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This is post #1000

Woot.

On May 20, 2005, I started the blog with these immortal words:

So I'm grading papers again.

Ah, it seems like yesterday. Actually it seems like my life hasn't moved forward at all, because I've got a monster stack of grading sitting here waiting to be taken care of tonight.

In reality, many things of life-shaking import have happened to me in that time. I've broken up with a very long-term girlfriend. I've decided to attempt to get my PhD and eventually ended up here at USU's PhD program, but I imagine if you were to take anyone's span of nearly two years, you'd get pretty similar stuff. I'm not particularly unique or interesting, and thus my life is the perfect fodder for a blog. In fact, based on that criteria, I should probably start a webcast. Alas, I haven't been writing (or reading) blogs much lately, but I shall endeavor to correct these failings in the future.

So, that's all the navel-gazing I've got time for today. Thanks to all who drop by and double thanks to all who drop by and comment on my ramblings. In some sense, it's odd to be so pleased to get to know so many people who, for all I know, could be very advanced Eliza-bots. If you don't tell me, I'd be shattered. That's not true really. Regardless of who or what you are, I'm extremely happy to host you all here at my little niche of the intertubes.

Hmm, Oh! You're Still Here?

Warning: Whining and self-absorbed blather ahead.

It's kinda funny that now the the photo365 blog is going gangbusters, my normal blog dries up.

Actually there's a little more to it than that. I've said this before, but I guess I still haven't gotten into a healthy pattern here at Urban Sprawl U. I'm still struggling with my motivation, and I guess I'm trying to figure out what in the world I'm doing here. The people around me all seem to have really nice conctrete plans about where they're going and how they're going to get there. There're all over writing grant proposals and sending off papers to journals and conferances, and well... I'm not.

I know that these are common anxieties to face after moving and for people looking into a long slog through the PhD process, but that doesn't really make it easier. And if I'm honest, I can see a little bit of it in the other gradfolk around me too.

The other problem is that I had to cut back on my running becauase of the tweaked knee so I wasn't able to run the marathon, so now I feel like a big slug with no energy at all.

This week I'm going to be turning in a paper to turn an incomplete into a complete from the fall, and frankly it's nowhere near my best work. I had an interesting topic, but let the professor lead me on to one of the professor's pet ideas and it really didn't work that well. Rather than tossing out the bad and workign on the good I've spent too much time trying to keep it all in there to please the prof. All that extra time is just going to end up as a couple of paragraphs in the intro talking about how the pet ideas might frame the argument. Ugh. It'll be good to just get that paper out of my head.

Spring break is going to be a very needed thing. But why am I more excited about maybe being able to get out and take fun pictures than being able to put together some good research time?

As a side note - one of my good friends from Old U called and told me that not only is her day job going super well, but she's also just hooked a super-sweet internship at the Smithsonian! Rock on! She has a social life and is dating, and she's got a career working. I really am very happy for her, but jeeze... Maybe I should have taken the MA and gone to DC too - seems to have worked well for her.

Fascinating....

Is there anything more fascinating then the internets when there is work to be done? As in work that needs to be done tomorrow? Stumbleupon is an evil evil creation. It just sits there on the toolbar begging to be clicked. What will it bring? Pretty pictures? Funny stories? Outrage of the day? Wacky Japanese porn? There's no telling! Big money, big money, big money.... STOP!

Also - new record. My first grade complaint within hours of the grades being posted. USU students seem to be quite focused on the numbers. Sigh...

Sooooo tired.

A Switch in Time

There's a minor ick at USU (Urban Sprawl University - You like?).

We're planning out the next course in the series that I'm TAing, and we had all the times and dates down, so I let my students know which classes I'll be TAing so that they can avoid me next time or (god help 'em) choose to take the class with me. Anywhoo, it turns out that now I'm going to have to switch class times with another TA due to the other TA having a seminar that must be taken. The seminar time was TBA, but now it's been A'ed, and it conflicted, and I'm the only other TA that can cover the class that X is going to have to give up. In return, X is going to take one of my classes.

So, no real trouble except a minor inconvenience, right? Well, not so much. Naturally, all the students had to lock in their class choices early, and many chose based on the times I told them. See, I know I'm being less than kind here, but even though I like the other TA a lot, I'm finding it hard to answer my students when they say, "So how X as a TA?" 'Cause the thing is, well, I'm not sure I would want to take a class from X. Some of this impression of X as a TA is subjective, but some of it is fairly well-founded.

I tell them that X is a great person, but I haven't sat in on X's classes, so I don't know what they're like. That's all true, but it's a bit disingenuous.

The material for the classes will all be basically the same, but we're given a lot of leeway and have a huge impact on the class, and I'm sure part of this is overstating my own abilities and blindness toward my own faults, but I'm worried about my students.

On the other hand, there isn't much I can do but try to steer them toward other TAs if the can switch, and if they can't switch, well... Harumph...