Moving (sort of)

Hi everybody,

I decided to move the blog over here:

http://insearchoftenure.blogspot.com/

Nothing is changed but the url.

I will post over there from now on and this blog will eventually disappear.

The what?

Two weeks ago I received a message from Chair regarding the annual report. Please send us your conferences, publications, etc., etc. I sent everything to the Assistant on time.

The day after I met my French colleague and hir told me that I was supposed to send in all the activities of the section. Well, nobody told me anything about it and in any case I asked Assistant to let me know if what I did was fine.

Yesterday, after almost a week I wrote back to Assistant to ask hir if what I sent was ok and mentioned what French colleague told me. Assistant wrote back that indeed, I was supposed to send all the activities of the section too. Mmmmmhhhhhh, how am I supposed to do the job if nobody is telling what to do even when I ask?

These are the things that gets me pretty pissed off.

Relief

I don't know how, but I had very good evaluations from hellish class. I am surprised and relieved.

I am finishing my conference for the end of the month and I should start reading a couple of books. It's hard because Husband is home: ha has a back problem and I do a lot of things for him.

What is your best advice to make the best out of the summer months? I realize I need some advice here in order to make it productive. (also because I will spend one month in Europe and I would love to take that time completely off).

RBOC

-It is a sunny and warm day that I just love

-I submitted the grades for the last class

-I have to prepare an exam for a course that wasn't even mine (ooohhh, I procrastinate on this one)

-I procrastinate, I procrastinate, I procrastinate

-iMac has some weird problems I can't figure out. Is just way too slow. I am happy to have my MacBook, just in case. And I am backing up a lot of stuff, just in case again.

-I need to write Conference for end of the month

-I procrastinate, I procrastinate, I procrastinate

-To procrastinate a little bit more I think I want a cold beer!!!!

Exams from hell

Yesterday I had the last final with the class from hell. The longest three hours ever! By the end of it I was annoyed by the stupidest questions ("Oh, Prof, can you tell me if this answer is right or wrong?"....... Nope!) and they really started to get on my nerves. I wanted to get out of there. I can't believe they stayed in the all 3 hours.

There is one lucky thing about it, it's only 9 of them. The worst class ever!

Now I have to correct the exams. Wish me luck!

Sunday morning

I woke up very late this morning (yesterday's dinner was great but very unexpectedly our pasta sauce turned way more spicy than expected!), we had a late breakfast this morning when Husband came back from the walk with our furry monster, and now I am slowly thinking about a light lunch and an afternoon reading. I haven't been able to slow down like this in ages. It feels good!

Out of grading jail (at least for now)

I have graded all 25 finals for one of my classes. Grades are submitted and now the only exam left is next week. The evil class.... The good part about it is I only have 9 students, so it will be an easy one.

What else? I took the time to relax a little bit lately while making plans for the summer (=May and June). There is still a lot to do but I enjoy very much the fact that now the days are mine and I can make the most of them without worrying about preparing classes. I had a fun winter semester, over all.

Finally spring has arrived, the weather will be extremely hot in the next couple of days and it will be wonderful to take the Furry monster out (a sign of spring is that yesterday we rushed to the vet to get a tick out of his ear... this is so gross!) and play with him.

I have a nice weekend ahead: we have friends over tomorrow night and a quiet Sunday ahead.

I love spring!

Budget cuts

At the Departmental Meeting of this morning, the Chair announced that Downtown U is officially on the point of freezing hires. Apparently the situation is so bad that there might be only 4 tenure-track hires for a total of 25 departments next year. Not encouraging at all....

I think elsewhere things won't be brighter and this makes me wonder about how the job market will be next year and what will happen in the future. I guess that for now I am lucky to have a job, even if not tt. When that will ever come, that is not known yet.

Why?

Today I started my spinning class again. It was good to be back at the gym and to have some participants I know who came back to say hello and to tell me they were happy I was back.

At the end of the class two girls approached me and told me they were working for the Lululemon store right close by and invited me for a special instructor night on April 30: a class of power abs and some shopping with 30% off.

Guess what? THAT night I have to be on campus because one of my class writes a final. Want to know which one? The one who gave me trouble the entire semester!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaaaaaggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody!

Classes are over!

Exams aren't!

So I shouldn't celebrate just yet. But yesterday was my last day of classes and I am super happy it's done, especially for the night class. It's very rare I complain that much about an entire group but except for 1 or 2 students out of the group, they were a lost cause. Would you believe one student yesterday asked "Hey, Miss, do you think I can study only the day before the exam?". Question to which Miss Ph.DL. answered "If you want to fail, yes!". I really couldn't take it anymore. And now it's all done!

YAYYYYYY!!!!!!!

One week to go

There is only one week left of the winter semester. Thank God!!!! This is what I had to deal with lately:

- Stu1 wrote the night before a test at 9p.m.: "Hey Prof, can you tell me what will be on the test tomorrow?". I am surely not answering at that time, but I did in the morning. As soon as I walk into class at 6p.m. Stu1 asks the same question. I told him that I did answer him. You know what Stu1 said? "Oh, well I didn't even check my e-mails..." My answer was: "Well here is the test!" ................. No comment! And thank you for wasting my time!

