Friday, September 28, 2007

Month 1 Down, 3 Await....

The first month of the first semester of my fourth-year as a PhD student is nearly complete. In fact, I've just taught my last course for September and am now decompressing after a particularly busy past four weeks.

Oh yes, I'm teaching again. Academic reading and writing. It's not what I would have chosen, but it's required time for sessional PhD instructors. My class is keen -- almost all first years, quite young (17 and 18 year olds make me feel aged), pretty ambitious and smart. I don't put much credence in the idea that people are entering uni out of high school barely able to write. If my experience teaching three courses is an yardstick, high school grads are pretty damn capable. Their behavior is sometimes distracting, but overall the class is going well. This week I've been a pretty crap teacher because my sinuses ache interminably and it makes me want to steam my head open, so hopefully they will forgive me and next week -- research methods! -- will be better.

Fall on campus is busy, full of germs (illness run amok), stressful and marked by dodgey, weird weather. I prefer misty coolness, and most days begin that way but the sun burns the fog off by noonish and it gets dry and hot and ick. The uni is still highly allergenic despite the many renovations going on around campus -- my building is, of course, neglected and sad, as humanities doesn't bring in the cash. And chalk is gross, but better than wasting paper, I guess.

I've managed to carve out some dissertation only time on Mondays and Thursdays, and afternoons when I don't have marking to do. The chapter is well on its way, and once it is complete, I get to move on to chapter two, the one I REALLY want to write, on short stories. I'm also thinking about submitting a couple conference proposals based on my dissertation chapters so I have no excuses not to finish writing.

Socially, the department is lively enough, although the cohort feel for PhDs is still in early stages. Aw, the perils of island life -- sometimes, we're just to lazy to really pull together.
doctor T 11:43 a.m. | 2 comments |

Monday, September 17, 2007

Tag Time

Tara tagged me to share some fascinating facts about myself.

The deal: (1) Link to your tagger and post these rules. (2) Share 7 facts about YOU: some random, some weird...all devastatingly interesting. (3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). (4) Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.
  1. I have a crazy fear of moths. The new "Social Moth" application on facebook creeps me right the fuck out.
  2. I have a spreadsheet of assistant salary floors at every university in Canada saved on my computer. It took a couple days to put together the first time, and now I update it annually.
  3. Nothing makes me laugh like a fart joke.
  4. I really prefer a night at home to a night out.
  5. I'm afraid I'm becoming an introvert.
  6. When I was 8, I had an allergic reaction to something (still not sure what) and the bottoms of my feet turned purple and swelled up. I walked on the side of my feet for a couple weeks, and I'm convinced that it screwed up my ankles for life.
  7. When I'm stressed out, I get hives.
I'll tag the following folks:
  1. Foxy over at One Vain Cookie
  2. Keri of Diary of a Dandelion Diva
  3. The Procrastinating Pegger, a fellow 20-something lushley
  4. Changa the Running guru
  5. The kasanika family blog
  6. the beans
doctor T 6:44 p.m. | 0 comments |