unbelievably slow progress

• Spent too much time negotiating with Elsevier on taking over the journal Cognition from its previous editor, Jacques Mehler. I can't decide wether it's a privilege or I'm just the mug who said 'yes'. I'd like to think the former, of course, but realism leans me towards the latter. Jacques used to be a student of my father's when he first moved to Oxford from Argentina, so I have personal reasons for wanting to do this, as well as professional reasons.
• Spent too much time battling with the University finance package to work out costings for Elsevier that would be acceptable to them and the university.
• Spent too much time figuring out how to launder money in ways acceptable to all that would allow me to fund a really good student.
• Spent probably not quite enough time managing the Experimental Psychology Society - went to one of its 3-times-a-year meetings (in Birmingham) and have only written about 14 of the 30 or so letters that need writing...
• Spent less time than I'd have liked on the ground floor of Selfridges in the Bull Ring (Birmingham). An amazing place that I'd recommend to anyone interested in good food, drink, cooking equipment, japanese food, etc. etc. The Bull Ring used to be the armpit of shopping centres (that's a "mall" for US readers - but who am I kidding, as the only person who reads this is me), but it's really nice now...
• Ate too much chocolate over Easter (so far the only thing I'm not complaining about)
• Got invited as a guest to the 40th National Karate Championships (in Birmingham, again!) by my Karate Sensei. Am really looking forward to that.
• Redesigned our research group web pages. Also using RapidWeaver. Took me the day to convert it from handcoded html to something that's a lot nicer, if still very simple. Along the way, I 'met' someone who used to be a psychologist but now earns a living on the internet doing graphic design and art. So we now have a piece of art on the website. May not appeal to everyone, but it appealed to me.
• And I got 7 of the things from the last list I posted done. And a few other things too. Not bad, really.

Have determined to keep this updated more regularly. I actually find it quite interesting to read what I wrote a few months ago.

Not much to show for two weeks' salary...

Yes, it's been another of those weeks, or two, when not much happened. Supervised student projects, attended various committee meetings, and found yet again only a few moments when I was alone in the office staring into that abyss they call 'backlog'. Here's a list of things I need to do, in no particular order:

• Make changes to a paper an ex-student wrote
• Make changes to a grant proposal my ex thesis advisor wrote
• Make changes to a paper that I and an ex-postdoc wrote
• Write a paper about some experiments that I and an ex-postdoc (the same one) run about 3 years ago
• Write a paper with a different ex-postdoc about some experiments that we run about 2 years ago
• Write a paper with a colleague in the US reviewing work we've done with all our ex-colleagues
• Write a chapter with a current colleague for another current colleague reviewing work we and others did even longer ago
• Co-write a grant proposal with a hopefully future colleague that is due in 3 weeks
• Write a book review for THES that was due today
• Mark 10 3rd year literature surveys (marks due yesterday)
• Write a letter in support of a US academic seeking (well-deserved) promotion
• Review at least two papers still outstanding
• Try not to think about the 2nd edition I need to write of a book I once wrote but which I don't have time, now, to write (one chapter of the new edition does exist, though)
• Try and remember all the other things I need to do but haven't yet done, including, no doubt, replying to many emails languishing in my inbox...

Is it any wonder I despair? Probably not. Just as well, though, that I got through my Karate grading this week. I am now a modest 5th Kyu, as is my 8 yr-old and as is not my 11 yr-old, who is now a fully-fledged 1st Kyu (which for the uninitiated means that his next grade will be black belt). I've still got a couple of years to go. At least a couple. I can't wait, as then I'll really kick @ss!

From Washington to Monkey Puzzles

There's something mildly frustrating about flying from London to Washington on a Wednesday, and leaving Washington to fly back on the Friday. You never quite get a decent night's sleep. So I woke at 3am the first night, and 4am the second. The meeting I was at (an NIH grants review panel) started at 8am each morning, so I could have done with more sleep. Still... I'm told that the advantage of your clock not resetting itself is that when you get back, exhausted, you sleep like a baby the first night, and then feel right as rain. Whatever that means – Am still exhausted. So evidently right as rain I am not.

The meeting went well. As someone told me the first time, people 'leave their egos at the door', and all one hears is constructive and serious discussion of the merits (or otherwise) of the grants. It reminded me how cooperative academia can be (elsewhere buried on this website is a complaint I have regarding how uncooperative it can sometimes be). Even when a grant application was weak, those weaknesses were discussed at length so that a consensus could be reached.

Anyway, now that I'm back in York, a big thank you to United Airlines, whose engines kept going the full 7.5 hours to get me back. This despite their planes seeming to be amongst the oldest aircraft gracing the skies above the Atlantic. On the way over, the movie was projected onto one of those old-fashioned screens like you used to get at school - an oblong box that opened up to reveal nothing more technologically sophisticated than a roller blind. I didn't realize planes had those anymore.

