example - no deferred maintenance. Example - new programs get approved when they have a demonstrated good chance of succeeding, not just because an influential group on campus wants it. Everyone I talked to seemed to have a clear idea of what they are doing and what they are trying to do and why. And they are excited about it. It is a place that is going places, which I knew, but having visited, I now know why.

Unfortunately, I don't think I am good enough for them, looking at the qualifications of the rest of the faculty, so I am not expecting an offer.

But honestly, just visiting was inspiring.

TiVo

So my interview is over, and I am exhausted. So I thought I would spend tonight sitting on my butt and watching TV. Sadly, the only things that seem to be on are fake crime shows like CSI, true crime shows and second-tier reality shows about people making cakes and badly behaved rock stars. Is it always like this?

Kids are over-snacked

Amen to this story from The New York Times. Our meals on the weekend are often screwed up by snackiness. Offspring has basketball games at 9 in the morning on Saturday, and parents rotate to bring a snack for after (eaten at about 10:10), which means she never wants lunch. Bun gets a snack in the church nursery every Sunday, so she doesn't want lunch on Sunday. I realize that sharing a meal is nice and symbolic of cooperation, but I also think it teaches children bad eating habits. Plus, when it is my turn to bring snacks, I try to bring healthier stuff, but that usually doesn't get eaten (except by my kids, who are used to it).

I don't remember it being this way when I was a kid.

It's surprising

How few professional women you see flying.

I was at a couple of airports today (and I am now in East Coast town, staying across the street from the University), and I noticed how there were women travelers, but just about all of them were with family. Plenty of men in business attire, though.

Interesting, no?

Well, I'm going.

Spouse was up and about a bit today. He stopped taking the muscle relaxant last night, and I think that helped him feel more alert. It may also have messed up his liver, as he is now a stunning shade of yellow. This merited a return doctor's visit, and we wait for blood tests to tell us if it is serious.

But he feels well enough to drive the girls to and from school/day care while I am gone, so I am going to go.

So now we wonder

Grandma Prof offered to drop everything and come here to help, and we have enough FF miles to bring her.

Talked to Spouse's doc today, who thought a lot of Spouse's perpetual sleep state (dude, it's like he's unconscious most of the time) is caused by one of the meds, which Doc said he could quit taking without problem.

So we are going to try stopping that med tomorrow to see if that improves this. If not, we have a few friends with kids at the same schools as our girls from whom we might beg a couple night sleepover. If not, we may fly Grandma in.

As you can tell, I'd really like this job (because it is closer to Grandma, among other factors).

Will update tomorrow.

So now we wonder

if I am going to be backing out of this job interview. The medicine they gave Spouse is not helping, and in his present state, he can't take care of the girls.

Times like this, I do wish we lived in the same town as Grandma!

Saturday stinks a little when

your husband develops pleurisy. In case you are wondering, it hurts. A lot.

Thanks a lot, Central State

So Offspring is taking a standardized test tomorrow that is part of the talent search that she is enrolled in. If she does well, great, and that will help us advocate better for her at school. If she doesn't, so what? That tells us that what she is getting is appropriate.

But, thanks to the hysteria over standardized testing here in Central State, she has been trained to experience a good bit of test anxiety. It's pretty silly, really, since she is in the GT class, and since I would expect that most of those kids would pass the state tests without problems. But they are threatened regularly with tales of grade retention if they do not "take the test seriously."

I am having a hard time getting her to calm down about the thing she is doing tomorrow.

Focus

I am having serious trouble focusing today, I think because the Dean, who needed a witness the last time he talked to me, is coming over to meet with our basketweaving faculty because quite a few people hated on our chair in the evaluations of him we did last fall.

In my position, I feel that it would be politically inexpedient to speak at the meeting, but I wonder if this will cause nothing to be said at all.

I think this is some of what happens when you have 4 tenured faculty in a department with 400 majors.

Strange comment

I got my teaching evaluations from last semester, and got the following comment:
"She speaks in a monotone, which is kind of intimidating at first, but you get used to it."

So I have been thinking about what this could mean:

1. They mean mumble, which I know I do at times.
2. They were afraid I was some kind of evil robot at first, but later realized I wasn't.

Also, check out this article in the New York Times. I wear a 12 in a lot of clothes, and I find this kind of offensive.

