Cyborg Names

If you enjoyed Monster Names, then you'll love the Cyborg Name Decoder:

Get Your Cyborg Name

Miscellaneous Sunday Stuff

A few random Sunday evening things:

• This afternoon I participated in a panel for parents of accepted students who were visiting campus. It was fun; I enjoy talking with parents aboutCOA.
  
  
• Also this weekend was the spring meeting of our board of trustees. The meetings went fairly well, although some of the meetings seemed a little random.
  
  
• A student sent out today a link to an eagle cam, a webcam with live images of an active eagle next. It's kinda cool. The eagles even have their own blog. Wing Goodale, the author of the blog, is a graduate of COA's small Masters program.
  
  
• We're bracing for the N'oreaster that is sloshing up the East coast. The next few days look to be very windy and rainy. So the weather will be a little but unpleasant, but the rain will almost surely wash away almost all of the snow that is still around. Hopefully we'll be hearing spring peepers soon and my tulips, which have been in a snowbank for a while, will be able to start growing again.
  
  
• I dealt with 173 email messages today and sent 46.
  
  

Monday Procrastination

Having some fun with the Monster Name Decoder.

Maybe I should get back to grading and some of the millions of memos that I need to write.

A Snow Day

We ended up getting over a foot of wet, heavy snow. And it's not over yet; it's still snowing fairly hard. All classes were cancelled today. It'll be a big mess when it melts, which might be quite soon. But for now, at least, it's beautiful outside. Above and below are a few pictures of the snow. I've already spent a while shoveling this morning. I have quite a bit of work to do before out cars are free.


There are lots of birds at our feeders today: probably a few dozen juncos, and bunches of goldfinches, pine siskins, chickadees, a nuthatch, a morning dove, some sparrows, and at least one house finch. It's quite a feeding frenzy. We also saw a stray (semi-feral?) cat in our backyard. Doreen has seen him before, but it was the first time for me. He's fluffy and is mostly white with a little bit of calico. He wasn't having an easy time getting around in the deep snow. We don't know who he belongs to, nor do our two nearest neighbors. The cat is quite skittish. We put some food for him under the barn. Hopefully he'll eat the cat food and not one of the birds.

There are also squirrels prancing around in the snow. Below is a picture of a rather stylish red squirrel, who has been having fun digging tunnels in the snow.

Snow and Ice Cream

On Monday we had a few inches of snow. It seems that it always snows once in April, so I figured it was good to get it out of the way early. It was quite pretty, and since it had been sunny and relatively warm the week before, it didn't seem like a big deal. The roads were pretty slippery in the evening, though. Doreen didn't quite make it all the way up a big hill on the way home. Fortunately, some nice Maine guy with a truck helped her out. After getting to the top of the hill with the help of the truck, she parked her car (she was right new the park headquarters) and called me on her cell phone. I drove and picked her up and we went home together. Her car doesn't have snow tires, and mine does, so mine is much better in slippery conditions.

Anyway, it is now Wednesday night. The last several days have been quite tiring. My classes are keeping me busy, and there's a bunch of administrative work right now. And ... it's now snowing again. I drove home in a moderately heavy snowstorm. There was already around an inch of snow on the ground. It was kinda odd driving home in the second snowstorm of April while alternating between listening to the Mets game and reggae on WERU.

We're supposed to get between five and nine inches. Some ice, sleet, and rain should be mixed in as well. Could be a bit of a mess. (Note to any prospective students who might be reading this blog: significant snowstorms in April are unusual.) But I like snow, even in April. I certainly prefer snow to cold rain.

I ended up getting home around 9:15pm. It was a long day; I arrived on campus at 8:30am. I was tired, and Doreen and I were both hungry. So, I made ice cream and brownies. The brownies were from a mix. The ice cream was from scratch. Making ice cream is ridiculously easy now that we have an ice cream maker.

So, it is snowing out, it is the middle of the second week of the term, a snow plow just drove by, I am tired and enjoying my classes, and I just ate fresh ice cream and brownies. The Daily Show tonight is a re-run that we've already seen. Thus, I think it's time to read some calculus and go to sleep.

Various Signs of Spring

A few signs of spring, and other thoughts:

• I have finished my grades from Winter term. My narrative evaluations are done, although I still need to proofread them. I'll do this in the morning.
  
  
• I saw at least a dozen robins on campus today.
  
  
• For the first time today I saw juncos underneath our bird feeder at home. Also this week, goldfinches and sparrows have arrived.
  
  
• It's supposed to snow tomorrow. Not much, though -- only an inch or so, along with some rain. My guess is it'll just be dreary and sleety for a bit. The last few days have been beautiful and sunny, so a little bit of sleet isn't that big a deal.
  
  
• It's only the second week of Spring term, and I'm more exhausted than I want to be. I hope
  week two is easier than week one.
  
  
• I proofread a colleague's grant proposal today. It was fun. I kinda like proofreading and copy-editing, especially when it's not my writing.
  
  
• I dealt with 104 email messages today.
  
