A quiet day in the office enabled me to get ahead on my marking and enjoy a lunch date with a new colleague. I even had the leisure to track down another useful article for background to use in the expansion of last fall’s conference paper into a full-fledged article. Yes, February break has arrived!
I’ve been grading a stack of assignments that range from the near-sublime to the nearly ridiculous. I have to say that today’s PHD Comics: You know you’ve been grading too long when… sadly captures the feeling of someone who’s been grading!
I got some rather lovely news at work this week. This is great because otherwise I’ve been:
nursing a nasty cold that involves constant post-nasal drip
dealing with new snow and old snow (courtesy of Canada Post deciding to shovel it from in front of the mailbox to in front of our driveway — breaking by-laws merrily […]
Heard from one of the editors of the anthology to which I submitted an article in December. They’re both quite happy with it as they mark up for the minor changes needed. Hooray! That’s a relief because even though they’d approved the proposal and seemed interested in the chapter draft, I know that’s only the […]
Make haste slowly — it’s good advice.
Our U is growing — offering more and fuller programs at a new (to us) location. The road to that hasn’t been easy — some administrators hoped to fast-track this. I have to admit that I was one of the ones pulling the brakes, not because I don’t want […]
I stopped by the bookstore today and saw that half the senior class has not picked up the book assigned for today’s seminar. (It’s not a book you can pick up easily so I can’t imagine anyone got their hands on a copy from other sources.) Matters became worse when I overheard one of the […]
Thanks to the wonders of videoconferencing, I’m able to participate in an interesting scholarly conference next summer in the UK, The Metropolis on Trial, that I’d otherwise have to give a miss. Extra bonus points for the opportunity evolving out of a previous post in this blog.
This term I actually have the luxury of a non-teaching day that isn’t Friday. (Fridays don’t count as non-teaching days for the purpose of getting research accomplished since Fridays are meeting days for both the department and the big, university-wide committee on which I sit.)
Theoretically, Mondays are now my research day during which I can […]
Following on from yesterday’s post, I finished the WebCT site for my senior seminar. Both of the courses I’m teaching this term are pretty complete on WebCT (I just have to review all the rest of my Powerpoints for the 1st year class, tweak or completely revise them to match the changes I’ve made to […]
Second, almost gigantic class, is completed. Now I just have the exams and final calculations to deal with the senior seminar.
Let me just say that Excel’s automation of grade calculations is one of the best things ever. I ♥ my gradebook formulas!