Friday 20 May 2011

Coasting into the weekend...

Now that my exams are over I have started pulling together data for my dissertation.  I am looking at industrial change in the USA from 1998 to 2008 - hopefully I will be able to map shifting patterns of manufacturing, finance, services, etc at county level - my spreadsheets have over 3000 rows and an ever increasing number of columns...  Plenty to get my teeth into.

A pair of students gave me a great t-shirt today to show how much they appreciated my help during their 3 years here - it says "G.I.S. GURU" in honour of my skills with the mapping software that we use.  I would not have bought this myself, but will wear it with honour as it was given to me.

Something else that made me feel good is that I have been nominated for a University Award - the Golden Apple.  Students are voting for their favourite member of staff and I seem to have a bit of a following!  Nice to be appreciated.  The prize giving is next Wednesday, so I will let you know how it goes.

Another sleep over this Saturday, but as it is the boys who are having it I am guessing that it will be more of a "playing xBox all night and then crashing as the sun comes up" thing.  Should be fun, though.

The trip plans continue to take shape, with a diversion to Toronto where an ex-colleague now lives.  She has promised to show me around and take me to Niagara Falls, so that will be hard to resist!  At this rate I am starting to wonder if I will actually make it to Gettysburg at all - my short battlefield trip is turning into a road trip visiting old friends!  Not that this is a bad thing, of course, I am actually getting more and more excited about the prospect!

Have a great weekend!

4 comments:

CiCi said...

Industrial change in US during those years does sound like a great subject.

Hubby and I will be cheering for you for the Golden Apple award.

terri said...

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that you are a favorite among the students. Shows that you are very good at what you do. Congratulations on your nomination.

It makes me smile that you look forward to the sleepover party that the boys are having. So many parents would dread such a thing.

Rock Chef said...

TechnoBabe - Thanks for the cheering - I will let you know all about it.

Terri - Thanks, I try to do a good job and it is nice to see that my efforts are not wasted.

agg79 said...

Coasting into a weekend is not a bad way to do it. Beats running head on into it like I sometimes do.

It is great your students think so much of you. You've obviously made an impression on them.

Said it before: The Trip is getting legs. Once you've set the course, it is easy to add some side trips to the itinerary. The problem is how much you can do/see in a short time.