InaDWriMo..OVER

Well, InaDWriMo was an interesting exercise. A small amount of writing was completed that wouldn't have been done otherwise. Even better, I think I made better use of my time this month than I have in a while. Due to InaDWriMo (and the deadlines associated with my projects), I was forced to write in addition to teaching while research got underway as well. Actually being somewhat effective with time management is a swell feeling and hopefully it will continue into break. There will be fewer tasks to manage with more time available. The opportunity for procrastination seems like it will also be increased though with this increased time and decrease in pressure as well....

In order to get anything done I have to feel better though. Today, I am just wrecked. V has been feeling a bit under the weather but we still went out Friday night and did the 5k yesterday (4 minutes faster than last year! Go us!) . It is all just too much so now I have a fever and haven't really gotten out of bed today. Must do a lecture, grading at some point but sleeping some more might take priority.

At their mercy

I really hope my students aren't too upset about that 'no curve' thing. Tomorrow I have to administer my student evaluations. My feeling from conversations with others and, of course, the internets is that these are very important to department heads and administration for tenure decisions, but how important are they now? They don't mean anything in terms of TA assignments or funding in my department so I didn't bother much with my bad reviews last year (I agreed that I didn't seem 'knowledgeable about the subject'- the prof I was assisting routinely gave the TAs homework keys with wrong answers. There was no way ANYONE could have properly explained them!). But this year is different. I know that just having taught my own lecture course is supposed to look super fantastic on my CV but what if the ol' students skewer me on evaluations? Will they ever be asked about? Will it seem weird if reference letter writers don't reference my evaluations? Can you tell I watched too many Sex and the City reruns over the weekend by my string of questions? (For the record it was only like, 4 reruns) As far as I remember, I haven't seen evaluation statistics on any CVs of candidates or faculty members. Anybody else?


Note: Every word meter I use crashes. Bah! I am up to 1305 words on ZF Manuscript. 37% baby!

Bullet style!

• My students got their 3rd exam back today. They had looks of panic in their eyes when asked if I was going to be curving the course I replied a simple "No." I really see no reason to. My exam averages have been between 78 and 89. There are anywhere from 4-9 As on each exam and less than a handful of Ds and Fs. They still have the final to pull those Bs up to med-school-approved As anyway!
• V and I are running a 5k on Saturday. Today I did 3.25 miles on the treadmill in about 29 minutes. The cold should slow me down quite a bit but I think I will be able to finish with little trouble.
• Lookey! 21% completed on my second InaDWriMo project. After the Big Deal paper (which I haven't gone back to) and the Big Grant, this interesting little paper is a piece of cake to write. No word limits! No page limits! Methods! Results! There will be some tricky theoretical stuff to write in the intro but it is stuff I get excited about so even that should be...fun?!?
• As of today, I am back in the lab! Between teaching and needing a specific set-up that was being used by a more senior student, I have been doing next to nothing in the lab. Experiments will be run on Wednesday! Data will be collected! This is very good as it is going to be added to that ZF Manuscript that is currently being written....
• We have been married for 6 months as of today! Pizza to celebrate!

One project complete

My Big Grant was submitted on Friday (My Nov 15th date was an optimistic- done early- deadline. Ha!). After much stress, strife and problems with it (no, I never saw the "font advisory." thank you submission lady for emailing it to me with 4 hours till the deadline). I am not pleased. It sort if sucks. Not that I can really judge, but it was too rushed at the end to ever really feel good about it. It is unlikely that it would be in 4% that gets funded even if I did feel good about it though, right?

