A typical day

My schedule for Tuesday: (this is what I need to accomplish at work on Tuesday)

1. Write a perfect 1.5-hour long lecture on recent research on stress hormones, serotonin and clinical depression for my final class tomorrow. = 4 hr job, HAS to be done today
2. Research the last 7 years of the science literature on both those topics. = 2 hr job, HAS to be done before tomorrow at 3pm
3. And re-read the textbook chapters for those sections = 2 hr
4. Arrange for the pizza delivery to the elephant party = 15 min, HAS to be done today
5. And confirm the room reservation = 10 min
6. Write a reminder email to all elephant students. = 30 min, HAS to be done today
7. Score the last 3 reliability tests = 15 min per test, HAS to be done today (so they can register)
8. Then write detailed email to each of those 3 students - 15 min per email, HAS to be done today, la la la)
9. Contact all Bio majors about elephant research next semester = 30 min (HAS to be done today, etc.)
10. Run to bookstore to fix the bizarre textbook problem that I just heard about, half hour
11. Harass textbook rep again - they're late getting me the book they were supposed to get me for next semester
12. Take down Phys Lab posters for grading. = 30 min. (due Fri)
13. Then grade the posters = 45 min (due Fri)
14. Then email all 26 phys lab students individually with the reports on their posters = 6 min per student, so let me think, that's 26 students x 6 min = oh man...156 minutes... can that possibly be right? jeez (must be done Fri)
15. Grade the last 8 physiology lab notebooks. Takes 15 min per notebook = 2 hr job. (must be done Friday)
16. Revise the phys lab handouts and send to Jill = 2 hr job (must be done by tomorrow 11am for the lab summit mtg)
17. Read the CV & file of the job candidate I am interviewing tomorrow = 30 min (must be done by tomorrow noon)
18. Then write the 8-page study guide on glucocorticoids for Hormones & Behavior (must be posted tomorrow) = 3 hr job
19. And finish writing the exam key = 30 more min
20. And post the exam key, all remaining powerpoint and the study guide = 20 min
21. Write the reference letter for that one student = 30 min
22. And the other critical letter for my marvelous TA = 2 hr because I really want to do it right
23. And send the title of my hugely important talk at the New England Aquarium, HAS to be done by tomorrow
24. Draft the Aquarium talk = 4 hrs. I give the talk in Boston next Friday. Next summer's research and most of my future research plans hinge on this.
25. Contact Tom Hahn about crossbill research next summer, HAS to be done this week
26. I am writing in agony about not having edited Sharon's elephant estrus paper yet - shit! and she's offered me coauthorship! what the hell! I HAVE HAVE HAVE to get on that, and I promised her I'd figure out how to do statistical analysis on how to determine whether two different animals' cycles are in phase or are just coinciding randomly.
27. Have to download and print out about 35 assignments that students have sent to me
28. Which also needs I need to download and install Office 2008 to open some of their documents because no matter how many times I tell them to NEVER send me a .docx file, they keep forgetting. Then have to un-install Office 2008 again because it keeps insisting on opening my class Powerpoints all wrong. Damn Microsoft. Damn them to hell.

I think I forgot some things.

****
so that's what needs to be done. Here's how it actually goes:

Was up till 3am the previous night working, so don't get wake up till 9am. Drat. Scoot to work.
Student pokes head in door. Wants to sign up for elephant research next semester. Half-hour talk about that.
New student arrives, wants to do hormone research. I convince her to wait till next fall.
Manage to half-write the email to the elephant students (#6 from the list), when -
2 elephant students arrive - shoot!! - totally forgot I told them to come meet me at 1! oh my god is it 1 already? Also just realized I don't have comments for them on their paper yet
20 min looking over their powerpoint (it's great) giving feedback on data & advice for their big talk on Thursday
Promise to send them comments on their progress report (which I then fail to do, partly because I CAN'T FIND IT in the literally HUNDREDS of assignments students have been turning in. Not joking. There are at least 600 assignments all over the desk and floor that all just got turned in. ALL of which need to be graded.)

finally finish that damn email to the other elephant students (#6! done!)

get email from zoo. Elephant keeper needs to change our meet-the-elephants time on Sunday. Half hour spent notifying all students.

New email from zoo. Research director is changing time of the Thursday meeting.

New email from zoo. Student ran out of data sheets.

New email from zoo. Student reports the baby elephant has just learned, by himself, to put a piece of straw on his head and balance it there. (I snap out of my stress for a moment to picture him doing that, and laugh.)

New email from zoo. Next student reports there are no data sheets, what should she do???

New email from different student: "Do I have to do an elephant shift over finals?"

New email from different student: "Did you get my lab report? Sorry I turned it in late!"

