Autumn business
It's been a while, hasn't it? I can't recall the last time I took two months between entries - probably this is the longest gap since I started writing here 20 years ago. It's been something of a perfect storm, as these things go: being extremely busy, yet without anything extremely notable happening, and meanwhile something of a different outlet to narrate the more typical events has appeared in the past few months.
These circumstances aren't likey to change for another couple weeks, either - but before the backlog grows any larger, I figure it's finally time to rescue the situation and bring things up to date, even if at this point things are going to be a bit summary in nature.
So, backing up all the way to the start of September: immdiately after the Yorkshire party I had to rush back to Liverpool on an early afternoon train to meet up with none other than Professor K, who on short notice (only a couple weeks previous) had declared his intention to visit Liverpool - and would be flying into the UK that morning and taking the train to Liverpool by 5pm. After quickly stashing the fursuit I trudged across town expecting to meet with him at his hotel, except he wasn't available, and then suddenly he was available, so after cancelling and then un-cancelling a dinner reservation I had a slightly awkward dinner with him (in which he promised to host me at Caltech at his expense for a semester on a sabbatical, which sounds great except that my current job doesn't grant sabbaticals). He gave a talk after lunch the next day before continuing onto his next destination.
After that it was time for the tide of the academic year to sweep over me again - there was a week of trying to drag my (unfortunately well-below-average) distance-learning Master's project students over the finish line on their projects, and then another week in which I had to read and grade not only my own to Master's student theses but also four other thesis plus an entire PhD thesis (which, of course, was as long as the rest of them combined). And no sooner was that out of the way then it was time for the actual semester to start. This is a far busier semester than usual - for one, my spring class was moved to the fall (on top of the two classes I was already teaching in fall), sticking me with a three-class load for at least the first half of the term. Second, I decided earlier in the year to execute a more or less complete overhaul in the way I structure my statistics assessments (due to students in previous years using/abusing AI on their coursework in the past).
The start of the academic year also comes with new PhD students to the department, and for the fourth year in a row I managed to recruit one of them to work with me, which brings my student cohort to four(!) students - a genuine group, and easily established me as the faculty member at the institute with the most students (perhaps even with the most student+postdocs, even though I still have no postdocs). Meanwhile my senior student is in his last year (and needing help getting his paper out and with drafting job applications), and even my next-most-senior student is writing up a paper - so there is quite a lot to do on that front.
But the list goes on! Seminars have also started (absorbing most of my Wednesdays with hosting duties). And right in the middle of this crazy period we also found a spectacularly interesting transient which finally provided the target I'd been seeking to observe with the Hubble Space Telescope for years, and provided data I'm still puzzing over.
It's not all been work-busy, thankfully. This has been an extremely social period at the office with plenty of graduation and leaving celebrations (three big ones in just the past month) and a good time with colleagues at the pub on Friday (a tradition that's mostly revived after a post-covid lull). Riff also came over to the UK to visit me for a week, which I really appreciated: I've been hoping to have visitors here ever since I moved in, but have rarely managed to convince anyone to drop by for longer than a day until now.
So - things are crazy, but I guess all in all really pretty good (about as good as I can remember since grad school). The business is going to last for a few weeks yet, although at least by mid-month I'll have some fun travel to enjoy.
These circumstances aren't likey to change for another couple weeks, either - but before the backlog grows any larger, I figure it's finally time to rescue the situation and bring things up to date, even if at this point things are going to be a bit summary in nature.
So, backing up all the way to the start of September: immdiately after the Yorkshire party I had to rush back to Liverpool on an early afternoon train to meet up with none other than Professor K, who on short notice (only a couple weeks previous) had declared his intention to visit Liverpool - and would be flying into the UK that morning and taking the train to Liverpool by 5pm. After quickly stashing the fursuit I trudged across town expecting to meet with him at his hotel, except he wasn't available, and then suddenly he was available, so after cancelling and then un-cancelling a dinner reservation I had a slightly awkward dinner with him (in which he promised to host me at Caltech at his expense for a semester on a sabbatical, which sounds great except that my current job doesn't grant sabbaticals). He gave a talk after lunch the next day before continuing onto his next destination.
After that it was time for the tide of the academic year to sweep over me again - there was a week of trying to drag my (unfortunately well-below-average) distance-learning Master's project students over the finish line on their projects, and then another week in which I had to read and grade not only my own to Master's student theses but also four other thesis plus an entire PhD thesis (which, of course, was as long as the rest of them combined). And no sooner was that out of the way then it was time for the actual semester to start. This is a far busier semester than usual - for one, my spring class was moved to the fall (on top of the two classes I was already teaching in fall), sticking me with a three-class load for at least the first half of the term. Second, I decided earlier in the year to execute a more or less complete overhaul in the way I structure my statistics assessments (due to students in previous years using/abusing AI on their coursework in the past).
The start of the academic year also comes with new PhD students to the department, and for the fourth year in a row I managed to recruit one of them to work with me, which brings my student cohort to four(!) students - a genuine group, and easily established me as the faculty member at the institute with the most students (perhaps even with the most student+postdocs, even though I still have no postdocs). Meanwhile my senior student is in his last year (and needing help getting his paper out and with drafting job applications), and even my next-most-senior student is writing up a paper - so there is quite a lot to do on that front.
But the list goes on! Seminars have also started (absorbing most of my Wednesdays with hosting duties). And right in the middle of this crazy period we also found a spectacularly interesting transient which finally provided the target I'd been seeking to observe with the Hubble Space Telescope for years, and provided data I'm still puzzing over.
It's not all been work-busy, thankfully. This has been an extremely social period at the office with plenty of graduation and leaving celebrations (three big ones in just the past month) and a good time with colleagues at the pub on Friday (a tradition that's mostly revived after a post-covid lull). Riff also came over to the UK to visit me for a week, which I really appreciated: I've been hoping to have visitors here ever since I moved in, but have rarely managed to convince anyone to drop by for longer than a day until now.
So - things are crazy, but I guess all in all really pretty good (about as good as I can remember since grad school). The business is going to last for a few weeks yet, although at least by mid-month I'll have some fun travel to enjoy.