Actually, no we don't. I sometimes hear people say, or see them write in an online forum, that university professors have it easy. They say that we get a job for life and only have to teach a class or two at a time and, gee, isn't that easy?
Hardly. I haven't posted here in about six weeks because my original intent was to make longer, thoughtful posts about things going on in my life and the world I'm interested in. I haven't had the time. I'm going to try to post interesting, thoughtful things but perhaps always not so long.
After Milehicon, I've been observing at WIRO (our local observatory), written a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation, reviewed about 50 proposals to NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF), flown to Orlando for the IRTF review meeting, hit Universal Studios and Epcot Center with my wife for a breif vacation, gotten sick, advised a dozen students about their courses, mentored 3 students in their research, written peer teaching evaluations for three other professors, and, oh yeah, taught a graduate level course on galaxies and cosmology. No one just teaches a grad level course without a lot of preparation. Lots of late nights, but things got done, mostly, at a level I was satisfied with.
Except the blog.
Anyway, in coming weeks, expect to hear about an anthology I've proposed to the National Science Foundation to support introductory astronomy, the release of Star Dragon in paperback and as an e-book (available for free from the website here), my plans for teaching astrobiology in the future, and more. My next big event will be the American Astronomical Society meeting in San Diego the second week of January. I'll be presenting a paper on the astronomy anthology, and Greg Benford will be speaking, both in support of a special session "Astronomy and the Humanities" organized by Andrew Fraknoi. The paperback will be out, too, and I'm trying to line up an event at Mysterious Galaxy.
Finally, I'll try to post about the novel writing process. I got my revision instructions from my editor at Tor for the new book, and it's going to be a fair amount of work yet. That's okay -- I expected to do some work, and I trust my editor. The book will improve significantly before it's published.