1. This has not been a great blogging year, as you may have noticed. I have been writing and editing at work, and I seem to have some limits on how frequently I can dip into that writing/editing reservoir before I weary of the sound of my own voice.
2. The good news is that things are going well on the research front: I had a paper accepted a couple of weeks ago -- the one that was rejected in June from the flagship journal in my field. I got the proofs back today and the queries look straightforward -- mostly tidying references. I also got really enthusiastic reviews -- the most enthusiastic I've ever received -- about the paper I wrote last fall. Stop me if I already told you this (oh, wait, the thing about blogging is you're stuck with me if I'm being repetitive), but one reviewer said, "This paper should be published as quickly as possible." And I'm working on an IRB protocol for a project that promises to be super-interesting-- mostly my idea, mostly other people's primary expertise, which seems to mean I get to do the fun parts. So far, anyway.
3. I am trying to remember when I learned what an IRB protocol was, and I think I must have been a doctoral student. The IRB is the board that reviews all research involving human subjects, and the protocol is the document in which you tell them exactly what you're going to do and exactly how it could go wrong. Our IRB is tough. They tend to ask questions like, "But how will you REALLY KNOW if your participants are upset??" I'm optimistic that we're most of the way there, but sometimes the process makes me want to say, "Listen, we are recording their voices. This is a LOW-RISK procedure."
4. Right now I also have another paper under review, one with a lot of my heart in it. It's tricky writing about things that make me passionate, because the emotional investment is inevitable. I revised it extensively -- no, that's not right. I need a word like fortississimo. Extensensensively. The reviewers had lots of stuff for my co-author and me to do, and so we did it. It spent 3 weeks with the associate editor and now it's beginning its fifth week with the editor. That's a little weird. I hope it doesn't mean bad news, because I will be crushed like a sad bug if it gets rejected after all of that revising. Maybe throw up a quick prayer to Our Lady of La Leche for me if you're so inclined. (<-Hint as to topic. So excited about the prospect of getting this paper in this journal. Too bad my refresh key does not ring a little bell inside the editor's brain. Although on second thought that would probably be a really dreadful state of affairs.)
5. This semester I am only teaching one class, the one I prepped last semester. It's going much better the second time around, as classes always seem to do. Fifty students this time, and I think I finally have everybody's names and faces linked up. I probably won't be teaching this one again for a while, so I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.
6. There is one unpleasant task on the docket: the supplemental materials for my recently accepted article have needed tidying and OH MY GOODNESS it is a huge task. Huge. And unbeLIEVably boring. My poor GAs deserve, like, a pony apiece after all the slogging they have been doing. (We are editing a giant document, something like 15,000 lines long in its original incarnation, great swaths of which required cleaning up. Is zitbutt a word? Is ying? Is morn being used as a word or is it just a word fragment? Talk about decision fatigue. But! The end! Is in sight!)
7. Gosh, that was a whole bunch of words all about work. Life is good; kids are good. I'm working toward that spring 10K again, and last week I took Stella to family Zumba. She thought dancing together was the best thing ever and has asked every day since if it's time to go back to Zumba (though she tends to mangle the name. What's that fun thing that starts with a Z, mom?). Today there were more girls in class, and I was surprised to see that the moms were sitting on the bench, hanging out on their phones. I spent ten minutes on the bench, feeling self-conscious about wanting to be out there with the kids, and then I thought, "This is silly, self. You came for some mother-daughter fun and the instructor says parents are welcome to be on the floor. Get out there!" So I did, shrugging off my stubborn self-consciousness for the rest of the class.
Afterward the instructor encouraged one of the moms to try it herself next week. "Oh," she said with embarrassment, "I'm not coordinated enough for Zumba." I'd been thinking the whole time that she was too cool for family Zumba, and that wasn't it at all. At all!
Recent Comments