The corruption of references

New School has a pretty extensive study abroad program, and students have to get recommendations from faculty in order to participate. I have a student who has had mono and missed a great deal of class. She's been pretty good about making up work, but she's also the kind of kid who will argue with you about two points on a quiz that doesn't really count very much anyway.

So she asked me for a recommendation. Actually, she didn't even ask me, she just put my name in with the Overseas Center, assuming I would do it.

Sadly, this student has quite a few friends in the class, so if she doesn't get picked or if I politely refuse, it could affect my all-important student evaluations.

Blerg.

The agony of defeat

So the article Apollo and I wrote was rejected. By the editor. Without even being sent out for review.

It's his first article, so I think he's taking it harder than I am. I think it's still salvageable. The editor's concerns are mostly, imo, on target, including one flaw I hadn't thought of. The most serious one, I think is overcomeable. She was even complimentary about the part I put the most effort in to.



But I'd like to know what YOU do after a rejection.

Cleaning, work and guilt

Vis a vis this parenting blog post in the New York Times, BOY do I feel guilt over all of these things. It's a little crazy - right now I am feeling guilty about

a) The shlocky job I am going to do on this paper I'm presenting next week
b) Staying in university town with Bun last night since I had an evening work obligation that went until 8:30 (on the plus side, since Bun goes to bed early, I got a couple of good hours in on the shlocky paper)
c) Writing this blog post instead of working on the shlocky paper
d) We haven't finished unpacking
e) I'm keeping everyone fed and clothed, but the housecleaning has been kind of minimal
f) My kids leave stuff everywhere, and I don't have the house together enough yet to get clear places for things to go
g) I have a late meeting at work today that is super mandatory and they are checking attendance (long story and not as bad as it sounds) so Spouse is having to drive from his job to get Bun from daycare before it closes
h) I don't exercise, unless you count fidgeting (the fact that my stupid toe is still healing is not helping with this)
i) Offspring's Girl Scout meetings are on the worst possible side of town at the worst possible time, traffic-wise, so I HATE driving her with a burning, fiery passion that can almost not be described.

On the flip side, most days I do 1/2 hour of cooking in the morning, and when I get home, I literally don't get to sit down until family dinner time at 6:30 or so because of the minimal domestic stuff I do get done. Although my mom was a lousy housekeeper, and my kids aren't getting much of a better example from me, Spouse and I have jobs that use our brains and actually make a difference in the world.

Finally, in better news, this. I hope most people who see it will recognize the sarcasm.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Weathering Fights - Science: What's It Up To?
www.thedailyshow.com
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Maybe I'm just being bitchy

So if you are working on projects with someone and they say several times "Do you not sleep?" is it wrong to ask them to stop saying that?

I know she doesn't mean it to be rude, but it bothers me.

Shouldn't have looked

You know how you see headlines and know you shouldn't read the story because it will just upset you? I usually look anyway, so no surprise when I find it upsetting.

I had a similar experience with PrettyGood's alumni magazine. Under the "we have to have all faculty give money to the school so we can tell potential donors that they do" mantra, Spouse and I used to make small donations. So now we get the homecoming edition of the alumni magazine in hopes, I guess that we'll pony up again in the future (outlook - not good).

I shouldn't have looked at it, but, of course, I did.

As one might expect from an alumni magazine, it was chipper and full of amazing accomplishments. Really, it was well done. So much so that, for a moment as I was flipping through it, I thought to myself "Maybe we shouldn't have left." Then I remembered why we left - because I couldn't stay.

And I was bummed.

Car trouble

I'm sitting here on Sunday morning at the car shop because my check engine light came on this morning. Having the commute, this is one of my biggest worries - car trouble, as Spouse and my schedules and places to go are so opposite. THe shop I am at is not my favorite, but it's open on Sunday, which is good thing for me. Plus, they didn't try to upsell me too much today, which happened last time I was here.

I have AAA and the distance isn't that great, but both of our cars have pretty high mileage (over 130,000). If I'm just going to commute in it, I'm not extremely excited about getting something nice/newer, and it's not like we have a lot of extra cash sitting around after buying the new house, anyway. I think in most cases, we'd just be looking at some inconvenience, but I do worry a lot.

