The Inhale Thread !

[ergative]

A grad student I've been worried about submitted a draft of her results chapter in late summer, showing that she absolutely does not understand the first thing about basic linear regression analysis. I had a very worried meeting with her and helped walk her through the results of her analysis, but her demeanour is such that it's hard to tell if she understands or is being polite, and since she'd already sat in on a full semester-long class on basic statistics I was concerned that she didn't really understand how to interpret or write up her results.

Then which she went into labor and then disappeared for three months on maternity leave, only to reappear on the dot of three months later, with a chapter that she'd apparently been working on between our meeting and the birth of her child. And she understands everything! It's clumsy, sure, but she walks through her regression model line by line and explains what everything means and how to interpret it, and it's spot-on!

I've been concerned about her ever since she started writing up because English is not her first language and she struggles with her writing. Adding the statistical problems to that made me very worried. But now I'm not worried about that anymore. The writing still needs help, but the core content of her thesis is very sound. Phew!

[mamselle]

Good for all three of you (baby included)!

I'm mini-celebrating because: a) in the midst of all the music in my music room, I found the original of my freshman theory composition (a four-hand fugue for two players) and b) I finally finished notating it in MuseScore, and it's (pretty close to) right on.

Now to get some people to play it (some will be my students...) and see about publishing it.

It has languished over several moves, doubts, and uncertainties, but I think it's a decent piece for beginners and listening to it after all this time, it still sounds OK, so I'm going for it.

Now, back to the 15 things I should have been doing this afternoon.....

M.   

[Larimar]

The. Semester. Is. Over.

Whew!

Now to start fielding the after-the-deadline whiny emails.
And start preparing for next semester, updating a class I last taught two years ago into synchronous online mode. (That's gonna take a lot of work.)


Larimar

[nonsensical]

It is very wintery and cozy, our Christmas decorations are up, and I got enough sleep last night.

[ergative]

Our TAs are so easy to work with! When they are teaching as part of a team-taught course that I coordinate, they get their work done on time, send me the documents I need by the deadlines, read the instructions about what those documents should contain, and respond really quickly if I ask for corrections.

Faculty colleagues miss deadlines, don't read instructions, and overall are much easier to work with when they delegate their tasks to TAs.

This inhale is because one particularly negligent faculty colleague* has hired a TA, and now her portion of the course tasks is getting done properly, for once. Very nice!

[FishProf]

I won't be chair next year and my replacement is awesome!!!

[mamselle]

I won't be chair next year and my replacement is awesome!!!

Yeeeaaa!!!!!!!

M.

[ergative]

INBOX ZERO!!!

[nonsensical]

INBOX ZERO!!!

An impressive feat indeed! My inbox is not at zero and likely never will be, but I did get a lovely e-mail from a student who took a class with me this fall thanking me for some of the things that I had done in the course and saying some nice things about the class overall. That was a lovely thing to see in between e-mails from people who wanted things from me, people who were rejecting me for things, and people who were unhappy with their grades.

[mamselle]

This is, I hope, an inhale-in-advance.

I do not think hope I will not have to spend 6.5 hours in Zoom calls on New Years Day as I did this past Friday.

Family: 10AM-12:30 PM    2.5 hours

Friends:   2PM - 4PM        2.0 hours

Other friend: 6-8PM         2.0 hours
    TOTAL                       6.5 HOURS

....but who's counting?

Me.....by 8:30 I was fast asleep in bed, I was so zonked....

On va voir...

M.

[apl68]

Our biggest (by far) local property taxpayer has made their annual payment.  Despite their mass layoffs last year, and demolitions of redundant facilities this year, we did not take a big revenue hit this year on their tax assessments.  Next year we surely will, but not taking the loss of property tax revenue this year means an additional 12 months to prepare. 

Meanwhile the city, thanks to sales tax losses this year, has cut its budget for next year by eight percent.  The actual dollar amount is greater than the library's operating budget.  If we were a line item in the city's budget, instead of having our own dedicated library property millage rate, that could have been us that got cut.

We've come through 2020 so much better than we could have.

[nonsensical]

I'm glad that the library is not its own line in that case, apl!

I just looked through my course evaluations for fall and my students said all kinds of nice things. I had a super unpleasant course evaluation experience the first time I taught my own class as a grad student so I've held my breath for every set of evaluations after that, even though they've all been very positive and affirming. I'm glad my students had a good experience overall despite the mess of online teaching/COVID.

[paultuttle]

A fairly significant lower back injury that occurred December 8 is responding well to muscle relaxers and exercise/physical therapy. I can now walk without a cane again (as of three days ago).

Still to be remedied: I cannot sit in an office chair for more than about two hours without a break; I cannot bend over and touch my toes; I cannot tie my own shoes; I cannot pick up something from the floor. And every time I try to roll over in my sleep, the pain in my back wakes me up.

(We're working on getting a new, "orthopedic" office chair. I'm also planning to start doing yoga soon, so I can learn a good bit more of what to do during those breaks from sitting.)

All in all, things are progressing back to normal. Or at least a new normal that I can deal with.

[Langue_doc]

A fairly significant lower back injury that occurred December 8 is responding well to muscle relaxers and exercise/physical therapy. I can now walk without a cane again (as of three days ago).

Still to be remedied: I cannot sit in an office chair for more than about two hours without a break; I cannot bend over and touch my toes; I cannot tie my own shoes; I cannot pick up something from the floor. And every time I try to roll over in my sleep, the pain in my back wakes me up.

(We're working on getting a new, "orthopedic" office chair. I'm also planning to start doing yoga soon, so I can learn a good bit more of what to do during those breaks from sitting.)

All in all, things are progressing back to normal. Or at least a new normal that I can deal with.

My sympathies, especially as I've been there. PT was like life support and continued to be until the pandemic. Keep up with the PT if you can. There's nothing like a trained therapist massaging your back and stretching you out.

[mamselle]

I second that; work on the psoas muscles in particular (the inner ones that link the upper leg to the inside of the spine) to take the strain off the tiny spinalis muscles, which are usually the ones that cramp after being over-stressed in bearing the weight of the pelvis.

Be sure you're not putting your desk so high that you have to raise your shoulders to use your keyboard (even a tiny bit: I sat on telephone books, when they existed, to both raise the level and create a stronger seat; soft seats also make your muscles work too hard rebalancing things), do head-rolls often, and work your shoulders and rib cage as well, since tension can be reflected up and down the spine and from one side to another as the body tries to equilibrate the various parts (skull, the heaviest, etc.) it is responsible for keeping upright and out of gravity's control.

Pull in the stomach muscles (which will activate the psoas) before every movement, without raising the rib cage (which will cause hyperextension in the upper and middle back).

I sleep with a triangular support pillow under my knees since the weight of the legs can also put the lower back out of joint. Now that I'm mostly working with my laptop on my floor, the pillow goes under my knees all day and another support holds up my back: voila, very comfortable (might not work for all).

My back really likes the floor.

Translated: Been there, done that, don't want to make a return visit to that planet....

I hope you feel better soon.

M.