If you see a whole thing - it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives... But up close a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. - Ursula K. LeGuin

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

That Time In The Semester*

It is that time in the semester.  The time that, at the beginning of the semester, I claimed would not come this time.  It is the time when no matter how hard I try, I can't catch up.  It is the time I start eating poorly and skipping workouts (sometimes just to get a little more sleep in the morning and other times to prep a class).

I was convinced that "that time" would only last 2 weeks this semester and be done by the end of fall break.  Unfortunately I somehow forgot that I was giving two presentations at a conference next week.  The presentations are based on papers already (or mostly) written but they still require preparing.  I will be at the conference from Sunday to Wednesday and will not be doing any of my regular work while I'm there.  This means that most of my work needs to be done before I go.

It will be a long weekend.

Today I organized a practice session for the doctoral students who will be presenting at the conference.  It went exceptionally well but ate up 3 hours.  It was great to see how far many of our students have come.  They have interesting research topics, well designed studies, and know how to tell a good story.  I was particularly happy that our newest cohort showed up to provide support and feedback and to see what their "older" peers can do.

**34 w's were used in this post.