Going on a heat wave!

Okay, I really don't have any reason to have taken a posting hiatus. I did start my Delta class last week, and its been some work balancing everything, but other than that I've just been pretty slammed. Where to begin...

well, my class on Teaching Science in the College Classroom has been more work that I've expected, but I've also taken away more from the first week of class than in some of my semester long classes. We meet three hours a day, 3 days a week for 3 weeks. During the first hour we have discussion leaders and discuss the readings that were assigned in a structured manner. Hour 2 brings peer review of the assignments (lesson plans, syllabus, teaching philosophy, etc...), then for the last 45 minutes-ish, we cover a new topic that we're going to be doing, like assessment techniques, or learning plans. Its long, but the time flies by. Also, as part of it we each do a 15-minute mini-teaching assignment, where you teach any topic to the class, its videorecorded, and played back to you. You then make corrections, and get to teach it again the next week. I'm in the first group to do mine, which is this Friday. I think I'm going to present on clone libraries or PCR or DNA sequining, something that I can draw great pictures for and really help to hammer home. The class has really made me want to teach, especially next semester, but I know I'll be up to my eyeballs in research, so it is what it is.

Also, I was packing up the house on Saturday. August 15th is a Madison-wide holiday known as moving day. The way it works, is that the year long leases expire on noon of the 14th, and no one can move in until noon on the 15th, at which point every single college student moving apartments all moves at the same time. Its NUTS! So, seeing as how we're moving downstairs, we're not exempt from the moving madness, and will be hauling all out stuff downstairs come Saturday. The point of this story, is that I was starting to pack, and my cell phone rang. It was my advisor.

I don't think my advisor has ever called my cell phone, and barring that I wouldn't imagine him calling on a Saturday. So I answered, and he starts talking about how I really need to get trained in DGGE, this technique used for screening environmental microbiology cultures. There isn't anyone here he knows thats doing it, but one of his old students is down at Ole Miss. Thats right, Mississippi. So, I need to hop on a plane at the end of this month, and spend a few days in the good olde south learning some technique. I booked the ticket this morning. I'm running a half marathon on the 29th in the AM, getting on a plane in the afternoon, driving from Memphis to Conway AR to see my awesome friend Sam for a night, then the next afternoon driving the 4 hours to Oxford, MI. I'll work Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the lab, heading back Wednesday afternoon. Which is....September 2nd. Originally I was going to fly in the morning of the 3rd and miss some classes, but the 2nd is my birthday darnit, and flying in at 9:00 at night is better than no birthday night at all in my apartment. Plus, on your birthday you get to eat cake all day, an I'm not sure if people in the south have Costco cake, so that's a risk I don't know if I really want to take.

The take home message? Its going to be a fun month for me. Also, I get to explore Mississippi (which is really fun to spell), Ar-Kansas, and Tennessee (plus I can sing Walking in Memphis while I'm actually walking in Memphis...happy birthday to me!)

In other news, I'm currently eating a bowl of with one red beet and some golden beets that I boiled and have re-heated in the microwave, so now they're orange tie-die beets. Its pretty hippy dippy, root vegtables AND a crazy color combination. I won't go a week without writing anymore, not unless I have a much better reason!