When you write, write what you know. Or feel. Or think. It's what I tell all my students, and it's an adage that I too live by religiously. If you've been reading this blog long enough, you'll know it's true. No matter how badly I try to create a theme ("life in the south!", "life as an academic!", "the life of a triathlete"), there's always that awkward moment when I simply have to write about something completely different (say, our misbehaving puppies, trips overseas, and the importance of bathrooms), for no other reason than that it's been on my mind.
This is also the reason I have not blogged in two weeks. And why blogging prior to my last post was sporadic to say the least. It's not because I don't have anything to say, because heavens knows that moment won't come until I'm six feet under the ground, but because what is on my heart and mind is not something I feel comfortable sharing. It's not my story. It's someone else's. And although I don't mind talking about other people ad nauseum, albeit under a fake name, it has always been under the guise of their lives being part of my story. And this story isn't just part of my life, it's part of lots of other people's lives too.
And the story that's been on my mind, heart, and soul is about Ozzie and Jimmie. Who, of course, aren't really called Ozzie and Jimmie at all. But that's part of my blogging deal. I know there are bloggers who have no qualms about sharing their children's names, pictures, funny, sad, and happy stories, but I'm not one of them. Maybe it's because they're a little bigger and older than the average, oh, toddler or pre-teen, or maybe it's because they're never really mine. I don't know. But apart from some minor tales about Jimmie's bullying problems and Ozzie's likeness to Sheldon Cooper, I've written very little about them on this blog. And as they are possibly the easiest stepchildren any stepmom could wish for, that hasn't been difficult at all.
Lately, however, their stories have become more complicated. More rife with questions, worries, and strife. Although fundamentally, most of their issues are no harder or worse than what any mother with teenagers would face, in my case, they feel very different. There's more people in the picture, such as their biological dad (you know, the long-suffering, always patient man known as husband-dear), but also people who have begun to play a much more important role in the recent years; their biological mother, their relatively new stepdad and stepbrother. And it's exactly this presence of multiple people, roles, and influences that has rendered every situation more complex, more fraught with questions and doubt, and harder to write about. I want to write about Ozzie's struggles and Jimmie's quest to grow up as quickly as possible (or maybe not), but I can't. Because then I would have to write about their mother too. And their stepdad. And my very own husband-dear, of course. And they never asked to be on this blog, let alone be an object of analysis. As I said, as much as this is part of my life story, my future, my dreams, it's also not my story alone.
In addition, having problems such as these in the first place, makes me feel broken. Incomplete. Even failed. I always joke about how I don't like the term "broken family" and prefer "blended" or "julienne", but in reality, that is what we are, a broken family. Our kids have two homes, four parents, and different expectations everywhere they go. Making our family work in all of its complicated dimensions takes a lot of effort, patience, and good will. And sometimes it seems that we all just run out of everything at the same time, leaving nothing but a feeling of falling short. Of guilt for not trying harder, being better, showing more grace.
It doesn't help that everyone whose blog I seem to read lately has the seemingly perfect family. And I know that that's just a facade, that everyone has problems, just like I hide our fights behind funny stories about dirty kitchen floors and cleaning ladies. But everyone I know is on their first marriage, with kids that only belong to them and their spouse. Many of them are pregnant, dealing with questions such as whether or not to paint the nursery, reveal the gender, and feeling the pressure to defend the preference for a home birth. Important matters? Yes. Definitely. Matters I would love to have be my problems? Oh, yes. No one I know seems to deal with complicated pick up and drop off schedules, phonecalls about whether someone's band shoes got left at the other house, and why one house seems to hog all the new jeans, and more problematic issues such as the definition of acceptable grades. Not to mention the worry about whether or not you're doing a good job, if maybe the other parent is handling things smarter or not, how that will affect your children, and whether or not you should/could/must address this. It's both scary and lonely.
So in lieu of writing, I've been baking. A lot. It helps me whenever I'm stressed, or just blah, and have already ran/biked/swam that day. This past weekend, just to give you an idea, I baked three fresh pear cakes, twelve honey-blueberry muffins, one pear-apple pie, and one loaf of bread. I would have kept going, had I not run out of counter space and containers. The kids loved it, the neighbors loved it, and so will my co-workers once I start sharing. It may not be the story that it's in my head, but it's sharing something of me. And that's better than nothing at all.
I wanted to end with a flippant final sentence here, drawing a parallel between baking and life. Perhaps something like "when the ingredients are in the bowl, they don't look like much, but when the final product is amazing", or "just like baking, life requires patience and a vision of how things will turn out". But instead I will end with what husband-dear wrote after proofreading my blog (as this is, after all, his story too): "Someone, somewhere else may read it and know they are not the only ones baking with an ever changing recipe".
Monday, January 28, 2013
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
4, 3, 6, 5: On the importance of research assistants
I'm not dead, haven't sunk into a depression, and I haven't given up on blogging either. I promise. I've just been a little overwhelmed. Oh, and busy giving myself road rash while running. But anyway, whenever I get overwhelmed, I do what has worked so well in the past decade of academia, I man the hatches, hunker down, get 'r done, and pretty much fall off the face of the earth. Ask husband-dear, he's barely seen me in the past ten days. And if he hasn't seen me, you know it's bad.
In case you're expecting the standard "classes started and life got busy" spiel I give you guys twice a year, I can triumphantly tell you that that is not the case. Nope. Well, sure, having 70% of my advisees realize that, oh, hey, classes have started, and I'm not registered yet! didn't help, but it wasn't the crux of my absence. Nope. That can be blamed on the baby-drama, my new project, and Steve*.
