Our House

Recently on FB I shared something that cracked me up at the time -- Jake was talking about what type of house we could buy in the town with the university that's trying to recruit me, and he said, "For what we paid for this house, we could buy --" and his mother interrupted and jumped in with, "A NICE house?" It was all I could do not to crack up. I know how his mom feels about our house. She has shared her opinion a number of times and doesn't seem likely to stop any time soon. I think she maybe thinks that if she keeps pointing out all of the ways in which our house sucks, in her opinion, then eventually we'll give in and move?

I remember one time when she was staying with us, Jake's mother had her friend come down for the weekend for a visit. The friend walked into our house and then stopped, surprised, and said involuntarily, "Oh, wait, this house isn't -- it's nice!" Then she blushed, because we were standing right there, and she had basically revealed how Jake's mom had disparaged our house to her, leading her to expect it to be a dump. Other friends and family members have remarked on this too, because she apparently talks a lot about our crappy house.

None of this bothers me too much because I've long ago become accustomed to the rudeness, and I don't take it personally because our tastes are completely different. If she liked something about my house or decor, I'd take that as a bad sign. But I think it's more uncomfortable for Jake, because of course you want your own parents to approve of you and your life and, I suppose, your house.

This is a picture I took of our house the day I looked at it when I was house hunting:

I thought it was adorable! Don't get me wrong, our house has a lot of problems and annoyances. It is not big, and never will be. The kitchen in particular is way too small and also so poorly organized that it's very hard to cook in there and impossible for 2 people to cook in there without driving each other crazy. This is especially annoying because I love to cook so much. The side door opens onto a teeny tiny little landing that is fine for one person living alone, but doesn't work for a family of four, especially in the winter when we're all crowded together in this cramped space trying to get our wet boots off.

But, partly for aesthetic reasons and partly for sentimental reasons, I love our house. I met Jake because of this house. He was the one who showed it to me, and he was the one who did my loan when I bought it. Here he is, showing me the house -- this was the 2nd day I'd ever met him. I met him on a Monday, in his office, and the very next day we went and looked at that house. And that afternoon, Tuesday afternoon, I wrote an offer, and it was accepted that night.

See that tree in the above picture? It is now more than twice as tall.

I think one thing that really drew me to the house was its location. It's on a park, on a pretty street, but it's within walking distance to my office, two grocery stores, and countless shops and restaurants. Here's our street in early spring:

Here's the park in early spring. I think I took this photo from my front porch:

Here's the bike path, which is a block from my house, and on which I commute by foot every day to go to work. Jake also commutes on this path by bike every day:

I like old houses, and I like old neighborhoods. I could never be happy in a new subdivision with no big trees. Something that matters to me a lot is having lots of green leafy trees around. It just makes me happy. Here's our front yard:

And our front porch:

Of course, nothing's perfect. For many months, our yard looks more like this:

But then spring comes, and it looks like this:

And this:

I have become much more tuned in to gardening as a result of buying this house. There are a lot of plants and a lot of weeds to deal with. When I first moved in, I was totally clueless about what I was doing so I would send pictures like this to my gardening friend to get advice:

It's definitely a lot of work to deal with the yard, but on the other hand, it's just so pretty, especially in the summer:

Here is what my living room looked like when I first moved in. Back then I had time to do things like, oh, have plants, light candles, and clean. This is taken from the stairs looking towards the sunroom:

Now we have a lot fewer plants but we did paint the walls and re-plaster the ceiling, which was old and cracked in the living room. When I moved in the walls were mostly beige, but now our living room is a sage green and our dining/kitchen area is blue. You can see this in this picture that Nora took:

Nice ceiling, eh? Once upon a time our non-working fireplace held candles. Now it holds children's books. One day I would like to convert it into a working gas fireplace.

This is what the stairwell looked like shortly after I moved in. The previous owners had painted it orange, which I actually liked, but after a few years I got tired of it so we painted it a different color.

Here's the new color. It's brown but what I had originally thought I'd do was a deep, dark brown. But then I chickened out because I thought it'd make it too dark, and as a result our stairwell is the color of silly putty. I am not a fan of the color, so eventually we'll re-paint it. But not right away, since it's not exactly offensive or anything.

Here's what the kitchen looked like in the first year, before I repainted. This is looking in from the doorway separating the living room and the dining area. See that black bar? I loved that bar. I loved the idea of sitting at the bar, or having friends sit there while I cooked. Jake and I ate many, many meals at the bar. See how unadorned with giant piles of crap it was? Those were the days.

Now the kids sit at the bar in their special seats, which soon they'll outgrow and we'll be able to use our barstools again. We painted the rooms blue, and we got a new dining room pendant light, and we switched out the curtains -- the sliding glass door behind the curtains leads to our tiny deck out back. But otherwise, we haven't done much to the kitchen because our plan, if we stay, is to totally remodel it, like probably tear down whats' there and start from scratch.

The color actually ended up being too blue for my tastes, so that's something else I'll repaint in the future. What I'd had in mind was more of a greyish, silver blue.

Here's our little deck. During the colder months, it's a little desolate, like in this picture. But during the summer months, we put out our deck chairs and plants and it's lovely.

One year we even put the pool out there! We also have a patio out back with a table, hanging plants, rocking chairs, and a fire pit. Part of it is brick, and part of it is concrete. One long-term plan I have is to totally re-do our patio and our fences. But for now, it's a nice place to spend a summer evening.

In the winter it's covered in snow, and in the fall and the early spring it's desolate. Here it is before we brought in plants and got it ready for summer:

Here it is in the summer:

One of the things I like best is the huge tree back there. It shades everything and I like looking at the leaves.

One of my MiL's major complaints about our house, in addition to it being old, too small, and not having a bathroom on the main floor, is that we don't have a back yard. Which is true, there is no grassy back yard, just a tiny patio and deck. This is kind of a bummer because it means we'll never be able to expand the square footage of our house. And of course, a back yard would definitely be nice. A place for a vegetable garden would be nice. A patch of grass out back for a sprinkler in the summer would be nice. Maybe a play set. So, it's a drawback. On the other hand, we do have a park right across the street. Plenty big to set up a badmitten game. Or croquet.

When I moved into my house, I was single and it felt like I had way more rooms than I needed. I never knew what to do with my sunroom, for instance. As time passed and I got married, we put the cats' stuff in there, and a giant rubber tree somebody gave me, as well as Jake's drafting table. But it was a weird room. The floors weren't in great shape and one of the walls had wood paneling on it.

Here's our cat Caspian as a kitten in the sunroom.

When the kids were about 6 months old we replaced a rotting window, and we then re-did the whole sunroom. We painted and re-did the floors. My aim was to turn it into a playroom until the kids got old enough so that they could play independently in their own rooms. At that point, I'll convert it into an office. Here's our recently-painted sunroom, empty, waiting to become a playroom. It looks out onto our deck and the patio behind it. Beyond the patio is the bike path.

I put up some shades from IKEA:

And put down a foam mat and a storage thing for all of their toys. Currently the sunroom also has a small table and chairs for the kids, and way too much crap in general.

The kids always enjoy hanging out in there during the warmer months. The sunroom also has our front door and our front porch, which is kind of weird. Once upon a time, I'm pretty sure the sunroom used to be the front porch.

