Jumping on the band wagon!

OK- so tomorrow is the start of InaDWriMo and I though I better take the motivation while I can get it! I have that paper that I started over the summer and totally abandoned. It sits at about 3,500 words and just needs to be finished and submitted. I told Dr. Brazen Hussy that I would pledge 2,500 words, which looks really lame compared to the others who are doing this, but it will be plenty to finish the paper and start to revise a grant proposal I keep kicking around (and have been talking about in the grant-writing workshop I am doing this semester). Plus- with my new Mac Book Pro on its way, I will have no excuse NOT to write! I just need to go find and install a word counter in my sidebar. We'll see how it goes!

More evidence that students at my U really have their heads up their asses...

This morning I found an email from our U president. Here is part of it (emphasis is mine):

Tuesday afternoon, October 30, a Small Town U undergraduate, in what he reports to have been a group art project, hung several nooses and a tire swing from a tree on Busy Avenue on the main campus. Several students observed and were alarmed by the display and called the university police. In response to the students who confronted him, the student explained that he did not intend this to be racially motivated and apologized profusely for his actions. The police questioned the student and immediately removed the display.

I am deeply troubled by this incident and the insensitivity that it reflects. I am angered and dismayed that any person on this campus, particularly in light of the recent incidents in Jena, Mississippi, would even unintentionally create such a display. Dean So-and-so and others have met with many of the students who witnessed the display, assuring them in every way possible that the insensitive actions of this individual is the antithesis of the values we hold dear at Small Town U. I am most troubled that African American students, who have put their trust in Small Town U, had to confront the historic symbols of injustice and hatred in this country.

We have a mostly white student population (< 10% are non-white). I am also dismayed that any student would be that ignorant of the racial implications of doing something like this. I think the title of this post is the only explanation.

A letter from the Dean

Dear Professor N:
It is a pleasure to inform you of my intention to recommend you for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. Your credentials will be forwarded to the University Secretary on November 26th to be distributed to the all-University Promotion and Tenure Committee.

Sincerely,
Dr. Dean


ETA: Thanks everyone! I still have to be approved at the university level, but I've been told that the College is the biggest hurdle. I came home and have been relaxing, but am quite distressed that my laptop seems to be dead. I am trying to create a Boot CD, because it won't even start. Maybe I'll be buying that new MacBook sooner than I thought!

Talking myself into (and out of) things

Those of you who've been visiting this blog for a while know that I have a tendency to 'jump the gun'. Remember the job search last spring? I had resigned myself to not getting an offer... then I did. I ended up turning it down, but I did actually get the offer (unfortunately, it wasn't feasible for many reasons). Even when I was just applying, I checked the housing in the area on realtor.com. I imagined how we would transport our cars and 14-year-old cat across the country during the summer when we moved back out west. Of course, none of that happened.

So why do I convince myself that I know the outcome of things (which are beyond my control) BEFORE they are revealed to me? I really have no idea, except that it is the way I mentally prepare. I cannot even fathom NOT planning out these possible scenarios. I have to imagine myself in the new situation before it happens (or doesn't). I think most of it has to do with my control-freak nature. I feel like if I have a plan and know what MIGHT happen, then I still have some control over the situation and everything will be alright. I am currently doing the same thing, because I am waiting to hear about tenure (and will hear from the Dean THIS WEEK!). I am checking job ads in case things go well (and I can apply for associate jobs). I am checking in case, I am turned down, but H gets tenure (I actually don't have a good plan for this one yet). I am checking in case I get tenure and he doesn't (then he can leave academia and I will apply for associate jobs). Or if we are both turned down and I am back looking for assistant prof jobs. This level of uncertainty really drives me crazy. I can't DO anything about tenure at this point, so I watch the schedule that was published at the beginning of the year and guess what might be happening- I did the same thing with job searches last year. I talk to H about these things and he thinks I am crazy. I am counting my chickens before they hatch. I really don't know how to function any other way and it hasn't really caused me problems, either, I suppose. It's just my M.O. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go WAIT to hear some more!!!

scientiae carnival

Wild Addy N.

As seen at luckybuzz's place & elsewhere...

Build your wild self!

Throwing sheep

jo(e) said that she wanted to find real sheep to throw at her Facebook friends, so I thought I would join in too. I took this picture in spring 2006. It's not as scenic as jo(e)'s, but still a good one:

Here you go, Facebook friends- straight from my back yard!

Note to students:

If you are taking a class on natural hazards, you should probably know the minimum wind speed for a hurricane (especially before you take an exam!)

The Pharyngula Mutating Genre Meme

Dr. Brazen Hussy tagged me for a complicated meme! My brain is melting... However, I can't pass up being tagged and it's pretty cool.

First, the rules:
There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

• You can leave them exactly as is.
• You can delete any one question.
• You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question.
  For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is..." to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is...", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is...", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is...".
• You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is...".
• You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions. Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

So, without further ado:
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Pharyngula.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite.
My great-great-great-great-great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-great-great-great-grandparent is Primate Diaries.
My great-great-great-grandparent is Thus Spake Zuska.
My great-great-grandparent is a k8, a cat, a mission.
My great-grandparent is Monkeygirl.
My grandparent is DancingFish.
My parent is Dr. Brazen Hussy.

The best television series in SciFi is: Star Trek: The Next Generation
The best teenage movie in comedy is: 16 Candles
The best make-out song in classic rock music is: Shine on You Crazy Diamond, by Pink Floyd
The best children’s novel in classic fiction is: James & the Giant Peach, by Roald Dahl
The best high-fat food in Indian cooking is: Malai Kofta
The best recent movie in comedy is: Knocked Up

I tag:
Science Woman
Styley Geek
Seeking Solace
Mommy/Prof
Chaser

I love Fall

Wouldn't my mother be proud...

