Drainage…DRAAAAAAINAGE November 30, 2009

This is the time of the semester where I am utterly drained and ready for everything to end. I’m sure it doesn’t help that I had an absolutely inhuman workload this semester (dissertation, teaching 3 classes, lab work, and job hunting) and the end of the semester marks the beginning of an awesome trip to SE Asia. 7 more working days until I’m free. 7 more….7 more…

My university (and my college in particular) uses two online systems with which to organize course materials, submit assignments, and track student progress. No doubt many of you in higher education are familiar with the demons LiveText and/or eLearning. Now that many of my students’ assignments are rolling in, I’m beginning to see what poorly designed, expensive overpriced pieces of shit these platforms truly are. As much as my students have grumbled about how much they hate these systems, I’ve assured them that it’s infinitely worse on my side of the coin. Not only have I had to wrestle with the inconsistencies and minutiae of such  clumsy beasts and battled intermittent outages, but I also had to endure a few hours’ of “training” at the onset of the academic year. Yes, hours. The few morsels of information gleaned from these so-called training sessions could have been bestowed via a brief e-mail, so of course it made sense for me to waste a few perfectly good hours with Captain Incompetent at the helm. These training sessions were obviously for people who still think AOL is at the cutting edge of computing. It sickens me that someone, somewhere is making an obscene amount of money, profiting from my (and others’) misery, all in the name of this elusive goal of “accountability.”

If anything, this semester has taught me why so many of the professors I know drink the way they do. Sigh.

Lord, be a hand over my mouth March 25, 2009

Warning: I’m about to hardcore whine about some shit.

I was invited to give a lecture in a class earlier this week. For purposes of anonymity, let’s just say that this was a lecture on bread baking. To extend the metaphor, let’s also assume that my area of research interest is pie making. These two areas are similar in some ways, but mostly very different. I was still able to develop a kick-ass lecture on bread baking, complete with handouts and PowerPoint, so no worries. I know way more about bread baking than the instructor of the class, hence the reason for my invitation.

I arrived in class on time and completely prepared. I started my lecture, and the instructor of the class couldn’t seem to just listen. It seemed like every time I made a point on some issue, Instructor would ask some sort of rhetorical question or comment about something that I would be addressing in the VERY NEXT slide. I mean, fuck, really? If the instructor wanted to teach it, I’d have made that happen. The first two times, I smiled generously and said, “You know, that’s coming right up!” After that, I just gave up. I saw a few sympathetic looks from students…well, at least the ones whose noses weren’t buried in their Crackberries or iPhones. That’s a post for another day. Overall, it was a very unpleasant experience.

Rapidly place head on desk, repeat as needed January 21, 2009

In order to start things off on a positive note, I will admit to having finished my Netherlands conference proposal today. I sent it off to my advisor, and he’ll probably suggest some edits next week when we meet, but the worst is behind me. Nothing like dropping a few hundred bucks on a flight to motivate you to get something done!

Now, I will gripe.

1. It’s really cold here. I wouldn’t mind having a streak of cold weather if it didn’t mean that in 5 months I’d be enduring weeks of 90+ temperatures with a generous helping of hair-curling humidity.

2. My boss is really getting on my nerves. I’m tired of not being trusted. I’m tired of picking up the pieces after someone else drops the ball. I’m really fucking tired of attending 2 hour meetings that should really only last about 20 minutes. I despise inefficiency, and I don’t appreciate having my time wasted. I console myself with the thought that I will no longer be putting up with this shit in a few months. Otherwise I would have to kill somebody.

3. My face is breaking out again, and it appears that my hair is falling out. Hawt.

I say it’s time for a prospectus now it’s prospectus time October 7, 2008

My prospectus is due Wednesday, and I’ve been hard at work for weeks researching, thinking, and writing. I know what I want to say, but I sometimes struggle to figure out structure and syntax. Y’know, the little things. After receiving the results from my comp exams (pass with no revisions!), I’m a little insecure about my writing and abilities. Hopefully this wears off soon and I can get down to business. It seems like I should feel better about myself, given the positive outcome, but I feel like I still have a long way to go towards being a good academic writer. Maybe a little talk with my adviser will help.

