More baddish grad student

My grad student on Wed. sent me an urgent panicky email with some of her "data" attached and her effort at analyzing it.  She wanted me to look it over "when I got a chance."  But because she was clearly freaking out, she was hoping it would be ASAP. 

I was in meetings and didn't get her email until Wed evening.  Told her I'd look it over Thursday and get back to her.  By Thursday AM she had talked herself down from the ledge and figured things out for herself.  But she wanted to meet with me on Friday.  I told her I couldn't come to campus, but she could come to my house, which is about 12-15 minutes drive from campus.  Then I put her on my schedule and structured my Friday around that. 

By Friday mid-day (one hour before our meeting), she decided that she really didn't need to meet with me yet and what she should really do is keep working on her proposal. 

She is a very nice person.  And clearly anxious about the things that made many of us anxious in grad school.  She thinks she is doing me a favor by canceling our Friday meeting.  But really, I wish she wouldn't make the appointment in the first place.

I think what I will do is have her make most appointments during my office hours once school starts.  She is free to cancel those, but she must call me to cancel.  And any meeting outside of office hours she is obligated to keep, except under a real emergency.

I want that!

I met with a colleague to talk about the (small) center that I now run on campus. He also runs a center and we are members of each other's centers.  We are also both Associate Professors and both have had similar grants and pubs.  But we are in different social science departments.

But in his office he has two huge flat screens and an iPad!  And I don't.

Plus, his office is brand new and has a beautiful view.  Many of our colleagues are in offices that don't even have air conditioning!

There is such inequity in the distribution of resources on this campus.  Honestly, I'm surprised there is not even more bitterness and complaining here.  His department also gets enough graduate funding to fund all their graduate students to the max.  But another and closely related dept only gets enough to fund at 60%. 

(But I have to remember to ask him how he justified getting an iPad with his research money! I want one.)

Bad Grad

I'm working closely with two students right now.  One just graduated with her B.A., the other is a grad student finished with coursework and almost ABD.

One shows up to meetings a few minutes early.  The other (the graduate student) shows up 10 minutes late.  I can't believe anyone would make an appointment with someone to talk about their own work, and then be late. 

One follows through on everything she says she will do, taking care not to promise more than she can realistically handle.  The other has done less than half of what she said she'd do this summer--and this after a near-disastrous fieldwork stint last summer when only a fraction of her promised work was completed.  Might I add that her fieldwork was funded by my own internal grant--$4k down the drain.

I've committed to being the grad student's adviser.  But her faults are so obvious when compared to this incredibly mature (and smart) recent BA who has been sooooo easy to work with. 

Wine, coffee, and now mixed drinks--much ado

When my partner and I were first together, he got me interested in wine tasting.  We spent a good bit of money, learned to act pretentious, and took a trip to Napa-Sonoma.

That ran its course somewhat.  Then at a café I frequented, the manager tried the same thing with coffee--again, major pretentiousness over (less than) minor differences between this Costa Rican bean cultivated on this side of the mountain versus that side....

Then I got a job and had kids.

My graduate student who is about to defend and then hurry to her new job tried to convince me recently that I just had to go to this new restaurant because they make amazing mixed drinks.  All about infusions of lavender and blah blah blah.

I find these trendy drink obsessions a bit irritating.  I'm not irritated that other people get involved in it.  But I get irritated with the idea of ME doing it.  For me, looking back on it, it was a sign that I needed a job to focus on, and/or kids. 

Houscleaner, cleaning solutions, and mini-strokes

The house cleaner I hired to clean all the things the regular weekly cleaner has been missing just called.  She missed our appointment yesterday. I called to see if she wanted to reschedule and she didn't pick up.  Part of the work is organizing, and I need to do it with her.  So it is pretty inconvenient to have her not show up, as I had scheduled my day around the appointment.

She called just now to tell me that she had been in the hospital with a stroke!  She is young, around 30.  And she trim and seems in good shape.  So it is all the more shocking. 

