Conferencing

I'm at ICA this weekend. I'll post again on Wednesday of next week. As you're enjoying the weekend, be sure to remember those who fought and gave their lives for the freedoms that we often take for granted.

Blogging isn't as fun as it used to be

I'm getting less motivated to keep up with blogging. So I've done it for almost a year now, but I find that more and more, it's a chore rather than something I'm excited about. This past Sunday was one year on this blog. Not very many people read it, and virtually no one comments. Part of the problem is that I don't read very many other blogs, but who has time? So I don't know if it's worth it to keep posting here for my own piece of mind.

My other blog has a decent readership, but I'm finding that it's getting harder to come up with good material. And I can't really capitalize fully on the readership. I started out with a Word file full of great posts for the other blog, so I wouldn't have to write regularly, but I could write posts as they came to me and still publish on a regular schedule. The problem is that now I am at a point where I've said many of the things that I want to say, and I don't have time to develop the ideas to say more. I'm often just going through the motions. Plus, the other blog is on WordPress.com, which won't let me post ads. So this blog, which has a very small readership has ads that no one clicks on while the other blog that has a great readership can't have ads. I've thought about moving it over to Blogger, but I'm not sure how much traffic it gets from WordPress.com tags. I may do a mirror blog to see how it goes.

In the meantime, I'm contemplating a hiatus.

Busy week, but exciting nonetheless

So it's a crazy busy week. With the meetings of my summer research team on Mondays and Wednesdays, I basically get little done other than that project. A few little things in the morning, perhaps, but most of the day is taken up with that project. Tuesday should be a good workday, but there's a lot to get done in that time period. Thursday, I leave for ICA. I always plan to get a lot done on the plane, but I'm never as productive as I hope to be. My favorite part of trying to be productive on these trips is when the jerk in front of me leans his/her chair back as far as possible, which prevents me from having my laptop open far enough to see the entire screen. I then spend the rest of the flight kneeing the chair and alternating pressure on it, hoping to significantly disturb his/her sleep. I long for the day someone says something about it to me. I've practiced my retort for many years now.

However, despite that, I am truly pumped about ICA. I'm really looking forward to the break.

Getting Better

Today, I am feeling much better. And the last two days have been much more productive. It's great to have so much more flexibility in terms of my schedule, but I remember last year feeling like the summer flew by before I knew what happened. I want to make sure to get several things accomplished.

I'm continuing on my work on the theory piece that I'm (sort of) starting. It was rejected last year, and this piece will have a similar starting point as that one although it will go much further. I'm not sure if that means it's new or not, but I'm starting mostly from scratch at any rate.

I think I've talked about the fact that I'm working on an interdisciplinary research team this summer. It's going fairly well. One member is on vacation this week--would have been much better later in the summer, after we were already well underway. I have high expectations for this project.

After having a grant application rejected by the same organization twice, I am considering sending it elsewhere to seek funding. I may try one more time at this organization, but it's pretty frustrating to fix all of the things they asked me to fix and still get rejected.

Still Sick, But Able to Get Work Done

I'm still able to get work done, but I cough every 30 seconds. But at least I can get work done.

Lots of work to do.

sick today, big day for summer research

I got sick over the weekend, but it's a bad day to be sick. I'm pretty frustrated at my doctor's office and I'm thinking about changing doctors, but that's a longer story than is worth getting into.

The bummer is that it's a terrible day to be sick. Day is the "opening ceremonies" so to speak for summer research at my university. There is a reception for all faculty and students that are doing official summer projects. Then, I've got meetings for the rest of the day with my research team. We are doing intense coding training today (and probably the rest of the week). I don't want to miss the reception (the on-campus catering place makes fantastic cookies), and I really can't missing the training. I'm taking a pocket full of cough drops and will wash my hands till the skin falls off, but I have to be there.

The Next Steps Forward

So now that I have polished off loose ends, I am starting on some new projects. One of them is a collaborative project that is the main focus of the semester. I've never worked with a research team this large before, and it's interesting balancing the dynamics. Meetings tend to be much less efficient than I prefer, in part because another member doesn't seem as "on task" as I'd like to be. However, the time that this other group member spends thinking about research directions could lead to future projects or to this project being less superficial. I try to focus on the fact that our differences are what makes collaborative projects good.

I'm also starting to work on a theory piece. I had a theory piece reject last year--two reviewers liked it and one didn't, and the editor went with the one that didn't. However, the reviews gave me some interesting ideas about different directions to take with the paper. One direction was using the conceptual development in the earlier paper as the literature review of an empiricial paper. I've done that. A few people are looking at it for me, and then one or two rewrites and it's off (mid-June?). The other direction was to take the conceptual development to another level, to really consider the ontology of what I'm talking about. Although I was/am frustrated that the original piece was not at least given a revise and resubmit, I have to say that I'm excited about this new direction. A little intimidated because of the twists and turns I see ahead for this paper, but still very excited. I'm hoping to have a draft done in the next few weeks and maybe submit it in late July or August.

In my "free" time, I've been running more and more. I just finished a long training run. Later this summer, I'm running my first marathon. It's nice to have something to talk about other than teaching and research.

Two Submissions, One Day

Yes, that's right. I submitted two articles today. That's got to be a record. It is for me at least. It's tough to say how much of a chance each of them has, but it's nice to get them off my plate for a while. One of them was "shooting for the stars" as a colleague said, sending it to a journal that may be a little high for the quality of the study. The other was a great study, but part of it was a little out of my area, so I don't know what I don't know in terms of the literature. We'll see how they go.

In the meantime, I've still got an article under initial review (2 months, so might be soon), so that's three things under review at once. Nice.

Graduation

I like graduation. Yes, it's a long time to sit in an uncomfortable seat while wearing a hot robe, but I really like seeing the excitement on the faces of graduates. And their parents. It's neat to see that enthusiasm, and in some ways, it reminds me of why I like teaching.

Grades are in, and I've even finished the course assessment stuff that my department requires of me. I still don't like that stuff because it symbolizes that responsibility for whether students learn or not falls entirely on me. I feel like students choose to learn or not to learn regardless of my teaching methods. And the best evidence of that is a student's grade. However, I finished a report that will work for the purposes that my school requires.

Yes, Summer begins!

Grades turned in!

I got my grades turned in. I had to wait until the last minute for a couple of students, and even then, I had to give one of them an I until she turns in paperwork. But it's all done. A few loose ends to tie up today and next week. Let the summer begin!!