Things I've Learned This Week

• When your five year old son calls you because "there is crazy pee" in the bathroom, bring a towel when you go to investigate.
  
  
• Do not join a committee that deals with a controversial college-wide program if you care about the program and you have strong doubts about the leadership ability of the committee's chairperson.
  
  
• Do not schedule appointments with students to take place on the day before spring break, even if it was their idea.
  

Conference RBOC

• I'm at a non-disciplinary conference in a city I love but have no time to enjoy it or see my friends.
  
  
• Went to a session this morning that makes me want to try something extremely politically risky on my campus. Why not? - I have tenure. To quote one of my favorite pinball machines: Big risk, big reward.
  
  
• About 10% of the faculty attendees were texting or answering e-mail on their laptops at one point or another during the morning plenary. The irony is that it was a plenary where students were doing the talking.^*
  
  
• One of my fellow attendees had too much wine and claimed that we were both smarter that 90% of the people here at the conference. I asked what he thought of the part of the evening plenary where the speaker mentioned that we academics are often arrogant and think we are better than everyone else.
  
  
• I know it is a discipline thing, and the speaker was from a discipline that does this, but I really, really, could do without being read to. How do people in these fields pay attention when the tone isn't conversational?
  
  

^*To be fair, the sound system was not ideal and I found the panel a little too scripted and the faculty facilitators a little too self-congratulatory.

Random Kindergarten Notes

1. The kids are counting out 100 trail mix food items for the 100th day of school. I was wondering why the raisins were so hard until I looked at the red box. "Best before 040107" As tossing the hard work in full view is likely to result in a revolt, magically the raisins will become soft and juicy by morning.

2. The school is celebrating Chinese New Year with a parade. Lovely idea, but the Kindergarten students are supposed to bring in flip flops and a bathrobe. You know, to simulate the traditional Kimono. We are thinking of sending the kids in their Judo Gis, as long as Japanese dress is considered close enough.

Last week

• Omaba!!! Did I mention how excited I am by this?!
  
  
• Lush's Sex Bomb Bath Bomb. Works as advertised. O.M.G.
  
  
• CA passes prop 8. Boo!
  
  
• I picked up a crappy cold.
  
  

 

A few notes from a conference

• Finding two other conference goers on the plane, we decided to share a cab to the hotel. The cabbie was a talkative sort of fellow who told us unbelievable tales of his past. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, offered us a deal. "You scam your boss, I scam mine." I won't say what happened, but I will say there seemed like only one way to get multiple receipts.^*
  
  
• The speaker giving one of the plenaries sounded a lot like Harry Shearer . This was especially evident when he used "Alright" as his verbal pause.
  
  
• I went to one session given by someone had developed a seminar course on the topic I am planning to run for a freshman seminar next year. He passed out a detailed schedule, with reading assignments, discussion topics and weekly short writing assignments. Given that I like what I heard, this simplifies next Fall considerably.
  
  
• With some time to kill after the end of a conference I went to the Borders in the very large mall next to the conference hotel. Something was odd, but I could not place my finger on it. Somehow, people in this Borders just looked a little different from what I expected. Soon the reason becomes clear: I had just walked into a Bill O'Reilly book signing.
  
  

^* I lost a shuttle receipt from my last trip, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over this.

Update RBoC

Just a few things that have been going on while I have not been blogging:

• I've become addicted to PackRat on Facebook. It's Addy's fault, really.
  
  
• I've also become obsessed with RealClearPolitics. I have only myself to blame.
  
  
• My mother was quite disappointed Hillary did not get the Democratic nomination. I was worried she was going to vote for McCain. She lived in Arizona from 1976 until May of this year, and generally felt positively towards McCain. Sarah Palin took care of all that. Yesterday, my mom voted for Obama. In Florida.
  
  
• My conservative cousin who is turning 36 this month voted for Obama a few days ago. He has never voted before. Ever. He lives in Texas, though, so no help there.
  
  
• My mom is a victim of the mortgage crisis. More on this later.
  
  
• I went to a CUR (Council on Undergraduate Research) workshop as a member of a team from my institution. It was fantastic.
  
  
• We hired fabulous adjuncts this year. Awesome.
  
  
• Three comics I like about work, life and woo.
  
  
• A little vignette from my house, while trying to convince the kids to get dressed:
  
  

  
  Dr. H: Hey, who don't you both wear your kitty shirts? Then you can be twins!
  
  Curie: We're ALREADY twins.

  
  

  
  
  

RBoC in Pictures

• The garden is in bloom:
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Cats are cute:
  
  
  
  
  
  
• We have a lot of weeds.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Dr. H. thought he wasn't allergic to poison ivy. He was wrong.
  
  
  
  (The picture is from a week and half later, a few of those days with prescription steroids.)
  
  
  
• Ugh, just ugh.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Fun in lab:
  
  
  
  
  

Long Day RBoC

A whole day without class should have given me plenty of time to get things done prior to a conference I'm leaving for on Thursday morning. This is my planned week of no lab meetings due to the conference. Unfortunately, I only had a slightly productive day. I:

• Went to a committee meeting
  
• Got to observe a senior administrator continually try to steer the committee members away from thinking they might have any role in actual decision making (fun!)
  