Our basement consists of a nice guest room / Jake's office with an egress window, and a weird extra area that I currently use as my office (but not really, because I seem to do most of my work on the sofa). When I moved in, there was also the unfinished portion of the basement, with a washer, a dryer, and a freaky toilet and sink:

A couple of years ago we finally finished that area and turned it into a proper bathroom / laundry room. This is nice for guests who now have their own bathroom when they stay in the guest room:

That's the same window in both of the above pictures. But we still have more work to do in the basement. For instance, we need to put in a sump pump. If we don't, we'll keep having trouble like this:

That's water seeping up from a late January melt / rainstorm. Hence, the need for a sump pump. If we pay attention, we can catch any water before it floods the basement, but if we don't pay attention, then we have problems. This only started happening to us a couple of years ago.

This is our upstairs bathroom. It pretty much looks the same as it did when I moved in. I like it, but if you see that lovely antique cabinet on the left of the picture holding the sink, well, it's charming but it hasn't held up that well. So we'll need to replace it and do some other minor changes in the bathroom at some point.

The tub is original to the house. It's a Kohler tub produced in the 1920s. It is cast iron and keeps your bath really warm for a long time.

The kids' rooms have gone through the most changes. The room that is now Nora's room used to be my office. Here's Jake sitting in the office on the day of the Ironman, which would have been mid september, which meant I'd been in my house for about 6 weeks:

Here is what it looked like that Christmas. I liked having my desk there because I could look out both windows. I could see our tree in the side yard, and I could see the park. I really loved that office.

After the babies were born, we moved our futon into the office and I changed the location of my desk. Otherwise, things were much the same:

Until it became time for the kids to move into separate rooms. So my office became Nora's room. I haven't re-painted it or, frankly, done a whole lot of decorating (what? It's been a busy year and she doesn't care yet). But it's cheerful and she seems to like it.

One of the things I always loved, back when my office was my office and not Nora's room, was watching the tree outside the window change throughout the seasons. Summer is my favorite:

But autumn is nice too:

And even winter has its own beauty:

(Still, yes, I'll take summer, and the breeze wafting in through the open window). Maybe as Nora grows up she'll like watching the tree outside her window too.

One of the rooms that has changed the most is Milo's room. When I first moved in, I used it as a second guest room, or rather, the primary guest room (and the room in the basement just sat empty). It was very yellow:

Very, very yellow. Quite cheerful.

Then, we turned it into the nursery:

The kids shared the room until they were 2 and 3/4. But now, it's Milo's big boy room. All his:

We have a lot of ideas and plans for our house if we stay here. Remodeling that we'll do, both inside and out. I like taking this house and slowly changing it over time to make it ours. We paint the porch and stain the deck every spring. We do our plantings. We've put in a bathroom and re-plastered a ceiling but there are more ceilings to do and a kitchen to remodel.

I don't know...our house is old which means there is always work to be done, and it's small which means space is always at a premium. But it also means that we have beautiful floors and baseboards, and original oak built ins. And it also means that our family is usually together physically, and that we use every single room in our house on just about a daily basis. Nothing is wasted. I like the way our house feels. I like the sunlight that comes in through every window. I like the views of the park. I like our neighbors. I just like it.

I think that I might be moved by sentimentality as well. I bought this house on my own, which I am proud of, but then so much happened here. I met Jake because of this house. We fell in love here. We decided to get married here. We had our children here. Many good things have happened inside this pretty little house. I definitely think it's "nice".

Too much laundry

Hmm -- kids threw up some more last night. But seem fine today. Go to tonight's family pizza party / collective art project, or bail? Decisions, decisions.

Body of Work

I have this post in the works about weather and humidity and why I like it. I know, sounds boring, but I think maybe it is not. And I have another one in the works about my house and how it's changed over time. Also sounds boring, but it's full of pictures.

But too tired for any of that tonight because I just got back from working. Working from 4:45 - 10:45 is somehow kind of tiring but it is peaceful. I finished a draft of my yearly review narrative, which is slowly evolving to become closer to what'll be my tenure narrative. My review committee is meeting on Monday to decide some big things, like who to send letter requests to. So I'm workin', workin', working' and Mentor is emailing me saying "Just got back from conferencing and drinking! Saw so-and-so and so-and-so! Too bad you're not here!" (There is another conference going on right now, but I didn't attend this year because I felt like I couldn't be away from the family for that long in a row). And I'm working and getting more emails from Mentor saying "Send the draft already and I'll work my magic on it!" So I sent it off and came home.

What happens is that I make a draft, and then he changes it a whole lot to make it better, more coherent, more braggy, and makes me sound a hell of a lot better than I did before, somehow. Then we present it to my tenure committee and then to the department.

And anyway, working on my draft this year felt different from all the other years because this time, I know that what's in there is pretty much what's going to be in the final thing for my actual tenure dossier. I won't really have much more at this point in terms of publications. I do have one big grant under review, so that may or may not come through, but that's mostly it. So here it is. My narrative of my research. My list of manuscripts (28) and grants (8, could be 9 if that one in review comes through). So...will it be enough? WHO KNOWS. I don't know, because there are no standards published anywhere, so the bar is a mystery. Have I met it? Who the fuck knows. But whatever, it's done now. What I've done is what I've done, and that is totally calming at this point. I am at peace with it. As my other mentor often tells me (I actually have 2 major mentors), "your body of work is your body of work." Now I have it. This is my body of work. Take it or leave it. Tenure me or not. We shall see.

Babies

Well, poor Nora threw up for the first time shortly before midnight and then she threw up every 45 minutes or so for the rest of the night until 5:30 a.m. Thank goodness, so far, she has been okay since 5:30. I was very worried about her. She had a good hour of sleep or so and then Milo woke us all up. And then, this morning, Milo threw up. Nora hasn't eaten anything but she did drink some watered down juice, and Milo ate some applesauce, so I think they'll be okay for the time being.

So both kids have to stay home today, however, I still had to put them both in the car and drive to school. Because yesterday, when I was in beautiful NOLA-which-is-better-than-this-place-will-ever-be, Jake's mother picked the kids up from school but failed to pick up their "babies", soft toys that they sleep with and nap with. Which we didn't discover until bedtime, at which point the school was closed and we could not get their babies. Anybody who has ever had or been a kid with a special blanket or teddy bear will understand the tragedy of spending a night without one's babies.

So on top of the throwing up, we had the no-babies problem all night. Which meant that this morning I bundled both sick kids into the car and drove to the school to pick up their babies. They are both currently happily clutching their babies.

So now I will try to make it through the day after not having slept last night except in a couple of half-hour snoozes, and then when Jake comes home at 4:45 I will go to work for 5 or 6 hours.

This whole way of doing things is just lame.

How is it even fair that I returned home tonight and a perfectly healthy Nora then threw up at midnight? She couldn't have gotten sick on ANY of the last 4 days when my MiL was here and could have stayed with her? It has to be NOW, when my MiL is leaving and I am supposed to be at work getting everything done that I didn't get done when out of town? Weren't we all JUST sick? Like, literally JUST sick? I CANNOT TAKE THIS ANYMORE.