First of all, everyone around me is pregnant. Honestly. If you're reading this, and you're not pregnant, you better be sure, because everyone else is. In fact, if you want to become pregnant, just make friends with me, and I guarantee you a pregnancy within six months to a year. Promise. Although after three-plus years after no-baby-gate, I'm really sort of OK with the no-baby thing most of the time, being surrounded by nothing but glowing, pregnant women has not been easy. So over Christmas break, when my period was on a three-month hiatus, and I was sick, sicker, and sickest, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, maybe-maybe-maybe, a miracle had occurred. Well, obviously (as otherwise I would have probably been so excited I would have called each and everyone of you in person), there was no miracle. And although one would think one would get used to this sort of disappointment, this particular time was rough. It didn't help that even though husband-dear and I had not said a word about this to each other at all, when I asked him to add tampons to the grocery list because my period had started, he started to cry. In spite of knowing better, he had been hoping for the miracle too.
So to say that put me in a bad mood would be an understatement. Add to that the fact that my entire reader seemed to be overflowing with pregnancy/baby tales, and the fact that I believe in writing what you know while not wanting to write about this again, and you might see why my brief blogging break turned into a somewhat lengthy hiatus.
Then there is the new project. I mentioned this before Christmas break, and people, it's awesome. I'm only teaching two classes, and have been able to spend the rest of my time working on this new health communication initiative, designing outcomes, trying to understand NIH requirements, and talking to as many experts and interested parties as possible. As your classic type-A, overachiever personality, you can see how I can make this really big, really quick, and I did. The thing has got so much momentum, there are times when I'm not sure where to begin. People love the initiative, want to help, give feedback, collaborate, and OMG this could be huge if I just get everything done right now.
Right.
So lots of hours poring over ideas, spreadsheets, schedules, and research proposals, and a head filled with things to do, people to talk to, concepts to consider.
And finally, there's Steve. Or more accurately, there's a project Steve and I have been working on. We started it last semester, and because I apparently had a brainwave of awesome proportions before the summer, I commissioned a few research assistants. While Steve and I played with the questionnaire design, concept mapping, and data analysis, they collected and entered all the data for hundreds of respondents. It was awesome. Then the semester ended, the research assistants graduated, and Steve send me much-dreaded email, "The results are not clear enough. We need more data."
Steve, you see, works for a research institution. A place where people teach two classes per semester, if that. A place where there's an army of graduate assistants dying to help you with your projects. But the data collection is taking place at my institution, where everyone teaches at least four classes, and graduate assistants are hard to come by.
So I cussed Steve out, told him to get creative, but it was to no avail. He was right. We needed more data. With my research assistants out in the real world, and no new candidates, you can guess who has spent the better part of last week visiting lectures, administering surveys and entering lots and lots of numbers. Exactly. Me. The deadline we're trying to make is in two weeks, so we have some time, but still, the pressure is on.
So there you have it, three reasons why I've been somewhat absent. I will be back, I promise. But right now, I need to go print out my latest and greatest project outcomes for a meeting I have in ten minutes, after which I need to haul butt to administer surveys to three back to back classes.
*Steve, for new readers, is a former colleague who decided to head for greener pastures and get his PhD at a Big Midwestern University. After three years of talking to each other through our paper thin office walls, we continue our conversation through gmail chat and Facebook, and continue to produce mind-boggling important research. Sort of.
In case you're expecting the standard "classes started and life got busy" spiel I give you guys twice a year, I can triumphantly tell you that that is not the case. Nope. Well, sure, having 70% of my advisees realize that, oh, hey, classes have started, and I'm not registered yet! didn't help, but it wasn't the crux of my absence. Nope. That can be blamed on the baby-drama, my new project, and Steve*.
First of all, everyone around me is pregnant. Honestly. If you're reading this, and you're not pregnant, you better be sure, because everyone else is. In fact, if you want to become pregnant, just make friends with me, and I guarantee you a pregnancy within six months to a year. Promise. Although after three-plus years after no-baby-gate, I'm really sort of OK with the no-baby thing most of the time, being surrounded by nothing but glowing, pregnant women has not been easy. So over Christmas break, when my period was on a three-month hiatus, and I was sick, sicker, and sickest, I couldn't help but wonder if maybe, just maybe, maybe-maybe-maybe, a miracle had occurred. Well, obviously (as otherwise I would have probably been so excited I would have called each and everyone of you in person), there was no miracle. And although one would think one would get used to this sort of disappointment, this particular time was rough. It didn't help that even though husband-dear and I had not said a word about this to each other at all, when I asked him to add tampons to the grocery list because my period had started, he started to cry. In spite of knowing better, he had been hoping for the miracle too.
So to say that put me in a bad mood would be an understatement. Add to that the fact that my entire reader seemed to be overflowing with pregnancy/baby tales, and the fact that I believe in writing what you know while not wanting to write about this again, and you might see why my brief blogging break turned into a somewhat lengthy hiatus.
Then there is the new project. I mentioned this before Christmas break, and people, it's awesome. I'm only teaching two classes, and have been able to spend the rest of my time working on this new health communication initiative, designing outcomes, trying to understand NIH requirements, and talking to as many experts and interested parties as possible. As your classic type-A, overachiever personality, you can see how I can make this really big, really quick, and I did. The thing has got so much momentum, there are times when I'm not sure where to begin. People love the initiative, want to help, give feedback, collaborate, and OMG this could be huge if I just get everything done right now.
Right.
So lots of hours poring over ideas, spreadsheets, schedules, and research proposals, and a head filled with things to do, people to talk to, concepts to consider.
And finally, there's Steve. Or more accurately, there's a project Steve and I have been working on. We started it last semester, and because I apparently had a brainwave of awesome proportions before the summer, I commissioned a few research assistants. While Steve and I played with the questionnaire design, concept mapping, and data analysis, they collected and entered all the data for hundreds of respondents. It was awesome. Then the semester ended, the research assistants graduated, and Steve send me much-dreaded email, "The results are not clear enough. We need more data."
