Thanksgiving break - Day One

Dissertation work accomplished - Zero
Number of toy train sets looked at either online or in person - infinity.

The end.

When no response seems sufficient

A lady from my church asked me today how Cooper was doing "without having a mother during the day" and then went on to say "he must be bonding with his new Mother at the daycare." I was so floored I didn't even have a comeback. I have spent the afternoon coming up with witty responses of various levels of rudeness.

And, seriously, nobody says a child doesn't have a father because the dad works, so don't say that I'm not his mother just because he is going to daycare during the day. So back off, lady, and keep your judgmentalism to yourself.

Time between blog posts is directly proportional to amount of chaos in life

I'm over half way through my first semester teaching a four class load with three preps. I'm still writing my dissertation. I have a two year old who is dealing with institutionalized care for the first time ever, with the complete assault that is on his immune system.

School is going well. I'm hearing good feedback through unofficial back channels. My students are almost all performing well and trying to master some difficult concepts. As Angry Professor says, trying to teach statistics to social science majors tends to color your outlook somewhat. It's been interesting teaching a teaching university rather than a research university. The demands on my time are very different, and the role I am expected to play as mentor is one for which I have never received official training, either in my graduate program or professionally. There is an expectation of an open door policy here outside of official office hours, so if I'm in my office, I'm available. And I'm supposed to be in my office every day. Students here have been taught that professors are always available and willing to talk. They stop in to chat about all sorts of questions. That's completely different from the attitude I had about my professors. I was never in their offices without a specific question, and I left as soon as it was answered.

The nice side effect of this is that I am finding out how much I enjoy collaborating with students. In all of the classes I teach I get to help students think about how they think, and watching them grappling with big normative questions and coming up with new and interesting ways of looking at the world for them to go and explore.

That said, there has been a definite learning curve. I've changed my texts for all three classes next semester, and am going to be dramatically reorganizing two of them. That's what I get to do over the winter break. I've been smart enough to keep a text file for each class entitled "What to Change for Next Semester" so I won't have to go back and wrack my memory trying to remember all the good ideas I've had.

All of this has been exacerbated by a sick little boy. He got the stomach flu last week and didn't eat for five days. And then it turned into an ear infection. He's on two separate types of antibiotics trying to get it to clear up. You know it's bad when I can track his improvement by counting the number of q-tips I am using to clean out the discharge so I can get the eardrops in far enough that they will do any good. (Note: we've topped out at four - both ends.) We've already dealt with pink eye. I'm hoping that once he is exposed to everything that his immune system will cut him a break next semester and he won't spend so much time feeling crappy.

And even with all this, I'm still making slow progress on my dissertation. I keep telling myself that over Thanksgiving break I'll get a lot of it done. That never really worked as an undergraduate. I wonder if it will work now.

Cooper's latest trick

Cooper likes to run across the living room, dive headfirst into the couch, and then use the momentum to flip his legs over his head so he's standing on his head with his feet up on the back of the couch. What was that about a motor skills delay? Oh yeah, this is why we no longer qualify for services. That's right. He's graduated from his physical therapy program because he has improved from 3rd percentile to 50th in 11 months.

He also likes to ride his tonka truck around the kitchen and smack things with a light saber. I'm thinking he thinks he is jousting. I am just trying to get him to stop hitting things. And he likes to open the fridge door and stroke his chin and say, "Hmmmmm" while he decides what he wants to eat. I have no idea where he got that one.

Oh, and he will hold both hands over his head and yell, "Huzzah!" at random intervals. He got that one from his dad.

I learned something new this morning.

I have been having problems sleeping lately. I was at Bath and Bodyworks yesterday and saw that they have a new line of products that contain lavender oil to help you sleep. I bought the pillow spray and used it last night. It turns out that I am highly allergic to lavender oil. Anywhere on my skin that came into contact with the aromatherapy spray is covered in a bright red, unbelievably itchy rash. So much for aromatherapy as a solution.

RBOC on the first full week of classes

• Apparently, I assign a lot of work.
  
• I do not think a 15-20 page research paper in an upper division course is an undue amount of work.
• Apparently, my students disagree with me.
• Students here register for a lot of classes, show up the first day to look at syllabi, and then drop the classes they don't want to take. This is the cultural norm here.
  
• This is not so bad, in that it makes my grading load lighter.
• TAs are like little angels sent from heaven.
  
• I think I am making friends with some of the other new faculty.
• Saying that makes me feel like I am in junior high.
• Apparently I think Fukuyama's The End of History is the worst thing written ever, judging by the comments I wrote all over my copy.
• The student sitting next to me at the table saw my copy of the article and asked if "PBBBBBBT!" was a technical term of criticism.
• I am not used to teaching three classes back to back. My voice starts giving out about half way through the third class. I need to do something about that.
• I used a cartoon in class for an assessment tool. If they laughed when they read it, it meant they understood the lecture.
• If you take a bite of hummus, and it turns out to be beandip, it doesn't matter how good the beandip is, it will still not be a good bite of food.
• My international students are leaving my domestic students in the dust. I'm not sure if that's a commentary on the American educational system, or that students who go to foreign countries are a self selected group of overachievers.
• I haven't walked into any more closets, but the roads still aren't surfaced.
• Apparently I say apparently a lot.
  

First day of classes

Today was the first day of classes. The registrar's server went down. The city decided that it would be a good day to resurface all the city streets surrounding the campus. A faculty member made vaguely ominous warnings about one of my students. I walked into a closet. The class website turned all my uploaded content into html laden gobbledygook.

Yeah.

Hopefully tomorrow will go smoother.