Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Wednesday morning things

* Locally, we got lucky. There was a lot of thunder and lightning (I was awake for it) but as far as I could hear, no hail, and the rain didn't sound unusually hard. (I THINK my roof repairs held - I haven't checked yet but I didn't hear any dripping water). Of course, I haven't been outside and I know it was kind of windy. Hopefully there are no limbs down in bad places (like, a big one I can't move myself across my drive).

I think they are saying some of the north Texas towns (Howe, for example) got it a lot worse than we did.

* I'm essentially done with teaching for this semester. Today is student research presentations (which have to be graded, but I don't have to talk) and tomorrow I give a couple exams. And my final exams are written. This is good. This feels good. I mean, I will miss some of my students when they are done - I had a number of good ones this semester - but it's nice to have the pace slack off a little.

* Also, I'm done-for-now with a couple things - I sent in my little research proposal and in early June I go up to Tulsa to present it to the group that hopefully will fund it. It feels good to be moving forward on something. I also just have a few corrections and edits on the abstract for my summer presentation and I can submit that.

I guess the few weeks of crazy working where I stayed over later than I normally did or pushed myself paid off. I feel a little better about the whole post-tenure process that is coming up in the fall because having a paper come out, plus give an on-campus presentation, a presentation at a national conference, and be planning and searching out alternative funding sources for new research is pretty good on top of the teaching I normally do. (And I get pretty good teaching evaluations, and my chair told me that she has heard students counseling other students to sign up for my section of the intro class. I don't THINK it's that I am "easier" - my grade distribution is about the same as everyone else's and I do push to get in all the material (I hear rumors that not everyone does). So maybe I have a talent for teaching the intro students?*)

* I am tentatively considering taking Friday's furlough afternoon and going antiquing as a reward for getting so much done. Sadly, it's supposed to rain/storm again both on Friday and Saturday. I will have to see - if it's another late-night thing, I can still go, but it's not much fun to go out shopping in heavy rain.

* I had to go refill a couple prescriptions yesterday. One wasn't quite ready despite my having called ahead. I had to wait. They have magazines in their waiting area but my choice was to read about turkey hunting or to read about having type II diabetes. (I think they need a third magazine choice there.....) I just sat. (So far I have managed to avoid type II diabetes despite it slightly running in my family so I didn't want to scare myself by reading about it. I know exercise can help prevent or slow its development and exercise is one thing I'm pretty insistent about)


(*Edited to add: oh crud, does that mean I'm Miss Cheerilee? With three daisies on my butt? (even though there's a fan trope that she's actually a TERRIBLE teacher). Speaking of which, I want to start on the Amigurumi version of her some time: a friend on Rav bought me the pattern for her LAST year on my birthday and I've never started her! But I have to finish the gift mitts first)

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