Earlier this year (or was it last year?), CBC aired The Wire, an eight-part radio series about the impact of electricity on music. It was very, very cool. The show went all the way back to the ability to record sound, and the impact that had on society. It got up to the present day of DJs, mashups (I heard an excellent one the other day: Janet Jackson singing on top of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday), and online piracy. The show was mixed as if it were being played for dancers in a club. And every episode ended with a contemporary DJ offering their remix of the episode.

I only caught bits and pieces of the show when it aired, and wish I could have heard more. Unfortunately, the show is not offered for download. That's why I was so happy to learn today that CBC will be airing it again. The show has won a couple of awards, and CBC has decided to re-run the series on Radio 2 starting this Sunday at 4:00. Don't miss it.

If y'all ain't from the ivory tower, let me give you a quick run-down on the process of acquiring seniority.

At our school, a tenure-track positions begins with a three-year probationary appointment. At the end of the three years, you face your first career milestone: reappointment. You apply at the end of your second year. Your case is evaluated by the Tenure and Promotion committee. If they approve, then your second term begins at tne end of your third full year.

Now, reappointment is really just a formality. Everyone gets it. But it's a good mechanism to have in place if you need to eject an egregiously bad hire (I considered testing this by putting "Well why don't you just fire me!" in my personal statement, but stuck with a more standard format). It's also a good way for junior faculty to practice for the Main Event: the tenure application. Most faculty will apply at the end of their fourth year, though there's no harm in waiting an extra year. It's not exactly clear to me what tenure is good for these days (that's a debate we can have another time), but it's still The Way Things Are Done in academia, and you have to achieve it in order to remain a professor.

I put in my application a couple of months ago. The chair recently pulled me into his office to tell me that the P+T committee reviewed my case and is planning to recommend me for reappointment (phew!). He was able to give me a summary of their opinion. As a professor, there are three aspects to my job: teaching, research and service (committees). My performance is evaluated roughly by taking a 40/40/20 weighted average of those three aspects (though in reality research is weighted more heavily). Here's what the chair told me:

• Teaching: Very little needs to be said about my teaching. I'm evaluated on the basis of student evaluations, and there's basically no room for improvement. Which is not to say that I'm not constantly trying to find better ways to teach -- gotta get some active learning into my lectures.
• Research: I could be doing more of this. In other words, I could be publishing more papers. Yeah, I knew that. I'm working on it. Generally, research is the aspect of academia that I'm least good at. Teaching comes naturally to me; research does not. But I enjoy it.
• Service: Apparently, I'm doing way, way too much service. My amount of committee participation is completely out of line with other junior faculty. I've been asked to continue doing high-school liaison, where my contribution is highly valued, and drop just about everything else. I find it hard to abandon the investments I've made in parts of the deparment's operations, though I must eventually. It's foolish sentimentality in any case. There's nothing I do in committees that any other professor couldn't do just as well.

Well, that's one less thing to think about, at least for a couple of years. Good thing, too. A year from now I'll be busy writing a new research grant proposal to replace the one that runs out in 2007. And so on.

For the first time since Vorlon was brand new, Nath woke me up this morning and asked me to look after him so that she could get some sleep. She fed him at about three this morning, and after roughly five failed attempts to put him back to bed she opted for Plan B (by which I mean me; at this point, it's too late to consider emergency contraceptives). So I've been up since 5:30 or so. I passed the early hours of the morning in the basement, watching Love Actually for the brazilionth time and still feeling sentimental at the end. Still, I'm not complaining. I am lucky beyond all expectations that Nath is willing to take care of Vorlon most nights.

I had a long and occasionally lucid day. I think my lecture went alright.

By the time I got home, I was most surely tired. That's why I had mixed feelings about Nath leaving me with both kids for the first time so that she could go to a knitter's guild meeting. I mean, she should definitely get out and count on me to look after Vorlon and Zebula. But I was apprehensive given that I wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders, and given that looking after the two of them, particularly at bed time, is challenging enough to begin with. Would I be able to keep Vorlon at bay long enough to put Zebula to bed? What if she freaked out while I was trying to give Vorlon a rare bottle feeding? What if he freaked out?

My fears turned out to be misplaced in a most spectacular manner. Nath aimed to give Vorlon a last feeding before leaving, and he fell asleep during that feeding, well before his normal bed time. Zebula fell asleep while snuggling with me on the couch, about an hour before her normal bed time. So here I am, it's not even 8:00, and both of my kids are sleeping upstairs. And that is inconceivably good luck. Don't tell Nath -- she'll feel that her respite was sullied. I suppose I should preemptively make it up to her by cleaning the dinner dishes, which she had promised to do upon her return. Excuse me...