Wanted

Unlikely as it may sound, various people have wanted me for various purposes over the past couple weeks. Wow! I don't know if I've ever been so universally desirable before. The Meg stock is definitely up! ;-)

First, I seem to have convinced people that I knew what I was talking about in Florida. Go me! So last week I got an email from a student who'd seen my talk. Kudos and accolades: she said that I did a great job! She also professed that she was investigating the use of remote sensing in invasive species mapping, but that she is very new to remote sensing, so she requests that I look over a poster she made and give her my comments. Gosh. Where did this expert status come from? Dare I tell her how new I am to remote sensing? ;-)

Also last week, a professor asked me to TA a class for him next quarter. A little odd. It was very clearly a spontaneous decision of his, but apparently one that he maintains even now, nearly a week later. The class is a graduate level ecology class, one that all students of my program are required to take, and that most take in their first year. So of course, I took it last year. If you're bored, I'm sure you can find some old posts of mine complaining about the prof or the papers. The prof is actually a nice guy. The biggest complaint about him is that he isn't the most objective of graders. He definitely plays favorites, somehow picking students to either like or dislike, based on some unknown schema. (And I'm not sure if he really "dislikes" the unfortunates. He has a weird strategy of stimulating students to work harder, which generally consists of heckling them and lambasting their ideas. I'm not sure if this tack has ever worked.) Perhaps not surprisingly, he likes me (I've always been a teacher's pet, after all). So part of him wanting me to TA for him is because he thinks our personalities are compatible and that we'd work well together. Definitely an important consideration. The other part is that the slant he's planning on teaching from this year corresponds well with my background and interests.

I had to decline, however. I simply do not have the time. There are 3 classes that I plan to take next quarter. That's already a full schedule! Adding an immense TA-load on top of that would be crazy. And it would be immense. It's really more of a team-teaching endeavor than a professor-TA dichotomy. I would have to lead all discussion sections (something like 5 or 6 a week), grade many papers (there were 3 last year, with probably on the order of 50 students in the class. yikes!), in addition to planning what topics and readings to cover in discussions, helping to devise paper assignments, and possibly even helping to organize the class and line up guest lecturers. And of course there's the whole comfort issue. As a second year graduate student, I'd be fine TAing an undergrad course. A graduate level course is a little scarier, however. I'd be lucky if there were even 2 or 3 students younger than I am! And of course there's the whole experience thing. Some students already have a Master's. I've got nothing! So anyway, flattering as it is to be considered, no thanks. The prof agrees with the time committment, and respects my decision. I am, he informs me, his top choice for next year now. Ok. I can handle that. Especially since I'll be taking a modeling class from him next fall. The opportunities for blackmail abound! =D

Finally, I believe that some guy tried to ask me out yesterday. So we've gone from people desiring me for my academic qualities to a pining for, well frankly, I don't know what qualities =D. I'm a little unclear on the details, it could've just been a group outing... But those can be deceptive. I've been tricked by "group things" into a double date where the other couple was married before. I suppose that qualifies as a group. So clearly it's better not to find out =). Especially considering I do in fact have a boyfriend. Happily, the day was bad for me. It's the day after I get my kitten (Saturday, 2:00pm!!!). You had better believe I'm not leaving my new kitten for anything on that day, especially not a questionable social outing!

So that's the recent news. Once I've taken a roll of pictures of Ozzie (which shouldn't take too long, right?), expect to be inundated with photos of my cute kitten!