it’s that time of the year again…

Conference time and job market time is here!
The summer has gone by so fast. It’s been a blur of teaching, planning lectures, and grading. I appreciate so much having the teaching experience, but lecturing 4 times a week is killer. It’s too much packed in a too short a period of time and it’s hard [...]

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Where I’ve been

Jeez, I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks since my last post. Last week at this time I was in Savannah for the SWS Winter Meeting. I was in Savannah for 5 days and with all the travel prep before that (doing laundry and packing at the last meeting) and then getting caught up on [...]

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Worlds of Work

I’m finally unwound enough from the conference this past weekend to be able to write about it. It was fun, exhausting, exciting and thoroughly draining all at once. It was truly what the conference title said it would be– worlds of work.
For a change, I finished the prep work right on track, and for the [...]

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the expected and the unexpected

As you can see below, I’ve been working on my to do list slowly. Of course, the presentations are winding up to be the last things I do. My goal at this point is to just not write them on the airplane. That gets old after a while.
So today I give you some randomness:
The expected:

I [...]

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I have so much to do… I’ll blog about it instead.

I just sat down and made a list of everything I need to do before I leave on Wednesday for Boston and the conference (and then after that, Maine). It is completely mind numbing. And instead of opening up my laptop to tackle some of it, I find myself blogging instead.
Here’s the gargantuan list itself: [...]

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Las Vegas (3) (yes, I’m still here!)

The very long time it’s taken me to finish telling you about my trip to Vegas is the result of the fact I was sick as a dog this past week.
Nope, scratch that. I don’t like the phrase “sick as a dog.” Where does it come from anyway? And I definitely wouldn’t want any dog [...]

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Las Vegas (2)

Saturday evening I had the choice of either going back out to the strip again, or heading with out some local students for good Mediterranean food and to the older downtown Las Vegas. I quickly chose the latter. I had seriously had enough of the strip for the day.
After a wonderful dinner (the only down [...]

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Las Vegas (1)

Sorry for the long absence while I was in Las Vegas! The conference was insanely busy– more so than usual as I had executive meetings to go to– and there wasn’t even free Internet in our hotel room to take advantage of at night! So I’ve just spent the better part of the evening catching [...]

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wisdom of the sages

I love advice. I adore it, I collect it. I try to listen to, and remember all the sage advise of those older/more experienced than I am. Even when most of the advice I hear, I might not “get” until much later, I still try to collect as much as I can.
So I was thrilled [...]

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the week in review

Movie Reviews:

The Lady in the Water: Given my great dislike for the director, I shouldn’t have even bothered watching this movie. It was terrible. Really, really terrible. Actually, if I didn’t know how full of himself the director is, I would think it was intensionally hilarious. If it wasn’t so hard to sit through, I’d [...]

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Back in the U.S… i.e. “finnished”

So I am back in Madison. After an 18 hour trip back from Finland, a day of work I barely stayed awake for yesterday, and sleeping 12 hours last night, I finally feel a little more like myself again.
My trip back was longer than the way there, but it was also so much better. Let [...]

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Finland trip: Salmiakki Koskenkorva

My Finnish vocabulary is becoming quite extensive. I know 3 words now, in addition to the street names I recognize enough to find my way around. I know “kiitos” (thank you) so that even though I only speak English, I feel polite. And now I know a very important couple of words- “Salmiakki Koskenkorva.” I [...]

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Finland trip: from Fabianinkatu to Hietaniemi and back

I guess this is the second full day of my trip, but time is moving so oddly that it feels like I’ve been here for days. Let me catch you up a bit…
Yesterday I spent at the conference. My presentation went great– despite the fact I was getting so tired right before my presentation that [...]

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Finland trip: stranger in a strange land

Well, I’m here in Finland. I figure after sleeping 11 hours I should be alright to blog a bit, and hopefully coherent enough to present at the conference later.
Let’s back up to the flight and the long journey it took for me to get here, to this little hostel with free wireless…
I’ll call this part [...]

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New Orleans 4: Plantation tour & live oak trees

Ever since going to Atlanta for a conference a few years ago, and never seeing more than a few blocks outside the hotel, I’ve tried to include some kind of adventure into every trip.
So while in New Orleans we decided to take a plantation tour– an organized tour that would drive us out of the [...]

