- Change of plans: we’re going to D.C. instead of Richmond. My stepmother’s great uncle(?) who was really more like a father to her, died last night. I was in the mood to get out of town so I changed all our reservations to go to D.C. We’re planning a trip to the Museum of African Art
- I am not writing tonight. I am reading. Because I got a new book
. Actually, I got three books, but I’m going to read this one first.
- I will write tomorrow. I am carving out an hour or so at work.
- I really do like a lot of the faculty I work with. The last few days, I’ve had some very nice conversations with several faculty, which made me really appreciate the small community I’m in.
Not Random Bullets of Craptm because, well, they’re not entirely crap.
- Mr. Geeky fixed my car. Hooray! Hooray! We figured it was something minor, but hadn’t had a chance to look and determine the extent of the problem. Mr. Geeky’s car, on the other hand, has similar symptoms to Dr. B’s.
- The kids and I are taking the train down to Richmond. The kids are quite excited about the trip. I’m excited about not having to drive. If anyone lives in Richmond, let me know.
- I wrote 3 pages for chapter one last night. Of course 1 page consisted of figures. Why is it so hard to place figures in a document. They just don’t want to lay out. I think I’m going to have to give up on wrapping.
- I was sure I had more to say, but I guess I don’t.
- Update: I remembered! First, we figured out how to turn off the radiators in the kids’ rooms. Now it’s not like a sauna up there.
- Second, I made the broiled flank steak and two-potato mash mentioned in this post. It was awesome!
Remind me that drinking a beer when you’re already exhausted is not conducive to writing. I had every intention last night of starting on dissertation chapter one. But as I sipped beer and read blogs, my eyes got heavier and heavier. It wasn’t even 9 o’clock! I did do some reading and I will begin writing this afternoon or this evening. Sometimes not writing is a good thing.
Over the weekend, I submitted an essay to She’s Such a Geek. It wasn’t the best essay on the planet; I don’t think I spent enough time on it. I’m not really a good judge of my own writing. Basically, I usually think it all sucks. When I go back to something I wrote years ago, I have one of two reactions: 1) oh my god, that’s awful; I can’t believe I wrote that; or 2) wow, that’s good; I’m sure I didn’t write that; I must have been channeling someone who can write. As I was writing my essay, which I had started a few weeks ago, I thought about all the different directions I could go in. There’s a reason people often use thread metaphors when talking about writing. I felt like I had a million threads and I was trying to make yarn or a tapestry or something. Yes, spinning a yarn. Eventually, you have to what color it will be and what pattern it will take. Some threads get left out, perhaps never to be made into yarn. Those threads, though, stick with you, maybe even haunt you. I find that they sometimes find their way into pieces I hadn’t thought they belonged in, kind of like seeing the shock of gold thread in a scarf.
As I drifted off to sleep last night, I began to think about how to begin the first chapter and a pattern began to emerge. I began to see the threads that I might try to pull together into something beautiful and useful. But I also know that some of those threads will be cut, left in the remants pile. I can’t help thinking that maybe they’ll show up somewhere. Maybe that’s what this blog is, a place to put those remnants. I’m not sure. I hate to see them go to waste.
It’s been about a year since the whole Lawrence Summers fiasco, which was perhaps my first contentious debate in the blog world. Sexism is, unfortunately, alive and well. I haven’t bothered to what’s up with Summers these days. I heard he started some study of women in science.
Vegankid, in the comments to the delurking day, suggested we have a Blog Against Sexism day on March 8th. I’m all for that. I’ve had some recent sexist experiences that make me want to say more about it. I was listening to Diggnation, a podcast by some Digg.com’s users. Initially, I liked the show because the guys were drinking beer and talking about technology, two of my very favorite things together, like a Reeses cup. So the first show was fine, but the second show. The second show I couldn’t stomach. And it wasn’t a “I’m so pissed off” kind of feeling, but like I’d just been discounted as a human being. They spent a great deal of time talking about how hot a woman from Godaddy was–a lot of time. Then, they mentioned that a guy came up to them and asked if they could throw in some garden stuff so his wife would listen to the show. And they said, well, it’s pretty much a sausage-fest around here. And went on blabbering about how “manly” they were. It was just gross.
