House Update

I have an accepted offer. (Although last year I had two deals fall apart at the point of inspection). Here's hoping this house is as good as it looks.

Tiny Bears

Baby things are always cute, but this new polar bear is especially cute (I know B* is all about pandas, but this could compete). There's a video listed as one of the 'most popular' on CNN's main website (but I can't figure out how to link to it directly. Watch - you can see it snore and cry and eat and snore again. Wouldn't it be fun to take care of?

(I'm kind of sad that they have to wear gloves to take care of it. I'd want to pet it and cuddle it.)

Baffled.

So I've been slow to take on serious supervision of doctoral students because I wanted to be sure that I knew what I was doing before I started telling someone else what to do. So last year I felt 'ready' to consider a student and there weren't any good doctoral applications in my areas, but there was a masters level student who seemed to be quite qualified. Exciting. I can get my feet wet with a small scale project and if I'm lucky recruit her along to a doctoral candidate (we are desperate for doctoral level personnel in my field). She did an undergraduate thesis so I know she has a sense of the research process. But... (can you see that coming?)

This student seems to have lots of personal issues that interfere with her ability to follow through. She keeps missing meetings. She is unprepared for meetings. She is early or late for meetings. I am baffled. So we had a discussion about respecting my time and being professional. And I thought she was on the right track.

And then at meetings I have to keep verbally pulling her back to the topic at hand and reminding her that there's more than one way to approach the data. And encourage her not to dismiss anything that doesn't conform to her view as non-relevant. I thought this could be over come. More reading, more discussion. It will work. Especially because I think she dismisses things because they are hard and she doesn't want to show that she doesn't understand. Not a great coping strategy, but one that can be worked through.

At the end of the fall term we made an appointment to meet and go over data over the break (because she thought this was the best time for her, less stressful & more suited to scheduling around her personal life issues). Well, she's missed that meeting completely and didn't respond to email about rescheduling. So I went to the trouble of looking up her spring course schedule just to see where we stand (maybe she decided to drop the thesis option and her enrollment will reflect this and she hasn't told me yet?). Well, she's not enrolled at all in anything for the spring. That's quite suspect actually. I don't know whether to be angry or concerned.

Nail Bitter

Oh my goodness. The democratic presidential nomination is totally a nail bitter for me. McCain is leading on the republican side. And Hillary looks to be edging ahead by just a smidge over Obama (10% reporting right now). Edwards is looking like a solid third and Richardson not even in double digits.

I can't decide what I think about Hillary vs. Obama. On the one hand I worry about Clinton's electability. On the other hand, I'd like to see a woman up front for once. And I can say from hearing her speak she is one sharp woman. Obama has vision. He gave an inspirational sermon, a bit short on the details. In contrast, Clinton has the details. She lays out an agenda. She gave a specific, funny, intelligent speech on what she plans to accomplish. On the flip side, I do think that Clinton will be divisive candidate and it seems across party lines, people are calling Obama a unity candidate.

And I think McCain could be competative for the republicans against either one. Oh gee....

Life Hunting

So one of my projects for this spring is house hunting. On the surface this would seem simple. I know the space needs I have right now (bedroom, office, guest room, enough space/an adequate layout in the main living areas that I can have up to 12 people over comfortably, a well laid out kitchen, a covered garage, and a fenced yard). The last two are negotiable. The rest aren'tI understand what I want in a house aside from space (old, charming, fun details, non-conventional, neighborhood-y feel, gas kitchen & heat). Simple, right?

Unfortunately house hunting is not so simple. It's such a big purchase that it causes me to project forward 5-10 years about what I see as the future for my life. Assuming I get tenure (3 years off), there's the question of do I stay here or move? And assuming I stay here, there's the question of how will I be using space in 5 years: Will it still just be me living in the house? Will I be married (and if so will I sell the house and buy a new one?)? Will I have a child? Can the house support having a child without me having to move? If I don't have a child, how will I make good use of the space that I have - Will I rent the basement out to others? Will I provide a place for people in transition (e.g. a postdoc moving mid year or a visiting scholar)? Do I really want other people who aren't related to me living in my house? How will others perceive the house - as pretentiously large since they don't know what I am contemplating? (Do I care what others think?)

And ultimately being that invested in what a house says about my future can lead to great disappointment if the deals fall through. Because instead of feeling like you're walking away from what is really a business deal it feels like walking away from a dream.

Creativity

So I think I've solved the creativity part of the resolution. I'm going to sign up for a digital photography class at the local rec center. (The pottery class meets the same night that I teach a late class and so just doesn't work, even though it would be more messy fun). I think in both cases the medium appeals to my perfectionist streak. Clay that doesn't look right can be mushed up and put back. Digital photos can be deleted. Either way, you don't have your mistakes around to trouble you. I'm also doing a 365 Project blog. You can email me if you want to follow along (photos are a bit more revealing than writing, so I'd like to keep closer track of who's there).