  

First day of the term

The first day of Spring term has arrived. It's a chilly out, but still fairly spring-like. It's a little misty, and the air almost smells like the ocean. In around two hours I'll teach my first class, Calculus II. Should be fun.

Reviewing Applications

The past month I've spent a lot of time reviewing applications of various sorts. I'm on COA's admission committee, so I've read probably at least 150 undergraduate admission applications. Also, I've read many student applications in my role as co-director for the Santa Fe Institute's Complex Systems Summer School (CSSS). I was the main reader for around fifty applications, and in making the final selections I looked over at least fifty more. (Note to CSSS applicants who may find this blog: expect to hear from us about whether or not you've been accepted by the end of the day Monday.) I'm also chairing a search committee for a one-term visiting faculty member in ethnography. This has entailed around 40 applications. And I'm on the selection committee for two internal COA scholarships.

The net result is that I've read a great many application letters, CVs, personal statements, and so on. It's been a little surreal. One thing that is odd is that the applicants I've been reading are at very different stages in their academic lives. COA applicants are mostly still in high school. The CSSS applicants are mostly in the middle of grad school. The scholarship applicants are in the middle of their undergrad work. And the faculty applicants range from ABDs to seasoned teachers and researchers.

It's odd to think about how many judgements I've had to make the last month. I've gotten used to this, as I've been on the admission committee for a number of years and have also served on several search committees and the like. But as I pause to reflect on it cumulatively, it's somehow strange thinking that I've basically given a yes or no response to around 350 various applications over the last month. Conservatively, I probably spend an average of five minutes reading an application. (Often it's much more.) This adds up to almost thirty hours spent reviewing applications. Or, assuming an 8-hour workday, this is 3.75 days of work.

Anyway, nobody asked me, but after doing all this application reading, I have a few words of advice for applicants.

1. Don't leave any mysteries unexplained. If there is something unusual--a few F's, you've changed high schools (or graduate schools) several times, there is a large gap in your work history--provide an explanation. Otherwise, it's too easy for readers to imagine the worst. For example, perhaps you changed schools several times because your parents or your spouse had to relocate for professional reasons. No big deal. But if you don't mention this, the selection committee will start wondering if you got kicked out of the school for some reason, of if you have a drug habit, or if you are incapable of staying put. I've seen this happen often: there's something unusual in an application and the committee engages in all sorts of speculation. Sometimes the speculation is positive, sometimes not.
   
   
2. Spell check. I'm not the sort of person who is going to flip out if there are a few typos in an application. This happens to everyone. But typos that could have been caught by a spell-checker are bad. They really don't reflect well on an applicant. And in general ...
   
   
3. At least act like you care. You won't do yourself any favors with one or two sentence answers to essay questions, even if those sentences are clever and neatly typed.
   
   
4. In most circumstances, it's not helpful to send material that wasn't asked for in the application. Usually, sending unsolicited materials only tells the committee that you're not good at reading directions.
   

Finally, a few positive comments:

1. The vast majority of applications that I've read this year have been extremely well done. I'm genuinely amazed at how many applications I've seen form really smart, creative, and engaged people.
   
   
2. I really appreciate, this year more than ever, applicants who take the time to make their applications clear and concise.
   
   
3. I also really appreciate good letters of recommendation. I've written close to 100 letters of recommendation since coming to COA, and I know that writing thoughtful, informative letters takes time. Such letters can make a difference, especially for the applicants that are in the middle. For the super strong and the clearly unprepared, the letters don't matter much. But for the rest, I think the letters can matter a lot.
   

This has turned into a much longer entry than I had anticipated, and I have no idea how to conclude. But I'm tired of writing, so I think I'll just stop, and not attempt a conclusion.

Back in Maine

I'm back in Maine. Today has been a semi-frantic day of emails and phone calls and meetings. Despite much activity and effort, it feels like the net result has been negative--that I'm actually further behind than I was before. Some things that I thought were complete have been somewhat undone by others. It's frustrating, but that's life, I suppose.

Despite a difficult day, it's great to be back home. The cats seem happy to see me, and it's nice to sleep in my own bed. Thursday was gray and chilly, but today it was sunny and in the upper 50's. The snow is mostly melted, and there is hope for spring.

Philadelphia Airport Blogging

I'm currently in the Philadelphia international airport, in the middle of a five-hour layover. My flight from Amsterdam was uneventful. The seat next to me was empty, so I was able to stretch out. I did some reading, took a few naps, listened to some music, and tried to do a mini "core dump" of all the different things I need to be working on over the next few weeks. My list got to around 70, and I'm sure that I'm not close to having captured everything. The core-dump was pretty productive. Although it's scary thinking about all I need to do, it's scarier to not core-dump and spend my days worried about all that I need to do instead of actually doing it.

I'm in the walkway outside one of those airport malls. Specifically, I'm across from a TGI Friday's, sitting on the floor next to a power outlet. It's actually more comfortable for me to sit on the floor than in a chair when I'm working on my laptop. Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun is wafting out of the TGIF's. I've always liked the song. It came out in 1983, when I was 14. And 23 years later it's being played in restaurant chains in airports, and I still like it.

My last day in Amsterdam was fun. I'll blog about it in a separate entry.