absence makes the heart grow fonder

I miss teaching. I really do. By the end I was pulling out my hair and counting down the last minutes, but mostly due to the fact that the last 3 weeks are the most time-consuming. Teaching gave me a good steady routine for the week. There were places I had to be at a certain time. I couldn't blow off my students like I can blow off doing DNA preps. I have yet to see my evals, but at least on my end I felt that I really connected with my students. I miss seeing their faces every week, hearing their puzzled questions, listening to their stories. Teaching is a unique social interaction. For someone who normally feels awkward in social situations it was amazing how at home I felt in my classroom.

My research is plodding along. I have two separate projects and one may need a complete revamp. I'm hoping one apparent problem is just a complication we can work around. For the second project I'm still optimizing my experimental system, but the results are interesting thus far.

I haven't been blogging much. I realized this morning that part of my silence is because I always want to have something profound to say. That is a pretty lofty blogging goal. I may need to try writing drafts somehow while at work, since I don't like to blog directly from the lab.