In the meantime, I’m still pretty stressed out, and my skin is showing the effects. I look like I’m running for Miss Meth Princess of Wasilla. Last Thursday I had a glycolic peel, so this will help in the long run, but it makes my face look like shit in the short term. I usually wear little to no makeup, but over the past few days I’ve been caking on the foundation to cover the open sores on my nose and chin. Lovely.

Work is still somewhat kicking my ass. I’m beginning to see the futility in giving it my all, so I’ve slid into a mentality of “just enough.” As much as I despise mediocrity, I am so much happier now. In the future, I’ll just try less! (At least less of my talent and effort will be wasted.) I’ve really been enjoying my lab gig since we got a 2nd person to cover the remaining 10 hours that I gave up. She’s older (nearly my mom’s age), but really nice and friendly. It makes the hours pass so much quicker.

I wish I could just sit around and do nothing but work on my dissertation. Maybe applying for and winning a dissertation fellowship will make this happen. (Note to self: Appy for dissertation fellowships, slacker!) For now, I’m just focused on my prospectus and data collection. Chaos will ensue in T minus 13 days. I will be none too happy to see the calendar roll over to November 5th. Hopefully this will mark not only the end of data collection, but the prospect of an Obama administration. At any rate, I’m hoping for a good sample that will help me write a good dissertation.

All Quiet On The Freckles Front September 11, 2008

As luck would have it, my sign in sheet (and pens) were kindly set aside by the school librarian and I was able to collect them yesterday afternoon. I wrote “SIGN IN SHEETS” on my hand in order to not forget them yet again, and my little reminder was effective, albeit a big smudged by the end of the day. No more insomnia for me!

Another stroke of luck was also that I had two teachers out this week, and they both happened to be from the same grade, so I was able to feel a little bit of continuity, hence be an effective teacher. Everything is slowly starting to fall into place, which will make my job (and my life) so much easier.

I had a productive and somewhat entertaining meeting w/ my dissertation chair today. I basically need to have my entire scale up and running by this time next week, so this weekend will definitely be busy. Luckily I have no plans, so I’ll just work through the weekend. Sigh. People who work a set amount of hours and don’t take their work home with them have no idea how lucky they are.

My chair and I were discussing the election and when we started talking about Palin, he said, “Listening to her talk drives me to drink.”

…

*blink*

LOL!

I should run for president September 10, 2008

Hell, I’m usually up in the middle of the night anyways. Like tonight, because le chien de Freckles has indigestion, and because I’m freaking out over the fact that I left the sign in sheet for my mentors (complete with e-mail addresses and phone numbers) in the school library yesterday. I’m just so full of win that I can’t even sleep. FAIL.

Forget this 10 hour assistantship garbage (pronounced “gar-BAHJ,” of course)…this thing is taking up my every waking moment, and creating a few more waking moments that I didn’t really plan on.

Come see the violence inherent in the system! September 8, 2008

As a grad student, I’m used to dealing with all sorts of mistreatment and exploitation. It comes as part of the territory and you learn to put up with a lot pretty quickly. I’ve developed a thick skin and a high tolerance for b.s., but I was so not prepared for what transpired today. It all happened via e-mail (ahhh, technology), and I’ve copied and pasted below for your amusement. (Names and identifying information have been redacted to protect the insane.)

E-mail 1 [some context: this student showed up late and dressed like a skank]:

Because you were not present at orientation a few weeks ago, I want to make sure that we are clear on some points in order to make the mentoring experience better for all involved. As you may remember from last year, we are expected to serve as positive role models for the children at [school], and this expectation includes the way in which we dress. Please note that short shorts or skirts, tight clothing, or anything else that could be considered revealing is not appropriate attire for when you mentor.
Additionally, I need to confirm whether you are actually able to participate this semester. You were absent from orientation and showed up quite late last week, and I would like to know if this was a fluke occurrence or if your schedule has become too busy for you to fully commit to this program. I realize that all of us have very busy and hectic schedules, particularly this time of year, but tardiness to that extent is unacceptable. Many of my mentors show up as early as 2:30, and it is imperative that we begin right at 3:00. If you are unable to show up at or before 3:00 on a regular basis, I strongly urge you to mentor another semester when your schedule is more manageable.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns. We can talk on Wednesday before 3:00 if you would like to discuss this matter further.

