The vinhale thread?

[OneMoreYear]

Inhale: Taking a vacation next week!
Vent: I am now sick
Inhale: It's not COVID! Tested negative twice to make sure.
Vent: I still feel like crap.
Inhale: At least I do not have to go to work.
Vent: But, I'll be sick on vacation.

[mamselle]

@paultuttle:

Good luck, sounds like progressive baby steps at least with your folks' awareness of and willingness to accommodate various realistic scenarios. We could never get my folks to that point.

@OneMoreYear

Arrgh!!! I hope you recover quickly enough to be able to enjoy at least SOME of your non-work-scheduled time.

M.

[Harlow2]

Sending wishes for recovery to OMY, Ab_Grp, and ALH, and echoing the sentiments PaulTuttle expressed.

[ergative]

Inhale: Taking a vacation next week!
Vent: I am now sick
Inhale: It's not COVID! Tested negative twice to make sure.
Vent: I still feel like crap.
Inhale: At least I do not have to go to work.
Vent: But, I'll be sick on vacation.

Oh, how frustrating. I hope your illness resolves in time for you to enjoy your vacation.

Me now:

Vent: A student failed to submit some Very Important Paperwork four years ago, and now is facing the consequences.
Inhale: I was not the student's primary supervisor at the time, so it's (probably) not going to land on my head. Student's primary supervisor on the time is a very senior colleague and is taking the lead on figuring out how to fix it.
Vent: It was our responsibility to check that the VIP was filed, and we totally screwed it up. Also, I'm now the student's current primary supervisor, so I'm in the soup too.
Inhale: The student seems to have still done all the actual things that the VIP was intended to ensure get done, so it may be possible to file the VIP retrospectively.
Vent: I finally managed to take a proper three-week vacation (I know!) and discovered the problem right at the beginning of the vacation, and it has been lurking and ruining my sleep the entire time.
Inhale: I still have a few days left of my leave, and Senior Colleague seems to be handling things without requiring my involvement (yet). Still not clear whether things are handleable, but it's nice to have a comrade in this taking the lead.
Vent. Arrrgh.

[ergative]

Vent: A student failed to submit some Very Important Paperwork four years ago, and now is facing the consequences.
Inhale: I was not the student's primary supervisor at the time, so it's (probably) not going to land on my head. Student's primary supervisor on the time is a very senior colleague and is taking the lead on figuring out how to fix it.
Vent: It was our responsibility to check that the VIP was filed, and we totally screwed it up. Also, I'm now the student's current primary supervisor, so I'm in the soup too.
Inhale: The student seems to have still done all the actual things that the VIP was intended to ensure get done, so it may be possible to file the VIP retrospectively.
Vent: I finally managed to take a proper three-week vacation (I know!) and discovered the problem right at the beginning of the vacation, and it has been lurking and ruining my sleep the entire time.
Inhale: I still have a few days left of my leave, and Senior Colleague seems to be handling things without requiring my involvement (yet). Still not clear whether things are handleable, but it's nice to have a comrade in this taking the lead.
Vent. Arrrgh.

Ah, a rapid update! Senior Colleague seems to have fixed it.

[paultuttle]

Vent: A student failed to submit some Very Important Paperwork four years ago, and now is facing the consequences.
Inhale: I was not the student's primary supervisor at the time, so it's (probably) not going to land on my head. Student's primary supervisor on the time is a very senior colleague and is taking the lead on figuring out how to fix it.
Vent: It was our responsibility to check that the VIP was filed, and we totally screwed it up. Also, I'm now the student's current primary supervisor, so I'm in the soup too.
Inhale: The student seems to have still done all the actual things that the VIP was intended to ensure get done, so it may be possible to file the VIP retrospectively.
Vent: I finally managed to take a proper three-week vacation (I know!) and discovered the problem right at the beginning of the vacation, and it has been lurking and ruining my sleep the entire time.
Inhale: I still have a few days left of my leave, and Senior Colleague seems to be handling things without requiring my involvement (yet). Still not clear whether things are handleable, but it's nice to have a comrade in this taking the lead.
Vent. Arrrgh.

Ah, a rapid update! Senior Colleague seems to have fixed it.

Cross-postable on the Inhale thread, perhaps?

Congratulations! And try to relax during the rest of your vacation, now that that particular monkey's off your back.

