Last day of Spring Break

I got the snow tires taken off my car. That pretty much guarantees that we will get a blizzard in the next few days.

Cooper has an appointment tomorrow morning with his pediatrician. I'm pretty sure he's been losing weight on this medication, and I want to discuss where we go from here. The recommended specialist in pediatric ADHD isn't covered by my insurance, but it is by GeekBoy's, so we will gain coverage in about four months. I need to call my insurance tomorrow morning about out of network coverage for seeing the specialist before then, and if we need an official referral. I'm sick of waiting for things to happen for him. This medication has helped with impulse control, but I'm not seeing an improvement in attention. That combined with the weight loss means time to try something new.

I also need to call the school district to follow up on scheduling a speech evaluation for him. At his five year check-up, the pediatrician expressed some concern about his speech. I'm pretty sure that it is just from him being tongue tied for so long; he doesn't know how to shape certain letters. But that's one more thing to work on.

Cooper has a large head, just like both his parents. We went to Target tonight to find new shirts. We actually have to try on each t-shirt to make sure that it fits over his head comfortably. So, all his shirts are big on him, but at least he doesn't complain about the pain they cause going on and off now. Also, thank goodness for polos and henleys. Bonus - button  practice!

We also picked up a horseshoe and badmitton set at Target. More outdoor activities. I am so looking forward to it warming up. Our second daffodil bloomed today. It may be half way through April, but it is still on the chilly beginning of spring here.

Back to campus tomorrow for my last semester. I bought a new funky necklace to wear for the first day of classes on Wednesday. I am such a girl.

My take on a Christmas Classic

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Professor Version

It's the most wonderful time of the year!
With the students appealing the grades they're receiving, 
"What's with this F?"
It's the most wonderful time of the year.

It's the hap-happiest season of all!
The finals aren't graded, the faculty's jaded,
And students I've not seen since fall!
It's the hap-happiest season of all!

There'll be stories of sickness
And grandmas who've kicked it
And slide-offs into the snow.
Academic suspension and
Scholarship tension and
Homework from long, long ago!


It's the most wonderful time of the year
My patience is fading,
I'll finish my grading
When students aren't here!
It's the most wonderful time of the year!

There'll be technology crashes
And tears on the lashes,
And deadlines that they didn't know.
The roommate's psychotic,
The boyfriend's hypnotic and
He just would not let her goooooooo!


It's the most wonderful time of the year
There is much celebrating 
I've finished my grading 
And I'm on my break! It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time
It's the most wonderful time of the year!


Honestly, I love about 99% of my students.  And I love the other 1% because it's a commandment. Every once in a while, I just have to write a song. It's who I am.

I love my job

GeekBoy: How do you deal with coworkers who say stupid political stuff?

Me: I work with political science professors. They don't say stupid political stuff.

GeekBoy: Oh, yeah.

Conferences, conferences

I've had two conference proposals accepted in the last month, one at our university's conference, and one at a small regional conference. I submitted another proposal yesterday to a big national conference and was notified by the academia.edu site that someone was googling me this morning, so I'm assuming it is them.

And I just got an email from the section chair at the regional conference asking me if I would be willing to be a panel discussant.

I think I officially feel like a professor.

Doubt not, fear not

We got to church this morning, a few minutes late, and Cooper walked right up to the front of the chapel and sat down in the second row. GeekBoy and I sat next to him, and as I opened up the hymnal, I looked up to determine what page number I needed to be on and realized that my university president was sitting on the dais. Nothing makes you realize how unkempt your kid's hair looks like than having your boss's boss's boss's boss sitting in front of you.

One of the interesting things about working at a church university is that the university president is also an ecclesiastical leader. He presides over a huge area - somewhat like what I imagine a Catholic cardinal to be, though I have no idea how accurate that is. Having these two aspects of my life - work and faith - interact in this way is challenging at times. The political science part of my brain and the faithful part of my brain have very interesting conversations about belief and bureaucracy and obedience and oppression. The Mormon part of me and the Marxist part of me don't get along really well. I constantly am discursively creating and recreating my role as an academic of faith.

