4 Months From Now

Sigh. Here I sit trying to cobble together enough business every month to pay my bills. Altogether they aren't much really, but I thought seriously that I'd at least be making a living wage by this point and could contribute more to our family expenses. As it stands, I have what amounts to a handful of part time jobs, none of which pay worth a crap because they're kind of on an on-call basis, and the people I work for have pretty crappy reputations, so the referrals aren't coming in like they used to, so I'm not getting called as often. Granted part of the problem is that some of the referring agencies are at the end of their budget year, so they should pick up a little after September 1.

The good news though is that four months from today, my postdoc year (read: indentured servitude) will be over and I can start my independent professional life on my own terms. Sure I'll be slogging through the Medicare and insurance provider paperwork and trying to get established in my own practice with all the headaches and bills that entails, but at least I will be working under my own reputation and license, not someone else's. The better news is that I am already beginning to establish my own reputation and relationships with the major referrers in the region. They like my work, they like me personally and they have made it very clear that they want to know when and where I hang my shingle. It just can't be done until after the licensing paperwork is completed. I'll mail it December 4. Last year when I filed my provisional paperwork on the same date, it was approved December 31. Of course I didn't get the confirmation for a couple more weeks, but at least I got it.

The training for the giant corporate online university feels oddly like American Idol. There ended up being 378 trainees in my entry level class, then I was assigned to a group of 1o. Within the first week 4 of them dropped. Of the remaining 6 only 3 of us were in the same entry class so there was at least one other huge ass entry class somewhere. The training itself seems like a lot of busy work, but they have selected me to continue on to the next stage so that's good, I guess, except so far I'm not seeing a lot of attention being paid to academic rigor. After the next 2 weeks in developing syllabi et cetera (mind you I've already been through the first 2 weeks so in total this will be a full month of "training" i.e. working for free), the next stage will see me actually teaching a class with an instructor's instructor who can give me feedback on how I'm doing. I appreciate that. I will get paid the full rate for a doctoral level instructor for teaching that class, but that won't happen until the end of September. At least it's something to look forward to, but there's no guarantee that I'll even be offered a position until after the class wraps up in mid-to-late October.

Still no word on whether or not I'll be teaching at the community college again, and class starts in 3 weeks. The Psyc/Soci instructor/coordinator guy left in May, which is why the division chair asked me to apply for that job, which I did immediately - in May. Now the division chair is leaving so the two top leadership positions in that area are vacant, and nobody's saying a word. I'm debating whether to shoot a friendly email to the human resources coordinator to check on the status of my application.

The good news of the whole thing is that at least I'm 2/3 of the way through the postdoctoral purgatory year and that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Take one look around and you can see that nobody's starving around here. We still have a roof over our heads, the lights are still on, and I still have stuff I can sell on eBay. I can do anything for 4 months. However, if you know the money fairy, could you send it my way? Kthxbai.

Am I Being Too Harsh?

A local community college called Thursday to request my services in teaching a Psych 101 course, beginning Tuesday. I accepted because, aside from clearly having nothing else to do, the one typical graduate school experience not incorporated into my doctoral program is teaching undergraduate coursework. The pay is negligible compared to the amount of work involved but some things aren't about money. Realistically, it's rather like shacking up, because it incorporates all of the work but none of the commitment or financial gain of marriage (or tenure-track).

Since it's just one section and I'll only be on campus about an hour and a half, two days a week, I've set up another blog, here for class communication. Take a look and tell me what you think. In particular, I'd like feedback about my class rules . These things were important to me as resident nerd during my undergrad work, and back in the day, if the prof wasn't willing to say something to offenders, I wasn't shy about voicing my disapproval. Am I being too harsh? I don't think so, but then again these continue to be my pet peeves.

Sex Talk Redux

Sometimes people surprise me. As the grand finale to two days of lecture about sex and sexuality, I had prepared a mashup of slides from the Centers for Disease Control that showed various and sundry body parts (mostly oozing and/or crusty) afflicted with an assortment of sexually transmitted diseases. Seriously, these were pictures that made one ask, "Why the hell did they wait so damn long to go to the doctor!?" while cringing and grasping at one's own genitalia.

Mind you, these were nasssssty stuff, my preciousss. So I forewarned them at the end of Thursday's lecture that we'd be looking at STD pictures Tuesday and that when the time came, anyone who was squeamish or didn't think they could handle it for whatever reason could leave. No question asked. Granted, I encouraged them to stay, particularly if they had little or no experience with sex so they'd know what to be on the lookout for, just in case. Still, it was their call.

To my astonishment, when the time came though, nobody chickened out and left. Not even the ones I was sure would take me up on my offer for a reprieve because of religious reasons or whatever. Will wonders never cease?

tags technorati : sex, teaching

Why the Hell Don't They Just Say So?

Goddammit. Here's another example of statistical mumbo-jumbo that turns out to be so fucking simple the grandtwins could do it. I spent an hour on the phone - in tears - Monday with Statsguy trying to figure out what the statistical tests mean so that I can write about them in a semi-intelligent manner. Of course he's helped a zillion ABDs reach their PhDs and because he does it all the time, it's easy for him. It's not for me. He kept telling me, "Don't worry about the math part or what it means, just report it." He didn't seem to understand that my school is really, really into the "philosophy" part of the PhD. They like deep meaning and explanations so detailed you want to bash your own head in with a tire iron. I had to get off the phone with the guy because I was about ready to detonate. Trust me, nobody needs to be subjected to that.

