Grammar and Punctuation. For Doctoral Students.

I was recently invited to be a guest speaker for our doctoral course in Writing for Publication. "Cool!" I thought. "I love doctoral students!"

But. The inviter asked me to speak on grammar and punctuation.

Wha---?

For doctoral students?

Seriously, what exactly would I cover? And why couldn't doctoral students figure out for themselves, or with the help of their advisors, what their problems are and how to solve them?

And what about the DECADES of research on grammar instruction in isolation, indicating that grammar instruction -- if taught separately from students' actual writing -- has no impact, or even a negative impact on student writing?

If I were a doctoral student taking that course, I would not be happy that my time was being wasted in this way.

I'm sure that there are doctoral students who need some help with their writing, in terms of their use of standard English, but this is not the way to go about helping them.

I declined the opportunity.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

This morning, it's 23 below 0 in High Plains City.

Roxy went out this morning to pee and came right back in, holding her foot up off the ground -- I imagine that the snow got caked in her pad and she was feeling the cold.

On tap for today -- working at home! I'll probably make a bit pot of stew or chili or something, and bake some cornbread.

In other news, I'm keeping up well with my decision to exercise 30 minutes a day and have added on a determination to cut my portion sizes. Result: I've lost 7 pounds! Woo-hoo! Still about 30 to go, but still... progress is sweet.

Mushrooms Growing in the Cabinet

For Christmas this year, my Lovely Mother and Stepdad sent us a grow-your-own-mushrooms kit. Really! At first, I was a little unsure about it, but yesterday I re-read the directions and decided that since it would only take one hour of active work, and then 6-8 weeks of growing in various places (warm, dark cabinet to start with), I would go ahead and get going with growing my own shrooms.

Just in case you're interested, here's where they ordered the mushroom kit. I'm growing Teepee Oysters on toilet paper. Are you intrigued yet? I thought I might document the process, at least for the first little bit.

The first step, of course, is to collect thematerials. For this particular project, I just needed the oyster kit (which included the oyster grain spawn, 7 filter disc bags, and 7 rubber bands), plus 7 rolls of toilet paper, a big pot full of boiling water, a pair of tongs, and some cooling racks.

Then I boiled a huge amount of water and dipped the toilet paper rolls, one at a time, into the boiling water. You would be SHOCKED at how much water a roll of toilet paper can absorb and hold. I ended up having to boil a second pot of water for the last two rolls.

I placed the soaked rolls on a cooling rack (with a kitchen to

wel underneath to soak up the drippage).

After the tp rolls had cooled to the point where they were no longer steaming and I could comfortably touch the interior, I placed each roll inside a special plastic bag (they have some kind of air filter built in) and filled the cardboard of the roll with spawn.

I used the rubber bands to close up the bags, and placed them inside a dark cabinet, where they will sit for 3-6 weeks. There are more instructions to follow once that time span has elapsed, but I'll keep you updated when the time comes instead of writing more here.

I'm thinking that at some point we will have more mushrooms that we can ever use, but I can probably dry them or freeze them, or some such.

Crazy-ass dog

So I just got back from taking Roxy on a walk. Oh, by the way, here's a pic, now that she's all grown up:

Isn't she the cutest? Anyway, we usually take her for a walk in a field not far from our house, where we can let her run off leash. There's a lot of snow there, and she loves running like a crazy thing through the snow. So she's running, and I'm walking, and we're having a lovely time until this crazy Akita shows up. As soon as I saw the other dog, I put her back on leash. Did the owner of the Akita? Hell, no. She just walked up saying "I'm so sorry. I didn't look ahead and see you. I'm so sorry."

Meanwhile the Akita stalked Roxy, hair on end, snarling. And snarled and nipped at me as well. Crazy dog. What are people thinking, bringing their crazy-ass dogs into contact with my sweet, well-mannered one? I mean, Roxy was practically slobbering over wanting to be friends with this dog, taking a subservient position, sniffing the right places, all the right stuff.

Crazy-ass woman and her crazy-ass dog. Seriously.

No Resolution(s)

A few days ago, I made a decision (not a resolution, cuz I tend to break those) to exercise for 30 minutes every day. That's my decision, and so far, I've kept it. It's helping with my sleeping -- I still wake up every couple of hours, but I've been able to get more restful sleep. It's also helped a bit with the hot flashes, but you probably don't want to hear about that.

