Our Stay Home Day

Morning: Kids fight. First thing. They fight about not going into each others' room, about whose room I am in to help out with getting dressed, about whether the other can go into that room or not. Nora pitches a fit about getting her pants on and I leave her to do it alone, going downstairs to make breakfast.

I think I'm going to start going into Milo's room at 6:55 to get him dressed before Nora realizes she is allowed to get up, in order to avoid this daily fighting ritual. Gah.

Pancakes! Nora still kind of pissy until she actually eats.

Breakfast eaten! Kids are full, therefore happy. They play while I do laundry, clean the kitchen, empty the dishwasher, vacuum up crumbs. All is well.

It is raining. No playing outside! Ugh. We go to Target, and the kids are excited about going up and down the escalator, and I get paper towels and ant traps. We don't have the actual weather of summer, but we have other symptoms of summer, like ants.

The kids touch every single damn thing in Target and Nora starts to get pissy again about a non-existent problem that is impossible to solve, which probably should have been my clue to feed her a snack. But instead, off to the library, where we turn in our books and get new ones. Some random woman says hello to me and greets Nora and Milo and I'm wracking my brain, thinking who the hell is this? Then her son comes up to say hi and I realize she's the mom of one of the kids in Milo & Nora's class. Gah. Books acquired. Milo and Nora get into a fight when checking them out about who is allowed to stand on the little step stool the longest. Oh my God, get me out of here.

Home. Lunch. I read them some library books as we eat. They are full, therefore happy. They play while I change the laundry, put in another load, clean the kitchen, put flour and other things in canisters in a terribly arrange-deck-chair-on-Titanic attempt to organize my kitchen for the 800th time. We read the rest of the library books with both kids resting their heads on my shoulders. One of them is about Rosa Parks told from the perspective of a little boy at the back of the bus. I try to explain to the kids about how there used to be this rule about who could sit where on the bus, and it was a bad rule because it said that people with brown skin couldn't sit at the front of the bus, and this was wrong because everybody should be able to sit anywhere they want on the bus, no matter what color skin they have. And Rosa Parks broke that rule and she's getting arrested on this page, but this is what makes her a hero because the rule was wrong. And she's very, very brave. (They know what brave is. I don't think they know what hero means.)

Nap! HOORAY. Milo will nap until 4, as he always does. Nora will open her door at precisely 3 p.m., because I've told her she needs to stay in her room resting until 3, even if she wakes up early. When she's up, she helps me make soup. Nora peels the carrots with a vegetable peeler, and eventually remarks "I've really got the hang of this!" She puts the butter in the pot, and when it's melted she stirs in the onions and the carrots. I add curry powder and as we cook the vegetables, Nora then helps me make granola bars. She adds oats, wheat germ, ground-up almonds, powdered milk, honey, canola oil, and other things to the bowl and helps to mix it up. We decide to put in raisins and craisins.

Milo is up. Snack. More cooking help as I turn back to the soup. Daddy is home. Hooray! Bath time. It's still raining, so no outdoor play today.

Dinner. The kids do not eat the soup. They probably won't eat the granola bars either, but I tasted one and it was delicious. They have terrible taste when it comes to food. It remains as infuriating as ever.

Haircut for me! I escape, and get my har cut.

Before, with longer hair:

Now, with shorter hair:

And now, the kids are in bed. My dress is ironed. And I am not going to work tonight. I'm burned out. Grades are turned in. I have a commentary paper to write, but whatever. The next 2 weeks are taken up with candidate visits for a post-doc position and an instructor position...positions that should have been filled months ago, but we haven't been able to do so, so now I'm screwing away my May with crap like this.

But then my email pings and the message reads, "Hey, it's May. Let's eat." And I laugh.

Drama!

For a long time nothing was happening with the potential job offer from university #1, or anything else, and now a whole bunch of stuff is happening. First, I got the written offer. I'm now trying to negotiate salary, but the chair has been kind of AWOL and isn't responding to my emails in any sort of timely way. (LAME). So in the midst of this I went ahead and notified my university that I had an offer, figuring I'll also send them the re-negotiated salary once I get it.

So my university is currently working on a retention package. I think they're going to give me grief and try to object a little because I already got a raise this year. But it was for a different category and it was a small raise. I also, I should say, emailed the dean about this yesterday giving her the information that I had an offer. She actually emailed me back (first time ever), and on a furlough day no less. People take you seriously when you have a written offer.