I'm blogging in my head, but I guess that doesn't count

Getting more behind in the posting. I have about an hour to and from work now, and I have a lot of good post ideas in the car, when I can't do anything about them. Then when I am quiet and in front of a computer, I have a hard time thinking about anything other than my to-do list. So, sorry about that.

Even now, I’m trying, but I have a lot of random thoughts. My boss just came in. His wife has a very serious form of cancer that took a downturn. They started a new, harsher treatment, but it has a possibly life-threatening side effect. You might or might not experience it, and she is. Such bad news. I wish I could do more for him, since, really, everything that happens here is so very unimportant in comparison with that. I don’t teach in his area, and I can’t do his administrative stuff.

How am I still behind?

That's what I want to know.

Research

Funny how research gets better when you have time to work on it.

Paper #1 with Apollo finally went to the journal. It's his first, and he's quite excited.
Paper #2 with (have to think of a good name for this colleague): fixed the coding issue and Houston - we have results. And they're quite interesting. This paper may go farther than I thought.

I got a two solicitations from editors in the last month. The second one was something I thought a paper that was in pretty good shape could go to fairly quickly. This evening, I learn that a) the paper's not in that good of a shape and b) the journal is, shall we say, sketchy. GRRRRRR

Sadly, classes resume again tomorrow, so I need to get to work planning for this week and next. Oh, and I have to finish paper #2 with Apollo as well. If I could find the draft I started with, that would sure help...

Wish I had something good to say

It's Fall Break. Today was a little unfun. Research work. Phone call to guest speaker for November (going to rock!). Research work. Take grad student to lunch. Research work. Get two fillings. Watch Offspring's disappointing performance in track meet. Comfort Offspring. Make dinner. Take Offspring to scouts. Watch depressing episode of Glee. Feel guilty about how little is accomplished about research work.

Here's a little interesting tidbit:

This year's profgirls' Halloween costume:

Plants vs. zombies (a really fun app, if you haven't tried it).

Offspring is going to be a pea shooter, and Bun is going to be the zombie. She had her heart set on being a zombie this year (I was really pushing for Angry Bird and Pig, but Bun would have none of it).

Honest to goodness

Just finished my midterm grades, and I had a situation I haven't had in about 8 years. On one of the essay questions on the midterm my seniors took last night, pretty much everyone got it wrong. It's 30 points on the test, and it's important, so I ended up just grading the test out of 70. I'm going to re-teach that material and let them attempt an answer again.

I don't know why, but final averaging really stresses me out. I don't mind giving grades on individual assignments, but the figuring out what to convert an A- to for averaging and writing and rechecking Excel formulas is awful for me. I give a TON of small assignments, so it's not like I'm averaging 3 test grades together, either.

But it's done. We have two days off next week for a Fall Break, and I will definitely be working for both of them, as I have TWO paper presentations coming up in the next 3 weeks. Plus, I need to figure out what the heck I'm doing with my classes for the rest of the semester.

But hey, I'm caught up on grading : )

Note to self

When you work at a school where you have to assign midterm grades, don't give a midterm exam with essay questions the afternoon before those grades are due.

The more you know.

In my inbox today

Restaurant.com is having a sale - $25 restaurant gift certificates for $2

UNICEF needs help with an urgent nutrition crisis

Truth

We made it.

Sometimes it seems like things go so well here that what we see as catastrophic issues are minor inconveniences elsewhere. And things really do go well here.

Today, I am so glad we moved on.

Truth or untruth

So my unit at NewSchool is up for reaccreditation this year, and the accreditation team is here and one of them decided to talk to meeeeeee today.

It's my second year. What do I know?

Then again, I've been doing this for 15 years, so maybe I do know something? The accreditation is program by program, and I'm worried that one of our programs is not going to make it.

Clean up, clean up

So we have 23 boxes left to unpack, and NewSchool has grades issues at MidTerms, so I have a little bit of clean-up grading to do of things that came in late, etc. I give a midterm test tomorrow and Thursday, so I'll have to grade those as well.

