Random Musings

It's been a busy couple of weeks...
I was dating one of the guys I mentioned earlier. But it turns out I'm pretty blind when it comes to someone being interested in me. This guy was all wrong from the beginning. When I think about it now, I can't believe I missed all these things. I know I was hesitant for a reason, but I went along with thing for too long because he called me and was in general interested. Sad. But I learned something.
I used a natural drain cleaner that worked like a charm. 1/2 cup baking soda + 1/2 cup vinegar put down the drain and plug the drain for 5 minutes. Then pour boiling water down. Impressive.
I went and looked at houses this weekend. I found one that I liked, but I think it's out of my price range. The location is great. I listened carefully as the real estate agent doing the showing said the builder had done a similar build nearby. The other property is way cheaper. I did a driveby today of the other property. It's in a good location for work, but not near a town, which I was hoping to find. I'm looking at a couple of other options later this week.
I did my shopping today and got about $40 worth of groceries, etc for about $5. I love the deals that stores have right now that you can get $10 off coupons. Good stuff.
My running total for the week was about 18 miles!

In the classroom

I had an interesting conversation recently with two colleagues outside of my department. It's funny, it doesn't sound like this should be a rare occurrence, but it sort of is. In academia, we don't mix well across departments. And outside of our building is even worse. I wonder if it's like this in the humanities and social sciences? I know that everything is not the same between the arts and the sciences. Some folks in the arts get the summers off (I wouldn't say all, nor do I even know if a large % of them take the time off), but most (if not all) folks in the sciences work in the summer. This is even if we are only making a 9 or 10 month salary. We'd never get our scholarship/research done if we didn't.

Okay, back to the conversation. It was about students who come to class but don't pay attention. The faculty member who initiated the conversation was speaking about a class where the students bring computers and are working on projects with them, but that he suspects that they are surfing the internet or doing other things. He suggested that he'd like parabolic mirrors in his classroom. I strongly disagree with this. But, this semester has been the worst for students multitasking in my course. At various points in time, I have had students texting, reading novels and/or listening to iPods. I wonder if they think I can't see them? I'm pretty sure that they don't think about if I can see them when they are doing it. But I'm not really sure I know what makes them do it. I know my lectures aren't 100% engaging during 100% of the class time to 100% of the students, but such blatant disregard is a bit astonishing. I've thought about taking points off for students who have been grossly off task. I know all of my students by name, so I could easily do it, if I made a point of keeping track from the beginning. I have added into my grade book this semester notes on students who have participated in class a lot. I could also add notes for students who are absent a lot and/or who are off task a lot. All of this is super interesting to me because I always went to class (I think I missed <10 classes in my 4 years at college) and I always was on task (there weren't so many distractions back then, no cell phones and hardly anyone brought computers to class, but I don't think I would have been distracted even if I had this technology). But I am also of the ilk that the students are adults and they should make their own choices. I have been thinking that I might say a few words about classroom etiquette at the beginning of the year next time around. But it seems that a large number of students forget everything from the first week of classes by the last week of classes, so I don't know how effective this would be.

Hmm... I just had an interesting idea. Thinking back, one of the reasons I went to all my classes in college was because a professor early in my career mentioned (almost as an aside) that we were paying ~$100 for each class hour. I wouldn't throw $100 away, which was how I thought about not going to classes (and not being on task in class). I might be able to incorporate this into my class in an interesting way. One of the things that we do is work on statistical handling of data. I might see what happens if I ask my students how much they think they are paying to come to class and we could do some statistics on the data. We could easily look at the class average and the standard deviation, etc. Then I could tell them what the answer really is. This might be very interesting to try next fall because I'd be teaching concepts while also getting a point across that might translate into improved etiquette.

Gone Away

I've been away from my blog for awhile. I was at an event last night and the speaker said that in our current culture, we spend too much private time in public spaces. This was in response to thinking about the fact that more people are dining at home (especially with the economy as it is) but there was also an element of connecting to people through online media. I was sort of beginning to feel that I was being too public, although this blog isn't truly public (in that I think the only people who read it are friends and family I've mentioned it to). I have also not been feeling 100%. Within the last week, I started to try something new and am beginning to feel better. I hope that my trajectory will continue in this direction. One week earlier in April, I only ran 3 miles (in the whole week). That was very sad, but I couldn't muster any more. I have also been working on writing projects at work and so have been a little less inclined to write here. I hope to write you all a bit more this weekend. But I need to get moving this morning so I can make sure to get a few errands done.

