Dissertation defense advice, please...

So, day after tomorrow I defend.

The standard way it works for my department is for the candidate to give about a 10 minute or so talk about the dissertation. At some point, the committee will interrupt with questions.

Do you have any advice?

Excuse me while I brag a bit...

... about Hubby.

His grades are in -- and they are really good. Really, really good. One of them is the best possible grade -- and the rest are very high -- in a system with a forced curve for 1Ls.

He also got honors in both of his pass/fail courses -- and he got a "best oral argument" award.

Those of you who knew Hubby the Debater won't be at all surprised by the last one :).

Suffice it to say, if he doesn't make law review, it won't be because of his grades.

I'm really happy about this -- mostly because Hubby has worked really, really, really hard at this. It isn't all raw intelligence, it's the combination of raw intelligence and hard work. I suspect even Kingsfield (from Paper Chase) would be impressed.

Way to go Hubby!!!

Exciting developments... probably...

• I got my new water radio -- and I made it work!
• I might be making a love connection between a couple of old friends!! She's someone I hung out with in high school, but we didn't go to school together. He's someone I knew in high school, but we didn't hang out together. They're about the same age, both have kids and both are fun, nice people. I'd love it if it worked out!!
• We're having a little pool party today!! An old friend, a recent friend and her daughter. It will be a lot of fun!!!

Read the frigging schedule....

Goodness, for an "on-line" generation, something so simple is turning out to be complex.

I have a hybrid class. It meets together on Monday, then half the class comes on Wednesday and the other half on Thursday.

They can register for MW or MTh -- with the "on-line day" being the other.

Several bozos so far have insisted they registered for one, when they actually registered for the other.

At first I thought the software that pulls the class lists was off -- it's not beyond possible.

It turns out the students are off.

The problem is that I made some class deadlines different for the MW vs. MTh students.

I'm not doing that again -- now, thanks to this bunch of bozos, every hybrid in the future will have the same set of deadlines -- whatever the earlier ones are.

grrr.....

It ain't Disneyland...

BN University wins... a trip to Omaha.

Actually, the College World Series is a lot of fun.

People come every year in their RVs. They crowd downtown restaurants and give the same basic interviews to the local news... "I love Omaha: we never expected it to be so nice here".

Have fun guys --- if I thought you'd be driving the 400 miles, I'd tell you where to stop to pee.

A good teaching day...

... in logic.

I'm shaking things up a bit in logic, mostly out of necessity.

This means that I have a little new prep to do -- and it's actually fun.

• I changed the first exam from being in-person to on-line. They're taking it this weekend -- and, it's all auto-graded -- YEA for me!
• We have a document camera in our classroom. I realized that if I did some class prep, essentially preparing flashcards, we could cover some material quickly. It worked.
• I also realized that my previous students didn't understand why some of the rules worked the way they did -- so, they kept making the same stupid mistakes over and over again.

I really like this aspect of summer teaching - mostly because it lets me do experiments without having to deal with crappy results over multiple sections or over a full semester. Also, a pal of mine observed that summer students are generally better, and I agree. They're more motivated, more focused and generally better prepared than my day students during the year.

Also, in the summer the building is nice and quiet -- and the parking is excellent!

On the spot, in class, I figured out a good way to prove to them why the rules work.

I think there's a date....

... June 10 --

I'll have my shot at becoming Dr ItPF.

Scary.

Exciting.

The END of the dissertation odyssey.

Who'd have thought it might actually happen.

Weird.