Snapshot of America in December 2016 » « You are not entitled to your opinion

My week of pain has begun

Students get to suffer through final exams next week. This week piles of work come due and get handed to me, and I am committing to getting them all graded as they come in. I’ve got different classes handing in stuff on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so that means every day has a fresh bolus of essays and lab reports pouring in, and if I don’t get them done that day, I fall farther and farther behind.

We’re also doing phone interviews for our current cell biology search. Eight candidates. One hour each. Do the math.

In the midst of all this, I still have classes to teach.

At least next week looks like paradise in comparison: I’m only giving one final exam on Thursday, and it’s optional, so the whole class won’t be taking it.

Unfortunately, what I’ve got scheduled for next week is to start prepping for spring term classes, since I’m teaching a brand new course in ecological developmental biology. I’ll also have to start raising fly stocks for genetics. And getting my lab in shape for a new project we’re starting.

Snapshot of America in December 2016 » « You are not entitled to your opinion

Comments

  1. strangerinastrangeland says

    “Eight candidates. One hour each. Do the math.”

    Eight hours, right? :-)

    So glad that teaching is something I can voluntarely do but am not forced to – the joy of working in a governmental research institute instead of a university! But I wish you good student answers and a quick grading!

  2. Nullifidian says

    I’ll also have to start raising fly stocks for genetics.

    Now you’ve done it! Trump’s inspectors/enforcers will be round next month to cut out that waste of public money. (I’d hide the zebrafish too.)

  3. Pierce R. Butler says

    Will those be OTC fly stocks, NASDAQ fly stocks, or NYSE fly stocks? When’s your IPO?

  4. blf says

    Will those be OTC fly stocks…?

    Medieval pillory stocks.

    (And I learned something new: According to Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge, stocks and the pillory, whilst related, are different torture / humiliation devices.)

  6. says

    You’ve heard of evo-devo? This goes further. The textbook, Ecological Developmental Biology, is by Scott Gilbert, who wrote the most widely used standard textbook in developmental biology, and now he’s promoting these ideas.

    The revolution in molecular technologies has created a revolution in our perception of the living world. It is life, but not as we knew it. The science studying this new world, uncovering the relationships between genes, developing organisms, and their environments, is called ecological developmental biology. This book presents the data for ecological developmental biology, integrating it into new accounts of medicine, evolution, and embryology. The new evolutionary science created by this approach to nature is called ecological evolutionary developmental biology (eco-evo-devo). The book documents the evidence for a new, extended, evolutionary synthesis, a synthesis that: confounds the creationist belief that evolution can’t be described above the species-level; integrates aging and Western diseases such as diabetes, atherosclerosis, cancer, and obesity into an evolutionary context; and sees interspecies interactions both within the organism and between organisms as being critical for evolution, development, and fitness.

    That’s a bit of breathless hyperbole, but I do think it’s important to consider a biological triad of evolution, ecology, and development to understand organisms.