3 columns

Success!! So today, I learned how to add 3 columns to my template. I had help from a number of “tips” sites that I found through Google, but the most helpful one was Tips for New Bloggers. I am still playing with colors and a few other elements, but I’m liking the way it looks more and more. It’s amazing—a few months ago, I couldn’t even spell HTML and now I’m adjusting CSS pages.

Self-Evaluation

Tomorrow, my self-evaluation is due. It is an interesting exercise to sum up an entire year in a single document. On the one hand, it is a little depressing that so many hours of work takes so little space on paper. I just had an article rejected at a journal—I wish they had waited until Monday, so I could report that manuscript as under review. At the same time, it is neat to be able to point to successes in the last year. One of my division chair’s comments last year was that I needed to be more programmatic in my research. Part of the problem was that I had finished up a number of projects that were started during my PhD program and weren’t directly connected to the main line in my research. I have been much more programmatic this year. I’ve had a pretty good year teaching as well. One of my classes had final grades that were too high. My other classes were fine, so I am hoping to make the argument that the students making high grades in that class were exceptional (which is true). I have certainly had rough spots this year, but it’s nice to be able to point to some high points.

Halfway Through

Last Monday, I blogged about the stress and pressure of summer break. As I counted the weeks of summer break, I’ve come to the realization that this past weekend was halfway through the summer. We had graduation April 26th and my first meeting of the 08-09 year is around August 11th. I think I’m mostly past the point of being overwhelmed with stress about not getting everything done this summer, but it is a little sad that the summer is halfway over.

Submissions

The last week has been pretty good. In spite of the stress and pressure of summer break, I have to say that I have felt a great deal of accomplishment in the last seven days. I had a manuscript that I had been given the chance to revise and resubmit to a journal, and I got that done. It’s not a paper that’s directly connected to my research program, but I have probably put more time and effort into the study that’s reported in that paper than anything else I’ve ever done (except possibly my dissertation). So I really want to get that paper published (if anyone reading this blog recently received a manuscript to review, be kind—it could be mine.). I also submitted 2 new manuscripts to journals. One of them, I have to admit, is not my best work. It is as much work as I really want to put into the project, and I am hoping to get merciful reviewers that have ideas about how it could be improved. I definitely feel a little guilty for submitting something that is probably not going to get accepted, but I wanted to see how it went—I felt like I owed it to the paper and to the students that helped with it to give it at least one try at a journal. The other recent submission is a paper that I’m proud of. I took the theory part of my dissertation and worked on it for about a year now. This paper presents a series of propositions about the concepts that are important in my research program over the next few years. I sent it to a better journal, and it would be quite a feather in my cap to have it published. It’s nice to feel productive, and it’s really nice to feel like I am finishing projects from this past spring and am ready to begin the summer. Even though summer is well underway.

Blessings and Curses of Summer Break

Summer break brings an interesting mix of blessings and curses. There a lot of great things about summer, not the least of which is the flexible schedule. I love the fact that I can work from home, a number of days a week, especially since I am almost to the point of selling internal organs to pay for gas (one tank for an appendix, anyone?). One of my goals for this summer has been to finish up a number of projects from this past year, and I’ve done a lot of that. I also intend on working on some of the lessons for this coming year (I’ve got one new prep and two old preps that need some fine-tuning). And I’m spearheading a curriculum revision in my department (“that’ll teach the new kid to make creative suggestions in faculty meetings.”). It’s really nice to have larger chunks of time to deal with larger projects.

But it’s not all vacations and bathrobes. I think, because of the availability of more time, I tend to overload that time, which ends up putting more pressure on me. “So yeah, let’s try to send off a gazillion manuscripts to journals and plan a research program for the next five years—I’ve finally got the time to do it.” I think this past weekend, I kind of hit a wall as far as feeling the stress of having to get things done. I know that I need to relax and understand my limitations, but the idea of all of this wonderful “free” time and the realization that it will be gone during the regular school year goads me into putting more and more on my to-do list. So it seems one has to accept the curses of summer along with its blessings. I wonder how others do it. In the meantime, I’m going to try to whittle down my list of things I need to do.

I still haven’t figured out the 3 columns yet on this blog template, but it’s summer so I’ll probably have some free time this week. :)

Learning how to blog

So I am changing some elements of my blog this weekend. I've tried to set aside time to do more posts and also just to work on the basic mechanics of the blog over the last couple of weeks, but we all know how that goes. I looked at a lot of blogs, and a number of them had similar templates so I changed my template a little. I'm in the process of trying to add a third column, so if you're reading this and there are three columns, I was successful. It's kind of fun learning HTML, kind of like a new language, although I do wish it was a little more intuitive.

Back in the Swing of Things

One of the things that I really appreciate about conferences is how much of a “recharge” they can be. When research ideas are not as vibrant, when the day-to-day research process seems mundane, when I’m just not motivated anymore, conferences serve as a jumpstart to enthusiasm. The time at a conference helps me to think big picture about projects that I want to do and where different ideas fit in the larger scope of my research. When I return, I tend to be “on fire” for making progress on those projects. Of course the drawback to that is work-a-holic-ness, and I am definitely feeling the pressure of doing more, making sure I’m on track toward that big picture. But with the decreased rhythm of the summer, that pressure probably is not a bad thing. Even if I sound ridiculously busy to some, it’s nice to not be bored!