Die Theorie und die Praxis....

In German we say: theoretisch moeglich, praktisch dann aber nicht umsetzbar. This means that while things might theoretically be possible, in reality they might not really work out. I got here at 8 in the morning with a theoretically possible to-do-list. But then, a colleague from another university called and needed feedback on a research project proposal. Then an email dropped into my inbox from the editor of a book in which I will have a chapter. Initially they said no revisions, but now they have revisions. It's nothing major, but enough to get me distracted for a while. On the positive I did manage to finish preparing class and setting everything up for tomorrow. I just feel like I am barely keeping my head above water again. The idealistic view of mine to have two weeks of classes prepared out, to have my presentations for AAAL and CALICO ready and to have all the revisions on the article and the two book chapters completed are turning out to be theoretically possible dreams but not really close to reality. Theoretically possible, because if I were to work 80 hours a week these things would be possible. But then my son would have to say on more days "Mama arbeiten. Benni traurig." And that just breaks my heart. My realization that my goals were not feasible brought me back to a meeting I went to on Thursday. In the meeting we (faculty members of various units) were told that we (our time and thoughts) are owned by the university. This means whatever great thoughts we might have and whatever great developments come out of it, belong to the university. This is not so much an issue to me, because there is no pharmaceutical company waiting to buy my research results. But the time thing does apply to me, not in the way that it came up, but as a general principle. One person in the audience mentioned that he had several grants secured for the summer. On each grant you have to indicate how much percentage of your time you will devote to that activity - note: percentage not hours!!! So, this 'poor' man had now received so many grants that he was above 100% which is not possible. He argued that he would just work more, but the discussion leader said that regardless of whether you work 30 hours or 100 hours you still only have 100%. Seems fuzzy math to me, but it's the way the game works. In contrast to the 'poor' gentleman at the session, I am not out of percentages, but I am out of hours.