Friday, February 13, 2009

Friday Hotch Potch

I am WAY too anxious to write a real post, but I didn't post at all yesterday and that is compounding my anxiety, so here is a bullet list of the goings on:

  • I am waiting for a publication decision that could be HUGE for me. In academics we have to "publish or perish". So, I write a paper, send it a journal, then an editor sends it to an associate editor (AE) and reviewers...all of which do not know who I am, and I don't know who they are. Then they critique said paper. Then either the paper gets accepted, rejected, or you get a revise and resubmit decision. The paper I am talking about is my best academic work. I sent it to the VERY VERY best journal and I got a revise and resubmit letter last June. I revised. I resubmitted, and according to the editorial system, I am waiting on the Senior Editor to make his decision. His name is Alain. I really think I will get the decision today, so send "Man, that Hotch Potch is freaking brilliant" thoughts to Alain so he accepts my paper. I need 10 papers to have been published to feel comfortable about going up for tenure in September and this one would be so good it could almost count for 3. My guts are in turmoil. (I only have 6 so far.)
  • We are getting up tomorrow morning to run a 5K. On Valentine's Day. Who ARE WE?
  • I have become an international financier. I loaned money to Maria Isabel Zapata in Nicaragua to expand her grocery store. (http://www.kiva.org/)
  • My sister got word that her husband got into the PhD program at the university where I work which means they are moving to where I live. With the baby. This summer.
  • My high school kid got accepted into the Honors College yesterday.
  • I can now jog 1/2 mile in a row.
  • The grocery store has been out of spaghetti squash the last two times I checked. That seriously bums me out. I have, however, purchased a lovely can of Spotted Dick Pudding so that I can do more thorough research.
  • I am out.

9 comments:

DAVs said...

Oh good luck with the publication! I only ever submitted one paper for publication as part of my master's degree and it got rejected. I will say this: my topic (some four years ago) is now the "hot new thing" and is being incorporated into current guidelines for treating diabetes patients. And yet four years ago, it wasn't "nursing" enough, it was too medical for a nursing journal. So I am bitter. When the new guidelines came out I wanted to sent the link to the editor of said nursing journal and say: "Booyah, see what you missed being AHEAD of the curve on?" So I feel yer pain on waiting on editors to make decisions.

Kiva looks really cool! I love it!

Congrats on jogging 1/2 mile in a row. That is huge.

I must try the spaghetti squash! I have a huge butternut squash just waiting to be roasted, sitting in my fridge. Yum!

Anonymous said...

You're both talking about one of the real pressures in higher education: The need to keep having publications to one's credit. In my 20 years in higher education, I've seen countless people who wrote very high-quality papers get rejected for either tenure or promotion because of their publications. Partly it's because of the way that journals sometimes decide whose work gets published. You've both really described that well!
Sometimes, too, it's the pressure of the other things academicians are expected to do, such as teach (and get high teaching evaluations), and provide institutional service.
In fact, this whole theme of the pressure to publish, and the way that it starts even in graduate school, is central to my novel, Publish or Perish - http://www.strategicbookpublishing.com/PublishOrPerish.html. It's something few graduate students are prepared for when they begin their studies, but it's a real fact of academic life.

creative kerfuffle said...

i'm crossing my fingers on the paper--editors can be such bitches ; ) and all of the other good news---your sis moving; running the 1/2 mile; kid getting into honors college---AWE.SOME! yeah for all of that good stuff.

Anonymous said...

Alain sounds like a nice guy, he is going to like your paper. He is not a douche, I can tell.

I like the thought of kiva, I have heard of that before..I will look into that.

We are so excited to move...who knew? We can't wait. We tell Steamboat and he says "I'm going to move with Nona and live in a big house by aunt hp" he is so freaking cute.

Alice said...

HP IS BRILLIANT HP IS BRILLIANT!!! ( <-- thought very hard @ alain )

dude, YAY on so many things! your sister! 1/2 mile! 5k! hs kid! :-)

Jen L. said...

As we say in the theatre "Break a leg" on your paper! Sending good thoughts. I think the fact taht his name is Alain is a good thing. He sounds swell. We've been having tenure panic around these parts this week, too, so I feel ya.

SO happy to hear your sister is moving closer!!! I know you are thrilled.

Congrats to high school kid! That is wonderful.

Have fun running tomorrow!

Mandy Lou said...

Yay for randomness - I'm all about that these days. And yay for the 1/2 mile, I don't think I could run 100 yeards!

Oh, and no, your friend is not the only flasher - what's the deal with new boobs and wanting everyone to see them!

Not Your Aunt B said...

Hope you get published!

Half a mile is huge! I remember when I first started running and I couldn't even run more than a minute at a time. Way to go! That is awesome!

WHAT IS SPOTTED DICK PUDDING ALREADY????

Anonymous said...

Fingers crossed for the publication!

 
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