Three Strikes

Yesterday was a day of three strikes...
Strike 1 - I have a graduate student who is not engaged in work. A clockwatcher, the student leaves promptly at 5 pm every day and arrives at 9 am on the dot. Research is not a 9-5 job, rather it needs to happen in patches and it's best not to leave when you are in the middle of a thought or experiment. You get out of research, what you put into it. Yesterday, I arrived at work at about 7:40 am. I walked past their office and noticed the light on (it is usually not on when I arrive). I looked in and was excited to see the student there working. I thought, maybe the seminar speaker yesterday brought things around for the student or maybe it was just figured out. I got to my office and downloaded my email and found that my excitement was totally unfounded. The early arrival was simply to "make up" the time since 3:30 would be the end of the day. What? What? What? There was also no explanation as to why this was happening.
Strike 2- Space and money = power in academia. Oh, and maybe rank factors in. I have none of these. Well, I guess I should say that I currently have space but that won't last long due to some complicated factors that mean that I can't stay in my current space. I had thought I had found a solution that would work perfectly. I even had a verbal agreement going back a few months and that was reaffirmed recently. But no - over the last week it has come crumbling down. This is making me very stressed out because it means that I will be letting down my students (they need space to do their research and research to get their degrees) and (of less importance), it will be very hard to get tenure. Have I made a giant mistake?
Strike 3- I got a wonderfully impersonal email at exactly 5 pm yesterday that said my recent grant submission is NOT funded.
Three strikes! I am not doing any work today!

If you were wondering...

what the blooms would look like, here is the first one that appeared this week. They only last for about 12 hrs, but luckily each pod has more than one bloom (usually three) and I have 5 pods on this plant and 4 on the other. Usually they open in the morning, but this one opened sometime while I was at work and was gone the next morning.

This plant is really easy to make more plants from. I have already given away two (that have 3 bundles each). A bundle comes from the pod once all the blooms are finished. I stuck this in water and once roots were growing, planted it. One of the ones that I gave away has already bloomed multiple times this year.

(I'm not sure if my terminology is technically correct about the plants.)

I'm melting, melting, melting (ALA Wicked Witch)

A lovely weekend and I made myself get outside for a long run on Saturday! It was sunny and warm (no jacket required) and the scenery was beautiful.

Now, everything is melting and from beneath that blanket of white appears something that is brownish-green and hairy. What is the foreign species? Oh, grass you say... it's been a while.

Getting back out there...

So after a long hiatus (and recovery?), it seems that I have found 3 appropriate guys to date. I saw one for the first time tonight (guy one), tomorrow I will see a guy for the second time (yes, the guy I wrote about a bit ago, this is shocking because I am the one date wonder), and Saturday, I might be meeting another (third) guy for the first time. (I hope they will all end up with more appropriate nicknames in the future, but this will have to do for now.)

The first date exceeded my expectations (does this mean my expectations are too low?). Guy one is great - has been since I first started corresponding with him. He is not "in science," (though he has done some science-y things in the past) but is definitely smart enough to talk with me about science things. This makes me happy. He is pretty liberal - which also makes me smile. And he makes me laugh - which is very important.

That is all for now. Possibly more in the future or possibly not.

Two secrets (or confessions)

I some times indulge in reality TV. I used to watch Survivor back in the day. But last night I watched the Bachelor final. I had a mini crush on Jason, but I think I'm cured after the craziness that happened. I also am fascinated by the Biggest Loser, though I don't know why. I often watch it while I'm at the gym... is that weird?

I had been eating a lot of chocolate. I have stopped cold turkey. I think it was making me feel a little off. It was either cutting out chocolate or starting to do Pilates (and trying yoga) that seems to have solved my problem.

Totally Opposite!

My friend Kyle posted this about the train station in Warrington, England. I thought I'd counter with something of a different sort from a park-n-ride that I know! I like this idea better.

Just when...

The snow was melting and you could see the grass, more arrived. Luckily it wasn't too much. But it does make me long for a garage.

For the record it is Friday night at nearly 8:30 and I am in my office working. I am listening to my very favorite radio station (other than NPR) on my computer so that makes this situation sort of okay. I am trying to decide if I should try to grade another problem before I go home. I think I will.

I was very sick earlier this week. I slept for a good portion of M and T. Thankfully, I had a flexible enough schedule that I only needed to come in for short amounts of time. It appears that I haven't infected anyone else. I am trying to catch up.

I am going on a "date" tomorrow.

I had a "fight" with my financial planner last week. I told him to stop my auto invest. I want to keep the money I have saved (and continue to save) for a house safe. He disagreed. I think I proved him wrong this week as the market continues to tank. I have decided to try to plot my investments in Excel. It might be depressing.

