Danielle Blog

It FINALLY feels like summer!

Yesterday, my day started with a meeting with the chair of my department to go over my progress toward tenure. It was all quite positive and/or constructive; so, I feel pretty good about it. After that, I did some stuff related to my research lab remodel.

In the afternoon, I was FINALLY done with the most pressing of my administrative duties and I was debating about taking a nap at my apartment vs going to the pool. I called my friend to see if she wanted to join me at the pool, and she was in the midst of cleaning. However, she was strongly in favor of my going to the pool instead of taking a nap. So, I did! It was a fabulous, fabulous suggestion!

I FINALLY feel like I’ve started my summer break. It was really glorious.
I did make the mistake of not putting on sunscreen on my chest (I DID put it on my face), because I didn’t think I’d be out there very long. But I ended out there longer than I’d expected and got a tad sunburned. It will heal pretty quickly, so I’m not kicking myself too hard.

Today, I’ve got a couple of last things to do at school related to my research lab, but then I’m pretty much free again. I’m thinking about cleaning my office. It is really disastrous right now. I’m also going to spend some time getting plants. Can you believe I haven’t actually planted annuals yet???! This is the first year I’ve delayed so long. I DID put in some pansies back in January or February that are still going strong, because I keep picking off the faded flowers (and watering them). I really thought they’d be dead from the heat by now, but I guess they are hardier than I’d expected!

I’d forgotten how gorgeous some of the flowers have been in previous years until I was looking at them on my Flickr stream. Here was one of my favorite years (2008 in MN).

These daisies continue to be one of my all time favorites.

This was 2007 in MN.

I don’t have a great photo from 2009 in MN. Just this one of a rabbit who’d hopped up the stairs to investigate the flowers.

Last year, the flowers in pots at my apartment flowers started quite small.

But got larger over the course of the summer.

Who knows what I’ll pick up today. Guess we’ll see!

What am I up to now?

Now that grades are in, I’ve transitioned into doing more administrative-types of duties for school. The nice thing about these duties is that, for the most part, the timing is more flexible.

I intended to finish my self-evaluation on Friday and Sunday, but I was so freakin’ burnt out on Friday, that I made very little progress on it. I spent the morning reading and editing a manuscript for a journal submission for which I was the second author (out of 3) instead. That seemed to use up all of my brain power on Friday, but it was well worth it, because we submitted it yesterday! Now we wait for the reviewers to review it. It was only a “brief communication” with 3 figures, so hopefully we will hear back soon.

Then, I got together with my good friend and we went out to supper, shopping, and to a local piano bar for the evening. It was a ton of fun! I found a dress for this coming Saturday’s band performance. I needed another outfit that shows off well “on stage,” and seems casual enough for a party, but dressy enough to be worn by a performer in a band. It is rather tricky to find that sort of thing, honestly! But we did! yay! And it was only $50, which was a pretty good deal.

Saturday was lots of commencement-types of stuff. It had rained a lot last week, which made the whole outdoor commencement-thing quite challenging for our grounds and facilities crew, but they pulled it off. It was amazing! And it was a good thing that commencement was outdoors, because about 80 students were the first in their families to graduate from college. A good portion of those students had over 15 people in attendance (some were as many as 30-40 people). If we’d had to have commencement indoors, they would’ve been limited to 10 people. So, it was really great to have it outdoors with unlimited seating.

Sunday was great as far as church went. Good sermon. Great music.

And Monday (yesterday) I had a migraine for most of the day; it really sucked. It ended up storming here, so more than likely my biggest trigger was the change in barometric pressure and out of my control. But still, not a great way to spend a day “off” of work. (especially since I’d planned on finishing my self-evaluation) Oh well, I’ll work on it today instead. I did feel well enough last night for band practice. But dang if my head isn’t bothering me some still. I wish the storm would just get out of here!

Tomorrow I have a workshop for a course I’m teaching in the fall. But I’m planning on taking Thursday and Friday off, off! yay! Getting closer.

