Raising money for SSA

I’m appearing on another of these blogtv thingies this weekend — Saturday at 10pm Central.

On Saturday 10 December, SkepticTV goes live for a whole 12 hours, to raise money for the Secular Student Alliance.

STARTING TIMES:
8pm European Central Time
7pm Greenwich Mean Time
2pm Eastern Standard Time (USA)
1pm Central
12 Noon Mountain Time
11am Pacific Standard Time
Sunday 5am Eastern Standard Time (Australia)

We’ll be joined by a great many guests including PZ Myers, the League of Reason, The Jinn and Tonic Show, Trolling With Logic (and special guests Damon Fowler and Joe Zamecki), as well as some of YouTube’s finest. There will even a sneak preview of Holy Hallucinations 29 by TheLivingDinosaur, but only if you help us raise a lot of money!

Where: http://www.blogtv.com/people/skeptictv

We also have an eBay auction, where items will be going up during the show. Please check our page regularly:
http://www.ebay.com/

Our star lot is this pencil sketch of Charles Darwin, kindly donated by IncredibleMouse5:
http://www.incrediblemouse.com/charles_darwin_drawing

Our FirstGiving page for donations within the US:
http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/skeptictv/skeptictv12hourforthessa

Donations from outside the US should go directly to the SSA:
https://www.secularstudents.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=1

I’m done, almost!

Oh, man. I just finished my last lecture for this semester — this was a rough term, and I feel like I just barely dragged myself over the finish line. The big strain came from the fact that I revamped everything: I completely changed the content of my neurobiology course, with a new textbook, a new emphasis, and a different direction for the labs, and some stuff worked and some stuff failed catastrophically (the last few weeks of the lab in particular were a disaster). I offer this course again in two years, and I think I can fix the bad parts by then. I also patched up a lot of material in my Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development course; not so much changes in lecture content, but stretching to reach out and get the students interacting more. That worked entirely — I got some significant improvements in average exam scores which I will take complete credit for, although it could just be that our incoming freshman class was full of geniuses this year. I also got much more disciplined in the writing course, and imposed a whole series of step-by-step deadlines on the big term paper. It required a bit more effort during the term, but the payoff is now — I’m not getting any papers dumped cold on my desk for grading, they’ve all been fussed over already.

It’s tiring, though. Show business is hard work; getting up and doing 4 or 5 lectures a week (and about half of them new) is exhausting. It would be much easier to just write this stuff. Why didn’t anyone tell me that a career in science involved so much singing and dancing?

My neuro students are all done with their bloggery now, and here’s the final list of neurobiology weblogs I forced them to start. Some might fade away after this, others may move on to new sites, some might keep going. However it works out, this can be my little public monument to Fall 2011. Stop by and congratulate them on surviving a whole semester with Old Man Myers.

Next: I’ve got final exams to give, a nice break to catch up on deadlines, and lots of preparation for next term to do. Spring will be worse, with an all-new, starting from scratch course in cancer biology to teach.

For now, I’m going into seclusion for a bit to wrap up some extracurricular writing that must get done right now. It’s not much of a celebration yet.

(Also on FtB)

I’m done, almost!

Oh, man. I just finished my last lecture for this semester — this was a rough term, and I feel like I just barely dragged myself over the finish line. The big strain came from the fact that I revamped everything: I completely changed the content of my neurobiology course, with a new textbook, a new emphasis, and a different direction for the labs, and some stuff worked and some stuff failed catastrophically (the last few weeks of the lab in particular were a disaster). I offer this course again in two years, and I think I can fix the bad parts by then. I also patched up a lot of material in my Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development course; not so much changes in lecture content, but stretching to reach out and get the students interacting more. That worked entirely — I got some significant improvements in average exam scores which I will take complete credit for, although it could just be that our incoming freshman class was full of geniuses this year. I also got much more disciplined in the writing course, and imposed a whole series of step-by-step deadlines on the big term paper. It required a bit more effort during the term, but the payoff is now — I’m not getting any papers dumped cold on my desk for grading, they’ve all been fussed over already.

