Easy come, easy go

Well it turns out that box of 35 books that came to my office last week wasn't really for me. My name was on the address label, and there wasn't any paperwork inside the box. It turns out it was for a student organization (of which I am the advisor). So I guess the adage of too good to be true applies here. Well I still have quite the growing collection for her thanks to cheap (but not free) books from Ollies and such.

I got a lot of grading done yesterday so as of right now I think I am down to only 12 more projects to grade. WOOHOO! I plan to finish grading those and also grade the essay exams from last night. One student took over 2 hours so I didn't get home until after 9pm last night. Thankfully I don't have to go anywhere today. I will spend most of the day on my couch grading papers. Paul didn't end up going to school yesterday because for a couple of hours his paper vanished. He had finished it and asked me to edit it (for run-ons and such). I finished and clicked save. Then he noticed that my editing had separated a diagram from its caption. So I resized the diagram and then clicked save again and when I did it disappeared. He had been working on it for a week and had only saved it to his flash drive, but there was no sign of it on his flash drive. We spent 2 hours trying to recover it, and thankfully we were successful in recovering the version that was just before I had proofread it. So I proofread it again, and we saved it multiple places. That was a very stressful 2 hours for Paul as he said there was no way he could have rewritten it by today (when it's due). Thankfully he didn't have to rewrite it!!!

This morning Paul felt her kick, and he was surprised at how much stronger her movements are than when he first felt her kick a few weeks ago. She has been really active this week. In about two months she might be in my arms!! If the placenta previa situation has been resolved, then I plan on trying to bring on labor once we enter July. I would love it if she'd come about 2 weeks early so that I could have more time at home with her before the fall semester starts the end of August. If the previa still is an issue, I am hoping they'll agree to schedule the c-section early as well. I figure 37 weeks is considered full term. I'll be at 37w on June 27 so I figure early July would be wonderful. We shall see if she cooperates, LOL. Plus I figure if I have her a couple of weeks early she might be a little smaller (and thus easier to deliver!).

Yesterday I got a article rejection letter, but it actually was very encouraging. That sounds like an oxymoron, but truly it was the nicest rejection letter I ever received. The 3 reviewers had 6 options for recommendations from #1 definitely accept to #6 innapropriate for JECTE (the journal). One picked #2 (accept with minor revisions), one picked #4 revise and resubmit, and one at first marked #3 and then changed to #4. All three had VERY positive comments such as "this is a professional research article," "easy to read and interesting," and "rich presentation of research base." The editor said that the "quality of your scholarship was high," and "we feel that is very close to being publishable in our journal." So I will add revising and resubmitting this manuscript to my "to do" list of things I'd like to accomplish prior to her arrival. I am quite encouraged that this will likely become my 7th refereed article in 4 years!!! There is one other manuscript that has been under review for several months that I haven't heard about yet. Now I just would like to receive the letters from the President regarding tenure and promotion. It seems I am already getting off to a good start towards the publications that will be needed if I ever decide to go up for Full Professor (highest rank). :-)