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)

NaBloPoMo '08 #7:

Yes, it's finally Saturday. I found out this week that a couple of papers that I co-authored were accepted at a massive conference for next spring. That makes me both happy and sad. Happy because I do like going to conferences, especially with friends. Sad because now I have to work on those papers, which I'm not particularly excited about. I do like the papers; it's just hard to imagine working on anything on a Saturday morning.

Today we're having a few friends over for lunch, which means we're undertaking a massive house clean-up. I guess it's good to invite people over about once a month in order to thoroughly clean our house.

Conferencing Bullets

Ages since I last posted, so I thought I would update with some bullets.

* I'm currently in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, attending a regional conference with some folks I like. Next year I'll be the program chair for this conference (!) and I'm actually feeling pretty good about it. I'm pretty organized, and it's a fairly small conference, so ... no worries.
* It's snowing outside. Bummer. But since it's supposed to also be snowing in High Plains City, I think I would be experiencing this no matter what.
* I'm paying $12 a day for the internet, so I'm pretty sure that part of the reason I'm blogging is because I want to get my money's worth.
* My friend Red is now Associate Dean of the college. She's my roommate, and has a bigger travel fund than I do.
* Slogger received an email about a couple looking to find a new home for their 7-month old Miniature Pinscher. I guess he's considering it, but I hope it doesn't turn out to be another Oscar. Oscar was a cute little dog we saw on a Friday a couple of months ago at the local animal shelter. He was perfect for us, but Slogger was hesitant, so we didn't take him. By the time Monday rolled around, Slogger had decided that Oscar was the dog for us; however, when I called the animal shelter Monday morning, Oscar had already been adopted. Much mourning over the lost Oscar ensued.
* My students and I are all thrilled that we didn't have class on Thursday. Thrilled, I tell you! And I'm also letting them out of class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Thrilled again!
* I think I've already gained 10 pounds at this conference, and it is only the second day.
* I bought these shoes. They should be there by the time I get home.
* Last night I had to finish an algebra assignment before we could go out and have a drink. Took me two hours. Erg.
* There's a candidate for one of our searches(it's a high-powered position and I'm on the search committee) at this conference, and I want to pull him/her aside to talk about the search, BUT I want to do it in a way that doesn't reveal anything to his/her colleagues. Can't seem to find this person alone to do that . . .

And that's about all I've got. Here's hoping that the snow will melt before we're ready to head home . . . .

Achieving (Some) Clarity

In the last couple of weeks, when I've been able to force myself to work, I have been getting lots of work done for my fall courses. I've been teaching these fall courses for the last six years and getting excellent teaching evaluations overall. There is, however, a clear pattern in the comments every fall of a couple of students saying that my assignments aren't clear. In the past, I've always written assignment descriptions in my course syllabi -- assuming that having everything in one document would be simplest for my students -- and handed out rubrics or other grading scales in class. Last year I started making samples of big assignments available to my students (with names removed, of course). I've tinkered around with the assignment descriptions over the years, trying to make them more clear, but this year I've decided to make a drastic change.

I'm creating an assignment sheet for each assignment, in a separate document. In the process of doing this (I'm almost finished) I realized that there was a lot of ambiguity in my syllabi. Lots. Because I had to make all kinds of decisions as I was writing them.

I don't know if anyone is interested in the structure of the thing, but I set each information sheet up in this format:

Purpose:
Assignment Description:
Method:
Evaluation:

When I told Slogger what I was doing, he said, "Sounds like hand-holding to me." Well, this is true. However, in defense of my hand-holding, this is the kind of thing I ask my students to prepare for their (future) junior high and high school students. So I can think of it as a) making my life easier, b) modeling good teaching practice for preservice teachers, and c) having something concrete to point to when complaints arise.

But anyway, I've been so focused on getting this job done that I've neglected to blog. Sorry about that.

P.S. I found out last week that my proposal for a small conference in my field was accepted. This makes me so happy! I attended this conference when I was in grad school, and I am looking forward to getting back into it.

"Controlling the Drama"

Today, dear friends, was about not letting transportation get the best of me. I got to the airport on time (natch) and my tiny flight from High Plains Town to Large Western City went without a hitch. I even got to sit in the back row of the 21-seater (my fave) and talk about Africa with a man and his son(?) from the Sudan by way of Chicago, who might have been checking out universities.

The need to "control the drama" began on arrival in Big Western City. I bypassed the lovely coffee shop, because I knew I needed to get a boarding pass. Hiked down to the gate and got said boarding pass, only to be told that because of back-ups in The Big City, our flight would be delayed about an hour. No problem. Traveling Colleague and I hiked back down to the coffee shop, where grabbed a non-fat latte and an extremely fatty croissant, hiked back to the gate. And waited. And waited. Eventually a voice came over the loudspeaker (picture Charlie Brown's teacher here, ok?). This is what we heard:

"wonh wonh wonh wonh eleven o'clock wonh wonh gate B-26 wonh wonh wonh."

When we inquired, we were told that we would probably loud up at 10, but would be sitting in the plane on the tarmac for an hour and a half, because another plane needed our slot. That's right, you heard me. Sitting in the plane for an hour and a half.

It was actually more like 2 hours, but who's counting.

We were supposed to arrive in The Big City at 2:30; we finally got off our flight at 4:45. And went to the luggage carousel to claim our luggage (I had bought a spanking new red suitcase specially for this trip, cousins!). You know what happened next -- our luggage didn't arrive. When we inquired, we were told that it was loaded on the NEXT flight from Large Western City to The Big City, which was due to arrive in 20 minutes. About 45 minutes later, lo and behold, our luggage arrived.

Then we took a taxi to Traveling Colleague's hotel, had a nice dinner at a little Italian place (Cha-ching, $60), went back to the hotel to get my luggage, and I hailed a taxi out to my hotel. (Cha-ching, $60)

And now I am here. Exhausted, well fed, and ready to snooze. But because I care so much about you, cousins, I had to tell you my day's sad tale. I have high hopes that tomorrow will include rides across a river on a ferry, a good bit of city walking, a couple of presentations, and a nice lunch and dinner.

Oh and spending a hell of a lot more cha-ching. But I'm controlling the drama!