this is no april fools joke
over the last month I've been absolutely buried in work, in life, in Bones and Leverage. No. Seriously.
I graded 45 midterms and 45 papers of 6-10 pages each over the space of three days. I've met with 2/3rds of my students to review their work. I applied for four different types of funding (endowed fellowship, summer grant, summer travel, and writing program teaching assistant) for summer and fall that took me three or four days at a time to write up (though one took a week). I've applied for gotten a position on a SF panel at the MLA, had a proposal accepted at an April grad student conference in Berkeley, and a conference in Poland I haven't heard from yet. I've gone to talks on photographing the gentrification of Highland Park, on Medieval Japanese studies, and on what to do after graduation. I've started the planning our own Grad Student conference (hopefully coming 2015) with an initial budget.
I made breakfast-for-dinner for friends (waffles!), had dinner made for me (homemade tapenade and roasted chicken for the win!), got my housemate drunk (a couple of times, though not on purpose), had a movie night to show off Sakuran, went out twice with grad students for recruitment dinners, hosted a prospective grad student at my house, and took the dog to the dog park twice (she loves it, my car hates her fur).
I found out I received an endowed fellowship for next year (one of those funding proposals) which is like the most amazing thing ever - next year I will *only* be writing, not TAing and not any other thing. Also, it'll be the first time i will be above the poverty line in three years, yay!
I moved my bed to a new position in my bedroom (north-south = good sleep, yay), got a new side table for the living room, broke my favorite chair (but am still sitting in it), broke three wine glasses and a plate at different times doing dishes, and bought new coffee and tea cups for the first time in like six years.
I took two trips to DMV and still didn't get anything out of it except more forms (i need a new plate), took one trip to the LA mini dealership and got a plate holder and cleaning solution for my car out of it (and man is their service great!).
I've been immersed in department politics by way of my new friend, our new department admin, who I've also gotten drunk with and who basically has enough political pull in the larger college system to get our fellowships looked at. And to get a different Department Chair appointed when our current one's contract came up (which is happening - we get a new chair starting next Fall, and she's gonna be awesome as long as the current chair doesn't pull the department down around his ears as he leaves).
Remember my housemate from Japan? We're back on friend terms - I think both of us are chalking Japan up to "bad idea, good savings" and pretending it didn't happen. A long time ago I called her co-student, so I will again for tagging purposes. Anyway, she's been bearing the brunt of our current Department Chair's frustrations (well, she's gotten his grad-student frustration, our new admin has taken the brunt of the administrative-frustration, and everyone else just gets the overflow). So I've been trying to just touch base with her and be sympathetic under the stress of having to deal with him day in and out.
so you could say it's been a bit of a long month. the bad part is i've only read one article on my own research and not written a single thing at all. that changes this weekend.
also posted to katekat on dreamwidth | you can reply here or there
I graded 45 midterms and 45 papers of 6-10 pages each over the space of three days. I've met with 2/3rds of my students to review their work. I applied for four different types of funding (endowed fellowship, summer grant, summer travel, and writing program teaching assistant) for summer and fall that took me three or four days at a time to write up (though one took a week). I've applied for gotten a position on a SF panel at the MLA, had a proposal accepted at an April grad student conference in Berkeley, and a conference in Poland I haven't heard from yet. I've gone to talks on photographing the gentrification of Highland Park, on Medieval Japanese studies, and on what to do after graduation. I've started the planning our own Grad Student conference (hopefully coming 2015) with an initial budget.
I made breakfast-for-dinner for friends (waffles!), had dinner made for me (homemade tapenade and roasted chicken for the win!), got my housemate drunk (a couple of times, though not on purpose), had a movie night to show off Sakuran, went out twice with grad students for recruitment dinners, hosted a prospective grad student at my house, and took the dog to the dog park twice (she loves it, my car hates her fur).
I found out I received an endowed fellowship for next year (one of those funding proposals) which is like the most amazing thing ever - next year I will *only* be writing, not TAing and not any other thing. Also, it'll be the first time i will be above the poverty line in three years, yay!
I moved my bed to a new position in my bedroom (north-south = good sleep, yay), got a new side table for the living room, broke my favorite chair (but am still sitting in it), broke three wine glasses and a plate at different times doing dishes, and bought new coffee and tea cups for the first time in like six years.
I took two trips to DMV and still didn't get anything out of it except more forms (i need a new plate), took one trip to the LA mini dealership and got a plate holder and cleaning solution for my car out of it (and man is their service great!).
I've been immersed in department politics by way of my new friend, our new department admin, who I've also gotten drunk with and who basically has enough political pull in the larger college system to get our fellowships looked at. And to get a different Department Chair appointed when our current one's contract came up (which is happening - we get a new chair starting next Fall, and she's gonna be awesome as long as the current chair doesn't pull the department down around his ears as he leaves).
Remember my housemate from Japan? We're back on friend terms - I think both of us are chalking Japan up to "bad idea, good savings" and pretending it didn't happen. A long time ago I called her co-student, so I will again for tagging purposes. Anyway, she's been bearing the brunt of our current Department Chair's frustrations (well, she's gotten his grad-student frustration, our new admin has taken the brunt of the administrative-frustration, and everyone else just gets the overflow). So I've been trying to just touch base with her and be sympathetic under the stress of having to deal with him day in and out.
so you could say it's been a bit of a long month. the bad part is i've only read one article on my own research and not written a single thing at all. that changes this weekend.
also posted to katekat on dreamwidth | you can reply here or there