I Ain't Dead Yet

In the words of the great Richard Pryor, "I ain't dead yet."

If you've checked the blog over the past six months, this fact might comes as a great surprise. I haven't exactly been lighting up the Blogosphere lately. There's a reason for this. Apparently starting a new tenure track position is quite time consuming.

"Good new, Lieutenant, you've just been promoted!"

Between applying for grants, research, prepping classes, grading, and working with students, I've been super busy.

Lack of free time aside, life at Simpson has been very good. When you ask new physics teachers about their students, they often respond by saying...

Fortunately, Simpson has many talented and intellectually curious students, so I rarely feel like the offensive ethnic stereotype in the video above. That said, I'm older now, and I don't always know how to relate to students. Why do they think Christian Bale is the best Batman? What is the obsession with One Direction? Why do my student evaluations say I need more cowbell? And, perhaps most importantly, why did did they give me the nickname (and website) Moon Jesus?¹

Needless to say, with my students keeping me busy, I haven't had a lot of time for writing (either blogs or books), which is probably just as well...

"Piss off, Stewie!"

That said, I have been keeping somewhat busy. I wrote an article for the Naked Scientists. I made some holiday estimations for the always fabulous Desiree Schell at Science for the People.² That lead to Kyle Munson's nice write-up in the Des Moines Register. Also, I got this kinda fun email:

Now, if I can only round up Dentist Aaron Santos, Photographer Aaron Santos, and Baseball Player Aaron Santos, I can fulfill my dream of starting "The Legion of Super Heroes Named Aaron Santos".³

Anyway, that's where I stand. Hopefully, I can carve out some free time soon so I can start writing more consistently again.

Stay well, Internet.

Aaron Santos is a physicist and author of the books How Many Licks? Or How to Estimate Damn Near Anything and Ballparking: Practical Math for Impractical Sports Questions. Follow him on Twitter at @aarontsantos.

[1] I still have no idea whether or not this is a compliment.
[2] Also, my apologies to Desiree.  I just realized that I—idiot that I am—have been misspelling her name for years, and she's been too nice to correct me on it.
[3] Admittedly, our super powers are less than inspiring.