Then university #2 called me up out of the blue. The place where I gave a colloquium a few weeks ago. And they have forwarded my name to their dean to request a strategic hire for me. They want to give me the offer in the fall (for the following year, starting fall '12). Also, all of this time the chair has been working on finding my husband a job. He has found an institution connected to the university where my husband would fit in nicely. So it actually might be viable. And, to be honest, I am pretty excited about university #2. Because the thing is, they're building a whole cohort of people focused on learning in my area. They do what I do, and they're engaging in capacity building to do it. In fact, they're building up in the very area that I care about. They're doing exactly what I *want* to be doing here, but what I want to be doing doesn't align much with what my own department cares about.

So....hmmm.

Now I guess I will wait and see what my dept. does for retention. If it sucks, maybe I would leave.

Recently I had lunch with a colleague of mine who serves as an informal mentor now and again. I thought her advice was very very helpful. I mean, she gave me practical advice on how to try to negotiate retention, but she also thinks bigger. She thinks broadly, systemically. She talked about building a career, not just doing a job. If I really want to build my career, what do I need to do that? Now we're talking about capacity building. I want to build up our area in two major strands, and I know what resources we need to be able to do that. Some of those resources I can get myself, through grants, outreach, a good retention offer that comes with a flex fund, etc. Other resources require administrative support, most obviously, faculty lines. My colleague laid out this whole plan for me. Aside from Mentor she knows my case best, since she's on my tenure committee, so she is familiar with my work. Her advice is that after tenure I go for full as soon as possible (4-5 years). Then as full, force the university to retain me again with a named chair. Once I have a named chair, then I can use those resources for capacity building in our area.

To an academic this sort of advice (to me anyway) sounds crazy -- you don't just GET a named chair. Right? ...Right? I mean, you have to be super famous and stuff to get a named chair. But the more I think about it, well, thinking big and thinking strategically like this is how you make things happen. So maybe her advice isn't all that wacky? It's hard to say, because it feels way too braggy and immodest to even be thinking along those lines.

This has me thinking about bigger issues, like the issue of ambition. Am I ambitious? Some people have characterized me as ambitious at times, and secretly I have tended not to see myself as ambitious. For a number of years I always thought, "I just want tenure." That's all I wanted. It seemed like such an impossible bar sometimes, and once I had tenure, then nothing else would matter. I saw myself as happy to just be a professor doing my own thing, enjoying my life, settled in my town, and that's it. Nothing else needed.

And actually I still think I could be happy that way. Sometimes I even fantasize about working at place that's more like a SLAC and having a more relaxed pace of life. But on the other hand...what has happened in this crazy year is that I have gained some confidence. I now have confidence that my work is influencing the field. I have confidence that what I do is valuable to different groups of people. And this confidence, in combination with the tenure decision being so soon now, has me thinking forward, maybe thinking a little differently. Thinking about stuff like program building and named chairs is very ambitious thinking. Is that me now? Am I ambitious?

A big job

One of the kids' jobs is to bring their plates over to the sink after each meal. Tonight Milo was being a little dick about that. (What? He's 3. Three-year olds can be total assholes sometimes.) So he was pushing it with Jake, trying not to do it. Milo said,

Milo: It's a too-big job!

Jake: You want to know what's a big job? Raising kids is a big job.

Nora: Raising grown-ups is a big job!

Later, the kids were giving us words to make rhymes. Nora started cracking up because she thought she had trapped me by asking me to make a rhyme with "stoop". (She was trying to get me to say poop.) I named every rhyme in the book that wasn't poop, and she kept asking for more, sure that I would have to say "poop" eventually, but I didn't.

Milo did, though. And boy do they think they're the funniest thing since sliced bread.

Do Not Use Amazon

Did you know that if you ever change your email address for your Amazon account, it doesn't stay the same account with a now-new email? Instead, they basically create a new account for the new email. So you have 2 accounts, and you don't know it. You don't realize that there is now an old account floating around out there, with your old email attached to it.

Then say several years pass. Your old email is long defunct. You don't even remember what it is anymore. You have moved. Your phone number and address have changed. You don't think about any of this because you changed your email address on your Amazon account years ago.

