Thursday midday things

* Gah, I hope that is the last revision I have to do. Not much to it, it turned out, but I just want this paper DONE with and published and to stop thinking about it. Sometimes academic publishing is like whack-a-mole: you fix one thing and something else crops up later.

* I feel a LITTLE better. Gave an exam in the intro class today and was able to knit on the front of the Augusta cardigan while invigilating. Knitting still DOES calm me down. I thought it had lost that power but I guess not.

I'm still picking away (a round or two an evening - it moves slowly right now because it's a complex part of the pattern) at Great Horn-Rimmed. It is similarly satisfying. I caught part of "Inside Out" (on one of the networks) last night (Skipped the part of Bing Bong's sacrifice, because I just couldn't then) and worked on it.

* Next week is going to be busy. CWF and Board meeting as normal, plus it's my turn (with another person) to feed the college students. We anticipate 20. We are serving "build your own nachos." My responsibility is the ground beef, chips, and beans (the other person is bringing veggies, cheese, a fruit dish, and a dessert). I am assuming that 6 pounds of beef would be enough for 20 college students? Especially with beans? I think one or two are vegetarian, so I specifically wanted to have beans (and VEGETARIAN refried beans at that). Not sure how many cans to get but I will look at the suggested serving sizes and buy accordingly....Same with the chips.

(It's really more "tacos on chips" than nachos per se, because we will have lettuce and tomatoes along with the cheese and beef, but....we figured it was kind of a fun idea, and it was easier than messing with taco shells, so....)

I'm just going to buy a couple taco seasoning packets to throw in with the beef. I'd probably do it differently (salt avoidance) if I were making it for myself, but I don't stay to eat the food, so....

* I am kind of (mentally/emotionally) tired. I had to fight with my computer and the Outlook mail program yesterday so I could spam all the full-time women students with an announcement about a scholarship opportunity, and Outlook assumes it's spam if you go over 500 addresses. I had just over 700 women, each of them had two (official campus and personal) address, and I wanted to send to both because you never know which one a person uses....so you can do the math.

And now I'm both fielding questions (because like an idiot I used last year's letter that still said "for Fall 2017") and because people ALWAYS have questions/special requests. And I had tons of them bounce back to me because a lot of the personal addresses apparently had gone kaput, but I'm not going to worry about that, if the person doesn't get it, it's not on me.

But yeah. It's the little tasks like that that sidetrack me from doing stuff like planning summer research (which I NEED to be doing now) and take my energy and my goodwill.

* As I said on twitter: I wish I were in a profession where praise when you did something well was more readily forthcoming. (I know: not many professions are actually like that). Part of this, I realize, is the legacy of having been referred to as a "gifted kid*"

And really, being a gifted kid is kind of a crock, when you look at it as an adult:

- Reading at the tenth grade level is impressive when you're 8; it means nothing once you've passed tenth grade.

- Being able to do fairly complex math in your head as a kid is cool and impresses people; as an adult, it's mainly a parlor trick that you use to estimate a bill or figure out tips.

- Having a big vocabulary as a kid impresses adults (but maybe gets you beat up by other kids); as an adult, if you have one and use it, a lot of people think you're showing off and that you "think you're better than [them]"

- Writing creative stories and stuff is cool when you're a kid (and your friends like it), but as an adult, unless you're good enough to get published, it's not that useful.

A lot of the stuff I got praised for being good at as a kid is either taken for granted as an adult or is not that useful.

(*I wasn't officially part of the G and T program; I've told that sad story before, that one of my teachers felt my handwriting was so bad that I needed to focus on that instead. You know what gets you teased more than being in a gifted and talented program? Having tried out for one and not got in. At any rate: my handwriting is still atrocious so I mostly print when I need to write)

I will say though, one thing I learned as a kid (but from my parents, but not in school) that has come in handy in my teaching? Is how to sometimes be a little kinder than you need to be. (I just e-mailed back a student who is out sick and wanted to know whether she should e-mail me something that is due tomorrow or bring it Monday - I asked her to e-mail it so I could grade it right away, but also included "I hope you feel better soon" because she is a fellow human being who is not feeling her best, and maybe it helps a little to hear that, I don't know....)

But yeah. A lot of the stuff that made me maybe a little bit of a "superstar" student as a kid is pretty useless in adulthood. (Which may be part of why I cast a jaundiced eye on all the talk of "be a superstar!!" or "be a rock star!")