Appetite

So I kind of lost my appetite shortly after Thanksgiving and I haven't been able to get it back in all this time. Food hasn't tasted very good to me. I eat to stay healthy but haven't enjoyed it, haven't had desires for anything, haven't really been able to savor food.

But I think this weekend, thanks to incredible NOLA and red beans and rice, jambalaya, crawdad empanadas, seafood with crab and shrimp, mussels in garlic and wine sauce, and of course Cafe du Monde beignets, I think I'm starting to get my appetite back. Starting to feel a little more like myself again. Thanks New Orleans.

Not Handling it Well

OMG I'm so depressed.

I guess if you're going to spend about 3 months looking forward to one particular morning, because it's the only morning in the entire semester where you'll actually be able to get some rest and sleep in, and that one morning is actually the thing pulling you through the hell that is your life, your life that is working around the clock with the stomach flu, that is coughing through every night with bronchitis, that is never-ending exhaustion, and you think "if I can just make it to April and AERA and that New Orleans trip"...I think that if you're going to pin so many hopes on ONE MORNING, the sole morning of your trip that you'll actually be able to sleep in, in your giant, luxurious hotel room, all by yourself, if it means THAT much to you, then you probably shouldn't book your flight to go through Chicago because we all know what a giant clusterfuck Chicago is when there's the merest hint of a cloud in the sky.

Because then your flight will get canceled, and there won't be another one until 6 a.m. the next morning, yes, THAT morning, the morning you were supposed to be sleeping in for the only time all semester, in your giant luxurious hotel room in New Orleans. THAT morning.

It's amazing he's such a nice guy

I am leaving for NEW ORLEANS this weekend WOO HOO!!!!

Meanwhile Jake's mom is scheduled to fly in tomorrow night to help him out over the weekend while I'm gone.

(I'm gone for work, y'all. The drinking and the baby shower and the lunches and the dinners and the music and the presidential suite party and the 85 DEGREE WEATHER is incidental. I do have to give a talk.)

Ring ring!

Jake: Hi Mom. Yeah, I'm sick. I've actually been really sick since the weekend.

Jake's mom: Mwah mwah, mwah mwah wah.

Jake: Yeah, stomach, cold, cough, the whole thing. I'm still feeling pretty terrible.

Jake's mom: Mwah mwah, mwah mwah wah wah.

Jake: Oh. Uh...well...

Yeah, turns out Jake's mom was all, "Oh no! *I* don't want to get sick! Maybe I'll cancel my visit. Because, after all, I'm a retired person who has no job, no responsibilities whatsoever, can sleep in as late as I want, and I spend all day every day going to the beach, going out to eat, shopping for fun, and hanging around. But I don't want to catch your cold! Who cares if it'd be super hard for you to take care of the kids by yourself for 4 days while you're sick and feeling lousy. What matters is meeeeeeeeee!"

May I just say, in contrast, my own mother contracted shingles during the course of taking care of us after the kids were born and didn't even tell us. She could probably lose a leg and she'd be all, "Oh, this? It's just a flesh wound. Don't mind me. How are the kids? Let me get some more milk for Milo."

I just had to laugh. Not once did she, you know, say she hoped he felt better or anything like that. No. She just doesn't want to catch it. Jake hung up the phone and said to me, "Maybe now you have a better understanding of where I'm coming from." (I sometimes complain to him that he lacks empathy.) Yeah. I totally get it, dude, and I am sorry.

We're really glad it's spring

The kids found bathing suits that I've bought for this summer or saved from last summer and thought they'd put them on and pretend to go swimming. Yes, Milo is wearing Nora's and his own. And Nora is wearing a rash guard. Which totally counts. Also, she is making a pose where she's trying to look tough.

It's kinda spring now. Warm enough that people are hanging out outside now, playing and talking and eating casual meals. I feel like I don't see most of my neighbors all winter long. Then spring comes and everybody emerges and we're all, "Hey, nice to see you!"

My mentor did a nice thing for me on Monday by contacting our dean with information that he'd heard I was being targeted by another university and he was worried, so what could they do to try to retain me? The dean immediately responded and sent it to our university lawyer-type dean (who is involved in all retention raises). The lawyer-type dean also immediately responded by contacting our chair and asking her to bring this up with me. His response indicated that it was important to move quickly.

That was 48 hours ago and the chair has done nothing. She hasn't contacted me, emailed me, spoken to me, or anything. She didn't even contact Mentor for more details about this info. Meanwhile the other university is waiting and waiting for me to decide whether I'll come out for a visit/interview. So, given the chair's inaction, there was nothing I could do. I said yes.

We unseated an incumbent conservative supreme court justice yesterday. Well, the margin is so narrow that it's too close to tell, but this was totally a referendum on our governor from hell. Before everything happened in Feb/March, the challenger had no chance at all. In a primary in Feb. the incumbent beat her 55-25! She doubled her vote share in a mere 6 weeks. Take that, GOP. Two months ago she was unheard of and it's almost impossible to uproot an incumbent judge. But this guy is in the pocket of our gov, and everybody turned their efforts to this election, and holy shit by a margin of about 100 votes it actually worked. There will inevitably be a recount given how close this is but we did something yesterday. If we did that, we can recall our miserable excuse for a governor. So once again I have hope for our state.

Money

I talked on the phone today with this other institution that is trying to target me (a targeted hire is where they pick one person instead of advertising the job, and then try to hire that person. Which, by the way, seems really weird because what if the person doesn't want the job?) Anyway, over the weekend they quoted me a salary that's 22K more than what I make now. And then today on the phone in the face of my ongoing reluctance they quoted me a new salary that's 10K above THAT. Holy crap. Let me just say it's a lot of freaking money.

In fact, when I first told Jake about this opportunity he jokingly said "only if they pay you xyz", throwing out a number so high that it would be ridiculous to get paid that much. And that is the exact number they quoted me today. Obviously there's no guarantee that I could actually negotiate that salary with the dean; saying "You could probably get this much" is not the same as a written contract promising me that much. But still, it is insane. It almost has me wanting to go out and visit just to see.

Or, more realistically, to see if I can parlay it into another raise here. Obviously my current institution couldn't even come close to matching it. That number would put my salary above people who are full professors here. It'd put me above Mentor's salary, even. The dean can't do that. But if I could get some money out of this? Mentor is going to try to see if he can make it happen or at least try to convince the dean.

Apparently out there you can also buy a 3200 sf house for under 200K, every place has a swimming pool, there are diverse interests and communities (which was her subtle way of saying not everybody is a Republican), and the streets are paved with gold. Oh wait. Maybe I made that last part up.

Obviously some things matter more than money. I value my location, my job, my colleagues, my friends, and my community more than a higher salary. But dang.

Postscript

And I realize I'm lucky to be in a situation where I can be open about the fact that I have a husband (with a career) and kids and that doesn't make me persona non grata, but instead they offer to try to get my husband a job and tell me about educational opportunities for my kids. Times have changed.

Job Awkwardness

It has been one heck of a busy week, starting with giving a talk and ending with giving a different talk and a whole lot of data collection, meetings, writing, and being sick in between. This morning I had to get up for a breakfast meeting with the dean, but I was home for lunch and finally had a chance to rest and nap when the kids napped. And I'm finally starting to feel a little better, and also, last night and tonight I did absolutely no work at all.

