Time Flies When You're Being Beaten Senseless

Man. So much to write about, and so little time. It's amazing how time is flying by right now. It's already the 5th week of classes this semester. Being a grad student is hilarious. I'm assigned to two professors for my RA duties (which pay for my stipend), and they're both teaching Marketing Communications this spring - one at the undergrad level, and one at the MBA level. I'm sitting here writing up exam questions, coming up with case study ideas, and I'll even be teaching a class for one of the cases in the MBA course. The best part? I don't know a thing about marketing communications. Nada. Zip. Zero. Oh well. As long as you're a chapter ahead of the students, right?

Research is going well. I've got to close out a couple things right now, and then I can focus on the current idea: developing a theoretical framework for a class of consumers that we're tentatively calling cognitive survivors. Basically, the idea is that most people are cognitive misers. They figure out what things are important so that they can spend their cognitive resources best on those things. We're making a case that for many people in everyday situations, that they don't go into that mode at all, instead they hope to survive the event without physical or emotional harm. I personally think that we can extend some of this to behavior of people under duress, though I don't have a feel if that will look the same as in people who are always in this cognitive survival mode. This jives pretty well with my work on vulnerable consumers, and also puts me on a path to better understand some of the bigger questions that I want to get at in my research.

I think that my mind is doing well, and my body is getting better, too. The knees are finally getting better. I've been good about taking that chondroitin complex stuff twice a day, icing my knees, and taking some ibuprofen in the mornings and evenings. I was back at it at Sunday morning hoops, playing great. I could run and jump w/out pain. Was playing good ball - good defense on the perimeter, good rebounding, moved the ball well on offense, and shot a high percentage. Got a little overaggressive with the passing a couple times, but I also made a couple spectacular plays, too. I'm back to lifting and skipping rope regularly, so hopefully this will continue. I'm even tentatively trying to eat a little better when I go out. We'll see how long this lasts.

Let's see. Body? Check. Mind? Check. Soul? Getting there. Church is still a surreal experience at times. I generally like the music that's played, and I love the teachings that we've had this semester. I'm liking this God idea a lot. What I'm having a hard time with is the Christian culture and the sort of people that it draws. It still feels dull and uninteresting. Sort of like the suburbs. It's a good place to raise a family w/ kids, but seems awfully boring to me right now. I'm still trying to find that sweet spot, where I can have people around me that can go seamlessly back and forth between the fun and the serious parts of life. Don't get me wrong. There are a few high-caliber people that I'm friends with now. But the pervailing flavor is something else altogether.

I can sort of go through the motions for now. I don't know how long it can keep my interest, though. That said, church has been pretty good this semester. We'll see where all this goes.
So what's on tap from here on out? Conference in Tampa this weekend. I've got one paper under review, and two more that need to get put together and sent out this semester. I need to put together a presentation in April, maybe get some stuff together for a March deadline so I can present in October. Couple class papers and a couple class discussions to put together. And I need to get a topic for my summer paper. Realy, not too bad. Really, I just need to make a little better use of my time, and I should have everything ahead of schedule, which is good. Since my summer paper is going to be important, and I've got like 5 weddings to go to this summer. It'll help to get a jump on that.

Anyway, that's about it for now. More to come before I leave for Tampa.

-Chairman