jane | January 7, 2009I just found out about this very cool idea, a sort of a call to arms to address those old, tired statements "where are the women in tech? why aren't there any women in tech? there are no women in tech! there are no women tech pioneers/innovators/role models because women don't like tech/are not genetically predisposed to be good at tech/can't hack it in our little boys' world".....sorry, got a bit carried away there. Anyway. I give you: Ada Lovelace Day.
From the pledge site:
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women's…
jane | January 3, 2009For a few years now, rather than making new year's resolutions, I've been doing new year's themes. I've found it more rewarding to go with the theme idea, which is more like a principle for living one's life and guiding one's actions overall, rather than choosing specific behaviors on which to focus.
So, it's time to assess last year's theme and pick a new theme for 2009.
The theme for 2008 was FEARLESS:
When I look back on what really disappointed me about 2007, the thing that jumps out at me is that I often stand in my own way. .... In light of this introspection, the theme really named…
jane | December 24, 2008In the midst of all of the end-of-classes and journal deadline and too-many-projects and holiday and general craziness around here, it was almost lost on me that I have inadvertently let a door close this year:
I apparently have decided, by my inaction, not to go on the market this year.
Now of course, it's never too late to do anything, and I suppose if I really wanted to, I could get some job materials together and track down some reccommenders and send out some applications by the first of the year, or at least shortly thereafter. I mean, that would be the smart thing to do, right?…
jane | December 18, 2008I have a number of friends at various institutions that are up for tenure this year. Every school is on its own unique schedule, of course, so some of my friends are finding out right about now, officially or unofficially (mostly unofficially) whether they will be tenured or not. I am going to concentrate on two such friends and their situations in this particular post.
Friend #1 is at a school where the tenure requirements are very vague, and where there is almost zero transparency in the tenure process. Junior faculty have to rely on what amounts to smoke signals from departmental…
jane | December 10, 2008No, really, I have been boring lately. No drama (well, unless you count the day one of my senior colleagues came into my office to announce that he had nothing to do....as I'm in the midst of slogging through my R&R and the other approximately 10 million things on my to-do list....I am really surprised that I didn't throttle him). No weird student stories (although I do have to say that this year, the grade-grubbers seem to be out in force. Does this have something to do with tenure? Does grade-grubbing increase the closer one gets to the tenure decision?). Just a lot of nose-to-the-…
jane | December 3, 2008Prioritizing is good. Prioritizing is absolutely necessary in this job. But what do you do if you have time this month to do X projects, but X+1 projects are "high priority"? Is cloning legal yet?
Number of high priority projects = X+1 because a journal article I sent out for review before its time, which I thought would be a sure reject, just came back as a strong revise&resubmit. So that clearly needs to be fast-tracked. So yes, at least my plate is full for a totally awesome reason.
This is the first set of journal reviews that I've gotten back where there were no insulting/mean-…
jane | November 30, 2008For the past 18-ish months, I have been nursing Baby Jane. For the last few months, we've been down to 1 nursing per day, in the mornings. I knew that I'd wean her eventually, sometime around the 18 month mark, but wasn't sure when or how that would happen.
My original plan was to nurse for a year. At the beginning, when I was struggling so much with it (Baby Jane was a cluster feeder the first few weeks---basically, she wanted to nurse constantly from about 7-10pm. Plus, it didn't exactly come naturally to either of us), I didn't even know if we'd make it to the year mark. When it felt…
jane | November 23, 2008In the past week, I've had to have some uncomfortable conversations with students. In each case, the student is failing my class. (And we're not talking barely failing....we're talking obviously failing.) In each case, the student had no idea that s/he is failing my class.
The student had no idea! Even though:
1. I post grades for each student on our course management system.
2. I post how many points each assignment is worth, so the students can calculate points percentages.
3. I post the grade breakdown for the course, so the students can also, at any time, calculate their overall grade…
jane | November 17, 2008I've been tagged for the 5 things meme by GirlPostdoc! And heck, this is way more entertaining than the oodles of work I should be doing, so here goes...
5 Things I was Doing 10 years Ago:
1. Getting ready for a trip to Australia.
2. Wondering if staying in grad school to get the PhD was the right decision.
3. Worrying that my advisor was not going to get tenure.
4. Getting used to living with Mr. Jane.
5. Working all the damn time on the dissertation.
5 Things On My To-Do List Today Tomorrow:
1. Write an exam.
2. Do yoga.
3. Meet with a zillion students.
4. Snuggle with Baby Jane.
5. Try…
jane | November 16, 2008Mr. Jane and I are so, so fortunate that we have good quality, affordable daycare for Baby Jane that we absolutely, positively love. It is so wonderful to drop Baby Jane off in the mornings and know that she is in a secure, loving, enriching care situation. It frees up so much of my mental energy (and Mr. Jane's, too)---I'm not constantly thinking about her, because I know she's having fun and is being well cared for, too---so that I can concentrate on work while at work. A novel concept, I realize.