So things are looking up.

Last year on April 1 I had posted some pictures on FB of us outside with the kids. It was so warm that day that our windows were open and we were all dressed in shorts. Meanwhile, this year on April 1 it snowed. Boo. But as you can see from the pictures it warmed up a bit today and we spent most of the afternoon outside.

Something kind of weird is happening on the getting-recruited front. In my field it is not uncommon for people to get recruited away from their jobs. So this happens a few times every year with other universities calling up to see if you're interested in potentially moving.

Right now this is happening but in a much more assertive/aggressive way than typical. So the thing is that there are other programs where people do work that's more closely aligned with my true intellectual interests. Where I am now, Mentor does work related to what I do, related enough that we can and do collaborate on a lot of things. And I enjoy that collaboration but on the other hand it's not really at the heart of what gets me excited. There are some other people doing work closer to mine in a way that really excites me and pushes me. But these people are not necessarily at institutions that excite me a lot. So in one case, I'm going out to one of those institutions next month to give a talk and visit, and I'm looking forward to collaborating with a researcher who does really awesome interesting stuff. And in another case, there is an institution with several people there doing work that is really at the exact heart of what I love. If I were to move to that institution, I would be in the midst of several collaborators who would make up an intellectual community that would, I think, be very exciting and intellectually fulfilling to me.

And it turns out they have a targeted opportunity hire, non-advertised. So they got together to see who they would want to hire and they came up with my name. So they called me up to basically say, we know you didn't apply for this job, but it would be totally perfect for you and we really want to hire a "mid-career" person. (Is that what I am now?) So you were at the top of our list, and please consider coming out to visit us to see if you might want this job.

So the thing is, the group would be great, but this job is at an institution that does not really excite me and it is in a state where I don't really want to live. Neither does Jake. In fact for a lot of reasons I just really, really don't see this location as being a good fit for our family. But I did agree to talk to them on the phone.

So we spoke very briefly on the phone on Friday because the person calling me actually got the time change mixed up and we had less time to talk as a result. And anyway, she did a lot to basically make the job sound very attractive to me. But I shared with her my reticence over the idea of ever moving to that location. She then launched into a description of how awesome the location truly is, and we agreed to talk a little more on Monday. But I was honest with her that I'm really not necessarily looking to move to that location at this point in time.

Anyway, she got me to agree to talk again on Monday to learn more about the position, but still. I have a hard time seeing myself move there. She and another colleague (who is one of the giants in my world) just sent me an email tonight with a few paragraphs describing how truly great their location is, in ways I might not have known about. And they sent me 29 pictures of beautiful scenery, lakes, skiing, etc. to let me know that the place is nicer than one might think. And they said that they'd love to fly out me, Jake, and the kids so we can all check it out for ourselves and see if we'd like it. (I think they don't know how old my kids are). They then also offered to leverage a number of contacts in order to find a job for Jake too. Oh, and then they told me not to forget that they could offer me a lot more money than I am making right now. And they let me know that their institution offers free tuition for kids of faculty. They also sent information about a number of the different great schooling options available at the k-12 level.

I feel really awkward about this. For one thing, the intellectual giant dude is somebody we're going to ask for a letter this summer. So I don't want to burn any bridges. For another thing, it is hard to resist that kind of pressure and at the same time it is of course flattering when people are being super nice to you and offering you lots of stuff. But on the other hand, I really just have a hard time seeing myself ever being comfortable living in this location. Like, I have pretty strong negative feelings about it. So does Jake. So, it would probably just waste everybody's time if I were to visit. Which is pretty much what I told them on Friday but then they said "We understand, but you should really come visit just to see for yourself and give it a chance, and of course we know there's no obligation and you might not want the job. Just visit!" And it is hard to say no to that.

AWKWARD. I'm starting to feel awkward just talking about this, like I feel guilty for not liking their state/city more! Ugh. It's tough when a great job is in a crap location. Geting the job, institution, and location to all match up as "good" is not easy in my small field.

Everything is so uncertain. In a year, will I be kicking myself for not jumping on this opportunity if I stay here and don't get tenure in the end, or if the university somehow self implodes or something and we don't recall our shitty governor and everything in the state slowly goes to hell? My guess is that as one gains seniority, it becomes harder to get hired away. So I'm sure this type of thing won't always be an option for me throughout my career. So hard to know what to do.

But I feel like I want to keep believing in this place.

I Like Them French Fried Pertaters

I am obviously the weak link in the family! The kids get sick and whatever it does to them, triple the time and intensity for me. Then Jake usually avoids it all together. I would totally be the one tied up and eaten right now if we were all stranded on a desert island and had to survive due to our fortitude, or whatever. Yeah, that doesn't make sense.

I still have to write my math dept. talk for Friday. There's pretty much nothing I want to do less than to give that talk. I had much more positive feelings about my pre-tenure talk this past Monday.

The introducer who introduced me before the talk briefly mentioned the type of work I do and where I graduated, and then mentioned a couple of awards I'd won, and how I work with teachers. And the he closed the introduction by telling the audience that I'm a mom of 2 and a wife. Seriously???

(I'll leave it as an exercise to determine how many dudes are introduced as a father and a husband.)

Somebody asked me to be on his doc student's prelim committee. He did the asking by calling me up at home, on the phone, on my landline, at home, and asking me. He votes on my tenure case next year. I said yes. But I said that I really didn't know anything about his area. I can't remember exactly what this person's research is about but it has something to do with China and language minority students. I don't think it has anything to do with math. To be clear, I don't really know anything about language-minority students in China. But whatever. When you're on a prelim committee you read and judge the student's lit review and see if it's any good.

Except apparently not in this case. The student has since started asking me to meet and telling me I need to produce a question for him to write on. Because apparently the way a prelim committee works in this case is that the members produce questions and then the student has to write like a 10-page paper on each question. But the problem is, I am not in his area. How on earth can I write a competent question about language-minority students in China? As I told the student, I could certainly write a math-related question (not about China, or about language-minority students), but it doesn't seem fair or educative to make the student review a brand-new area of literature outside of his expertise. So I have asked the major professor what the deal is now, twice over the past week, but haven't gotten a response.

Maybe I'd get a better response if I called him up at home.

This morning Milo disappeared for a while after breakfast and came back downstairs fully dressed! All by himself! He was wearing camouflage pants (backwards) that he'd gotten out of the laundry basket, underwear that I think was clean, yesterday's socks, and a fuzzy north woods type of sweatshirt. And a baseball hat. Totally awesome. I didn't say anything about the backwards pants, instead letting him wear them backwards all day long because I didn't want to do anything to put a damper on his obvious joy at having gotten dressed all by himself.

Complain, complain, complain

Last night I stayed up late to get some extra work done so that I could rest a little bit in the morning before my class and data collection activities in the afternoon. Being sick I've been exhausted but there is never a chance to actually rest or sleep. So I thought, on Tuesday I'll take the kids to school, then come back and sleep for an hour or two before going into work. What a nice plan!

Until Nora threw up at 2:30 a.m. last night.

So instead I'm spending the morning home with Nora until Jake gets here at lunch.

