I'll be the first to admit that the opinions in this post are going to be totally biased, as my mom and my 2 sisters are teachers. This is also a rant I've been making for several years now, but once again, some dumbass has to write into the newspaper about how easy teachers have it ( Read more... )

I'm a non-smoker. Not only do I hate the smell and am pretty allergic to tobacco smoke, I just don't understand why people do it. There's a reason people call them cancer sticks. To quote Adam Baldwin, "Pick up a paper! From the 60's!". I understand that people, like my grandma, were smoking long before it was known how bad for you it is, and so ( Read more... )

I started a new job this week. I'm now an adjunct professor at a nearby university, even though I haven't actually graduated yet. I'm teaching biodiveristy to bio majors, which is a big step - usually no PhD means no bio majors. Granted, I have a class full of incoming freshman, which is a new challenge for me, but they're still bio majors ( Read more... )

No spoilers here, don't worry ( Read more... )

Everytime there is a school shooting, it's a stark reminder that this could happen to most of my immediate family. My mom is a first grade teacher, one sister teaches K-8, and my other sister, until she can get a full-time teaching position in the fall, is a substitute teacher ( Read more... )

Being the sole paleontologist in my department, I keep conected with other paleontologists via a listserv. The other day, somebody posted a link to Scott Adams's blog. Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, which somehow gives him all sorts of knowledge about fossils, kind of like Tom Cruise is a psychiatrist (he's read the papers, Matt ( Read more... )

My poor cat. Thanks to an interction between some meds, we ended up rushing him to the emergency vet (yes, there are ERs for pets) at midnight on Monday. I won't get into the gross details. After 24 hours of vet care, he's starting to bounce back...he knocked everything off the top of the fridge at 4am and started a wrestling match with our other ( Read more... )

Da Bears lost. How disappointing, though based on the way that Rexie and also the defense was playing, it wasn't surprising. My poor boy is still heartbroken (surprising if you know him!). Yet, I'm glad it was to the Colts. My friend Erin points out in her blog (erinweed.blogspot.com) that it must be a midwestern thing, and I think she's right. It' ( Read more... )

The Bears won the NFC championship on Sunday! And it's Tuesday and I'm still elated! It's been 21 years since the last appearance of the Bears in the Super Bowl. I don't know if I can wait for Feb. 4 ( Read more... )

2006 has been one crappy year. I've tried really hard over the last day or two to think of positives, since I'm typically a glass-half-empty kind of gal. I managed to think of a few: my boy and I are still together & happy, I've had some success in research depite all the bs from this summer, post-doc money has officially (in writing) been reserved ( Read more... )