She says she collapsed while cleaning someone's home because of the fumes, especially bleach.  She qualified the diagnosis a bit further, saying that the doctor had called it a mini-stroke (which doesn't cause permanent damage).  And it isn't clear whether the doctor had said it was because of the cleaning products.  It started to seem like her roommate had made that diagnosis. 

Regardless, she experienced temporary decreased blood supply to her brain, and she passed out.  I haven't seen any mention of cleaning fumes in my quick look through the internet medical sites.  But I do see mini-strokes associated with cocaine use and alcohol.

I like her personally.  We've done a good bit of talking.  She is so smart.  But I also know her to stretch the truth regarding her previous work (said she had worked as a professor at my university).  If she does indeed have the law degree that she claims to have, one has to wonder why she is cleaning houses. I still don't have the heart to ask her. 

We've rescheduled for next week.  And she won't be using any "non-natural" cleaning solutions.  Just vinegar, baking soda, water.  Let's hope that's all it was.  But I suspect her problems go deeper.

Biking for ice cream

My daughter is 6, and it is definitely time for her to learn to ride her bike.  She really really wants to ride it.  But at the same time, she never quite committed to it.

She's been doing well with the pedals off, just coasting with her feet out.  So we put the pedals back on and off she went, almost without even thinking about it!

That was two days ago.  As incentive, I proposed that we ride our bikes to the ice cream shop.  It is mostly down hill, but not too steep.

Ideally, I would have ridden my bike too.  But she still needs me to run alongside her.  So I got a pretty good workout on the way to the ice cream shop. 

It was lovely.  Daughter was so proud of herself.  Son was actually quite supportive of her.  Ice cream was terrific.

Nephew as entertainment

There is a one week gap between summer camp ending and the kids' school starting. Too hectic to fit in a good trip the week before school starts.  I thought of going into the mountains for a week. But decided to fly out my older nephew (12yo) instead. 

Kids will have a great time, especially my son.  And this nephew has been very bummed because his mom and dad just told him last month that they would be moving out of their (nice) home and into the (very small) house that they own as a rental.  This entails moving schools.  My sister and her husband had led both kids to believe that they'd be going to back to their neighborhood schools with all their friends up until June, when they dropped the bomb. 

Not sure that's the route I'd have taken.  But hard to say what I'd do if I were defaulting on my house.

So hopefully he can forget his troubles for a week.  We'll pack in a bunch of fun kid stuff while he is here.  

Stupid me agreed to a minor admin position

Earlier this summer, I agreed to take on an administrative post.  I will be the director of the XYZ Center.  Hopefully it won't be too time-consuming. I get a graduate assistant and a course release (one course less per year). 

I just saw the XYZ Center office.  It is in a new building that I didn't even know existed.  The building is nice and shiny new and has a very nice and expensive espresso machine (free espresso).  Beautiful, absolutely beautiful, views on the upper floors.  Our office is in the basement--no view at all.   

It is a research building.  Not only did I not know that this building existed.  But I also did not realize how many faculty now had second offices there--with beautiful views! 

Who really needs two offices?  And who decides who gets these offices?  It is very arbitrary, really.  If you were asked to join a research group sometime before last year, you got a prime second office last year.  There are only very few such research groups, and their themes are very specific.  My research doesn't fit.  Same with many faculty more prolific/successful than me. 

The situation reeks.  I wish I still didn't know about this building.

Identity, dignity, and cleaning houses for a living

Back again! I'm finally returning to a schedule in which I have enough down-time to blog!

Yesterday I hired a woman off of craigslist to doing some extra cleaning that my regular cleaning man misses.  She was definitely worth it.  The disorganization and dirty spots in our house were starting to really stress me out.

We talked for about 10 minutes, and she volunteered that she had been a professor at my U.  I was excited by the coincidence and asked some follow up questions.  I told her I also worked there and started complaining about the budget cuts (which I was assuming to be the reason she was not working there any longer). 

