Post Part the First - The Trip:
We got back last night from a five day trip to grad school city - the Dutchman had a conference to attend there and we combined it will the opportunity to see all our old friends (saw JB, who agreed to let me indulge one of my fern bar vices!). We had an amazingly wonderful time! We saw all the new babies, consumed a startling amount of food and alcohol, laughed until we were hoarse - I told the Dutchman at one point that it was like swimming in friendship. And that's exactly how it felt - to be with all of them again on various days at various meals really drove home how much I miss them and miss grad school city - even after two years of living elsewhere.
I'm sorry I've been terribly remiss in updating my blog from the road (or in keeping up with others), but the computer at the hotel was right in the middle of the lobby. Not only was there a perpetually long line to use the thing - making me realize that I could only check email and put out the two dozen student-involved fires - but that anyone and everyone who was checking into the hotel, would read your email over your shoulder. However, the hotel WAS FREE because the Dutchman's conference paid for the whole thing - we only had a $44 tab to clear up when we left and that was because I ordered room service and a pay per view movie one day (Deja Vu - pretty good thriller!).
Post Part the Second - How We Got Back:
Some of you might have noticed that the entire eastern seaboard got hammered by a nor'easter on Sunday and Monday. We got caught in that. For various reasons, the local airport had to close the next day (Monday) and our flight out was canceled. They bumped us to Wednesday morning, which was the earliest we would have been able to get back. WELL, I have exams to write and continue to put out student fires - that won't do! So, the Dutchman and I rented a car and drove it the whole long way back (about 11 hours given the weather) - we drove through the nasty part of the storm that was still happily clinging to the Northeast - a blizzard in between two major cities that you've heard of - going 40 miles an hour on the highway (while the trucks go 80) at night! But we're now safely home and it's back to work for us both today. In the end, we're getting our plane tickets partially refunded and that will more than pay for the cost of renting a car, so we'll save a few bucks when all is said and done.
One thing I was particularly happy about was that the car we rented had Sirius satellite radio (which meant all 80s all the time), but it also had NPR all the time - we were able to keep updated about the horrible Virginia Tech shooting. My cousin goes to school there and we heard from his mom that he was safe, but in lockdown in his dormroom. I don't know if he knew anyone who was hurt or killed in the shooting...
I will post more on individual loveliness with friends, etc. as soon as I finish these piles of grading and write these stinkin' exams! It'll all be over by Sunday!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Checking in from the ether
I'm still alive! I still exist! And I still....don't have much to blog about or much time to do it!
Classes = over tomorrow - hallelujah!
Leaving on Thursday for 5 days in grad school city - will see JB while there, yay! It's all about the cheesecake...
End of term papers? Haven't even looked at them and I've already had one of the THREE sets for a week. I'll dutifully bring them with me on my trip, but something tells me they won't be done.
Finals = not written.
Laundry = half done
Cat box = scooped
Hair = highlighted (Oh, wait...I forgot my usual answer...."yes, I'm a *natural* blonde"...)
How are you all bloggers??
Classes = over tomorrow - hallelujah!
Leaving on Thursday for 5 days in grad school city - will see JB while there, yay! It's all about the cheesecake...
End of term papers? Haven't even looked at them and I've already had one of the THREE sets for a week. I'll dutifully bring them with me on my trip, but something tells me they won't be done.
Finals = not written.
Laundry = half done
Cat box = scooped
Hair = highlighted (Oh, wait...I forgot my usual answer...."yes, I'm a *natural* blonde"...)
How are you all bloggers??
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Happy Snowy Easter
Gimme a Cadbury Cream Egg or expect a hairball in your shoe tomorrow morning before you teach...
(keeping those easter blogging traditions alive!)
Friday, April 6, 2007
Friday Recipe Blogging
This is my first official recipe blog at my new pad and I want it to be a yummy "company dish" as Medieval Mom would call it. This is also a bit more on the lighter side than the cream-laden, deep fried recipes I usually blog (but fear not! Next week will be BBQ Ribs).