Grades are in! I kept the balls in the air after all (mostly).

woooohooooo!

I submitted grades about a half hour ago (4:30 pm). I had them calculated by 3:30, but I always like to mull them over a little bit before entering them into the system officially. There are always those borderline students, and I really have to get comfortable with the idea of the grade that they’ve earned. It’s hard for me since they are more than just a name and an ID number. So, I went to a local coffee shop and ordered a dark chocolate mocha and sat there with the list of grades; it was good to think it all through.

Now I can go collapse for an evening.

Oh, and the title of this post is in reference to the fact that I did drop one of the balls that I’d very, very reluctantly accepted this year (it was sort of shoved at me). But the good thing is that our administrative assistant is really fabulous, and she pretty much picked it up for me. As one of my aunts told me in an email, I suppose that is why they are called “assistants.” Thank goodness for her!

Back to juggling again and trying not to drop any balls

I’ve posted this photo before, but it seems appropriate right now.

Too much to do and not enough hours and motivation to do it. I’m pretty burnt out, which makes it hard to write exams and do grading right now. Where are the exam and grading elves when you need them?

What am I up to these days?

I feel like even though things are really busy, that I need to at least put a quick post up about what I’ve been up to.

School has taken over most of my waking hours. And the small amount of hours that are not dedicated to school are ones that I fill with time with family, band, and church.

This time of year is hectic, because we are headed into finals on Friday (May 4). Which means that every quiz, exam, homework assignment, or lab assignment that I’ve given this semester needs to be graded RIGHT NOW. And grading is the thing I like the least about my job. So, it is tough to do it.

The things that keep me going are the times I get to spend with family, with the band, and at church. Band stuff has been really fun and exciting lately. We had our 2nd, 3rd and 4th official performances within the last couple of weeks. We were the entertainment for a dinner and silent auction for our school’s Relay For Life team. We were the entertainment for a really terrific monthly happy hour that we do at school. Mom and Dad got to attend that one!

And last night, we were the entertainment for a party that was auctioned off for $3200 to raise money for a local charity. It was a really, really cool venue and cool party. I made some new friends, met a potential donor for my research, and our band has now been invited to play at a local place for a paying gig! It would be our first paid gig! woot woot!
I’d love to take in some money to pay for the music I’m buying from iTunes to learn these songs, the tambourine I’m about to buy, and the “band” clothes that I’m buying. I’ve also been borrowing Texas Seestor’s boots for now (Thanks again, Texas Seestor!!), but I also need to really buy my own. Seestor-ly love only goes so far, and stretching it to borrowing boots is pretty far.

The music we are performing is just getting more and more magical. Each night a different song sounds better than we’ve ever done it. We’ve been practicing together for about 4 months now (most weeks we practice 2-3 hours), and we are getting to the point in our songs where we don’t have to think about the notes and the timing, and can really have the nuances that bring out the magic in the music such as changes in dynamics, changes in tempo, and harmonies that are tighter than ever.

Chills abound.

My voice is getting stronger and better sounding with all of this singing. It has more depth to it too. And I love practicing and performing with the other band members. They are just a fabulous group of guys.

Rollercoaster week

This has been a really rollercoaster of a week.

Should I start with the lows? the highs? or just go back and forth in chronological order? goodness knows.

Well, you know me, chronological order tends to win out most of the time.

It was really great being back to school this week. I had my prep for my classes ready to go, so I didn’t feel as rushed for my lectures. Some of the students in my Genetics class (the ones who’d given me the balloon and chocolates) asked me how my birthday had gone. In general the first day was fun as we all exchanged “how was your Spring Break?” stories.

Band practice was really great. We basically stopped and ate supper during part of it, because the wife of our amazing lead guitarist just came back from a trip to Costa Rica, and she wanted to try to make some of that cuisine for us.
I’m singing lead on the Doobie Brothers’ song “Listen to the Music” (and playing tambourine, of course). It came together really fast!

Sounds like all highs, right?

