It’s winter break season here– what everyone else in the universe refers to as “spring break.” Given that it’s February and it’s a slushy/icy mess outside right now, winter break seems a lot more accurate to me.
This year, we’re not visiting relatives in Florida nor are we off to Mexico (the destination of several of my colleagues with their families). We’re hanging out here, where my wife and I both hope to catch up on work while our son is in school and in various after-school activities. As long as there aren’t any snow days.
Here’s some of what’s on my “to do” list this week:
Make listAlways the first item I put on every list I make.
Go through email
Register for Computers and Writing Don’t worry, Jeff– I’m coming, but I just don’t want to spend the big bucks any earlier than I have to.
Clean House
Clean Garage
Clean Dog
Clean computer labs at EMU. Actually, this one got done on Friday. Long-story short: we have had always had problems getting our computer labs cleaned, in part because the janitors can’t get in their for security issues, and in part because no faculty person is in charge of these labs right now. Anyway, after a series of complaints, I said I’d help clean it ourselves, and I persuaded a “crew” that consisted of Steve B., my colleague Christine Tracy, a long-time journalism lecturer (thanks, Arnie!) and even our department head, Laura George. Laura generously invested in a variety of cleaning supplies, including a cheap shop-vac (btw, one of the best tools ever for sucking the dirt and dust out of computers, IMO). Besides dusting, washing, and mopping up the general filth, we also threw away four giant construction-grade plastic bags of junk: software at least six years old still in the box and the shrink-wrap, stacks of manuals for some mystery product (also still in the shrink-wrap), journals and articles a decade old, cables and plus and adapters for mystery bits of equipment, old course packs and student projects, papers folders and posters, and, inexplicably, one pinata.
Work on The Process of Research Writing web site. When my textbook project went belly-up last year, I started to put it up on the web. As happens in life, I got distracted with other things. But now I’m feeling like it’s time for me to put this thing up to bring some closure to this project.
Clean my school office.
Work on the Department Conference coming up the first week in March.
Get English 516 stuff up to date.
Get English 328 stuff up to date.
Sign up English 516 folks for class blog.
Get busy (again) with BAWS project. I really would like to get the survey/Human Subjects Review stuff going before the end of this week.
Go to the gym more.
Wait patiently for delivery people. I ordered a new home computer the other day, a 20 inch iMac along with a second 19 inch monitor. I know, it’s overkill, but it’ll be my overkill. Stay tuned for details.
Hmm, seems ambitious. I guess if I finish half of this, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something….
I’ll be interested to hear how the two monitor setup works for you. I did it years ago with a Mac and it drove me nuts because the menu bar has to live on one screen. It was cool for working with pallette-happy applications, but for a lot of applications it really slowed me down.
Actually, the reason I am so looking forward to this is that I have a set-up like this in my school office. I blogged about it here. At first, I hooked up a second monitor to my office computer on a lark, a sort of “this one goes up to 11” moment. And I do hear what you’re saying about the location of the menu bar only on one screen– that takes some getting used to. But what I like about this set-up is I can have a web browser and a word file open at the same time, not to mention small iTunes and Mail windows. So I’m looking forward to it.
I know my limits and won’t go into super-strange OCD mode about it. I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with ‘over-doing it’ other than throwing insults around at people.