Thursday, November 30, 2006

Eek!

I've just been asked to replace my usual summer course offering (at Small Private College) with another course. This is fine... except that this particular course is fraught with issues and I'm a bit scared of it. I teach the 400-level version of the course at Large Private University, but it's super-specific and relates very easily to my other interests. Teaching the intro. version of the course requires a lot more general knowledge, as most intro. courses do.

Now, I've been explicitly told that I can morph it as desired, and turn it into something closer to my usual "speciality course." I don't actually want to do that -- obviously my interests will show in the texts I choose (she says, rubbing her hands together in glee!) but I don't want it to be the same course. Summer courses always seem like a good time to stretch my comfort zone: we have no official course evals during the summer at SPC, and the students are usually somewhat interested.

Teaching this course also adds nicely to my CV. This particular field is currently white-hot, and though it's likely to cool off in the near future it will still serve me well.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Tonight's wine.

Yes, it was a special night in the Squirrel household. Opening a bottle of wine valued at more than $10 always marks some kind of important occasion.

Summer classes have been assigned, and we both ended up with at least two (assuming students register for them). Many professors, I'm sure, would cringe at the idea of losing most of their summer to teaching... for us, it means keeping food in the cat bowls and in the refrigerator. And not even the same food, at that!!

Seriously, it's a load off both our minds. And since we didn't get through the whole bottle, I can have a nice relaxing glass of wine tomorrow night, too. (Thanks in part to the wonders of the Vac-U-Vin. If you ever wondered whether this particular item was worth $12.99, let me assure you that it most certainly is.)

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Seen at Buzz's, and I'll do it even though my readership can be counted on one hand. Hell, for someone with my particular interests, this is the equivalent of seeing the Flying Spaghetti Monster first-hand.

[Short Version: Link to this post in the name of science. Ask others to do the same. Results to be announced during the "Meet the Bloggers" panel at MLA 2006.]

A grad student is doing an experiment on the speed of memes.What is the speed of
meme? People write in general (typically triumphant) terms about how swiftly a
single voice can travel from one side of the internet to the other and back
again, but how often does that actually happen? Of those instances, how often is
it organic?

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)

2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I'm one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.)

3. Ping Technorati.

That is all, except that I fixed the typo from the original web page in instruction #3, and find that rather amusing.

P.S.

In my head, there's a competition to see which of the (four) senior seminars in our department will fill up first.

Despite the fact that I know no one else in the school pays attention to these things... I won! And I feel good about it! (And I might be able to parlay this into a third section if I act quickly, which would help my Spring budget immensely.)

Also: I am still very much liking Studio 60. I stand ready to curse the sudden but inevitable betrayal-cancellation of yet another show I like.

Monday, November 27, 2006

Anxiety monster rears ugly head.

As you know, I quite regularly use my blog to unravel and/or talk myself through my anxiety attacks. Today has been a doozy. The levels of anxiety are low to middling, but we're hitting a rather longish duration, right now. It started right after class ended (6pm) and is still going at 11pm.

Please note that this was one of the reasons I was not diagnosed with anxiety disorder way back when... the doctors said that nothing that lasted as long as I said it did could possibly be anxiety or panic attacks. Boy, were they wrong.

I suppose that considering the dx they came up with (MS), I should be happy to have apparently proved them wrong. Usually I am. Passing the five-hour anxiety attack mark, however, makes me less happy than usual about it.

Today seems focused on random death fears. Like: I just started having a headache behind my right eye. Despite the fact that I had a (completely clear) MRI about six months ago, this immediately means "large unknown mass pushing on eyeball," rather than "stop sitting with your shoulders crunched into your neck." (Fascinating, isn't it, how all those muscles are connected? Most of my headaches really can be traced to my posture immediately before or during said headache.)

Maybe it's allergens.

ahead of the game, today

I'm caught up on grading, and I've read every sentence of everything we're covering in class today. I have four hours of pre-class-time, and I'll have to spend none of it worrying about not being prepared.

Woohoo!!