So my busy schedule and I finally calmed down enough to tackle writing up the proposed data analysis today when I got home from teaching (would you believe those horny buggers wanted to talk about sex again, today?). At any rate I thought the best way to see how it's done (not the sex but the proposed data analysis) is to just look up a few pieces of research with statistical analyses similar to the one I'm planning and use them as models for what I need to get done.

Well I'll be go to hell if each of the half dozen or so articles I pulled up didn't have just a single paragraph of maybe four or five sentences dedicated to the statistical tests to be used. Not only that, but they were succinct and direct. There was no prattling on about it either, just, "We're going to use these couple of tests for parametric data and these couple of tests for nonparametric data." That's it. Here I was trying to imbue some kind of meaning like a good student in my program should and it's not necessary. Motherfucker. Why don't they just say this shit in the first place?

(cue gnashing of teeth)

tags technorati : dissertation, statistics, bitching

Breakin' Up Is Hard To Do...Well, Not Really

After the last class I taught for GCUO, I decided I wouldn't teach for them anymore. The experience is best summarized by a phrase The Man uses in describing why he doesn't like to eat Cornish hens: "Too much work for not enough meat." The GCUO students seemed to be functioning in the borderline intellectual range and hadn't clue one about the rules of grammar, spelling, scholarly discourse, et cetera, and were deeply offended when I had the gall to point out their errors. Such flaws would have been more acceptable if the class was a freshman level course, but I was teaching seniors who were theoretically ready to graduate. When I received the email to teach for them again, this is what I replied to the class scheduler:

Hi Faceless Corporate Drone,

I tried to access the GCUO website to decline this invitation to teach, but was unable to do so because once again the server is not functioning properly. This email serves to notify you that I will not be accepting any further contracts from GCUO. I teach 3 sections of undergraduate psychology at the local community college (2 live and 1 online). Those 3 classes combined don't require as much effort on my part as 1 GCUO course. The compensation is also better and I have fewer students, far fewer restrictions and no micromanagement regarding the way I run my classes.

I did the math for the last GCUO class of 20 students. With each student paying $1685 per course, that generated $33,700 for the university. It seems a little unfair that the hardest working person in the loop - the faculty member - received only $1,150, including the $100 bonus for having more than 18 students in the class. That's less than one student's tuition for the class, and what I make in one day in my private practice - which incidentally also requires less effort than one days' work at UOP. I didn't work myself nearly to death to earn a doctorate for the privilege of working for less than minimum wage and while being micromanaged in the process. It's no wonder the university is constantly searching for faculty. Once instructors figure out the hoax, the logical choice can only be to cut one's losses and move on.

Have a great life,
Dr. Brainiac

All the faceless drone at corporate had to say was this:

Hi Nerdwina,

Thank you for your email. I manually declined the class for you and forwarded your email to payroll to inactivate your faculty status.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Have a great day,
Faceless Drone


Her response just affirms my decision to work for myself and serves as a reminder that I don't have to settle for anything less than what I deserve in any area of my life. I worked too hard for far too long to accept anything less than every good thing the universe has in store for me.

Anticlimactic Acceptance

Okay, so yesterday I received an email from Giant Corporate University Online that I've finally passed muster and have been accepted into the loving arms of the faculty body. The process, beginning with the request for my resume May 16, has been ridiculously long. I have participated in nearly six months of "training," including several ever-smaller classes and finally teaching my first undergraduate class with someone watching over my shoulder. The last part was a good thing because I had an experienced faculty member to mentor me through the process.

Don't get me wrong. In this economy I'm happy to have another dribble of income. Every little bit helps and I'd really like to keep my car and keep The Girl's tuition current. The Man still isn't working, hay season is over, and we're living off of savings and 401K. We're not starving but that pool of money isn't unlimited. I'm working the community college gig again - 2 Psych 101 classes early MWF, leaving me the rest of the day to see patients or whatever. It's a fun job and I've done it enough now that the class basically runs itself. I have full autonomy to run my classes and my policies as I see fit and can be as hard ass as I please. Interestingly enough, the students meet every challenge I set for them and all of them say I'm their favorite instructor. The GCUO job pays a little more and I can do it in my jammies, but I have to do things in such a politically correct manner and have to worry about the faculty development team snooping around looking for things to hold against me. It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you...

The thing is, I'm just not excited about GCUO. The students didn't seem to have a clue about academic rigor, the importance of using APA format when writing papers (in pursuit of a psychology degree!? -SERIOUSLY??), or even what constitutes a scholarly reference. A couple of the students were adequate but most of them needed to go back to junior high to learn how to write - and use spell check - and follow instructions. They got mad when I insisted that they learn to use the library system, maintain a high level of academic integrity, and do their own work without the expectation that I hold their hands or do the work for them. Then they whined about what a big fat meany I was when they were surveyed. --Yes, GCUO sends out customer satisfaction surveys to the students - and oddly enough their survey responses held a very strong positive correlation to their grades - go figure. The experience reminded me of a phrase I heard once, "Never try to teach a pig to dance. It wastes your time and annoys the pig."

The next few months are going to find me launching my private practice and I may be scraping for patients at first. So I think what I may do is just teach a GCUO class here and there when I need extra cash and wean myself off the corporate teat as my business picks up. At least I'll know up front the challenges that I'll face in dealing with students in a university with an open enrollment policy and no placement tests to sort them by academic level. Send positive energy my way. I'll need it.

Back to Work

Now that Spring Break is over, it's back to work. Not that I didn't work in the last 9 days, most of it just wasn't related to the class I'm teaching or my dissertation, although I made some progress there, too. No, most of the week was spent getting the pool ready for summer. If you ever go completely insane and decide to put one in, be sure to do your homework first. If you or your neighbors have even one tree between you, have a winter cover made for it so every leaf from every fucking tree within 10 miles doesn't end up in it. Our property has a lot of trees. Big trees. Oaks. Big Oak Trees With Lots and Lots of Fucking Leaves That All Fall Within a Week. Straight Into The Pool.

