It's test week

And I am amazed by the students.  The audacity, the excuses, the poorly written emails.

Also amazed that one of my classes did really, really well.  And the others weren't totally horrible.

I am sure next week will be full of tears from students and emails from "higher-ups" about me being so mean.

Oh well.

Inevitability

Sickness is pretty much a guarantee for all teachers.  That many hours with that many kids ... you're gonna catch something.

You think as a college professor, I'd be less likely to get sick than a kindergarden teacher.  But college students are probably a lot more likely to show up to class sick than 4-year-olds.  There isn't a mommy to tell the college kid to stay home. 

So, just 2 weeks in to my first semester as a college professor and I got a head cold.  Lame.

First day!!!

I might have been working here all summer, but I feel like today is my first official day!

It's the start of my first fall semester as a professor!!!


This morning's 7:15am conversation with Boss:

Boss:  "Good morning.  You excited?"

Me: "GOOD MORNING!  Yes, I am soooo excited."

Boss: "Oh, yeah, me too.  So excited.  Wait .... you really are excited aren't you?"

Me: "Yes!!!  I really am!!"

Boss: "Sigh."

Me: "I baked you an apple pie."

And so the semester begins ......

Week in the life of a grad student

The past week has been super crazy for me! Most of it good, but all of it crazy. And pretty much everything has been about work!

Here's a list of the few things that have happened:

• Gave a seminar (1hr) on a really awesome portion of my fieldwork from Costa Rica this past January
• Spent 1.5 hours helping a labmate go over a research talk for her conference
• Spent 3 hours and then another 2 hours helping a different labmate edit her dissertation defense
• Was appreciated at a grad student lunch
• Worked with undergrad in lab (and she managed not to kill the fish with ice cold water this time)
• Spent 12 hours at a local research conference (which literally drives grad students to drink)
• Gave talk (15min) on fieldwork from last year's Jamaica trip
• Watched 2 dissertation defenses by students in other research labs in my department
• Taught my own classes as well as classes of labmate
• Graded over 100 lab assignments
• Finished and submitted Costa Rica field research paper to very good journal (1st paper submitted in 2008!)
• Finished and submitted Jamaica field research paper to another very good journal (2nd submitted paper this year!)
• Watched my labmate's dissertation defense
• "Celebrated" labmate's dissertation defense completion (by drinking with remaining labmates)

All that, plus normal life stuff, means that I am now exhausted. Perhaps I will catch up with sleep (and laundry) this weekend ...

Assess the Asses

Realization of the day (as I am working on 3 different Powerpoints for research presentations and teaching next week):

If you mean to write the word ASSESS (as in "to estimate the value of") but you accidently write the word ASSES (as in "derrière"), spell check will not catch the mistake and you might find yourself giving a totally different talk than you expected ...

Luckily, I caught the mistake!

Keep an eye out for accidental asses!

Students make me smile

Email received this morning from a student of mine:

"I had a lot of fun at happy hour on Friday. Hopefully we can do that again soon."

Is that an inapproporiate email? I mean, he also attached an assignment (that was due last Friday). :) Hmm... he also brought me a diet coke on Friday (for an extra credit point). Should I start worrying about sexual harassment?

(Yes, I think sexual harassment is funny.)



As you can tell, I have been super busy catching up with teaching responsibilities and writing manuscripts since I got back from Bagaces! Hopefully the craziness dies down in time for a spring break visit to WNY!