But then, somebody hacks into your old account, the one you didn't even know was a separate account, and they buy a $1300 camera on your credit card. But for some reason it gets sent to your house. This charge isn't showing up on your Amazon account, because it's actually on the separate, OLD account, the one you didn't even know or remembered existed.

So you cancel your credit card and get a new number. Fine.

But Amazon is NOT HELPFUL. First of all, they will not close your old account. The only way you can do it is through the old email address. The one that no longer exists. They literally will not close your account for you without that email address. So the account is open in perpetuity, apparently.

Okay, fine, whatever. I closed my credit card account, so that number no longer exists at least. And I return the $1300 camera.

Did you know that 3 weeks can pass and Amazon still won't credit your account? Even though they told you they would immediately, back when you returned it. They can verify they got the return. But it takes "2-4 weeks" to credit your account. And when you raise hell because it's been 3 weeks, they then say, they guess it takes 4 weeks actually. You ask, what takes so long? "The process." What process? "The process takes 2-4 weeks."

And how will you be notified that they've actually done it? Through that old email. The one that no longer exists. What, that won't work? No problem. They'll call the phone number on that old account. The phone number you had when you lived in another state. That no longer exists.

Also, nobody can guarantee that the credit will get transferred to your new credit card number, since the old number no longer exists. And when you try to get this all worked out over the phone, naively assuming you can just give them your new number, well, who you're talking to isn't the billing department. THEY are the ones who process the returns. And they don't take phone calls.

So, to sum up, somebody can hack into your account that's years old and you didn't even know existed, buy something, and you may or may not ever get reimbursed even though you returned the item. So far my anecdote is suggesting you will NOT get reimbursed.

The fact that the camera was actually delivered to my house keeps making me think maybe nobody hacked into my account...maybe Amazon just had some weird glitch or error. To the tune of $1300, which I now have to pay because my statement is due.

What They're Into

Nora is into jigsaw puzzles. She's pretty bad at them, but in the last week or so she has started to figure out how to get the pieces together on her own and she can do simple puzzles without too many pieces. She really enjoys the puzzles.

Milo is into birds. He can name a surprising number of birds. He'll bring cards to me and say "Mommy, is this a morning dove? Is this a blue jay? Is this a cardinal? Is this a woodpecker? Is this a chickadee?" And each time, he's right! He'll say, "Oh, this one is a wren! Wren is my favorite bird!"

They're both into water. They like to water the plants and play with squirt bottles.

Nora loves making art. She likes to draw and paint. Painting is definitely her favorite.

Milo still loves trucks, especially diggers.

They both love pennies. They like to hoard them and pretend to mail them or pretend that they are tickets for the bus or the train. This drives Jake nuts. He hates finding pennies all over the place.

Milo loves his baseball bat and his whiffle ball. He also likes to play "golf" with it, placing the ball on the ground and then whacking at it with his bat. He can really move that ball.

Nora probably loves riding her trike more than anything else. They have these teeny tiny trikes and I'd like to move them up into little bikes with training wheels, but I haven't found anything small enough for them. Seems wasteful to get another set of trikes for just one summer and then move onto bikes next year.

Nora loves playing with the mailbox and the letters from Aunt Sally. She pretends to mail things all the time.

Milo loves pretending that he is a hockey player, baseball player, football player, or basketball player.

Both kids love pretend play. They pretend to cook, or that they're on a garbage truck and need to pile everything onto the truck (an annoying game in my opinion), or that they're taking the bus or the train to the museum or the zoo.

Neither kid is into dolls or stuffed animals. Nora has never shown any interest in dolls. Milo hasn't shown much interest either. He's a little more interested in stuffed animals than Nora is, but not much. Neither kid is interested in dress up. Nora does like to wear sunglasses, but that's about as far as it goes. Nora has an extreme aversion to dresses and skirts. The other day she wore a dress because it was sleeveless and she thought it was a shirt. (I did too until she put it on). I didn't say a word and she was happy all day. Then Jake came home and said, "Nora, I like your dress!" As soon as he said that, Nora took it off. Then Milo put it on and wore it for the rest of the evening. Milo is more interested in dresses than Nora.

Neither kid has shown much interest in Sesame Street or any video except Caillou. They lose interest in videos very quickly. Unless it's Caillou. Then they could probably watch for hours.

