Post number 400!

From Vancouver!

I arrived yesterday after a long long flight. (I am so bored in the plane,the older I am the more I hate flying, even if I have a book or something else, I just hate it!) The city is wonderful and today I am working. I am chairing a session but will speak only on Monday. I have a day today, and almost all Sunday to visit. Monday will be a working day again. 

My meeting with the Chair was great! C. did encourage me a lot and was very clear about certain issue with Older Faculty. The thing is I know Older Faculty well enough (it's such a small world) so I am not scared nor timid. Yes, there are issue everywhere, but this time I want to make them the less toxic as possible. As far as I am concerned until now everybody has been very very friendly, efficient and helpful. The secretaries are wonderful and the place itself seems very relax.

Issues will come in the future but I'll swim through.

Now I go outside to explore the Harbour.....

Job news and academic complications

I am meeting my new Chair today. I wrote to Chair last week and the appointment was easily scheduled.  I'll get more precise info about my new job. I am very excited. I have to figure out my schedule, and a lot of other things. So far I have been contacted by the Faculty for other details and they are all very friendly and nice. I also called up my Director to tell her I had a job and she was very happy for me.
The silence started when I pointed out that I won't be teaching next year and I wanted to let her know because at the beginning of June we have to demand the classes we are interested in teaching for September. Which lead to a long conversation about a Colleague who isn't doing a good job, who is taking up all the classes even if Colleague sucks at it and how Director hoped that Colleague didn't know I was leaving so C. wouldn't ask for all the available classes.
We have rules and regulations for how the classes are assigned and after you teach 5 or 6 classes you are evaluated. I knew C. had to do the evals this trimester and a lot was said about it with Director who was fearing to pass someone incompetent. The point is they did pass C. even if doubts were risen and now D. regrets it. I don't want to go into details but after talking to D. I arrived home and I thought about all we said.

And I made up my mind: I am not there anymore, it's not my business, I am tired to pick up the pieces for everybody else in Toxic U. So I wrote a nice e-mail to her explaining that there were certain things I can help her out with and other I can't. It was not my final decision to pass or fail C. I am not concerned anymore. They passed C. Now they have to take care about it for the rest of time, which meas until C. will retire. Again, it's their call not mine. They made a mistake? I am sorry I don't see how I can personally help. I can give advice but that's what I was giving on this case and it was not listened to. I was never listened to but then the entire Faculty came -in the old days- to my office to complain about things and how they should have listen to me. Now this time is over. I am moving on to something else and I don't want to be involved. It is not my problem anymore. I am not sure how D. will react but I am sure I'll bring her to reason. I want to leave the toxicity behind me and I started this process in January when I resigned.

Another nice thing: I am leaving tomorrow for Vancouver!!!! I am soo happy. I'll be back after the conference on Tuesday. And I will explore a new city. I have never been and I am really looking forward to it! YAYYYYY!
It will be nice to meet my colleagues I don't have a chance to see during the year and I am meeting with a friend of mine too. It will be a great interesting time.

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Good news

Thank you all for your nice comments.

Today I signed the contract and off it went. :-))))

I am taking the position and I am very very happy about it. It's a contract for a Assistant Professor position, non tenure, renewable up for 3 years. The good part is I will work 15-20 minutes on foot from my place (yeah!), I will teach less that what I do now and have more time for research. (I know it sounds paradoxical but when you are teaching 9 classes per year that doesn't leave you that much time, so 6 or 7 makes it a breeze!)
I will still go on the market next year but I will do it in a more comfortable position. I have seen a lot of one year contract positions lately in my field but I was hesitating to apply because I didn't want to move. I am ready to move only for a tenure job, not just for a year (also because I had a teaching job anyway at Toxic U), so this is kind of the perfect job for now.
I am still happy and somehow shocked because it turned out to be a positive answer. So now all I have to do is finish my summer class, go back home for a nice and long vacation (all the month of July) and then come back energized for the new job! I really can't wait!

And I am leaving on Friday for my conference. I only have one problem: my speech is way to long and today we received a notice that we should talk for 15 minutes only..... 15 minutes?????? ONLY?????? I was cutting it down for 20.......
So I'll chop a part out and let's see if it good enough....

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Birthday

Yesterday I turned 37! I can't believe that in 3 years I will be in my 40's!!!

My father joked on the phone: how old are you? 27? yeah, right, I wish... Actually, no, I don't. I am happy with my age. I am much happier now in my thirties than when I was in my twenties.

It was a busy day, a lot of phone calls, some shopping (I had to replace the sunglasses my sweet dog sharpened his teeth on!) and then we canceled our plans for the evening because Husband was not feeling 100% yet. Poor thing, I hope he is getting better soon. 

And I received the most strange but wonderful present ever...... this is sooooo strange....I received the e-mail yesterday afternoon....

I received a job offer!!!!!!!!

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!

From this interview, well, all I can say is I am happy and exhausted! 

