In 1929 I sold short
Why do I only seem to write here once every couple months? Certainly it's not for want of events. Working through things roughly chronologically: when last seen, I was wigging out about assembling my pre-tenure triptych. I already told all the Hieronymous Bosch jokes I really had owith regard to that, so I'll cut to the chase. My review occurred and I would sum up the committee's report as "cautiously positive". In the following weeks, many in the department got together with me for one-on-one chats, and I have a pretty good idea of what's up here at this point: the overall view is that they like me, like what I do, and would like to tenure me, but that I need to pull my shit together on all fronts (except service, which they'd just as soon I ease back on if it makes time for other stuff), so I received a lot of good counsel about how to make it work. I'm optimistic myself -- my research has a lot of nice partially-completed projects I can pull together, and the publications I've pushed out have been well-received at good journals. My teaching hit a rough spot last year but is breaking into a new stride where hopefully it can work out. So this is all cause for optimism (some of this is not quite chronological, and is my retrospective-from-where-I-am-now of the process). I'm glad of the review. I'm relieved it's not actually negative, and actually glad of the reservations attached to the approval: I want to know where I need to be switching it up.
Other fun stuff: winter break! Taken up almost entirely by a visit home and then a family trip to Florida. The home-trip was planned to include some reconnection with some important people in my life, to wit the Research Science Institute and the Children's Chorus of Washington. Alas, the events for both were scheduled right over the SNOWCOPALYPSE. So instead I shoveled out cars, drank tea, played boardgames, and updated my movie reviews. But then we went to Sanibel, and things were very right for a week, hanging out with the whole immediate family and playing with my nephew, who is developing into an interesting kid (babies are boring. Toddlers actually do stuff). That was all kinds of great, and a good way to get away from it all for a while.
On the downside, I had to hit the ground running on my return, kicking into the new semester more or less immediately. "Or less" turned out to be the operative part of that, since it snowed that Thursday, and Louisvillians are timid weaklings who will seize on any snow-related excuse to not actually hold classes. This bugged me more than it usually would, because the following Wednesday I was leaving for the Joint Mathematics Meetings, so my scheduled plan to meet with my class twice before buggering off was in shambles. But somehow things worked out, and I have (mostly) earned my class's trust and appreciation since returning, I think. It's a 105-minute twice-per-week class, and those things are never that good for anyone: it's less class time in terms of absolute time per week than the 75×3 schedule, and far worse for knowledge retention.
It's been a very busy several months. There is surely much I've forgotten. It's mostly been a good time though. Some stress there, but mostly positivity and good vibes. Being so busy has distracted me effectively from how little I get out, anyways. Although this semester it looks like we're successfully moving a game night to Monday, which is nice (my Tuesday/Thursday class schedule basically nukes the previous game nights, although it gives me a good incentive to hang around for 7:30 or 8PM music events on campus). Maybe in my copious free time in February I'll hunt around for more scenes.
Other fun stuff: winter break! Taken up almost entirely by a visit home and then a family trip to Florida. The home-trip was planned to include some reconnection with some important people in my life, to wit the Research Science Institute and the Children's Chorus of Washington. Alas, the events for both were scheduled right over the SNOWCOPALYPSE. So instead I shoveled out cars, drank tea, played boardgames, and updated my movie reviews. But then we went to Sanibel, and things were very right for a week, hanging out with the whole immediate family and playing with my nephew, who is developing into an interesting kid (babies are boring. Toddlers actually do stuff). That was all kinds of great, and a good way to get away from it all for a while.
On the downside, I had to hit the ground running on my return, kicking into the new semester more or less immediately. "Or less" turned out to be the operative part of that, since it snowed that Thursday, and Louisvillians are timid weaklings who will seize on any snow-related excuse to not actually hold classes. This bugged me more than it usually would, because the following Wednesday I was leaving for the Joint Mathematics Meetings, so my scheduled plan to meet with my class twice before buggering off was in shambles. But somehow things worked out, and I have (mostly) earned my class's trust and appreciation since returning, I think. It's a 105-minute twice-per-week class, and those things are never that good for anyone: it's less class time in terms of absolute time per week than the 75×3 schedule, and far worse for knowledge retention.
It's been a very busy several months. There is surely much I've forgotten. It's mostly been a good time though. Some stress there, but mostly positivity and good vibes. Being so busy has distracted me effectively from how little I get out, anyways. Although this semester it looks like we're successfully moving a game night to Monday, which is nice (my Tuesday/Thursday class schedule basically nukes the previous game nights, although it gives me a good incentive to hang around for 7:30 or 8PM music events on campus). Maybe in my copious free time in February I'll hunt around for more scenes.