A couple weeks ago, I pulled out my laptop and noticed a suspicious splash of water sandwiched between the plastic case and the computer. Pressing the power button yielded nothing but a sad, whirring fan. I was seriously bummed about losing my expensive laptop, but I took solace in the fact that I’ve been obediently backing up my computer with Time Machine and an external hard drive for the last year.
So imagine my dismay when my external hard drive refused to be read.
Things have been pretty busy for me lately! Andy and I made our big move from Providence to New Haven (note to self: I am now too old to not hire movers), my laptop died at about the same time, and a few days later I took off to Victoria for a week to attend the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (more on that later).
As if all that weren’t enough, I’ve started a summer job in Yale’s Instructional Technology Group. I’m an Instructional Innovation Intern, doing web design for Yale professors who want to put course materials online. I love it. In addition to the perks (a snack cabinet! Wii breaks! great coworkers!) I’m learning a ton and improving my CSS/HTML skills. I’ve basically taught myself (with pointers from Andy) everything I know, and it is unbelievably nice to be able to ask someone when I have a question. It saves a ton of Googling and I get the perspective of someone I trust, right away.
I’ll also be starting a summer teaching gig next week — a writing class for pre-meds. While I’m really happy about all these activities, I’ll be busier than I’ve been in a long time, and the big question is whether I’ll actually be able to make any progress on my dissertation. Stay tuned!