So, New Year's Eve, we were very boring. Slogger has a pretty bad cold, and it makes him feel much worse in the evening, so we shot the middle finger at the whole ball dropping thing and I went to bed early with him out of solidarity.

Lots of folks are doing decade remembrances, or lists of New Year's Eves past and what they did on them, but my memory is not good enough to detail each year what I did. Here's the best I can do on waxing nostalgic:

2000: I was in my second year of graduate school, living in my cute little apartment, both cats were healthy, and Slogger and I were still in our "weekend" phase.

2001: The year I hiked the Appalachian Trail. Started with teaching an intensive four-week course, then hiked/collected data from March through October, then spent the fast few weeks of the year transcribing. I really hate transcribing.

2002: Wrote my dissertation, defended it, graduated, got married, moved to High Plains University, taught my first university courses on my own. Found out how great it can be to work at a place where people respect me.

2003: Slogger left for six months for his chance to hike the Appalachian Trail, and I busied myself with WORK and putting his journals and pictures online.

2004 - 2007: These years just run together. Somewhere in there, Slogger and I bought our house, I kept on with teaching and research, etc. Oh, and I got tenured and promoted.

2008: This year started off pretty normally, but our lives changed forever when Slogger experienced a devastating heart attack in March. He's still around, which makes my life complete.

2009: We adopted Roxy and bought our T@B, Marty cat died, we traveled through 25 states visiting family and friends, I got to be a co-editor, plus I got a grant for some research I really want to do.

What will happen in the next decade? I'm a bit afraid to think about it too much. One thing is pretty certain: Slogger and I will spent some time on a beach this year.

Baking Day

In an attempt to save some money and not get all commercial this Christmas, we decided to do some serious baking and give Christmas breads as gifts. I baked a practice couple of loaves last week, and they were seriously good. Seriously. We gobbled them right up.

So today I spent THE. WHOLE. DAY. baking Hoska, a Chezch Christmas bread. It's beautiful, it's braided, it has fruit and almonds in it. Yum. Eight loaves of yum. We'll be mailing those suckers out to the family tomorrow and Tuesday.

In other news, I'm finished with my sed/strat class and came out with an A, which feels good. I won't be taking a course in the spring, as I'll be traveling all over the state collecting data for a new study. So... I figured I would miss too many classes to take anything.

Slogger's in the kitchen washing the dishes -- what a sweetheart.

Final Exam

Tomorrow morning is the final exam in my sed/strat course. I'm SO excited to be done with it! Don't get me wrong, I've loved this course, and I have learned more in this one than in any of the other courses I took. Still. I need to study, and the two glasses of wine I've had are getting in the way of that.

I'm thinking that the final exam will be multiple choice, which will MAKE. MY. DAY.

I'll get up early and study, I guess.

Conference Drama, a Forgotten Exam, a Crappy Turkey, and Other News

Conference Drama

Last week I attended a national conference, one I attend every year. (Of course, I didn't go last year, but that's another story.) It was in the City of Brotherly Love, which was certainly nice, except for some HORRIBLE Dim Sum. Really, really bad.

But I digress.

While I was at the conference, I attended a reception -- now that I'm an editor, I'm a bigwig, ya see, and I get to eat cream cheese and nuts on crackers and drink cheap wine.

Anyway, while I was at this reception, I happened to be sitting next to a REALLY BIG NAME, an elderly gentleman, very well respected in the field. So, I started chatting with him, and he started telling me this story about his college girlfriend who dumped him, and how it affected him. With tears in his eyes. That is a story I'm going to remember for a long time!

So, the conference was generally about drinking too much and eating out. I was happy to get home on sunday.

A Forgotten Exam

Then, on Monday, I was headed to my geology class, thrilled to be back in class after missing a week for the conference. I saw one of my fellow students on the way to class, and he asked, "You ready for this test?"

After I picked up my jaw off the snow-crusted sidewalk, I hightailed it to the professor's office and begged for a little special treatment (this after telling the TA the week before that I really hoped she wasn't giving me any special treatment because I'm a professor). She let me postpone my test until Wednesday. So I studied for about 5 hours Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, and I'm pretty sure I finally aced it. Now just the lab project and the final exam. Of course, I'm missing another week of class next week (for yet another conference) so who knows what will happen when that's over.

