Year 5 at HogwartsOxford

Whodathunk, when I signed up for this deal, that I'd be staying on for five years? I sure didn't. Well, here I am, back in Oxford for the fifth time around, and for the fourth and hopefully final year of my doctorate (*knocks on all available nearby wood*).

I'm ready to buckle down and finish this thing. I can't wait to have a job. But I also can't wait to see what year 5 has in store - hopefully more travel, as I haven't done nearly enough since I've been here, and meeting even more interesting people.

I had my Confirmation of Status exam on Thursday (the second major assessment before the final defense), and it seemed to go well. They had a lot of concerns as usual, but I'd rather they tell me these things now than wait until I'm done.

The term officially starts about two weeks from now, but I had to get here early for the aforementioned exam. For the first time ever, I arrived at night in Terminal 4, so I booked a room at the Yotel in the terminal so I wouldn't have to worry about potentially missing the last train/bus if the plane arrived late! If you haven't heard of it before, the Yotel is a "capsule" hotel modeled on the Japanese capsule hotels and the type of amenities you'd find in first class. The rooms are teeny (actually, they're not terrible if you book a premium room, but I couldn't afford that), and they overlap so alternating rooms have a lower or upper bed. There are no closets, just a single hanger for hanging suits and a rack for storing luggage. I couldn't use the fold-down desk because my luggage was in the way, and the bathroom was pretty much a long narrow shower with a sink and toilet all in one. The room was about the length of the bed, that's it. But it was a fun experience, the room service was good and the people were nice, and I felt a bit more relaxed than I would have if I had gone straight to Oxford the night before.

In addition to the usual academic work, the start of term brings the usual Junior Deaning tasks: coordinating talks, meeting freshers and the like. The next few weeks are going to be very busy!

Hopefully I'll get some time to post a bit more this year, and I hope everyone's term is going well. xxx

Eight Years Later

I could say something about 9/11 today, but so many people said it much more eloquently already, so I'll share a post about the day that I thought was very moving. Head on over to jo(e)'s page and read about her sister's memorial of the day.

"Señor de los espacios infinitos, tú que tienes la paz entre las manos, derrámala Señor te lo suplico, y enséñales a amar a mis hermanos..." (A. Sanz, "Todo es de color")

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

Gosh, it's been ages since I've posted here. I can't really say it's due to lack of time, but perhaps lack of motivation for composing long and thoughtful posts. But I'm sure most of you have been keeping up with the Flickr and the Twitter and the Facebook, and if that's too much for you to check, you can catch it all (including this post!) at the Tumblr.

So anyway. You probably want to know what I've been doing all this time. As tomorrow is the First Day of School for the young'uns in my family, I thought I'd present you with that timeless Back-To-School composition theme, What I Did On My Summer Vacation.

First and foremost, I watched people get married. In June I went to San Francisco to see Chrissie and Collin tie the knot:

This was a wonderful experience for many reasons. First, I got to go back to San Francisco, which was great fun. (I went there last year for the first time.) I also got to reconnect with many old friends from my first two years of Oxford, as well as meet some cool new people. If finances can withstand it, I'd love to make a yearly trip to San Francisco.

In July, my cousin Ryan got married:

Ryan's new wife is Trish, and they met when Ryan was living in Boston. The really cool thing about their wedding is that Ryan designed a lot of things for it: the invitations and save the dates, the programs, the place cards and table numbers, and even the favors - hand-illustrated cookbooks of their favorite recipes. Unfortunately, their weather was crap (as was expected - it rained 90% of the time this summer), but the location was beautiful and we all had a great time.

And in August, longtime family friend Amanda married Bryan on my mother's birthday:

Amanda was exceptionally lucky to have gorgeous weather, especially since she had her wedding outdoors on a lovely mountainside, which led to some fabulous photos.

And my wedding attendance schedule was on the light side this summer: my parents also attended my cousin Emmy's wedding the week before my cousin Ryan's wedding, and my sister Kelly is attending roughly 837 additional weddings between now and November.

When we were not attending weddings, we attended wedding-related events, such as bachelorette parties (that's "hen nights" to all you Brits out there)...

...rehearsal dinners...

...and Jack-and-Jill showers. Whew!

(The couple for this one was Casey and Paul. Casey has been Kelly's best friend since middle school. She's getting married in October, and alas, I cannot go.)

Again, my wedding-related event schedule was only the tip of the iceberg. My parents and my sister will be attending weddings pretty much every single weekend in October. But even so, I now declare myself the official expert on weddings and can advise on pretty much any aspect of wedding planning. If this whole doctorate thing doesn't work out, I know I'll still have a career. ;)

When I wasn't attending weddings, I was teaching faculty at the University of Hartford how to use Blackboard.

(This is a very old and very bad picture of me, but I was doing the same job two years ago. I don't have any photos of me doing the job this summer...)

The university upgraded its version of Blackboard this summer, so I spent my time in FCLD doing what I usually do with them: developing and updating documentation, testing new features, and training faculty. I absolutely love educational technology and hope I can continue with it in some way once I'm done with my doctorate.

What's up next? Lots of work this year. I'm looking to finish about a year from now, so it requires lots and lots of work. If all goes well *knock on wood*, I'll submit in July and defend in Octoberish, and make my way towards the real working world. I can't wait. :D

Wishing you all, whether you're tenured faculty or sending your kids off to preschool, a happy and productive back to school season - Kx

Hello techie people! Coding advice please

Let me explain this vision I have, and someone please tell me if it's possible.

I'm consulting on a website project that has a number of "interview" pages - students giving their perspectives on what it's like to study here. I thought it would be interesting on the main page of the site to have a little box with an image of one of the students and a block quote, and when you click on the box it links to that particular interview.

Now here's where it gets tricky. I'd like to make a different picture box for each student interview and have a different one appear each time you load/refresh the page. That is, the first time you visit the page you may see Sally Student's photo and quote, but when you go back the next time you see Steve Student's photo and quote.

Can this be done without a lot of hassle? Any tips you may have would be much appreciated.

Keeping in touch

I got a call today from my undergraduate university to update my details for their new alumni directory. They wanted all this stuff about the degrees I did, the year I graduated, my address (didn't give it to them), what I'm doing now, etc. Then they offered to sell me a lovely hardbound edition and a CD-rom for the low price of two payments of $44.95.

I declined, of course. I also declined the softcover edition and the abridged CD, which cost somewhere in the upper twenties. It led me to wonder: who would want these things, other than telemarketers? I keep up with the people I want to keep up with via Facebook. It's also helped me to catch up with people I haven't talked to in ten years, from high school and such.

I'm always impressed with how useful the Internet can be. Why bother digging through a phone book when you can Google someone's number or pop it into 411.com? Why bother paying for a premium edition of Classmates.com when you can be Facebook friends for free?

Really, there are so many better options out there.