Mind you, I do not do things halfassed and would have had a cover on the contractor's punch list had I been the one in charge of the pool installation project, but it predates my arrival in The Man's world by about 5 years. Nevertheless, every year The Girl and I earnestly try to keep up with The Leaves and keep them scooped out of the pool, but come fall, between marching band season, honor band auditions, 4-H shooting sports events, homework and the neverending parade of extracurricular activities, it doesn't take long for The Leaves to get the better of us. The Leaves always end up winning. Until Spring Break, when the weather starts warming up, things start turning green again and we get serious about getting the pool ready for summer.

Summer around here is a big damn deal. Aside from all the summertime entertaining pool owners do, The Girl and I spend every afternoon floating, listening to music, talking and engaging in what we call, "Solving All the World's Problems." She's got quite the head on her shoulders. Don't know where she comes by it. The other thing about summer around here is our legendary 4th of July bash, during which it will be full of kids (Of course, I won't get in it for at least a week afterwards for the same reason I won't go to a water park, especially after the "Caddyshack" moment at last year's bash - ew.). This year though, there are some new reasons to be jazzed about summer. This weekend, the Man's daughter and her family are moving to a house a couple of miles from here so The Grandtwins will be over a lot more. My best friend since age 3 has also moved about 70 miles closer and her new place doesn't have a pool so she'll be over a lot more, too. Tragic, really.

So, back to why you should invest in a pool cover in case you ever go crazy and put one in. The process of ramping up is long and nassssty, my precious. First, all of those leaves (and algae and worms and sometimes dead animals that we didn't catch when they were "floaters") have been steeping, making the most lovely black tea all winter. This fluid must be drained via submergible pump, taking about a day and a half. Then, the remaining organic matter must be shoveled out and hauled away. The smell is rather akin to what Texas lakes smell like - worms and dead leaves and algae and sometimes dead animals that we didn't catch when they were "floaters." Pretty disgusting, really. The scoopage takes about half a day. The next step is to clean the stains from the "tea" off of the sides of the pool. Most times this can be done with a pressure washer, but it really needs a new coat of pool paint but we're going to do it next year (another misadventure in and of itself that I'll elaborate on another time), and I was afraid to use pressure on it this time. Sooo, The Girl and I bought a shitload of Magic Erasers and washed the whole damn thing down by hand. That took another half day. I don't know what's in those things (probably can't be good for you), but they really did the trick. They just don't last long enough. We must have used 2 dozen of them.

Yesterday we started adding water and it usually takes about 30 hours to fill it, using 2 hoses. I had to turn the water off last night though so I can stick two tiles back on this morning. Once it's filled, it will take a good 2 weeks of fiddling to get the chemical balance just right then we'll be in business. Of course it will still be too chilly for me to get in it until June but dammit it will be ready and waiting, taunting us with its sparkling blueness until then.

Work Your Fingers to the Bone - Whadda You Git? Bony Fingers!

Not to worry, I haven't forgotten about y'all. Party #2, my best friend's wedding, will be held here Saturday and we're all working our collective tuchis-es off to get the place presentable for such a fete. The cool part is that it's mostly the stuff we usually do to get ready for our legendary annual 4th of July bash and it's really nice to have help. Suz, her beloved and her kids have been here every evening after work to mow, edge, weed-eat, wash windows, clean the fans that I'm too short to get to and generally put a spit-shine on the place. Between that, teaching and the endless errands that have to be taken care of in order to host back-to-back events with over 100 attendees each, I have barely had time to find my own ass - with both hands - much less natter on about anything. You should see the place though...it looks like a goddamn country club.

In other news, I had a long talk with my chair last week and she expects me to fluff up the discussion section of my dissertation by about 15 pages. I knew the discussion section was -ahem- a little light but I've found that just throwing it up against the wall to see if it sticks and letting them tell me what they really want has facilitated my progress better than anything else I've done. I'll be able to get to that after the wedding and in plenty of time for my defense but I'm still not that thrilled about having to do it. It's nice though to have specific suggestions for improvement.

My signet ring and academic regalia arrived Friday. The ring is nice but I was really jazzed about the cap, gown & hood because it makes the whole thing seem more real. However, they put the slit for clothing access on the right side of the gown, despite the fact that I custom-ordered it with the slit on the left - given that I'm a natural born lefty and all. I'm going to go ahead and wear it to my graduation but as soon as I get back home, it's going back to the company so they can fix it since I will need it for future academic events. The Girl asked me why I just didn't live with it. Naturally a right handed person would ask such a question, but I stand by my decision for them to fix it because: A) I am left-handed - (no, really!) and 2) I paid a $hitload of money to get academic regalia that was custom-made to my exact specifications. In addition to the monogrammed initials, those specifications included a left-hand slit - and it was on the paperwork in about 27 different places, with asterisks and all caps and everything so the people who sew it together would be made aware of it. Still didn't happen. Sigh. I really shouldn't complain about it because the customer service rep I spoke with on the phone is also a lefty, so she "got it," and I received the prepaid UPS tag today.

Okay, that's all I know right now. After I finish the last-minute stuff tomorrow, Suz & I are going to lounge poolside with many cold beers on ice with salt, we will be parked between the margarita machine and the kick ass blues band Saturday, and nursing something approximating a hangover on Sunday, so don't expect me back before Monday's CCC at the earliest.

