Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Random Wednesday thoughts: Mid-tenure review version

Because I'm too busy and my brain is too scattered to write about just one topic.

* The review season has officially kicked off! It was easier to think about being reviewed when it was still something that was far in the future. Not so much anymore. I know things will be fine; I sense (hope?) that if I was not going to be renewed, I'd know that already. But stranger things have happened.

* My classroom lately has been the Revolving Door of Tenured Faculty Observers. Luckily, they are nearly invisible, and have for the most part given me good feedback on my teaching. But it is a bit wearying to constantly be under the microscope.

* Perhaps this is the reason that all ability to do simple math left me during one of my classes today. Note to self: Brush up on division skills. (It was, needless to say, not my finest moment as a professor.)

* One of the reasons I'm so busy right now is because a lot of things are coming to a head, research-wise. My collaborators and I are frantically writing up results and submitting them various places. It's happening now because it was a natural time in each project to do so. But, will the review committee look at this suspiciously? I mean, I have published (more than once!) since I've been here, so it shouldn't look like I'm trying to make up for a deficiency, but how will they view this recent frenzy of activity? Is this something I should be addressing in my personal statement? (more stuff to worry about!)

* Things I do to procrastinate when writing up results: (a) become completely obsessed with the finer points of LaTeX formatting; (b) decide that I must check all of my references RIGHT NOW; (c) make Just One More Graph, because if I just show the data this way rather than that other way, it will make all the difference in the world; (d) decide I don't like the data as is, and decide to rewrite the processing scripts; (e) write long and rambling blog posts.

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