-Stu2 (same class by the way) asked me after class if there was any way he could do some assignments on the side because he felt he didn't do good on the test. Well, I am sorry, the marks are what they are, so, no, there is no make up for points missed in a test. And while I was speaking, I asked Stu2 "Did you check out the exercises I sent you and the websites I provided you with?". The answer was "Uh, ho, I didn't have the time...." Then, bite the dust, my dear! You don't study and you want me to do something about it? Oh, please!

Please, let's hope it will be a quick last week. I really have enough of it all!

I am not blogging because

-I am organizing 7 sessions for a national conference.

-My own organization isn't getting back at me and if the President answers is always too late

-The partcipants are stressed and they write for anything on their mind (no, I don't know what the weather will be like in a month!)

-I am stressed out

-I have way too many emails to answer to

-I finished the book review, which is by now sent :)

-I had a seminar yesterday that was a big waste of time

-I wasted more time with a Coleague having tea (I needed a break)

-Still haven't heard from the Chair....

-Husband is going through a difficult situation at work, I can't blog the details about it but he has been fired by his boss just because three months ago Husband was offered the position and then "someone smart" offered it to his actual boss and withdrew the offer to H. This created tension and problems. Nobody in the company could care less.

-Sometimes I am just pissed off at the unfairness of it all!

Notes from grading jail

• Again, I am back in grading jail. I have to grade:

-24 translation exams
-20 test
-10 compositions

Oh, please! I can't even express how much I do hate grading!
And I have to prepare another bunch of exams for next week where the translation projects will be flowing in.

• Mr. Doggie is doing well. Our vet said his eye healed and he's only having a bit of conjunctivitis now. We are down to 2 drops twice a day and otherwise he seems happy and in his usual silly mood. All the dogs this morning had the first bath of the season! The snow is melting fast and there is one big area where it can't drain yet. So all of them splashed in the (terribly cold but they don't mind) water.
• I report that I also finally obtained my business cards! That was about time!
• I wonder why our Chair answers very quickly to futile messages but never does to important ones........

On collegiality but self destructing

I went today to hear a conference organized by Young Colleague. Now there has been a couple of issues this semester with YC but I didn't want to talk about them as I try to keep a free mental space and to leave all the problems outside (or leave them on campus). But this time it's some advice I need. Again, will you say? Yes, again, here is where I talked about hir and there are many more stories I could write. But let me get to this one because one thing is to not expect Colleagues to be friends (on which we all agree, I think) but another is to expect Colleagues to be polite (I know some of you will laugh at this one!).

Anyway, YC organized three conferences and YC asked me to be present. I went all the time, for two reasons: I think that being colleagues in the same small section where two Senior Colleagues never show up, it's important to show that there is a collegiality, even on topics we might not be familiar with; and secondly because I know YC would have taken it personally. Now, I don't personally care about what YC thinks about me on a personal level, but I have to be diplomatic on the professional one (as YC is know to bad mouth anyone YC does not like). So I went and I enjoyed some. In some I participated actively in the debate, in some I listened and I learned something. Which in my point of view is always interesting.

Now, it happened all the three times that a dinner was organized with the Speaker. I have never been invited once. Let me also add that most of the conferences were organized with another Young Just Arrived Colleague from another University (let's call him YJAC). Both JC and YJAC are men in their thirties. (that's the reason why this post will self destruct... too many details) Both single, same research area, they do fit well together and I think YC needs the advice of YJAC who seems to be a "hot shot": well published, got a tt in a R1 university (we are not R1) while ABD, seems to know everybody that counts in their field.

Now, I would summarize the situation as in this phrase another Colleague told me once: "it's a boys club". At the time I didn't want to believe that in 2000something, gender would still play a role into academia in North America. But let me tell you it f.....g does! (and let me add that the speakers invited were ALL men!!!!!!)

Again, nobody would expect to be automatically invited ALL the times to join the group, but at least once I think would be a gesture of collegiality. At least to me. But no, it didn't happen once. When the opposite happened, YC was always included. Always!

Now how do you react to that (except for being pissed off)? What do you think would be the best solution to it?

I am eager to hear your ideas!

Finally things are getting done

Today I was able to write the book review I have to finish before April 1. I will reread it in two days to make sure I am saying things that make sense. In the meanwhile I also took a light day because I had an almost terrible headache because I went to sleep very late yesterday and this morning I woke up particularly groggy to an extreme cold day: -20 with the wind chill. Excuse me, where is spring?

And I had to call the vet because I wanted to make sure about the appointment we have for Mr. Doggie on Wednesday morning and to check things out for Terrible kitty for the summer. Mr. Doggie seems to be ok and he's an angel when I put the drops into his eye. The vet was saying that she thinks we intervened with a very good timing and he should be ok. I truly hope so, but she still has to perform a test on Wednesday to make sure the ulcer is healing properly.

This afternoon on the other hand I am getting back to exercising, slowly but surely. Spring might not be here yet, but I feel like I need to get a hold on my free time and train again. I am sick and tired of spending my days in front of the computer. So today it will be light aerobics, abs and yoga.

Three weeks until the end of the semester....... and yes, I am counting!