Flying By The Seat of My Pants

This whole thing would all be so much easier and more readily comprehensible if I'd ever actually written a dissertation before. Nevertheless, I consider myself fortunate to be highly skilled at flying by the seat of my pants. The last couple of days have been crazy (and believe me, I know crazy - in the Biblical sense). I had a phone conference with Her Majesty My Dissertation Chair (HMMDC) yesterday to iron out a few details before I submit my next revision. A lot has happened since the last time we spoke, including the holidays, my teaching an undergraduate psychology course, a major national session for my school (which I didn't attend, but she did) and the death of my mother in law, but despite all of those things I've still gotten a lot done. HMMDC was a little peeved that I haven't kept her abreast of what I've been up to, but if neither of us is available, up-to-the-minute communication is difficult at best. All that aside, she was pleased with what I've gotten accomplished and she appreciates that I am as self-directed as I am.

During our conversation, HMMDC brought up a couple of issues. First, she thinks my new associate dean (the old one got a much better offer elsewhere - can't blame him for taking it) is a twit who tries to make things overly complicated for his dissertating students just for the sake of complicating things. This is a ginormous problem for both the amazingly smart, fabulous and wonderful HMMDC and myself because that type of thinking runs completely counter to ours and is part of why I picked her. Given that situation, she suggested that since Dr. New AD likes to "make his mark" on the dissertations he works on (read: piss all over everything), that now would be the time for me to seek his assistance on something trivial that I don't really care if he changes. He's already made it rather clear that he doesn't like the title, the table of contents or the order of presentation of the content without specifying what exacly he wanted to see, so there are promising areas there. HMMDC suggested that maybe if I seek his guidance in one of those areas, it would placate him before we get too deep into the process. I made preparations to do that, namely, "What would you like the title to be?" and "In what order would you prefer the presentation?" but haven't executed the request - more on that in a bit (film at 11).

The other issue brought up by HMMDC is that my exposure to the very small neuropsychology community is limited, consisting of my supervisor from the hospital, my second faculty reader (much beloved and brilliant Reader #2), and the other neuropsych faculty guy at my school, so I have not clue one whom to ask to be my external reader, since it's supposed to be someone affiliated with neither the school nor myself so none of those guys qualify. HMMDC advised me to consult Reader #2, who is a prominent (and have I mentioned brilliant?) neuropsychologist, and in the meantime she'd check with the geriatric psych folks she knows and we'd probably have somebody in a couple of weeks. Love love, kiss kiss, talk to you in 2 weeks, we were done.

That is, until about two hours later. HMMDC called me in a bit of a lather to inform me that she and Reader #2 had just been on the phone and this is what they had decided in the interest of getting me graduated: First, since graduation this summer will be in the same major city where my 80-something grandparents and many other extended family members live and I would like to walk at that time, they are putting a cattle prod to my ass to get me there in time and I should just buckle my seatbelt, hang on and shut the fuck up because it's going to be a bumpy ride - but we'll get there. I love a good challenge and am thrilled to be a blip on someone's radar at this point so I'm okay with that. Done is good. Done. Is. Very. Fucking. Good.

First things first, Reader #2 (whom I adore and have only the best, most wonderful glowing and gushy nice things to say about not only because of his brilliance as a clinician but his unwavering comitment to student advocacy) absolutely, under no circumstances, will ever Ever EVER work on a dissertation committee with Dr. New AD again. Period. Not really a problem because interestingly enough, ADs will be rendered unnecessary for dissertation committees as of the end of this month so HMMDC is going to ask for a special dispensation from the grand poobah of the school to ask if we can just go ahead and drop him now and either put someone else in that position or leave it empty, depending upon how many people the school wants on the committee. My vote is for leaving it vacant, because trying to get 2 academics to agree is easier than trying to get 3 to agree, and HMMDC and Reader #2 are already in agreement. Realistically though, I won't hold my breath because it's guaranteed that nooooobody from the adminisphere is going to ask for my input on the subject. In the interest of minimizing complications though, either way is still good news. Surely we can find someone to play nice and get me out.

The next thing, from which I am still reeling, is that HMMDC and Reader #2 agreed that since I will be using an archival dataset and already have approval from the hospital Institutional Review Board (IRB) to use it for my study, that I should go ahead and fill out the IRB exemption paperwork for our school. As in RIGHT FUCKING NOW, do not pass go, do not collect $200, and get it to HMMDC by 10am Pacific time this morning because they meet today. No pressure or anything. --Don't even ask. Anybody who knows me for more than 2 minutes knows damn well I got it in. I ended class early this morning because my lecture notes weren't fully prepared after being up all night doing that, but by Gawd, I got that IRB bullshit turned in, and with time to spare. I even watched American Idol first (you knew I would).

It probably goes without saying that I was pretty much a zombie this morning in class but the kids were excited to be released from my dungeon a little early and I got to come home and take a much needed and well-deserved nap, so that's a big ol' bonus.

Naptime over, I was just settling down into some good juicy revisions when my cell phone rang. Guess who? You guessed it: My NeuroNerd Hero, Reader #2. He wanted to be sure I was aware of his refusal to work with Dr. New AD (whom I've only met once when I read his tarot cards last summer). I told much beloved Reader #2 that as far as I am concerned Dr. New AD is expendable, but that his expertise as "Dr. Uber NeuroGuy" is not and assured him that we'd figure something out one way or another. I'm flexible, especially if it is to my benefit. As of the end of this month it will be a moot point anyway.

