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My relationship with Daylight Savings Time is annoyance wrapped up in complicated memories of my freshman year of college. I grew up in a state that never changed its clocks, so my most vivid memories are from that first year in a state that did.

I was probably in love, but didn't know it at the time. All I knew was that everything about this new relationship was different - more intense, less rational. Saturday night, his best friend said to him "Hey, you guys have an extra hour tonight." It wasn't meant in a snarky way, it was said with affection. He was a little embarrassed.

It doesn't seem complicated, but his best friend was female and he never understood why I wasn't jealous. I could see the attraction - it was there, it was obvious. It was also clear it was not the level or type of attraction one would act on, at least not unless something changed. In the end, I was never able to persuade him I felt comfortable about his relationship with his best friend. Invariably conversations would lead to a discussion of my friends - most of whom were male.

Eventually the relationship ended, as it was always destined to. Even so, having an extra hour every Fall still makes me feel seventeen years old again.

Kindergarten Marketing

The kids started Kindergarten this year. The school has a number of seemingly reasonable ways to stay in contact with us. Each child has a "parent-teacher communication folder" and we've signed up for the school and district e-mail messaging system. More often than not, these tools are used for fundraising. The kids have been in school two months and already I have thrown out jewelery catalogs, gift wrap catalogs, spirit wear catalogs, market day catalogs, book fair catalogs, gift card order forms, gift catalogs, catalogs from companies who will make products of your child's artwork, and countless others. The kids participated in a walk-a-thon during school which we received a donation sheet for, without any indication what the charity was. It was the school. I guess that was supposed to be obvious. Every "backpack e-mail" from the district is a list of upcoming events. Most of them are " It is Suburban-School-District-101 night at X, X will donate $Y of your purchase to SSD 101!" or announcements about the catalogs being sent home. On top of that, the kids came home the other day singing the Fast Food Song.

Good News About My Mother

Two rounds of chemo down and the tumors are shrinking. Everyone is as optimistic as they can be. For this stage, the news is excellent.

Also, mom is thrilled the new chemo agent doesn't cause hair loss like the one it replaced.

Advising notes

Me: How is your math class going?
C: Okay.
Me: Really?
C: Yeah.
Me: Because I have a midterm grade report that says F.
C: Yeah, but now we are on matrices and I know how to do those.
Me: Okay, so it is going better?
C: Yeah, I guess.
Me: So what did you get on your last test?
C: Uh, I don't know, because we just turned in the take home part of the test.
Me: What did you get on the other part?
C: Uh, I haven't gotten it back yet.
Me: Okay. Are you attending your math class as frequently as you are attending my class?
C:
Me: I'm actually hoping the answer is no, that you are attending math more frequently than my class.

Secret message to my first year experience students

Sometimes it helps to read more than the title of an article before answering the homework question that asks what the article is about.

Overwhelmed

I started out this semester behind and have not even begun to catch up. There is too much going on. The worst is that in August, my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. She found out almost accidentally - a chance x-ray for something else revealed a 3 cm growth "highly suspicious for malignancy". Six weeks of testing later (yes, six weeks) and we have a diagnosis. It isn't good: Stage IV. One small lesion on a rib means it is metastatic lung cancer. She started chemo a week ago.

Last month, when they thought it was operable, she went through all sorts of testing. Turns out, she is incredibly healthy. Not even any heart disease, which her mother had in abundance. She is in a non-blind clinical trial of a newer chemotherapy agent - one that is already approved for other types of cancers. She's on the new stuff, not the standard therapy. Everyone is optimistic she may have longer than most. Which is great, because the statistics for stage IV lung cancer really, really suck.

No cat day cat blogging

The new kittens:

About the Cat.

Curie: Where did Alex go when she died?

Dr. H: We don't know.

Curie: Why not?

Dr. H: Well, no one knows what happens, it's one of the great mysteries of life.

Curie: Where do people go after they die?

Dr. H.: No one knows that either.

Curie: Why not?

Dr. H.: Well, as I said, it's one of the mysteries of life. No one who is alive has gone through it, so no one knows.

Curie: The people at Kids' Club know.

Dr. H.: What?

(Kid's Club is the afterschool program run by the local park district.)

Your academic advisor? That would be me.

I'm a first year advisor this year and my advisees are all in my first year experience class. This week, I fielded multiple requests from football players to drop from four course to three. Two colleagues mentioned the same issue. We are division III people, your coach isn't supposed to tell you how many course to take.

E-mail

Last summer, I stumbled upon Inbox Zero after seeing a comment on this post over at the Angry Professor. I was inspired. I don't know why, exactly. I've never been a fan of productivity or organizing literature. The answer always seems to be "hey, just be organized" and "put stuff away where it belongs". If I did either of those things naturally or easily, I wouldn't be buying the book or reading the website.

But it was summer, I had about 2700 messages in my Inbox and I was really, really tired of being afraid of looking at my e-mail. The system spoke to me. So, I read all the info and committed myself to keeping my e-mail under one screen. I'm not Inbox Zero, but I had been Inbox < 20 for a year. It felt good.

It was some work at first - being disciplined about dealing with e-mail. After a few months it felt more natural. I only have to really work at it when things are insanely busy. Like now. A two weeks ago I gave myself permission to go up to 40 for a bit.

I'm thinking that this probably wasn't the best idea in the world. Twice this week I never even opened my e-mail.

In other news, it is fairly clear that my productivity and blogging have been negatively impacted by Facebook.

Inappropriate urges

1. A student came in the other day with a very obvious pimple that looked like it was about to burst. I really, really, really wanted to pop it.
   
   
2. I'm currently reading a kinky polyandrous erotic novel. We have to go to Spring graduation today and I kind of want to take it with me as reading material.
   
   
3. I had a dream that Dr. H and I were spanking one of my colleagues. I won't say which one. However, I will say that I'm pretty sure that said colleague is both (a) a bottom and (b) in need of a spanking.
   
   

Sadly, I have self-imposed rules about my own behavior and at least two of these items violate them.

Status Updates

What my childless friends say in their facebook status lines:

Lori slept 'til 2:45 pm today and it felt really good.

Gavin desperately in need of a 3 mile run, a hot tub, and a sushi lunch. Luckily all this is attainable.

What my friends with children say in their facebook status lines:

Hannah is wishing that her toddlers understood that she was running the bath that they want so they would stop screaming

Cathleen just finished cleaning up sleepover puke. Nothing worse than cleaning up another child's puke.