Nibbled to death by ducks, Episode three: Revenge of the ducks [1,2]

In our last episode, I had finished the day with many of my supposedly small tasks unfinished. I’d also started to make my list for the next day. Let’s see where we are.

Left-over tasks from yesterday: Workshop syllabus. MINK-WIC applications & draft letter to MINK-WIC scholars. GitHub stuff? Congrats to Jen P. Charlie old version book. Charlie old 211 stuff.

Partially finished tasks from yesterday: Tapia applications. GHC applications. Update intro paragraph from Carver [3].

Added to a new list during the day yesterday. Write! Write! Write! Review the article. Email Grants Officer (or I can just talk to her on Monday). Check on the course recommended by stats colleague. Reimbursement request for containers. Middle print boxen. Review stuff for IP meeting on Monday.

Listed yesterday for home. None of your beeswax.

Added in the evening yesterday: Explore and write about the Tandy 102. Registrar re 151. Shop for game night. Clean for game night. Certificates for code camp. Bring storage boxes to lab.

Texted myself this morning. CLRS. Email coordinator of letterpress workshop. Buy tickets. Add musing notes. Look at student wages spreadsheet. Recheck on student wages with with ASA. Make dinner reservations.

Added along the way: _Update these lists. Follow up on name tags. Rebuild CSR. Muse on Sam’s SysAdmin failures. Summarize issues from today’s camp. Summer reminders. Reset passwords. Rant about email question. Respond to alum. Check with colleagues on form for peer educator data. Check on boxen.

Texted myself today while away from the computer: Check in on recent graduate. Get statements for pair programming. Respond to student GHC scholarship recipient re coordinating transportation. Assorted plans for family. Check with Dean’s office re MAP forms. Write AD. Muse on number of musings. Reimbursement requests.

Added while writing this musing: Check with students on DSSG paper. Schedule MAP interviews. Update 151 with partnering contract questions. Pick date for CSC 322 visits.

I realize that it adds to the task time to explain what task is, but I’m enjoying doing so. It also means that I will have this musing done by the end of the day, even if all the tasks aren’t done.

I wrote that previous paragraph at about 9:00 a.m. It is now 10:30 p.m. I did work during the day, but didn’t seem to record as I went. I will note that the fraction of tasks that got completed is stunningly small. That is, the ducks won. Still, I can report on the few things that I did get done. They are not in any particular order.

Charlie old version book. We had a bunch of copies of the previous textbook for CSC 211. They were in somewhat mediocre shape. I asked Charlie if he knew of any use for them. He suggested that we just recycle them, and so I did.

Charlie old 211. We have some equipment from an old version of of CSC 211. I thought I should check with Charlie what to do with it. His statement? That looks like what I used in our architecture class as an undergraduate. We decided to keep a few of them for the museum and to get rid of the rest. They may end up in Electronics, they may end up in the Makerspace [4], they may end up elsewhere.

Email Grants Officer (or I can just talk to her on Monday). She emailed me. I am eligible to apply for our DH fellowship. Yay! So I replied with a few comments and questions, and I am now adding that proposal to my task list.

Email coordinator of letterpress workshop. The letterpress workshop starts on Monday. I was wondering whether I should do anything to prepare for that workshop. The answer is no.

Add musing notes. I made notes to myself about three or so future musings. The text was a reminder to myself to add them to my list of potential musings. I have now done so. I think I even wrote one of the planned musings while adding it.

Update these lists. If I recall correctly, this was my reminder to write the lists at the top of this musing. I’ve now done that.

Look at student wages spreadsheet. I think I mentioned this yesterday. We asked for a clear breakdown of where our peer education budget went. We instead got how much we spent on each student across the whole year. Those data are not very useful, particularly since students work different jobs each semester. I wanted to verify for myself that they’d really given us such useless data. They had [5].

Recheck on student wages with with ASA. Our ASA had indicated that she might be able to get the data we want from the e-time system. I had asked her to explore the issue, but hadn’t heard back. I checked in with her. She cannot easily get data from the e-time system, so we have to request it from payroll. Beforehand, we should agree on what form we want the data in.

Follow up on name tags. We’re getting new name tags. Our ASA said that she could find no way to get me a Curmudgeon tag, since she had to select the department from a drop-down menu. I thought I should follow up with some explanation as to why I thought they should make an exception. But I failed to convince them. Oh well, I’ll work on an unofficial alternative.

Summer reminders. It’s Wednesday, a day in which I remind students that we have tea at three and game night at 7pm.