Next things next, Reader #2 proceeded to tell me that I should hire a statistics consultant asap to help me figure out the math part. Not to DO it for me, mind you, but to tutor me through the process, since I'm not a math nerd and all (although I play one on TV). I told him about the recent policy change I'd been emailed from the adminisphere about not receiving ANY outside help in the dissertation process. He got downright pissed and told me to send him the link and he'd get it changed. After all, an external reader is outside, right? So where do we draw the line? He said that not allowing a statistics consultant was tantamount to leaving the dissertating student floundering on the beach. I told him that although I've flourished and made a name for myself, the feeling of being left floundering on the beach pretty much sums up the bulk of my experience with the program for the last 6 and a half years, so what else is new? Of course now I can't find the link to the information but I know that's what it said among listing the punishments for such offenses, including but not limited to the rack, shoving glass shards under the fingernails or being forced to slide down a 20-foot razor blade into a pool of rubbing alcohol. We agreed that we didn't have that conversation, but he advised me to do it anyway after consulting with HMMDC and thank the stats consultant for the tutorials in the "thanks" page of the final document.

He then asked me about the revisions the school-based research person wanted to see in the next iteration of my proposal. He agreed with her suggestions but wants me to send everything to him before I send it anywhere else, a decision supported heartily by HMMDC. I can do that but it's going to take a couple of days since I've kind of butchered (read: really fucked up) the original document in trying to get to the revisions the research person wants to see. It takes time to unfuckup stuff, you know?

Okay, all that said...the coolest part besides hopefully getting out this summer is that Reader #2 knows a lot of the "Big Names" in neuropsychology and is having dinner with one of the biggest next week. Turns out Dr. Big Name owes much beloved Reader #2 a huge favor for saving his ass recently. Guess who's dissertation Reader #2 is going to ask him to serve as external reader? You know it baby - that would be mine - the Dissertation from Hell.

Yeah baby, I got it like that - by the seat of my pants. Good thing that's how I roll.

There and Back $5

So I won a prize over at Brunhilda's. How cool is that? Although she wants to envision us Texas wimmin as all having big ol' bleached blonde bouffant hair and bright red dragon claws, I just don't fit that pattern. My makeup is pretty minimal. Hair and nails are both cropped short and the closest thing to bleached blonde as I get are the highlights The Girl talked me into awhile back that I am allowing to grow back out and the -ahem- "natural platinum" that's growing in as I get older. I own a tanning bed but plan to sell it because I haven't used it in a couple of years.

I promised a juicy, newsy post, so first things first: I survived the oral exam but won't know until around Labor Day whether I passed. The problem with the oral exam is that examinees are given ten minutes to formulate a case and talk about it for an hour with two examiners who have no knowledge of the examinee's clinical skills. They know whether or not examinees have passed when they allow us to check out, but we have to wait six weeks for the "official" letter from the state. There are only one or two other states that still do the oral exam because of the lack of reliability and validity, partly because examiners only receive 3 hours' training and the outcome is highly subjective, but Texas still hangs in there because that's the way it's always been done.

I have some misgivings about my outcome because my anxiety level was through the roof. Ordinarily, I can talk about neuropsych all day long, but Saturday I didn't feel like I could construct a coherent thought to save my life. First of all, I like to think deeply when I'm formulating a case and take into consideration as many of the potential variables as possible. That just can't be done in ten minutes. Second, the people I've trained with over the years were genuinely down-to-earth people that you wouldn't know were psychologists if they didn't tell you. My two examiners acted the psychologist stereotype. It was creeeeeppyyyy (*shudder*). We were seated in a very tiny stark white room with a table, tape recorder, a black file with my name on it, and a 2-way mirror. The examiner seated closest to said mirror kept trying to look into it to see if anyone was on the other side - either that or he was checking his hair, or to see if there was something in his teeth, I don't know. Then, he kept checking his fucking BLACKBERRY throughout my exam!! Goddammit, if I had to leave my cell phone turned off and in the waiting area, he should have been held to the same standard.

The worst part though was the questioning. I had only ten minutes to review the case, which by design, contains only limited information. I could take notes for that ten minutes but that was all. Bet your ass I filled a page in that time. Then, instead of asking one question at a time, the questions were embedded - like 2 to 4 questions all in one shot. By the time I'd get finished with the first part of the question, I'd forgotten the rest and had to ask the guy to repeat the next part - of course, he repeated the whole fucking thing. Then, they started reading the questions e - x - c - r - u - c - i - a - t - i - n - g - l - y s - l - o - w - l - y, as if they were thinking , "Wow - this one is really stupid. How the fuck she got through doctoral study is beyond us..." Either that or my mind was racing so far ahead that there was a warp in the spacetime continuum and it just seemed that way. Then, they asked me what I'd done to enhance my professional skills in the last few years. Um, duh? I just cranked out four degrees in ten years? Finished 231 credits toward a 135 credit PhD in clinical psychology with a neuropsychology concentration as the cherry on top? Did ground-breaking research in the relationship between geriatric cognitive functioning and affect? All those CE's I've taken in the last 4 years? Teaching a doctoral level hands-on Halstead-Reitan lab? Did I mention that I did all of this while juggling work AND a family AND community activism? Does any of that count? Because really, I'm not so sure because my cogitator is really fucked up right now. At any rate, we'll know by Labor Day. Meh. I'm just glad to have it over with - at least until January if I failed the goddamn thing. Fuckers.

I learned yesterday that I'll be presenting my research in geriatric cognition and affect at my state psychological association's annual convention in November. Tragic that they misspelled the title of the research on the website. Gotta remember to call them Monday to correct it. It's Dysphoria, not Sysphoria, fools.

In other news, my intro psych class is over. They were awesome and everybody got an A. I doubt I'll ever get a class that good again. The developmental psych class I was scheduled to teach for Summer II didn't make (even though I worked my butt off getting the course ready to go - upside is that at least it's ready to go next time), so my finances are looking beyond bleak right now, but I'll make it. I always do. I applied for a full time position at the community college but they wait until the last damn minute to make a decision over there, then expect you to be ready to go - like - yesterday, so I probably won't hear anything from them until mid-late August (classes start August 25).

