Quick Successions: New Mexico Edition

 I finished my dissertation, defended it, and crossed the liminal space between doctoral candidate and anointed as a doctor of philosophy in curriculum and instruction. Hannah and I took a few pictures together with me in my robes. Here is the program from commencement with my name in it. I didn't go to this ceremony because I was in California for work, but here is my name. And then here is the program from my hooding ceremony which I also missed.  My understanding is that I can participate in a recognition ceremony in December if I would like so I am still trying to decide if I want to do that. I was moved from graduate research assistant to Research Associate at work and I have a few other projects I am working on. Overall, it's good to be done.

Memorial Day weekend kicked off on Friday after I finished with a 10 am. meeting. I came home, ran, and then we went to Kansas City, stopping first at a mall to grab something to eat and ride the carousel.  When we saw it wasn’t raining (as had been predicted) we went the rest of the way to Kaufmann Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals and watched them pay the Chicago White Sox. The CWS were having a good season, but with help from Hannah’s cheering, the Royals managed a seventh inning comeback. After the game, there were Friday Night Fireworks. We arrived home at 11:30 pm. Saturday we went to the outlet mall in Kansas City, Kansas so Hannah could see the big fountain and so I could buy her some summer clothes that fit. She is skinny and her legs are long and so finding shorts is difficult. When we returned, we went grocery shopping. Sunday was a day of churching, resting, and some house cleaning. Monday we went to the new Jane Austen movie Love ...

We are in a bit of a wind down here. Classes are over. Preschool is in its final week. I finished another round of revisions on my dissertation. I went and made a presentation in California in May. Here is me tired from the long plane ride, sitting in the shuttle during 5 p.m. Los Angeles traffic. It actually wasn't worse than San Jose or San Francisco or Manhattan. Big cities just have bog traffic. It was a quick trip. I went there on Thursday and returned on Friday after I shared my research and talked about teaching. Yesterday (Wednesday) was Hannah's final official day of preschool. It was a good place for her. When we told her there was no more preschool she exclaimed "Well, now how am I going to learn!" We brainstormed some things we could do over the summer. For instance, she really liked working with the Junque (junk) box at the school finding scrap items to make crafts. So I took her to the store and we bought her a Junque box so that she could continu...

Hannah had her first art show a couple of weeks ago. Here is the art that she chose to display.  A reception was held in conjunction with the show and all the parents and children stood in the atrium and had cookies and conversed while people looked at the art. Famed cultural theorist and ethnographer Pierre Bourdieu would have so much to say about the way in which children are apprenticed into the habitus of the middle class at such events. Hannah and I at the show. When Hannah went to LegoLand Discovery Center in Kansas City the ticket I bought let us back into the aquarium if we went within 30 days. So as soon as I got back from AERA we went. It was a really nice day.  On Friday before Mother's Day I took Hannah to a research site were I was inviting people to participate in my study. She was dressed like Minnie Mouse handing out cookies and when people came up to get a cookie I told them about my study. I was able to find quite a...

After I returned from Washington DC I had about 36 hours at home. During that time, I exercised, did laundry and rented a car to drive to the annual meeting of the Council of Exceptional Children in St. Louis. The University of Kansas paid for me to rent a car because they have some deal with a rental company. When I got there to pick up my Chevy Malibu they didn't have one. So I took this RAM1500 instead. It was really a good truck to drive. I have never comfortable on a car drive before and I finally was.  Picking up the RAM. Stopping at Sonic on the way home to revel in the fact that I had a RAM.  The view of Busch stadium from my hotel room. Walking to the conference. Better view of the arch. I had been inside before so I didn't do that this time. Decided to take in a Cards game while I was there. They were playing the Reds.  Good game, actually. There were like about 8 home runs. Lots of cheering. Game didn't last too long. Brian ...

It's that time of the year again. The time when I put my life on hold and go to the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association. Last year, I profiled all of my experience at various AERA meetings. This year, I am going to give a day-by-day accounting. Wednesday, April 6 The conference didn't start until April 8, but that didn't stop me from getting on a plane at 5 a.m. to head to DC. I was slated to present my dissertation at noon during the mentoring session of the International Scholarly Association on Teacher Thinking (ISATT). The ISATT group was really wonderful--educational researchers from Portugal, Spain, China, and the United States in our group. This was amazingly good fun and lots of good meals together over the course of two days. Thursday, April 7 Together with my colleage from Germany, I presented research on preservice teachers uptake of technology during their preparation courses. This presentation occurred during a pre-conferenc...

Hannah and I want to go to LegoLand. So we got out the calculator and the Internet and priced out for a grand total of just under $4,000. No dice. We will never get there. I was really sad and so I started to see what people did to make it more affordable and I found out that in Kansas City there is a LegoLand Discovery Center. Not LegoLand, but an affordable experience. So I bought tickets and we went to Crown Center in Kansas City. I was very clear with her that this was not the amusement part and I did not intend for it to be a substitute experience in any way--just something fun to do. She was excited and was very well behaved. We rode the rides and saw a 4-D movie and she played all afternoon. Then we went and got food.  Here is she is riding the Harry Potter Lego ride. Taking all Saturday for the Lego Discovery center meant that we couldn't color eggs until Easter Sunday. Hannah didn't mind at all. She did a really good job minding the eggs and the colors turn...