Another week in review

I spent most of the morning getting the intro labs set up for an open house for prospective students. I've done this for the past 5 or 6 years (with maybe one exception). I've got it down to an art: I go up to a spot in the Pelham hills that has a little depression that's usually flooded at this time of year, collect some water filled with critters, and set up a bunch of stations around the lab with stuff for people to do. Once people show up, I give a little spiel where I talk about all of the measures we've taken to give students a "small group experience", even in the face of a 700 student enrollment, and then I let them wander around in the lab.

I did a couple of new things this year: I set up a berlese funnel yesterday and had a bunch of cool stuff to show people. When I took entomology, I was amazed by the interesting critters that show up when you do a berlese funnel: collembola, proturans, diplura, psocopturans, mites, pseudoscporpions, and beetles -- lots of beetles.

This morning, I saw that my more recent article at Globl Voices got published: Vojaĝo tra Esperantujo / A Vojage through Esperanto-land. It is a bit unfocused, but doesn't come across too badly, I hope. I finished it a bit quickly with the goal of having it get published on the 15th. We didn't quite manage that, but I'm holding pretty close to my goal.

This week, I succeeded in one of goals of recent months: the 2008 ELNA Landa Kongreso will happen together with the Tut-Amerika Kongreso de Esperanto (TAKE). Jose Antonio Vergara and I talked about trying to make this happen months and have been trying bring it about. Not everyone was as eager as I was for these to happen however, but through hard work at persuading people on both sides, I managed to make it happen.

I filled out my AFR (annual faculty review) this week. I hate doing that -- so many of the things I do don't fit cleanly into the categories of the AFR. This year, however, I assume I don't have to worry too much, since I received the Faculty Outstanding Service Award. It seems like that will count for a lot.