Some Good News

I finally got word on what's happening to me in the fall. I'll be coming back as a lecturer, which means full time pay and health insurance. However, it was made very clear to me that it will only be for one semester (to cover a colleague who is on sabbatical). Financially it is good news but at the same time it is frustrating. I'll be teaching six classes and working at the library. I have to keep my library job as well since I'll have to rely on that in the new year. All of this plus grad school. I'll be a fried kitty before December rolls along.

All of this is making me seriously considering going away for a vacation. We'll have the money (at least in the short term) to do that. I really want to go to Cape Cod but I'll have to convince the husband to agree to it. He wants to do a "staycation" but I need to get away in order to relax. Heck, I even found a nice cottage right near the beach for a decent price in August. Now I just have to find a way to convince him to go along with it.

I'm Still Alive

Things have just been too hectic.

My teaching job has taken an interesting turn. The department finally did find a Latin American specialist which means my job is gone. There's a slight chance they could retain me for one semester while a colleague is on sabbatical but that's it. It looks like I'll be going back to adjuncting sooner rather than later.

The one problem with a one semester gig is that I have to keep my second job as well. Plus, to justify keeping me on for a semester, my boss wants to give me six classes instead of five. All that and grad classes. Well, if this happens I'll just be taking one grad class. I'm already fried. I don't need to get crispy.

Speaking of grad classes, so far so good in my forensic psychology class. I'm getting A's so far though I only got a 5.5 out of 6 on the last paper. Of course I'm not happy I got a 6. I'm a perfectionist in certain regards. I'm starting to think I took one of the hardest classes in the program with this class. There is a lot of "psycho babble" in the articles I have to read along with numerous legal decisions. My head hurts after a while of reading this stuff but it is interesting.

Student Funnies

I asked my students to read an excerpt from Herodotus' The Histories about the Persian invasion of Greece. When asked what were the special attributes that the Greeks had to help them to resist and eventually defeat the Persians, one student wrote this:

"One attribute of the Greeks is that they comb their hair whenever that are about to risk their lives"

Um OK. It seems that good hair helped them defeat the Persians. Good to know.

ROFLMAO

Some Poetic Justice

The result of the tenure line job search at my college? The person that they wanted to hire took a job at a four-year school.

Why am I not surprised?

Very True...

It's Official

I am now a student of University of Massachusetts Lowell.

I had about 24 hours to decide on summer classes and I thought "what the heck, let's do it." So yesterday I changed my matriculation to start with the summer and registered for my class. While I wanted to get some of the required courses out of the way, the only ones open were the major stats courses. I do not want to take stats in the summer. So instead I registered for Forensic Psychology. That should be a fun one. :)

It really is amazing how much cheaper UMass is over BU. My course at UMass is going to cost a little under $1,500. The same class at BU will cost $3,000! This is not including the ridiculous price of textbooks either. The one for this psych class is $153. For. One. Book. Is that a rip-off or what? I thought it was bad my students would have to pay $80 for their textbooks, which is why I don't make them buy them.

On a sillier note, I think Loki has actually grown again. The poor guy is already big enough (around 20lbs and none of it is fat). He is definitely going to be on the larger end of the scale for Maine Coons. His brother Monkey, though, is on the smaller end but he got all the brains. I swear they are the kitty version of Pinky and The Brain.

Some Good News

I found out today that I was accepted to the Master's program at UMass Lowell. I'll probably go there over Boston University mainly because it costs about 30% less. In this economy cost is everything, especially since I'll have to take out loans to cover everything. Also, it has a lot more classes in forensic psychology which I'm interested in. The only problem is that their summer session starts on Tuesday. I have to decide very quickly if I want to enroll during the summer or wait until the fall.