Well, then Max was really, really still on Thursday morning. He hadn’t eaten all of his food and hay (like normal). He didn’t want to jump out of his cage, didn’t care when I fed him, AND didn’t care when I gave him cheerios. His left eye was sort of watery.

I really thought he might be dying of old age. Max is 7 and the lifespan of a rabbit is 8-10 years usually. (some say up to 12, some say as low as 7)

It was a rough day until I could get home and check on him again, and get him into a vet who sometimes does some teaching at school. Max was running a fever and might’ve had a respiratory infection. So, they gave him a shot of penicillin. He seems much better, but still sounds a bit wheezy, so I’m probably going to take him in for another shot today.

I had intended to use most of my day to write an exam for Genetics, but with the emergency situation with Max, that got pushed back to the evening. Which meant I had to skip my bible study group.

And THEN I hit Friday.
Lecture was great. Chapel was great. Discussions about rearranging the course schedule for the fall were all great.
Then I had an impromptu 45 min walk-through about chemicals and the way that they are stored in the lab. I basically “inherited” a nightmare of a situation with regards to the chemical storage. We have an EPA audit in April.
I don’t even know how to describe how awful the situation is, other than to say that A) it is going to cost 10s of thousands of dollars to get the chemicals that need to go disposed of properly and the ones that need to stay inventoried properly and B) hours and hours and hours of time.
I’m actually canceling my labs for Genetics this week in order to deal with it all.
THAT was a LOW LOW LOW point.

The one thing that offsets the awfulness of it all, is that the lead singer in my band is the one in charge of all of it, because he is the head of facilities. He inherited the situation too when he took this job. So, at least the person I’m working with on this is A) a good friend, B) someone I can call directly on a cell phone if needed, and C) is sticking up for me if needed.

The other highs?
I have been nominated for an endowed professorship (one year), which comes with a stipend of money that I can use for going to conferences or my research!!!! yay!

And last night when I was trying to unwind at my apartment complex by using the hot tub, my friend (neighbor) came by and asked if I wanted to go see the Hunger Games! She had 2 tickets that she’d purchased in advance, and the other person wasn’t going to be able to go after all. It was a GREAT movie!
I haven’t read the books. Texas Seestor and Trainwreck only have them on their Kindles, so there is no way for me to read them right now, unfortunately. But that is okay, for now, I REALLY enjoyed the movie. It was way cool.

Ok. I think I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do about Max and this second shot and all.

upcoming birthday coincides with Spring Break!

Today, I had a wonderful surprise after my two genetics lectures!
One student made me a tin of peanut butter cookies with chocolate chips.
Another couple of student bought me chocolates, a card, and a Happy Birthday balloon!

I would consider this one of the perks of teaching for a couple of years where the students get to know me (and (evidently) like me). It really has made me happy.

And Spring Break begins tonight too! Since my b-day is on Monday, that means that I’ll be off work for my birthday. How fabulous is that?? I have plans to go hiking, stay at a B&B that has a hot tub, and eat those chocolates that the students gave to me.

Better week

I had a pretty good week this week.

I continue to have more work than hours in the day, but I think that I’ll be able to catch up today and tomorrow so that I’m not so far behind. Some people are confused by how a professor can teach a couple of hours a day and have too much work to do. I suppose I used to not really understand either. Some of it is that designing quizzes, grading quizzes, writing exams and grading exams takes hours and hours of time when they aren’t just scantron (bubble sheets).

Some of my time is filled up meeting with students. This week for example, I advised a club for which I’m a sponsor – that ate up an hour of “free” time really quickly. I advised a freshman who wants me to be her official advisor. I advised a senior who asked me to be her mentor for her senior capstone project. I advised the students who are doing Honors Genetics projects. And I advised a student who was in the middle of a disturbance that occurred in a lab that needed to be reported to the department chair (and has already been officially reported).

Some of my time is filled with running lab. I easily spent 8 hours or more this week dealing with lab stuff: cleaned out the failed fridge/freezer, ordered supplies for the rest of the semester, delegated/helped by TAs get solutions and equipment ready for next week.