Not much had changed in the 3 days that I was away from home. Except for an interesting but rare atmospheric phenomenon that I'd not experienced in ages. Locals with far more experience than I tell me that it's called 'the sun'. Amazing. So off to the garden centre we went, to buy a selection of ferns, ivies, and a monkey puzzle tree (Silvia's national tree - see below for examples from our Argentina trip). We bought what my children would call a 'tintsy' one - all of 18 inches high. We shan't wait with baited breath for it to grow - they're very slow-growing. Planted it sufficiently close to the house so as to cause problems after one or two hundred years' worth of growth. Monkey Puzzle trees are the most primitive living conifer (or so a Google search revealed), and they get their name from the fact that monkeys can't climb them. Bizarre. Especially as there aren't any monkeys near where they grow. Why not call them Armadillo Puzzle trees? Or Llama Puzzle trees? Or Psycholinguist Puzzle trees?

Another week flies by

Things I did this week:

Version One, listed in order of importance to other people
• Reviewed 7 grants that will be discussed next week, in Washington DC, at the National Institutes of Health grants review panel for Language and Communication (I'll be there).
• Completed one journal article review
• Made an editorial decision on another article for another journal
• Was reminded that I was asked last October to make an editorial decision (another one) for the Editor of a journal who had to deal with a paper by a friend of his. But being human, I forgot (in my defense, I was teaching that new statistics course, and moving house, etc. etc.). I feel particularly glum about that. Is 'glum' a word in the US? Must be, as my spell-checker hasn't picked it out. So am writing this as a few more trees make the supreme sacrifice in service of yet another print run.
• Was made an offer that I'd be idiotic to refuse (more about that some time in the future, if I don't refuse it).
• Set up a new home wireless network, using an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station and an Airport Express to extend the range. Am using WPA2 encryption and access control (so only computers I authorise can join the network, and wireless info. is sent encrypted). It was a breeze. Still, the instructions were next-to-useless, which is unusual for Apple products. So the home network now consists of a new iMac Intel Core Duo, an iBook, a PowerBook, a printer, and a mass of cables that are still required whatever kind of (wired or wireless) network you have. Not sure whether the iPods count as part of the network...
• Learned, almost, my new Kata for my next Karate belt (Heian Yondan, for anyone that cares).

Version Two, listed in order of importance to me
• As above, but with the Karate and the wireless network occupying the top slots. I know, sad really...

Hmm - hardly an inspiring list. But a list nonetheless. What IS inspiring is the new eye tracker that we now have in the lab. And what's even MORE inspiring is the new postdoc/colleague in the lab who's making it all work. Coincidentally she's a friend and ex-colleague of Silvia's, from her Madison days. My kids, by the way, continue to inspire.

So not a bad week. But as ever, I'd be happier if I had the time in which to enjoy some of what I do, and some of whom I do it with... I'd also be happier if I had one of these.

Woa...where did all that time go?

But 14th October 2005 (my last blog entry) was only YESTERDAY... where have I been? What have I done?

taught a new course
applied for a small 1-yr grant
bought a house
moved up another belt in my Karate
moved into said house
survived Xmas
applied for a larger 3-yr grant
taught another course
been awarded that small 1-yr grant
started reviewing a pile more grants for NIH

and decided that if one can't write even a few minutes' worth of blog each week, one's life is, evidently, no longer one's own...

3 days and counting...

Three days to go. Or rather, two, as the lecture starts at 9.15 on Monday morning. Research Design and Statistics.

I wish I could sit here calmly thinking of what a great lecture I've prepared. Perhaps if I had actually prepared it I'd be able to at least sit here calmly. I wish. It was another one of those weeks - induction talks to the new students, feedback to give out to the old students, and various crises that needed resolving.

I remember in another life I used to be a researcher. Not sure where that life went.

And while I worry about finding that old life again, I have to worry about how I'll manage to prepare Monday's lecture when I've got to take the kids to football Saturday morning, and Jamie to a rugby match (of all things...) on Sunday. help.

Where did the summer go?

I've been back a week. Term starts after the weekend, and have I prepared a single lecture? NO. I did feel fantastically virtuous carrying a massive statistics textbook around Patagonia (and yes, I did read a few pages), but I would feel much happier if I was a little more ready for the impending course (A Masters course on research design and statistics). Still - I've got all next week, and I'm nervously hoping that hardly any students will want to see me (surely Week 1 is way too early to go and see your tutor...)

So what I have I accomplished this week? I wish I knew. They always say it'll be all right on the night. I'm not so sure..