Steve, you see, works for a research institution. A place where people teach two classes per semester, if that. A place where there's an army of graduate assistants dying to help you with your projects. But the data collection is taking place at my institution, where everyone teaches at least four classes, and graduate assistants are hard to come by.
So I cussed Steve out, told him to get creative, but it was to no avail. He was right. We needed more data. With my research assistants out in the real world, and no new candidates, you can guess who has spent the better part of last week visiting lectures, administering surveys and entering lots and lots of numbers. Exactly. Me. The deadline we're trying to make is in two weeks, so we have some time, but still, the pressure is on.
So there you have it, three reasons why I've been somewhat absent. I will be back, I promise. But right now, I need to go print out my latest and greatest project outcomes for a meeting I have in ten minutes, after which I need to haul butt to administer surveys to three back to back classes.
*Steve, for new readers, is a former colleague who decided to head for greener pastures and get his PhD at a Big Midwestern University. After three years of talking to each other through our paper thin office walls, we continue our conversation through gmail chat and Facebook, and continue to produce mind-boggling important research. Sort of.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
In Bruges...
"And I realized, f**, maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in f*** Bruges. And I really really hoped I wouldn't die"
Ray ~ In Bruges
Although "In Bruges" is Belgium's answer to Quentin Tarantino and the Cohen Brothers combined, and definitely worth watching, assuming you're OK with 126 f-bombs dropped in a little over an hour and a half, a plot centered around three hitmen, a neo nazi, a dwarf, and a prostitute, and lots of useless violence, although the movie is awesome in spite of, or because of, all of that, I can firmly claim that Bruges is not hell. It is, in fact, the closest to the most perfectly historical, preserved, pretty, quaint, and quintessential European city there is. And I know this because when traveling to Holland for Christmas this year, husband-dear and I selected Bruges from a large selection of European cities (Paris, Brussels, Aachen. Venice, Trier, among others) as the destination of our four-day pre-Christmas getaway.
When planning this year's Christmas vacation, we knew from the start that we wanted to incorporate some DixieChick-Husband-dear alone time. We try to do this every year, and since the last time we had some husband-wife time that did not involve a marathon, a triathlon, or a mountainbike race, was in the spring of 2011, when we went on the cruise of a lifetime, we figured we were long overdue. We had several, fairly random criteria: It had to be cute and quaint (obviously. I mean, we live in a town made up of stripmalls, we need to be reminded that not the entire world is this ugly every once in a while); it had to not be in Germany (since husband-dear vowed he could not handle yet another German Christmas market after years of seeing nothing else in the month of December), and we had to be able to get there by train (husband-dear, who does not have the Dutch-student-life-public-transportation trauma I do, loves traveling by train).
After some fairly random internet searches ("I think Lara once told me Aachen is really cute. Let's look at Aachen..oh no, that looks way too German. No, we can't do that.") and equally random decision processes ("I'd like Paris, but you know we have been there before, and then if we were to go, I'd feel all this pressure to see all the right things and eat at all the right places. I mean, what if there's this awesome bistro everyone knows about, and we miss it? That would be horrible"), we decided on Bruges. Neither one of us had ever been there before, and our knowledge about the town was restricted to what I was able to recall from reading a single children's book about the middle ages, whose first chapter takes place in Bruges (yes, Dutch readers, that would be this book). After glancing at a few pictures of a beautiful town square decorated for Christmas with hundreds of lights and a real ice skating rink in the middle, our decision was made. We were going to Bruges.
For the next few weeks, TripAdvisor became my best friend, and after weighing the pros and cons of various hotels ("this one looks pretty from the outside, but the rooms look horrible", and "I am not staying in anything that's a chain. I don't care of it's a Belgian chain. I refuse to do anything chain-ish outside of here"), as well as the sanity of some of the reviewers ("Well, they claim the rooms are not up to par, but they also claim that the front desk clerk was 'merely formal' and 'seemed automated', so I'm not too sure about them"), we decided to spend all the kids' college money (OK I lie, all of Jimmie's college money) on a fairly nice hotel a few minutes away from the main square. Once that was done, we booked traintickets on the much-disparaged Fyra, and started to count down the days.
And Bruges delivered. Our four days there were absolutely magical. We had absolutely wonderful meals, sampled lots and lots of wine, spent days meandering through the gorgeous "egg" (the medieval town center), randomly stopping at the various churches liberally sprinkled throughout the town, climbed the belfry, went to a brewery, climbed one of the old city gates, got lost and used the many church spires to find our way back, saw Michaelangelo's sculpture of Mary and baby Jesus, walked all the way around the old city walls, ate far too much chocolate, drank more really good cappuccinos than I can count, and took lots of baths in the hot tub in our room. If you are ever in the position that you can only go to one city in Europe, I say forget Paris and go to Bruges. It has it all, but more, and all within walking distance.
For your benefit, I have enclosed some of my hundred or so pictures below.
Ray ~ In Bruges
Although "In Bruges" is Belgium's answer to Quentin Tarantino and the Cohen Brothers combined, and definitely worth watching, assuming you're OK with 126 f-bombs dropped in a little over an hour and a half, a plot centered around three hitmen, a neo nazi, a dwarf, and a prostitute, and lots of useless violence, although the movie is awesome in spite of, or because of, all of that, I can firmly claim that Bruges is not hell. It is, in fact, the closest to the most perfectly historical, preserved, pretty, quaint, and quintessential European city there is. And I know this because when traveling to Holland for Christmas this year, husband-dear and I selected Bruges from a large selection of European cities (Paris, Brussels, Aachen. Venice, Trier, among others) as the destination of our four-day pre-Christmas getaway.
