Cute like the smart girl

 I don't have a long list of things I want to do before I die, or at least not a long list that I'm aware of. I'd like to go to Australia and France. I'd like to see computer science be a standard high school course. ( And I'd like to get a PhD. ). 

The idea of getting a PhD has been rattling around my head for a very, very long time. As soon as I finished my masters, I knew I would like to go on and get a PhD someday. In the last four years, I've been considering it more seriously. By now it seems like the obvious next career step. I want to know how to do rigorous research on computer science education. I want to know what the best things are to teach and learn, and how to teach and learn them. And I want proof that they're good, not just a vague anecdotal sense.

One thing I'm struggling with is where. First, I have to figure out whether to have my academic "home" be in a school of education or in a computer science department. I am very concerned that if I don't go through a CS department that the computer scientists will never take me seriously since I'll be "only" an education person. However, since my real interest is curriculum and pedagogy, and since I'm most interested in K-12, a school of education is a more natural fit. (Also, very nervous that with no CS background I'll struggle in a CS department. I'm such a girl.)

In either case, I have to find an advisor who is interested in studying something like what I want to study, which means not (for example) technology integration across the curriculum. Or building a new tool, unless it's a new tool that helps students learn. If I go the CS route, my options are limited. In fact, they are two. I can go to Georgia Tech and study with Mark Guzdial, or I can (soon) go to Purdue and study with Steve Cooper. To say that mrcozy isn't interested in moving to Georgia or moving back to Indiana (and ESPECIALLY Purdue) probably doesn't capture the extent of his aversion to the idea. Neither program is perfect, they each have some disadvantages, though for the most part I think either might be fine. Another option is to apply to Stanford and Berkeley's schools of education and do a joint program where I get a PhD in Ed and a masters in CS. Those have the advantage of being local (especially Stanford). I recently met Brigid Barron and her research seems like a good fit, so all hope is not lost. (Plus she has worked with Eric Roberts in the past, so there's some history of Ed-CS collaboration!) A final option is to convince Joanna Goode at U of Oregon to take me on. If there's someone who has studied CS Education, there she is!

A quiet concern I have about a school of ed is that most of them are dedicated to social justice. It isn't that I don't care, it's just that social justice is far from my priority. I'm totally comfortable with creating curriculum for upper-middle class white kids; realistically that's where we're going to have to start. It's more important to me to get CS accepted broadly than to work on equity issues. (My "I believe" statement is, "After literacy, I think computer science is the most important thing for kids today to learn.") 

The reason why this is titled "never too late" is because of my first experience thinking about getting a PhD. When I was in high school, I had a friend whose mom was getting a PhD in nutrition. I've never forgotten it. I thought it was so great that if you didn't decide on a career in academia (or whatever required a PhD) right away after college, that you could do it later, even when you had kids and they were pretty old. Every time I think about getting another degree, I think about her. I should try to find her and let her know that she's been my inspiration all this time. I have a friend who got her PhD at age 50. My mom is pushing my dad to go back to school now that he's retired for the second time, and I think it's great. I can't imagine thinking I was too old to go back. (I can imagine FEELING old once I got into a classroom surrounded by people much younger than myself, but that's no reason not to do it!) 

 There are things I only talk about when asked. I will talk about them openly and tell you whatever you'd like to know, but you have to ask. 

I am getting better about asking people about themselves. I used to think it was rude to ask personal questions. I now know that it depends on the boundaries of the person you're asking, and that it can be hard to know. But I have come to believe that expressing interest in a person has value. Sometimes I still get scared off. I am very interested in other people.

Tomorrow I'm going to a meeting that should be interesting but that I can't explain. I think it might be part of changing the world. I have a vision for how I want to change the world, and other people have my vision too, and I think we'll do it in my lifetime. It's a pretty exciting time to be in my life.

I thought I was going to get to see my friend A tonight, but it didn't work out; he was too tired. (This is less of a cop-out than it sounds like.) I am sad about this, because I would really have liked to see him, but sad in a way that isn't all that sad. I feel unusually un-disappointed, given that I was looking forward to it. Instead I got to spend time with my friends R and then D. D moved away last summer, and we hung out until long after we should have been abed, relishing in reconnecting over silly student mistakes, what our friends are up to, and in general chatting. 

Last week was crazier than usual. I feel like I always post saying how busy I am, but it's always the first thing that occurs to me. It's a major reason why I rarely post.

I decided on Saturday that I should focus more on the positive and not the negative. This is harder than it seems! Snark is fun and entertaining.

