It is finished

With the exception of one letter-of-recommendation that should come today (if it's not already here and over in the campus post office), the packet is done. I wound up having to buy a second set of tab dividers as the first ones were too short. But these came without stickers to label them, so I peeled the stickers off the first ones I made and repurposed them. (I hope the stickers continue to stick.)

But seriously, this has been what I call a Goldilocks Project: everything has to be "just right." Things can't be too long - or too short. There can't be too much documentation - or too little. It's the kind of thing that drives me up a wall. (I also hated the few college profs I had who put ridiculously small "upper limits" on word count or page numbers for projects. Now, I do tell my students: "don't hand in a research project that's longer than 12 pages of text" but as most of them average 5, I figure that's a fairly safe upper limit).

So, I feel like the "long national nightmare is over" as I conclude this project, and now I can focus on...teaching and research. Which is what I am asking to be rewarded for and what I had to gather all the proof for for this packet.

If this all goes as I hope it does, however, this is the last time I will ever have to do this. (At least at this school. And it would take a lot - either an outstandingly good offer somewhere ideal, or this place getting unbearably bad, or the sad event of my parents needing one of their kids to be more of a caretaker and live closer to them - to get me to leave here.)

I had the temptation - and ultimately gave in, in a nice way - to walk down to the office of one of the other faculty doing this this year, hold up the book, and say either "Boo-yah!" or quote the "Do you like apples? How do you like these apples?" line from "Good Will Hunting."

I did show it to her and do "boo-yah!" but I made an effort to be nice about it because I know she's working on it. (And she's up for tenure, which really should be the more stressful promotion. Not that I have the slightest doubt that she will get it; she's our big grant-generator and she also teaches several very essential courses.)