In the interim, I've been selected to take the faculty training for a big, giant corporate university and will start this Tuesday. The recruiter wants me to teach undergraduate and graduate level courses online. We'll see how it goes. In my research though, I've noticed that they advertise for faculty pretty regularly and that there are over 20,000 - yes, kids - twenty thousand - online instructors for this school worldwide. My entry level faculty trainee class is about 250. Jeez, Louise. I can't imagine the management structure they must have in place to keep track of that many people - and that doesn't include the on-ground people or administrative staff. The picture at the top is one The Girl took the other day for my faculty profile. She said that of the dozen or so pictures she snapped that day (actually sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet in, but I cropped all that out), this one captured my personality the best. See? I told you I don't have big hair.

The Girl worked at Sonic for about 2 weeks after drum major camp and never got a chance to work more than 2 hours at one time, even though she got a "promotion" to carhop the second day. By the time we factored in a gallon of gas there & back and taxes, it wasn't worth it for her to work there. Sooo, I talked to The Man and pointed out that sad little fact and that she would never be able to save for another car if she couldn't get any hours. We agreed that she would be better off at her old job, where she could at least work a full shift and get tips from being the best little tableside guacamole girl ever. Of all the guac I've eaten there (which would be approximately a shitload), hers stands out as the best, and I'm not just saying that because I'm her mom. People she doesn't even know request her specifically to make their guacamole. She's started doing this thing she calls "Guacamole Theater," where she acts out bastardized scenes from movies with the knife and the avocado as the main characters and the other ingredients and tools (salt, lime, tomato, garlic, onion, cilantro, molcajete, pestle & spoons) play the bit parts. (Knife: "I am Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Avocado: "Ayudame! Ayudame!" After a mighty duel, Knife slices into avocado with a great squishing noise as the other ingredients shriek in terror...et cetera). That Girl is a scream, I tell ya. She's happier there, having loads more fun and making a lot more money, so everybody's happy. She even has a new car, 2 years newer, 4-door & white which we found for exactly the amount the insurance company settled back in April. All's right with her world.

The Man has a job interview Monday for a job which he is totally overqualified but it's close to home and since, despite my efforts, I'm not making shit for money, and the weather's been too dry for his hay business to get any work, somebody's gotta work around here.

Dr. Tinyoffice Will See You Now

I promised pictures of the new office some time back. In November, my business partner & I leased 200 square feet of office space (2 adjoining 10'x10' rooms). Before I show you where we are, I want to show you where we came from, which will hopefully shed a little light on why 200 fabulously quiet and drama-free square feet is better than an overcrowded, poorly renovated old Jehovah's Witness Hall with paper thin walls and not enough office space to accomodate the number of people working there. These pictures are of the lobby only. My partner & I had to conduct psychological testing in the "play therapy room" which looked like a garage sale threw up in it (and was impossible in which to test children). Oh wait, the whole place looked like that...



We managed to slide out of that practice with no drama, unlike some of our predecessors. One of the owners had a penchant for drama and accusations of those trying to leave trying to put her out of business instead of being happy that the former supervisees in question were moving on to bigger and better opportunities than giving her half of what they earned (which was all she appeared to care about anyway). My partner was able to escape because she lives nearly an hour away and her internship was over, so due to the distance the owner didn't perceive her as a threat (although they tried to convince her to stick around so they'd have someone competent in pediatric assessment on staff). I managed to escape unscathed because at the time I was also working 3 other jobs, 2 in teaching and one for the neuropsychologist I'd been working for forever, so they didn't perceive me as a threat either.

Even though during my internship the non-crazy partner at the other site had asked me to consider joining their practice, and I was flattered by his offer, my plan has always been to establish my own practice. Continuing to work there was really a conflict of interest, albeit mostly financial. It just didn't make sense to work for a paranoid and delusional person for half of state evaluation rates when I'd worked out a much more lucrative deal with the neuropsychologist, even if I did have to generate my own business. I was in sales in a former career iteration, so generating business is no big deal for me. In the end, the rent we pay is far less than what we were paying the crazy lady with the garage sale furniture, and we don't have to jockey for space. Sorry, I'm just not willing to do testing on the open-air covered back porch, unlike some of the therapists there. Is that a privacy violation, or is it just me?

So without further ado, here are pictures of our two tiny 10 foot by 10 foot rooms...our 200 square feet of professional paradise...our own space to be the boss of ourselves...

These are pardner's side of the suite (note the phrenology head print and the "lucky tennis shoes" original drawing):



My side of the suite (btw, I'm there a lot more often so it's more homey, but she'd like to use it for storage of test equipment so I'm planning to move my stuff to a slightly larger space in the next office down the hall in the next few months):

My space looks a lot warmer because although I sold fluorescent lighting enclosures for some time, I abhor fluorescent lighting and refuse to use anything but incandescent or natural lighting. Too bad there are no windows in the room.

The little cabinet in the middle folds out to make the perfect sized table for testing.

There's also a comfy sofa in my office, and a cabinet to store my most used testing materials.

Yes it's small, but it's professional and not cluttered with nonessentials. The environment is quiet and soon I'll be able to spread out about 4 feet in each direction so it won't feel cramped even when assessing the largest patient driving a motorized scooter. Life is good and I'm proud to be where we are today.

