Category Archives: Audiobooks

2016 Recap

I admit to being a terrible blogger…when the semester hits the fan I am nowhere to be found, it would appear. But looking back…it would also appear that when the summer hits the fan I am nowhere to be found, either! I am going to forgive myself and simply inform any readers that my blog-absence is my way of demonstrating my human failing so that YOU can do the same in some other way and we can still love and respect one another.

My blog absence had NOTHING to do with BIG things happening in my life (which makes the fact that I did not document them even more absurd). I traveled to Bali, Indonesia with my gamelan troop and performed at the Bali Arts Festival. I said goodbye to my “surrogate” mother who died on Mother’s Day (of all things!) and was memorialized in August in a beautiful service. We acquired new family members, Luke and Lorelai, the parakeets. I got half a new knee (the surgery from which I am still recuperating). I read 21 books (actually I listened to 21 books). I knitted a bunch of lovely things. Friends got hitched (shout out to Tom and Stuart, Shannon and Jonathan). An election shit show was endured. We (collectively) lost Carrie Fischer, Glenn Frey, Leonard Cohen, Mohammed Ali, Richard Adams, and many other pivotal public figures. And a bunch of my beloved undergraduate students got themselves graduated!

On this the eve of 2017 I hope/intend/promise myself to do the following next year:

Listen to or read 25 books
Avoid purchasing any new yarn (there are a few exceptions to this resolution)
meditate 20 minutes four times per week
go to the gym four times per week
Work on my scholarship for at least half an hour four times per week
Post on this blog twice a month (at least)!

Blog Lull

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This blog endeavor was supposed to be about my scholarship and teaching (“with occasional forays into knitting and audio books”) but this semester my teaching load does not lend itself to inspired posts. I am teaching Research Methods and Statistics (twice) and I supervise Senior Project (16 of them this semester). Although *I* find the two domains interesting I am not convinced that the students do, nor any readership I may have garnered.

And the place I am at with my scholarship/research is the tedious place endemic to all scientific endeavor…I am slowly, oh-so-slowly, plodding through data analysis on just about all my current projects. Readers are unlikely to care that one must use Menchley’s Test of Sphericity in a within-subjects ANOVA to correct for any lack of homogeneity of variance across repeated measures conditions. I can barely believe I just typed that and knew what it meant!

I’m knitting up a storm, but I’m always knitting up a storm…nothing exciting to share on that front. And my current audio book is a non-fiction exploration of the latest nutrition science on the best ways to decrease obesity. Unlike other “diet” books I have read I actually believe this author (a leading obesity researcher and endocrinologist, I believe) is relying on good science and I am likely to attempt some of his suggests: Always Hungry (an unfortunate title, in my opinion) by David Ludwig, M.D.

I guess all blog posts can’t be inspired or coherent. Sorry…let’s just call this a blog “check in”!

10 on Tuesday

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Carole over at Caroleknits.net posts a regular column every Tuesday where she enlists people to blog about 10 things. I’m new to her blog so I am not sure how it is organized but today’s list is: 10 Things I Did in 2015 That Made Me Feel Proud. So here goes…

I survived rejection…LOTS of rejection. One paper submitted for review was rejected three times and another twice. I learned a lot from the experience and will attempt to reconcile all the constructive feedback (and ignore the ridiculous).
I lost 30 pounds. Actually I lost more but the holidays have enabled a few of the shed pounds to reappear. I’m in it for the long haul, however, and am motivated by health so I feel secure that I will continue on this VERY SLOW PATH.
Although the semester was a bear and I never really felt like I caught up with myself I had some pretty splendid teaching moments this time ’round. One particular highlight was the very successful Genealogy project my History and Systems in Psychology students completed. In small groups they interviewed every faculty member in my department and traced their academic lineage back to the “fathers” of modern psychology (either Wilhelm Wundt or William James). Along the way they met reference librarians (THE MOST important people to make friends with while in college) who fought one another over who got to help with the project.
I discovered a new musical enchantment: Balinese Gamelan! My friends Janelle and Dan play in an orchestra at my local college and I attended two concerts. I was so taken that I begged to be permitted to join the group. I start rehearsing with them in January and hope to journey with the orchestra to Bali next summer for a festival!
Listened to some fairly remarkable audiobooks on the 2015 commute. Notable among them are: Station Eleven, (Emily St. John Mandel), Being Mortal (Atul Gawande), and a re-listen to The Wee Free Men (the late Sir Terry Pratchett).
I exercised with great regularity, despite a bum knee (that is currently in real need of a cortisone shot).
Oh…and I started this blog. I’m not a frequent post-er and my content spans both my professional life as well as my personal life, but I am pretty satisfied with it overall.
I cleaned out the linen closet (which had been on my to-do list for more years than I am willing to reveal).
I knit just about every day and twice a month with some of the best darned knitting friends a person can hope to have!
Kept up with social media: got an Instagram account
Whoops…I just remembered! After a very splendid trip to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival with Janelle (with a meet up with Laura and Janet) I hatched a plan to make a real effort at reducing my stash yarn. I pulled an assortment from my many bins, paired them with patterns, and had my husband put them in paper bags and staple them. As soon as I clear the 2015 deck (I have one pair of socks to finish and a log cabin afghan to seam) I will plow into the project bags!