Muse on Sam’s SysAdmin failures. I had a bit of a SysAdmin catastrophe this morning. It seemed timely to follow up on that.

Check on boxen and Bring storage boxes to lab. I ordered a number of storage containers from Walmart in the hopes of using them to organize my lab. They were to arrive today and I wanted to make sure that they were what I expected [7]. I ended up putting them in 3821 temporarily. Why did I use the term boxen rather than boxes. Sometimes my notes to myself have to be a bit silly.

Rant about email question. I received a strange question via email. It seemed appropriate to write one of my rant-style musings in response.

Respond to alum. The question was associated with an alum who had an unanswered email [8]. I thought I should answer their email. I did, mostly to say Yes, I’d be happy to chat, although I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.

Buy tickets. The Glimmer Lab team is celebrating the last day of code camp by going to dinner and then The Big Sick. I needed to buy tickets. That was fun - I also got a stack of clearance stuff from the bookstore [9,10] and a few free movie posters from the theatre.

Shop for game night. I try to buy fruit, cheese, and other food for game night. Hy-Vee usually has donuts on clearance starting at about 5pm. Unfortunately, they have new high-end donuts, and the clearance price was untenable [11]. But I bought some pitchers to serve lemonade, some chips, and other supplies.

Clean for game night. Not much necessary. Yay!

Check with Dean’s Office re MAP forms. My summer MAPs and MIPs end in two days. I am expected to fill out a form to reflect on my students’ work. I like to have the student there and fill it out together, since it’s a good opportunity to chat about issues and to hear their perspective [12]. But the Dean’s office hasn’t told us how to access the form [14]. So I sent a note.

Muse on number of musings. I think I set a record today.

I also did a wide variety of things not on the lists. I participated in a 2+ hour department meeting to discuss inclusion and equity. I added three new people to the SIGCSE mailing lists. I moderated more than a dozen messages, many of which had to be sent back to the posters. I tried to help a bit in code camp and failed. I met with the HS principal [15]. I ranted to CLS about student misuse of Yammer. I drafted a few musings. I answered a variety of email messages [16]. I made dinner.

What does that leave me at the end of the day? Let’s see.

Draft workshop syllabus. MINK-WIC applications. Draft letter to MINK-WIC scholars. GitHub stuff? Congrats to Jen P. GHC applications. Update intro paragraph - Carver. Write! Write! Write! Review the article. Check on the course recommended by stats colleague. Reimbursement request for containers. Middle print boxen. Review stuff for IP meeting on Monday. Explore and write about the Tandy 102. Registrar re 151. Certificates for code camp. CLRS. Rebuild CSR. Reset passwords. Check with colleagues on form for peer educator data. Check in on recent graduate. Get statements for pair programming. Respond to student GHC scholarship recipient re coordinating transportation. Write AD. Reimbursement requests. Check with students on DSSG paper. Schedule MAP interviews. Update 151 with partnering contract questions. Pick date for CSC 322 visits.

Never go up against ducks! I also think I’ve remembered why I stopped writing to-do lists. They are just depressing.

[1] I don’t care that I’m not matching Star Wars numbering.

[2] I realize that my practice of putting end note references in my titles may a bit nontraditional. I don’t care.

[3] I sent the updated paragraph. But I should still update my copy of the article.

[4] Or Fablab, or whatever they are calling it this week.

[5] That experience will likely be reflected in a future musing on data people and non-data people [6].

[6] I hope to have a better title by that time.

[7] They were what I expected. Unfortunately, Walmart did not ship the number I ordered. Fortunately, Walmart customer service was incredibly friendly and helpful.

[8] More precisely, a doubly unanswered email.

[9] Does anyone need some Chinese caligraphy paper?

[10] Sorry Micki. It’s only a small stack. And it will probably end up in the Studio Art give-away pile.

[11] I’m not paying $10 for a box of a dozen or so day-olds. And I’m not alone in that. They usually have just a few boxes. Today, they had three cart-full that were not getting bought.

[12] We usually have a week after the code camp. Since we don’t this year, I’ll have to sneak students out of the camp throughout the day.

[14] It lived on the College Web site for awhile. Then they chose a different survey provider this spring. But I was told that we were discontinuing our relationship with that survey provider. So I really do need to find out what form to use. It would be nicer if I had some confidence that someone looked at the data from those forms.

[15] Remember: the principal is your pal, but that principle does not prevent us from using principal as an adjective.

[16] Whoops! That reminds me that there was one that I was in the middle of answering.

Version 1.0 of 2017-07-26.