Never Say Never

Apparently the Humanities Department chair at the college got some really good feedback from the kids about me and called me Thursday to ask if I'd teach general psych again for Summer I from 8-10:30 am Monday -Thursday. Either that or he was peeing on my leg and calling it rain because in reality he couldn't find anyone else to take the class.

The Summer I session lasts from May 29-June 28, and the pay is the same as what I got for the entire long semester, only all in one shot instead of spread out over 4 months. So since I already have the KeyNote presentations and the exams prepared I accepted the class. I just hope the first course wasn't a fluke and this one turns out to be the class from hell. Then again, I do have a flute to pay for for the foreseeable future, and a trip to pay for in July, so the money will come in handy. We'll see how it goes.

I can do anything for a month, right?

tags technorati : teaching

What Do You Mean I Get Graded, Too?

So this morning in class the kids were doing their "major project" presentations and things were progressing swimmingly. I moved seats to get a better view of the presenters and what to my wondering eyes did appear sitting in one of the desks behind me, but my boss, the Chair of the Humanities Department of the college. How the hell he got in without my knowledge is beyond me. Apparently I underestimate the sneakiness.

This may come as some surprise but my language in class tends to be rather colorful. It's not uncommon for me to say "shit" or any of its derivatives at least a dozen times in our hour and a half time slot. Today however, the students were the teachers, not me. My role was try to engage the observers in asking questions of the presenters about their material. Given the uncivilized hour of our class that's hard to do. Unless, of course, we're talking about sex. Then I can't get them to shut up.

So I introduced Dr. Sneakiness to the class, and as he rose to leave he handed me a performance evaluation. He had been *GASP* grading me the entire time he was there - however long that was. Actually that's probably good because had I known he was there I don't know how I would have reacted. I'm just really glad I'm through lecturing and all that's left are project presentations and the final, which only about six students have to take.

Oh? The evaluation? Perfect marks all the way down the line. Good thing he didn't come last Tuesday for the social psych lecture I blasted through so we'd have time to review for the exam. I think I said shit 20 times and fuck at least once. I'd have definitely been dinged for professionalism...Man, was it my lucky day or what?

tags technorati : teaching, woohoo

Don't Tell the Italians

Boy, are the Italians going to be pissed off when they find out they're actually being ruled by the French! Well, not really but apparently a lot of people, particularly young people, think the capital of Italy is France. How do I know this? Aside from teaching psychology, I also do psychological testing - a lot of psychological testing. One of the major IQ tests I use has a section that asks questions regarding general stuff about which people should have at least some vague idea. One of the "easier" questions deals with the capital of Italy. I can't count how many people say, without hesitation, that it's France, then appear to be proud of themselves for their vast knowledge of European systems of government.

I'm not sure what's worse though - the Franco/Italian fuckups or the no less than 75% of African Americans I've tested who have absolutely no clue who Martin Luther King or Abraham Lincoln were. I just want to smack them and yell at them, "SERIOUSLY!? You've got to be shitting me! You don't who know two of the most influential figures in the modern history of your people were? You know - the one who freed you from slavery and the one who made it possible for you to be integrated into American society? Really? Pull your head out of your ass so you can see the world, dipshit! - And while you're at it, pull up your pants. You look like a dumbass."

Please be proud of me for maintaining my poker face and not smacking them upside the head and telling them what idiots they are. Maybe a more fitting punishment would be for me to call their grandmas for the administration a proper and much-needed ass-whoopin'.

Holidaze Over, Need Naps Nao Plz. Kthxbai.

moar funny pictures

Look. I maded a lolcat - but I eated it. This kitteh blongs to The Grandtwins. I like cats - as long as they're "over there." I have serious allergy to cats that leaves my eyes looking like the creature from The Blob. Anyway, I took this picture at a recent gathering at their house. Just moments before, kitteh was beating the hell outta that reindeer plushy so my caption seemed appropriate. I don't know if it will make it to I Can Has Cheezburger or not but it was fun to do anyway.

It's been a busy few days. Mostly I've been curled up by the fire reading books in my new leather chair (which matches the new leather group & tables that The Man & I purchased for Holiday - yes, apparently after 14 years our relationship has moved into the "one large purchase for everyone" phase. Next year what do you want to bet we buy a plasma TV "for both of us"?). At any rate, I read books (devoured, if I'm being honest) - real books of the non-academic type. Books that had nothing to do with brains or neuropsychology or academics and were not written at a postgraduate level, so I blasted through them in no time flat.

Bitter is the New Black

Little Black Book of Wine

Frommer's Dream Vacations

Windows on the World Complete Wine Course

I Am Woman, I Am Invincible...I Am Tired

The Complete Travel Detective Bible

Culture Shock! Scotland: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette

...and my personal favorite, Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. I really have a thing for Chef Bourdain. Not that he'd ever be in danger of crossing my path, what with me firmly grounded in Texas and him trotting the 'round globe, and all that business about personal and professional ethics, so the whole stalker thing is out. Still, I think he'd be fun to party with and it would be so refreshing to have a conversation with someone with a broad world view who actually had something interesting to say. Sigh.

Other than that, The Girl hosted a Monty Python-Athon the day after Xmas, so the house was descended upon by a dozen or so teenagers bearing Spam and coconut shells. It was fun and since there's a state-wide curfew for teenage drivers, they were all gone by midnight except the one or two girls spending the night.

Last night we went to a New Year's Eve/Suz's Birthday party at her new hubby's best friend's new home. They built it themselves over the last two years and it still isn't quite finished, but they've moved in. Funny, when I have people over I at least make sure to pick up the common areas of the house, run a quick dust cloth over things and clean the bathrooms, but even between cleanings every week my house doesn't get like that. Don't even get me started on the cocktail weenies in storebought barbeque sauce and the uber-sweet Doux sparkling wine thing toast at midnight and the egregious faux pas in the lack of blackeyed peas on the table - at a New Year's party in Texas - harrumph. The fireworks that I imported from Missouri after Grandpa's funeral were the highlight of our evening out. Looks like I'm going to need to visit Grandma sometime before the 4th of July for a refill.

