Communication

I am actually working on my teaching philosophy, but was writing about communication in the classroom and kept coming back to a post I keep meaning to write.

I have interacted with a LOT of non-native English speakers over the past 10 years. Teaching English in China being the most intense period, but after that working with many non-native speakers, tutoring non-native speakers, mentoring and teaching non-native speakers, etc. So it is INCREDIBLY frustrating to me when non-native speakers feign ignorance about specific communications. Specifically email communications in recent experiences.

My fellow post-doc, as nice and smart as she is and in spite of the wonderful science conversations we have, just does not read emails. Seriously. Sometimes they are about things like the department retreat. Additionally, if she notices something is broken or not right, she often will not mention it to the lab manager. (I know this because if I find the problem and ask her if she noticed anything previously, she says yes.)

My boss had apparently initially intended to put the other post-doc in charge of coordinating with 4 people to have lunch with a speaker last week. I was in lab when the boss came in and ended up being the one doing it. Not a problem at all. In the email I gave the details and specifically requested people let me know if they could make it because of the limited space and extra people on the list. The day before the spots filled up and I had not heard from one post-doc. I specifically emailed her to say I had not heard from her and the spots were now filled so there was not room for her at lunch. And then she showed up. And we were short one sandwich. And it was awkward.

I have known firsthand how difficult it is to be in a country where you are not comfortable speaking the languages. I have done it three times. It does not make it okay to not try, especially when certain communication is critical for your job.

I am done venting. Back to attempting to write and going to bed...

Writing?

So I have a million things to write (for work) and got little done tonight except going through some job postings I had flagged.

-- The University where I work there are several labs who work on topics similar to the lab in which I work. One in particular is actually a "rival". This is sad because we are at the same school and collaboration should make all of our research progress, right? Due to previous transgressions within the rival lab, the PIs no longer speak. The rival lab just came out with another paper. I need to get my butt in gear on my paper! I have a good start, but it is not nearly ready to submit to a science journal yet! Today I wrote two sentences and changed another paragraph*. This can hardly be called progress.

-- My PI can support my salary until next summer. In about four weeks, I will hear back about a grant that would cover my salary for two years. This is AFTER many application deadlines for tenure-track faculty positions that I have seen online. I have been looking at job postings, but am not feeling the pressure to find THE job yet. However, a high school friend called tonight and asked if I had found anything closer to them...so I checked at specific schools instead of looking at a central site...and found a job at the University where I had really wanted to apply for grad school but then missed the deadline. (I have been frustrated in the past few years when I get spacey and mess something up, but clearly this is nothing new.) AND the deadline isn't until later in October. WOOHOO! Just because of the location and size of the school, I think it would be a great job, and I have more time to get my materials together!!

One might wonder how my teaching and research statements are going for said job applications. (Luckily I keep my CV up-to-date, so that is just a matter of tweaking for a job application.) In a moment of inspiration last night, while reading "How to write your teaching statement", I wrote a chunk of that but then did not finish it. The research statement explaining my immediate and long-term ideas for a research program is still a blank page. AHHHHH!!! I do think about these things when I am not actually writing them, so I like to think that when I do write them I get a lot done at once. Wish me luck.

*I did not ONLY do that today. I also did some experiments and figured out what an undergrad left me with, and fixed an old piece of equipment and figured out some new stuff to order and...

Catch up?

I have kept thinking of posts over the past three and a half weeks, but moved, did not have internet, was out of town, etc., etc.. I am getting settled in and last week finally cooked my first real meal at my new place: pork chops with peaches I picked and bulgar wheat with tomatoes from my new downstairs neighbor and cucumbers.

Today I got my cat back from CF, who has been watching her for three weeks while I moved and went to the MS Challenge Walk back in Massachusetts. As my move got closer and I was still trying to figure out how and when to move my stuff, I started worrying about what to do with my cat. CF, for all of his farming background, still has a soft spot for pets. He gives her more wet food than I do and even started leaving his toilet seat up for her so she could drink out of the toilet (for some reason her preferred water source). The first time I went over there after dropping her off, she ran and hid from me. This weekend she came right up and wanted to be on my lap all weekend. She was NOT happy when I scruffed her to put her back in her carrier to bring her to her new home. You would think I was torturing her?! Then she went straight under the bed after I let her out.

With a screened-in porch, I just left the door open to see how long it would take her to explore out there. After sitting behind an invisible door like this a couple of times, she finally went out and lounged in the sun...and ran back inside any time I came near in case I was mad.

I will be back at some point to post about something. ;-) Life, academia, starting the job search, CF finishing at some point...

The skinny

It has been a LONG month. Only it has flown by because there is so much going on. In the next couple of weeks I will: move, go to the department retreat (if moving goes okay), walk 50 miles on Cape Cod, be alone when I am home because my cat is going to stay at CF's through all of this, and then start a class. In a couple of months CF is moving to another state across a great lake. That is probably a story for another time.

Tomorrow I should be getting my keys/signing a lease so that I can get this view and cut my commute from ~35 miles to ~15. I think that is a good deal. :-)