A Crappy Turkey

Slogger says the turkey was good, but for me -- yuk. Tough, not quite cooked through, awful. The only good thing about Thanksgiving dinner, for me at least, was the pumpkin pie. Oh, and that we didn't have to clean the house, since it was just the two of us!

Other News

* Editing a journal is freaking hard work.
* I have a chapter due next week, and I've only written two pages of it.
* I'm looking forward to spring semester, because I'm teaching an online course and supervising student teachers. No need to go to the office! (Except for the &*(^&^%%$^& meetings)

I don't know...

... which is worse:

Spending most of Saturday at a football game in which my team was annihilated?

Or spending most of Sunday getting ready for the week to come?

It should be a crazy week, with traveling twice to Capitol City, meetings and courses galore, and a great big ginormous dissertation to read by Friday. So....

Back to work.

Note to Self:

Try not to schedule a dentist appointment and a gynecologist visit on the same day. Ever. Again.

Banquet or Basketball?

Tonight is my college's awards banquet, when the college bigwigs hand out scholarships and awards to our undergraduate and graduate students. Slogger and I signed up to go -- late -- which required the banquet organizer to make a special call over to the banquet hall to change the numbers.

Then we realized that the banquet is the same date/time as our first women's basketball game. We've been season ticket holders for seven years, and almost never miss a game.

So the plan is that Slogger will go to the game while I go to the banquet, and then I'll sneak out of the banquet early to head to the game. I'm not sure how I'll manage that, but ... I'll just break out my super-sneaky-spy talents and pretend to head for the bathroom.

Advising Week Highlight

* Friday of Advising Week (aka Hell Week):

Student is standing in the hall, staring at the advising sign-up calendar. I am heading out to the same calendar to find out how many more students will be stopping by my office with no idea what they will be taking next semester.
ME: Can I help you with something?
STU: Ummm. ... I thought I signed up for Friday, but my name isn't here.
ME: Are you Awesome Clueless Student?
STU: Yes.
ME: You signed up for last Friday.
STU: Oh.

Field Trip

Last Sunday was the required field trip for my sed/strat course. We met at 7:50 AM (!!) and got back to High Plains City at about 6 PM.

That's a long day.

There are maybe 30 students in my sed/strat (including yours truly), so we all packed into 5 or 6 big Suburbans, with the prof and TAs driving. My vehicle included one of the TAs as the driver, one of the 5 females in the class, and three male undergrads -- I'd say they were all around the 19-year old range. We drove for about an hour and a half, during which time I was KICKING myself for not bringing work to do. I seriously spent the whole time alternating between playing solitaire on my Crackberry and glaring at the kid sitting next to me, who was snoring out lasat night's booze. Seriously, the car was full of fumes. It was probably dangerous.

When we finally got to the first site, we all piled out of the cars, stretched, and gathered around the prof. She (and I have to say, I love her -- I think she's doing a great job) gave us a short lecture and some directions, which involved having us work in pairs to draw a strat column for a huge outcrop right off the road. Luckily, there wasn't much traffic. Unluckily, no one wanted to work with me.

So, I did a strat column on my lonesome. Which was awesome. It took me a few minutes to realize that I could just walk down the road and get up close to each unit on the outcrop, since it was slanting down into the road at about a 35 degree angle. Once I figured that out, the rest was simple.

But seriously, people. No one at all wanted to work with me? What? Because I'm old? Female? A professor? This mode continued all day.

And in the car on the way home, I did some writing in my writer's notebook (thank the universe, I had that with me!) about how I'm so not used to being taken for granted. Even if my students are pretending to listen to me, at least they're pretending! My colleagues, my students, my husband -- they all seem to value me. So... I'm not really bothered (much) that I don't get the same response from 19-year olds recovering from a drunken binge night.

Besides, on that first test?

97/100.

A weekend at home. A chance to get caught up, watch some horrible (High Plains U) and great (Southeast Doc School) football, baking, household chores, and.... um... thinking about grading.

Laundry? Check.
Dishes? Check.
Mow the yard (hopefully for the last time, as there is snow predicted for this week)? Check.
Grading? Not. Even Close.

