Manifestation of Prof Stress

The Spring semester has ended, which means something from a teaching perspective but not from a research perspective. At least that's true for me. I know others can vary in their teaching/research mileage. For me, teaching is basically a fall/spring semester concern. I do teach a couple of weeks during the summer, but this requires little prep work so I don't count it. Research is a year long venture, but does suffer during the fall/spring, especially the fall, because of my teaching duties. A couple of weeks ago on consecutive nights, I woke up around 2 am from bad dreams. These dreams, I won't say nightmares because they were stress inducing but not terrifying, related to these two big areas of my professional life.

The first night it was a research related dream and the focus was on grants, big surprise to people in the field I expect. The dream actually started out on a good note as I was just awarded an R21 grant from NIH! The happiness and relief of having some money to conduct the research I want to do, quickly transitioned to stress as I began thinking about how quickly I could get someone hired and trained to do the research successfully. I became increasingly stressed because the R21 is only a two year grant. If it takes 6 months to hire and get someone well trained (a stretch in my opinion), I basically have 6 more months before we need to be generating most of the data in order to write a larger grant. For those not in the know, it takes a few months to write a proposal (for me at least) and then ~ 9 months before funding decisions are made. Thus, in order to maintain constant funding from the onset of the R21, I basically have 12 months to get most of the work done with an untrained person. I woke up a mix of happiness combined with a whirlwind of stress. I was up about 2 hours before going back to sleep.

The second night it was a teaching related dream. In real life I had just completed final grades for my Spring semester course and was breathing a sigh of relief to have ~3 months to focus on experiments and writing (papers and grants). In my dream, I felt like I was in the same place and at work setting up experiments when I realized my Fall semester classes were starting in a couple hours and I hadn't set up the course website, planned any lectures, etc. I was running around trying to get together some slides for the introduction and to print off some worksheets for the students but couldn't find a printer. To make things worse I couldn't find out where my class was meeting and time was ticking down to the point where I was figuring out how late I would be. Basically this was my adult version of the 'just realizing you have a final in a class you didn't know you were enrolled in all semester' nightmare. Again up for a couple of hours without being able to sleep.

Haven't had anymore repeats of the stressmares™, but apparently my sleep schedule basically requires waking up at 2 am. I do get some reading done I guess, but would rather get a straight 7-8 hours of sleep. Stupid brain.

What I Read (2017)

(Grade A-F, no E's) Title-Author Additional thoughts

C+     The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. An alternate history where the axis wins WWII and life in the US under oppression. Many story lines that were linked, but he connections seemed weak. Still not sure about the importance of the man in the high castle (although he moved) other than to imply the strange twist at the end. I guess that keeps the story in the sci-fi genre.

B       Lost Gods by Gerald Brom. Didn't know what to expect, but I liked the cover. Fun story merging horror and fantasy. 

C       Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling. I enjoyed the premise of this story and it got better in the final two acts. There were many clunky technical details in the beginning that did not fit in with the narrative well. Seemed like the Stirling learned a lot about schooner ships for research and tried to jam it in.

C       Wytches vol 1 by Scott Snyder. Meh, but not as Meh as God Country.

B       And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. Ok this was fun. Glad Christie included an epilogue how the hell everything happened.

D      God Country by Donny Cates & Geoff Shaw. Meh. American Gods is a great book and would make a great graphic novel. This was not American Gods.

B+    The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin. I did not enjoy the second story in this series, by the final entry is a winner. The story came to a solid conclusion tying up many loose ends.

B       The Walking Dead Compendium Two by Robert Kirkman et. al. A good follow up to the first one. The survivors discover a idyllic community only to have everything go the shit. People suck.

B      Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut. I understood this book better than Slaughterhouse V and thus enjoyed it more. Satirical book touches on many aspects of life in the US. Author drawings throughout the book is interesting.

B      The Black Elfstone by Terry Brooks. The first Shannara story I read was Elfstones, shortly after it came out. I've had a fondness for this world for decades and while some stories have felt repetitive, this one is starting out on familiar territory but is introducing some new complexities and territory. A solid beginning for a new quadrilogy (and a change from the trilogy form Brooks has generally used).

C      Grave Peril by Jim Butcher. See Fool Moon below.

A      It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. A timely book, incredibly timely. How a populist can come to power in the US and quickly devolve into fascism. Although written in 1935 the populist plank could be written (and much of it has) by today's tea party. This is my required reading book choice for the year.

C      Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. Another easy read to pass some time. Didn't add much to the Harry Dresden's character which was something I was looking for.

B      Storm Front by Jim Butcher. Recommended to me by a prince of assholes, a fun read before bed. Look forward to reading more about Harry Dresden. Wish there was more character development in the book, but a good first story.

A     To Green Angel Tower part 2 by Tad Williams. Rereading this series in preparation for the Witchwood Crown, originally read this series during graduate school when I took some time off to mentally relax after writing the initial draft of my thesis.

B+   To Green Angel Tower part 1 by Tad Williams. Rereading this series in preparation for the Witchwood Crown, originally read this series during graduate school when I took some time off to mentally relax after writing the initial draft of my thesis.

A        Coraline by Neil Gaiman. A story of a not very nice mother, the other mother. Not really a children's book although I would have read this to my son when he was younger anyway. The world's not all kittens and puppies.

B+     The Stone of Farewell by Tad Williams. Rereading this series in preparation for the Witchwood Crown, originally read this series during graduate school when I took some time off to mentally relax after writing the initial draft of my thesis.

A       The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. Rereading this series in preparation for the Witchwood Crown, originally read this series during graduate school when I took some time off to mentally relax after writing the initial draft of my thesis.

A       End of Watch by Stephen King. A great ending to the series. Intertwines with the first story well, but each of the trilogy is a stand alone story.

B       Weaponized Lies by Daniel J. Levity. Good book, but covers some ground I'm quite familiar with.

C       Blade Reforged by Kelly McCullough. I enjoy this series and the flawed protagonist but this story was entertaining yet fleeting. It provided more backstory for Aral and the war amongst the gods in this world.

 B      Tripwire by Lee Child. An easy fun read. f the three books I've read so far, the villain in this story is the most developed and interesting and all around evil.

B-     Injustice: Gods Among Us Year 2 The Complete Collection by Tom Baylor, Bruno Redondo, and Mike S. Miller. A decent follow up on the initial story. Lags because the first collection established the world and key problem of Superman becoming an authoritarian. This is developed further and the two sides more fleshed out.

B      Paycheck and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick. Has any short story sci-fi author had as many movies made out of their work? I doubt it. Some of the stories in this anthology I enjoyed, others were just so-so, but thats to be expected.

A      The Walking Dead: Compendium One by Robert Kirkman et. al. Great first compilation of the graphic novels. It's hard to read these stories and not give up on humanity. Basically a reasonable analysis of the human condition.

26 books read this year. Below average by a few books, not going to count the 4 rereads against myself since it was a good 20 years since I read before. 
Of the 26 books: 5 were graphic novels, 1 was philosophy, 4 were older books.