The Inhale Thread !

[apl68]

Glad you and the doctor have a plan.  Hoping it will go well in the weeks and months to come.

[Larimar]

Charlotte, glad to hear you're getting some actual treatment. Hope it works quickly and for the long term.




My first book is going to be published sometime later this year!

I've also been rehired by OnlyGameInTown CC for the Fall. Crossing my fingers I don't get the rug pulled out from under me again.

[mamselle]

Congrats to all with good news'es!

M.

[apl68]

This week we received an uncommonly big donation of children's books.  It looked like the donor had been a standard go-to person for teachers cleaning out classrooms.  Much of the material is old but not ancient, and is still in presentable condition.  We've sorted through it and put a bunch of it away for gradual release on our free table, and in the Little Free Library at a nearby elementary school.  Which has been a success, by the way--every time I check it has been cleaned out, so I keep having to re-stock it.  We've now got plenty of stock for it. 

We also gave a stack of material to a preschool director who was here this morning, and have arranged for our children's services worker to resume visiting them regularly beginning next month.  It's the first preschool we've arranged to start visiting again!  It's good to be able to take another step toward resuming our outreach work.

[smallcleanrat]

After recently venting in the venting thread about doctors not taking me seriously, I went to a new doctor who referred me to a specialist. The specialist informs me that all my symptoms are quite commonly encountered by her, I'm not "just anxious", and has put together a treatment plan for the next few weeks to work on identifying causes and improving symptoms. She already identified some issues that are contributing but she wants to consider everything. She spent an hour with me and then set me up with ice packs, heating pad, and a tens machine for twenty minutes to make sure I felt okay to drive home afterwards since the evaluation aggravated my symptoms.

So relieved to be taken seriously. So relieved to be shown descriptions of symptoms that match mine. So relieved to have a plan in place and the potential to eventually not be in pain!

Wonderful news!

It's awful to have your suffering dismissed as "just stress" or anxiety. Being dismissed never feels great, but being dismissed when you are suffering can feel intolerable,

Also awful: having people judgmentally ask "Are you still having that issue? Why don't you see a doctor?" after being told by so many doctors "You're fine. Go away."

I hope you feel better very soon!

[Vkw10]

My request to convert an excellent part-time instructor to full-time non-tenure track faculty with three-year renewable contract was approved today. Department's budget was increased $2,000 to cover standard NTT professional development allocation and we got a new employee technology allocation.

[mamselle]

Good for all of you!

Win-win-win-win-win!

M.

[apl68]

Made it through a very hectic week at work, got past my little aches and pains, and we are now enjoying our third straight day of pleasant weather out.

Yesterday at a Zoom meeting our State Librarian spoke about American Rescue Plan Act funding that they are administering for the state.  She explained how the distribution of funds to counties takes into consideration population, poverty rates, and levels of internet access.  Further dividing up funds within some counties with multiple libraries was a challenge for which she sought input from the library directors involved.  She said that she encountered multiple cases of directors urging her to direct funds away from their own libraries to neighboring communities that needed it more.  It's nice to be in a profession where colleagues look out for each other like that.

[mamselle]

That's indeed cool.

My inhale: I made it through the week's conference papers, giving my own, first; then I heard several VERY good ones, enjoyed almost all the sessions, and only had two instances in which I had to think hard about what to say and how to say it while wanting to blow up big time.

One was just a "shrug and go" situation. The other was a new scholar in a literary field who was trying to "use dance rhetorically" in interpreting a verbal source. In some ways, their efforts made sense, but their use of the terms they were translating are fraught with problems and--not being at all versed in that area of work, or knowing the literature-they were all over the place in usage, implications of movement involved, etc.

AND they've already published, which means it's hopeless...I'd love to just drop everything and write a rebuttal but...that's just not possible right now.

At least we made peace in the chat.

And the last session made up for it.

The conference now has a new name, too: K'Zoom...

M.

[ergative]

Dear Dr Ergative,

. . . Assuming that these issues can be resolved in a manner that doesn't cause fundamental problems for your analysis, I anticipate that we will be able to accept the paper after your next revision (perhaps pending minor changes) . . .

Best,
Editor in Chief of Absolutely Positively Top Journal in Your Field

Update!

Dear Dr Ergative and colleagues,

I am writing about your manuscript, '[Extremely Exhausting Paper]', that has been under consideration at [ABSOLUTELY TOP JOURNAL IN FIELD]. Dr. [Associate Editor] has read your most recent revision together with your cover nore, and she recommends that the paper be accepted for publication at this point. Her report is included below.

Based on my own reading of the paper, I am happy to support this recommendation. This is, as Dr. [Associate Editor] notes, a complicated paper. But you have done a masterful job of making the complexities as accessible as possible, and I think that this paper will be of interest to a broad range of researchers in [Theoretical Topic A], [Theoretical + Applied Topic B], [Theoretical + Applied Topic C], and those interested in [Computational Topic D]

Thank you for having worked with us through the various revisions of this paper. I appreciate that you were always willing to take the feedback of the reviewers on board, and I think that it resulted in a better, more accessible, paper. I look forward to seeing this paper in [I REPEAT ABSOLUTELY TOP JOURNAL IN FIELD]!

[Puget]

Congrats ergative, well done! Especially nice to get personalized appreciative comments form the editor like that- most of those emails are boilerplate.

[Harlow2]

That's wonderful, Ergative!  Those are stellar comments.

[mamselle]

Wow.

So glad for you!

And not at all (well, maybe a tiny bit....) envious.

You really did work through all the revisions, as noted there, and recorded several times here, with a good will.

I'm taking that as a model to remember.

M.

[apl68]

Congratulations, ergative!

[ergative]

A really bright undergraduate of mine wants to do a research master's and maybe PhD. She emailed to ask for a meeting to discuss it, and then politely nudged me when I forgot to answer. Then, after our meeting, she emailed to summarize what we'd agreed the next steps of her application would be, and dates by which things would get done. This student always introduces herself by full name and which class I know her from whenever she emails me--even though she's been in three of my classes over the last year and I was her advisor for her senior honors project. It's always such a joy to work with people who are not only bright in the core content, but also have all their logistical baggage thoroughly under control. She should give lessons to all undergraduates about how to deal with faculty.