kismet09

I got into my new, empty office today. I read some student files, got confused by all of the acronyms and abbreviations (always a problem at a new school), met my coworkers and some others from around the building, had a tasty sandwich for lunch and an iced coffee and frozen yogurt for snack (at 5. who knows if i will sleep or eat dinner).

I forgot my phone charger in my office, so we'll see if I can make do on one charge for two days. Seems unlikely. At least I have my laptop with me, too.

Tomorrow is apartment/house hunting day. I think I'm seeing six places, with the gracious help of sr_orangepants and also a realtor. I'm so stressed out about housing. There are a million moving pieces: whether or not mthgeek and dogs will be here full time or part time, whether or not our house will sell, how we'll get a move in date to correspond with a move out date at the current house (Princeton will pay to move all my stuff, but only once, which means we might have to put it in some halfway house space or something between now and then. I hope not).

In any case, things are moving ahead. I have moments of sheer panic and moments of sheer happiness. Tomorrow will hopefully help swing the balance toward the latter.

i worked back to back 12 hour days (and tomorrow will be 8a-6p), but they were full of good student contact, so i guess i'll survive. tonight was a celebration for the seniors in the mcnair program. mcnair is a federally funded program that helps low income first gen students and students of color get to graduate school. the speaker was a woman who participated in the program years ago and her talk was really just about who she was and what she experienced from undergrad through postdoc. i will never tire of hearing stories like this, of people getting in and through.

tomorrow i have to write my performance appraisal for this year. my year was filled with things -- took a doctoral class, implemented a new software program for the office, lots of returning student contact, great year for my freshman cohort. not sure what new i want to accomplish next year, but for the first time ever, i've finished my third year somewhere and am actually kind of excited to keep doing the job. by three years everywhere else, i was pretty much done - here, i'm still looking forward to what comes next.

but at the same time, thank goodness it's summer vacation for the kids soon.

This is a slow time in my academic year, so I actually have the chance to not work at home three nights a week, and I think I'm even going to start reading a (work-related but still interesting) book (Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor). I finished reworking my fifty-page handbook that serves as a road map for med school applications. I wrote the last composite letter that needed to go out. I crunched some of the data I need to work through regarding my '07 applicants. This means that I can have a relaxed dinner and watch bad tv and feel absolutely fine about myself this evening. I must remember to enjoy these few days before the madness begins anew.

In other news, Tim is busier than ever. Dissertation defense date is set for 11/1, so we'll be back in Maryland for a good 12 hours, just to fly back and head to Cape Cod for a tournament the day after!

I was at work from 8:30 to 8:30 today.  In some ways, sure, it was exhausting. In others, it made me reminisce for days in Residence Life, where I'd work some 12 hour days, but I would also work part of it in pajamas, or at least jeans, and I would sleep in and stay up late and talk to students on the steps of the building at midnight, or watch movies in the SRC and then stay even later for a game of Scrabble.  I think I'm too old for such things these days, and definitely neither patient nor masochistic enough to return to that life, but it was a happy time, and once in awhile when I'm on campus late, I miss it.

It's been a busy two weeks at work, since I'm headed back to Chicago next week and need to be sure I'm ready.  Had to write my budget, train some writers for the premed letters, have my performance reviewed, answer about 600 questions about the common applications to med/dental school (seriously -- if I counted the emails, I bet the number would be in the mid-hundreds, and that doesnt' count the IMs and phone calls).  I've also played a millionty Scrabble games and am going to a tourney this weekend. 

Today's dictionary wotd is clamber.  It is defined, "to climb with difficulty, or on all fours."  Are these mutually exclusive?  What if you're climbing with difficulty and on all fours? 

Last night's dinner was supposed to be a pizza with a hashbrown crust, but is really more of a hashbrown casserole with pesto, mozzarella and basil on top.  Either way, it's tasty. The farm share also just restarted for the season: bok choy, lettuce, arugula, spinach, scallions, radishes, turnips, kohlrabi, and a handful of snap peas, which I picked and then ate raw in the car on the way home from the farm.

My stomach has been butterfly-ful all day.  Much more so than it was for the last tourney. I hope this is a good thing.

Everyone at work is vaguely recovering, and I live in fear of coming down with whatever this is, during a week when I'm actually fairly swamped with projects. I have CDs that just need tracklists and they'll be ready to go out, I have an entertainment center to organize, I have yarn to document and get to the website, and then I have the actual work stuff. If there were a health deity I could sacrifice something to, I just might do it.

I'm not writing much here. I've never skipped as many days as I have in February. My paper journal is still going strong. The winter is getting to me -- I'd much rather write cuddled up in my blankets than I would in the cold office at the computer, or in my office at work, where I'm afraid that all I'll do is whine about work.

Yesterday I went to Brown for a presentation by three admissions people at med schools. Take home message was, be who you are, do what you love, and show us that passion, and (if your academics will allow you to succeed here) you'll get in. It doesn't matter what you do, as long as you can reflect on what it was, and communicate that to us in a useful way. Now how do I convince first-year students, who believe there is a right and wrong way for everything - including how to get into med school - that this is the case? I'm thinking of doing a publicity campaign with a herd of sheep and the one outlier sheep who's cool and different and gets into med school. Maybe I'll use that one Far Side cartoon. Or one of those lemming ones. I gotta get through to them somehow.

Oh, how I wish for a collegue with whom I could brainstorm.

( For whatever reason, it's not a good Monday to be me. )

Okay, I'm done whining now.

I'm liking my job right now. I've talked my way into co-managing the health professional school application process, which means I've streamlined the way that we handle all the information that comes in, and eventually I'll get to meet with the committee and write composite recommendation letters, which means taking all of the recommendations that various people have written and merge them all into one succint, comprehensive letter. I finally managed to find some editing that I get to do as part of my job, rather than as a side piece for which I volunteer. I'm also hopefully making myself a little more indispensable, since I get nervous with all of the budget cuts coming up. Oh how I miss my little RLC job at a private, overfunded school in the middle of Iowa when it comes to total job security.

So now I work down in another office, surrounded by people who do similar jobs, for a couple of hours every day. I have to not neglect the main portion of my job, which is still working with the majors in the sciences, but most of them are on vacation right now. I am planning on writing a little survival skills manual to give to the first-year students, but I'm having trouble deciding exactly what to include and how much information I can give them before they hit overload and won't read/absorb any of it.

The rest of my life is rolling along smoothly. Tim's busier with his NSF research right now, and I'm entertaining myself by finishing up my sweater and watching guilty pleasure television. I have to clean my house since I'm hosting gatherings this and next Friday. That is one drawback to having Monday off - I'm one day closer to the deadline for getting things clean, or at least presentable. I've decided that it's time to give away some of my crafting supplies -- the chances that I'll ever use all of the collage material that I've accumulated are slim to none, so now I have to decide whether to just give it away, or try to sell it on eBay in one-pound packs or some such. Weekend project, I suppose.

oooh, my friends list has been happily active for the past 24 hours, and I'm always finding something new to read. Love that.

( more whining about advising - no need to read )

Once course registration is over, however, I have some more interesting things set up. I just talked to one of the profs in my department who does some research on active learning, and I'll probably be able to work with him and maybe even get published while I'm here. That means learning to use stats software (SPSS), which luckily my husband is really good at. Between that and working with the Health Professions Committee and writing people's composite letters for med school, I'll at least have things to do that exercise my brain.

Most of the things that I think of to write in here are in my head right before I go to bed. Maybe I should start writing myself prompts so that I actually remember what I was going to say in the morning.