The flip side, though, is that her daycare is a home daycare, which means that if something…
jane | November 10, 2008Could somebody please explain to me why some senior faculty feel the need to treat the tenure process as a hazing?*
Possible hypotheses:
1. These faculty members never quite got over the teasing and hijinks aimed at them in junior high/high school and are exacting revenge on a powerless faction (junior faculty).
2. Lack of social skills (= not good at giving feedback in a constructive way).
3. Sick notion of a rite of passage ("My life was hell as junior faculty, so your life better damn well be hell too!").
4. Extreme need for milk and cookies/a nap/a glass of wine/a timeout.
* I'm not…
jane | November 9, 2008So as you can probably tell, since I've gotten around to posting the Scientiae carnival, I'm feeling better. Well, I'm out of bed, at least, so that's something. I think it's going to be a long road back to feeling like my "normal" self, though. I'm still tired all the time. Case in point: Yesterday I washed the kitchen floor and cooked dinner, and then had to spend the rest of the evening on the couch, because I was totally wiped out. I basically go to work and then come home and sleep.
Because I'm tired all the time, my thinking has been a bit fuzzy at times, too. (case in point: I'…
jane | November 7, 2008Hello, and welcome to the November edition of Scientiae! The month of October was filled with tricks and treats galore; costumes were donned, and a rollicking good time was had by all. Or at least most. Or some. Anyway, read along to find out who got treated, who got tricked, and who's still figuring out what costume to wear to the ball.
(Note: I've included all of the posts for the October Scientiae as well. Oddly enough, I was able to fit them all into this month's theme, so thanks to you all for writing such malleable posts!)
TREATSBeing a theorist is a treat! So says new blogger…
jane | October 30, 2008So the last time we heard from our heroine, she was battling the evil germ invasion. But that was over a week ago. What's happened? Has our heroine successfully fought off the germs, brought balance and rest back to her life, and gotten back on track with work?
Well, not exactly. She's just gotten herself sicker.
I don't know what it is about this job. Even if you prioritize the hell out of everything, even if you cut out all of the non-essentials, even if you swear on your grandma's secret veggie noodle soup recipe that you will get to bed at a decent hour for the next week....well,…
jane | October 23, 2008If you get very little sleep for several weeks running,
... and work under extremely stressful conditions (like, oh, say, tenure review),
... and fail to take time for yourself to recharge,
... and hang out with germy people, like college students and toddlers, all day,
then chances are really good (like 100% good) that you will get really, really sick.
And if you're stupid enough to, oh, not take a day off to try and get better?
I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.
(please excuse the radio silence while I try to get better.)
jane | October 16, 2008How I would have liked to spend my day today:
8:30am-noon: Work on research
noon-1: Lunch with colleagues
1-3:30: Work on class prep/grading
3:30-4:30: Coffee w/ friends
4:30-5ish: Minor work tasks: email, update to-do lists, more grading
What my day actually looked like:
8:30-9: Respond to emails, put out fires
9-noon: Meetings
noon-1: Lunch with colleagues
1-2:45: More meetings
2:45-3:30: Grading, with several interruptions
3:30-4:30: Coffee with friends
4:30-5ish: Extension of the coffee/gossip session (um, can't I count this as networking? that's important, right?)
Somehow…
jane | October 14, 2008So I'm hosting the November edition of Scientiae, and I just put up the call for posts. Please consider contributing something for the carnival! Posts are due no later than 11:59pm EST Thursday, October 30.
jane | October 13, 20081. Baby Jane, who is one of the world's best sleepers, woke herself up coughing last night, then decided that if she was up, then the rest of us should be, too.
2. Which culminated in a 4am full-blown, all-out temper tantrum.
3. I got 3 hours of sleep. That number may be a bit generous.
4. This is on top of the huge sleep deficit I'm currently running.
5. Research is slooooooooooow. Software issues + summer students holding data hostage (OK, not responding to my emails, for like weeks now....I think I need to threaten to take them off the current pub author list) + finding it hard to find…
jane | October 9, 2008A week or so ago, I was telling Mr. Jane about a dream I had. In the dream, one of my colleagues had found my blog, but was totally cool with it---gushing over it, telling me I should "definitely include it in your tenure packet", and offering to go to the chair and let him in on the secret. (Yeah, it was a bizarre dream.) I suspected that Mr. Jane was half-listening at the time, particularly since I think his reaction was something like "hmmm".
A few days later, Mr. Jane comes up to me as I'm washing the dishes.
Mr. Jane: So, um, how's Colleague treating you these days?Jane: (puzzled)…
jane | October 4, 2008That's the best way to describe how I feel right now: it was a whirlwind trip to GHC (did it seem to anyone else like the schedule was just CRAMMED FULL this year?), and I'm mentally and physically exhausted. I'm sure I'll have more posts in subsequent days about more specific stuff that came out of the conference (including some thoughts on a question posed by this person), but for now, here are my quick summary thoughts on the conference.
The blogger meetup did in fact happen (even though apparently lots of people decided to wear brown skirts and mill around the appointed meeting spot at…