potatoann

A professor with whom I work has been awarded a major grant, and he's hired me to be a research assistant! This is an unbelievable opportunity and there is truly no downside to this amazing offer. Here are the reasons why:

1. I will be funded at .49 instead of .4. This is nearly 25% more money each month.
2. I will get to save three terms of the guaranteed funding awarded to me when I started here, giving me an entire extra year of a tuition waver, stipend, and health insurance.
3. I will not have to deal with students for an entire year!
4. It covers travel expenses to archives in Wisconsin, Washington DC, and New York (it is historical archival research on unions).
5. It will look very good on my C.V. to have worked on a project funded by NSF.
6. The experience of working on this project is truly invaluable in my training.
7. I will be able to do research for my own dissertation while working on this project (at the archives).
8. We will almost certainly get a number of publications out of it.
9. I will get to make contacts in a couple of other Sociology departments.
10. I will get to do research on something I am truly interested in and care about.

I actually feel like I won a million dollars. I really can't express my excitement. Perhaps I should use some exclamation marks...but I'm still in shock.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You know how some students were having a dance party two weeks ago? It must be a weekly thing, because they're at it again. Not as many of them though...they don't look like they're having near as much fun as I am! Thesis due in 3.75 hours. Blech.

I now have two weeks left until I turn in my thesis, and oh my god I've never felt so anxious in my entire left. I am paralyzed by self-doubt.

And you know what else? It's a beautiful, gorgeous, warm sunny breezy Friday! I'll be able to enjoy it as soon as I decide I can't handle any more today - which will probably be soon. Some people are having a dance party out on the lawn right outside my office window...I think they're just trying to torture me:)

Goddamn undergrads! They're driving me absolutely nuts at the end of this term, hoping that if they whine loudly enough I'll just give in and erase their absences.

But some of them are really great. Actually, generally speaking, the smaller the class, the better the students are. So I have high hopes for my summer class.

Meanwhile I have a thesis to analyze, write, and make perfect in four weeks.

I love riding my bike around town. It's great not having a car. This summer it will be necessary for me to have a car; boo.

I got up at 6am this morning to finish grading my students' papers before we met at 10am. I was unsuccessful.

I don't think I like writing in blogs anymore.