Oh, and I co-authored a research commentary piece for our top journal and today it got an R&R. I am so tired of R&Rs. Can't we ever just get an accept right off the bat? It's not a big deal, and I'm not the 1st author, and the revisions are totally doable, but still. I am &*%#$ sick of R&Rs.

I know, none of it is really a big deal. I think I'm just perpetually mad right now. The political stuff is so outrageous and crappy that I and many of my friends and colleagues currently have an ongoing low level of anger and frustration that just never really goes away.

Cute Stuff They Said

Nora: Mommy can I play with your iPad?

Me: Okay. You can go get it from upstairs.

Nora: It's really nice that you're sharing your iPad with me and Milo Mommy!

**********

On Saturday morning Jake got up with the kids and I slept in. Then I got up and was in the bathroom when Milo came upstairs and saw me.

Milo: I'm really glad that you're up Mommy!

**********

Nora, playing on the iPad with a program where you have to trace letters.

Nora: I did it even though it was tricky!

**********

Tonight at dinner Jake told the kids that I was still feeling sick.

Milo: I think that you probably need to sleep Mommy!

Truer words were never spoken, my dear.

I will take it easy more this summer

Last night I couldn't really sleep. I kept tossing and turning thinking about the illegally published bill and our email and all the work I have to do. Finally around 3 I was wide awake for good and my whole body was hurting. I thought, I have reached my limit emotionally and physically. I'm so pressed with several crucial things due Monday that I've been working around the clock all week, falling into bed at 12 or 1 and up by 7. This after a whole year of work intensity and stress, and I must have been working in the same position for too long throughout Saturday and that must be why I am aching so much. I am OLD. I could do this when I was 20, but I can't really handle it anymore at almost 40. My "keep your job" pre-tenure talk for the department is on Monday. I started having a cold sweat and I thought, this is it, I have found the limit of what I can handle and I am having a panic attack. I am not as strong as I used to be.

But then a wave of nausea washed over me and I had to run to the bathroom. And I realized, oh, this isn't me having a nervous breakdown. It's just the stomach flu!

Hopefully it'll be better by tomorrow when I am giving my talk.

More Law Breaking

Could things get any fucking worse? I keep saying "unbelievable" but each new thing that happens makes you realize that it's all believable, because it's all happening. Walker just published the union-busting bill into law in open defiance of a court order. Moreover, Fitzgerald (senate majority leader) ordered the Legislative Reference Bureau, a specifically non-partisan arm of the government (similar to the one Jake works for), to publish it, an openly partisan act. This has never happened before. The law means nothing anymore in WI. Democracy means nothing anymore.

One interesting side effect of all of this: I no longer give a shit about getting tenure.

Academic What?

Bad: Milo threw up 4 times yesterday.

Good: He starts crying before he actually throws up which gives us like a 5-second warning to get a bowl under him or get him off the couch or whatever, thereby minimizing the laundry that needs to be done. Also, he seems to be feeling better today and hasn't thrown up at all today (fingers crossed). Also, no fever.

But what I really want to write about is academic freedom, and how it's under attack here in my state.

This is a particularly chilling story. It's the kind of story that I wouldn't have believed possible a year ago. But now I'm starting to feel like anything is possible. First you attack the unions. Dismantle workers' rights. Scapegoat the government employees, the immigrant groups, the poor. Then you start going after the academics. I've never been a conspiracy theorist and I dislike overly-casual analogies to fascism, but let's look at what is happening here. History is repeating itself. I am starting to wonder at which point we'll realize that we are in danger and need to just get out, period.

So here's the story. A professor at my institution, a history professor (tenured) wrote a NYT editorial about the political situation in our state and a study guide about the secretive group ALEC behind much of the recent Republican legislation here and elsewhere. The ALEC piece got a ton of attention. The piece is pretty scholarly and historical -- the professor is, after all, an historian -- and ironically it's also pretty detached. The professor in question is a centrist, not quite the raving liberal that most of us are. But the piece has received so much attention that it's drawn even more heat on our current Republican Governor and legislature, who are already receiving quite a lot of attention due to their unethical and illegal tactics enacted in the last couple of months.

(The union-busting bill? It's actually currently hung up in the courts. A court case deemed that they did indeed violate the open meetings act. Our conservative attorney general is now appealing that case.)

Two days after posting his ALEC study guide, the Republican party of our state requested via the open records law copies of all emails this professor has sent or received since Jan 1 that contain a number of key words, including our governor's name, the name of any of the 8 Republican legislators currently facing recalls, the names of our state's two biggest unions, and other key words including "rally" and "union".

That's right. If you publicly share a piece of work, personal or scholarly, that may be construed as critical to current government policies or critical of our current Governor, then the Republican party will then attempt to gain all of your emails in an attempt to intimidate and silence you. Or, at its worst, get you fired. There's nothing illegal about discussing these topics via university email, as long as you don't try to use that email to support a particular person's nomination to office or influence a vote in an election or referendum. But certainly one could go public with emails and otherwise construe them in such a way as to harass a professor into trying to force him to resign.

This, by the way, is why we have tenure.

Academic freedom is supposed to protect professors in their right to have and share political opinions, even ones that may be critical of a particular political party or politician. It is supposed to protect professors' abilities to conduct research that may be construed as politically volatile or otherwise unsavory in the eyes of those in governmental power. In other words, these protections exist to support the production of knowledge in all arenas, even if that knowledge production might make some people uncomfortable. It exists to allow professors to engage in intellectually honest research without fear of losing their jobs. It exists to protect the minority voice.

The professor, mind you, wasn't to my knowledge indoctrinating students in the classroom. This wasn't about anything he did as a teacher. It was about the fact that he produced an editorial and a study guide article, both based on his scholarly knowledge and background. And the Republicans didn't like what he had to say.

Seems to me that if you don't like what somebody has to say, then refute him on the facts. But of course, if you can't do that, perhaps because he is right, then you'll have to resort to intimidation tactics to try to silence him. Is that how we do things now? Is that academic freedom? This signals that the Republican stance is too weak to stand on its own merits, and they must instead resort to attempting to discredit the author.

This professor has always been careful about separating private email (on a private email account) from work email, so they won't find anything anyway. But that doesn't make this any less wrong. He also has tenure, which helps. What if, like me, he were going up for tenure next year? When the final stamp of approval on his case will be made not by our current bipartisan board of regents, but instead by a new Governor-appointed oversight board, the majority of whom will be Walker appointees? The same guys who have requested our professor's emails? Do you think he'd get tenure under that board?

Me neither.

Who is going to be next? Will it be me? Will it be you?

This is the day I was waiting for

Today was such a good day! The kids were happy and well rested, the two going hand in hand, and everything was enjoyable despite the terrible weather. We spent the morning visiting the shoe store (complete with a train set) and Target, and then back home for lunch and a nap. I got a solid 2 hours of work in while they napped, and once they woke up we did arts and crafts for much of the afternoon until Jake came home. Jake watched a Caillou video with them while I made dinner, and after dinner the kids enjoyed their bath. Before bed I trimmed Nora's hair, probably incompetently (and she kept jerking her head around), but it sprang up into waves and curls and looks pretty decent anyway. Milo got himself dressed and undressed today. Nobody fought over which books to read at bedtime. The kids fell asleep in about 5 minutes. I just finished another 3 hours of work tonight and am feeling good about my progress on the paper I'm writing.