Turns out she had been doing some part-time administrative-level work at the university for a year, plus independent study (which my U doesn't pay for).  I felt a bit bad for pressing her on the details.  I had only wanted to have a conversation about our common employer.  But I'm afraid some of her dignity was wrapped up in calling herself a professor at the U, and I inadvertently took that away. 

She also said she has a law doctorate (which is a JD).  I don't know why she is trying to earn a living by cleaning homes and dog-sitting.  Having talked to her, she is clearly smart.  And this economy sucks.  I paid her more than the rate she asked for.

Also--no, I don't feel guilty about hiring people to clean my house.  We feel that buying ourselves more time by hiring people to clean and cut the grass is one of the best ways to spend our money. 

For tenure, remember not to....

Having some tenure issues here at my U.  There are some basic rules for tenure here, at least for the social sciences and humanities.

• Publish your book with a university press.  This goes even if other faculty in your department have published with non-university presses. 
• Do not publish an edited volume.  Period.  Wait until after tenure, no matter how absolutely wonderful and vitally important you think this edited volume would be.  Here (and the research U at which I was tenured) you will not get credit for an edited volume toward tenure.  No.  You.  Won't.  If your own monograph (or requisite number of peer-reviewed articles) comes out and you still have a year or two before tenure, go up early!  Then do the edited volume.  Though keep in mind it might only count as service, not research(!)
• Same goes for textbooks.  Someone may ask you to do a textbook with them.  You might be flattered and excited about the possibilities.  Walk away.  Come back after tenure, if you still care.
• Think twice about co-authoring a book with your beloved advisor.  S/he shouldn't even be asking you to do that.  They know they couldn't have gotten tenure based upon a book co-authored with their old advisor, even with a good number of articles thrown in.  Write you own book or X number of articles for tenure, then co-author.
• If you are in a field in which many scholars write books and many write articles, and you are told that in your department at XSU expects articles, believe them.  I was told by my friend (an article-writer) that her department counts a book at a university press the same as an article at a not very good journal.  Yes, indeed.  Get out of there if you can, or else learn how to write articles (or rejoice as an article-writer, I suppose).

Finally, it doesn't hurt to make friends or "network" outside of your own department.  This is not only good for intellectual and emotional enrichment, but it is nice to have a reputation (a good one) once your file goes before the college and university-level committees.

Folks, I don't make these rules.  I've just been observing people ignore them too often at their peril.  I have more than one person in mind for each of these "don't"s. 

The dreaded first week in May--over!

I'm finally done! Grades submitted an hour ago. Yeah!  No panicked inquiries from students yet, asking how they got the grade they did.  I like waiting until the last day to turn grades in.  I do so not only because I take my time grading, but also because students have calmed down by then and only the less reactionary and more conscientious students pose follow-up questions about grades (which is pretty rare anyway, knock on wood).

In addition to last week's finals, graduation, grading, son's special outdoor obstacle course all-day field trip, son's concussion (fully recovered!), son's birthday, Mother's Day, we also had to remember that it was daughter's "snack week" (had to bring in a different snack for entire class each day).  This afternoon was son's "ice cream social" at the middle school he will attend next year.  And tomorrow is "field day" for both kids--all sorts of things to remember for tomorrow (water bottle, running shoes, sunscreen, ...).  Oh, and tomorrow we need to bring a birthday treat for son to share with his class, since we forgot to do that Friday.  This coming Friday is the elementary school's "Spring Festival"--and I volunteered for something (can't remember what).  Enough!

Plus, our after school babysitter is a college student, and she is gone for the summer.  So now I only work until 2:15 before heading down to pick up the daughter. Husband does it once a week.  He hasn't chimed in about how else he will contribute to pick up the extra work now that babysitter is gone. I guess I can't depend upon him to volunteer these days.  He used to be very good that way.  It is hard being the parent with the supposedly "flexible schedule"--especially hard when you're the woman with the flexible schedule.

