What happened on…

… October 14th that brought twice as much traffic to our blog as usual?

The past few weeks

So yes, for those that keep track, it’s been quiet here.  Why?  Because ever since teaching began, there’s been one thing after another that’s been due outside of my regular teaching duties (which are making lectures (this involves actually reading the book!), homeworks, solutions and grading).  And I’ve found that as soon as there is just one other thing, I no longer have a life. What’s been mindboggling is that things have just kept piling up.

• August 31st I found out that the paper I submitted on June 28 (yes, less than a week after arriving in Iceland) was accepted as long as I made ‘minor’ revisions within 30 days.  It turns out trying to appease three reviewers is a non-trivial mental exercise. This pretty much screwed up September.
• September 2nd:  Sent in an abstract to the 2010 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco this coming December (I’ll be there!).  A friend mentioned the deadline in an email less than a week before the abstract was due.  It prompted a minor crazy-fit and I decided I’d go, if for nothing else but to see old friends, visit the Great Outlet Mall in Milpetas (Carter’s! Osh-Kosh! Gap! Banana Republic!) on a subsidized plane ticket – oh and score a ‘research point’.
• September 16th: Gave a shortened and simplified version of my thesis defense talk at the IEEE-Iceland annual meeting.  The lead time for this was two weeks (yes, when the paper, and the abstract hit).  Initially I was going to translate it all, but 1-2 days into the translation process I threw in the translation-towel and gave the talk in English.
• October 4th: Actually sent in the revised paper, after getting an extension.  Mind freed up somewhat.
• October 9th: Presented a poster at the R-VoN 2010 Symposium here at the University of Iceland.  (Also served as a session chair, but that didn’t drain any mental capacity, just time.)
• October 14th: Held my first ever midterm exam.  I finished making the exam copies at 11pm the night before.  Ironically, that meant I was in bed about two hours earlier than usual on a Wednesday night because I teach my class at 8:20am on Thursdays – and I’m never done with my lecture by the end of Wednesday’s workday (most often I haven’t even started it).

Oh, and all the ‘research-related’ items are basically re-hashes of my Ph.D. Thesis Project That Just Won’t Die!!  (To paraphrase The Simpsons: Die Project, Die!)

Making things just slightly more tricky is that I signed up for an ‘Introductory Course on Teaching at a University‘ which has been a form of soul-food (sanity-saver even?) but also taken up a bit of time.  It’s been very valuable to be able to meet up with other teachers every two weeks and just converse about teaching.  I guess one could even call it a small ‘support group’ for teachers. 🙂  The ‘tricky’ part is that this is actually a course, so there is some required reading, which is often in a language I barely understand (Phenomenography anyone?).  But it’s given me ideas to try in my own teaching, which I’ve enjoyed.

Thankfully though, I think there is nothing solidly pending in particular until the end of November (there await a Research Group talk, making of final exams, making of AGU poster, actually traveling to California).  In the meantime my goal is to be done with Thursday’s lecture before the end of work on Wednesday, and Monday’s lecture by end of work on Friday.

Oh, and then there’s the small matter of me agreeing to teach “Antennas and Wave Propagation” this next semester, where there is no master book to lean on, because it’s been taught by a radio amateur guy for decades.  Essentially, I’ll have to actually pull this course together somehow.  Thankfully the old (now retired) teacher is still around, so I’m sure I’ll get lots of pointers, but still.  Eeek!  Oh, and I’m also contractually obligated to contemplate future comm-courses for when the economy turns around and the University gets a bit of funding again…

So, that’s why I’ve been quiet.  Not a lot of mind space.  But it’s clearing up, at least momentarily now. 🙂