three. fucking. degrees...

And I get on the train and all the good seats (far from doors, close to heating ducts) are taken, so I'm sitting right next to the doors, and under some kind of air-recirculation vents blowing COLD fucking air. I'm thinking of starting up Photoshop just to heat up my laptop.

So, the end is near. Three more classes, not counting the 2 finals. A review in Physics today, a lecture on extraterrestrial life in Astronomy, an Astro review on Thursday and that's all for the "teaching" part. A couple of exams, a big mountain of grading, and I'll be clear for the month of January.

Not that there isn't plenty to do during January. I need to convince my wife of this. She seems to be under the impression that Winter and Summer breaks are "vacation" time, as opposed to time that I'm supposed to be developing new courses and publishing papers and working on some kind of research. She'll claim to understand this distinction, but when it comes down to it, she's expecting me to clean and paint and fix shit. And yes there will be some time for that, as a result of having a schedule that is flexible, but really... I HAVE FUCKING WORK TO DO!! So I've already told her that on December 30th, we are sitting down with a big sheet of paper and scheduling the month of January... day by day, hour by hour, just like we did when I was unemployed. That way we'll both get time for all the "stuff" we think we want to accomplish, and we won't sit around in our pajamas all day watching 4 Netflix movies a week.

I'm actually starting to get more than a little freaked out by the whole "research agenda" business. It's starting to look more and more like we'll be expected to produce something a lot more serious in terms of published research than we've been led to expect all along. And maybe not technical scientific research, but at least "education research" (which I personally believe is a load of crap) or some kind of "significant contribution to the field". The thing is... I'm not even sure what my field IS any more. It is physics? Education? History of science? These are all things I DO, but none of them are really fields in which I'm poised to make a "contribution." What I consider my professional program is the creation and distribution of new curriculum materials and new approaches to science teaching for non-scientists. So... what "counts"? A couple articles in "The Physics Teacher?" The creation of a popular online resource? A book? A play?!

There is no kind of clarity AT ALL from the administration, because there is nobody "above us" who understands science, or more importantly - who understands the limitations on doing "real science" at an institution like this one. I'm just worried that I'll spend a year or two working on the projects that interest me the most and then find out that none of it counts for anything when my 3-year review comes along.

Anyway... I have plenty of other things to stress about right now, but this is something that's been in the back of my head lately, and pretty soon it's going to come to the FRONT of my head and I'll probably wind up in a panic of sorts. Maybe I'll add it to my list of "Things That Need To Be Done In January"...

* Plan a whole new course on acoustics
* Assemble a course reader for History of Astronomy
* At least perform some token planning for my Modern Physics course
* Order lab equipment for new courses
* Assist with the planning of the new team-taught course.
* Create a poster for a colleague's conference presentation.
* Assemble the skeleton of a departmental curriculum website
* Have at least one manuscript ready for submission/publication

Oy... what the fuck am I supposed to be painting again?