I hate early May more every year. 

There's more to this bad day?

With all the ceremonies and events today, my cell phone was off most of the day. I didn't even have it with me during graduation ceremony--since I couldn't answer it up on stage, what would be the point of carrying it? My S.O. can cover for me if there is any emergency with the kids.

Turns out, there was an emergency!  Son got himself a (mild) concussion!

It wasn't from sports, as I had always feared.  Not even from horsing around. 

The 5th graders had read a book about a blind person.  Then they all put on blindfolds and walked around the playground to gain some insight into what it is like to be blind. 

Apparently my son wouldn't last a day without sight.  He walked into the corner of a brick wall hard enough to cause a concussion.

He'll be OK.  Turns out there's not much you can do.  But I still feel guilty--doesn't it figure that the one day I turn my cell phone off for longer than a 75-minute class, one of the kids has an emergency!

He took my keys, and then my head exploded

Today is one of my busiest days of the year.  In addition to all the grading, there are several ceremonies/graduation events to attend.  So busy that I have to drive to work to save time.

Today my S.O. took my keys to work, along with his own.  I have always hated it when he uses my keys to make a short trip in the car.  I also hate it that he will sometimes make two separate trips to the same school in the morning just because my son likes to arrive earlier than my daughter.  This is just too indulgent and wasteful of time and gas.  The fact that he has my keys because he drove my son to school and then came back and used his own keys to drive daughter to school--that makes my head explode (almost).

Then he doesn't answer his cell as I frantically call while searching for keys to get to the ceremony in which I will be honored along with my student mentee.  Why doesn't he answer? Because he is busy listening to an audiobook on his iPod on the bus.  I also hate it that he relaxes on the bus to/from home, while I use the bus as an absolutely essential time to getting my never-ending pile of work done.  I hate it that he works 9-5:30 and does all his work AT work.  I work 6:15-7:30; 8:45-4:45; 6:45-7:30; 10-11.

Because he doesn't answer, I keep searching for my keys and miss the bus that would have gotten me to the ceremony almost on time.

See how several smaller resentments co-mingle into something bigger?  I'll get over it.  Venting helps--thanks! 

Also, this is such a major screw-up, I think he will make some concessions as my summer starts.  As it is, I work 6:15-7:25am at home, then 7:25-7:55 get the daughter ready and out the door.  By 8am, my work mode has shut down a bit, and I'm more prone to putzing around.  My own work will be MUCH more efficient if I get a solid 2-3 hours as early as possible. So for the rest of the kids' school year, I hope to get daughter ready 7:00-7:15am. And at 7:15 I'm out the door for 2 hours work in a cafe. 

Names of foreigners

Academic blog posts abound this week about students who think the world revolves around them, and professors who would like to disabuse them of that idea.  So I'll add one of mine.

A student from Japan just asked me if she could have permission to use the vocabulary list from the study guide while taking the final (this is a no-notes exam).  She writes, "It's hard to remember... the name of foreigners."


OK, this is a class with a global focus.  The "names of foreigners" are thus foreigners for everyone in the class!  Not just foreign for a Japanese student.  And for the most part, they are names of prominent international figures--names anyone coming out of this class should know, regardless of the student's country of origin or first language. 


Geeeeeez.  She is already getting extra time on the final and has permission to use an electronic dictionary.  I think that is enough specialness for one person.  There are limits.

The choir needs to kick it up a notch

Well, I'm done.  Done with classes.  My students were very nice on the last day, which hopefully means they feel they learned a lot and liked the class.  I liked them (well, all but one). 

My son's elementary school choir had their performance tonight. I've never really been big on choirs--didn't like being in them, much less listening to them. Of course, it's a lot better when your child is in the choir.  But the music teacher picked some boring stinkers this semester.  I wish he'd stick to the proven crowd-pleasers, frankly.  Why experiment?  You could definitely tell which ones the kids liked to sing (the only two crowd-pleasers in the bunch). 