Milo likes to dig in the dirt. He likes to use a shovel, and a spade, and help garden. He is interested in the plants and watching for vegetables. (He'll be watching for a while!)

Nora is interested in taking pictures. She really likes to do this and asks to do it just about every day. I am thinking that it's about time I just give her my old cheap camera and let her have at it.

Both kids love books and being read to. Milo would spend all day reading books with his head on my belly if I let him.

I have no idea why the kids like what they like. I mean, I have some idea, but other parts are a mystery to me. I played with dolls as a child, and I wore dresses. Is Nora's aversion to this just a reflection of her interests, or does it have to do with the fact that she has grown up with a brother and wants to be like her brother? Photography and painting and other visual things interest Nora. It seems like she takes after Jake this way; Jake has always been artistic. Milo is much more physical. They certainly are who they are. They have strong opinions about their interests and I can't really sway them. Even Milo has strong opinions about his clothes now. If I let him, he'd wear sweat pants every day, and the same Bucky Badger shirt.

Tonight we were at a party and we were sitting outside. Nora headed off down the sidewalk and when she started to get too far I called out her name. I don't think she heard me. Then Jake called her name more loudly, and I'm pretty sure she heard him, but she ignored him and kept walking. Then Milo yelled out her name and she stopped immediately. These kids really pay attention to each other. Sometimes I think their influence on one another is greater than our influence on them.

Goofy Goofy Goofballs

Frustrated, Discouraged

We have multiple basement water problems and I just don't know how to fix them. Sump pump? Would fix one problem but not another. Exterior grading changes? Would fix one problem but not another. Getting rid of all of the carpet? Taking down the drywall from one of the walls to see if we have mold growing inside the wall? (Where there is water...) All of the above? Or the worst: truly fixing this problem means tearing up our brand new bathroom. Because apparently we are too fucking stupid to be home owners. And I don't even know if we'll stay in this town beyond next year.

Our Racist IRB

I am tempted to post this on FB, but haven't. I got IRB modifications today and one of the modifications they asked for was for me to review the reading level of my consent documents to make sure they're appropriate for the intended population.

The intended population is students of color. I am working this summer with an on-campus program that brings students of color (mostly African American, some Latino students and Hmong students) to campus to learn math. I'm going to do a study with these students in algebra. I just did a similar study with students on the same topic a couple of months ago.

For THAT IRB, nobody had a problem with the reading level of my consent documents. The consent documents I submitted this time are the exact same documents as last time. They are exactly the same. Same language. Same age group of kids. The only difference is that last time, I was conducting my study in a mostly-white school. Now I'll be conducting my study with students of color. And suddenly I have to downgrade the reading level of my documents?

You can so bet that after tenure I'm going to challenge stuff like this.

Pictures

Here are some recent pictures of Nora.

And Jake took a picture of his contribution to the classroom's activity/sensory table. Each family is supposed to sign up once a semester. I did it last semester. So I signed Jake up to do it this semester. I guess he was pretty proud of what he came up with!

Educational Differences

It has been a busy year. I've written two books, a number of articles, created and taught a new course, collected data in schools, prepared my tenure case, and did a lot of travel. That's not really an excuse, but it's one (kinda lame) reason for why I haven't been attending to my visiting scholar as much as I should have.

I have a visiting scholar this year from China. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that. She has attended my classes and I give her things to read and we talk about stuff, but not as much as we should. And in fact there were about 4 or 5 times that we kept scheduling to get our families together, but I kept canceling because our family was always sick. Anyway, today we had a nice long talk at lunch. I found out that she too has felt guilty for not getting more out of our interactions because she has distractions too. Her son is 7 and has very bad asthma. This causes her a lot of worry and lost sleep. Her husband (also a visiting scholar here) returned to China in February so she's been doing the single parent thing. She hears him cough at night and wakes up, adrenaline flowing, and then even when he's fine she can't get back to sleep for ages because she lies awake worrying. Oh, so familiar.

A lot of people like to talk about how our kids suck at math and science compared to other countries, including China, but there is a cost. She was telling me about the differences in kids' lives here versus China. In China, starting in 1st grade, kids have pages and pages of homework every night. At least 5 pages of math exercises alone each night. And this is FIRST GRADE. By middle school, children have so much homework that they have to start working on it immediately after school and it takes them until 1 a.m. to get it done each night. Children don't have time to play. Class is very serious. 40 minutes, in rows, silent, arms folded, paying attention. Children do well in math exercises because they get an enormous amount of practice.