• Answered e-mails for my on-line class regarding blackboard gradebook weirdness
  
• Dealt with copy-and-paste Internet plagiarism in my on-line class
  
• Graded two assignments for my on-line class
  
• Met with students in senior-level semi-elective pulling their hair out about a homework assignment. One guy is like "Do you really expect us to turn this in today?" ...as if that is the most unreasonable thing in the world. I did say something along the lines of "What I expected was for you to start it before today." Though I did decide to give them until tomorrow, for a different reason.
  
• Discovered something I thought was in the text for my senior-level required course, was not. Bummer, as I had given them a problem and told them we weren't going over it in class because there is an example in the text. Made handout.
  
• Composed e-mail to chair and registrar to fix Spring class schedule
  
• Arranged water treatment plant tour for adjunct's class
  
• Met with student prep TA for adjunct's lab to give directions on lab prep
  
• Had impromptu department meeting to discuss curricular changes
  
• Realized at about 5:20 I have not yet prepped tomorrow's classes
  
• Gathered some stuff to bring home for class prep, realized this would take a while, called Dr. H, he says "stay, I will get them to bed" Yea!
  

Then I could relax and become quite productive:

• Wrote exam for this Friday when I will be away at a conference
  
• Prepared lecture, overheads and handouts for senior-level required course for tomorrow
  
• Prepared assignment to replace Friday's class meeting in required course
  
• Prepared lecture, overheads and handouts for senior-level semi-elective course for tomorrow
  
• Wrote homework assignment for required course for next week to hand out tomorrow
  
• Wrote study guide for next week's exam in required course
  
• Wrote homework key for this week's assignment in required course and put on Blackboard to appear Friday.
  

Now, I should probably get some sleep.

First Day RBoC

• Our campus was without power from Thursday until Saturday evening. I spent 13 hours on Sunday on campus finishing my syllabi, first week assignments, lab schedules and the like. I'm teaching three different preps this term (3 lectures + 3 labs, to be precise). Unfortunately, only one of the lecture/lab preps was complete when the power went off. I'm an up-to-the-deadline person usually, but this was cutting it close, even for me.
  
  
• Remembered one more thing I wanted to hand out after I got home. I used three different operating systems to make and print out this one very short text-only latex file. Why? Due to a complicated distribution of programs, Internet access, printers and portable media devices and drivers among three computers.
  
  
• Went my whole sabbatical and summer, and then started the term without a single syllabus stress dream. In revenge, last night the universe sent me a research talk stress dream. In the dream, I realize I am supposed to give my sabbatical research talk in like, 10 minutes. And I have totally forgotten until now. Nice.
  
  
• Got in 15 minutes before my first class today. In this time, and in a few minutes between my first and second class, I: determined that the former secretary's computer was not "broken" as had been claimed, helped an adjunct faculty member transfer, print and copy his syllabus, located a needed course document on the former secretary's computer "no one could find", and fixed a copy machine that was "dead" and needed "service". Solutions are as follows: username = lastnamefirstinitial, jump drive, search for documents with course number in title, remove jammed paper.
  
  
• Realized my senior level semi-elective course has 1 woman and 8 men in it. Our campus, and as a result our major, typically runs around 60% female.
  
  
• Ran an orientation session for an on-line course that is not mine (for uncomplicated reasons that are perfectly acceptable). I used my MacBook Photobooth application to take pictures of the students for my colleague. The students caught on pretty quick after a few "Where do I press?" and "How do I do this?" questions. Nonetheless, I was a little surprised by the questions. I showed my three-year-olds how to use it Saturday and they took 234 pictures in the space of about 10 minutes - without asking a single question.
  

It's Good to be Home RBoC

• Our housesitter, who moved out three weeks ago, left the inside of the house cleaner than we did. Yea!
  
• Only two indoor plants seemed to have suffered significantly from my absence. The two expensive trees we planted last year seem to have survived, as have all of the rest of our grown trees. We lost two Rose of Sharon bushes. Too bad too, they blocked our neighbor's ugly plywood fence.
  
• Our incredibly kind next door neighbor (who does not have an unsightly fence) spent hours weeding our front flower beds and trimming overgrown bushes this week so that our house didn't look abandoned when we came back. We specifically told our housesitter not to do this, I should say. Much to do in the back yard, however.
  
• Our kids and cats seem right at home. The kids appear more at ease and comfortable than they did in our sabbatical house. Hard to say if this is really how they feel or just a projection of my own feelings.
  
• Drop-off at the "old school" (what we have been calling Dalton and Curie's old daycare) went really well. They moved from the infant/toddler room to the preschool, so it really is "new" but some of the grad interns and teachers from their toddler room came over to say hello to them.
  
• We left our sabbatical home in reasonably good shape and hopefully now free of mice. Glad we thought to let our cats patrol the basement before we left. The owner is a new assistant professor at Sabbatical U. who has yet to live in the house himself. We have told him he needs a cat.
  
• I cannot express how nice it is to have more than three knives and two mixing bowls.
  
• Driving back into town made me realize I really consider Not on a Coast home - despite my bi-coastal bias.