When planning this year's Christmas vacation, we knew from the start that we wanted to incorporate some DixieChick-Husband-dear alone time. We try to do this every year, and since the last time we had some husband-wife time that did not involve a marathon, a triathlon, or a mountainbike race, was in the spring of 2011, when we went on the cruise of a lifetime, we figured we were long overdue. We had several, fairly random criteria: It had to be cute and quaint (obviously. I mean, we live in a town made up of stripmalls, we need to be reminded that not the entire world is this ugly every once in a while); it had to not be in Germany (since husband-dear vowed he could not handle yet another German Christmas market after years of seeing nothing else in the month of December), and we had to be able to get there by train (husband-dear, who does not have the Dutch-student-life-public-transportation trauma I do, loves traveling by train).
After some fairly random internet searches ("I think Lara once told me Aachen is really cute. Let's look at Aachen..oh no, that looks way too German. No, we can't do that.") and equally random decision processes ("I'd like Paris, but you know we have been there before, and then if we were to go, I'd feel all this pressure to see all the right things and eat at all the right places. I mean, what if there's this awesome bistro everyone knows about, and we miss it? That would be horrible"), we decided on Bruges. Neither one of us had ever been there before, and our knowledge about the town was restricted to what I was able to recall from reading a single children's book about the middle ages, whose first chapter takes place in Bruges (yes, Dutch readers, that would be this book). After glancing at a few pictures of a beautiful town square decorated for Christmas with hundreds of lights and a real ice skating rink in the middle, our decision was made. We were going to Bruges.
For the next few weeks, TripAdvisor became my best friend, and after weighing the pros and cons of various hotels ("this one looks pretty from the outside, but the rooms look horrible", and "I am not staying in anything that's a chain. I don't care of it's a Belgian chain. I refuse to do anything chain-ish outside of here"), as well as the sanity of some of the reviewers ("Well, they claim the rooms are not up to par, but they also claim that the front desk clerk was 'merely formal' and 'seemed automated', so I'm not too sure about them"), we decided to spend all the kids' college money (OK I lie, all of Jimmie's college money) on a fairly nice hotel a few minutes away from the main square. Once that was done, we booked traintickets on the much-disparaged Fyra, and started to count down the days.
And Bruges delivered. Our four days there were absolutely magical. We had absolutely wonderful meals, sampled lots and lots of wine, spent days meandering through the gorgeous "egg" (the medieval town center), randomly stopping at the various churches liberally sprinkled throughout the town, climbed the belfry, went to a brewery, climbed one of the old city gates, got lost and used the many church spires to find our way back, saw Michaelangelo's sculpture of Mary and baby Jesus, walked all the way around the old city walls, ate far too much chocolate, drank more really good cappuccinos than I can count, and took lots of baths in the hot tub in our room. If you are ever in the position that you can only go to one city in Europe, I say forget Paris and go to Bruges. It has it all, but more, and all within walking distance.
For your benefit, I have enclosed some of my hundred or so pictures below.
Monday, December 31, 2012
Just in time
It's a little odd to return to the world of blogging after two glorious weeks away on the last day of the year. I mean, what are you going to write about? Those two glorious weeks, which definitely deserve at least one smashing review? Or the entire previous year, which appears to be tradition among bloggers, obscure television shows, and Facebook pages?
Obviously, if I had my act together as a blogger, as so many of my favorite writers do, I would have been blogging while on vacation, and would be all caught up right now, ready to review the year. But unlike all you talented bloggers, I can't do that. Although I bring every single wireless device in my possession, and scout out wireless internet like a squirrel does his nuts, I just can't seem to sit down, empty my head, and write a poignant yet funny piece about what I've been up to. This appears to be mainly because, well, I'm still up to it, and I just don't want to step out of the moment to write about it. Moreover, as we all know, once I step out of the moment to write about it, I become this cynical, critical misanthrope, and how on earth can I enjoy my time away when I'm complaining about say, the aforementioned lack of wireless internet?
At any rate, I now owe you a discussion of a wide variety of things, from Dutch running attire, to navigating through Belgian cities using their many church spires, to German behavior in airports. Who knows, I might even throw some pictures your way. I know, crazy times.
Anyway, we came home on Thursday, and ever since we arrived back home, I've been telling my husband, the kids, and possibly even the dogs, that 2012 has definitely earned a place in the top-3 of best years of the past decade (and then possibly adding on that therefore we should be grateful, because you know, I do try to be pedagogical every once in a whole). Let's do a quick overview, shall we?
In 2012...... I am still married to my best friend; I crashed my bike on some railroad tracks, and all I have to show for it is a very dangerous looking scar; I rode along fields and fields of blossoming peach trees; I saw Jimmie practice and practice and practice, and get into the high school marching band; I got to watch my husband skimboard with his best friend from high school for the first time since husband-dear left for the Air Force; I completed my first half-ironman; I guided six students through their first successful undergraduate conference presentation; I finally beat the curse of the fourth place, and placed second, second, and first in all three triathlons I competed in; I walked along the Great Wall and wandered through the Forbidden City; I learned how to order breakfast in Chinese; I walked around a Chinese university's campus as though I belonged there; I looked at the Chinese coast from an old Taiwanese defense bunker; I developed a favorite among all the Japanese candy I ate; I completed my tenure and promotion portfolio; One of my articles got accepted for publication; I went to more high school football games to see the marching band than I ever imagined possible; I made new friends while volunteering at the concession stand; I learned that the promotion and tenture committee really, really, really liked my portfolio; I got hit by an inattentive driver while riding my bike, and got to experience my very first ambulance ride; I dressed up for international education week, and had all of my students laugh at me; I called campus police on a rowdy student, counseled a few more, and had one student go into labor in the middle of class, all in one semester; I got to take a picture with the Tow-Mater truck at the Disney resort we stayed at; I watched my tough husband and oldest son smile and laugh at the antics of a Disney parade; I took my vertigo-suffering father in law on the Tower of Terror; I ordered wine in Italy, and drank it in Germany, all in the same half hour; I turned my grades early; I grew my hair out longer than it has ever been; I baked hundreds of cookies, pies, and cakes, and shared very little outside my family; I went to see my family for the first time in 18 months; Husband-dear and I spent a few days meandering through Bruges; Not one piece of luggage was lost throughout all our travels; I drank enough coffee to fill a small lake; I drove about 32000 miles to and from work; I finally got an Iphone; I loved on my husband, the kids, and the puppies: I laughed, I cried, I spoke up when it was needed and when I probably should have kept quiet, and embarrassed myself and/or others in countless situations; I adjusted my catchphrase, "You can take my anywhere, but only once", to "You can take me anywhere. Twice. Once to introduce me, and once to apologize"; I learned how to change a flat tire on my bicycle and promptly forgot; I enjoyed all of husband-dear's martini's....