You get what you pay for. Sometimes I feel like the rhetoric is that our kids in the U.S. should somehow magically get better at math and science but there is little attention paid to what we should do specifically to make that happen (other than constantly punishing teachers, implementing crappy high-stakes tests, taking away teachers' unions, and doing other things to basically destroy public education). Well guess what. In China, where they score well on international math assessments, their kids have shitloads of homework and no time to play from the time they are 6. And they actually pay their teachers well. I get the strong impression that no politican in the U.S. wants to do either of those things.

Bug Soup

The kids' preferred form of dinner table conversation, when they're not fighting that is, goes something like this. Actually this is pretty much a transcription of their conversation last night:

Milo: Nora?

Nora: Hrmph! (Angry grunt)

Milo: Hey Nora? Nora. HEY NORA. NORA? Hey! NORA!

Nora: Stop saying my name!

Milo: I want to have a conversation!

Nora: Hrmph!

Me: I don't think she wants to talk right now. I'll have a conversation with you Milo.

Milo: HEY NORA!!!

Nora: Yes?

Milo: Uh...have you ever seen bug soup?

Nora: Ewww! (Both laugh hilariously). Have you ever had a poop sandwich?

Milo: Ew, that's gross! (Both laugh hilariously).

I Neep a Nap

Last night we went to see Todd Snider perform, and it was the first non-cold night so we were able to comfortably walk from our friends' house to the theater without jackets. It's a nice 10-minute walk through neighborhoods, along the bike path, and over the little river. Passing by houses with people out on the porches. Walking back late at night and passing a couple in their 70s on their bikes. Damn, I love this town.

I had a good talk with the chair in our game of negotiation chess. I think he had misunderstood me previously and believed I wouldn't entertain any offers before going through a tenure process either here or there. We cleared that up and he is going to formulate an offer to send to me.

I have decided Nora looks cute with her weirdly-short hair. Only toddlers and preschoolers can get away with this kind of haircut and look cute. I'll take a picture soon. Today in the grocery store she was bouncing all around being her cheerful, talk a mile a minute self, and drew in many smiles and comments about her cuteness. Milo still has his cold. No fever but tons of other discomforts which has led him to remark frequently that he does not like having a cold.

In theory it's supposed to get warm this week. I couldn't be more ready.

Milo, Negotiation Chess, Nora

We have a sitter arranged for tomorrow night, plans for dinner and a concert with friends, and I'm working on a tight deadline on a joint project with my mentor that has no wiggle room: it MUST be completed by Thursday and we MUST work on it every day to get it done.

But, of course, poor Milo is sick so I'll probably have to stay home with him tomorrow and there goes our night out. And there goes my weekend, too.

Ah well. Anyway, we had a good two weeks of health there. I'd better work my ass off for the next couple of days before I, too, inevitably get sick.

**************

So, regarding that other university and the non-offer. I talked to the two senior people in my area there who recruited me and brought me out, and not surprisingly they were shocked at what their chair had done and thought it was nuts. They told me I should definitely let him know that I'd need an actual offer and would have to decide to take it before I went through the process of soliciting letters. So, I wrote the chair back and told him just that (politely and with gratitude and enthusiasm that they want to move forward). Then he wrote me back and said let's talk on the phone. So that's what we're doing tomorrow.

***************

I cut Nora's hair way too short again today. I'm such a hair cutting idiot, and yet I never learn. I wonder why I never learn?!?

Nora is unconcerned.

That was cute

Tonight I put Nora's clothes for tomorrow (which she picked out in all of its impractical, clashing glory) on her bed and told her that if she woke up early, she could contemplate getting dressed on her own. I'm trying to come up with solutions to her very drawn-out, dawdling, cranky process of getting dressed in the morning that can easily go to hell when we're in a time crunch.

As of 9 p.m. I was still hearing her singing and talking to herself, so I finally went upstairs to tell her to go to sleep already. I walked in to find Nora had put on all of tomorrow's clothes on top of her footie pajamas. So she was wearing her pajamas, and then her shirt, her pants, her underwear (on top of her pants for some reason), and her socks. Wish I'd had a camera!