Put out fire, put out fire, put out fire. Student pokes head in door - my god, is it 2pm? It's my next research student. Another 20 min spent going over her data

She leaves. Suddenly a huge pile more students all pop their heads in the door, one after the other: "Um, do you have variable-credit forms for the 493 course?" "Just wondering if you're teaching the Monday phys lab next semester? Because it's the only one that will fit in my schedule, but it's closed, and I have to have that lab to apply to nursing school, so what do I do?" "Is Conservation Biology still closed, because I need that for my environmental minor, and if it's closed, you have to overload me into it. What do you mean you won't? Will you be teaching it next year?" [realize I cannot for the life of me find the CB waitlist] "I was just wondering if you have might any opinions about whether a pre-dental student should switch to marine mammalogy because I REALLY love marine mammals and the dental school thing is just, you know, my dad's a dentist so... and I know you're not my real advisor but I think you can give me better advice than my real advisor so I just thought I'd drop by and see if you were in your office, what do you think???" [This is a tricky one. Do what you love vs. be practical...] "Have you finished regrading the makeup exam for Hormones & Behavior?" (No.) "Wondered if you'd regraded that paper yet that I turned in late? (No.) "Just wondering if you know what handins I haven't turned in or what else I might have forgotten?" (um.. no, I really have no idea what you haven't done yet.) "I JUST REALIZED I still have this handin from last week, I totally forgot I had it, I'm so sorry, I just SPACED, it was wedged in the corner of my notebook and I didn't see it, will you take it now? (oh, okay...) "Here's a physiology lab appendix, I forgot to print it out yesterday, and OH, I need to show you, my graph printed out funny, 'cause my printer black ink cartridge was dying, so, I printed it all in blue, is it ok, can you see the error bars? I swear I did put the errors bars on, but you can barely see them!" (that's fine, your error bars are fine, don't worry, I can see them...) "Here's my lab notebook, will you still accept it?" "Professor Hunt DID YOU GET THE EMAIL I sent? I sent you an email and you didn't reply. I sent it last night. it was about my phys lab miniproject 2, can we still rewrite that to fix the typos?" (I look at my inbox. I've received over 60 emails from students and faculty members today alone.)

My fearless TA shows up. Thank god. She gives me the huge stack of 66 student datasheets she's been working up for me. As soon as she leaves I remember I should have given her the 66 feeding hormone checksheets to grade too.

I do a tiny bit of online research for my lecture. Immediately find that TODAY, in TODAY'S New York Times is an announcement of a stunning new research report that just came out in Cell about serotonin that turns everything upsidedown. Wow! It is supercool! I HAVE to include that in the lecture! Jeez, I'm so glad I thought to check. (Damn biology, it just won't stay still.)

4pm. The flood of students ebbs.

Do the 3 reliability tests, write to those students with suggested research plan for each one. #7, done!
Arrange for the pizza (#4, done). Start to reserve the room and suddenly realize that, in order to reserve the room, I need to find out if the anti-government activists in Thailand have released the Bangkok airport. (One of our speakers for my meeting is stranded in Thailand.) Cannot confirm this one way or the other. Decide to go for the room that's only available till 7pm, on the theory that Sharon is probably not going to be able to get back from Thailand in time to come talk at the meeting. #5 done.

My iPhone beeps. It's 6pm. My iPhone is beeping to remind me to go to Gatas. BUT I HAVEN'T WRITTEN TOMORROW'S LECTURE YET. I haven't finished ANYTHING yet.

I want to go to rehearsal and I can't. I have to get up in front of 66 people tomorrow and talk for an hour and a half, and it's the last lecture of the entire course and it had better be SPECTACULAR, it had better be the single most fascinating, best-researched lecture EVER, because right after that they write their class evaluations, which go into my permanent file. And I have NO LECTURE. Well, I do have my little serotonin news thingy, but that's only 7 minutes max if I stretch it.

My stomach is hurting.

I experience a moment of the all-too-familiar irony of totally stressing myself out while teaching a class about stress physiology. But once you've experienced that irony about 100 times, the humor of it sort of fades.

It is suddenly clear that I need to quit Gatas. Even though I love them. I don't have time in my life.

I go to Gatas (an hour late...). I'm in a knot of tension the whole drive there. 30 min drive one way. The whole time there, I'm rehearsing my little quitting speech. About how much I love them, but I just don't have the time.

I can hear their samba when I get out of the car. Hey... it sounds pretty good.

I step into the house and the samba washes over me. I stand there at the top of the stairs, earplugs not in yet, just listening. Hey. It sounds DAMN good. It's FLYING. It's SOLID.

I stand there for about 3 minutes listening to the samba.

I've completely forgotten about everything else. My whole body unknots. My shoulders relax. All I hear is the samba. All I'm thinking is: Hey, listen to the surdos. Hey, check out that chocalho.

I go downstairs and there they are. Playing away. Sailing. Flying. Soaring.

Pauline hands me my wonderful new Ivsom caixa that I'm buying for her. I try it out. It's SPECTACULAR. It's bright, it's loud, it's sharp. It's positively crackling with energy and swing. I start playing....

