The New Masked Doctoral Student Suit. Check out the battle cry!

End of the semester

Done. The last potluck party is over. The last paper has been turned in. The last task has been dotted and crossed and that's all she wrote. Last night we had a little class get-together after our potluck. We went to Beckett's, a pool hall bar.

I told myself when I left home that I'd leave as soon as Amy insulted and offended me for no reason. I made it until about 9:30. Admittedly I was already in a pissy mood, but every camel's back breaks eventually. And my tolerance for her is at it's end. I would have preferred to be at home, drinking coffee, watching a movie, snuggling with Gina.

Today I may go see King Kong, depending on the ammount of snow we get today. For those of you that are interrested, here is Gina's blog. http://menuez.motime.com/ I'm also updating my superhero suit (all thanks to Mark Cruea).

A picture of Yours Truly, The Masked Doctoral Student! Learning, HO!

Waiting in an Office

So, I have a teaching portfolio due tonight and (unlike many of my colleagues) mine is done...well, nearly done. I had my class video recorded with a digital video camera (oohhh, ahhh, technology). But the poorly trained helper monkey who attempted to record the event decided to mess up. Here's the issue in Ian-can-understand-what-the-tech-guy-is-saying terms: Digital video records at like 9 lines of code for 60 minutes, but when you set the machine up to record Long Play (90 minutes) it uses half of those lines. So, now when I try to record my digital tape to DVD, it skips like four 8-year-old girls with a jumprope and nothing better to do.

So, the extremely competent tech guy here in the Center for Teaching Learning and Technology (CTLT) has just hooked up my tape to the machines and through the magic of 1's and 0's I'm going to have a DVD of my lecture to put in my teaching portfolio tonight. Now it's just a matter of waiting and watching myself teach, which is a learning experience in itself.

That's the story of the day from here in arctic Bowling Green, Ohio. Tonight is my final Cassara class, and then tomorrow I pick up the final exams for IPC 102, and then I have my last 600 class. Things are winding down and I sure am looking forward to it.

On top of that, my father is coming to watch me teach on Friday. The students are excited and so am I. It'll be good to see the dad, and see how he likes what his son does.

"I'm Writing a Grant." & "I Met Someone."

These two sentences ate the month of November. And let me tell you, I HATE one and am SO thankful for the second.

Writing a grant is horrible. If anyone says they like to write grants, 1) They’re lying or 2) Theyre lying. Even masochists hate this crap!

It's like no other experience I've ever had. It's all this nit-picking, double space this, single space that, don't use envelopes, get this signature here, yadda yadda yadda. I would have totally preferred nice presentation on why my project rocks hardcore. Then they would have seen the truth behind the 18 copies of my grant application. (A tree-killing process, if ever there were one). In fact, maybe that's the whole point of grants.

They're a scam: They're created by logging and Big Paper to make people use reams and reams of paper in these intricate, elaborate, and (mostly) rejected applications.

Well, here's what it boils down to: It's turned in. It's done. Now it's the waiting game, which would be fine if waiting were stress-less and enjoyable, but, of course, it's not. I have this paper to write, and that portfolio to turn in and paper-X to present on this afternoon. So, that's what's going on in the back of this brain.

As for the nice, three-word phrase in this title...I think it's totally indicative of my current and future life as an academic. Now I get to balance being a researcher/teacher/scholar with a personal relationship that’s becoming very important to me.

So, I'm working on a grant, I'm busy with class, I have readings, papers, classes to prepare for and teach and into my life walks Gina. BAM! (a la Emeril) Totally out of the blue and it's great. People around me sound really hesitant about the whole (for lack of a better phrase) "love at first sight". And to be truthful, I’ve got no idea what next week or next month hold, but being with Gina feels great and it’s been a LONG time since I’ve had the chance to really be with someone so cool and smart and classy (and who can cook), and is bold truthful and real and is really close to her family. She tells a good story, and listens to good music (when it doesn't skip).

So, now I've got one grant done, and I ALMOST have one semester done and I ALMOST have a girlfriend. Everything's coming up ME.