Summer!

This was a rough semester--I had a higher than normal teaching load plus lots of turn over in my group. I am feeling much more relaxed now and happy that I can focus full time on research. I am going to list my summer goals here so I can look at them to remind myself of my sunny new start optimism as Fall comes closer:

• Publish papers! My goal is to get 5 papers out that are in varying states from finishing the last experiments to polishing up the manuscript by the end of September. This is pretty ambitious, but I think do-able. I hope, anyway :-)
• Write proposals! I have three planned to work on this summer.
• Set up my new class! This is more of a re-vamping than a really new class, so I have a good starting point. Still, I hate it when I am less than a week ahead of the schedule. It is super stressful to me to be writing new material the night before I am supposed to deliver them. 
• Decide on travel! I am trying to travel less often to more useful/meaningful meetings. When money is so tight, it is a shame to waste it at a useless meeting. Especially since registrations are so expensive these days. Plus, I'd rather be working in my office than furtively in the back of a lecture hall.
• Buy equipment! We got the funding for it, now we need to spec it out and purchase it. My favorite kind of summer task, actually.

Happy summer everyone!