On the flip side, I’ve been thinking about my own reactions to the fact that the tech world is predominantly male. Sometimes, I may react too vehemently, bordering on my own version of sexism. I’d like to let that idea simmer for a while and see what happens.
So anyway, if anyone’s interested, let me know and we’ll get something going. For starters, here’s a technorati tag:
The bad thing about 3-day weekends is that Tuesday gets promoted to Monday. I don’t mind going to work. What I mind is the getting up. I get up fairly early on my own–between 7:30 and 8. On work/school days, I get up an hour earlier in order to have coffee and read blogs. Before blogging, I’d read or watch tv. I have to have that hour to myself or I’ll go insane. Really.
Actually, today is my 3-year anniversary. I started this job three years ago today. My boss told me the other day that she thought I’d really grown into the job. Maybe that’s true. I think what’s more true is that I’ve made the job what I think it should be. Some of that’s based on my own interests, but much of it is based on the culture I’m surrounded by. I think it took about 2 years to really understand how things work. I’m still finding out new things every day and there are little shifts over time as new faculty come in.
My position I feel is an odd one. On the one hand, I do a lot of research which results in presentations or papers. In that way, I am similar to a faculty member. However, since most faculty don’t read research in my area (or even know that such a thing exists), they don’t see that similarity. I feel the research is important because otherwise I’d be nothing but tech support and I don’t think that’s what an Instructional Technologist should be. But that’s how many (most?) faculty see me. One thing that I’ve really worked on is to really help people help themselves. I serve over 200 faculty. When I get emails asking a simple question, I answer it and link to the documentation that would have answered their question. Same with phone calls. I’ve learned to say at the end, “By the way, if this comes up again, you can find that answer at . . .” While not everyone gets the hint, most do learn from this exchange. I now get more phone calls and emails about strategies for using technology in classes rather than tech support issues. That’s real improvement in my book.
There are things that frustrate me most about my job and that I try to minimize. One is when people see me only as techie, the mechanic. This is often made worse by the fact that I sometimes get treated like the call center person in India. Thankfully, this doesn’t happen often and as I mentioned, I’ve developed strategies for dealing with it. Another is, and perhaps these are related, a complete disdain for what I do. I am looked at sometimes as the person who wants to ruin liberal arts education as we know it. I am evil incarnate. A lot of people, including people in my own department, don’t fully understand what I do. Most people thing that Instructional Technology is about teaching others how to use technology. Often that’s a part of what one does, but not all. In fact, my hope is that the technology itself becomes much simpler to use, but the ways one might incorporate it become more complex. I often say that I show people how to leverage technology to improve learning. I’m not, as some people think, an advocate of using technology for technology’s sake.
I recently read that an Instructional Technologist creates an environment in which teaching with technology can flourish. At places where there’s only one technologist, they often do much more. I do everything from maintaining hardware and software in a lab to running a multimedia program to researching trends in mobile computing to answering questions about Blackboard. With so many different areas, it’s sometimes hard to know what to prioritize. I have chosen to prioritize the research and to educate the faculty (and often the staff) about what that research says. Another person might have focused on the lab or on creating learning objects or on Blackboard documentation. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, though, in the many, many years that I’ve been using technology is that technology changes very quickly and you have to keep your eye on the ball or you’re going to lose the game.
I’m a big fan of Cooking Light, enough to finally subscribe about 6 months ago. I have been making a recipe from it here and there. This month, for some reason, I’ve made more than the normal amount, and they’ve all been good so I wanted to share, especially since I know there are others out there who are Cooking Light fans and having drop-in dinners and whatnot.
First, I tried the Winter Orange Salad. Believe it or not, the store was out of shallots, but it still turned out fine. A very tasty salad. We had it with lasagna.