Nice, right? OK, e-mail 2, from psycho hosebeast [bolded for the lolz]:

Well there must be some kind of mistake because I was there last week EARLY. And no one knew where to send me so I was just walking around the place trying to find where to go. Then I was told since I am volunteering and not doing a class that I only need to come there at 4-5 every week since they just had me sit around doing absolutely nothing from 3-4. So you guys are obviously very unorganized and need to get your facts together. I find it extremely rude that you are acting like I don’t care about this organization. And I also told the person in charge [um, you mean me?] that I have a class until until 2:50 on Wednesdays and that I might be a little late and [other GTA] said that was not another problem. I’m not going to participate in this program if you are going to treat me so disrespectfully. You need to get organized or get another volunteer–and that would be really fun to try to explain to my mentee that he mentor isn’t coming back because of how terrible the organization has treated her. I’ve never talked to such a rude individual. I work with many mentoring programs and churches here and I have NEVER been told that I wasn’t committed to something. You need to talk to [other GTA] and see how wrong you are.

I needed a crane to lift my damn jaw off the floor after reading this. I consulted with my supervisor, who essentially sent this person a short e-mail saying that she was no longer needed as a volunteer. This person’s response?

“That’s fine I hope you guys enjoy talking to [her mentee] about this. And I did ask numerous people in the office where to go. And that’s really interesting that [other GTA] said that to you because said something completely different about you to me.”

Our future, folks! I’m just thankful I no longer have to deal with this person. All of my other students are nice, sane people, so this just came out of nowhere. At first I was kind of pissed, but my anger quickly turned to overwhelming amusement. Never a dull moment for Freckles!

It smells like pancakes up here September 5, 2008

The last week has been a frantic haze. I just want to go to bed and sleep for days and days. I’ve probably gotten a grand total of 12 hours of sleep in the past week (due in no small part to some recently acquired insomnia) and I sure do look like it. It’s enough to make a sister want to hit some Xanax.

A recap:

My friends were here Saturday morning-Tuesday morning. A good time was had by all, including my rascally dog. He’s a good host! Everybody’s houses were spared by Gustav, but two of them still lack electricity, so they’re staying elsewhere until things are fixed. It could have been so much worse, and I’m glad it wasn’t!

This week at work was absolute pandemonium. On Tuesday and Wednesday I just wanted to go home and curl into the fetal position in a dark room under a blanket. There are a lot of things that need to be worked out, and communication on all sides needs to improve drastically. I’m also quite unhappy about the fact that my so-called 10 hour a week assistantship is actually requiring closer to 20 hours a week. That coupled with my other assistantship, a class, dissertation stuff, and life is just a wee bit overwhelming. Things have to improve, right? Right??!

As far as the dissertation stuff goes, I may be hitting the fast track. The goal for now is to have my prospectus written by the beginning of October (yes, a month from now), which means I need to get on the committee-forming thing now. With that timeline, I collect data in October and November, start writing in December, analyze in December and January, and could potentially finish as early as May. I’m thinking more likely that I could aim to be finished in August or December. I could be job hunting as early as this coming spring. That just blows my mind! It also means that our plans for moving have bumped up by about 9-12 months, which could be stressful. However, I’ll be glad to get out with papers in hand and a job on the horizon.