GRRRRR

Student.........irresponsibility.........driving..........me...........crazy.

Minor victory

So this morning, I was stopped on the way to class by a student I had never seen before. The first words out of her mouth were "For your 12:30 class, do I have to come and take the final when the final is scheduled?" I was so shocked that I didn't think to refuse to answer and comment on how rude she was being.

But in that 12:30 class, I made a point that this was a capstone course and required a serious time commitment. She is now circling around the department waiting for her adviser to be free so she can drop.

Job interview

Next week. Place I would REALLY love to be.

Please send good vibes or whatever else ya got.

Things that are neither here nor there

* I am managing a Facebook fan page for a professional-type thing. I have now become a total Facebook junkie, checking our numbers several times a day, you know, like the kids do.
*Bun took naps without a fight both days this weekend. Woot!
* Offspring's alarm clock went kablooie right before the holidays, and I just today got around to ordering her a new one (as well as a Nissan thermos)
* Offspring won a literature contest, I found out yesterday. I'm not too happy about that, since she has had a lot of success lately, and she didn't put a lot of effort into the contest. I hate when things come easily to her, since, I know from experience that that makes it hard to work for goals that you have. Fortunately, it is basketball season, and sports involving balls are not really her thing : )
* Classes start tomorrow. Mostly I am excited.
* I am nearly caught up on laundry. My in-laws are coming in two and a half weeks to stay with the girls while we go to the other side of the planet for that same professional-type thing. I am worried about having everything in the house in good enough shape - thinking about how I have to clean and organize all the cabinets and dressers and, oh no, the closets! And the garage!
* Did I tell you I made biscotti before Christmas? It was my first attempt and it came out really well. It went in our "good will" basket for the graduate school, and I think they really appreciated that it was homemade.
*Classes start tomorrow. I guess I already said that.

Mommyprof and the no good, horrible, very bad day

So yesterday, the thermos I had bought from a normally very reliable catalog retailer with whom we have been doing business for 20 years exploded, spewing hot soup all over poor spouse, who was trying to fix my persisent cross threading of said device. He wasn't injured, but I was very grateful that it didn't fail at lunchtime at Offspring's school, thus showering her classmates with said hot soup.

I was incensed, because of the threat to my child that this device might cause. This company has a very generous return policy, and I was planning to return the thermos, which we have had for more than 4 months, mostly because of the hazard. But then, while I was trying to open doors and run water to thaw our frozen pipes this morning, I hit the recently washed Thermos with my elbow, knocked it off the counter, and broke a piece off the bottom. Now it looks like we experienced the failure because of abuse, so I don't think we can return it.

Trying to decide if I should return it anyway...Threw it in the trash in anger after "fun" event this morning, although I could get it out and wash it yet again.

Thoughts?

Trying to be positive

So I'm sitting here in a house with frozen pipes, with a fever, waiting until I can go back to the pharmacy and pick up my antibiotic prescription (sinus infection plus bonus bronchitis. Go me.) But Offspring suggested we try to all be positive this weekend so, here are 5 things I like:

1. The feeling of promise that a new semester brings
2. Paper acceptances (1 this week)
3. When my 3 year old is so assertive about wanting snuggles that she is pushing herself between me and my laptop.
4. Rum raisin ice cream
5. Winter nights when the stars are very easy to see. And our great binoculars with which to see them.

Things I hate

* Itchy winter skin
* Jet lag
* People who choose a sports team to cheer for just because a game is happening
* Fish sticks
* Jet lag in children

Advocacy

Being but a few deep breaths away from being an adjunct myself, I do have sympathy for the species, although none of the adjuncts in my department are using adjuncting as a day job - it's a supplement or bonus for them all. Several sections of our service course, which is about 50% adjunct taught, are not making for the spring. This is an unusual situation for us, and I think it speaks volumes about mid-year changes in PrettyGood's enrollment that must be occurring.

Some of it is also a management issue. We went through a period a few years ago where we had trouble coming up with folks to teach all of of our courses at a level that meets student demand, so now there is this attitude among those responsible for the undergraduate schedule that we need to try to hire as many eligible adjuncts as we can every semester, just to keep the pool viable.

Were it up to me (and, thank goodness, it isn't), we would try to hire most of them once a year. I think that would probably be enough to keep most of them interested.

