Decision time

We are making an effort to thin out things so we don't have as much to move. Some things are easy decisions. For example, I kept pretty much every piece of work Offspring did in first grade. It was a big stack on a closet shelf, and so I found a representative piece or two and let the rest go.

But when we are looking at things like toys barely outgrown, it feels a bit like we are giving away their childhoods. My parents were/are serious packrats, and I have to say that I have over the years gotten a great deal of pleasure from finding an old essay or well-loved toy. We moved all the time when I was a kid, but Dad was in the military, and military movers just box up the whole house and bring it to your new one.

Spouse and I are also getting rid of a lot of personal stuff of ours, like the course catalog from our last year at Undergrad U, which has my picture in it. I was joking with Spouse about how when we are famous and dead, historians won't have much to look at to reconstruct our exciting lives. But I do wonder if my kids will miss out by not being able to have that experience as much.

I suppose I'll have to leave a link to this blog for them.

And the packing continues.

I really want to get all of the packed stuff out of my office so I can have a better view of what is left to do. I have to turn in my keys by Friday.

That is all.

One step forward, two steps back

So here we are, about 10 days before we are supposed to head out for the summer, and we've packed a good bit. We have many rooms that are an hour or so away from being ready to show, and I think will have it listed with a realtor by the end of the week. In some ways, I REALLY wish Offspring's school was over, since the end of the semester projects and such are taking a lot of time.

Example: Your child must work with another child to do a 5 minute PowerPoint presentation on a topic in 20th Century History that must have about 20 slides. They will work on this at school, just wanted you to know. 5 days later - oh, we've decided not to work at it at school, so you'll have to figure out how to get it done at home. Oh, and the other kid's mom is a "little flaky." Oh, and they don't have a computer at home. Oh, and in those 5 minutes with 20 slides, your topic is World War II. I have so many issues with this assignment that I would have trouble listing them, but the kids not being taught what an effective presentation or use of Power Point, or even how to use it, would be right up there. *Hint - not trying to cover 20 slides in 5 minutes would be a good start.

At least we're not doing softball. Most of her friends have 3 games plus a practice this week. I honestly don't know how people do that.

On the other hand, not having the kids around definitely makes it easier to get stuff done. We lose daycare next Friday (now THAT'S SCARY), and I think life will get substantially more complicated after that.

And I may lose my PrettyGood e-mail account next week.

So, much to do, and I had better go do it.

What have we gotten ourselves into?

So I have packed 12 boxes at home this week to take with us, and I have a 3-foot-high, 5-foot-wide stack of things to take to Goodwill this afternoon. And I feel like I haven't done anything yet. If you look around the house, you really can't tell.

Have you sold a house? We never have, so I will take any advice you have to offer.

Cleaning

Thrown our recently:

Files related to research projects published
Files related to research projects I won't be doing anything with (usually heavy student participation and with a fatal flaw)
3" of Scantron forms from 10 years of the basketweaving department final

I keep finding documents related to my tenure case. I'm keeping the notebook since I think it will form a good foundation for the one I'll be preparing in a few years. I keep finding letters, contracts, etc. I haven't let those go. Don't know if I should...

Music

We are not musicians, but Spouse and I have both had music as an important part of our lives. We even met in marching band. Hem. Spouse. Can you help that young lady behind you. She seems very confused...

In all fairness, my high school didn't have a real marching band.

Anyway, Spouse made us a car CD that we are listening to on the drive in, in the mornings because it reminds us of Daddy. So American Tune comes on and I pause it and point out to Offspring the strings in it and how not many rock songs use orchestra. "This is a rock song?" she asks me, and I correct myself and say I guess it's more folk.

We drop Offspring off, and Don't Stop Believing comes on. Bun, who is still in the back, yells PIANO! That's a piano. About 10 seconds later, she yells "HEY, THAT'S JOURNEY!"

I'm making it. I've got the chance, I'm taking it.

Anyone remember that show? Yeah, I'm old.

