Saturday, April 29, 2006

One week down

And believe me, I won't miss it. Let's see... so Tuesday was a day spent working in my office, which sucked (except for Tai Chi... this instructor I'm working with is really too amazing). Wednesday, however, definitely topped it. First, there was colloquium. No problem... sat through, it, stomached it, whatever. Then I grabbed a quick lunch, changed clothes, and went off to teach my women's self defense workshop. There were five girls who came in for the workshop, and I was surprised to see how pumped everybody was about what I had to offer. In the end, I think I even managed to get a couple of them eager to pick up martial arts on a pretty serious level, which was my primary goal. After that, I went to my office for more work, then went to fencing to coach a couple of my guys. From there, I did about an hour on the eliptical in the gym, then... wait for it... headed back into my office for more awesome fun work stuff. And that's where I stayed... that's where I stayed until 8:30 the next morning. It was either an all-nighter, or my Thursday presentation just wasn't happening. Anyway, I got it done, then went home for a nap.

A couple of hours later, I was back on campus, back in Dealy Hall, back in the psych department. I gave my presentation, which went pretty well, then went to my philosophy of psychology course, which I always love. Then it was dinner with Miraj before heading home to collapse... but not before writing my abstract for my thesis addendum, which was due on Friday morning. On Friday morning, I got to Rose Hill campus, turned in the abstract, hopped on a van to the Lincoln Center campus, and finished my last day of teaching lab. Afterwards, I went downstairs for a meeting with Dr. Wertz, Dr. Ponterotto, and three students from the philosophy of psych course who also want to get involved wit my little scheme... Miraj, Nava, and Marie... and I told them all my vision for this qualitative conference I want to throw next year at Fordham. Everyone was extremely happy about everything I threw at them, and the contributions and suggestions I got from them were unbelievable (keep in mind, this is a pretty energetic, super-enthusiastic bunch of academics who are popping at the seams to talk abot qualitative research in psychology... and stuff). I walked out of there with some amazing ideas, as well as the charge to put together a two to three page proposal for the structure of the conference. Then it was time for recording in Brooklyn with Craig... and we laid down the last song for the CD, which is apparently Craig's favorite, and that made me feel pretty damn good. When I got home, I got an email from Dr. Hogue, who runs a program at CASA, and who I'd spoken to a few months ago about an internship... it looks like he wants to talk to me about working on an initiative for a treatment program for adolescent substance abusers (hopefully, it'll be a paid internship... that's what we'd discussed before, anyway, but who knows). I responded, confirming the date he suggested for our meeting at the end of May. Then I crashed, and it was pretty damn good. I must have slept for... jeeze... seven hours? That's, like, a record for me.

So next week will be a little different, but hopefully not as jam-packed with things I have to get done. I have big things to do, of course... finish up a presentation for a class on teaching, get moving on my papers, complete my survey for my thesis research, apply for my IRB (that's so I can give my survey to people and be ethical about my research at the same time... weird), and... um... other things that I can't remember. Sorry... I've pretty much checked out for the semester. I mean, it's gorgeous out here! The campus is covered in, like, tulips... no, seriously... and trees exploding with flowers... and the weather is absolutely perfect... it's gorgeous and sunny, but not hot... it's... what's the word... um... springlike? I don't think I've ever really had a spring, to be honest. That's what happens when you live in Texas... you don't get actual seasons... just names of seasons demarcated by times of the year, but lacking any kind of climate indication on seasonal shift. Anyway, given how perfect things are in terms of flora and fauna out here, it's pretty damn near impossible to be productive. Hell, I even had a picnic lunch on campus with a couple of philosophy guys after Tai Chi on Tuesday (which was held outside, of course)... so yeah, I'm pretty much done with the semester. At this point, it's all auto pilot. Good luck getting me to do anything inspired for the next couple of weeks. I mean, I'll do my best to fake it... just don't tell anyone I'm not exactly... um... fully invested, you could say. It'll be our little secret or whatever. Besides, who the hell reads this thing, right? Yeah, I think I'll be okay.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I read. I just learned about "real" seasons too. Although they really take place in the mountains abot an hour away... The Sacramento Valley has rain in the winter. But Spring and Fall!!! I never knew there were so many lovely smelling plants and that they actually could GROW outside in people's yards. In Texas -you have to have a greenhouse to keep thing alive in the heat!

Tuesday, May 09, 2006 8:26:00 PM  

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