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New Orleans 3: Food & Festivities

One of the best things about New Orleans is the food. Seriously, this has to be one of the only places I have ever travelled where every single meal was amazing. So amazing, none of us could stop raving about the food through the whole meal.
The first afternoon we were there we went to the [...]

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New Orleans 1: *breaking news*

I’ve been in New Orleans for 2 days now. Let me catch you up on how everything has been going.
But, first I’ll get the *breaking news* out of the way:
New Orleans isn’t nearly back on it’s feet yet.
Really, that would be the understatement of the century.
No, I am not surprised by this, given the complete [...]

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raking up the miles

I wanted to be a professor before I really knew all that it entailed. I remember my first semester in grad school, a professor described being an academic as really the combination of 3 jobs– (1) teaching (2) research and (3) service to the academic community. That was really the first time I understood what [...]

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Minnesota Musings (part 2)

The saga continues with 5 graduate students driving through the Midwest in a rented university minivan!
On Sunday we decided to take the scenic route that runs along the Minnesota side of the Mississippi river, back to Madison. It was a beautiful drive- windy roads, cute little towns, snow, and the river and mountains (well, [...]

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Minnesota Musings (part 1)

I’m back in Madison from the weekend conference in Minneapolis. Tonight I visited M who is out of the hospital and in good spirits, and then did some grocery shopping at the (finally not as busy) Trader Joe’s. There is so much to blog about this past weekend, I don’t know where to begin!
So, this [...]

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marry a snake or a cock

Did that sufficiently grab your attention?
I am blogging from the chilly city Minneapolis, Minnesota. We made it here alright yesterday, despite a brief loss of the car keys somewhere around Black River Crossing.* And despite being unhappy about an absence in our group, we had a pleasant drive up through Wisconsin.
Part of our little group [...]

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east coast adventures

Greetings from Syracuse, NY. While upstate NY may not be exactly on the coast itself, it is close enough (and further enough away from Wisconsin) to count.
I flew into Boston Thursday morning– slept on the flight from to Detroit, and then wrote my presentation on the flight into Boston. My sister picked me up at [...]

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news

It’s Monday morning and I am exhausted. I worked way too much this weekend, and while I got so much accomplished, there is still so much to do. Sigh.
Anyway, here’s some news for you.

According to a Trader Joe’s employee on this site, the store is slated to open October 20th!!
Sadly, I’ll be presenting at a [...]

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Puerto Rico II- El Yunque

Here is the promised part 2 of my PR trip (part 1 is here).
I am not usually the kind of tourist who likes to go on tours (well, there are exceptions- like the “alleyways, apparitions and ale” tour we took in London). Usually, I am fine with a guidebook and walking around on my own [...]

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Puerto Rico I

Well, its about time that I posted more details and pics about my trip to San Juan.
Thursday: S. picked me up amazingly on time at 1:50am. I had slept for about 3 hours. We picked up the others, and headed to Chicago. They learned that I talk a lot when I am tired. Their flight [...]

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as it turns out…

it is pretty difficult to come back to Madison, Wisconsin after a weekend in Puerto Rico. Sitting at work today didn’t really compare to the previous day I spent hiking through a rainforest. Cleaning snow off my car this morning was less than thrilling.
I am super tired tonight. We got in last night at 2:30am. [...]

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ASA: conference in a nutshell

127+: the number of awkward conversations I had with people I don’t know very well mostly at ASA
(this is what is truly exhausting about the ASA conference and why I spend tons of time with SWS)
Countless: the number of conversations with wonderful people I knew before or had just met
(mostly at SWS)
5: the number of [...]

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Yay for free hotel internet!

Not only can I check my email from here in Philly (who am I kidding- everyone who ever emails me is here!) but I can even blog from Philly, thanks to the free internet in our room!
So I am here in Philly. The traveling this morning was really good for me. I can’t describe it, [...]

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Miami details

I got to Miami on Thursday and met up with a couple SWSers in the Miami airport. The airport is removed from all public transportation (like Laguardia) and so you are at the mercy of the $26 round trip shuttle fare to the hotel. Way to kill my small budget!
I had a terrible time checking [...]

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Miami

I'll post details about my trip to Miami for the SWS meeting later on today when I am more awake. I slept about 12 hours last night- to give you an idea why…
11pm Saturday: got back to the hotel after an evening in South Beach
12am Sunday: still listening to my roommate yell at Delta airlines [...]

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