So, Friday was my first exam in sedimentology/stratigraphy. I would say that I prepped well for the exam -- I read all four chapters, didn't miss a day of class or lab, took good notes, downloaded the powerpoints, made index cards of the important points, and spent about 2 hours just studying the index cards. I think I did pretty well on the exam, although I was surprised by the design of it. I had expected multiple choice questions, which would be much easier to grade (though harder to design). The test was almost all short answer, drawing diagrams, definitions, etc. Lots of writing, and I was just able to get it finished in the 50-minute time period of the class. I had memorized the formulas for things like the Reynolds number, the Froude number (dimensionless numbers designed to differentiate between levels of flow). I didn't write the formulas down as part of the definitions, and after I left the exam I thought perhaps I should have. But I did indicate in my definitions what the controlling factors of each formula were.... so perhaps that will be good enough.

I do feel like what we're doing in lab is definitely helping me understand the content of the course. And so far, that seems to be fairly unusual!

I've also decided to write a sabbatical leave proposal for a one-semester gig during spring of 2011. That will be when I'll be finishing up my current two-year study, and I hope that I'll be able to devote a considerable amount of time to analyzing data and writing manuscripts. Sabbatical leave proposals are due at the end of the month -- writing mine should be fairly easy since I have a good description of my research project in my grant application.

In other -- more interesting!-- news, Roxy has now completed half of her first obedience classes. She's doing quite well at learning the commands we are working on, and managing to control -- most of the time -- her excitement about being around other dogs! and people! during the classes! This morning she ran around the back yard, apparently stepped in poop, and promptly jumped on top of our new bedspread to share her fragrance. Slogger gave her a bath, and I did poop patrol just before starting with the mowing.

Now it's off for a shower and a shopping trip -- I have some unspent gift cards that are waiting patiently to be used.

Grad Student Love

No, it's not kinky.

I just love my new grad student, Single Mom. She was an undergrad in my courses several years ago, and after getting great teaching experience for three years in the public schools, she decided to pursue our new doc program. Thrilled! Single Mom is helping me teach my junior-level course. Well, she's actually pretty much in charge of it. Using my lesson plans and powerpoints from last year, she is in charge of planning. We teach together, and she is doing most of the grading.

LOVE IT!

And unlike the last grad student I taught with, Single Mom and I have very much the same approach to teaching. We see eye to eye, and that is fabulous.

In other news, I had to write rejection letters for some manuscripts this week. That was hard and it sucked.

Plus I have a test in sed/strat this Friday, and it involves.... physics. I guess I need to study.

First Week Report

So, it's finally Saturday. I've got water running on the lawn (I've neglected my watering duties for school and now the grass is looking decidedly brown and crinkly), Slogger and Roxy are still sleeping, and this is a good time for me to write.

I can't remember if I wrote about this last fall, but I was decidedly unhappy with one of my classes in particular last year. There was grumpiness, there was lack of enthusiasm, there was downright anger -- and that was coming from both a group of my students and from me. I've worked hard leading up to the beginning of fall semester to have a positive attitude toward my teaching, my students, myself, and my class and I believe that is paying off. I'm encouraged about the positive vibes and interest I'm sensing, particularly from my group of seniors and postbac students. It helps, of course, that I had several in a course last spring that went particularly well. So, unlike last fall when I was already counting down the semester ("ok, just 14 weeks to go. Sigh."), I'm looking forward to next week and to seeing my students again. Of course, I completely changed my textbook, so that means I have shitloads of work to do to get ready for class, but... that's par for the course, isn't it?

My new grad assistant (I'm still working on a name for her) is working out well too. She's co-teaching my junior level class with me, and will be taking over that junior-level class next year so I can teach a doctoral course in our new doc program (yeah! new doc program!). Of course, it's going to take a bit of time for students to get comfortable with her -- about half of the students in this class have either had a class with me before or are my advisees, so they know me better than they know her. We're going to work harder this week, now that she's a bit more comfortable, on giving her meatier portions of the course to run herself.

I got my official letter this week saying we are now journal editors (Woot!). And on Friday I was able to make some solid progress on lining up interviews for my new (lightly funded) research project. All of that makes me happy.

Now, Slogger threw his back out, and he's gotten started on CPAP for his sleep apnea, and all of that is taking a bit of adjustment on his part. So things are not happy in Slogger-world at the moment, but we both believe that will just be a matter of time.

Today I have a ton of reading to do, Roxy has her first day of obedience classes (we're hoping she will be the star of the show!) and I want to make and freeze some pesto, using the lovely pesto I bought at the farmer's market yesterday. I'm looking forward to a pleasant weekend, and hoping to go camping next weekend....