The kids did a ton of fun pretend play and went on imaginary adventures together. They got along. Life has been good today.

Nice things:

When I was done cutting Nora's hair she took the comb and combed my hair and pretended to cut it. It is adorable how she mimics what she hears. She told me, "Okay, hold still. I'm going to comb the hair out of your eyes. Wow, good job! You're holding still. Okay, you don't have to close your eyes Mommy. Now I'm going to comb the hair for you." So authoritative in her manner.

Milo's new term is "I guess I...". Often he'll say it in this pathetic melodramatic way, like if we're taking about 1 nanosecond too long to get him a requested glass of milk, he'll say "I guess I don't get to drink any milk!" But he says it in nice ways too, like "I guess I need to find my favorite book before bedtime!"

Nora & Milo playing for about 20 minutes with a tape measure, each holding onto one end and marching all over the house. (I had no idea that thing extended so much.)

Nora playing with the magnet drawing board with me after nap, asking me to write words so that she could identify them. She can identify Hi, Cat, Dog, Mom, Dad, Milo, Nora, Stop, and today I taught her Cow. She asked me to write Grandmom Lee and was annoyed that I couldn't make it fit well on the tiny board. Stop was interesting because I wrote it and she looked at it and said, "I don't know what that is!" So I asked her what each of the letters was. She stated each letter, S, T, O, P, and then realized "It spells stop!" (This is because Milo likes to say "S, T, O, P, stop!" when he sees a stop sign.)

Going on an escalator for the first time today and hearing the kids call it the "excavator stairs".

Nora's habit of calling Milo "Hon" and "Bud". Or sometimes "My Brudder." "Hey bud, let's go upstairs!" Or, "Where is my brudder?"

Milo's decision that he is going to be a haircutter when he grows up, and then he'll ride his garbage truck home.

Life is so good when the kids are in a good mood.

Is This March? It's 32 Degrees!

I noticed that the kids' shoes seemed to be getting a little short so today I took them to the shoe store to get their feet measured. First, I measured them at home with a tape measure and thought, hmm, have they really both grown about a size and a half? So I took them into the store, and sure enough they have. They're in between sizes so it's a little awkward but I'm buying the bigger size in anticipation of summer.

Nora can wear Milo's old shoes, when that doesn't cause too much strife about what the kids think is Milo's and what they think is Nora's. So I just bought one pair of rain boots for Milo and will shift Milo's to Nora. Then I bought them each a pair of outside play sneakers, one pair of waterproof summer sandals, one pair of cheap canvass slip-on type play shoes, and one pair of slightly dressier shoes. In case they ever have a need for something that is dressier than sneakers. Which is probably pretty unlikely, come to think of it.

Boy kids can be pricey when you buy 8 pairs of shoes + 1 pair of rain boots in one day! On the up side it was a nice way to spend the morning seeing as how it was too cold and rainy/slushy to spend any time outside. Now to work on this paper...

Bad News Bears

Jake and I recently watched a movie with Walter Matthau called the Bad News Bears. For some reason it was rated PG. It was filmed in 1976 and it's about a kid's baseball team. (Standard plotline, team of misfits comes together.) The kids in the team are about 9-12 years old.

Things have really changed since then. Things in this movie that you probably wouldn't see today:

-- Racial slurs (including use of the N-word) as part of normal kid conversation

-- Coach hitting a kid in the face, adults attacking kids physically in general as part of comedic effect

-- Little kid up high on a ladder switching out the scores on the sign

-- Kid riding around on a motorcycle with no helmet

-- Coach giving kids beer to drink

-- Coach telling batter to let the ball hit him so that he'll walk

-- Kids smoking

-- Coaches berating and screaming at kids for not winning or for messing up

-- Air hockey

Things are different now. Hitting and racial slurs aren't in any way okay, don't get me wrong, but sometimes I wonder if we've swung a little too far the other direction, into the wussified realm where you'd never let a kid climb the ladder to change the sign.

I remember one time in gymnastics I was trying to do something that I pretty much knew how to do, but it was hard and kind of painful and a pain in the ass, and I was half assing it. And my coach finally lost it and threw his clipboard down on the floor and yelled "God damn it! Do it right!" And I deserved that, because I had been half assing it, and I stopped and did it right. You have to have high expectations if you want people to achieve things.

In only semi-related news, my study participants are currently doing awesome things which is very exciting for our project team. And I can't even push them or make them in any way uncomfortable, because our IRB wouldn't allow anything like that. Which is fine, but if you just ask kids to think on their own, give them hard things to figure out, and let them struggle for a while, it is amazing how smart they always end up being and how many cool things they're able to do in the end. Every damn time.

In another non-sequitor but not really, Nora sometimes struggles to do things like button her shirt or get a tight shirt over her head. I've noticed that my kids like to just give up right away and have me help them. I generally don't help her if I think she can do it, and make her keep trying for a while. Then she usually manages to do it, and I say some lame parental thing about how "sometimes things are hard but if you keep trying you can do it anyway." She repeats that, because she's so happy when she achieves success. It's its own pleasure for her, nothing makes her happier than doing it herself. I am trying to teach her the lesson that hard things can be achieved anyway, you just have to keep trying. I need to start taking over more with Milo (who has Jake wrapped around his finger in some ways) so that he doesn't get all learned helpless on us. Currently Milo prefers not to dress or undress himself when he has a willing parent around to perform that task. Screw that.

It's 43 Degrees

The last of the snow is gone from our yard, and it feels like spring is really here. I know we will see some more snow before spring really comes, but it'll be the kind that melts away the next day. Not the kind that sticks around for 4 months.

Today we went to a deli for lunch. It is the kind of place that has about 400 motorized robots, mobiles, wall hangings, etc. whirring around. The kids loved it. Superman, Spiderman, Harry Potter, the yellow submarine, a circus train, a carousel, a robot, and a giant boat were some of the things they admired. (Nora saw Superman flying through the air and remarked, "Mommy that boy is swimming!")

We also decorated one of Nora's walls:

And one of Milo's walls. I used to have the alphabet up there when the kids were babies, and then when Milo was a toddler he pulled half of the cards down. So today we finally put them back up. However, tonight at bedtime he made me put two birds over the owl's eyes because he was afraid of the owl.

This afternoon during her snack, while I was doing some dishes, Nora remarked out of the blue, "Dada's favorite colors are red and green." Dada is Nora's imaginary sister. She swears she has a sister named Dada, who lives at our house and sleeps in the stroller. Once she said that Dada was 5. But she often says that Dada is a baby. Anyway, she's Nora's sister and Nora will say stuff like "My sister Dada is afraid of storms." During her snack, Nora said she would show Dada to me. So after her snack she led me into the sunroom and then seemed genuinely surprised that Dada wasn't there. Weird...

Milo continues to be a big grump at times. Like when he woke up from his nap. Holy Hannah he was cranky. Here he's saying, "I don't want to get up!"

Cranky.

Cranky, cranky, cranky.

He and Nora each had some pennies in their hands. Nora was happily playing on the landing with her pennies, pretending they were train tickets. Milo suddenly stomped over there and demanded her pennies, and then attacked her, trying to pry them out of her fist. I think he then attempted to bite her hand. Seriously out of nowhere. Then of course Nora let out a giant scream and tried to tackle him, and all hell broke loose as I separated them. WTF, people. Sheesh.