WTF

Well, this is fucked up.

Institution #1 that brought me out a couple of weeks ago has gone through the various hiring committees and deans and so forth and decided that they want to make me an offer. So the chair emailed me to tell me this...and then said, okay, so we'd like to proceed with SOLICITING LETTERS FOR EXTERNAL REVIEW, so that we can put you up for tenure, and finish up that process in September and then make you a formal offer for an associate position with tenure in late September.

Um...what?

The problem with this scenario is that there is no way in hell I'd agree to solicit letters for me to go up for tenure at this other institution WHERE I AM NOT CURRENTLY EMPLOYED without knowing if I'd want to go there. The only way I could know whether I wanted to go there would be if I had an actual OFFER. Not a promise that I'll get an offer. An offer. With, like, details. Like, oh, SALARY. How on earth could I commit to soliciting letters without knowing what the actual offer would be?

(In case it's not obvious, the problem with soliciting letters is that I would be broadcasting to the world that I am flirting with going to this other institution -- at the same time that we're currently soliciting letters for me to go up for tenure at my CURRENT institution. I do not want to make it widely public that I am considering another institution! That would be insane!)

I have emailed the people at this institution in my field who targeted me for the hire to see what their take on it is...my guess is that they'll be surprised their chair did this. It is really not the standard way of going about things, to say the least. And it certainly does me no good! Maybe I shouldn't have wasted my time going out there! (On the other hand, Jake says, at least we discovered a new favorite wine from our evening out when we were there...)

1st One Down

1st vote on my tenure case done today. The department voted to approve my timeline (going up in the fall) and to send out requests for external letters. Letter requests will go out this week.

And away we go! This summer we'll complete the case and finalize it, and then the department will vote on my tenure in September. Then we'll send it up to the dean, and upon dean approval, the case will go to divisional in, hopefully, November. So my tenure should be effectively decided in November.

I'm ready.

Conversation

Math Professor (from the Northeast): What do you think of the accents around here?

Me: Everybody's speech reminds me of my grandmother, who came from Grundy.

Math Professor: Grundy! Well now that's coal country for sure.

Me: I always thought of her as sophisticated, so the accents feel sophisticated to me.

Math Professor: Well, coming out of Grundy she probably had all of a 6th-grade education.

Me: She graduated from UNC Chapel Hill.

Southern Bow Tie Professor: Hah! That'll teach you not to make assumptions!

Signs You're Not in the North

-- They serve sweet tea. Year 'round.

-- Somebody shows up to your talk wearing a bow tie. In the school colors.

-- You are introduced to people's children as "Miss Amy".

-- You come to give a talk and they hold a party at somebody's house for you.

-- On the dining room wall of that house is a coat of arms with two swords.

-- One partygoer agrees to give you her chocolate cake recipe because you're from out of town so she knows you won't be bringing it around to the 7 different potlucks she has to attend in the next 10 days.

-- A young grad student accidentally bumps into you while playing pool and then apologizes and states that he wasn't trying to be "fresh".

-- "Jill" is a two-syllable word.

I should state, for the record, that we are not in the deep south. This is a point that several people have made to me over the past couple of days. This is mountain culture. Not deep south culture. It is different, and I believe them, but it's definitely the south!

Stealth Interview?

I was out at a university last week since they have been targeting me, but for that one I knew I was a target.

I'm at another university now, in a much more agreeable location, to give a colloquium. Or so I thought. No, it's a stealth interview -- tonight at dinner with the dept. chair, a 3-hour dinner I might add, he basically told me that they want to hire me!!! Hey, I thought I was here for a visit and to give a talk!

All of this is too tumultuous for me in a way. Not that I should complain, but what exactly am I going to do with my life at this point forward? Will we stay, or will we go?

Belly hugs

Me: Why do you like to hug my belly?

Milo: I just love your belly so much.

My belly is a travesty that looks like an elephant's knee, but my kid has taught me a lesson in acceptance and even pride at what my body was able to do. Kids like soft welcoming things. My body became that way because I had them. Granted it is a little odd that Milo loves my belly, but it really brings home the idea that what's lovable about a body isn't absolute or objective and there can be lots of different things to love about a body.

I remember as a kid my favorite person to hug was my Grandmom who was soft and squishy. I loved hugging her. So I can understand how Milo might feel.