I'm now a (partial) week into the fall semester, taking three classes, teaching one, playing Ultimate, and applying to doctorate programs. Since I'm wanting to combine disability studies (already an interdisciplinary field, though mostly humanities) with engineering, finding one department I can apply to is tricky. I expect finding an adviser is also going to be tricky, for similar reasons (I have some ideas of who I might like to work with, but they tend to be in departments I can't realistically get into, so even if I'm working with them, they're unlikely to be my on-paper adviser...)
Still, this is probably the lightest workload I've ever had for a semester. I have Monday and Wednesday mornings off, and Ultimate practice is literally my only Friday obligation most weeks. That means I can actually wear my disability scholar hat during the semester, which I wasn't able to do last year, and it means that I have time to have things go in unexpected directions without everything falling apart in new and interesting ways.
As far as teaching goes, I have one section of basic algebra and trigonometry. It's a different class from last semester, so I need to do new lesson plans, and I'm teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays rather than Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which means longer classes but fewer of them per week. So far we've met once, and I've gotten the online math homework set up for the first chapter. I also had trouble getting the door open for the first day of class because we meet in the building with weird doors that have twisty handles that then don't actually twist even when the door is unlocked. It's also literally across the street from my dorm so I have the shortest walk of anyone to go to class, which is convenient.
On the student side, I'm taking measure theory, which has something to do with Lebesque integration and integrating badly discontinuous functions. It's also got something to do with ideas of size for weird sets that don't really have length, like apparently the Cantor middle-third set is uncountably infinite but also has measure zero. That is weird to me. That one was originally going to be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 50 minutes each meeting but is instead going to be 75 minute meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays. I'm happy because that means I will get to slightly more of Ultimate practice this week when I can start walking before practice starts instead of from class an hour into practice.
I'm also taking a graduate level probability class that will use some measure theory things -- I think most of my classmates for that class have either already taken measure theory or are in measure theory with me now. I've taken probability classes before that involve calculus, even multi-variable calculus, but they were a while ago (Fall 2010,) comparatively light on the proofs, and different from measure theory, so I suspect I'll be learning a lot in this class. It's a Tuesday and Thursday class, and I generally have something else going on about half an hour after this class so I have a break but am not done for the day.
The last class I'm taking is programming for scientists. I've got more of a computer science background than is strictly expected for this class, but I also don't have enough to reasonably go into anything that has programming ability as a prerequisite, so this should be a comparatively easier class. It meets once a week, on Tuesdays.
Programming is not the class I was originally planning to take as my third, though. I was planning to take multicultural psychology, but I've heard that the teacher for the section of that class I'd signed up for is not great about anyone who is "different," and that there have been issues in the past. I was tempted to take the class anyways and be the pain in her ass who makes her deal with accommodations, but I did that at Tianjin Normal University all of the '13-'14 academic year and I don't particularly want to do that again this semester while also applying to graduate programs. I might be willing to get into fights over basic and important stuff like my being able to type or write and have a person or computer speak my writing for me when I need to, but I can't actually deal with everything ever at once so someone else can have that battle if they want it.
I turned in my submission for the Spoon Knife Anthology from Autonomous Press, claimed a pinch hitting assignment for the Autistic Exchange, and I'm trying to edit a paper of mine for a journal submission but it's kind of scary. I'm also working on a chapter for a book, plus fiction stuff. Maybe I'll even give NaNoWriMo another shot come November, since I have such a light course load and all the writing stuff I have going on is either due by the end of September or doesn't have a specific due date at all.
Still, this is probably the lightest workload I've ever had for a semester. I have Monday and Wednesday mornings off, and Ultimate practice is literally my only Friday obligation most weeks. That means I can actually wear my disability scholar hat during the semester, which I wasn't able to do last year, and it means that I have time to have things go in unexpected directions without everything falling apart in new and interesting ways.
As far as teaching goes, I have one section of basic algebra and trigonometry. It's a different class from last semester, so I need to do new lesson plans, and I'm teaching Tuesdays and Thursdays rather than Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which means longer classes but fewer of them per week. So far we've met once, and I've gotten the online math homework set up for the first chapter. I also had trouble getting the door open for the first day of class because we meet in the building with weird doors that have twisty handles that then don't actually twist even when the door is unlocked. It's also literally across the street from my dorm so I have the shortest walk of anyone to go to class, which is convenient.
On the student side, I'm taking measure theory, which has something to do with Lebesque integration and integrating badly discontinuous functions. It's also got something to do with ideas of size for weird sets that don't really have length, like apparently the Cantor middle-third set is uncountably infinite but also has measure zero. That is weird to me. That one was originally going to be Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for 50 minutes each meeting but is instead going to be 75 minute meetings on Mondays and Wednesdays. I'm happy because that means I will get to slightly more of Ultimate practice this week when I can start walking before practice starts instead of from class an hour into practice.
I'm also taking a graduate level probability class that will use some measure theory things -- I think most of my classmates for that class have either already taken measure theory or are in measure theory with me now. I've taken probability classes before that involve calculus, even multi-variable calculus, but they were a while ago (Fall 2010,) comparatively light on the proofs, and different from measure theory, so I suspect I'll be learning a lot in this class. It's a Tuesday and Thursday class, and I generally have something else going on about half an hour after this class so I have a break but am not done for the day.
The last class I'm taking is programming for scientists. I've got more of a computer science background than is strictly expected for this class, but I also don't have enough to reasonably go into anything that has programming ability as a prerequisite, so this should be a comparatively easier class. It meets once a week, on Tuesdays.
Programming is not the class I was originally planning to take as my third, though. I was planning to take multicultural psychology, but I've heard that the teacher for the section of that class I'd signed up for is not great about anyone who is "different," and that there have been issues in the past. I was tempted to take the class anyways and be the pain in her ass who makes her deal with accommodations, but I did that at Tianjin Normal University all of the '13-'14 academic year and I don't particularly want to do that again this semester while also applying to graduate programs. I might be willing to get into fights over basic and important stuff like my being able to type or write and have a person or computer speak my writing for me when I need to, but I can't actually deal with everything ever at once so someone else can have that battle if they want it.
I turned in my submission for the Spoon Knife Anthology from Autonomous Press, claimed a pinch hitting assignment for the Autistic Exchange, and I'm trying to edit a paper of mine for a journal submission but it's kind of scary. I'm also working on a chapter for a book, plus fiction stuff. Maybe I'll even give NaNoWriMo another shot come November, since I have such a light course load and all the writing stuff I have going on is either due by the end of September or doesn't have a specific due date at all.
measure theory is really cool.. I took a course about it this semester too
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