Belated spring

I went out this morning and WOW it was cold! Only 7°C and I was very happy that I was wearing gloves. (not my winter gloves but a lighter pair). It's the end of May and I still need to wear sweaters and warm stuff..... Where is spring??????????? Hello, we've been in snow for 6 months can we have some nice warm spring days instead of jumping directly to super hot summer ones? I know, I am complaining, but two days ago I dived into spring cleaning and changed my wardrobe, now I am all set for the summer except there no summer in sight anytime soon! :-(

My conference is almost finished. I still have to time it and I am afraid it will be too long. So, there is still some editing to do. And next week I am flying to Vancouver!!!! YAYYYYY! I am super excited about it, I will meet some colleagues and a good friend of mine, it will be a nice 4 days away from home. I'll try to have my camera and take some pics.

Speaking of editing, the Editor for Article 2 responded to a message I sent him yesterday (I waited a week) and said he was away, and he will let me know about the article probably next month. Fair enough.

Tonight I teach and I feel this class is going well. It seems easy to teach and the students are writing me to thank me for web sites I suggested and other stuff. Wow! I al very pleased with that. And Husband got a back sprain! Poor him. He is home and quite miserable. I gave him warm and cold compress for the back and helped him to find a comfortable way to sit. I hope he's getting better soon. Tomorrow he has a business breakfast and then we planned to go shopping together and maybe celebrate, but I think this year my birthday will be a quiet one. Well just in case tomorrow we can't go out, we'll probably order in something really nice and open a bottle of sparkling wine anyway.

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Ewhhhh

We came back from our weekend and we had a very good time.

We picked up the Furry Monster at his daycare where he stayed for 3 days and he was so happy to see us. He's really cute!When we arrived home, he sat close to me while I was blog-reading. As usual, I touched his head and found a bump. A little bump. I was sure it was something stuck, probably grass. Instead I found a tick!!!!!!
How gross is that???????

I called my super-uber-vet and he scheduled us right away. The tick is gone, I got some repellent for the monster, and boy are we happy he had his Lyme disease vaccine already done. Now not only he takes his flea medicine but we have also a tick repellent to put on him. I warned Husband not to walk with sandals on the mountain. And I called the daycare (we aren't sure where he got the tick from) just to make sure they inspect the other dogs.

Welcome back!

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Long weekend

I have sent Article 2 and the Conference is almost ready. I am very pleased as tomorrow we are going away to visit my InLaws and I can finally take a 3 days break because it is a long weekend coming up in Canada.

YAY!

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Publishing question

Last year I went to a conference and it was mandatory, in order to get a chance for a publication to have your article ready. Which I did have. That was June 2007.
Now it's almost June 2008 and I haven't heard from the organizers since. Not even a single e-mail....

I sent an e-mail to a friend of mine and she told me that apparently they had people turning in articles very late (like October) and nothing more. So I wrote the organizers because I wanted to have some information about the publication, how, where, when. The Org. wrote me back and just wrote I think what it was 10 words and said they will receive a report for my paper from the second reader and they would let me know.
Ok, but as they did run late with the reviewing, I would have loved to have a chance to reread my text. I still don't know if it will get published or not, but I think that if I worked my butt out to make it to the deadline, it would have been nice to know that I could have had at least, I don't know, one or two weeks in September to reread it if I wanted to.

Second question: again another publication, it was Article 3 that I sent a couple of days ago. I sent it to the Editor and I received an automatic answer that Editor left the University and has a gmail address. So I wrote there, still I didn't get an answer. Not even something like: I received your article, we'll let you know.

Is this ignoring common? If I receive a document of any kind, I always let the person know that it has been received. Am I expecting too much?
If there is a deadline shouldn't it be respected by everybody? 4 months is more than being flexible here......

Some advice or comments will be helpful....

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Spring cleaning

I decided that today, instead of starting the day on my Conference, I should start some spring cleaning (what a way to procrastinate!). I will have to put away the winter stuff first so, even before considering doing so, I went through all my clothes and bags and I put away two huge garbage bags and one half. Maybe tomorrow I will go and look again, just to make sure everything is going.
Then I will make the change and probably add to the pile a couple of more things for the summer. We will take it to the Salvation Army probably on Friday.

It feels good and boy, do we have so many things we don't even need!

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If I am not posting

It's because I am busy writing and finishing off a couple of things. Here they are:

• Finished off Article 2 and I sent it to my English corrector. As English isn't my mother tongue, there's always a couple of little things to edit. But I m learning, ... hopefully! :-)
• Finished Article 3 and it was sent yesterday. That is out of my way, and I am sooo pleased about it.
  
• I wrote first draft of my Conference (from a chapter from the dissertation). I am very happy about it and I hope to get that done, or at least to have a final draft, before the week-end. On Saturday we are visiting my InLaws, so I would love to take 3 days off.
• I am starting to feel the beauty of summer, it's getting warmer and nicer outside, and I feel a huge pressure coming off my shoulders.
• I am left with 3 book reviews to write. Two of them are fairly easy, one will require a little more time, but for all of them my deadline is end of June.