But, since I am a good, serious, adult-like person, I am trying to focus on what I've learned from the experience. This was difficult for me to write and there were major setbacks in my ability to communicate the broad theoretical framework of this research. I was paralyzed by the Bigness of the grant, the Bigness of the organization and Bigness of my own ideas. This took time to work though and resolve, which ended up leaving me with very little time for outside reviewers to give me comments. They did as much as they could and I appreciate all of them for looking it over. Associated with the time crunch is teaching. Whole days that were meant to be spent writing were spent with students prepping for their exam (a whole different story of course). In the end, I will know next time to plan a bit better, say no to other commitments, put limits on student meetings and double the time I think it will take to write it.
The second biggest setback I felt was the lack of guidance. It seems to be that no other students in my department have applied for this before. Like, ever. This left me with very few resources to rely on so it was like reinventing the wheel. My advisor (who I tried to bother as little as possible due to my being one of 4 students all doing Very Important Things right now) really had no advice for me. At all. He wouldn't even format his CV properly. Well, la-te-da. I mean, the granting agency specifically asked for certain information but thanks for lessening my chances because you don't feel it is important. Arrggggghhhh! We have a professional skills class here that all students are required to take. In that class, I learned none of the skills needed in order to write this grant. That would have been helpful. Again, I appreciate those folks who did try to help me out but next time, I don't know. I made it clear to my advisor that I felt like I needed more help and got none. Perhaps looking for more outside help would be better.

Overall, I learned a lot about what is really involved in major grant writing and think I will feel more comfortable with it next time. Until then, though, I've got assignments and exams to grade, and 7,000 more words to write for InaDWriMo!! Woo!

Everybody in Fur.

InaDWriMo: I am down to 9 pages instead of 13! And 1-2 of those might even be acceptable.

Tonight I got my first email from someone wanting to drop my class. This kid really shouldn't be doing this poorly. They could still salvage the grade if they put a lot of effort into it but are citing a heavy class load and I assume, want an A/B instead of a B/C or worse. It is a shame, they ask decent questions in class.

Anyway, pet pics! It seems all our pets either look crazy or like they should be in a Gap ad...

Crazy: Not that we encourage it! I was bundled up just because our house is freezing and V is head to toe in Bears gear dispite the fact that they were not actually playing this week.

Gap Ad:Crazy: This is the greatest freakin picture!Gap Ad(s): Even V got in on the fun!She is like Kate Moss Kitty. With a pen problem instead of a drug problem.

Help me scrape the mucus off my brain

I have been plugging along at the grant proposal as best as possible. It is not going well. Currently, I'm in the "Is it even really worth it, because I will not get funded anyways so why bother" stage. Talk about a foul mood.
Officially, I have 13 pages written. There is an 8 page limit though so the page revisions will continue and as I finish sections they will go in the InaDWriMo page count. It goes to my advisor tomorrow as my progress on it has come to a standstill.
I'm just really freaked out by the fact that it is supposed to go somewhere important. It is keeping me from focusing on my project while I try to write something I think they might want. Crapshoot really. Boo. Hiss. Whining. Done.

In other news....there is no other news. We haven't heard back about the big paper yet.

Back to work. Or sleep. I'll be back after an attitude adjustment...or when I finally upload a bunch of pet pictures...

InaDWriMo

It is almost here! International Academic Writing Month! Originally (aka- yesterday) I put up 4 projects to complete. 1 grant proposal and 3 manuscripts. In the interest of being realistic and also, not killing myself, I have scaled it back a bit. The goal is now 1 grant proposal and 2 manuscripts. Both of these side project-based papers should be on the shorter end of things so 3500 words each is my best estimate.When looking at word counts from papers I have published or submitted there is a range from 2500 to 5000. Despite their short lengths, I am still a bit concerned about my ambition given my lecture and grading schedule. Eh, we'll see! Hopefully the writing will get done in a more timely fashion than my setting goals and putting up word meters...

Tomorrow is major lab invited speaker day and I am looking forward to talking with this awesome scientist. Folks keep telling me to bring up postdocs and open that door, but I am really not sure what I would do if I worked with this guy (you know, because if I ask about it he will just automatically want me in his lab. riiiiiiight.). There is potential to do very similar things to what I have done and do now in a very different study system, I'm just not sure I would learn enough new skillz. Yo.

I am a little loopy tonight. This afternoon, we submitted our paper to a big journal (hint- it rhymes with Schmience). Check back in 48 hours for news of the devastating rejection! Not really (well, really about the probability of rejection- but not really about that news being devastating), it is really cool to think that anything I've worked on could even, ever, possibly go there. Thanks to co-author Sneks, I didn't even wait around for a month to hit "Submit!" It was very surreal and we totally have pictures of ourselves with the 'Thank You' screen!!