Strings, Rings, and Other Things

On Monday afternoon, I got the official word from the college's Provost that I've been recommended for tenure and promotion to Associate Professor. That's fantastic news: I don't need to suddenly hunt for a new career, and I can keep doing a job I love. (And then I came home, posted a cryptic comment on Facebook, and graded final exams and papers and things for about 20 hours straight, with occasional breaks for meals.)

I've been optimistic about how my review was going to go, and all of my senior colleagues here who commented on my prospects were highly encouraging. (Last week, one of them said, "Well, be sure to let us know once you hear the good news.") But it's not real until you get the official word. (Technically, it's not really real until the Board approves it in February, but the odds of them overturning the decision of the President, Provost, and faculty promotions committee are negligible.)

So, yay! I can finally relax for the holidays (and in general).

Kim and I just got back from a very pleasant trip to see my family in Nebraska over Christmas, which means that it's time for me to buckle down and work hard for a few days. I've got my mid-tenure review portfolio due on the first day of class: the results at this point are purely for my information, but doing a good job so I can get the best possible feedback is tremendously important. (I should probably prepare for my new classes and submit this research paper, too.) It's fairly stressful.

I'm confident that I can do a good job on it: the stress factor comes mostly from time pressure. As I think I've mentioned before, Kim and I leave next weekend to go on a cruise with Jonathan Coulton and a bunch of other cool geeky people. That's awesome (and we promise to tell you all about it, except that we've opted not to pay exorbitant rates for internet on the boat so you won't hear a peep out of us until it's over), but it does mean that the odds of me getting much work done after this week are low. (I could finish a few things up on the boat, but I'm pretty sure that would detract from the quality of both the cruise and the work.) But I'm really looking forward to the trip despite the stress.

Finally, in the "wanna-do" category, I've been trying to figure out how to get a bit more physical activity in my life. While in Nebraska, I visited my old Karate instructor Tim Snyder. (If it means anything to you, our style, Koburyu, is part of the Uechi Ryu family.) It was great to catch up with him, and as I watched a bit of a class I kept finding myself twitching with the urge to join in. My years practicing karate were one of the few times that I've managed to get real exercise on a regular basis, and it was also one of the first activities that convinced me that I could have real success in the physical side of my life, too. Frustratingly, my knee issues mean that a lot of the activities there would be a Bad Idea™ for the foreseeable future. So I'd like to find some injured-knee-friendly activity that can capture my interest as much as karate did. (My teacher pointed out that he has knee problems himself, and that there may be ways of modifying our kata and other exercises to work around such issues. I may look into that.)

Ok. With all that babble out of my system, maybe I can buckle down to work now. Right after lunch. :)

Between normal class work, upcoming job applications, and attempting to submit my recent research for publication before sending said job applications, I'm going to be insanely busy for the next few weeks. So I'm hereby going on LiveJournal hiatus for a while: if all goes as planned, I won't be posting or reading. (Hopefully Kim will pass along anything particularly noteworthy.) I'll (eventually) let you know how all my stuff pans out.