Anyway, Spouse finally made it to Europe 2 days later. If he couldn't do his original flight plan, it was actually fine that his second didn't work out, because he'd have been trapped in England instead of New Jersey. At least in New Jersey, his cell phone worked and I was able to get him a close-by hotel. So he flew out last night and arrived, managed the subway and train systems in a country where he only speaks a bit of the language and is in conference city. He even had time to have lunch before his talk.

I'm in Central State with two slightly sickish kids. Bun decided it was ok to eat all the dark green frosting piped around the cake board on the leftovers from a going away cake we got last week, and made herself nauseous for the better part of a day, and then yesterday had green poo. Nice. Offspring seems to have a spring cold.

I am at the office, clearing out e-mail and packing. I hope to have my office empty by the end of the week. I am also packing at home - Bun's clothes and many of her toys are done, and I'd like to finish that today and start on Offspring. I need to get their rooms painted this week (right now, Bun's is jade green and Offspring's is purple.

Dear airlines, I hate you

Spouse is supposed to be in Europe today, but instead is in New Jersey. His original plan didn't involve New Jersey at all - He was supposed to go from Capital City to State's Largest City to Europe, with a stop.

Instead, the airline decided that at the stop, they would change equipment, and so he wouldn't have time to make that, as it is now a connection. So they re-issued his tickets to go Capital City to State's Largest City to New Jersey to Big European City to Destination European City (only 7 more hours of travel!).

Sadly, there were thunderstorms in State's Largest City (not really, but it looked cloudy, so, you know). So that flight left 5 hours late, meaning Spouse arrived in New Jersey 40 minutes too late for the flight to Big European City. He stood in line for 90 MINUTES at the "service" center in New Jersey, and will now leave New Jersey at 9 tonight to begin the journey. He'll arrive at Destination European City and pretty much have to walk in and give his paper immediately.

The only good part is that the rest of us considered going along and didn't. Imagine how fun this trip would have been with a pre-schooler.

Signs of an interesting career

Cleaning out my desk, I found 4 bottles of ibuprofen, 73.5 Thai Baht, 40 Swedish Kronor, 35 cents Belizean, $4.63 US change including a Susan B. Anthony dollar and a bag of pennies.

Levels

A Cutieboo update: She told the student that final grades are due today at 5 (true) and that she would try to grade any of the missing work that the student could get in by 4:30. Of course this is a mistake, but Cutieboo will learn this with experience. The student has been a regular at counseling services, from what I understand.

In other news, I was thinking today about how we moved a lot when I was a kid. My Dad was an Army officer, so the family moved on a few weeks' notice pretty much every other year until I was in 7th grade. I got good at waking up in my bed in a new community and going door to door asking "Do you have any children I can play with?" Other people who are Army brats understand this, I think.

So my girls have had a lot more stability in their lives than I have. I remember going to school in several states and what our houses and neighborhoods were like, but I don't feel especially attached to any of them.

For Offspring, especially, I wonder what this move is going to be like for her. How she will feel about Central State by the time she, say, graduates from high school.

This move is coming at a rather natural break for her, as she starts middle school next year anyway. However, my Dad got out and we moved to the town where I graduated high school at the start of 7th grade, which was the start of Jr. High there, and it didn't help. Junior high was still hellacious.

We are meeting with her HR teacher and guidance counselor today to get advice as to whether we should try to get her placed up a grade when we move.

Wowza

So my computer, which is wheezing its way to slow and painful death, decided to be slow and painful today, so I went into one of the labs to grade, since I have to look at things on-line and submit the grades on-line.