We did some trike riding today. Nora loves riding her trike. It is pretty much her favorite thing ever right now. Both kids have finally worked out pedaling, which actually isn't easy with these lame trikes because they are not at all easy to pedal. The angle of the pedals is such that it really takes a lot of force to get the thing moving. I have no idea why anybody would make trikes so hard to pedal, but whatever, they can do it now and this look on Nora's face below is the look of her laughing. When she gets going fast she just starts cackling with sheer joy because she loves it so much.

Riding like a bat outta hell.

Happy, happy, happy.

On our short block a lot of houses have anti-Walker signs and pro-union signs. Here are just a few from our short little jaunt up and down half a block:

Our humidifier attached to our furnace started leaking today, but I didn't know at the time what was causing the leak. So I called Jake on his cell but of course he had it turned off all day long. He finally called back tonight to help diagnose the problem. He's off having fun, which he deserves, but I want some damn fun too.

Tomorrow the twin whisperer is coming because I have to go to work. Good for me, good for them. I'm wiped.

Theme of this post is "I am Cheap"

It's clear I live in a pretty small town now that our brand-new Target has me excited. It's right next to our best grocery store! It's got underground parking and an escalator! It only takes me 5 minutes to get there! It's got tons of cute and cheap toddler clothing!

I have a friend with a boy a year older than Milo and she has been giving me his hand-me-downs. This friend is a super clothes horse, she buys amazing things from Boden and other fancy European children's clothing makers. Then she gives all of it, barely worn, to Milo. She did that last fall, anyway, and as a result Milo's had a winter sweater collection that puts mine to shame. I don't know if we'll reap the benefits again this spring but the fall pass-along already had a number of summer items, so I think Milo is in decent clothes shape. Sadly we have no correlate for Nora so I actually have to *gasp* buy her clothes. I know, the horror! But it is fun to buy cute little girl clothes. I am way too cheap to buy Boden clothes for a child who will outgrow that kind of thing in a few months, so I'm more of a Craigslist / Half pint resale / Target kinda mom. For as long as Nora doesn't notice or care, at any rate.

Jake is out of town this weekend visiting his brother, so I'm on my own. Tiring. Week 1 of data collection down, 2 weeks to go. We have been getting good data so far even though our n is small. However, I did get a parking ticket today. Instead of paying for a year-round permit when I only ever need to use a car when collecting data, I just pay in parking tickets instead. A few tickets here and there is a lot less than a parking permit. So I'm willing to take the trade off. Sadly NSF will not reimburse parking tickets as a cost of data collection!

I think I'll take the kids out to lunch tomorrow. Gotta do something with our time...

Data Collection Woes

Our data collection efforts are not going well.

The last time I recruited for this type of study, we got 18 respondents. This time we got 5. I was aiming for a group of 8, because 6 is perfect and we usually get a couple of people who drop out. Well, we got a couple of people who dropped out, so now we're at 3.

The only thing I can think of that's different this time is that we're running the study in the spring instead of the fall, maybe that makes a difference? Maybe they're more burned out in the spring and less willing to do optional after-school extracurriculars. Also, there's the sickouts and missed school days that happened, so school has been highly disrupted.

And now we got notice that school will be extended by 12 minutes every day starting on Monday, through the end of the year (to make up for days the district had to close due to teacher sickouts). Will the late bus then come 12 minutes later? Because if it doesn't, then we'll have almost no time to do our study after school before the bus comes. (IRB requires us to do it after school, so that no instruction time is missed, and requires us to end before the late bus comes.)

So, we're going to re-run 3 studies this summer or fall and this time, because they'll all be repeats at that point, I'm going to have my grad students do the teaching. Our participating school district was excited about meshing this with their summer school program, but they needed to get the times and details to me so that I could get through IRB soon enough. Working with the district is complicated because it adds an additional IRB layer. I have to go through our university's IRB, then get approval, then apply to the district's external research evaluation board (not an official IRB but they act like they are). Once approved by them, I have to resubmit to our university's IRB showing official approval from the district. Then I have to resubmit to the district showing final university approval. Only then is any study approved. This process takes a few months because there are always changes/modifications to make. Anyway, the district personnel have not gotten back to me with the details I need, which means I now am going to miss the deadline for the district's external research board to do work in the summer with them.

So I can't run these studies through the district this summer, basically because for weeks and weeks I haven't been able to get people to return my calls or emails to get the details I need.

I know this is not personal, because everybody is basically AWOL at the district right now. The budget issues, the dismantling of their unions, the coming layoffs, the sick-outs, the protests, and the talk and preparation for a general strike...well, everything is chaos at the district. Nothing is getting done and I'm sure that getting some random researcher the details she needs is low on everybody's priority list.

So I will try to run the study through the university's middle school program for students of color and 1st generation college students, and we'll see how that goes. It is frustrating to not have all of this tied up, and it is frustrating that my current data collection efforts are suffering from low numbers and encroaches on our time. It remains to be seen whether I'll get anything publishable out of this.

The one bright side of all of these data collection woes is this: it doesn't matter for tenure. Anything I were to publish out of the current study would never get submitted until after my tenure decision regardless of the quality of the data. (It just takes that long to analyze and write up the results from a study like this.) So getting bad data right now, or unusable data, is a bummer but it's not a career killer. If this had been happening 2 years ago I would have been totally freaking out about how this would have destroyed my tenure chances. It's kind of nice to not have to worry about that, at least.

Weekend Update

Oh, this time change thing is hard when you have parents who insist on going to bed at the same time as usual and children who get up at the same time as usual (according to the sun).

Hope everybody remembered to move their clocks an hour forward this weekend. Unless, of course, you live in WI -- then you should move them back 50 years.

Saturday morning I took Nora out to the rally at the Capitol. The farmers came on their tractors. Farmers at a protest is just awesome. You really can't paint farmers as union thugs, or pot-smoking hippies, or lazy state workers. They're farmers. A conservative group, traditionally. Well, the farmers are pissed. One of them had a sign on his tractor that said "You've awoken a sleeping giant."

Unfortunately it was cold and windy, and Nora wasn't very comfortable with the wind and the noise. I had to carry her the whole time. Eventually we left but I was glad that I could take her and let her be part of history. Milo didn't come because he was in a mood, to put it mildly. Milo has been ridiculously insanely crabby lately. Horribly obnoxious and testing us right and left. Petulant, frustrated, acting out, the whole nine yards. I have no idea what's wrong with him or how to fix it. Meanwhile Nora's all happy and cheerful, singing her little songs all the time and bouncing around in her own little world.

I would be more worked up about this, but I remember that about 5 months ago it was the exact reverse, and I was worried about Nora. So my guess is that it's probably some sort of developmental phase.

I worked on Saturday afternoon, but inefficiently. And we cleaned.

