It's been a while. During my "sabbatical" from this blog, I've churned through a number of topics to discuss, but somehow never took the time to write them up. I've had such a tough time keeping up with the blogs I read, it's been tough to allot time for contributing to my own.
My anger has been an issue in my personal life, and I thought about discussing it here. I'm not so much in the mood now, but I suppose the after-school-special, take-home message is that my childhood environment didn't teach me good skills at dealing with my emotions and, lest you think I abandon all personal responsibility, it somehow didn't occur to me that I could actively learn how to deal with them.
I continue in what some might perceive as a purgatory of a physics existence. That is, I have tenure but would prefer to be in a better department with better students. I have more grant money than I know how to spend but my research is being pulled in a direction that worries me. I dream of simply researching what I want. I travel to some great places, but I get bothered that I'm not invited to speak as often as I might. I make decent money, but when I see some others' salaries (via grant proposals that I review) I get envious. Plus, somehow people seem to think professors universally make quite a bit of money.
It's the summer now, and I was very happy to be done teaching. My class last semester was perhaps the least fun ever. The strange part was that i didn't dislike any of them. They were just extremely quiet and I couldn't get them involved. Sure, some will say my teaching was off, but I've taught that class a number of times and have always enjoyed it.
Anyway, I'm finishing up a paper that I'm presenting in two weeks, with another proposal due soon as well. Always more work.