Crab Stuffed Flounder
- 1 1/2 lbs. flounder fillets
- 1 cup crabmeat, drained and flaked (you can get this from a couple of cans)
- 1 tbsp. finely chopped green bell pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground dry mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ground pepper to taste
- 3 crushed saltine crackers
- 1 egg (separate yolk from white into two bowls)
- 6 (total) tbsps. mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 tbsp. dried parsley
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (200 C). Rinse the fillets and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Combine crab meat, green pepper, mustard powder, Worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and the crushed saltines.
3. Combine the egg white and 1 tbsp. of the mayo; stir this into the crab meat mixture.
4. Brush the flounder fillets with melted butter; place them in a lightly greased (or Pammed), shallow baking dish.
5. Spoon the crab mixture over the fillets and drizzle with any remaining butter.
6. Bake the fillets at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
7. While the fish is baking, lightly beat the egg yolk in a small bowl. Stir in 5 tbsps mayo.
8. Remove fillets from over and spread this mixture over the stuffing; sprinkle with paprika and parsley.
9. Increase oven temp to 450 and bake until golden and bubbly: about 6 minutes.
Crab Stuffed Flounder
- 1 1/2 lbs. flounder fillets
- 1 cup crabmeat, drained and flaked (you can get this from a couple of cans)
- 1 tbsp. finely chopped green bell pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon ground dry mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ground pepper to taste
- 3 crushed saltine crackers
- 1 egg (separate yolk from white into two bowls)
- 6 (total) tbsps. mayonnaise
- 1/4 cup butter, melted
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 tbsp. dried parsley
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (200 C). Rinse the fillets and pat dry with paper towels.
2. Combine crab meat, green pepper, mustard powder, Worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and the crushed saltines.
3. Combine the egg white and 1 tbsp. of the mayo; stir this into the crab meat mixture.
4. Brush the flounder fillets with melted butter; place them in a lightly greased (or Pammed), shallow baking dish.
5. Spoon the crab mixture over the fillets and drizzle with any remaining butter.
6. Bake the fillets at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
7. While the fish is baking, lightly beat the egg yolk in a small bowl. Stir in 5 tbsps mayo.
8. Remove fillets from over and spread this mixture over the stuffing; sprinkle with paprika and parsley.
9. Increase oven temp to 450 and bake until golden and bubbly: about 6 minutes.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Random Bits of Fluff
I've been highly remiss in posting over the last few days - I've been back in the grading ghetto (actually, my time in the exercise yard is almost up - I need to get back to my cell).
My teaching week is over now and today was great because my T.A. taught both my courses! I got another set of papers in today and two more next week - I need to figure out why I decided to assign so many frickin' papers this semester...
I just poked my nose outside and saw that it's snowing, which is truly perverse because it's supposed to be April.
I haven't been keeping up on my blog reading - I hope everyone is doing well! I'll catch up in the next couple of days!
My teaching week is over now and today was great because my T.A. taught both my courses! I got another set of papers in today and two more next week - I need to figure out why I decided to assign so many frickin' papers this semester...
I just poked my nose outside and saw that it's snowing, which is truly perverse because it's supposed to be April.
I haven't been keeping up on my blog reading - I hope everyone is doing well! I'll catch up in the next couple of days!
Sunday, April 1, 2007
It's that time of year...
...for evaluations. I'm giving mine out the last day of class which is next week (not this coming one). This time of year, I start looking at my classes a little bit more closely - noting their reactions to things more (grades, chiding about turning work in on time, coming to class on time, etc.). It's not that I'm clueless to them for the rest of the semester, but it's just that I start to think about the usual griping in the class (both theirs and mine) as fodder for evaluations. There's not enough time for the petty annoyances to wear off and the ones that have been brewing all semester (and there are more than a few with so many students) are coming to a head.