Well, the proffie who does do the undergraduate schedule (who is not the chair, for some reason...), had an emergency hip replacement the week before Thanksgiving and was out until yesterday. The real chair didn't pay attention to scheduling and enrollments, and so we are in the situation that we have about 6 sections that are substantially underenrolled, and classes start next week.

The enrollment patterns haven't changed much since before Christmas, and, were anyone who is involved in this (and again, thank goodness, it isn't me) to have been paying attention, we could have at least let some of these people who were counting on teaching this semester know say, a month ago, that the class wasn't making. But we didn't, and now we are cancelling classes people thought they had the week before classes start. This means the students enrolled in those classes are having to make other plans, also, with almost no notice. Go us.

This affects me because I have one graduate student who is qualified to be an instructor in the department. He had one class left to complete, and he could have done an independent study and gone ahead and left mid-sized City, which his wife and family despise with a passion. However, the market in basketweaving is pretty soft right now, so I suggested that he stay here at PrettyGood for another semester and teach a class, so he can have that teaching experience on his resume, which gives him another option in our super-crappy job market in the field. So he agreed to do it. His section is 50% full, and another section taught by an adjunct at the same time is 50% full. I am paying the graduate student off of my TA budget and a grant I have (feel a little dirty inside doing that, but it made it work), so it will not cost the college anything to have him teach, and would cost actual cash to have the adjunct do it. Yet, yesterday, curriculum proffie came and asked me if they could pull the class from the grad student. I feel for the adjunct, but sh/e does have a day job and a lawyer spouse, whereas my grad student is ticking off his family, for whom he is the major breadwinner, in order to have this opportunity. So I said I didn't think that was a good idea. We'll see what happens.

I wish it had not gotten to that point.

One more thing

They made me drink my kid's medicine in Brussels to get it through security.

My brain is not working

I have a big need to be productive today, but the jet lag is killing me!

Here's a list of what we did -

Flew from mid-sized City to JFK, New York. Watched two planes break, delaying our departure so late that I think we just beat the snow from that pre-Christmas blizzard.

12-hour layover in Brussels. Took train from airport to downtown and mostly ate and froze. Had hot Belgian waffles (SOOOOO good), some Leonidas chocolate (ditto) and a cone of pomme frite with mayonnaise (truly gross, but I the fact that I have a pathological dislike of mayonnaise might have something to do with it)

Flew to Barcelona. Overnight in Barcelona hotel. Visited Sagrada Familia and then went and got on ship.

Visited Rome (pizza!), Naples/Pompeii (gelato!), Cairo/Giza/Memphis/Sakkara, Alexandria, Athens (gyro and baklava!), Izmir (kebabs!) and Crete (more gelato!).

Back to Barcelona (discount Spanish Christmas cakes from a grocery store we found!). Late flight, so we left our bags in a locker and took the hop-on/hop-off bus around. Flew back to Brussels. Overnight in Brussels. Extremely *hem* thorough security check at airport (including the full "But we just met, ma'am!" feel up for each and every lucky passenger including my 3 year old). Flew to Chicago. Welcome to the US. Flew back to Central State. Drove 2 hours and did not fall asleep behind the wheel.

And now we're home.

Did you miss me?

Well, as of 9 last night I am back from the trip of a lifetime. Not generally wanting to make everyone aware when we are far, far away, I didn't tell, but instead of the lovely Interstate Christmas that we usually do visiting family, this year, the Profs went on vacation. Spouse and I have our 20th anniversary coming up in the summer, and for about 10 years, we had been saving up and planning on taking a mediterranean cruise. It turned out that the downturn in the global economy made it more cost effective to go now, and we found a cruise that let us only take Offspring out of school for one day (and honestly, I can't say I feel too bad that she was eating waffles in Belgium on the Friday before Christmas instead of doing Christmas bingo and a Christmas party on the last day of school before Christmas).

So we did it. I am still having a little bit of a hard time believing that we pulled it off, and I know that we are going to be paying big time this week with jet lag (woke up at 3:30 this morning) and 50,000 things to do before the semester starts. But it was so worth it to take my kids to the pyramids, and the Parthenon and St. Peter's (two days before Christmas). Totally, 100% worth it.

I might post more about the trip if I have time later today (ha!)