It’s tiring, though. Show business is hard work; getting up and doing 4 or 5 lectures a week (and about half of them new) is exhausting. It would be much easier to just write this stuff. Why didn’t anyone tell me that a career in science involved so much singing and dancing?

My neuro students are all done with their bloggery now, and here’s the final list of neurobiology weblogs I forced them to start. Some might fade away after this, others may move on to new sites, some might keep going. However it works out, this can be my little public monument to Fall 2011. Stop by and congratulate them on surviving a whole semester with Old Man Myers.

Next: I’ve got final exams to give, a nice break to catch up on deadlines, and lots of preparation for next term to do. Spring will be worse, with an all-new, starting from scratch course in cancer biology to teach.

For now, I’m going into seclusion for a bit to wrap up some extracurricular writing that must get done right now. It’s not much of a celebration yet.

(Also on Sb)

Going live on BlogTV right now

I’m on the Jinn & Tonic show right now.

And…now I’m done. Whew, two hours.

And it’s already up on youtube!

I have got to remember to set up better lighting when I do these things. It was fun, anyway, although it got a little exasperating late in the show when the Muslim apologist spent so much time trying to wheedle me into debating Hamza Tzortzis.

Subscribe to Free Inquiry

You should! Ophelia Benson is already in it, and I just got the latest issue, which boldly announces in a banner across the top, “NEW COLUMNIST: PZ MYERS”, so I’m entirely self-serving when I say you should send them money.

It really is going to be a regular thing — I just sent off column #2 this past weekend. I think I get to eventually post the columns here, but only after a long lag to avoid undercutting the magazine. Which is silly, though: if you’ve ever seen Free Inquiry, you know it regularly features a large collection of interesting writers — Wendy Kaminer, Susan Jacoby, Christopher Hitchens, a whole bevy of that ilk — and you ought to be getting it to savor the whole magazine.

Another note for students — the rest of you can ignore it

Registration is going strong, and a bunch of you students want to get into my Fundamentals of Genetics, Evolution, and Development class, and you’re sending me all this email. A few of you also want to get into my Biological Communications class. Bad news: I ignore most of my email. I’d go insane if I didn’t. If you really, really want to get into the class, you have to come see me personally.

Weird, I know. It’s like the 20th century or something.

Anyway, I’ll be in my office from 9-4 tomorrow*. There will be a physical piece of paper with permission numbers on it somewhere on my desk. Come in, say hello, tell me why I should let you take my course, and you might be able to walk away with one of those numbers. This is a real university! We actually have to meet face-to-face now and then!

I know not every student here reads this blog, so spread the word. Cranky ol’ Myers expects you to demonstrate your corporeality before he’ll let you take his class. OK?

*OK, I might duck out to use the men’s room or to run next door to get lunch or something. Be persistent. I’ll be around. If you’re daunted because I closed my door for 10 minutes, you don’t deserve one of my permission numbers.

Jeezus. 24? Really?

I didn’t know they made them that young. I scarcely remember that time — that was that abnormal moment in life when joints don’t creak and your back doesn’t ache and you have absolutely no idea what your future is going to be like, right? I’d wish her a happy birthday, but the young don’t need the acknowledgment.

Hey…am I the oldest codger on freethoughtblogs? Now there’s a depressing thought.

Students!

This isn’t the best place to put this information, but I’m taking off for New Orleans early in the morning and won’t be back until Sunday evening. I’m getting lots of email from students, so I’m hoping a few of them will pick up on this and spread the news.

Students are registering for spring term classes, and they’re trying to get into my cancer biology course — it filled up, boom, in a flash, so there are apparently many disappointed people who weren’t in one of the early registration slots. Sorry, but I’m not sending out permission numbers through email. Sign up for the waiting list if you’re still interested! I’ll take a look at the demand next week and decide what to do.

I should have known cancer would be so popular.

Oh, no…a costume?

Crap. I’m leaving for New Orleans and CSIcon in a few days, and they keep telling me about this costume party. I’m sufficiently funny-looking that I’ve never had much need for a costume.

I need suggestions. Something fast, easy, and not too embarrassing, and also easy to transport (no way am I going the elaborate cosplay route, in other words). Hey, it’s not too late: maybe you should register, show up in New Orleans, and dude me up.