Sunday morning we had some people over for a playdate. Their son is in the kids' classroom and they have a daughter who is about a year younger. Nora was awesome and sweet and happy to share and play with all of the kids, and Milo was a little shit, frankly. He didn't want to share, he didn't really want them to be here, and he was kind of being a jerk to the boy, not wanting him to join in with them in hide and seek and such. How embarrassing. Of course we didn't allow him to enact his anti-social desires but, being 3, he sure did verbalize them a lot with no self consciousness. I think it's worse to see your own kid being a jerk to somebody else's kid than to see your kid be the recipient of jerky behavior. Towards the end Milo was all, "I want them to go now!" I wish the earth could have split open and swallowed me up.

Sunday afternoon I worked, but inefficiently. Jake made mushroom pot pies with a gouda cheese crust. Yes they were delicious. Plus there was ice cream.

I think I am burning out. I am starting to lose my drive. I need to keep working but am so tired all the time. And anxious and depressed. I need to stop thinking about state politics and worrying about money and potential strikes and stuff, at least for a while, and try to relax or something. I feel like I need a vacation. I feel like if I can just make it to April, then things will be okay. In early April I am taking a trip to New Orleans. It's for work but there is one morning, a Saturday morning, when I don't have to do anything early and I can sleep in as late as I want. So I am holding onto that Saturday morning in April, and sleeping in in my hotel room in New Orleans. Also, I have a lot of good memories of New Orleans.

Here is a video showing what it was like yesterday. It was epic. If the estimates are correct, then it was the biggest political protest outside of DC since the civil war. And no arrests. No violence, despite how incredibly, genuinely angry people have been since the senators illegally passed the bill by violating the open meetings act and voting on a bill that contained fiscal measures while claiming that it was non-fiscal in order to avoid the quorum rules. People have been mad, really mad, but look at how they behaved yesterday. Peacefully. With grace and dignity. Amazing. This is really what I love about my state.

Friday

It's Friday afternoon! And next week is spring break!

This week us area folks went out to dinner and talk turned to spring break. Mentor: I'm going to Solvang with my buddies to ride bikes all week long in the sun. Colleague: I'm going to Key West. Other Colleague: I'm going to New Orleans. I'm so excited to just see grass and leaves on the trees and other signs of spring. Me: Aaaaaaa, screw you all!

Okay, I just thought it. Who the hell takes spring break? Officially we don't even get spring break off! (Actually, officially we have 0 holidays.) When is the last time I took a real vacation like that. My mind springs back to January 2005 when we went to Aruba. Aaahhhh, that was nice.

Next year I'm going to take some sort of freaking vacation. For like a whole week, if I can con some grandparents into the plan.

Anyhoo, next week is spring break for the university but not for the school district which is totally good because this means we get to (drumroll) start data collection. It will be much easier to start data collection without the normal classes and meetings going on here. So this means next week I can basically, knock on wood if no kids are sick, spend all morning writing (AERA paper is due Friday), and all afternoon collecting data. Assuming, of course, the teachers don't strike. But I also called up our IRB and got permission to change the options or venue if there is a strike, so maybe in the face of a strike we'd offer to the students to teach them here at the university for a few hours a day.

We have our new computer, our new camera (things get smaller and smaller, it is totally amazing), our tripod, our batteries, our boom mic, our table mic, our server space, our scanner, our laptops...I think we're ready to roll.

Our governor signed the illegal, immoral bill into law today so our pay cuts come down with the next paycheck. Gotta hustle and drum up some extra consulting business to cover the gap (in all my free time).

This morning the kids went on their very first field trip, and they took a bus for the first time. They went to see a play, The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

More consequences

Oh hey. All of our accepted doctoral students are declining this evening. Awesome. We may not have any new doc students next year. This is kind of a big problem since we rely on doctoral students to supervise in the field, TA courses, and work on our research projects. We're going to have open positions and nobody to fill them.

We also can't compete with other peer universities on TA / research assistant salaries. In fact, now that this bill is passed, it will be illegal for the TA union (or any state employee) to negotiate a wage increase greater than the cost of living. So, no hope in rectifying our abysmally low TA salaries. Our reputations as professors only get us so far when our competitor programs are offering packages with TA salaries 80% higher than ours.

Mentor was lamenting tonight about what we'll do with nobody to supervise or TA methods. I figure, hell, in a year or so we won't have any methods courses to TA anyway, because who is going to want to go in to a teacher ed program at this point?

Hindsight

I wish:

-- I had scheduled my teaching experiment for February, so it would be over by now, and I wouldn't be facing the issue of possibly having to cancel it if we see a teacher strike. Oh wait, schools were closed a lot in February. I wish I had scheduled my teaching experiment for January. I have a contractual obligation with NSF to run this teaching experiment; canceling and rescheduling is going to cause a lot of problems.

Oh geez. The schoolkids (not the teachers) at the school where I'm scheduled to start collecting data on Monday are walking out today.

-- We had secured our hires for post doc positions and a faculty associate position about a month ago. It is suddenly becoming much harder to hire; who wants to come here now when there's really no promise of funding after June 30?

-- I had gone up for tenure this spring instead of planning to do it in the fall. The current system is not exactly fair or transparent, but at least we know what the system is. After June 30, we do not know what the tenure system will be next year. The entire structure of how we grant tenure (assuming we continue to grant tenure) will have the option of being re-vamped and decided upon by the new governing board, the majority of whom will be appointed by our right-wing, fundamentalist conservative, tea party governor. On a board of 21 people, TWO will be professors. TWO. The other 19 people on the board will be non academics. This board will have the complete authority to determine hiring and promotion structures, all personnel issues, salary issues, tenure decisions, how the tenure process will occur, etc.

What will be the tenure process next year? Will it be the same as this year? Or will it be completely changed?

A senior professor in my department just stopped by my office and said, "This board of fundamentalist conservatives is going to be deciding on your tenure and you have an upcoming talk on your CV that has the word 'feminist' in the title. Good luck."

Three professors in the department have already announced their sudden retirements, and two others have announced they're leaving. I feel like we're on the fucking Titanic.

UnFuckingBelievable

This is immoral and maybe illegal. Once this gets signed into law, we are going to see massive strikes. The multiple travesties of justice I've been seeing over the last 3 weeks have been truly unbelievable.

Sticks and Stones

Poor Milo is so accident prone. A few days ago he fell up the stairs and banged his chin, so now he's got a sore on his chin. Also, a few days ago I caught him beginning to try to carry a chair up the stairs! So I had to sit him down and let him know that that's how Mommy broke her collarbone when she was little. Yesterday, Milo was very excited about a package that arrived for Jake. I told him that we couldn't open it because it was for Daddy, so we'd have to wait until Daddy got home and let him open it. Then, I went upstairs to help Nora use the potty. I came back downstairs to see that Milo had somehow gotten into our kitchen drawer and gotten the scissors and was stabbing holes in the package with the scissors!

Then today we woke up to a lot of new snow on the ground. I took the kids to the grocery store for a quick run to get more Tylenol and such, and then when we got back home they seemed happy to stay outside for a while so I decided to shovel the walks. They each have their own child-sized shovel and enjoyed helping me shovel...until Nora, in her vigorous tossing of the snow, ended up smacking Milo in the forehead with the sharp edge of her shovel! Even though it's plastic, Milo now has a cut on his forehead. It seems like the poor guy always has a few cuts and bruises.

Fingers crossed, the kids' fevers are lower today so are hopefully on their way out. I also hope Milo can fall asleep and nap right now despite his cough.