2012, I really can't complain.
I hope your year was as enjoyable as mine, and wish you all the very best for 2013!
Obviously, if I had my act together as a blogger, as so many of my favorite writers do, I would have been blogging while on vacation, and would be all caught up right now, ready to review the year. But unlike all you talented bloggers, I can't do that. Although I bring every single wireless device in my possession, and scout out wireless internet like a squirrel does his nuts, I just can't seem to sit down, empty my head, and write a poignant yet funny piece about what I've been up to. This appears to be mainly because, well, I'm still up to it, and I just don't want to step out of the moment to write about it. Moreover, as we all know, once I step out of the moment to write about it, I become this cynical, critical misanthrope, and how on earth can I enjoy my time away when I'm complaining about say, the aforementioned lack of wireless internet?
At any rate, I now owe you a discussion of a wide variety of things, from Dutch running attire, to navigating through Belgian cities using their many church spires, to German behavior in airports. Who knows, I might even throw some pictures your way. I know, crazy times.
Anyway, we came home on Thursday, and ever since we arrived back home, I've been telling my husband, the kids, and possibly even the dogs, that 2012 has definitely earned a place in the top-3 of best years of the past decade (and then possibly adding on that therefore we should be grateful, because you know, I do try to be pedagogical every once in a whole). Let's do a quick overview, shall we?
In 2012...... I am still married to my best friend; I crashed my bike on some railroad tracks, and all I have to show for it is a very dangerous looking scar; I rode along fields and fields of blossoming peach trees; I saw Jimmie practice and practice and practice, and get into the high school marching band; I got to watch my husband skimboard with his best friend from high school for the first time since husband-dear left for the Air Force; I completed my first half-ironman; I guided six students through their first successful undergraduate conference presentation; I finally beat the curse of the fourth place, and placed second, second, and first in all three triathlons I competed in; I walked along the Great Wall and wandered through the Forbidden City; I learned how to order breakfast in Chinese; I walked around a Chinese university's campus as though I belonged there; I looked at the Chinese coast from an old Taiwanese defense bunker; I developed a favorite among all the Japanese candy I ate; I completed my tenure and promotion portfolio; One of my articles got accepted for publication; I went to more high school football games to see the marching band than I ever imagined possible; I made new friends while volunteering at the concession stand; I learned that the promotion and tenture committee really, really, really liked my portfolio; I got hit by an inattentive driver while riding my bike, and got to experience my very first ambulance ride; I dressed up for international education week, and had all of my students laugh at me; I called campus police on a rowdy student, counseled a few more, and had one student go into labor in the middle of class, all in one semester; I got to take a picture with the Tow-Mater truck at the Disney resort we stayed at; I watched my tough husband and oldest son smile and laugh at the antics of a Disney parade; I took my vertigo-suffering father in law on the Tower of Terror; I ordered wine in Italy, and drank it in Germany, all in the same half hour; I turned my grades early; I grew my hair out longer than it has ever been; I baked hundreds of cookies, pies, and cakes, and shared very little outside my family; I went to see my family for the first time in 18 months; Husband-dear and I spent a few days meandering through Bruges; Not one piece of luggage was lost throughout all our travels; I drank enough coffee to fill a small lake; I drove about 32000 miles to and from work; I finally got an Iphone; I loved on my husband, the kids, and the puppies: I laughed, I cried, I spoke up when it was needed and when I probably should have kept quiet, and embarrassed myself and/or others in countless situations; I adjusted my catchphrase, "You can take my anywhere, but only once", to "You can take me anywhere. Twice. Once to introduce me, and once to apologize"; I learned how to change a flat tire on my bicycle and promptly forgot; I enjoyed all of husband-dear's martini's....
2012, I really can't complain.
I hope your year was as enjoyable as mine, and wish you all the very best for 2013!
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Forty-seven points
My annual Christmas break is possibly my most favorite time of the year. It's the three (or four, depending on how Christmas falls, and how much time off the Board of Regents needs that year) when I feel truly free. Whenever I'm faced with three months of nothing, which happens every year in the first week of May, my OCD/overachiever neurosis will kick in, and I start saying things like, "Why don't I renovate the bonus room? I have so much time off!", or "Geez, three months is way too long to just sit around, I think I'll volunteer for a six-week study abroad to China." The bottom line is that free time just scares me to death.
So Christmas break, with its three (or four) weeks off, is much easier for ants-in-their-pants people like me to handle. It's too short to tackle any major projects, a feat aided by the fact that several days are "lost" to things like Christmas and New Year's (and so the painting of the quarter rounds will have to wait until summer), and too long to stay stuck in the work flow, which often happens during Spring Break. During that one week in March, I need to literally leave the country if I want to relax, because if I don't, I will end up writing conference papers and prepping classes, because "When I get back to work, do you know how much stuff I have to do?". In short, like Goldilocks' porridge, Christmas break is perfect.