That said, I love my university president. He really preaches with the Spirit, and I find that he focuses deeply on the responsibilities we have to bring ourselves in line with the teachings of Christ, and doesn't shy away from the difficulty and necessity of exact obedience. Along with the constant call for self improvement, he also focuses on our call to reach out to others in charity, and our responsibility to care for the poor, needy and oppressed.

Every time he talks, I learn something new. Today's talk was on the story of Christ calming the storm on the Sea of Galilee. This is a story that I have read more times than I can easily count, and yet today I learned a new perspective on the story. As the disciples come to Christ in fear and wake them, Christ calms the storm, and then asks them why they were afraid. In the KJV, the words are "Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?" The point that was emphasized today was that Christ is actually in the boat with the disciples as they were going through this storm. Even though they were skilled sailors who had probably spent their life on this body of water, this storm was so extraordinary that they were afraid, because they forgot who was in the boat with them. It demonstrated a lack of understanding of who Christ is, which you see in the next line, "What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?" They are afraid because they don't know who Christ is. As we know Christ, we fear less. It doesn't protect us from the storms, but He is with us in our trials, and we do not need to be afraid.

I think I broke my brain

I've been going to new faculty trainings for the last week and a half, interspersed between all the getting ready for the semester last minute stuff. My syllabi are all mostly done. I just need to sit down with a calendar and make sure I haven't scheduled exams and papers to all be due at the same time. I honestly feel like I may have broken my brain, though, with as much stuff as I have been doing. I couldn't remember what my name was when I answered the phone a few minutes ago.

So I'm relaxing and watching Top Chef. That contestant that my brother has nicknamed Ed Hardy is a jerk and needs to get eliminated. Quickly. My brother has also nicknamed most of the other contestants, but my favorite nickname is Winnie the Red because he looks so much like Winnie the Pooh.

Cooper is adapting well to daycare. The first day it took 20 minutes to convince him to let go of GeekBoy, but now we're to the point that though there are still a few tears some mornings. But he is making friends with some of the other kids, and is learning a lot of new stuff. When GeekBoy went to pick him up yesterday, Cooper walked out the front door, stopped and said, "Moon!" He repeated it a few times and GeekBoy was looking around to figure out what he was talking about. Cooper bent down, picked up a crescent shaped rock that looked like a moon, and said, "Moonrock!" He loves rocks. Now if I can just convince him to stop pulling the leaves off the houseplants to show them to me.

A room of one's own

With the start of my new faculty position next month, I will have an office of my own. I am very excited about this. An office! Of my own! With a door that shuts! But I've also been thinking a lot about the message I want my office to project. I'm going to be at a teaching university, so I expect (and I may be wrong about this) to have students in my office on a regular basis. The student body is overwhelmingly socially conservative. The faculty are not as socially conservative as the students on the whole, but as a religious university, the students and faculty are part of the same social system when it comes to reinforcing conservative gender roles. I will be only the second female faculty member in a large department. From my interactions with the other female faculty member, I know that I can expect male and female students alike to challenge the appropriateness of me being a professor as a married female with a young child.

As excited as I am about having an office, I expect to have to tread a fine line when it comes to making that space my own. I want to decorate it in a matter that reflects my somewhat eclectic loves and quirky personality, but that does so in a manner that doesn't undermine my desire to project a professional demeanor. This is just one more facet of my reexamination of the way I present myself professionally. I have been shopping for new clothes (actual skirts and stockings and stuff) because there is no more teaching in jeans and oxford shirts. I'm already battling with impostor syndrome on being hired into this position. I want a comfortable space that makes me feel like myself, but I'm not sure how I am going to do that and still be authoritative enough to defend myself against the challenges I know will come. Sisyphus and Historiann have been compiling lists of school supplies for new graduate students. I wish there was a list of school supplies for a new faculty member.