Kicking Off a New Semester

It seems like yesterday I was knee deep in determining final grades, but Wednesday I am back in the   thick of it. Luckily, my teaching is much less in the spring, two classes that meet once a week. One is a three hours lecture/lab on the Biology of Beer and the other is a writing instruction course for students writing up their research. Since I have done both a number of times, the time commitment is not onerous (I've already paid the up front costs). Of course things can always be improved so there is always some time investment improving the course(s) and keeping things fresh, but this is nothing compared to doing it for the first time.

In the fall, I am 98% working on teaching, 10% on research, 5%grant writing, 10% manuscript preparation, and like 20% on admin things. Basically the fall sucks. So now that teaching is more like a hard 10%, how do I  maximize productivity on the research? I have a manuscript to revise, so that gets top priority, but also have two manuscripts that are basically done research-wise, so they are strong seconds....BUT grants need to be written, BUT papers need to be out there to support the grants. My life is Ouroboros, but with less rebirth.

Ouroboros tat from here