The Proof Is in the Pudding

A common conversation in our household revolves around my complaint that my husband watches too much t.v. and his retort that I spend too much time on the internet. He often calls me an internet addict, but today I proved him wrong. According to the Internet Addiction Test I scored a 42, which is interpreted as:

You are an average on-line user. You may surf the Web a bit too long at times, but you have control over your usage.

HA! Okay, to be fair, the test was a bit lame. I found it through Wicked Anomie's site and she was more ambitious than I am to give a better critique of the test.

Instead I got diverted into tracking down the saying "the proof is in the pudding."

An Answer for Everything

I was looking forward to spending Thanksgiving with my four-year-old niece, and of course her parents, but their plans for visiting NY fell through. Instead I had to settle for a web chat during which my niece asked me to come over and play. She understands that we live in different states and we're far away from each other, but she doesn't completely grasp time and distance yet. I explained that I couldn't just come over because I lived too far away. To which she spritely replied, "Well just come tomorrow." If only it were that simple.

We followed up today with a quick phone chat, which isn't usually as lively as a web chat, although today was an exception. We ended with our usual exchange where I say "See you later, alligator." But instead of the expected reply, she answered with "See you tomorrow, cutie pie." I'm not sure where that one came from, but it was funny.

You Know It's Time to Leave Work When ...

You try to do something very simple FIVE times (like running a "get file" command in SPSS) and you STILL can't get it right!!! Good grief!

Recuperating

Since returning from the conference in Atlanta on Saturday, I have spent the last two days recuperating. It was a great conference. Professionally I've gotten more out of this conference than any other. I co-authored three papers with graduate students and, thankfully, all three presentations went well. I'm very fortunate to work with ambitious, motivated, and talented graduate students. I also had a series of scheduled and ad hoc meetings regarding various research projects. And, most importantly, I capitalized on several networking opportunities. This has always been the most stressful part of conferences for me since I'd really much rather sit in my hotel room in front of my computer than schmooze with a bunch of unfamiliar academics. Yet as I am strategizing the tenure process, I realize more than ever how important it is for people in the field to know me and my work.

After several weeks of preparation and four very long days of conferencing, I am completely wiped out. I'm glad that it's a holiday week since that will give me some time to shore up energy for the end-of-the-semester push. I definitely have more to say about Atlanta in future posts and I may write more about the conference, depending on how much discretion I choose to exercise. (I am quite tempted to write a post about the top things you should NOT do at conferences. Seriously, sometimes the displays of bad behavior really astound me.)

Coming Up for Air

Whew! It's been a very long month. I've been working like crazy and I've reached my limit. I had to take some time this weekend to come up for air -- taking care of a million household things that I've neglected, spending quality time with the family, watching t.v., reading for fun. It's like I've had blinders on for the past month and now I'm seeing the world differently.

This was insane. I can't keep it up. Fortunately, I don't think I have to. I'm off to a big professional conference this week and then the semester will wind down for me. December is going to be a writing month, but one that I'm looking forward to. I've gotten some good feedback on my work and I'm really excited about my next manuscript. I should be able to have a solid writing period before taking time off for the holidays. But for now, I'm off to Atlanta.

Sometimes Being Cool is Painful

Eddie & I pride ourselves on being a cool aunt and uncle. This is pretty easy when the nieces and nephews are little. Now that my oldest nieces are in the pre-teen phase, it's a whole new ballgame. Since we don't see them regularly, it's harder to keep up with their interests. So, in an effort to keep our cool, we watched High School Musical this evening. Wow! Was that painful! Now I know how my mom felt when she took us to see Grease.

Miscellaneous News Items

While I love the efficiency of Bloglines, I have fallen into a bad habit of checking things to read later and then never finding the time to go back to read them. Today I've decided to catch up on a backlog of news items. Here are some of the interesting tidbits that have been on the backburner:

Cow-killing meteorite sells for $1,554 -- I'm fascinated by the insane amounts of money people are willing to spend on rocks. The meteorite that made the headline is the only one to have caused a fatality, and it was also one of the cheapest rocks at the auction.

Protein a key concern for vegetarians -- I've been very tempted lately to return to vegetarianism (the ovo lacto variety, as I learned in this article), but I have to find a better way of dealing with my severe protein deficiency before I can do so.

Benazir Bhutto -- Although I had been following this story on NPR, I hadn't been able to catch up on all of the details. Bhutto is certainly an interesting and controversial political figure. What deserves mentioning is the fact that she was the first leader of an Islamic country in 1988 and 20 years later we are still seriously debating whether a woman can be president in the U.S. Unbelievable!

Is Dumbledore Gay? Depends on Definitions of ‘Is’ and ‘Gay’ -- The buzz about this little bombshell was certainly amusing, although somewhat pathetic. Who cares? It doesn't matter!