I heard CutieBoo, our newest, ink not yet dry on the dissertation, faculty member with a student in the office. This student was trying everything in the book on her:

*It's not my fault that I didn't do the work, because you didn't remind me enough
*It's not my fault that I didn't do the work, because it wasn't clear what you wanted
*I am a better student than this grade indicates
*It is irrelevant that I missed 10 classes out of 30 in a class with a written attendance policy, because I am so brilliant that I don't need to learn anything from you by attending class
*My life *sniff* is so hard, because I am in school and I have a full time job
*MY LIFE *WAIL* IS SO HARD, because I send money home to my family so my Dad and sister can buy groceries. What is wrong with my doing that, you BIG MEANIE!
*MY LIFE "WAIL" IS SO HARD, because I don't have any friends *sniff*, don't do anything but work *sniff* and if you weren't such a BIG MEANIE, YOU'D UNDERSTAND!
*If you don't give me a 'C,' I won't graduate

Poor CutieBoo. She was getting really flustered. After said student left, I went in to be supportive and found out that this student is one in one of my classes (passed with a C-------------) and in one of my colleague's, too. The other professor and I had both referred her to the naughty students hotline (we call it a Success Center!) for not turning in huge amounts of work and not showing up to class. I showed CutieBoo how to pull a student transcript and see that this student has historically oscillated between semesters of mostly As and semesters with Ds and Fs. I explained to CutieBoo how this generally corresponds to a student with unresolved depression or anxiety issues and reminded her that it's a good idea to keep a box of tissues in the office.

It's all over but the shouting

I gave my last final at PrettyGood today, in my grad class. I am not that fond of most of the students that were new this year, but I really grew attached to last year's class, one of whom was in the final today, along with the two I kind of like the best from this year's bunch.

They all wanted some kind of closure on their way out, but I wasn't sure what to say.

My undergrads stunk it up big time on their finals, so some of them are going to be getting lower grades than they think they deserve (the final is 25 percent). I had one write to me over the weekend saying she wasn't sure how to calculate weighted averages, but she really NEEDS a B in the class. Sadly, she's getting a C+.

In happier news, I am going to be teaching 2 grad classes in the fall, and I got an invitation to go on the overseas trip to an exotic tropical location with the graduate students at NewSchool. So yay!

Mother's Day

So it's all over, and my uncle didn't come. Violet's new husband seems pretty mature, and I hope that maybe in future years he can have a calming influence, although that's a lot to put on the new husband.

Today is Mother's Day, and we are headed home this afternoon. The girlies and I are staying in another city (the hotels near the farm are of the $80 a night Econolodge variety) at a historic inn (just a little more), and most of the family is coming up here for their fancy-schmancy brunch. I am one of two of my 10 cousins who has kids.

Watching trains wreck

So I am here in Hillbilly Heaven with the girls, as we are here for my cousin's wedding. It's not the kind of thing we would probably go to, as it is in the middle of finals (Spouse is giving one for me today) and is costing us about $1500 to be here, but Grandpa died last year, I thought it would be good for the girls to see the family farm one more time and to get a chance to see their cousins all together. Amazingly, it's a decent-sized family that stretches from Utah to Maine, but we are all here.

My cousin, Violet, is younger than the rest of us by about 15 years. My uncle was an "unplanned" pregnancy, about 7 years behind the rest of his 3 brothers, and Violet was born pretty late in his life. But now she's 22 and she's getting married. Unfortunately, uncle and Violet's Mom broke up when she was about 10, and Violet lived in the next town over with her Mom and Ricky Bobby, her Mom's new husband. Uncle and my grandparents were very involved in Violet's life, though, as were some of my cousins who live closed. Despite this, Violet decided that Ricky Bobby is going to walk her down the aisle today. My uncle is very offended, and has decided he is not attending the wedding.

Even though Violet is not handling things very well (she is just assuming Uncle will come around at the last minute and show up, so she's not especially worried about it), I know from my years of working with people that age, sometimes they are shockingly immature, but that they do eventually get better. So I want to say to Uncle that even if he comes and sits in the back for the ceremony and goes home, he needs to be the one who sucks it up if he ever wants to have a relationship with Violet or any future grandchildren. I don't think he will though, and this branch of the family has a pretty good history of holding grudges. There is a major, turn-of-the-century feud involving larceny, vandalism and even murder that is in part named for my family (not the Hatfields and the McCoys, but similar. It was even written up in the New York Times).