Then there are the hours that I spent doing committee work for the search committee. That is about to come to an end, which will help.

And various 10-15 minutes here and there coordinating info with my colleagues related to summer research, fall class schedules, upcoming scientific conferences, classroom behavior problems, etc. etc.

Several days this week, I literally had 15-30 minutes “free” when I wasn’t in meetings, lecture, or lab. And I’m supposed to get grading done amidst all of this? Or lecture prep?

And this was a better week!

Tonight, I’m singing at a last minute gig that came up. The lead singer is sick in a fellow band (the other band that our lead guitar player is in), so the lead singer in my band is going to fill in for him. And then I’m going to go and our band will do some songs here and there. It is all a bit tenuous right now in that I don’t know how much our band will really be singing and playing at this fundraiser. BUT even if it is just a few songs, it will be good to get our name and sound out there. It is also good for us to to perform together in some “low stakes” settings. We’ll have a sound person, so that ought to help with sound quality and balance.

Well, it is 8 am, I just heard my clothes washer click off which means I need to move stuff to the dryer, and I ought to work on all of that lecture prep and grading for next week in my attempt to get caught up!

Rough week

As you see from the title, this has been another rough week. It wasn’t like last week where I had migraines 3 days in a row, but I was just barely meeting deadlines all week. There were a couple of small instances, where I forgot to tell students something or do something for them, which is not at all how I like to operate. I had multiple nights of only sleeping about 4 hours with a 1 hour or so nap somewhere earlier in the evening. I really can’t do that day after day and feel good about my job. It ends up making me bitter and resentful.

Some of it is that our department has used up most of our payroll for TAs already! So, I had tried doing more of the lab prep myself and having my TAs do less of it. But honestly, what a f-ing waste of my time. I have lectures to write, exams to grade, recommendations to write, advising to do, and I’m also supposed to do all of the lab prep, because the faculty who had labs in the fall spent too much payroll???? Give me a break. I talked to my dept chair and he is okay with me going back and having them do more prep again.

We also had a refrigerator/freezer fail. Fortunately, it will only cost a few hundred dollars (or less, I hope) to replace the things inside that were ruined. It was mostly storing stuff for a different faculty member who isn’t teaching right now and likely won’t need those chemicals/solutions anytime soon.

AND I found out that a couple of power supplies for running gels don’t work anymore. And the instructor who used them last semester never bothered to A) tell me or B) deal with ordering replacements. We literally cannot do our upcoming experiments until we get replacements. So, I’ve been dealing with figuring out where to get the best deal AND how to design a new lab for next week to make up for the one we can’t do.

I wasted who knows how much time dealing with the fact that a low-key scientific conference that I’m attending in a couple of weeks never (and still has not) published their schedule, so I couldn’t make hotel reservations and everything is full. Fortunately, our admin overheard me complaining about it and she found hotel rooms for me and my advisee through Expedia. Yay for fabulous administrative assistants!!!! She has also been the one contacting companies to find out prices for power supplies; it really helps having someone help with that kind of stuff.

In happier news:
Band practice on Monday night was good. It is one of those things that I need to have in my life to enable me to keep pushing through my workload. A couple hours dedicated to music and not thinking about school is really valuable right now.
We worked up my singing lead on Landslide (Stevie Nicks or Dixie Chicks). I’m doing it probably closer to the Dixie Chicks style. We also made some attempts on Black Water (Doobie Brothers) and Falling In And Out of Love/Amie (Pure Prairie League). We’ve got plans to perfect those songs and also work on American Honey (Lady Antebellum) this coming Monday. That should be a good time. We named our band and talked about some upcoming charity gigs in April. We may have a bass player joining us who is also a really good tenor, evidently. That could be cool; it is always a bit odd to add another person to the mix when you’ve got a really good working relationship with members of your band, but the lead singer (CK) tells us he is a “really nice guy.” So, hopefully that will work out well.