[mamselle]

From the student's perspective, glad you all caught it and fixed it.

Responsible advisors are a treasure.

M.

[Harlow2]

Vent: My air conditioning finally died yesterday, and it's continuing to be in the 90s here.
Inhale: It's not as bad as it was earlier in the week
Vent: There aren't any replacement units around; its central air; could be 3-5 weeks before a unit arrives
Inhale: The HVAC people have window units to loan
Vent: The HOA wont let us install window units (dangerous unsightly)
Inhale: My electric bill will be low this month! And I got 29 years out of the unit that just gave up the ghost. And I'm leaving for vacation in a northerly clime in a week (it's always cool there)
Inhale again.  An HOA member just brought over a window unit. I can sleep tonight!

[ergative]

Vent: My air conditioning finally died yesterday, and it's continuing to be in the 90s here.
Inhale: It's not as bad as it was earlier in the week
Vent: There aren't any replacement units around; its central air; could be 3-5 weeks before a unit arrives
Inhale: The HVAC people have window units to loan
Vent: The HOA wont let us install window units (dangerous unsightly)
Inhale: My electric bill will be low this month! And I got 29 years out of the unit that just gave up the ghost. And I'm leaving for vacation in a northerly clime in a week (it's always cool there)
Inhale again.  An HOA member just brought over a window unit. I can sleep tonight!

Yay, happy ending! Ridiculous that the HOA was considering not allowing life-saving appliances in life-threatening heat because uNsIgHtLy. I'm glad they seem to have reconsidered.

[ergative]

Vent: Something that has been my responsibility since I started my job five and a half years ago is blowing up in a very tiresome, predictable way that we kind of saw coming and were powerless to prevent, because somehow the central timetabling people are incapable of understanding that if you reduce room capacity, there won't be enough room for all the students, and simply splitting the class into a second section does not solve the problem if you can't also produce a second instructor.

Inhale: I passed it off to someone else just last week, and it is now no longer my problem. For once, it's blowing up in someone else's lap. Poor fellow. Godspeed, and good luck.

[OneMoreYear]

Vent: IT decided to get rid of one of our video recording systems to streamline things (that part is OK) and claimed that they would migrate any videos recorded on the defunct system to a video archive.  I do not see any of my class-related videos in the supposed archive. When I sign in, it is empty.
Inhale: Assuming that something like this might happen, I spent hours stripping videos from the old system and downloading them in MP4 format to my harddrive.
Vent: I use a lot of demonstration video across multiple classes, and I'm sure I did not get them all.
Inhale: I did not lose all of my work.
Vent: It will be even more of a pain to set up my LMS course pages this semester.
Inhale: The videos recorded on the other video system appear to be intact.
Vent: I am tired already and the semester hasn't even started.

[mamselle]

Is someone named Wrey in charge of your IT department?

M.

[paddington_bear]

It's instructional to be prepping syllabi at the same time that you're reading course evals from last semester.

Vent: As much as I obsess over syllabi's font/line spacing/etc., students don't care. Or at least, they don't comment on it.
Inhale: This should free me to make it look how I want.
Vent: Students don't care/comment about the design of slides.
Inhale: See inhale above.
Vent: I waste a lot of my time/life thinking that I'm doing things that make a difference or that people care about.
Inhale: They (ultimately) do not.

[mamselle]

Slide design (Suggestions: may vary in some cases, but for guidelines)

   Headers: 40-45 pts is good, you can squeeze down to 36 if space is tight

   Body: 18 pts is bare min., 20-24 is better
       Some say no more than 6 bulleted lines, I routinely blow past that when describing, say,
           processional movements depicted on a cathedral ground plan that need to reflect several stops,
           starts, chants, etc., all following on each other in order.

   Captions/credits, links at bottom: 12 works, in a pinch; 14-16 is better.

Parameters may help contain obsessing tendencies--somedays, sometimes...

M.

[paddington_bear]

I think my slides are good on many of the issues you've mentioned. I think I was just responding to how much unnecessary effort I put into them somehow thinking that students are going to write in the evals, "Her slides were organized and well put together! Easy to understand!" But that's not what students use (the university) evals for. It's not that they don't necessarily appreciate them; I would just like more external validation, I think. (The story of my life.)  LOL!  (Especially over the past few years, it's exhausting trying to do things geared at improving the student experience, but not see any appreciation of it reflected back at you.)