I gave a teacher training in LA on Saturday. I was so, so nervous about it beforehand. I didn't think I knew the material well enough, I was worried I would be asked questions I don't know the answers to, and I was very worried that the teachers would be bored. But once I got started I took a deep breath and turned on the dazzle. It went well. Of course, I handed out robots and who wouldn't have fun when they have hours to play with robots? Really the teachers stopped listening once the robots came out. But they seemed engaged before that too, and the people who hired me were happy. So I'm happy.

It was great to get back in time to see Simms, too. And I really, really enjoyed seeing Kat and Katie and Noah and Grace. I can't believe how long has passed since I last saw them. Hopefully it will not be that long again.

I am writing an award proposal that would get my school $10,000. I hope we get it. It's due tomorrow. It's not done. I'm procrastinating. However, if we submit and don't get it, we can resubmit next year.

Also? I'm in NY, where I have a day of meetings tomorrow, then fly home tomorrow night. Not sure when I'll have time to submit. Which is okay since I don't have the password to Fastlane. Nothing about this has been easy. However, all of it has been possible. (see? focusing on the positive!)

This sat open all day yesterday and even though it isn't finished, I'm just posting anyway...

I still haven't totally made time to think through my visit to Chattanooga, but overall it was good. In some ways it was the worst ever, but in other ways it was great. Perhaps the highest point wasn't at the conference at all but was on Saturday morning when I went for a run by the river and called my aunt because it reminded me of her. The weather was great and the scenery was beautiful. 

I have started working on a project with someone else and we spent a lot of time talking to people about it, which distracted us from the conference but in a way that was okay. I'm not sure how to refer to my collaborator. "Partner" sounds weird with its multiple meanings, "friend" isn't professional enough, and "collaborator" is long, though currently the top contender. Thinking about what words to use distracts me from the obvious problem, which is what our next step is. We need to figure out what we want to do - our options are everywhere from pull something little together and distribute it all the way to get a PhD. (Not sure how that works... it was almost midnight by the time someone suggested it and I missed the transition.)

I am feeling like I'm Ned in the book Fortunately. The original post title was "In which I am an idiot" but by the time I started typing, I was feeling better enough that it didn't make sense. The problem is, I start all my thoughts with "Unfortunately" and then figure out the redeeming ending. Which is sometimes more redeeming than others. 

Unfortunately, the coffee at the conference center totally sucks.
Fortunately, the only Starbucks in downtown Chattanooga is only two blocks away from the conference center.
Unfortunately, my shoes are way less comfortable than I thought. 
Fortunately, they're stylish. 
Unfortunately, the shirt I thought was cute and attractive, when combined with my new haircut, makes me look like someone named Shelly. Especially with the shoes. I feel like I look like an idiot, though I guess I am at least heavily distinguished from all the nerds. 
Fortunately, I've been texting all my conference snark to one of my best friends, which has been hilariously fun.
Unfortunately, I appear to have offended him by comparing him to one of the speakers. 
Fortunately, one of my other friends will think this is funny.
Unfortunately, it appears that she thinks we're having an affair. Which is on top of a bunch of people thinking we're married. 
Fortunately, my friends are forgiving, because:
Unfortunately, I may have made that perception worse by trying to put out the fire with gasoline. (We're not, in case you wondered. I would have thought this was obvious, but now I'm completely freaked out that it's not.) 
Fortunately, I can distract myself with blogging.
Unfortunately, I decided to read my friend Lisa's cancer blog.
Fortunately, I'm the kind of idiot who thinks a cancer blog might be uplifting. (You don't think this is fortunate? Oh, that's because you're not an idiot and you could have predicted:
Unfortunately, she's doing worse.
Fortunately, I could have cried. (And since Hello, my name is Shelly, that wouldn't have been terrible, right?) But
Unfortunately, I'm in a session surrounded by people who know me as Michelle. 
Fortunately, I got five hours of sleep last night, which is helping me moderate my emotional responses
Unfortunately, that was only fortunate because I got way less the two preceding nights.
Fortunately, I normally exist on 9 hours of sleep a night.

Okay, I'm running out of things, but i've at least completely amused myself. There have been really good things today - I thought the keynote was interesting, well-presented, and thought-provoking. I went to a round-table with a VP of Microsoft. I found out that I think a woman at NSF that I like thinks I'm pretty nifty too. I got some knitting done. I will get to hang out with my friend Philip at 5 pm and with another friend later tonight. There are lots of people here who I like a whole lot, many of whom don't think I'm having an affair. (And I am not totally serious about that part, but kind of.) 

Off to the next session. It ought to be good. 

 I am at a conference. I have two friends I particularly look forward to seeing this year. I have a number of "conference friends" who I see only a few times a year, where this is one of them. Yet for some reason, this year I am looking forward the most two seeing two of them. (This is mostly because I've seen nearly everyone else at some point in between this year.)

