Several Things Today
1. Happy birthday, Leibniz!
2. Today is the first official day of my having tenure. And also the first day of my being an associate professor. So that’s awesome.
3. As of today (halfway through the year), I’m at 3,218.42 walking/running miles. This is 132.44 miles more than I had last year at this time. Can I beat last year’s mileage total? I guess we’ll see.
4. I’m in Moscow!
End.
Was Yesterday a Dream?
Because my brain is trying to convince me I hallucinated the whole thing. There’s no way I should have tenure.
I have to keep re-reading that email I got confirming the decision.
And I can’t concentrate on anything else today, haha.
I GOT IT
I got tenure.
That is all.
More Colorware Stuff
Just testing out a few ideas for some colored AirPods (my present to myself if I get tenure).





Any thoughts?
It’s Like a Reward
So for whatever reason, I’ve decided that I’m not allowed to decorate my office door with cartoons and the like until (unless) I get tenure.
That’s…that’s just the rule.
BUT, while I was running this morning, I thought of a cool way to display said cartoons should I actually get tenure. I could make like a little Cartesian plane on my door with one axis that goes from “no math” to “math” and another axis that goes from “not obscure” to “obscure” and then plot a bunch of cartoons according to these to criteria.
If that’s not a perfect way to display cartoons in a math/stats department, then there isn’t one.
On the Right Track
I just got an email today saying that my tenure track renewal got accepted!
Obviously that’s not as exciting as GETTING ACTUAL TENURE, but it’s good to know that a) my application was good enough to grant an extension should I need it, and b) now there’s, y’know, an extension in case of unusual circumstances that prevent me from actually applying for tenure next year.
This notification is also a lot earlier than the timeline said it would be (it says mid-May), but maybe they do the renewals at a faster rate than the actual tenures.
ALSO, I did a LOT of work to create my application packet; it will be the same things that I’ll need to submit for tenure (with some more info added, of course, based on what I’ve done this past year), so a big chunk of that work has already been done and I don’t have to worry about starting from zero in the summer.
YAY
Up to the Date
SO.
Life update (kinda).
I just got off a Zoom meeting with our department head and it sounds like the best course of action for me this year is to apply for tenure renewal. I AM eligible to apply for tenure (though I’d be doing it a year early), but tenure renewal was suggested instead because:
a) if approved, it would add an extra three (?) years on my tenure track timeline, which means that if anything were to happen that would prevent me from applying for tenure next year (the last year I’m allowed to do so), I’d have an extra three years to apply without any sort of penalty.
b) I MAY be doing a brand new class next year, and it would be a class that would look really good on my application due to its uniqueness
c) the application for tenure renewal is exactly the same for tenure – cover letter, CV, and teaching dossier (the only difference is that when applying for tenure you have to also provide referees) – so it’s kind of like a “practice run” for the actual tenure application.
So yeah. I think I’m going to do that.