So here we all are, and we should be very happy, but instead we are all very sad.

Grading jail interlude

So we had a big power outage in Mid-Sized City last night, and our ISP at home is still not up. So I have to be in the office today in order to have Internet. Unfortunately, our two administrative people are taking advantage of the relative quiet to have this loud, protracted conversation about the university's purchasing card program, right outside my office.

Today's grading music in my noise canceling headphones: Bat out of Hell. Seemed appropriate.

Yeah, I know, cry me a river

So the church the Prof. family attends is right next to PrettyGood's campus. We get some student participation, but it's mostly a group that is over-educated and introverted, which doesn't meet the desires of a lot of 20 year olds today. But one thing we do is open up during finals for students to come and study. We have an education building with lots of spaces in it and from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. at night during finals, church members stay around, keep the building open and we provide snacks and stuff. I don't have a problem staying up late, so I am there until 2 one of the nights, and on that night, I make pancakes.

We had about 160 students last night, so I was making pancakes for about an hour and a half (if the professor thing doesn't work out, I guess there's always iHop).

For the last two years, I have invited my graduate students to come, and every semester, at least a few have. Last night, my poor depressed and lost international student came for a while. He is going to graduate in August after his basketweaving internship, and has no clue about what he wants to do after that. He applied for law school at two Flyover State Universities and got it, but isn't sure that's a good use of resources (I don't think it is).

The other is my student who I like so much who is definitely going on the top 10 favorites list. She stayed until 2, I think in part because I will probably not see her in person again. She's going into industry, where she will do great, but her husband is from one of the Flyover states, and badly wants to return, so that is what they are doing. It's kind of like I'm losing a good friend, even though I probably shouldn't think of it that way.

Today's self reminder: I will have great students at New School, too, and I'll enjoy it more with a more predictable administration.

Surprising

There was a faculty meeting yesterday at which my colleagues surprised me with flowers and a cake. Although I am a firm believer in "a grocery store cake in a beige conference room is not a party," I did appreciate it.

The faculty meeting discussion that followed was grim. Our department enrollment is down 25 percent, and this is going to mean quite a few problems down the road (like next year). I just kept repeating to myself "It's not my problem. It's not my problem."

I was caught up on grading last night, but tonight I get a whole new stack.

An interlude

The lady: Amani. A graduating student who is an American citizen, but grew up partially in Pakistan.

The gent: Brad. Another graduating student. A little older than typical - he just turned 30 and is returning from several years working at a Christian prep school in Korea.

They are both some of the brightest students I have ever taught and they have a lot in common as far as interests and personalities. As the two years went by, they grew closer, but religious differences ultimately are keeping them apart. It has been kind of sweet and sad to watch at the same time (both from a distance, of course, since it's not really any of my business!)

Thought for the day

As I sit here reeking of chlorine after my scout troop trip to a waterpark (they had a GREAT time, and it was good to see Offspring getting along with such a variety of girls), I am thinking that perhaps I am expecting too much of Spouse and this move. There is no quick fix - we are going to have a ton of mixed feelings, all at once, and maybe that's ok. I guess I just want us to think about positive things, too.

Sturm and drang

A bit of an upsetting day yesterday, as I continue to realize how much my leaving is going to fix problems for people at PrettyGood. It's quite strange to hear, in the same week, that when I walk out the door, 40 percent of the publications for the department are going with me and that gee, it's too bad that they couldn't do anything for me, buy, hey-o, good luck there, kid.

Spouse is still upset, and I am not sure what will make him happy. He has a solid job offer at the same rank about 20 miles from where I'll be working, but he doesn't like it. I told him he can stay here for another year, and look again, or work in industry for a year, which would make him more marketable in academia, but he doesn't like that either. Getting two faculty jobs so close seems near miraculous to me, so I don't know what we are going to do.

And today, I get to take my Girl Scout troop on an overnight to an indoor water park 100 miles from here. I'm sick, and don't want to go, but I have the first aid and CPR training, so I have to.

Shouldn't I be happy? What's wrong here?