(no subject)
Life is good in Indiana. I feel surprisingly well-suited to the lifestyle here. People keep telling me that it's boring and there is nothing to do, but we have gone out and done more community events in the ten weeks we've lived here than our whole time in Boston. Partly that's because we have some more money now, so a $5 donation to get into a street fair or whatever isn't a deterrent for us like it might have been a year ago - but most of the people complaining to us about having 'nothing to do' are similarly situated, financially, if not significantly better situated. I guess what they mean is "there is nothing to do of the particularly urban coastal sort of thing that I like to do." And yeah, it's not likely that a hot new restaurant is going to open up every two months or anything. There aren't exactly high-end stores around, or big name bands coming to town, or whatever. But Dan and I are both creatures of habit anyway and between the events in the summer that happen downtown and the events that Purdue puts on during the school year (I just went to see Neil Degrasse Tyson speak!) I think we will be sufficiently entertained.
My job is going pretty well. I really like it. I can tell that I am going to have to be fairly savvy about 'managing up' but I think I can handle it. The students are very cool - being an academic advisor in Computer Science sometimes feels like cheating because some of these kids have totally mediocre grades and still get amazing job and internship offers. I am still learning a lot, but for the most part I feel like I am doing fairly well. My supervisor isn't in my building, so pretty much I am self-directed; we have monthly one on one meetings and for the most part I rely on my coworkers for help with questions that come up during the day. The demands of the job are fairly straightforward most of the time -- meet with students -- so it works well.
I'm also teaching again! I'm teaching three sections of a one credit pass/fail orientation class for freshmen. I like it! I only need to do one prep a week so it isn't very time consuming, and these students are pretty well behaved. Even the class I teach at 3:30 on Friday is very good natured! It's basically my ideal kind of teaching: very little prep, no grading, but I still get the experience of standing in front of a classroom and interacting with the students.
So yeah, life is good - I pretty much go to work, go to the gym, make dinner, hang out with Dan, go to happy hour with some of the psychology faculty on Wednesdays, hang out our friend Amy from the Engineering department (who we met through the Purdue Young Faculty Association events), knit, read, and sleep.
Oh, and does anyone have a tumblr? I just got one. It is dolltearsheet.tumblr.com. I am going to try to keep track of what outfits I wear so I don't accidentally wear the same shirt every Monday or whatever. I got this nifty app on my iphone for tracking/categorizing outfits which hopefully I will have the attention span to remember to use!
My job is going pretty well. I really like it. I can tell that I am going to have to be fairly savvy about 'managing up' but I think I can handle it. The students are very cool - being an academic advisor in Computer Science sometimes feels like cheating because some of these kids have totally mediocre grades and still get amazing job and internship offers. I am still learning a lot, but for the most part I feel like I am doing fairly well. My supervisor isn't in my building, so pretty much I am self-directed; we have monthly one on one meetings and for the most part I rely on my coworkers for help with questions that come up during the day. The demands of the job are fairly straightforward most of the time -- meet with students -- so it works well.
I'm also teaching again! I'm teaching three sections of a one credit pass/fail orientation class for freshmen. I like it! I only need to do one prep a week so it isn't very time consuming, and these students are pretty well behaved. Even the class I teach at 3:30 on Friday is very good natured! It's basically my ideal kind of teaching: very little prep, no grading, but I still get the experience of standing in front of a classroom and interacting with the students.
So yeah, life is good - I pretty much go to work, go to the gym, make dinner, hang out with Dan, go to happy hour with some of the psychology faculty on Wednesdays, hang out our friend Amy from the Engineering department (who we met through the Purdue Young Faculty Association events), knit, read, and sleep.
Oh, and does anyone have a tumblr? I just got one. It is dolltearsheet.tumblr.com. I am going to try to keep track of what outfits I wear so I don't accidentally wear the same shirt every Monday or whatever. I got this nifty app on my iphone for tracking/categorizing outfits which hopefully I will have the attention span to remember to use!