This for the academic part. Then for the normal life part:

• I received my passport!!!!! YAY!!!!!
• Yesterday I got myself my birthday present (a week in advance): a bag from Lululemon. The initial idea was o get a big bag maybe from Rudsack, but they are very very expensive and I didn't feel like putting a fortune in that. So yesterday at the Lulu store I came across the perfect black bag for work or travel. Plus, being an instructor I have a good discount! I am very vary happy!:-))

• I helped a friend of our because she found a lost dog, a very nice boston terrier. She seemed very nervous about it and I totally understand. Our dog is a rescue because he was abandoned when he was a puppy. I still can't understand how people can do such things and it makes me really upset. In any case the cutie is now with the son of a common friend that was looking to adopt another boston. He has one and so it seems there is a match. If it doesn't work out, there is a rescue specialized for the breed that will take the sweetie in asap. If you ever find a lost dog and nobody answers yours ads, try to have a look if there is a rescue no-killing shelter where you live. And if you want a dog or a cat, adopt from there! (this is the advice for the day)
• A bonus: a pic of our furry Monster when he was a puppy. I fell in love right there!

• I should do some spring cleaning. Really! Maybe I should start today....

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A qick update

The SPA day was divine. I should do this more often.

tiredness

This week has been a long one. A lot of extra academic stuff to take care of. We had to decide which car we'll get as in July we have to get back our Mazda3. After a lot of searching, we decided to go for a Subaru Impreza because of the 4 wheel drive (hey there's a lot of snow here in the winter!). 

Then I had to do the paperwork for my passport (done today in person). And obviously I had to the prepare syllabus for the course and all the rest. 

Classes started on Monday and I am very happy to report I have a small fun group. Only 21 students is a big relief compared to the other groups I usually have (more than 33). 

Now I have to finish Article 2 and then start editing Article 3 and Conference. 

I have been very tired lately as allergy season started and that means I wake up during the night sneezing and then it's hard to fall asleep basically I am sleep deprived. 

I need a holiday!!!!!!!

Working on

I did some class prep yesterday. I reviewed the program, got a hold of it and tomorrow I will schedule more activities and stuff to do while in class. I am almost ready for tomorrow class, so I can officially declare the summer trimester open!

As for my article today I hope to work on revising and probably, if I am lucky enough to finish it. That would be so good. I could then reread it again on Tuesday and attack the following one right after which will consist in a big editing job for something I wrote already. 

This week I plan to squeeze in some exercise too, and I have a wonderful appointment for Friday with a friend of mine, we are getting a day at a local gym/spa and I am really looking forward to it. 

One entire day far away from the computer!!! YAYYYYY!!!

Back pain part 2

I woke up in the middle of the night with a stabbing sensation of my left shoulder and the back pain is back!
I am upset about it but I say with certainty that it is due to tension, too much work in front of the computer and lack of exercise.
Now it would be a good time to reflect on all this and act on it. Next week after this is gone I should start my exercise routine and no excuse should be made not to stick with it!

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A lot of good things

And no time to write about it! :(

Good news to share: I officially became Canadian citizen!!!!

I am very happy about it, and the good part is I can keep my other one, so I will have both. :-)))))

Right now, after all that grading, I am writing. Yesterday I was in front of the computer all day and I wrote 10 pages of a long due article. The positive part because it took me such a long time to put it together, I had enough time to write a draft and now the real writing comes easily. It's only too bad that I am in a rush and this is because since December things piled up because of the problems I had when I was working at my department's office. I feel very frustrated about it because I truly sacrificed a lot of MY time then and now it is catching up with me, causing me to run late on every project I have. But, if the lesson is learned, next time I will know how to say no.

Somehow, while writing, I had this epiphany about finding your own voice. When you write, you have to find your inner voice, for saying what you want to say. I always had problems with that because I was always feeling very unsure about myself. But I think that now I have finally found my inner voice. I know what I want to say and how. And even if from time to time I question myself, I feel that I can contribute to my field of knowledge, even modestly.

Now I have a tough decision to make: I should have another article to write by the end of May. And on May 30 I leave for a conference (that has to be ready too). I am tired and I was thinking that this paper for the conference, I would love to turn that into an article. I still have one or two books to read for it, the rest is a part of my dissertation. So should I ditch the first Article due for May 30 in order to write the conference and to focus on transforming the conference into an article during the summer?

I have to be very honest with you, I am pretty tired and I don't think I can work this much any more. I want to have my week-ends back, it has been such a long time since I was able to relax and read for my pleasure and not for work. So, I was thinking maybe it would be good to leave that article for a later time (it can be written for another journal anyway) and focus on this other topic.

That means that this year I will be publishing (if everything goes well) two articles and maybe a third one, three books review and I will have 2 conferences under the belt too, plus 2 coming up in November. Is this a productive year in terms of academic standards? Are you publishing more than that?

And if you do how much do you teach? Because, I forgot to mention, I still have a course prep for my summer course starting Monday. It's a twice a week class and I taught it a long long time ago, so now I have to go back into it and I would like to make it my best class ever. Why? Well, maybe I will let you know if there is anything good coming up! Any suggestion?

And I will finish with the best news of all: Husband found a job!!!!!!!! He will start in June and we are so pleased and happy about it. What a relief and a satisfaction! Now I have to find the time to celebrate....