Geeking out

I got a job offer and I accepted it! Beginning in the fall, I'll be an Assistant Professor of Psychology - no "adjunct" there!

Among the complexities of relocating to a new state, I get to get all nerdy about things like:
-Decorating my OWN office
-Framing my PhD diploma (which currently resides in the giant envelope in which it was mailed to me 3 years ago)
-Planning course offerings
-Designing courses that have never been offered at this college
-Getting to teach something besides "Intro to Psych" and "Human Growth and Development" -- topics in my area of specialty!
-Thinking about all the *neat* things I can do with a student population which is largely on-campus residential and of traditional college age, and who all have regular and reliable access to the internet (Group projects! Online discussion groups! Special Topics courses!)

 I so totally cannot wait. The next three months are going to be like the longest Christmas Eve, ever. Until then, I'm reading "Alone Together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other" by Sherry Turkle. Ironically, I am reading it on my Kindle ... but I like this book so far and what it has to say about robotics and their status as somewhere between alive-and-not alive. The mental shift for people and how they deal with robots has a lot of implications at a philosophical and spiritual level. So far, I'm only in the first section - I was totally hooked in the Introduction - but I can see this being used as one "textbook" for a Special Topics kind of course on the Psychology of Technology or something like that. Even more intriguing, this book seems to be one of several that this author has written about the psychology of technology; she seems to be something of an expert and I am looking forward to reading those next.

Pavlov's mints

Now that you can custom edit clips on Hulu, I can cut out Jim's swearing at the very beginning of the following clip:

Dwight hits the nail on the head.

I could get totally excited about this

For anyone who doesn't have major dealings in Austin, SXSW = South by Southwest, a conference that (I thought) has its roots in the "up and coming" music scene, with record label people and indie musicians taking over downtown trying to get promoted and/or signed. Then, it expanded to include a film fest, then the "interactive" with all the new and upcoming technology. Every year there's a big to-do about super secret shows by big names and pre-pre screenings of the next "big" movie with superstars wandering the downtown Austin scene.

I'll say it: I'm a nerd and I hate traffic. Even having a musician for a husband, he played SXSW once and it took forever just to wait on the curb for him to go and get his performers' wristband.

Well, this year there is something new added to the SXSW lineup. I got an email today from a colleague inviting us to SXSWedu, which is a 3-day series of speakers related to "modernizing teaching and learning". I'm totally interested in this  (But not in the $300 price tag!), so hopefully my department has some funds left for professional development and conference attendance. I'm all about increasing my knowledge and using that to be a better educator!

Brainy things

I'm in a shopping mood today... must be the hormones.

First stop: Etsy. Search "Brains". Weed out references to zombies.


Some potentially cool wall art:

This style of painting is neat:

And who could resist a jumbo magnet:

Serotonin molecule wall art:

It's good to know the internet is still funny.

Oh, thank goodness for Neuroscientist Ryan Gosling. I've been laughing all morning.