I might get to do a really cool workshop this summer in an awesome location!

I think I am going to buy flowers on my way home tonight. Some of you might know what this means, most of you don't. Happy, Happy to those of you who know!

This past week

Busy, busy, busy. This is what I've done in the past week:

• Ran >16 miles
• Went to a defense
• Took my students to see a very famous scientist give a seminar at a nearby school
• Baked banana bread with chocolate chips and pecans
• Had a marathon faculty meeting (Where I learned that there's a whole lot more politics in my department than I realized. I know this because one of my colleagues had told me he supported my preference several days before the meeting, but then when the other way during the meeting. AKA: my honeymoon is over.)
• Met with a visiting speaker
• Began learning a new instrument (another new piece of equipment will arrive next week)
• Went to dinner at the house of a friend I met through AWIS
• Participated in a study session for a super interesting project
• Spoke with a visiting prospective student
• Spent countless hours (>5) helping my slightly clueless students who are working on a large project (which is due next week)
• Supervised 1/2 of a lab session for a sick TA.
  
• Plus the usual stuff!

It was a pretty jam packed week. I am working today and will be working tomorrow. I hope to get out of here by 4:30 so I can run errands and get to the gym before it closes.

Random

I've been busy. Here are some random musings...

• Does tea expire?
• Negotiating prices at Kohl's isn't as difficult as you might think.
  
• Why has it gotten so much warmer since I purchased snow shoes on Saturday?
• How can I get my students to do better at synthesizing information? One of my very best students has been in my office recently asking question about an assignment I commented on about a week ago. The assignment was more or less complete. But, these questions are leading me to believe that she doesn't understand what she did or why she did it.
• Is it possible for me to run 100 miles in a month? Have I done this in the past? (I'm not quite sure as I can't access my 2005 running log right now.)
• Is there any chance I could get more hours in the day?
• Why was everyone I know at my favorite breakfast place on Sunday morning? (Well, maybe not everyone, but at one point I knew 6 people getting breakfast. I don't know that many people in this area.)

That is about all for now.

Springsteen is AWESOME!

despite the Walmart "mistake."

From the Other Side

It has been an interesting adventure to be on the search committee for a new colleague. I very recently got my position (which is a discussion for another time), but suffice to say, it is very close to me. An academic interview in the physical sciences is at least a day long. It involves shuttling between all of the faculty in the department (and some outside the department depending on interests) for 30 minute blocks. There are several ways to approach these sessions.

1. You can just listen. Most academics are able to fill 30 minutes talking about themselves and their science.
2. Talk the whole time about your experiences and basically don't let the professor get a word in edge wise.
3. Mainly let the professor control the discussion but make sure to ask a few questions that either come up or are things you want to know about the department. If asked questions, make sure to answer completely, but keep it short.

Interesting to observe, we have had candidates in each of these categories. About the candidate who talked the whole time, I wrote on my "score card," that he didn't listen much. This came out in his interview talk as well.

Speaking of the interview talk, that is another piece of the process. This is typically an hour long talk about the science the candidate has done. Some candidates talk about work from their first post doc appointment, or their second, or some mixture, but rarely do the candidates talk about their Ph.D. work. We did have one of the later in this round, which I thought was unusual. In addition, our candidates have to talk about their proposed research and teaching. One piece of the application packet is a teaching philosophy, so the candidates will have thought about the basics, but sometimes not the specifics. Before you actually get up and teach, it's hard to say what specific examples you may use. I think it's unfair to ask these types of questions. I don't think I could have answered these well when I was interviewing, but I wasn't often asked.

Finally, there is a chance for the dean, who will make the hire official, to interview the candidate. This was perhaps the piece of the interview I was most intimidated about, but in reality, it wasn't too bad. I was always surprised that the dean had read my whole file, unlike some of the faculty.

In addition to the formal pieces of the interview, there are always meals that are typically shared with faculty. I have been on dinner duty and have had at least one dinner with each of the faculty candidates. It's fun in the sense that I get to go out and try new places without the expense, but it's also really restrictive to my time. It makes the evening a no go for getting anything else done. I often work into the evenings and on those nights, I have to leave at the designated time no matter what I'm in the middle of working on. It makes me less productive.

Overall, it has been an interesting experience. But I hope not to have to do it again anytime soon.

New Beginnings

Blooms to come!

