Friday, April 27, 2007

me me me

Here is an update for you all about me!

I was in my University's Town (UT) last week to meet with my committee. For many reasons this was a preemptive strike to help prevent anything bad happening with my dissertation later. Although I felt a little silly paying $150 for a plane ticket for a 20 minute meeting, it was worth it in the end. My committee loves me and thinks I am smart. I just need to make more time for dissertation writing. I was actually doing pretty well this week and have 9!!!! pages of my first chapter, plus various and sundry other bits and pieces. I have fallen off the wagon a little lately, because of my new dog walking job.

That's right, the bakery job is no more. I called while I was in UT to see if I was scheduled to work, only to get a message that the number was disconnected. I finally got a hold of the owner who told me, indeed, the store was closed. So I am waiting for him to mail me my last check, but in the meantime I got in touch with a pet store I had applied to work at way back in January. The woman who owns this place doesn't need any more store help, but she does need some additional dog walkers, so I have been training in that this week. On Wednesday and Thursday I walked 6 hours each day with many dogs. It was fun, but my legs are sore!

Also while I was in UT, I was sitting my advisor's office when the phone rang, and I heard her say "yes, I have two doctoral students." Then she talked a little more and told me that someone from another university was calling to say they needed a person to teach primate biology to gifted high school students for 3 weeks over the summer. So after a whirlwind of applications and a phone interview, I got the job and will be in a different state for all of June, teaching the kiddies about primates! Woo! It is awesome because the university is a good place to make contacts, I'll get more teaching experience AND I will get paid all kinds of money.

So lately we have been working hard around here. I'm trying to plan this summer class which starts in less than two months, and has all kinds of immediate deadlines. I have been dog walking a lot the last few days, which has exhausted me and taken away from my dissertation which I am finally really excited to do, AND I still need to plan my fall primate class, the wedding, AND write two more papers. Poor R is crazy busy too with the end of the semester and his computer just crashed. Right in the middle of writing four papers! It is very sad.

So there is a catch up from me. I have some more books to post, which I might do today as well. I'm also trying to get some work done.

3 comments:

DancingFish said...

Very cool about the class! Sounds like fun!

Anonymous said...

Dog walking in New York sounds like it could be a good job--and a great way to get buff. Of course your committee loves you. That is exciting, though, that you got to experience the love this week. And yay for teaching summer school!

Laura said...

That summer teaching gig sounds very cool. Which state will you be in (if you can say)? Any closer to Minnesota?

The dog walking sounds awesome. Right now I think it would be my dream job...