So Much Work

Milo sat in front of the heating vent recently and then remarked that he was cute and I should take a picture of him. So I obliged.

I cut his hair last night (after this photo was taken). It doesn't look terrible so I consider it a success given that I have no idea how to cut hair. Milo's hair is so coarse and curly that it probably doesn't matter much. I wouldn't have even attempted it if he had straight or fine hair.

We've created a game plan and a backwards calendar for getting my tenure stuff ready to go. It's overwhelming how much work it's going to be to get it all ready. Copies of every publication, every grant, every syllabus, evaluations, student letters, descriptions of my teaching, research, and service, teaching statement, future research statement, lists of all of my advisees over the years and all of the committees I've sat on, descriptions of my methodologies, letters from people speaking about my service activities, letters from former advisees, letters from colleagues, statistical compilations of my teaching evaluations compared to the department average and the assistant professor average, etc., etc. None of that even includes "the case", i.e. the big narrative statement (30-40 pp.) about how awesome I am and why they should tenure me.

We are going to have a new dept. chair next year. Who we vote in will matter a lot for anybody's tenure case. The chair's experience, aggressiveness, ability to negotiate bureaucracy and general competence aids the tenure process for people going up. So I hope we elect a good chair.