Well, it's the end of the semester, which means papers and final exams to grade. What joy! I can't believe how quickly my first academic year flew by. I had a breakfast meeting with my dean and a coworker on Wednesday, and there's some promising and great changes going to be proposed from the rank, promotion, and merit committee at our faculty breakfast next week. I think these changes are greatly positive, making the promotion process more transparent and having a review every 2 years to ensure new faculty are "on the right track" with their scholarship, teaching, and service. This is so exciting to me...I definitely don't want to be left in the dark with no clue as to what the committee wants, as another colleague was at a different institution. She submitted her tenure portfolio to the first committee in the process, only to be told she didn't have enough publications, which meant she had to work her butt off for a year to get publications out in order to get tenure. I saw how stressful that was for her, and I don't want to be in that situation. So transparency is a great thing.
As for my performance this year, I am mostly happy with my teaching and service, but not at all happy with my scholarship. I have submitted one manuscript to my coauthor for her revisions, but it hasn't been submitted to the journal yet. I have great ideas for two to four manuscripts from my dissertation, and a student really wants to do a research project with me, which could lead to another publication, or hopefully a poster presentation at the very least. So why can I not get off Facebook, Candy Crush Saga, and Spider Solitaire in order to get these things done??? I wish I could get IT to block these websites somehow (that I couldn't reverse) so that I can be more productive. Not to mention that the rest of this month will be consumed with writing our accreditation candidacy report, department goals, and how our program meets two of the university's core compentencies - ugh!!!
Triathlons - love the nutrition plan and training! I've lost ~20lbs since I started working with Lea in February and I feel great! But tris are another distraction from writing - I'm obsessed with reading blogs of others who are in training and dreaming of when I'm training for big races, like half Ironmans and Ironmans. But it's a healthy distraction :)!
I have a mini-sprint Sunday, almost the same distance as my first triathlon in September 2011: 200 yard swim, 8-mi bike ride, and 2-mi run. My time in that tri was 1hr 24min (that was a 250 swim, 7 bike, 2 run)...I would love to finish this Sunday - my 42nd birthday! - in under an hour but will be moderately happy as long as I finish ahead of my old time - a little nervous, but more excited!
I will provide a race report after Sunday's performance :)
On a somber note, one of my best friend's father is very sick with colon cancer & bowel obstructions. Surgery is scheduled for May 10, but he will be in the hospital with intravenous feedings (TPN) until the surgery day...praying lots for this family, but still feel so helpless and wish I could do more. All of my coworkers are struggling with issues. I feel so bad for them too. But at the same time I feel selfish being so happy with my training, weight loss, and athletic performance. I feel so bad blogging aobut my accomplishments and feelings about tris and tenure track when I should be doing something for these struggling people - what, I don't know, but it feels wrong to concentrate on myself, even though it's good for me right now. Just say a little prayer for me and the rest of my peeps :)
My daughter was chosen to become part of the high school marching band (she's a rising 8th grader) - a great honor! Excited to be a band parent :)
Enough for now...have to go make more protein poppers since my husband loves them and ate all of my last batch :/
Have a great week!
TTT
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