Time to return

Well, it's done with, tomorrow I head back to work. I really probably should have gone back in sooner but I felt I needed to take some time off to recover from last semester. As I'm sure I mentioned on here, I was put in a position to teach a grad level course only three weeks before the start of the semester; so I was playing catchup with that course the whole semester. On top of that I was teaching a low level undergrad course for the third time; which was good because that course is becoming routine now. So I'm really quite happy to be teaching it for a fourth time this semester, and teaching no other course in the process. So I should have time to focus on research and developing a strong research group; which I neglected all last semester.

Of course the start of the semester isn't without some panic, I need to get things ready for the lab component for the undergrad course. This includes preparing something on the order of 450 samples for them to analyze; and the stocks for a few of those samples have run out so I need to prepare them from scratch... and I may be out of the chemicals needed. Oh, and I need to revise the lab manual once again and have it sent off to the printers. This doesn't look so good any more, if I don't go to work tomorrow will it all go away?

It's not all that bad though, the start of the semester isn't actually until January 22nd, it's odd but you don't hear me complaining about it. This hopefully will give me time to get some of the new students in the lab up to speed. Better still I might even be able to run the experiments I need to have an ok talk ready for a conference in early March. Nothing like a deadline to get me working.

But at least I'm well rested and far more relaxed than I was prior to the break. I spent a little over a week at the in-laws around Christmas; which despite what television would have you believe, was a very nice time. Since being back in the warm south, were I now officially belong (I detest the cold now) I've just been relaxing, I've taken a couple of nice bike rides, and spent far too much time playing Spore (a Christmas gift from D). I know people have mixed feelings about this game but I can say that I truly enjoy it and it serves as a nice way to de-stress. Now as long as I can kick the addiction to it before I need to write any grants things should be good.