I had dinner with one of them, who has moved away in the last six months. In thinking about how I miss him, I also realized that I may have found recently a replacement for him in my life. Which made me wonder, can you replace friends?

The things I miss are taking long, long walks with him and talking about super-geeky things and teaching and his bouncy enthusiasm for all the things he was enthusiastic about. He's the one who explained string theory to me, to the extent that I understand it. But I recently re-connected with another friend who is also geeky and interested in weird things and bouncy and wants to teach. All I have to do is convince him to take long walks with me. Which just seems wrong. And yet, there it is.

(I posted a summary of the first few lines at another blog I have, which is what prompted this post. I have a highly self-involved sense of wonder about whether the second person would recognize himself and how many (if any) other people would think it was themselves.)

I'm halfway between two laptops and I refuse to take both with me on this trip. So much to my frustration, I am taking the older, doesn't-have-enough-RAM one. I tried to kill myself and move to the better hardware, but it was a giant fail that I do not have time to debug. I am up way too late dealing with this. The only upside is that I am able to upload the new album I got this weekend that I love.  

Hopefully this conference will be relaxing and fun and energizing. Also, that I can spend a lot of time doing little but sleeping after it's over.

I can't even remember most of last week( but that won't stop me from nattering about it in detail ). I leave for Chattanooga, TN super-early tomorrow morning. I'll spend two nights with my beloved friends Ryan and Billie and the rest of the week at SIGCSE. I'm looking forward to seeing all my 'conference friends' and hoping to take lots of deep breaths. Everyone hope for me that the sniffles I've got is allergies and not a cold...

I had never heard of Drew Westen until yesterday, but now I have his book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation on my library reserve list. He does a nice job of weaving psychology and sociology into politics. I got hooked by the article Lessons Learned from the Election of 2008. His book was published in 2007, so it doesn't address this historic election. 

You Are a Question Mark

You seek knowledge and insight in every form possible. You love learning. And while you know a lot, you don't act like a know it all. You're open to learning you're wrong. You ask a lot of questions, collect a lot of data, and always dig deep to find out more. You're naturally curious and inquisitive. You jump to ask a question when the opportunity arises. Your friends see you as interesting, insightful, and thought provoking. (But they're not always up for the intense inquisitions that you love!) You excel in: Higher education You get along best with: The Comma

I run with the Nike+ kit. It has a doohicky that goes in my shoe (or on my shoe in a pouch, as it happens, since I prefer New Balance) and a doohicky that goes in my iPod. It keeps track of how far and fast I run, how many calories I burn, and that kind of thing. It is very motivational. (As is doing out-and-back courses, since if I want to quit halfway through I don't really have that option.)

So the Nike+ site has my 2008 "Rundown". I ran for 122 days last year, for a total of 820,314 steps and 422.64 miles. My average pace was 13'27". I burned 49,586 calories. Apparently Saturday is my "favorite day to run." Not surprisingly, October 26th was my longest run - that was the half marathon. 

I'm unreasonably pleased by this.

Tomorrow I go back to work. This is the longest break I've had in at least three years. I have not done one whit of work in the past two weeks. I'm not ready to go back. I had all these things I wanted to get done over the break and instead I mostly stayed in bed and vegged and recovered from the bronchitis. Which was all good, but I want more. I would also like to magically find my motivation, since one of the things I was supposed to have done was caught up on some grading, which did not happen. That leaves tomorrow. I figure tomorrow will be nice and productive. Not.

Today we went to Stacks for breakfast, which we frequently do on Sundays, and have for a long time. The same people work there every week, so we recognize them. They have a LOT of regulars, and the manager and assistant manager greet many of them and chat with them. Today we got bumped to regulars - the manager acknowledged that he sees us frequently. (Actually, he didn't exactly. He was all, "do you live in town? You come in once or twice a month." And we were, "we come in almost every week.") He was away getting married in early December and then we were gone for a couple of weeks, so I think he forgot. We talked about whether they would open a location in Mountain View. It is nice to be known.

 I've spent most of this week in bed. In theory, that's been by choice. I've been on vacation, it's been nice just hanging out catching up on tv and playing games. I'm barely coughing and not having any asthma problems.

Yesterday I got up and raced around straightening the house. I've spent a lot of time since then feeling happy about how clean it is. 

Today I bestirred myself to go for a run, which was very, very slow. Then I sat for a while, then went out to do some errands. By the time I'd gone to Michael's, Crate and Barrel, the library to drop off books, and the grocery, I was wiped. Evidently I'm not as much better as I'd thought. However, I scored super-cheap individual pie plates and yarn for a present, so yay.