Otherwise, life is OK. There’s a lot of good music coming around these parts, which is kind of exciting. Alabama isn’t really a destination for a lot of good acts, so for multiple acts to come around is unprecedented. Last night was Aimee Mann, and I must say, I really had forgotten that I liked her. She puts on a good show, and her songs are awesome! A band called The Submarines opened for her, and I couldn’t believe how good they were. I remarked to one of my friends that they sounded like Ingrid Michaelson and The Postal Service had a kid. The lead singer was an adorable blonde with pigtails who said that the fog machine made the stage smell like pancakes and that she loved the way Southern girls were always so done up. This weekend is Cowboy Mouth, a few weeks from now is Fleet Foxes and The Avett Brothers, and then next month is Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, Ingrid Michaelson, and Okkervil River. How did we get so lucky?!

Observations from the first week August 27, 2008

Classes began a week ago, and so far, so good. I’m only taking one class (two if you count dissertation hours), so my life is substantially easier than before. Both of my assistantships are going really well. My lab gig is its usual: uneventful and at times boring. My mentoring gig is quite the opposite, and I’m most pleased about that. Give me a couple of months and I may feel differently, but this job is going to prove to be very rewarding.

I led an orientation class for one of the groups of mentors and WOW are they young! I can’t even imagine what I was like at their age, although I know it really wasn’t all that long ago. I am really beginning to see generational gaps, even though most of these kids are at most 8 years my junior. However, when I remember that some of them were still in high school when I started grad school, or that many of them were in middle school when 9/11 happened, I begin to appreciate the value of one’s college years and the changes that occur during that time. I’m sure we can all name a few people in our lives who never moved beyond a collegiate mentality well into their 20s (and even 30s), but the amount of change one experiences in all realms between 18 and 23 is nothing short of astounding to me.

One issue that concerns me is that of the helicopter parents and the overall coddling culture that I’ve seen developing on campus over the past few years. When I attended orientation before my freshman year of college, I can’t think of a single person I knew who had a parent along with them. Further, I can’t imagine the amount of ridicule one would have faced had he/she brought a parent to stay for the first few days of classes. Now it seems that these sorts of things are commonplace, and I wonder what sort of impact they will ultimately have on the students’ development. So many kids today are raised to let other people handle their problems, or to pass the buck on to someone else, absolving them of all responsibility. At some point, though, you have to own yourself. If your parents are constantly running your life, you never learn to do that for yourself, and that seems dangerous.

A friend of mine who taught an undergrad class last year recently shared some of the choicer moments she she had with students. Some students got their parents involved when they received a grade they didn’t like. One student was even brazen enough to tell her that it was her (my friend’s) responsibility to see that she (the student) passed the class. An upperclassman, no less. In-freakin-deed! People skip class, don’t study, IM their friends during class, but they call Mama crying when they’re staring down a failing grade. Had I done that, my parents likely would have hung up on my sorry ass, as well they should have. I’m not going to say that I did everything right, and there were bumps along the way, but I feel like I came out of all that a much better person. Being able to make your own mistakes and then figuring out how to deal with the consequences is an important part of becoming an adult, and that seems to be happening less and less these days. (Now hand me my Geritol, whippersnapper!)

All that said, my initial impression of my students is overall pretty positive. They’re all honors students who chose to enter this program, so already that says a lot about them. These first few weeks will be trying for all of us as we adjust to a new group of kids, figure out what makes them tick, and lay a good foundation for the rest of the year. Thank God for a long weekend before chaos ensues!

Saved! February 29, 2008

I realized this morning that there’s no way I could possibly attend the aforementioned job talk this afternoon because I’ll be accompanying the Spousal Unit to a work-related dinner. As much as I usually dread these sorts of events, it beats the hell out listening to a stats lecture on a Friday afternoon. At least there will be food at the banquet, and I get to snicker at all the drunk rich alums and their trophy spouses. Good times!

This morning my lab partner and I re-arranged the lab to spruce things up in anticipation of next week’s NCATE (some accrediting body) visit. I now have a pretty swank wooden desk with drawers, which beats the heck out of the table I was using as a desk. Things are looking pretty nice. Now if only it weren’t around 85 degrees in here all the time.

Only 15 more minutes until I can leave and no longer live in fear that Creep will darken my door…at least until Monday. Sigh.