Like most of us, I'm sure, I usually get good evals overall, but I've also been absolutely eviscerated on a few. When the student obviously takes that opportunity to systematically annihilate your teaching skills, your knowledge, your class policies, your wardrobe, you name it. The other day in the student center, I was killing time before class and I heard these girls at the next table absolutely ripping on one of their professors - it was like a scene from that tacky (yet oh so enticing) movie "Mean Girls." Finally, the ringleader said, "none of it matters because we'll still pass the class and we're all going to totally take that bitch down in her evaluations!" I choked, tried desperately to keep Coke Zero from coming out my nose, and ran away, sprinkling holy water over my shoulder, and thanking whoever's up there that this little chick was not one of mine.
Now, these uber-snarky and completely over the top evals (the Dutchman would call them "statistical outliers" to be discarded from the data set) are obviously just a few students' passive-aggressive displacement about what is ultimately their own poor performance in the class. Some of their complaints hold water, but if they hold water, they usually aren't snarky, just honest. As this semester winds down, and my mind has turned to evaluations, I've realized that I'm in a unique position this year (and even for the last year or two) because none of these evals will ever be placed in my tenure file, etc. They're like 4 semesters of "gimmes" - I've read them and I've learned from many of them and chafed at a few of them, which is basically what they're intended to do (I think the unofficial purpose for evals is to make profs grow thicker skins - mine gets a bit thicker every term). This semester, I'm particularly pleased because I'm teaching all classes I've never taught before, that are not in my area of expertise, and one of which is not even in the English Dept. If there was ever a year to "try classes out for free", it's this one.
What I'm wondering, though, is about other people's experiences with evals and tenure cases or pre-tenure review cases. When I look at my evals, it's painfully obvious to me which comments form an actual pattern of something I need to work on or something I did right and which ones are just individuals being nasty or being totally glowing (but I'm always happy to get tons of the latter). Do promotion and tenure committees overall make this distinction? Or is it just completely different given the institution/committees?
Like most of us, I'm sure, I usually get good evals overall, but I've also been absolutely eviscerated on a few. When the student obviously takes that opportunity to systematically annihilate your teaching skills, your knowledge, your class policies, your wardrobe, you name it. The other day in the student center, I was killing time before class and I heard these girls at the next table absolutely ripping on one of their professors - it was like a scene from that tacky (yet oh so enticing) movie "Mean Girls." Finally, the ringleader said, "none of it matters because we'll still pass the class and we're all going to totally take that bitch down in her evaluations!" I choked, tried desperately to keep Coke Zero from coming out my nose, and ran away, sprinkling holy water over my shoulder, and thanking whoever's up there that this little chick was not one of mine.
Now, these uber-snarky and completely over the top evals (the Dutchman would call them "statistical outliers" to be discarded from the data set) are obviously just a few students' passive-aggressive displacement about what is ultimately their own poor performance in the class. Some of their complaints hold water, but if they hold water, they usually aren't snarky, just honest. As this semester winds down, and my mind has turned to evaluations, I've realized that I'm in a unique position this year (and even for the last year or two) because none of these evals will ever be placed in my tenure file, etc. They're like 4 semesters of "gimmes" - I've read them and I've learned from many of them and chafed at a few of them, which is basically what they're intended to do (I think the unofficial purpose for evals is to make profs grow thicker skins - mine gets a bit thicker every term). This semester, I'm particularly pleased because I'm teaching all classes I've never taught before, that are not in my area of expertise, and one of which is not even in the English Dept. If there was ever a year to "try classes out for free", it's this one.
What I'm wondering, though, is about other people's experiences with evals and tenure cases or pre-tenure review cases. When I look at my evals, it's painfully obvious to me which comments form an actual pattern of something I need to work on or something I did right and which ones are just individuals being nasty or being totally glowing (but I'm always happy to get tons of the latter). Do promotion and tenure committees overall make this distinction? Or is it just completely different given the institution/committees?
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