Canned Goods

I haven’t blogged in a bit. The midterm time of the semester gets a little crazy, with student conferences and all. And I’m not even taking courses this semester.

So I thought I’d make a list of what I have to do today. Maybe it looks like your list. [Add: I just couldn’t get it all done, and there’s a new list for today. Hmmmmmmmmmm.]

[DONE]Revise my English 201 schedule. Some of my students are having a hard time working with Audacity–mainly it’s dealing with file formats (importing/exporting) and uploading the final projects. Anti-piracy encryption has been an issue for all the iTunes customers.

[DONE]Read/Comment on student blogs. This has been the best semester of student blogs in my experience. Letting them write about what they want is one part of the success. Another may be that these are upperclassmen in contrast to freshmen.

[kind of done]Write up a FAQ for Audacity. With all the different issues people have had. This is a necessity. I can’t check my email all day and respond to all the questions.

Finish Understanding Media. I been trying to reread this all week, and without a sustained period of reading I feel like I’ve lost everything that was in my head from the first chapters already.

Read my blog roll, comment, and write some blog posts. I’m a week behind.

[DONE: but I need to start work on these–due mid November to Dec. 1]
Go thru the CFPs that are piling up. I really need to get moving on some proposals.

[DONE]Revise my tentative prelims list and try to break it down into these categories: Literacy, Pedagogy, Rhetoric and Theory. Then talk to each of our faculty.

Get to work on planning dissertation classroom research. My alma mater, Northern Michigan University has a great Art and Design department, and I’m thinking about working with the Digital Cinema and Electronic Imaging programs. UW-Madison doesn’t have either of these. I’ll need to move to Marquette this summer and get an adjunct position to pay the rent. And my amazing MA thesis advisor, Kia Jane Richmond, is there. It’s always good to have someone who is sooooooooo motivating around to get you going on a dissertation.

[Done] Order all those free Professional Development Resources from Bedford/St.Marin. For example, Cushman, et al.’s Literacy is a Core List item and $48. Note: Why won’t B/STM allow me to change my institution. Will I have to register will a new email address every time I order texts so my order doesn’t go to my very first institution. Tech support’s answer: YES!

[Done]Get quarters for laundry.

[Done]Make shopping list for Sunday morning.

[Done]Set up my fantasy football team for Sunday.

[Done]Patch rear bike tube on Super LaTour 12.2 and clean up transmission, again.

[Done]Lube up Giant Yukon transmission.

[Done]Make the switch from Outlook to Thunderbird. It’s free. It’s aesthetically pleasing. It has a built-in RSS feed reader!!! It doesn’t work with web-based email (hotmail).

[Done]Install and set up Sunbird. Mozilla’s calendar. It’s free. It’s aesthetically pleasing. It also allows me to ditch Outlook.

[Done]Read/comment on 201 discussion board. I’ve been really impressed with the smart comments my students have been making

[Done]Update the grading spreadsheet.