They call out the samba and decide to try the impossibly complicated Viradouro third-surdo-showpiece long break. It's got a completely impossible third surdo solo in it. But Ara and I listen to it a couple of times and we both sort of slowly realize that it's just a string of little motifs that we already know. I start to try to show some of it to Ara and then I suddenly realize that she doesn't need me to show her a damn thing, because over the next few minutes, Ara, who has not even been playing third surdo all that long, is suddenly, instantaneously, unbelievably, playing the entire 10-bar solo PERFECTLY at top speed. I know people who've been playing for YEARS who couldn't have played that if I'd spent two hours breaking it down for them. My god, she just nailed that puppy. Nailed it cold. You'd think she grew up in Imperio Serrano or something.

I get that crackle of excitement when you suddenly realize that the team you're on is REALLY GOOD.

We play it side by side a few times.

Then we take it FAST.

It's ELATING.

The group sounds AWESOME. I can't believe how fast they all picked up that break. I think: I gotta show them that Mocidade entrada again! I've been DYING to try that fancy Mocidade entrada with the rolls and the partido alto (the only group outside of Mocidade that I've ever heard that pulled it off is Verde Vai in London, which tells you something). You need some really solid repiniques, who are clean on fast rolls, and a great third surdo, to pull it off. But HEY! The Gatas JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE a couple of really solid repiniques who are clean on fast rolls (NOT me - Chris and Angela) and a great third surdo player!

There's no way I'm going to quit this group.

30 minute drive back home. I stay up till 2:30am writing my lecture, then squeeze in the next two hours early the next day. The next day is every bit as bad as the Tuesday. I never get the phys lab stuff done. Or the candidate's file read. Or the makeup exams regraded. Or the letters written. Or the Aquarium talk drafted. But I do pull off a fairly decent last lecture, if a bit rushed, and my fearless TA saves my neck yet again on another pile of grading. I'll catch up on the other stuff somehow. And the moment playing that third surdo run with Ara, the moment of not thinking about ANYTHING ELSE other than the music... I can't give that up.

Too many bands

Charging toward the end of the semester at top speed.... all 4 bands in top gear recently and all 4 of my classes too, so it's been nastily busy; the kind of schedule where you think: I can't keep this up one more day. This is going to KILL me. The kind of schedule where you get into a spitting fury if somebody DARES to ask why you haven't responded yet to an email they sent last week, and you have to bite your lip to keep from yelling: IF I HAD 2 MINUTES FREE I WOULD HAVE RESPONDED. BUT I DON'T EVER HAVE ANY SINGLE MINUTE FREE BECAUSE I WORK TILL 2AM 7 DAYS A WEEK, AND BY STANDING HERE TALKING TO YOU FOR 2 MINUTES ABOUT IT, THAT IT MEANS I'M GOING TO HAVE TO WORK TILL 2:02AM TONIGHT, AND, LET ME CHECK MY CALENDAR HERE FOR THE NEXT TIME I HAVE 2 MINUTES FREE, LOOK! IT'S NOT TILL DECEMBER 14TH! I'LL REPLY TO YOUR EMAIL THEN. OKAYYYYY?????

And you realize: This is an impossible way to life. I have to quit not just one but TWO of my bands.

So I had myself all geared up to quit two of the 4 groups, and I'd picked out the two. But then I went to 1 last rehearsal of each one and dammit... both were so, so, so, much fun.... and I didn't quit... and I've continued to work till 2am every single night.

So... Fantastic show week before last with 3 of the 4 bands (Lions for samba, Free Beat Nation or Bate Livre or whatever our name is now for maracatu, and Axe Dide pulling in some cool samba-reggae). The highlight of that show for me was definitely the killer maracatu set. Man, has that group come together. And I think this was the first maracatu set where I actually felt confident about all the musical transitions.

And the lowlight was me being completely befuddled when the Lions caixa section did a little caixa demo for the crowd. Blake gave me a perfectly logical instruction to play "the start of Gina", but, see, I always thought of it as, there's break 6 and then the repique solo and THEN Gina starts, but actually Break 6 IS Gina and so the start of Break 6 IS the start of Gina, and while I was standing there thinking about it in total confusion, luckily Blake and John just went ahead and played without me (otherwise I would have just stood there forever muttering "Start of Gina?"). Luckily Blake then further distracted the crowd from me by dramatically shattering a stick in mid-solo, which shot spinning through the air into the crowd - whee! so cool! And somehow he kept playing! Well, anyway, Blake and John played great and I felt like an idiot, which is about par for me on caixa. But I had a good time.

And I got to play almost the entire Lions set standing between 2 magnificent surdos (Rod & Kirin) and Blake on caixa, which was awfully good company. There's nothing like being right between two dead-on strong surdo players like that, and then of course Blake (killer caixa player) next to me, and John right in front - well, that was a fine, fine place to be standing.

Completely wiped out at the end. Realized I'd been playing 4 hours hard without a break.... 3 bands in a row. Completely wiped out. Took a couple hours to hang out with folks at a bar afterward. Then went back to work, at midnight.