Good, bad and crazy

Well, things here are going well, but I feel as if I am about to jump off a precipice and I better start learning to swim while free-falling in the air. I am being pulled in many different directions.

(1) Proposals. Last quarter I didn't do anything because teaching kept me so busy. This quarter I am teaching a smaller class so it is more manageable, but it still takes large chunks of time. And I really, really need to be writing proposals instead. Especially if funding rates continue to hover in the less than 10% range.

(2) Travel. I have been asked to give a talk by a friend and will be out of town this weekend and part of next week. At the end of that trip I will attend my sister's defense (you go girl!!!). I get back Wed. I am home for W and Th, then my husband and I fly off again for a wedding. I am home for two weeks, then I leave for a week to go to an international conference. It was a great honor for me to be asked to speak there, especially as a first year faculty. But, I will be leaving my husband (who is still in class) with two little kids the week before finals. Then I get back, give my final, and hop a plane for a 1.5 week family vacation. [Which in theory makes up to my kids for being gone a week.] On top of all of this I am supposed to be cranking out three proposals with successive due dates.

(3) Teaching. Still love it, still takes up too much time. It is now taking me about 1/2 a day to a day to prepare for each lecture. My class meets 2/wk so that with the teaching time included is about 1/2 my week spent teaching or preparing for teaching. It is hard to get anything done with all of that going on.

Well, next time I write may very well be from the road.