Also, I woke the girls with "I'm still alive" this morning, and the link goes to a fun, new version, complete with Theremin intro.

Sunday night and

I've unpacked several boxes, but written no midterms.

I let Bun talk me into staying in New Town tonight. I have a 7:30 meeting tomorrow, so I'll (we'll) be up at 5 to make it in time.

In more college-related news, I had the folks from NewU's teaching center come in an do a focus group in my problem class last week. When I met with them for the debrief, the comment I got was "I've never seen this before, but they hate the class. But they like you."

Future - ho!

Like tally-ho or kites-ho.

Anyway, I am sitting on an actual non-folding chair in my house. That's right - the movers came today and we FINALLY have our furniture in our new place.

Tomorrow looks to be a day of homework for me (writing midterms), Spouse (grading midterms) and Offspring. I have under my nameplate a picture bun drew of me last year, and I am trying to get her to do a new model this year, so perhaps she will work on this while we are working.

Oh, and 23 more boxes left to unpack. But I get to sleep in my bed, in my house tonight.

Tomorrow, Bun and stay at the townhouse, since I have a 7:30 a.m. meeting Monday and have to get Bun to school as soon as it opens. So that's a little bit of a bummer.

But we're here. And we have our furniture. So the house feels a little bit more like it is ours.

Nothing like posting at 3 a.m.

That's what you get when you fall asleep at 8:30, I guess.

Spouse is on Fall Break yesterday and today. He spent yesterday at our old house supervising the packers (we get our actual furniture on Saturday!). Today, he has to supervise a massive grading party for his class of thousands' midterms.

Speaking of midterms, I have now finished writing the descriptions of mine. I don't give out a comprehensive study guide, and if I do, it's the evil sort where I basically write down everything I have covered and tell them some of it will be on the test, or, I write a bank of 30 questions that I give them and tell them I will ask 3. But I do tell them what kinds of questions there will be and give them a sample question or two. I give two tests next week, and one the week after.

I also generally let the students bring an index card or cheat sheet. I feel like memorization is over-rated in a lot of things, and having to boil everything down to fit on a card is actually a useful studying exercise. Plus, it relieves some stress for the students (makes them think I'm "fair" and lets me put things on the test that are more synthesis than recall. So it's a win-win.

I have my Fall Break the week after next. I am going to try to maybe get ahead a little for my classes (!) and I definitely want to get one paper sent off that's pretty much done, and possibly get two sent off. We shall see. It's only 2 days.

Deep thought

NewSchool has 4 credit hour classes, which means 4 instructional hours per week.

Students are very resistant to lectures at this point. Honestly, they start to glaze over after about 5 minutes - some of them immediately.

So I have my students learn the facts on their own (lots of reading, daily reading quizzes so they do it) and we have activities in class pretty much every day.

I feel like a pre-school party planner, trying to come up with enough activities to keep the little dears engaged for an hour and 40 minute class session.

There's something wrong with this picture.

Things rattling around in my head at the moment

1. I finished those freshman term papers. Thank. Goodness. I also had the good sense to try really hard to not assign anything hard to grade this week.

2. I had one of said freshman write me to ask if she can leave early for the two-day Fall Break. As in miss a whole week Without penalty.

3. While I was freezing at Girl Scout campout (so very cold!), Spouse was doing stuff in the house and put a chair where it didn't used to be. Dark + unexpected chair = black toe that hurts a whole lot to walk on. I am telling people I am hobbling because it looks so cool. But seriously, I have to leave for my classes (all of which are in other buildings this semester) about 10 minutes early for limp time. Fantastic.

4. In the last week, I had two different journal editors solicit articles from me (woot!). I need to get some things out the door, so I am considering reinstating the research goal with political contribution consequence plan from a few years ago. I discussed this with Spouse, and he said I should do it with Rick Perry because he a) terrifies me and b) is electable. Michelle Bachmann just terrifies me.

the only thing better

than having to walk out of a faculty meeting that is running over when daycare is closing, while the dean is speaking,


is


limping out of the faculty meeting.

#conspicuousmuch