It's nice to be home. We got home late last night. Had a 3 pm flight to JFK where we had dinner in the new T5/JetBlue terminal (poor service at dinner, okay food, terminal is very swank) then flew home. There was a House marathon, so I had a lovely time watching old episodes and almost finished a scarf I've had on the needles for years. We sat next to the universe's most oblivious flyer. Our flight landed before 11 and it was nice not to get home horribly late. Today I've had a great time just hanging out and having my own little CSI:NY marathon from old Tivo'd episodes. I also dug out old games and have been playing Civilization. And barely coughing. 

Tomorrow I have a followup doctor's appointment. I was diagnosed with bronchitis while I was at home. Nebulizer treatment, steroids, antibiotics, non-codeine cough suppressant, whee! This is the third year in four that I've had breathing troubles while I was there. I'm partly hoping that next year we host Christmas at our house. 

Otherwise it was a good visit home. I didn't get to see almost any friends outside of family, and I'm sad about that, but with how sick I was, I'm not sure it would have worked out anyway. I'm hoping to arrange more things when I'm back in June. I'll be there for a conference, so it'll be easier to arrange my own time, though there is the issue that I'll have all my conference friends around. 

 I fell behind due to family and business. So I will recap the happiness.

( Day 4 )

( Day 5 )

( Day 6 )

( Day 7 )

( Day 8 )

( The unhappy )

I can't remember if I posted yesterday. That's not the happy thing.

The happy thing is that I finally finished organizing the stuff in the box. Lo these many weeks ago, I pulled everything off the dresser and out of the worst shelf in the linen closet, and started organizing them. It resulted in many things getting donated, many more getting trashed, and I still ended up with a box of stuff I didn't have time to finish with. Tonight, in a fit of structured procrastination (I should have packed for my trip east) I found space for everything. Well, there's one small box that always did have stuff that really doesn't have a place, but that doesn't count. (I have no idea what the 'correct' place for a backscratcher is, but it's too useful to get rid of.)

Tonight I serendipitously got personal grooming tasks taken care of when I drove by a Supercuts and decided to stop in for a haircut since it was all convenient. I even had enough cash to pay for it in my wallet! Tomorrow I must stop by a bank since I have a bunch of checks from tutoring to cash. My student is ready for her final tomorrow, I think she will do well as long as she focuses and pays attention. Her mom gave me a beautiful knit scarf as a present. 

 I just got home from the Straight No Chaser concert, which was full of happy. They are great - if you have the opportunity to see them, do not pass it up. Ten guys having a great time and singing wicked good music. Because I declined to stand around and get a signed CD, I got an earlier train home than I'd thought was possible and am now in bed. 

Before I got into bed I opened two awesome holiday notes, one from Ryan and Billie, one from sexywitch , one of which made me laugh and the other just made me happy. (We haven't moved. We miss our Hoosier friends. Have fun at Wednesday.) I'm hoping to send out cards this year though they will almost certainly be New Years cards or late. Or both.

Today I threw a quiz for the eighth graders. I wrote what I think were good questions - high order thinking, but nearly all multiple choice tests and the computer graded them for me. Woohoo! I also talked about relational vs. flat file databases with the seventh graders which is not what I was supposed to cover, but it turns out that Walter will cover library databases with them tomorrow, so I'm off the hook. 

There is a meme going around requesting 8 days of posts with things that made one happy that day. I'm sceptical about my ability to see it through (especially since I'll be traveling one of the eight days) but I'm game to try.

Today I went on an 8.7 mile run which felt mostly great, and played with a Flip Video Camera, which is made of awesome. It was actually truly easy to use.  

At the end of every House episode, they list promotional consideration furnished by. Ever wondered what those things are? Mrcozy did.

GE Healthcare - MRI
Humanscale - Ergonomic office furniture
Artromick Internaional, Inc - Medical Carts
Sota Turntables - Turntables
Apple, Inc - computers
Dell - computers
Saeco, USA - coffee makers
Rioux Vision, Inc  - mobile carts

• We had many trick or treaters. They were cute and small. My favorites were the ones who said "Trick or Treat!" before they knocked or rang the bell. Then they rang. Then I opened the door and they stood there. Sequencing is something that takes a while to develop, clearly. My other favorite was the little boy who did not say Trick or Treat, but did take some candy. Then his mother says, "What do you say? It isn't official until you say it!" and he said, "Thank you!"
• One of the other teachers told me that a particular student really likes me. I was maybe going to sub for them, but then their regular teacher took the class. J was very disappointed that I wasn't going to be there. I was amused and charmed.
• It is the weekend!