I can’t be the only academic to struggle with this question. Our family vacation begins tomorrow (a week down in the Tidewater area!) and I’m working to leave my work behind.
I didn’t get all the writing done that I’d hoped — my article will miss the CHA deadline and I’ll have to submit to one […]
I hear the thump of boxes being packed and stacked from an office just down the hallway. A retiring colleague is moving out.
We’ve finally got permission to advertise a three year position in Canadian history to help teach the torrents of students registering in our classes. The times, they are a’changing, as is the personnel.
Had a nice chat with the Dean of Graduate Studies this morning. He loved the self-study for the graduate program and only requested revisions to two sentences before it goes out the door to the provincial council.
Seriously. I nailed that! Go me!
Now, back to our regularly scheduled research and writing (on which I can report […]
Took youngest for a walk around the neighbourhood with a stop at the corner store as a carrot. Her sister is out at a friend’s house, working on the final school project of the term. Summer holidays will soon be on us. But today felt in the way of a holiday — I’m keeping cool […]
Fullscale panic sets in. Film at eleven.
No, I’m trying not to let it overcome me but the girls’ school ends in less than a week. We leave for vacation in a week. I have a master’s student defense in a week. There’s another “intake interview” regarding youngest (physio referral) next week. A dentist appointment for […]
Wired reports on a Penn State evolutionary biologist, Blair Hedges, and his interesting research into more accurate dating of historical prints. Instead of (or, more likely, in addition to) relying on the contextual and material evidence which historians of the book normally employ (studying the paper for watermarks, say, or analyzing the fonts), Blair Hedges […]
We’re coming down to the last week and a half before the kids are out of school. I’m trying to get through some research and writing before that momentous day but it’s hard, even if I’m not on the department’s personnel committee (thank goodness!). Had to compile data for two charts for that damned report […]
Okay, the last two times I’ve gone to the Y have been distinct aural assaults. Thursday evening I was engaged in non-stop conversation with (by?) another mother of a drama-class kid for over an hour. Fortunately, during the actual play, itself, there was no conversation. Outside of that? Talk, talk, talk. My poor murder mystery […]
Once again, the Fraser Institute has issued its Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary Schools. And, once again, youngest’s school ranks very, very, very poorly under their system.
And they really couldn’t be more wrong.
It’s maddening. I have been in this school countless times as a parent and a volunteer. I see what they do: loaded down […]
As an academic, Catch 22 is spending your summer in any or all of the following ways:
extolling the virtues of your colleagues’ research and funding for the same in various reports while yours languishes
chasing down and securing candidates for all sorts of jobs, large and small, all the while knowing that their hiring will not […]