Happy Halloween! Today Dan and I went for our Sunday hike to the Palisades along the Kentucky River. It was beautiful as these photos tell. The 2.6 mile hike was a gradual decline for the first half down to the river bottom, but then a steep mile hike straight up 200 feet in elevation coming back. The views were beautiful, both from the bottom of the river and the top of the bluff. We even found a cave entrance covered over with a lattice of logs to keep people out. Now I need to spend the rest of the day:
1) making pumpkin pie and chicken stew for dinner
2) cleaning up all the stuff from yesterday's Middle School Mania
3) getting prepared for a neighborhood full of trick-or-treaters
This month has been an enjoyable break from teaching BUT I have worked every Saturday on the research project I'm doing with those very active and talkative boys, every week preparing for said Saturday, and countless hours recording data and charging cameras and worrying about managing 30 mentor volunteers and 50 adolescent boys. The results do not look good at this point. It does not appear that all this work has resulted in any learning or attitude changes. I will have to analyze the video next, and then consider conducting individual interviews, but I'm feeling very deflated right now about how this project went. Where did my month go? On a positive note, my article in the November issue of Science Scope is now in print, and I received the publisher's proof for my article that is going to be published in the International Journal of Science Eduction. Academia is a strange beast. Grant writing, IRBs, writing up research, conducting research, reviewing for journals and conferences, attending conferences and giving papers, attending meetings, serving on committees and boards, oh, and teaching. Can't forget teaching. And on all this hard work I get evaluated each January.
Sometimes I wonder where my life went.
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