1 down; 13 to go

Wow.

This first week of classes was intense. There wasn't really anything unusual that went on; it's just that I was out of town until the day before, so that even though I'd prepared all the syllabi etc. before I left town, I still felt like I was thrown into things. Hence, it is Saturday, and I'm scrambling to prep one class for Monday in order to avoid the stress of feeling like I had no idea what we'd be doing in the next class as each one would end.

I know people who can teach like that. But I'm not one of them. It makes me uncomfortable not knowing what we're doing in the next class - I like to have a couple planned out at a time.

But if this keeps up, it's gonna be a wild ride (again!) this semester...

Walk fast to live long or live long if you can walk fast?

This interesting article "If you want to live longer walk faster" describes a fascinating study that found a correlation between life expectancy and the speed at which senior citizens walked. Interesting correlation.

But the title is misleading. The study researchers suggest that the correlation between life expectancy and speed of walking may be because those who walk slowly are in poorer health than those who walk faster. That suggests that the relationship between the two is one in which the ill health causes the slow pace; in other words, those senior citizens who moved slower were already unsteady or in ill health before their pace slowed. It's less likely that these people slowed their pace and then happened to get ill.

Sure, I admit there's probably a connection between walking rapidly and better health - I know when I get moving, I feel my heart rate elevate slightly - it's a bit of exercise without going to the gym that keep my cardiovascular system in better health. But the title is misleading. It seems to suggest that if you walk faster you'll live longer, when walking fast is just an indicator of better health. And this is only in senior citizens, not necessarily in younger people.

Such sloppy titling annoys me. I realize that the title is far more eyecatching than "Slower people die sooner" (though that's not bad), but it really presents the possible connection backwards, suggesting that the reader will live longer by walking faster. Someone who doesn't read carefully might not notice that the actual study suggests something different. Not irresponsible, but this kind of sloppy science reporting does nothing to make the connection between science and everyday life clearer; instead it favours muddying the waters. Such sloppy writing makes the science seem a tad frivolous. Despite the inappropriate title, it's an interesting article. But it still annoys me a bit.

Resolutions?

'Tis the season for New Year's resolutions, but I just can't seem to come up with any. Just like I couldn't seem to come up with a Christmas wish list when my family wanted one, but I sure started thinking of stuff I wanted only a couple of days before the holiday. Too late to do any good for the holiday, but maybe I'll come up with resolutions in another couple of weeks when I've had time to think about it.

I do know there's one thing I want to need to do this semester though: I need to go back to a reading schedule like I had when I was in the research phase of the dissertation. I got almost no research work done this fall and that can't continue. I know part of the reason why I didn't get much research done was the 4 course/3 new prep schedule and the applications, but part of it was also I think because I didn't set a schedule. I tried to research after everything else got done, which meant that a lot of other things just expanded to fill the available space, leaving nothing for research.

Since I've got two conferences already scheduled and both are preliminary work on the new direction I'm taking to move from dissertation to book, then I'm going to have to get the reading done that I want done. That will require a schedule.

So there. One "resolution" I suppose. Job done.