I do still plan to work on chapter four today. I was reading back-posts on Academic Coach yesterday, and am going with the idea that smaller chunks of time, daily, make more progress than infrequent, long writing sessions. I will update this post later with my progress.

and more cats

I don't usually blog this much about the cats, but they're all behaving horribly this morning.

Instead of sleeping on my head, Winter decided it would be more fun to bat at my head -- at 7am. Little Guy, a few minutes later, started crying to be let under the covers. As he's Siamese, his crying is impossible to ignore. Finally, Winter found a small piece of paper and started batting at that instead, making more noise than I would have believed possible.

The kicker is, I was in the middle of this really odd dream and was trying to find a secret door behind a wax head... I had just figured out that there were, in fact, six secret doors, but that only one of them would take me where I needed to go.

Bastard cats.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Get off your ass!

The job search has come to a screeching halt. After nearly two months of preparing applications, sending packets out, and waiting for interviews, we're the in "wait" stage of "hurry up and..."

Sasha has an on-campus in early December. The other two schools he interviewed at will be making those (on-campus) decisions in January. None of my schools were doing pre-screening interviews, and so I haven't heard a word from any of them. I'm thinking positively and have decided that not receiving a rejection letter yet is a good thing -- it may mean that I've made it through the first round of decisions.

It's a strange time of the year. I need to put in three good weeks of dissertation-writing before going to the Other Coast for the holidays. (More about that later, as the in-laws will be staying with my family, and I'm wondering how it will go.) I have not worked on the dissertation for the last six weeks, and after meeting with my advisor last weekend I'm feeling strange about the process. She was very supportive, but in a "get off your ass" sort of way. I do, in fact, need to get off my ass, so that's not the issue.

Tomorrow, then, one single goal: organize what I have of chapter four. (I'm skipping chapter three for now, because I feel it's holding me back.) This should be about an hour of work, and will - hopefully? - help me realize that I have a good start to the chapter.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Cats!

My cat, Winter, sleeps on my head. Because she's only 4 or 5 pounds, this doesn't bother me... it's much like having a fuzzy little hat for cold nights.

Last night, Little Guy - the middle child - decided to do the same thing. Little Guy weighs closer to 12 pounds, and is impossible to move.

Cory, our eldest, ended up in the crook of my knees.

When I got up at 8am, I looked back and saw half a bed with Sasha (sleeping soundly), and half a bed with 3 cats. I'm not even sure how I fit into the little space the cats had left me. They won't sleep on Sasha because he tosses them off in his sleep... apparently I don't toss with enough vigor.

Usually Winter follows me out of bed, waits somewhat patiently while I make coffee, and then curls up in my lap while I do morning-computer-stuff. Today, she looked up blearily when I moved (my head) and promptly relocated to the center of my pillow. Almost two hours later, she's still there. Cat loyalty fades when the temperature drops below freezing, I think.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

An explanation.

I'm almost financially okay.

As of this morning, I've been approved for a loan that will - I think - see me through the end of summer. Well, it will if I:
  • teach at least four (preferably five) classes in Spring semester.
  • get at least one (preferably two) classes in summer session.
  • don't do (or drink, or eat) anything even remotely interesting.
Since I really have to finish writing the dissertation, point three shouldn't be too difficult.

Now, an explanation of the move here...

This weekend was job-centered. Not so much because I was interviewing or came anywhere close to getting a job, but because there were other people around me doing those things (note sarcasm).

Thinking about my CV, I realized there was a possibility of someone tracing me to my blog. It would take some effort and maybe even a bit of luck, but it certainly could have happened. I've erased that particular issue from the CV, and checked that no one from the towns/colleges have been visiting, but it still seemed like a better idea to be a little more careful.

While I'm fairly sure that someone could track me from this blog to my actual self, I'd rather that the reverse wasn't possible.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Keep your fingers crossed for me: I should find out tomorrow if I got the loan that will solve many of my financial problems.

Tomorrow, with some coffee, I will also blog about the change of venue.

Welcome back?

This is my new space.

Even though it's still under construction, I am happier with it. There were some issues with my old blog, and I hope to fix those, here.