As seen at Dr. Medusa's


NameThatDrug.com - The drug test

I'm glad I learned something in college.

Southern California is Burning

I am feeling homesick for a place I left over 10 years ago. Large parts of San Diego County are burning and it makes me sad. I'm not wishing that I was there to lose a home (or worse), but I feel a strong attachment to San Diego, especially when there are fires. Most of my research has focused on wildfire- from my Master's thesis to dissertation to more recent work. Every time I hear about a big fire out west, it reminds me that I am out of loop. I don't live out there any more. I don't do research out there any more. And it makes me sad. I emailed a friend from grad school today to see if he had heard about the fires yet, and his reaction was "I have done field work in every site shown in these maps. It makes me want to get down there!" I feel exactly the same way! In 2003, most of my Master's thesis study area burned to the ground and I felt strange to be here in the deciduous forest and corn fields of the Midwest. I guess I just feel displaced. The Grant will take my research in a completely different direction (i.e, NOT fire) and I am excited about it. But I am also sad to get away from my first love- the research that got me through graduate school after piquing my interest as an undergrad (especially when a family I babysat for lost their house in a Southern California wildfire). I visited their neighborhood shortly after they let people back in and it was truly shocking to see the burned out houses and cars.

Now, I know that some of you will comment and suggest that I collaborate with some researchers out west and start some work out there, but I have not found that to be an easy thing to do. I don't really have any good connections left out there AND there are plenty of other things I would like to do in THIS part of the country, too. It's just that fire is not going to be one of them. Sigh. I'll just go back to checking online maps and images to see just how bad it is- and it sounds pretty awful- last I heard they are estimating 500,000 people being evacuated in So Cal. My thoughts are with them- I hope they stay safe.

Happy Birthday, Little Pumpkin

Eight years ago tonight, I was halfway through a 17-hour labor (including over two hours of pushing) and at 3:18AM MST, my little girl joined the world. I still can't believe that she's gotten so big. Where has the time gone? I was a 29-year-old PhD student when she was born and now I am in tenure review. We've dragged her all over the continent with us, from Mexico City to Anchorage, Orlando to Seattle. A friend of ours used to say "Well, D's a trooper" when she would be so well-behaved when we took her out. And she really is. It's been wonderful having her with us in our little family. I can't wait to see what she does as she grows up. Happy birthday, my little pumpkin- I'm so proud of you!

Jumping on the band wagon!

I saw this at luckybuzz's, who saw it at Canada's, so let's play!

By the end of the calendar year, I will send a tangible, physical gift to each of the first five people to comment here. The catch? Each person must make the same offer on her/his blog.

So start commenting & posting this over on your blog!

Kudos to them...

Mid-semester gripes

As you might have guessed from my earlier post, it's reached that time of the semester where the students are starting to drive me crazy. Of course, this would have happened weeks ago if I were teaching my freshmen course this semester. Instead of obnoxious 18-year-olds, I have lazy seniors this semester. The same group who asked for extensions on the already extended deadline demonstrated their lack of motivation a couple weeks ago, too. I had to miss class at the last minute and when my friend forgot to go in my place, nobody even bothered to check in the department office (which is just down the hall from where the class meets) to see where I was. Yesterday, I received about five assignments by email, some assignments completely forgotten, and had almost one-third of the class missing. What a bunch of slackers! I'm not too excited to grade what they submitted, either. I'm starting to wonder if this unusually warm weather we've been having is affecting them in a way that they think it's still summer (and this week marks the semester's half-way point!) Damn. Still, I can't complain about my teaching load this semester. But, damn.

I hope I get tenure...

Please send your good vibes toward my dean's office, as my tenure package has left my department and my fate is currently being decided by people in other departments. H and I have decided we want to have a(nother) baby, but we're waiting until next month to start trying because of the pending tenure decisions. If we succeed (on both counts) our children will be more than eight years apart... are we crazy? As I ran around making D's lunch this morning, I was wondering how it would be if I also had a fussy baby to nurse. I feel like I barely remember when D was that small. And I was a stay-at-home PhD student with a fellowship then, too. Oh my...

Advice to my students...

Don't ask for extra time on an assignment for which I have already extended the deadline by five days. It makes you look really irresponsible- especially when you are a senior.

Quick Update

I don't really know why I haven't been blogging, but I think Facebook is at least partly to blame (TV trivia & Scrabulous). I just wanted to do a quick update, at least. I am still in a non-working sort of mindset. I am working and getting things done, but not doing much beyond what is actually necessary. My schedule has gotten a bit busier since I am volunteering in D's class once a week and doing a grant-writing workshop, too.

I've been having some odd health issues lately- nothing bad, but interesting. Can you get arthritis in your 30s? One of my hips is stiff so that it is sore after I sit for a while and it can't move into positions that used to be easy. I went swimming the other night and the breast stroke kick was really painful. It's not bad enough that I want to go to the doctor, but I am still curious about what is going on.

Costco Tire Center RULES! We bought tires for our Nissan Maxima in early 2006 and had to have one replaced because H ran over a nail. They are V-rated tires, so we have to order them and they are expensive. Believe it or not- the tire was under warranty! We only paid about $50 (the tire was $205). So awesome.

D got her school pictures today and they are so cute that I want to post it here! I know I'm biased by biology, but she looks really pretty.

My tenure package has moved from the department to the college level. Their decision will be made this month. From what I've heard, if they approve you, then you are fine at the Provost's office, too. I will be so glad when this is over!

I had wanted to do a post for Scientiae this month, but never managed to do it. I guess I better do one for November!