Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Not in the classroom

The spring 2010 semester started yesterday. But, this semester I'm not teaching. It feels a little odd to be out of sync with the campus. I don't know when spring break is, when the students arrive or depart. I still have my advisees, so I'm not totally out of touch.

So, what does a professor do when they aren't teaching? I have plenty to keep me busy. Today I finished the 4th book chapter I've written this year. ENOUGH!! This one was the easiest, demography of obesity, something I know a few things about. I did learn writing the others, but they took too much time. Now I have a paper to write on obesity and caregiving for the Utah family obesity conference, a paper to write on disability recovery for the PAA meetings, and an abstract to write for the REVES conference in Cuba. Hopefully all of those will become actual publications. I really want to work on a new proposal on old age mortality. That is just my own research agenda. I also have some "director" work to do--arrange for a speaker for the fall health policy Lourie lecture; set up next year's speaker series; work up a publication to take to foundations; figure out how to raise the visibility of our group, in general. I'm sure some other items will pop up before long. I've recruited a few undergrads to work as research assistants for me this semester, I need to get organized and find something for them to do.

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