Now the purpose of this lengthy introduction about the awesomeness that is Christmas break was to lead into a brief kvetch-fest about the 47-or-so-points to-do list that somehow popped into existence when my mind woke up from its finals-grading-induced haze, and realized, hey! We're going on a trip! And so we should really take care of all those things that have been left unfinished for the past months! Things like hemming that skirt, taking out the dry cleaning, dusting the light fixtures, getting pictures developed, upgrading various iDevices, and on and on and on. This means that after spending an hour each morning reveling in the fact that it's Christmas break, and I get to sit on the couch, sip my tea and watch CBS This Morning while around me the Christmas lights are twinkling, I turn to my multi-day, multi-page to-do list, and get to work. There are trips to CVS, to Kroger, to the BX, the base pool and/or gym, the bank, the tire rotation place, the dollar store, and back to CVS because the commissary doesn't carry Excedrin anymore.
This to-do list thing isn't a first either. Lately, whenever we travel anywhere, there are to-do lists days in advance. I remember when we used to just pack up the night before, double check if the stove was off and the door was locked, and leave. Now, leaving the house has turned into a near-military operation. There are checklists, pack lists, assigned responsibilities (you call the kennel to verify the dogs' shot records are in order, and I will get the oil in the car changed), reminder, and occasional pow-wows about who-what-where. In all fairness to us, though, we will be traveling on different days, almost a week apart, so some communication is necessary unless we want to get the tires rotated twice. But still. Sometimes I wonder how all those people who book last minute flights to exotic, faraway places do it and manage to enjoy their trip. I mean, with my luck, and lack of lists, I'd forget my bathing suit, or my ski suit, or something equally relevant to said last-minute adventure. And I'd spend the entire vacation worrying about whether the dogs' shots were up to date, and we'd remembered to turn the alarm on.
So yeah, last minute trips don't work for us. And we're probably slight over-organized. But heck, if you need help invading a small country or dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster, we're your men! And woman, of course.
So Christmas break, with its three (or four) weeks off, is much easier for ants-in-their-pants people like me to handle. It's too short to tackle any major projects, a feat aided by the fact that several days are "lost" to things like Christmas and New Year's (and so the painting of the quarter rounds will have to wait until summer), and too long to stay stuck in the work flow, which often happens during Spring Break. During that one week in March, I need to literally leave the country if I want to relax, because if I don't, I will end up writing conference papers and prepping classes, because "When I get back to work, do you know how much stuff I have to do?". In short, like Goldilocks' porridge, Christmas break is perfect.
Now the purpose of this lengthy introduction about the awesomeness that is Christmas break was to lead into a brief kvetch-fest about the 47-or-so-points to-do list that somehow popped into existence when my mind woke up from its finals-grading-induced haze, and realized, hey! We're going on a trip! And so we should really take care of all those things that have been left unfinished for the past months! Things like hemming that skirt, taking out the dry cleaning, dusting the light fixtures, getting pictures developed, upgrading various iDevices, and on and on and on. This means that after spending an hour each morning reveling in the fact that it's Christmas break, and I get to sit on the couch, sip my tea and watch CBS This Morning while around me the Christmas lights are twinkling, I turn to my multi-day, multi-page to-do list, and get to work. There are trips to CVS, to Kroger, to the BX, the base pool and/or gym, the bank, the tire rotation place, the dollar store, and back to CVS because the commissary doesn't carry Excedrin anymore.
This to-do list thing isn't a first either. Lately, whenever we travel anywhere, there are to-do lists days in advance. I remember when we used to just pack up the night before, double check if the stove was off and the door was locked, and leave. Now, leaving the house has turned into a near-military operation. There are checklists, pack lists, assigned responsibilities (you call the kennel to verify the dogs' shot records are in order, and I will get the oil in the car changed), reminder, and occasional pow-wows about who-what-where. In all fairness to us, though, we will be traveling on different days, almost a week apart, so some communication is necessary unless we want to get the tires rotated twice. But still. Sometimes I wonder how all those people who book last minute flights to exotic, faraway places do it and manage to enjoy their trip. I mean, with my luck, and lack of lists, I'd forget my bathing suit, or my ski suit, or something equally relevant to said last-minute adventure. And I'd spend the entire vacation worrying about whether the dogs' shots were up to date, and we'd remembered to turn the alarm on.
So yeah, last minute trips don't work for us. And we're probably slight over-organized. But heck, if you need help invading a small country or dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster, we're your men! And woman, of course.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Pumpkin bread revisited
You may remember that last year, when Jill invited me over to her house to bake pumpkin bread together, I accidentally purchased the wrong ingredients. Because I went to school for close to 22 years, reading short little labels, such as the ones used normal food products such as "pumpkin mix" has become quite the challenge for me, and so I showed up at her house with two cans of pumpkin pie mix. Fortunately, Jill does possess common sense, and she was able to rescue the pumpkin bread by reducing some of the other ingredients.
So this year, when I decided to make pumpkin bread to give to our co-workers and neighbors, I made doubly sure my husband knew he had to purchase "pumpkin mix", and not "pumpkin pie mix". I underlined it on the grocery list, I told him in person, and when he called while in the store, I reminded him again. Delegation, people, is a lot of work. But, he succeeded (naturally), and came home with two cans of pumpkin mix. Excellent.
That Saturday (this would be last week), when I decided that if I graded one more paper my brain was going to explode, and that baking would be the one thing to restore my sanity, husband-dear requested if I would mind baking an extra loaf for him to take to work. Absolutely not. I had, after all, two cans of pumpkin mix, and I would simply double the recipe.
So off I went. I pulled out my recipe book full of slightly stained index cards, and found the recipe that Jill had written out for me the previous year. Three-and-a-half cups of flour became seven cups, four cups of sugar became six-and-a-half cups sugar, and one-and-half teaspoons of cinnamon became five. Math is relative, when baking, obviously. As the ingredients filled up our mammoth 16-cup mixing bowl, a sliver of doubt started to creep into my blissfully Christmas-filled mind. Did we really use that many ingredients last year? Did it really take this much to make two loaves of pumpkin bread? Really? But, dedicated as I was, I kept going, pulled out a smaller bowl, and added a moat of water, four eggs, a ridiculous amount of oil, and two full cans of pumkin. And just as I was staring at the two completely full bowls, wondering how I was ever going to mix them, I decided to flip over the index card. And there were the final instructions, including the underlined statement: "Makes TWO loaves (and in case of smaller pans: THREE)".