New Dinner

Here's a new recipe I created tonight:

Baked Apple Salad for 1

1 baking apple (center cored out)
1/4 cup apple granola (Trader Joe's)
1/4 cup cut up cheddar cheese
1/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t demura (sp?) sugar
2 cups lettuce
1 t apple cider vinegar
1 t EVOO
1/4 t cinnamon

Mix up the granola, cheese, cinnamon and sugar and stuff into the apple. Put the apple in a glass baking dish and add 1/4 cup water. Bake in a 350 oven for 30 minutes until tender (more for firmer apples). In the meanwhile, wash the lettuce. Mix the last 3 ingredients well. When the apple is done, cut up into pieces and add to the lettuce. Top with dressing. It was quite good. Salty, sweet, savory. Winter salad.

Wicked Cool

I just hooked up my new wireless printer and tried it out. It's awesome. I can now print from anywhere in my house. How cool is that. Now if only I had a pool boy to bring me my print outs, I'd be all set. Do you think I could train a dog to do it??

Snow For Sale!

I have snow for sale here. Get it cheap while it lasts. I have no where else to put it, so am happy to ship it to you.

I admit to being incredibly jealous of those of you who have temperatures over 50 degrees F. It's cold here and more snow. We are well above average snow fall this year, but somehow are not keeping pace with last year. Though it seems to me like we are ahead. I'm done for the year.

In our last cold snatch, we unfortunately lost power for 4 hrs in the middle of the night. I was surprised when I woke up to find it 46 degrees downstairs. Hmmm... something was wrong with this picture. Called some folks. The heater guy came and concluded that there was nothing he could do with the plastic piping in the heating system frozen! Frozen pipes. This is new to me. At least it wasn't a frozen sewer line - I hear that this happened. So turns out the remedy is just to heat up the house as much as possible. Glad I had two space heaters. They helped on the main floor and I used a hair dryer in the basement to heat the exact location that was the problem. I had things flowing within about 4 hrs of realizing the problem. My neighbors - we share a duplex - on the other hand needed 10 hrs to get one zone working and 3 days for the other!!! Yipes.

Sunny beaches are sounding really good right now!

Being the Best

When I was visiting my family, I observed an interesting exchange between my dad and stepsister. She was saying that she didn't really care if the US was number 1 in the world when she was a grown up and my dad was noting that this is a common thought with the folks that are about 10 years behind me in age. I think I agree but I think that this negativity (or perhaps more precisely this not wanting to be the best or not searching for the best solutions) is a huge problem right now! And not just with a particular age group. Not sure what is causing it, but I have experienced twice since this time someone not seeking to be the best they can be. The most recent happened in a meeting today when someone who is doing some planning for our department said that he couldn't come up with a perfect solution. If you begin a process by thinking that, isn't your outcome just going to be mediocre? The other was with someone looking to change jobs and instead of trying to be the best, he was just trying to fit a perceived limitation instead of what he said he ultimately envisioned.

This goes back to another conversation that I had with my dad about goal setting. He tells a story similar to this in a class that he teaches and I'm debating including it in my class in the future. The story goes something like this. In the Business School at Harvard, there was a survey done years ago about the goal setting of the students. It was determined that out of the class of ~450, there were 15 students that were considered to be goal setters. All of the students were followed after graduation and in the subsequent years the salary of the goal setter fraction (15/450 or 1/30, which is ~3%) was compared to the remaining 435. It was found that the goal setters as a group earned more than the other 97%! This was surprising to me. But I forget that there are people out there who are not goal setters like myself.

My opinion: Set out to be the best, it just might happen! If you set goals, it's probably more likely to happen.

Recently

I've been busy. There have been lots of things on my plate. I enjoyed a trip home. Since I've been back, I have done lots of projects. One of the first things I did was to water my plants and trim those that needed it. I have a violet that is just about ready to bloom and the fushia one is still in full bloom.
I also went to the local outdoor sports store and bought some heavy socks. From left to right, I got a pair of wicking socks, an awesome pair of Smart Wool socks and some grey fleece socks. My feet are no longer cold. I think I need to get another few pairs of the fleece ones. These are definitely a good thing!
Over this past weekend, I took one day off and enjoyed an afternoon at the art museum. I also enjoyed a great Thai meal. I worked on Sunday and that night when I got home at 9 pm, I decided it was time to paint my kitchen. If you'd seen the previous speckled blue paint job that was stained from one too many exploded sodas or other kitchen disasters, it's all gone! It's now white. I was using up a leftover can of white paint, but I ended up needing to get a second can. Too bad Home Depot isn't open at 11 pm on Sunday night. I finished the job tonight. Now I just need to reinstall the pot rack and hang up some new decorations. I'm very pleased with my adventure in painting. It was fun to have an outlet since work has been and will be crazy for the near future.