Wednesday, June 21, 2017

RIP laptop

I dropped my laptop. Screen now is fuzzy and green-tinged. It had already started restarting for no particular reason (something to do with the graphics cards) so rip little old laptop. It got me through my ESA fellowship and Leiden job.

In principle this is fine since i can order a new one now but next week is WFIRST workshop at STSCI. Look out Baltimore! The whole family is going. I have always considered going to one of these with just an ipad. I guess I am now.

Monday, June 19, 2017

Research debt

In conversations with colleagues, I came across a lovely new term: "research debt". Like the hashtag #youshouldbewriting I am sure it is a motivational stick of some sort.
Because we in academia are all motivated exclusively by sticks apparently...

So yes the term irked me some but mostly because it implies that as soon as one does other duties such as teaching and family, that really was time that should be spent on research. In context it was used as the stuff one does not get to because of teaching but I dislike the implication. Mostly because the word 'debt' implies 'interest'.

Well it is summer. Time to pay off the debt.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

AAPT workshop days 2 &3

We wrapped up the AAPT workshop today and it was pretty filled. For me it was onteresting how some people latched onto certain ideas or techniques that others (eg me) found wholly unappealing.

Personal style of teaching I guess. But it really was remarkable. Another mostly unspoken thing was the toxic culture that pervades physics/astronomy. I recommended toggl to all for a variety of reasoms. First to have data on your working hours. It forces yountonfocus on just one thing. And you have a graph to show where you spent your time on. Best counter to "I don't see you around the department enough". That is an hours issue (when were you at the office...?)
and importantly. I feel ok to take time off seeing how much time I spent on this semester.

We had a final discussion on diversity/inclusion. This is tricky for a white guy (from the most overrepresented nationality in astronomy) to contribute to. I just tried to listen. Some nice practical tips to do while interacting with eg students.

All in all it has been a very useful workshop. I am busy sticking all my notes in overleaf and writing my NSF AAG proposals as a sirect result of this workshop. I highly eecommend it to any astro/phys faculty (not just starting). So much of the work has been done already by the various centers and they get you up to speed in a few days!

Stuff i want to implement:

Think-pair-share in astro and phys class

tutorials (concept work sheets) in asto class

evaluate gain in my classes. Is pur children learning kind of thing. Solehing to show on tenure review (if there is improvement...)

thoughts & ideas. Lets see where it takes me.

Tuesday, June 13, 2017

AAPT workshop day 2

This was the first full day at the AAPT workshop for new faculty. This is a great resource for anything from developing NSF proposals to learning new teaching techniques, resources and ways to measure your progress as a college professor.

I had picked up bits and pieces from the Center for Astronomical Education workshop at a AAS and other experiences but it is very good to have it all in one place.

Some of it is a bit contradictory. For example, most speakers exalt the Interactive Learning techniques while subjecting us to high density, fast-pased lecturing.

And i hear some things I outright disagree with. Also: we were given prep homework for this thing last friday at 5pm...

lesson 1: homework assigned at this hour will not get done. Ever.

And there some other sogns of a not-so-healthy attitude to work ie references to all nighters or online meet-ups at 5pm.
no thank you. But it is a pick and match kind of workshop so I can ignore some of it.

Collating the material will be a challenge but useful. Grabbing ideas for my astronomy 101 class certainly.

Thursday, June 8, 2017

Meeting up with students

I saw this comic on http://phdcomics.com/ and I was tickled and worried like all professors...

This is why I reserve a specific slot for each student. That time is theirs. If one does not do that, the above scenario starts happening.

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

Astroph habit

Like most professional astronomers I check the archive every day for new papers. Typically there are 40-80 papers waiting to be scanned. Even discarding all the cosmology ones (because I cannot tell it is a crackpot one or not anyway), that leaves a lot of papers that are interesting.

And it all becomes TL;DR. I file the ones that look interesting into my bibtex but I certainly cannot read them in depth. Now to remedy this, I plan to tag all the papers to relevant lines of inquiry. Maybe that will speed up the next paper writing challenge?

Not reading the arxiv is right on the myriad of things I have heard call "research debt". I think I dislike that term already but I plan to unpack it at a future post.

Monday, June 5, 2017

Oh look a shiny!

Sometimes a bit of astronomical news, a dataset or a new tool catches your eye and you just gotta chase after it. Meanwhile there are other commitments, possibly (likely) deadlines and you have to finish stuff on occasion.

And yet the shiny. I have to admit I chase the shiny more often than not. Quickest way to burn it out. Or have some sort of productive procrastination.

examples include using a self-organizing map on the catalogs of M101 to identify background galaxies, wondering how much power telescopes use and at what point it becomes viable to run them on solar panels and a big battery, etc etc

Chase the shiny (within reason). You'll learn a new thing and probably end up using it later. This is often where my ideas for a student project comes from.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Focus-switching

One of the trickier things in academia is the focus-switching between all the different tasks and the requirement to produce the kind of work which is characterized by focus aka "deep work".

As a result I have often now seen colleagues working at odd hours or pull all-nighters. I simply can't do that as I lose focus or the ability to switch with lack of sleep. Hence i try to cheat by doing things like this blog and dealing with the tides of email during little waiting moments. Waiting at U-haul for example. In the bus etc etc.

Still. How to avoid the weird hours and carve a bit of time to code/write. Suggestions welcome.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Inbox 0

Inbox 0 all stsrted with a google guy getting swamped with email and worrying about how to not drop things. Of course there is no simple solution but fearing a similar scenario, I converted to the inbox0 idea under Matt Kenworthy's guidance.

Optimistically, I named my categories "today", "this week", "this month". "Someday" and "waiting". Of course I do not get to all the things today in the "today" folder. Or maybe even this week. It is a rough idea of urgency level.

Better to use the South Africanisms "Now", "Now now", "Just now" and "Later".
Yes these are all future tense in increasing levels of urgency.

At any rate it seems to work well on one level: i have a simple system for my todo list. The general feeling I am dropping the ball by forgetting has abated some. Of course stuff ages out (well blew past THAT deadline) but part of the system is to be ok with that.

The good part is that it dovetails nicely with my commute. I sort my list on the bus and have my todo list for the rest of the day. And instead of urgency, I try to match up an item with my time/energy level.

So I am a fan so far. Of course; no email, and I am not doing the thing. So i send myself some too (Moar email) ...