My neighbor, who volunteers with the choir, didn't like the songs either. She says it's because the music teacher is going through a divorce, which is too bad.  He has seemed kind of sad lately.

After the kid choir, a men's a cappella group sang. Now they had fun songs!  Plus, it's just nice to see people have so much joy in what they're doing.

A mean student who cries in my office--and the many others who amaze and inspire me

I have some amazing students this semester.  One student is from Afghanistan; he brings such wonderful insights into the class, particularly through his written work.  Another student is a "Lost Girl" from Sudan.  She came to the U.S. only about 5 years ago, from an orphanage in Kenya.  She recently found out her mother is still alive and hopes to return home to see her this summer.  She is struggling with the work but will pass the class. I am excited to see she has signed up for a class with me next year as well. 

To say these students have experienced hardship doesn't quite capture it.  Both fled major wars as children. 

In this same class, I also have a student who was diagnosed with breast cancer last year, a student who has a very scary eating disorder (she's been hospitalized; I worry about her), a student undergoing radiation for cancer, and a student with clinical depression (and a note from her psychologist).  And those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

And then I have the student from a privileged family  in X country--a country with a GDP per capita that puts it in the middle-range on the UN scale, similar to Hungary and Poland.  She is a B/B- student who looks in the mirror and sees an A student.  It is my fault, apparently, that she is getting Bs.  Don't I know that English isn't her first language (no, I didn't--she speaks English flawlessly and without an accent--this part of her really is impressive)? 

She went to high school in the U.S. and before that attended a private foreign-language school in her home country.  She has writing problems, but not any worse than my other B students.  And my thought on this issue is that she has a wealth of resources on campus to help her with her writing if she feels she does not have the same level of preparation for English-language writing as other students. 

But do NOT ask me for a grade change on that basis.  Especially since I already told her that the main problems with her paper involved lack of a thesis and minimal critical engagement with the text.  Really, she deserved a B- on that paper, not a B.

She has come in to my office to question every grade she has ever received, including the quizzes that test on students' command of the facts.  She just came in to question her paper grade for the second time.  She is an angry student, but she tears up each time I tell her (fairly gently) that she got the grade she deserved, detailing what is missing from her paper or essay exam, etc.  She has full-on cried twice--but still with hostility.  So it isn't a situation in which I can feel much sympathy for her. 

Thankfully, such students have been few and far between.  And she will soon be gone.

Was it mean of me to ask her, after much back and forth about her grade, if she is getting As in all her other classes?  She thought that was a really mean question. 

Where's MY study guide?

In both classes, students have been asking for the study guide for the final.  Asking a lot.  I'm not against giving it out at this point.  But still, it is 11-12 days before their final.  And the problem is, I don't have a study guide that I can just pull up on my computer and send out!  I have to CREATE it.  And that takes about 4-5 hours per guide.  And I've been busting my butt lately with lectures, etc. 

They don't know it, but it will obviously turn my Saturday into a workday. There's simply not enough hours in the week.  Especially now that our after-school babysitter called in sick this afternoon, setting me back on my workload even further.

Where's MY study guide?   You know, the one that helps me learn about how to have both an academic career and a nice family life?

Wow, that's weird--a diet plan that is working

For the first time in ... oh about forever, I have been losing weight.  The last 2+ weeks I have lost 3 pounds--and relatively painlessly.  Actually, I only diet about once ever 5-6 years.  I'm not officially overweight, but the 1 lb./yr weight gain is really starting to add up. 

The iPod app Livestrong (also available on the internet: Livestrong.com) is key.  With it, I've gone back to the basics, following the "calories in, calories out" model.  In other words, to maintain one's weight, one must not eat more than the calories one expends in energy.

It is easy to enter each thing I eat (type, "apple" or "nature valley trail mix"); the Livestrong app looks up and tracks the calories (plus sodium, fat, protein, sugar...).   I can also enter any exercise, which adds calories back into my "remaining calories" column (how many more calories I can eat that day to stay on track with losing 1 lb/wk).  For me, this has been a great incentive to exercise more.