Holy pumpkin mix, Batman. I had just made enough batter for six loaves of pumpkin bread. SIX. More importantly, however, I had also just made enough batter to where none of our bowls where big enough to hold the combined concoction.
Being the independent, well-educated woman that I am, I of course had a solution on hand. I called on husband-dear.
"Can you find a bucket and clean it for me?"
"Why?"
I showed him the two bowls of batter, "The recipe was enough for two loaves already. Or three, in our case, since our bread pans are smaller than Jill's."
"And?"
"And I doubled the recipe. This is six loaves of pumpkin bread. And that" I pointed at the huge red bowl, "is our biggest mixing bowl."
I would love to tell you that husband-dear didn't laugh, but he did. Once he was done laughing, we began the hunt for a "really, really big container". Since husband-dear's American standards for food hygiene precluded using a bucket that had ever come in contact with cleaning products, even if said bucket were to be washed out with water, he eventually decided on the pot we usually use for low country boil, Dutch mashed potatoes, and other dishes that require a ridiculously large pot. I then used a four-cup measuring beaker to combine and the two bowls, while husband-dear hunted for baking pans that would work for pumpkin bread. We only have two bread pans, and so we had some interesting decisions to make for the other four loaves. A bundt-shaped pan? Or a casserole dish? Glass or china? We ended up settling on some old casserole dishes, at which point the two hour bakefest it took to get all six loaves done began. As did the extensive washing of bowls, pots, and other utensils.
So yes, I did finally make "normal" pumpkin bread this year. And I was able to make lots and lots and lots of people happy with a couple of slices. But if there is one lesson to be learned, it's that I really, really should start to do a better job reading instructions.
So this year, when I decided to make pumpkin bread to give to our co-workers and neighbors, I made doubly sure my husband knew he had to purchase "pumpkin mix", and not "pumpkin pie mix". I underlined it on the grocery list, I told him in person, and when he called while in the store, I reminded him again. Delegation, people, is a lot of work. But, he succeeded (naturally), and came home with two cans of pumpkin mix. Excellent.
That Saturday (this would be last week), when I decided that if I graded one more paper my brain was going to explode, and that baking would be the one thing to restore my sanity, husband-dear requested if I would mind baking an extra loaf for him to take to work. Absolutely not. I had, after all, two cans of pumpkin mix, and I would simply double the recipe.
So off I went. I pulled out my recipe book full of slightly stained index cards, and found the recipe that Jill had written out for me the previous year. Three-and-a-half cups of flour became seven cups, four cups of sugar became six-and-a-half cups sugar, and one-and-half teaspoons of cinnamon became five. Math is relative, when baking, obviously. As the ingredients filled up our mammoth 16-cup mixing bowl, a sliver of doubt started to creep into my blissfully Christmas-filled mind. Did we really use that many ingredients last year? Did it really take this much to make two loaves of pumpkin bread? Really? But, dedicated as I was, I kept going, pulled out a smaller bowl, and added a moat of water, four eggs, a ridiculous amount of oil, and two full cans of pumkin. And just as I was staring at the two completely full bowls, wondering how I was ever going to mix them, I decided to flip over the index card. And there were the final instructions, including the underlined statement: "Makes TWO loaves (and in case of smaller pans: THREE)".
Holy pumpkin mix, Batman. I had just made enough batter for six loaves of pumpkin bread. SIX. More importantly, however, I had also just made enough batter to where none of our bowls where big enough to hold the combined concoction.
Being the independent, well-educated woman that I am, I of course had a solution on hand. I called on husband-dear.
"Can you find a bucket and clean it for me?"
"Why?"
I showed him the two bowls of batter, "The recipe was enough for two loaves already. Or three, in our case, since our bread pans are smaller than Jill's."
"And?"
"And I doubled the recipe. This is six loaves of pumpkin bread. And that" I pointed at the huge red bowl, "is our biggest mixing bowl."
I would love to tell you that husband-dear didn't laugh, but he did. Once he was done laughing, we began the hunt for a "really, really big container". Since husband-dear's American standards for food hygiene precluded using a bucket that had ever come in contact with cleaning products, even if said bucket were to be washed out with water, he eventually decided on the pot we usually use for low country boil, Dutch mashed potatoes, and other dishes that require a ridiculously large pot. I then used a four-cup measuring beaker to combine and the two bowls, while husband-dear hunted for baking pans that would work for pumpkin bread. We only have two bread pans, and so we had some interesting decisions to make for the other four loaves. A bundt-shaped pan? Or a casserole dish? Glass or china? We ended up settling on some old casserole dishes, at which point the two hour bakefest it took to get all six loaves done began. As did the extensive washing of bowls, pots, and other utensils.
So yes, I did finally make "normal" pumpkin bread this year. And I was able to make lots and lots and lots of people happy with a couple of slices. But if there is one lesson to be learned, it's that I really, really should start to do a better job reading instructions.
Friday, December 7, 2012
Grading, grading, grading, gra-done!
In previous semesters, I always made sure to not turn in my final grades until the day they were due. I'm not sure why I did this, because in all cases, I was done grading the day of the last final, and could have turned in my final grades the very next day. Instead, I would draw out the grading process, take long lunch breaks, long coffee breaks, go home on time, and do whatever it took to turn in my grades with all of my other, far-more-harried colleagues on Friday.
