Page Proofs

I corrected page proofs over the weekend. That's an exciting stage, but I consider it a high-pressure situation. I hate the idea of missing something. I read an article by a top scholar is a top journal last week, and there was a misspelling in the abstract. It just confirmed the pressure of looking at page proofs.

I'm considering taking a break from my two blogs for a while. Very few people look at this blog, so it wouldn't be missed. My other blog gets a lot of traffic, but it's getting harder to have good material. I can tell I've rushed through writing the last several weeks. That blog gets a decent number of hits, but I don't know how many of those are people that follow the blog and how many see tags and click to the blog (mostly the second type I think). I just need a break. We'll see how the rest of the week goes.

Interesting Presentation

Yesterday, I had a student presenting on presentation delivery. She wanted to demonstrate the differences between impromptu, extemporaneous, and manuscript delivery. So she found three volunteers. She told the first to do a 90 second speech on Oreos, and he did predictably. She gave the second volunteer a notecard with a brief outline and told him to do a 90 sec. speech on Oreos following the outline. He did better, but hadn't practiced so it wasn't very polished (we discussed how typically extemporaneous means that you've practiced and know your material ahead of time). She gave the third volunteer a scripted speech about how to eat Oreos. I could be completely wrong, but I don't think the student in charge knew why everyone laughed at this third speech. When someone told her after class, she turned completely red and seemed genuinely surprised. Word choice is key. When you describe the details about how to eat an Oreo, a few words can make the speech sound very sexualized. The class was crying and falling out of their chairs they were laughing so hard. Like I said, maybe I'm gullible, but I don't think it was on purpose. Either way, it was an interesting speech.

Meetings today

Today is a busy day of meetings, but I should have some time to get things done.

Division meeting this morning. Rather than wait to be "nominated" for an unpleasant committee, I found one that would be better and volunteered for it. And it works with my research (somewhat) so that's nice too.

Meeting with one of the guest speakers coming to my class later today. Should be good. So far, I think my guest speakers have had mixed reviews. Two more, and I really want them to be good.

Finally, I'm meeting with the research team that I'm on for the summer, even though we haven't gotten final approval for the funding that will support us. We need to get going if we're going to be ready for the beginning of the summer.

Whew!

I made a commitment last night that I'm really going to try to not work in the evenings and limit my weekend work time. I gave up evening working for Lent, but it seems like a good idea to reserve that time for family.

Congestion

I helped someone move dusty furniture this weekend, and I picked up some sinus congestion as a reward. It's nice that I have student presentations in one class and a guest speaker in the other--I don't have to do much prep work. But I guess I could have called in sick if not for those commitments.

Conferences and Classes

So I looked at the reviews for the paper that got rejected from NCA. One reviewer hated it, one reviewer loved it, and one reviewer was in the middle. I'm still not sure how it got rejected.

Booked flight and hotel for ICA yesterday. It's kind of annoying that I couldn't get in the conference hotel, but the overflow is close. Maybe it'll be nice to be out of the traffic.

One of the classes that I will teach in the fall only had 4 students register for it last week. However, it's a required class, so it has to be offered. I'll probably pick up another student or two before the fall, but it'll still have the feel of a directed studies. Which is great for the fall--I was already planning on having the class help me study dissent and feedback in an organization. This will make it easier to manage. What may be more problematic is the spring class that the same students typically take. That class doesn't work as well for a directed studies format. It will take creative planning.

I found out last week that I'll have a grad assistant in the fall. I'm pumped about that.

The Calm After the Storm

After a crazy end of the fall semester and an even busier February, I think I'm in a little bit of a lull right now. My classes are going well and pretty much on auto-pilot until finals. I'm working on a couple of writing projects that are close to finished. I'm sure I'll be busy again toward the end of April finishing things up, but it's nice to not feel overwhelmed right now.

I have two papers that are close to being ready to submit to journals. I think. Both of them have been rejected from a conference, one from ICA and one from NCA. The ICA-reject was only partly done at the ICA deadline, so I can kind of understand that one (although I thought it was still good enough to be accepted). The NCA one was almost finished, so I'm a bit confused as to why it didn't get accepted. I'm hoping they will release the reviews soon so I can get any feedback that's useful before sending it to a journal.

Not a lot to say today

Not a lot to say today. I'm plugging away on a couple of papers that I'd like to submit late this month or early next month, before the end of semester blitz. It was a relaxing weekend, and I'm ready to hit it this week.