Well, I suppose monthly is better than quarterly or annually to keep this thing up to date.
Anyway, as you all know, things did take a turn for the marvelous last month, and our country, for a change, did the RIGHT thing and voted Obama into office. What an amazing day that was. I remember being so happy the next morning; kind of like walking around in a daze, with a big grin on my face, and being surprised not to see rainbow-colored unicorns grazing outside, flowers everywhere, balloons and cotton candy and angels singing. It just seemed that miraculous.
Although I wouldn't want that job for all the money in the world. Talk about having a mess to clean up!
Anyway, nothing terribly exciting is going on here. The main thing is I have been officially diagnosed w/Type 2 diabetes, which sucks in all kinds of ways. However, for the time being I'm doing well with diet/exercise, and I'm hoping I can manage it that way for the foreseeable future. And what the hell -- in a way it almost makes it easier KNOWING I don't have a choice; that I have to do this whether I like it or not.
The group I'm in has VASTLY improved due to changes in the membership. It's such a huge difference; I am constantly surprised by just how different it is. It certainly speaks to how bad it was before, but at least it's no longer a problem. So that's been a great thing.
Jon is still slogging away on the two publications he needs for tenure. He has one written and is almost ready to submit it; the other one is in the works and hopefully should be out this spring or summer. Then he can apply for tenure. We're a little concerned/annoyed because the colleague nearest to him in seniority was granted tenure recently, but we're fairly certain she didn't meet the publication requirements (as specified in their CONTRACTS). However, it seems that the dean of the STEM college approached the chair of the bio dept. and expressed concern that Jon hasn't published yet. Of course, with the crushing teaching load he had, it's amazing that he's finally able to do so now. So he's a little frustrated because he feels he's being held to a different standard. From time to time, though, we stop and consider the current economic/employment clusterfuck that everyone else is dealing with, especially around here, and we conclude that things could be so much worse. Then we move on.
And we're coming up on the 5th anniversary of Hannah's death. That's pretty hard. Especially because she was 5yo 9mo when she died, so next summer she will have been gone as long as she was here. That is upsetting because it seems to put her significantly farther away than she was already.
Well, off to put people to bed. More later, maybe.
1 comment:
Tani - I don't remember the exact date John and I met, but I'm about at the point where he's been dead as long as we knew each other during his life. I hate that. I feel like it starts to erase the time we had together. Not a day goes by that I don't miss him -- and he's been gone over ten years!!
It must be even worse for you with Hannah. You knew her her whole life.
Sending you hugs.
Jan
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