As soon as we got home, we cracked open a bottle of Asti Spumante (not my favorite but I was out of Roederer and Asti is what The Man likes in sparkling varietals) and we each ate a bowl of blackeyed peas with salt jowl that I had put in the slow cooker in the afternoon.

Other than that, now that I've rabidly consumed most of the non-academic books I've accumulated in the last 2 years, I'm plowing into a few more books to help me prepare for my postdoc work:

The Paper Office talks at length about the ethical considerations of marketing, billing, doing business with third-party payers, et cetera, and it includes sample forms so I won't have to re-invent the wheel in creating my own forms when I'm fully licensed to hang out my shingle.

Successful Private Practice in Neuropsychology is pretty much just what the title says. It's a kind of how-to in keeping the practitioner's clinical, teaching and research interests in balance and still paying the bills while alone on the private practice mountaintop. So far a lot of what she says makes me think, "Well, duh..." but there are some good nuggets of wisdom in there from someone who's been there, so I'm not going to dismiss it entirely.

There's also Geriatric Neuropsychology, which I haven't delved into yet. Considering that my area of expertise is geriatric neuropsychological functioning, one wouldn't think that I would need a book like that, but in the interest of keeping myself educated about current methodology and research, that's exactly the kind of book I need. I'm looking forward to digging in this evening.

I don't know anything else right now other than I've got a big ol' pot of New Year's Day blackeyed peas in the slow cooker, a ham in the oven and cornbread with fried taters & onions just begging for me to cook them. I hope everyone has a healthy, happy and wildly prosperous 2008 filled with love, and that all of your fondest dreams are made real. That said, if you'll excuse me, I'm getting back to my books and my comfy leather chair by the fire.

Despite Everything I Got Something Done

Hi y'all. Didja miss me? Well, lemme tell ya...since getting back from the band trip Saturday I've been busier'n a three-peckered billy goat. Saturday evening we had dinner with The Man's daughter at their new home around the corner from us along with several family members and close family friends. Sunday my mom came by to have me take some pictures of her for a new book she's having published. I've been trying to get the final exam ready to give the kids this morning and we had one of those killer Texas thunderstorms with 90-mile-an-hour straight line winds last night that downed a bunch of trees, including the one pictured above, which landed over my driveway, bent the pole fence out front and blocked the road. I drove The Man's demo out to the gate to take the picture and upon coming back down the driveway in reverse, I slid off the concrete and buried the truck up to its axle in the mud. I didn't take a picture of that. I think I muttered something under my breath that rhymed with truck...can't be sure. At any rate, The Man had to push me out of the mud with his big ol' tractor before he could use it to move the trees out of the road. You can imagine how happy he was with me. ;oD

During all this, our dinner (a really nice pot roast I'd had on the stove since 10:30 am, with smushed taters & brown mushroom gravy and steamed squash - all from fresh & from scratch -Slick would be proud..) was getting cold. Then, before we could even sit down to eat, our son-in-law brought the Grandtwins over for about an hour or so because the power was out at their house. They chattered throughout American Idol. Gr. It's the only show I watch and I was invested in Pinhead Chris' departure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the crayon pictures with all the hearts and flowers and shit are great, but shut up already - jeez.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I was supposed to make up a mock dataset and run and write up a mock curvilinear regression analysis so my consulting faculty will be happy with the knowledge that I understand curvilinearity before she goes on vacation tomorrow so I can move ahead with my dissertation. I'd planned to get it to her early yesterday evening but that didn't work out because of all the other crap going on. Without that, I can't officially move on until she gets back May 29, which, naturally, will put me in a huge bind if I'm going to have the draft of the last 2 chapters in within the next couple of weeks so I can graduate in July. Because you know - I can't shit without the committee's permission or without giving them a fully detailed description of its color, texture, aromatic and flotation qualities, et cetera. Of course, the storm knocked out both my internet and cell service, so even if by some miracle I had gotten it finished according to plan, I couldn't have sent it to her anyway. So I stayed up after everyone else went to bed (that's actually when I do my best, least distracted work) until around 1:30am and got it done. Interestingly, the internet tower beamer thingy reset itself about 15 minutes before I was finished so I was able to send it to her last night instead of waiting until this morning to try to send it from school. That was good because the internet service there is dodgy most of the time anyway.

So. I get up around 5am and toddle out the door this morning at 7 for my last day as a college professor. There were 6 students who had to take the final. Unfortunately, I had to bake in extra security measures because one student was ratted out for cheating on the last exam (I gave the ratter a couple of points extra credit to make sure she passed the course with an A). At any rate they were finished within 30 minutes and while I was there and had the classroom all to myself for another hour and a half, I went ahead and graded them, filled out the grade report, and turned it in at the administration building. As of 10am Central Hell Time, I am no longer a college professor - yippee!

I'm still waiting for feedback about the mock analysis from the consulting faculty so I didn't know what to do with the rest of the day. After some thought, I took a book about sex and sexuality that I'd bought donate to The Girl's high school library to the librarian (more on that another day) then came home, took a nap and as soon asI woke up, I sat down to let y'all know I haven't forgotten about you. It's just been crazy around here - and believe me - I know crazy - in the biblical sense.

Oh yeah - and I have poison ivy. Again. More on that later, too.

tags technorati : bitching, statistics, teaching, Texas, dissertation, American Idol,