| It was so novel to have a good teaching day that I forgot to mention all the other things that went in to distinguishing Wed from other, generally crappy, days of late. There's some really really expensive equipment that I need and, well, I didn't have enough money in this year's budget to get it. With the knowledge that I stood a good chance of succeeding, I emailed the Dean to ask if I could use some of next year's allotment this year. He frickin' calls me up shortly after I sent the email and was silly supportive. I had even laid out a plan of deferring portions of the purchase for later and just getting the min of what I could and he said if it was going to be better for me I should just go ahead and get the whole thing now. Um, WOO!! I swear I felt like skipping down the hall. It was really awesome. On so many levels, that he granted my request and then some, that he called me to do it, and he even said that he remembered when he was in my place just starting and how the administration really bent over backwards to get him off the ground and he wanted to be sure to offer that kind of support to me. And then of course, the ball got rolling like immediately. He emailed the person in his office about it, she emailed another person in finance, that person called me to double check all the bits and get the phone number and then right after called the company to place the order. It's like living in a fantasy world around here sometimes. Alright, let's add this up. Great teaching day, great news about my equipment. THEN, I find out that I was approved for not one, but TWO, yes TWO! full time research assistants for the summer! I wasn't sure if I was pushing my luck or not. I was pretty sure I would get one as most folks get one but I was approved for BOTH. Yay! This is incredible. And both are in the "skilled" category meaning that they'll get paid more for having some experiences that I specify. I already have one position earmarked for a student but the other one is wide open at the moment. I would really love to attract a rising junior. I don't mean to be sexist or anything, but I would REALLY like to attract a guy. Hmm that sounds kind of weird but it's true. Where are all the guys?? I went to a talk in the department last night and it was a packed room and there were I think 2 males students. I think they're all in biology. So my daughter is obsessed with scary stuff. We worried that she was totally fixated on monsters and actually scared. Now I think she might sort of like scary stuff. She wants to watch scary things on tv and she wants to see scary pictures and read scary stories. And she talks about monsters all the time. She gets us to draw monsters and she talks about the monsters in the closets and basement. She definitely seems to get excited about it. Hmmm. That said, she is still obsessed with the color pink! Go figure. Girlie monster fiend. I have the whole entire weekend OFF. I can't remember the last time I didn't need to work and/or go in on the weekend. I'm not quite sure I know what to do with myself. I asked L what she wanted to do and promised that we would do whatever she wanted today and she said she wanted to make a snowman. But it is fucking FRIGID outside today so I'm going to have to figure out a way to honor my promise and not afflict us both with hypothermia. For the record my intro lecture yesterday didn't go as well. I ended up stopping with about 2 minutes to spare even though I had more material I wanted to cover. I had to make this split second decision to either stop or go over time a few minutes. In retrospect I think I should have went over time a little to make a final point. Ah well. I'm having a bit of a thing with a student. She sort of seems, at least from my perspective, to be taking advantage of me and our rapport. She needed to have her final paper to me by yesterday because her grade was due. She had several deadlines in Feb that I'd laid out so that she would hand in a final, revised paper by Wed and all the deadlines ended up shifting and on Thursday she sent the paper and I gave her revisions to make for Friday and she just didn't. I heard her talking to someone about shopping, yesterday I'm pretty sure. And at 3pm, after not hearing from her at all, she says to me "when do I have to give the paper to you?". Um, grades are due at 5pm girl. In fact, I nearly forgot to enter her grade because her paper didn't come in as it was supposed to. I actually realized just before 3 that she hadn't sent anything and decided to just input a grade for her so I wouldn't forget. She was clearly not going to get the paper to me by 5 so I told her that I'd already inputed her grade based on prior versions and her work in Jan but she still needed to do a revision and give it to me on Monday. Then, as is my way, I got to thinking about it and felt pushed over. I emailed her this morning and tried to address it. I didn't want to lay it all on her because I clearly set an early precedent by letting her get other pieces of it to me later than planned. But I did remind her that I wanted the revision on MONDAY and that we should meet to make sure that we (note WE) didn't get so down to the wire this term. Of course, after I sent it I began to wonder if I'd approached it the right way or not. She's a great student and I really like her but I am definitely seeing a bit of a slacker in there. I wish I'd had a chance to say these things to her in person on Friday. I hope the email has the tone that I intended. Stupid email. Alright, I've been picking away at this entry all morning. I better just post it before I lose it or accidentally close the window or something. It feels really great to be writing with some frequency again! Remind me to tell you about being discharged from physical therapy. I'm at a loss a bit there but it's probably for the best since it wasn't really doing anything but costing me $$ and providing temporary relief for my discomfort and pain. I did get a kind of weird message and grilling from my therapist during the discharge about weight and exercise and heart disease. What the fuck?
|
