RESEARCH & JOBS

So I haven’t done any. In the past 3 weeks I’ve been swamped doing work with students that don’t really read before they come to lecture. Granted they don’t have a physical textbook and the notes from which the previous lectures (for the same computer programming course) lecture are scant, they were given links to an online textbook which most don’t read. So I try to help by giving them something physical. The point is that I have to prepare lecture slides either in a PDF format or PPT (Powerpoint) AND at the same time prepare actual reading material for them. So it’s a lot of work. I like for them to have read it before coming but that doesn’t happen.

I am now doing a research grant/project proposal with the US government again working with Vinod the amazing engineer friend I worked with back when we were doing graduate studies. He’s a professor not at UTEP. So we should submit the proposal sometime within the first two weeks of May. That will deal with airdrop systems, parachutes, and paratroopers—making things safer. I especially like working on the biomechanics of paratroopers themselves during landing and parachute deployment.

By the end of May I’m submitting a grant proposal for my HIV/AIDS research project. This I’m behind on as I’m supposed to be reading one AIDS article a day (about 5 per week), but I have not as all my free time is spent on these courses. I have a meeting tomorrow (Tuesday the 29^th of April) where I’ll receive pressure from my supervisor who still is not excited about me tutoring.

Strangely enough, I have been declared a finalist in the selection of only one university. This happens to be a tenure-track instructional/support faculty position at RIT (Rochester—New York) in their Engineering Studies department of their National Technical Institute for the Deaf. I would learn sign language and teach engineering courses to deaf students. Though being deaf is not funny it is interesting that the only university currently interested is one for deaf students. Once papers are published I’m sure that will change. But, given that I’m not competitive yet if you judge by publication, it probably means that most scientists were not interested in such a position or job. Interesting. . .

So this week we three public holidays—Monday (Independence Day), Thursday, and Friday (Human Rights Day). So many people have taken Tuesday and Wednesday off and made it a week-long vacation. I tried to do that by canceling lecture on Wednesday. My supervisor reinstated it by e-mail which means I have to stay and lecture. I was sad at first because I wanted to go to Grahamstown and take a vacation and visit Haley and the girls especially with Brenda’s birthday just recently occurring (Brenda is a cute, world-traveler and explorer friend full of passion who is doing a masters at Rhodes even after serving as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar during her first year of the masters). But staying in Cape Town allowed me to be at church when David Block came and spoke twice yesterday.