Overall, calm is a good place to be.

One Week Off, One Week to Go

Last week my mom and step-dad were here to visit (hi mom!) and we had a lovely, relaxing time. Went camping with our little trailer and our super-big screen tent. (Quick note: We set that screen tent up in the yard and then stood back in awe. It's like a circus tent! Truly! We were expecting elephants!)

Anyway, we headed up into the mountains and camped for a couple of days. Did a little hiking, lots of hanging out, some fishing, etc. Relaxing and great, except for one pair of lost glasses. Roxy, of course, is a fabu camper.

then when we came home, we spent a couple of days just hanging out here. We visited the university's art museum, did some shopping and cooking, read a lot, and generally relaxed. Of course, during that time frame Slogger threw out his back and I had an odd growth cut off the bottom of my foot, so there was some pain and weeping. I'm still walking with a bit of a limp as I wait for the damn thing to heal.

Of course, I did almost no work last week -- except that I went to a two-hour training session so that I can use a procurement card. That's right folks, High Plains University is trusting Doctor Bad Ass with a credit card. Scary, no? But seriously, a two-hour training? When you could have just given me the rules and regs? I spent a good bit of the training making a to-do list, as follows:

• analyze qualitative pieces of state-wide survey
• make comments on my co-editor's writing on the journal call for proposals
• do a write up on potential cover art for the journal
• read four books I just bought on teaching writing
• check on data for the program report
• schedule submission of the program report
• get Roxy's paperwork finished and mailed (for obedience classes! She doesn't really need them, but we're doing it anyway!)
• get together readings for a graduate seminar
• set up voicethreads for my fall courses
• finish setting up course platforms for my fall courses
• create a bibliography for a reading/writing resource fair
• prep for 1st week of class
• set up a date and place for mentor teacher workshop
• register for a conference
• renew organization membership
• make dinner reservations for this Friday
• sit down with department office associate to find out about procurement card reconciliation process

Most of that I've got to get done between now and Wednesday, since the beginning of school meetings and such will start on Thursday.

OK, I'm off to start on some of that list...

RIP Little Marty Cat

Yesterday I went to the office to work on syllabi, program reports, filing, cleaning, etc. I had been there an hour when Slogger called me to tell me that he had come home from walking Roxy only to find Marty had passed on.

So I came home.

Apparently, her heart just stopped. She had been losing weight for quite some time, although the vets said there was nothing wrong with her blood work, her thyroid was fine, etc. I was hoping that I could fatten her back up and get her back to -- well, not to her prime, but at least to put some meat back on her bones -- but apparently her heart was too weak to go on.

We buried her in the back yard, found some beautiful stones to put on top, and drank a glass of wine in her honor. She was a sweet little cat, always a bit fearful, but she certainly had her playful moments. She has been part of my family for 14 years, and we will miss her. We do miss her, in fact. I keep looking around expecting to see her under a chair somewhere... and my other cat, Loner, is looking positively dazed and confused.

RIP little girl.

United Breaks Guitars

I don't know why, but I can't stop playing this.

A Year Ago, I Spilled a Coke on My Laptop

Here, for your reading pleasure, is an actual email I received recently from a student. I had emailed hir multiple times, reminding hir to turn in long-missing assignments. And here is what I received:

Hi, so let me start off by telling you about my laptop. A year ago I spilled a large coke on it and ever since it has acted funny as I'm sure you can imagine. Now I'm telling you this not as an excuse, just what I think is the explanation, as best as I can figure. When you told me last weds that I had never turned in my [third written assignment] I thought that was weird cause I remembered doing it, so I went home and looked on my hard drive and couldn't find it. Then when you emailed me about my [other big, important paper] I thought that was odd too, since again I remembered writing and turning it in. but again I searched my hard drive for it and couldn't find it. So I rewrote it and submitted it on Tuesday and now this email which I just received. Now I can't find the second paper I wrote nor can I find my final so my only explanation is that my computer ate it, which might be funny on any other occasion. I don't expect you to give me a third chance and to tell you the truth I'm not sure I could write that paper a third time. The only consolation I can think of is I thoroughly enjoyed your class and aside from hurting my wallet it won't be a hardship to take it again at a later date. Sadly my college career seems to be full of these pitfalls, all well se la vie right. Well I'm sorry our class has ended this way and I hope you won't hold it against me.

Thanks,

[Student]