I also tried the Ham and Two-Cheese Spoon Bread (can’t link; behind the pay wall). This was tasty, but I cooked in too large of a dish, so it didn’t puff as much as it should have and generally took a little longer to cook. I had it as a main dish with salad, but it would actually make a good breakfast, I think.
Then I made the Basic Beef Stew with Carrots and Mushrooms. This was really good and it lasted for days and got better each day. Tonight, I made another stew, the Dijon Chicken Stew with Potatoes and Kale (link behind the pay wall). I couldn’t find Kale, so substituted Collard Greens (are they the same thing?) and it was really tasty. Mr. Geeky raved.
I have the ingredients for Broiled Flank Steak with Salsa Verde and Two-Potato Mash, so I’ll let you know how those turn out.
Update: Success!! I had to email someone and hadn’t heard from them and just thought I’d try to register again and bingo!! Yay! It’s official now.
Well, everything was going swimmingly for a while. I had obtained the necessary logins, logged in to make sure it worked. I calculated how many hours I needed, asked for clarification from our Graduate Studies director who got back to me very quickly. I then attempted to register and got an error, so I’m waiting to hear back again. It definitely could have been much, much worse. The interface for the system (PeopleSoft) totally sucks, but since I’m used to working with it, I understand it. And at least it recognized me and had all my records, so really this is just a minor bump in the road. I still have a couple of forms to file, but those have to be done by mail.
Oh, and the cost–quite expensive, but I think I can manage.
So I’m off because it’s MLK day, a day which my school does not recognize as a holiday. There are events and special meals, but we all have to slog into work unless, like me, you take a personal day. We also don’t really recognize Labor Day as a holiday. Classes usually begin on that day and if you have anything to do with supporting students and faculty you don’t really get to take that day. The irony of a women’s college that doesn’t really support days meant to recognize the “invisible” seems to escape the upper levels of administration. I was just reading over a Quod Shee about the inflexibility of the academic schedule and today is a good example of that. I’m here at home (and yes, still in jammies) because Mr. Geeky teaches today and well, you can’t just skip one of a limited number of classes.
So anyway, I’m here and I have work to do. It won’t really be a day off. I’ll be doing household chores I was too lazy to do over the weekend, some reading for the dissertation, maybe some writing for the dissertation, and officially getting registered for dissertation hours and that adminstrative stuff which I couldn’t do last week because I was gone. That last bit could get really complicated and I’m not looking forward to it. I’m thankful for at least the flexibility of the time today even if the day itself was caused by the inflexibility of the academic calendar.
My favorite movie when I was little was Disney’s Winnie the Pooh
But I digress. Last night and continuing today, it is very blustery. Blustery is the best word ever. First, we lost the internets. Then we lost all electricity just before bedtime. Mr. Geeky took Geeky Girl to bed with him while Geeky Boy and I stayed up a little later to play video games. The electricity came back on just before we went to bed. I slept in Geeky Girl’s bed and all night I could hear the wind howling at the windows. Branches were snapping and landing on roofs and it was generally . . . blustery.
There’s nothing to do on a blustery day except stay inside and keep warm.
I just got my latest heating bill. Gah! Let’s just say that it’s more than double any bill from last year. However, it’s about the same as bills from the winter before that, which was extraordinarily cold.
According to the handy graphs provided by PECO, we did use more energy this year, but not an astronomical amount more. The average temperature was a bit lower this year compared to last, but again, not by much. Now, we were warned that prices were going up. This year, electricity is costing us about $.07/kwh and gas is costing us about $1.20/hundred cubic foot (Ccf). I could only find costs from July, which show that electricity was the same, but gas was $.87/Ccf. But that’s summer and often gas costs are lower in the summer anyway. If anyone has any info, that would be great.
We have a little buffer in our budget, plus savings we can draw on if necessary, but a lot of people don’t. I wonder how they’re dealing with this. My guess is, they’re not. Some may have signed up for programs that reduce their costs, but I know a lot of people fall through the cracks for these programs.
Either someone needs to admit that these prices are arbitrarily set by greedy oil companies or that there really is a decreased supply. Either way, I can direct my actions appropriately.
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