Where is my summer?? I thought once July hit and the busyness of June subsided that I'd actually have time to, you know, maybe, relax a bit. Ha! This has been a particularly busy week. The good news is that after today, things do get easier and calmer.
(Of course, playing Guitar Hero for 3 hours last night certainly didn't help matters much either. Good for the soul, yes. Good for the work and sleep schedules, not so much.)
So what have I been up to this week that's keeping me so busy?
- After a few weeks of not being able to get to the unreviewed article (ok, so maybe, just maybe, I was ignoring it a bit, too), I finally have the time and energy to tackle it. It will be sent out later today. (I even have the cover letter written already!) Let's hope I have better luck with this next journal.
- My undergrads are a flurry of activity, finishing up a bunch of things all at once. Which means a lot of my attention is spent making sure they pay attention to the right details, spot-checking their work, cheerleading/giving pep talks, and reading reading reading drafts of their writeups. And making sure (a) I get all of the data and (b) everything is well-documented and labeled.
- Dealing with computer issues. This seems to be the theme of my summer. If we're not finding weird bugs in the research software, some machine or server is crapping out, or some process is failing to generate the expected results that it was generating just fine a week ago. Sometimes I think our IT department should have me on their payroll for the amount of troubleshooting I do. And, of course, everything takes about three times longer than it should.
- Dealing with textbooks. Yeah, I'm way far behind on this. And the worst part is that after I went through the trouble of reviewing new books, I realized that it probably was not a good idea to change texts the year I'm being observed for tenure.* On the bright side, I've been able to do some really productive thinking about my teaching for the fall, and I'm feeling pretty excited about my fall courses.
- Thinking Deep Thoughts about the future of my research program. Late last week, I realized that several branches of my research are converging, and that I may be able to wrap these branches up fairly soon. Which means I have to start thinking of what the Next Step will be. This is both fun and scary.
So it's been a busy week, but very productive. At this point, though, I am willing to trade off some productivity for some relaxation time!!
What have you been mired in this week?
* Changing texts in and of itself is not necessarily an issue. The issue in this particular case is that changing texts would necessarily change how I structure the course, and I decided that I'd rather work within the structure I currently use to teach the course rather than coming up with a new structure at this point. Maybe after I get tenure, I'll feel differently.
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That does sound productive! Enjoy some down time now. ;)
Wow, sounds like you've been pretty busy. :) Hopefully things will become a little easier once you get your tenure. And congratulations on getting your article done, I'm sure it will get published. :)
As for me, I've been mired on finishing off my last semester of school. This, on top of having a full time job, means that I have 0 time for myself. However, given how long I've been at this, it's going to be strange having free time agaim. I'm convinced that once I finish with my degree I will run around confused, and feeling that I'm forgetting something (e.g. homework).
However, I'm really excited that I will finally be able to execute my master plan for taking over the world. It will all begin by taking a job in the gaming industry so that I can create a game that will be addictive to academics. Whilst I have them enthralled in my game, I will bend them to my will, and then I will have them bake me cookies! ;-)
In all seriousness though, I have a general idea of how you might feel being so close to your goal, but not quite there yet. I'm sure it will be all worth it once you achieve your goals. :)
Wow! I think think thinking big thinkythoughts about your research program is one of those signs of scholarly maturity. Cool beans!
I always get depressed at the end of August. School will be beginning relatively soon and I feel like should have gotten more done.
Chaser, I so know what you mean. Nevermind that our expectations in May were so far-fetched! No, it must be our fault that we did *nothing* this summer (*melodrama*).
Lledowyn, good luck finishing up at school! (and with your master plan, mwah ha ha!)
Thanks Jane! This last semester is going to be the hardest for me I think. I've got 0x5C days left to go, and a Senior Project to finish.
Right now I'm working on creating a nifty little AI so that I can create a squad of agents that react, and hopefully learn, based on how the player tries to do things to them. I was thinking at first of implementing a Neural Network, but given the amount of time that I have left, I think I'm going to have to go with a state machine and some trickery that looks to the player like they are "thinking." I'm thinking that perhaps by using a really thin database that tracks what the player does, I can get my little agents to make decisions based upon what the player has done to them in the past, and what the player is doing to them currently. Beyond that, it's a matter of getting them to communicate information back and forth, and working as a unit.
Either way, I'm having a blast, and I can't wait to finally graduate. :)
ooooh, very cool, Lledowyn!