My day

I slept in, after staying out a little late at Steph's wedding, then staying up to watch the two episodes of "The Dollhouse", Whedon's new show. I walked outside in my shorts and quickly walked back inside when I realized that the weather had changed overnight. The weather was beautiful for Steph's wedding Saturday, suddenly chilly and windy this morning.

I got into my jeans and got myself to Panera to meet my Stats study group at noon. We wrote the proposal, due Thursday, for our group project. Brent left at that point to get back to his family. AnnMarie, Barbara, and I reviewed Thursday's slides and the homework, carefully explaining each concept to each other. Thursday launched us into multiple regression, with so many new terms and so much new notation that our heads were spinning. I really needed that review. I left Panera at about 4.

Next job: return equipment to USF. I called ahead and asked Michael if I could pick him up for that quick trip. It was a little more than I wanted to unload by myself. He jumped in the shower, I got a quick workout with Wii Fit, and then we headed to USF. We dropped off an overflowing bag of recycling (I really wish Pasco would get on board with recycling pickup), and then unloaded all of the audio equipment that we used at Steph's wedding. It's a shame that we don't have more use for that equipment in the department, but I'm not sure what one could do with it to support education.

After that, Temple Terrace, where Michael got a haircut and I took advantage of someone's wireless signal to update itunesu.pbwiki.com. I've got to update all of my pbwiki sites to 2.o. I think they are using this update to get rid of abandoned and obsolete sites. I answered some email and checked off a few to-do's. Michael gets his hair cut across the street from Dairy Queen and that simple law of proximity was impossible to overcome. One can't park across the street from DQ for 45 minutes and not want to eat there. So, take out was taken out and we headed home. I never tire of Michael's company and we never run out of things to talk about.

Home, food, 30 Rock. Then I started careening around the internet. I answered email, I read tweets and blogs. I downloaded updates. Then I read William Kist's "I Gave Up MySpace for Lent" in the November issue of JAAL. Nice preliminary article and I'll have to remember to watch for his forthcoming piece. I forwarded the reference to my Monday class, the profs I know on Facebook, and Dr. L for the Lit and Tech class. Somehow, I stumbled on a program called Stanza, which I think I love. I'm using it to read PDFs and the automatic scrolling and formatting options make me happy. Then I read O'Brien and Bauer's 2005 RRQ review of Gee's book about video games and literacy. The review also covers Lankshear and Knobel's New Literacies book, but I was primarily looking for the discussion of Gee in preparation for next Monday night's presentation.

I'm excited about that preso, and especially what I'll be able to do with the help of my secret team of insiders. The biggest challenge will be limiting it to an hour.

Tomorrow, a meeting about iTunes U, a TIL workshop, an annual review meeting, and Dr. King's class. And somewhere in there, I'll read and take notes on the final edit of the book chapter.

For me, one aspect of being a doc student is never knowing if I'm working hard enough. There are always more articles to read, and the endless possibilities of the Internet work against me frequently. I have always had problems overcommitting and overextending. I also have problems making myself focus on anything that isn't almost due. One reason that I decided to blog this year was to hold myself more accountable for my habits. To do that, I'm going to need to write more about what I'm learning and how I'm learning it. I think it will also make it easier to find information when I need it later. And now I'm going to bed!