Bible study on Thursday night was good. Again, it was good to focus on my spiritual life and not just work, work, work all of the time. I had more trouble blocking out work that night, because I’d just come from a dinner with a person who is interviewing for a position at school (I’m on the search committee). But it was still really valuable.

I went out to lunch on Friday with a friend (this would be TriviaKing) whom I haven’t really talked to for a couple of weeks. It was good to catch up with each other.
ViolaGirl and I are having trouble meshing our schedules to get together for a meal, but we talked on the phone a bit this week, which was good. We hope to go out dancing sometime soon! I haven’t been out dancing in….
… well…. probably since I lived in Maryland, which would be something like 15 years ago (very approximate). I dance at wedding receptions/parties, but that is about it, these days. And I DO so love dancing.
Dance-move ping-pong is really not the same as going out just to dance.

I’m glad it is the weekend. I hope to not have such a rough week next week. BUT if it is another bad one, at least I can hang onto the idea that I can collapse on March 10 when we start Spring Break!

How’s that working for you?

Here is a follow-up with regards to putting my intensity toward God and school (i.e. in response to “How’s that working for you?”): it is generally going well. I’ve had some really, really busy weeks at school that have required a lot of intensity. Now, the reason why I cannot say it has been “fantastic!” is because I had a stretch of 3 days this week where I had migraines every day. I ended up taking my prescription medication and teaching all of my lectures and labs. I also did interviews and went to committee meetings, wrote emails, and all of the other things that are expected of me at work, even though I had all of this residual pain. If I hadn’t had that medication, I would’ve been completely non-functional. However, it still made for a really rough set of days. Lot of carbs. Lots of attempts to sleep it off (attempts, being the key word there).
I suspect that they were triggered by the storms and rain we were having here in TX. Interestingly (at least to me), the lack of storms has been fabulous for my head the past couple of years. People who know I’ve moved here from MN ask me how I like living in Texas, and I always tell them that it is fabulous! And it IS fabulous for reasons related to family, church, work, and my social life. But it has also been fabulous for my head. The lack of pressure changes due to storms is really terrific.
Of course, being in a drought is awful for agriculture and can be challenging for everyday living in Texas, especially in the summer, but the positives far outweigh the negatives (at least for me). Of course, my livelihood doesn’t depend on the rain, so it is easy for me to feel that way.

My bible study has been really enlightening the past couple of weeks. We are focusing on Romans Chapter 12 in a book and series designed by Chip Ingram. I’m discovering some interesting things about myself and about how to be more like Christ.

Here are 3 things that really spoke to me this week and prompted me to write them in a journal:

1. God uniquely created you. You are eternally valuable.

For you created my inmost beings; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. – Psalm 139: 13-14

Isn’t that great?! “…I praise you, because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”
As a biologist and someone who teaches anatomy and physiology, I am continually amazed at our bodies and the way it works. I may need to put that in my office at school.

2. God placed you in His family. You are unconditionally accepted.
(scripture passage for this one is Ephesians 3: 19-21, but that one didn’t speak to me as much, so I’m not going to retype it here)

3. God gifted you to fulfill His purpose. You are uniquely significant.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. – Ephesians 2:10

I think so many of us want to be significant. Significant to our family, significant to our friends, perhaps significant to the world. Many people struggle with the “what will they remember about me when I’m gone?” feeling. Trying to be significant can be a great motivator to do something really positive with your time and energy. However, striving for significance can also be a great detractor when someone strives for worldly significance (popularity in a fame type of way).
I have less of a problem when significance is based on talent (singing, dancing) and not just general behavior (i.e. people who become famous for tweeting/texting/or saying/doing something (generally) dumb).

I don’t think anyone would argue that becoming significant to the world in a way that glorifies God (like what Mother Theresa did) is worthy of our time and energy. But the hope is that people do those things not so much to feel significant, but because they truly want to help the poor and sick, and help all people feel loved, and consequently feel God’s love.

Finding out what gifts and talents you possess and how they can be helpful to others can be challenging. I continue to reflect upon and discover what makes me unique. I hope you do too.