Moving?

It turns out that writing a thesis sans thesis advisor is harder than one might have thought. With my advisor gone long-term (no one expects him back before I graduate anymore), I'm exploring my options of how to handle this. One of my collaborators (or my advisors collaborators, depending on how you look at it) has graciously offered to host me at his university if I want to come there for next semester. So I am debating the prospect of moving.

Logistically, it's a total nightmare. Breaking my lease, figuring out how my student health insurance would work several states away, packing, finding a new place to live in a state where I know two people.... it's a total nightmare. But academically, this is probably the best thing for me. I would be with a group of people who do similar research to my own and this collaborator is one of the most brilliant people I've ever met. He earned two Ph.Ds, simultaneously. I'm just trying to work myself up to the point where I can really comprehend moving a third of the way across the country for a few months to finish my thesis before moving to goodness knows where a few months after that to start a postdoc. (That's dependent on actually getting a postdoc, of course.)

Sweat Heart

My last day of class is tomorrow. Wow--this semester has flown by!! I'm not going to even bother pretending that I'm not counting the hours until I am done with my class (13.5, in case you're curious). This semester has not been the worst on record; I actually developed both a persistent, prolonged eye twitch and a stutter a few years back during the semester I was studying for my first qualifying exam. (The stutter was highly entertaining to me!) But, between teaching completely on my own for the first time and then having my thesis advisor become more or less incapacitated it's not been stress-free few months. So I'm very much looking forward to ~10:51 am tomorrow.

But I just had to share a couple of tidbits from some of the papers I recently finished grading. Let me preface this by saying that my class is highly populated with humanities majors, not scientists, and I bet about half the class are upperclassmen. Some selected quotations:

"... married his collage sweat heart"
(It was hard not to write a snarky art class-related comment about this one.)

"aw inspiring feet"

And my personal favorite, a passing mention of Penthouse magazine. In a research paper. On cosmology. I kid you not. I couldn't even figure out what to say about that one.

These students are soon to be college (or collage, depending on how you see it) graduates.

The good news about my teaching experience is that most of my harshest comments about the semester are of the form "I will not do it this way next time" rather than the fast clip-clop sound of my high heels on the cement, fleeing from a career in academia. So that's a plus. The whole point of this experience for me was to figure out if I liked teaching enough to actually want to try to find a faculty job at some point. I most certainly do not want to give up on research, but I'm no longer dead set on finding a non-teaching job.

Does Spelling Count?

I am deeply saddened. I am almost finished grading the research papers from my class. And they are not good. The grammar and spelling alone are abysmal; any sense of coherence one might expect in a semester-long research assignment is rare to find. Even the papers that are well organized still are replete with there-their-they're and too-to-two type mistakes. I sometimes don't understand how these students have made it this far. Have they never been graded on spelling and/or grammar in their work before?

I perhaps should have seen this coming. Several students asked specifically whether spelling and grammar would count. How exactly would they have approached the assignment differently, I wonder, if I had told them "No"?

Shoulda Coulda Woulda

I should have been a meteorologist. I have the worst weather luck of any astronomer. I've been "observing" since 7 and have seen nothing but the undersides of clouds. (And even that is only on the sky-cam, as they won't even open the telescope itself in this weather!)

*sigh*

Just Like Oprah

You know how Oprah does that list each year of her "favorite things"? Well, I am just like Oprah. (Except that she is wealthy and powerful, with her own television empire and a personal trainer. But other than that we are very similar.) I have favorite things, too.

(1) Pepperidge Farm Whims: these new crunchy clusters of tiny cookie pieces. They are divine. And they are likely to be my downfall, as I apparently can finish off a can of these in a weekend and there are supposed to be something like 7 servings in a can. That's absurd. But they are delish and addictive. Kind of like Pringles in that way.

(2) Christmas Cards: I love shopping for Christmas cards. I pick out 8 or 10 different boxes and usually sit down on the floor of Barnes and Noble or Hallmark or Target or wherever I am and examine each set carefully, weighing the card message against the possible recipients. I take the Christmas card decision very seriously. Finally, after some odd stares from passersby and quality debating with myself, I choose my cards. I go home, get set up in front of the fireplace with some wine and a movie in the DVD player and get to work. (Then, of course, I get done writing about 10 cards and get bored/tired with the prospect of writing some 30 more and usually take a break). But the purchasing of Christmas cards is one of my favorite holiday events.

(3) My gas fireplace: You have pretty fire and warmth with the flick of a switch. What could be better? Plus, it's like instant romance when necessary. :)

(4) An easy knitting pattern: I have discovered a very quick, yet rather pretty double cable scarf pattern. I am currently most of the way through my third one of these. These scarves will be featured heavily under the Christmas tree this year. But there's something very satisfying about a project you can complete quickly; it's almost instant creative gratification. (I use the word creative here rather loosely, as I am just following the directions from a pattern I bought: I didn't design anything here).

(5) Sudoku. It's completely addictive. I highly encourage you to give it a try.