Surprisingly, I haven't been feeling hungry--not any more, anyway, than when I'm not dieting.  (In contrast to something like the Twinkie Diet.  With that, I'd just get sugar highs and then crashes, at which point I'd be suddenly starving and desperate for food.)  I'm eating many more vegetables and fruits: fewer calories, more nutrients, and keep me feeling full for longer.

We'll see how long this works.  I started at 143.6 lbs and am now down to 140.0 after 2.5 weeks (I'm 5' 5").  The plan is to stay on the "lose 1lb/wk" calorie plan until I get down to 138.  And then I'll move into the "lose 1/2 lb/wk" mode, which will be easier to maintain over a longer period.

Beyond that, we'll see. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, as I my get frustrated and then abandon the diet.  Last year my doctor gave me the goal of 137, so if I get there, I will be very happy!

My daughter wants to be a dentist. No grimacing or groaning!

My 5yr old daughter wants to be a dentist when she grows up.  She actually gets excited to go to the dentist! 

Why? Probably several reasons:

• Everyone in our dentist office is female except for the receptionist.  (And the dentist's husband is a stay at home dad!  This dentist is really challenging the gendered division of labor.)
• The dental hygienists are very pretty.  So she probably thinks of dental work as a glamorous job.
• She generally is interested in science and the body (including teeth).

This is a major step up, in my opinion, from wanting to be a princess when she grows up.  So I'm trying to nourish her interest in teeth and the body.  But the general public is not making that easy.

Yesterday, daughter and I went to the science and nature museum.  There is a kid's "discovery zone" which includes a life-size plastic body with removable organs.  Daughter and I were busy removing and replacing organs when some random woman comes up and tries to engage my daughter by grimacing over the organs and repeatedly saying, "Ooooo! Yucky!  Ick!"  What the....?  This is a SCIENCE and NATURE museum.  The point is to engage kids' interest in SCIENCE and NATURE.  It isn't a Halloween-style horror show.  I couldn't get daughter's interest focused back on the body parts after that.

There have been other acts of discouragement. 

As I wrote in a previous post, I let daughter participate in a fashion show.  The worst part  was that they asked each kid what they wanted to be when they grew up, and the woman filling out my daughter's form grimaced and groaned when daughter said she wanted to be a dentist.  And then, during the fashion show, as my daughter walked down the aisle, the MC announced that she wanted to be a dentist when she grew up.  And then the MC also grimaced and groaned! 

In effect, they were making fun of her career ambitions, playing it up for a few laughs.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this was the attitude at a Nordstrom fashion show....

I don't remember anyone discouraging my son's career ambitions like this.  But maybe I'm just more sensitive with my daughter.

My mom and dad last year took a trip to Costa Rica to have semi-major work done on their teeth--they said it was cheaper to have the work done there, including once hotel, flight, great food, etc were factored in.  So they had a ten-day vacation, with a little dental work thrown in.  But I'm hoping that Nordstrom didn't ruin my chances for having free dental care closer to home.

I love student evaluation week!

Our administrative assistant has announced it!  Student evaluation forms are in our mailboxes.  We must pass them out this coming week.  Yaaaaay!

Why do I love student evaluation week?
1.  Like robins and daffodils signal spring, student evaluations signal end-of-semester is coming! I love both signs of spring and signs of end-of-semester.

2.  Once the students fill out evaluations, I feel free.  I can relax with the rest of the lectures, at least a bit.  I don't have to be so polite to the whiny or rude students.  When students pressure me to hand out the study guide earlier than stated on the syllabus, I don't have to stress out about it.

There is this idea out there that professors at research universities don't care about teaching.  But all the faculty I know seem to at least think that they care--care a lot!  And my department has excellent teachers, which makes life hard for me since I have to keep up with them and their high evaluation scores.  But after evaluations on Tuesday, pressure is off!