Why? You may ask. Well, I'm not entirely certain myself, but two reasons come to mind. First, I felt bad for turning in grades early and, not having a reason to be at work anymore, skipping out of work the days before commencement. Missing work are two words that just don't go together in the Dixiechick lexicon. Second, I didn't want people to think that the reason I was able to turn my work in early was because I'm one of those slacker professor who doesn't "do" final papers and whose finals are nothing more than twenty true/false questions. In case you were wondering, yes, I am aware that I am possibly crazy for thinking these things. Especially considering the fact that unlike my harried colleagues, I spent the weeks and weekends prior to finals furiously grading papers, senior theses, and final projects. While I don't know what my fellow professors do in the weekends leading up to finals, I do know that my family has dubbed the last two weekends before commencement my "hell weekends" (which, yes, always include either Thanksgiving or my birthday, thankyouverymuch), since I spend at least several hours each day up to my elbows in grading, creating finals, and calculating final grades.
So this semester I decided to change things up. And I started by turning in my grades when I was done grading, that is, on Wednesday right after lunch. When I triumphantly exited the department office, and ran into two fellow professors who sighed that they had yet to start grading, I realized that my fear of looking like a slacker all those years was completely unfounded. I'll refrain from passing judgment, but let's just say, I wasn't the one slacking. So instead of driving into work yesterday to work on my grading a little and look busy, I sat on the couch and watched the entire Today show. And today, there's no need to drive to work, make a great show of printing out my final grades and roll book, and turn them in, nope. My plans for today include printing out the pictures I took at Disney and going for a swim. And possibly doing some laundry. Maybe. And the lesson learned? Caring about what other people think is never worth as much as having two days to yourself. Ever.
While we're talking about change, I'd also like to talk about next semester. Next semester, people, is going to be different. Not just because I -finally- implemented the changes in deadlines I should have made five years ago, so that not all papers are due in the last week of class, but also because I got a grant and have received 50% release time. Fifty percent release time, for those of you wondering, equals two classes, which means that next spring I will only be teaching two classes. Two. Not four, or five, or even six, nope. Two. And the even better news is that I got to pick the two I wanted to teach. That, my dear readers, is the bees' knees of academics, the cat's pajamas of scholarly life. It's right up there with paid sabbaticals and book royalties.
Now this doesn't mean I get to spend the other twenty hours of the week sitting around drinking coffee. No, instead of teaching and dealing with important questions such as "why do we have to write two papers?", and "why is this class so hard?", I get to develop a cross-disciplinary research initiative in the field of health communication. None of us on the grant are exactly sure what we'll be doing, but our first task (after I get to furnish my...wait for it...new office) is to developed measurable outcomes, so I'm sure we'll be fine.
So I am excited this semester is over? Yes, three times yes. I weather a tenure portfolio deadline, conducted a large scale quantitative survey, taught five classes, dealt with a child in marching band, two major meltdowns, and one student going into early labor, so I am ready for a break. But I can also assure you that I am more than ready to come back in 2013.
Why? You may ask. Well, I'm not entirely certain myself, but two reasons come to mind. First, I felt bad for turning in grades early and, not having a reason to be at work anymore, skipping out of work the days before commencement. Missing work are two words that just don't go together in the Dixiechick lexicon. Second, I didn't want people to think that the reason I was able to turn my work in early was because I'm one of those slacker professor who doesn't "do" final papers and whose finals are nothing more than twenty true/false questions. In case you were wondering, yes, I am aware that I am possibly crazy for thinking these things. Especially considering the fact that unlike my harried colleagues, I spent the weeks and weekends prior to finals furiously grading papers, senior theses, and final projects. While I don't know what my fellow professors do in the weekends leading up to finals, I do know that my family has dubbed the last two weekends before commencement my "hell weekends" (which, yes, always include either Thanksgiving or my birthday, thankyouverymuch), since I spend at least several hours each day up to my elbows in grading, creating finals, and calculating final grades.
So this semester I decided to change things up. And I started by turning in my grades when I was done grading, that is, on Wednesday right after lunch. When I triumphantly exited the department office, and ran into two fellow professors who sighed that they had yet to start grading, I realized that my fear of looking like a slacker all those years was completely unfounded. I'll refrain from passing judgment, but let's just say, I wasn't the one slacking. So instead of driving into work yesterday to work on my grading a little and look busy, I sat on the couch and watched the entire Today show. And today, there's no need to drive to work, make a great show of printing out my final grades and roll book, and turn them in, nope. My plans for today include printing out the pictures I took at Disney and going for a swim. And possibly doing some laundry. Maybe. And the lesson learned? Caring about what other people think is never worth as much as having two days to yourself. Ever.
While we're talking about change, I'd also like to talk about next semester. Next semester, people, is going to be different. Not just because I -finally- implemented the changes in deadlines I should have made five years ago, so that not all papers are due in the last week of class, but also because I got a grant and have received 50% release time. Fifty percent release time, for those of you wondering, equals two classes, which means that next spring I will only be teaching two classes. Two. Not four, or five, or even six, nope. Two. And the even better news is that I got to pick the two I wanted to teach. That, my dear readers, is the bees' knees of academics, the cat's pajamas of scholarly life. It's right up there with paid sabbaticals and book royalties.
Now this doesn't mean I get to spend the other twenty hours of the week sitting around drinking coffee. No, instead of teaching and dealing with important questions such as "why do we have to write two papers?", and "why is this class so hard?", I get to develop a cross-disciplinary research initiative in the field of health communication. None of us on the grant are exactly sure what we'll be doing, but our first task (after I get to furnish my...wait for it...new office) is to developed measurable outcomes, so I'm sure we'll be fine.
So I am excited this semester is over? Yes, three times yes. I weather a tenure portfolio deadline, conducted a large scale quantitative survey, taught five classes, dealt with a child in marching band, two major meltdowns, and one student going into early labor, so I am ready for a break. But I can also assure you that I am more than ready to come back in 2013.
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