Non-Intentional Hiatus

This blog is not dead!

I've just been catching up with other parts of my life, and sometimes barely at the computer at all.

That said, big week coming up, what with the trip to Atlanta and all.  Gonna be traveling with The Mutt for the first time ever.  Risky, yes.

Meanwhile, I'm terribly concerned about my career.  I feel like I've stagnated, that I'm spinning my wheels, that this is all a big fat exercise in futility.

the above is subject to change, of course.

extremities

I took The Mutt out for her morning walk today.  It was 5:45, and she was in her crate in the other room giving the "I NEED TO GO POTTY" whine.  Usually, The Runner takes her out while I rouse whichever children need rousing for the day...but she was sleeping so soundly on one side, while Little Red snored in my ear on the other side, that I figured I'd be the one to do it.  So we went out for her morning walk--sans leash, since it's just around the loop road in the back, and there aren't any people or cars back there.  The Mutt was just overjoyed to be alive, and ran, and ran, and chased a bird, and would sniff in a hole, and then come bounding my direction, tongue and ears flopping.  It was a nice way to start the day.  She is good for all of us--but in a strange way she is perhaps best for me, in that she does what I find so hard:  live entirely in the joy of the moment.

Upon getting ready for work today (yes, it may be summer, but I'm trying to write something, so . . . work), I glanced at the bathroom counter where stood two large pharmacy bottles of Lithium.  I stopped taking it back in March 2009 or so, but there the remainder of my prescription sits.  Another reminder, of a different kind, to enjoy the moment I have been given.  If I make it sound like a discipline, that's because it is one for me.

That said, I'm glad I'm not there anymore.  It's hard to believe that I was ever so bad off that the doctors felt the need to bring in that kind of artillery.

It's time for student evaluations!

Among the comments garnered this year:

• "There's only three teachers [sic] that have effected [sic] me, inside and out of the classroom, making me a better person.  [Piers] is the third."
  
• "I wouldn't do so much poetry, poetry is nessecary [sic] but not excessive amounts."
  
• "I would like it if he tried not to cuss but that's just me"  [oops. I just get carried away.]
  
• "The way he allowed himself to birdwalk at times was good."  [birdwalk??]
  
• "The analyzation was a key thing for me."
  
• "This man needs a laptop to reference certain academic materials mentioned in class."
  
• "Sometimes too funny, off topic."  [TOO FUNNY!!  hahahaha]
  
• "no bullcrap."
  
• "Never mention Monty Python in class. Ever." [fat chance, sister]

As usual, I got props for being "enthusiastic" and "caring," and had many students who found the lyric poetry frustrating.  I also got the usual, and still mystifying, request for "more grades" in the class.

May flowers

Just our one peony, Paeonia lactiflora

Actually, it's been so warm that the flowers mostly came and went.

I always find myself at loose ends when the semester is over and I have some time to myself...so many projects, and yet the time passes as quickly as it always has.  I'll be working enough once June starts, but I can't justify taking this whole month off...at least there's grass to mow and a big puppy to look after.  And books to read and a paper to write and children to mind and baseball games to attend and gardening to do.  And bikes to be riding.  And so on.

Some end of semester thoughts

...both positive and not:

1. This department, the one in which I work, has a serious PR problem because it does not promote--that is, encourage and reward--its most engaging people.

2. If the department is in need of majors, and is having a hard time attracting enough students to fill upper level classes, then perhaps one ought to take a look at whose classes are filling up . . . and whose classes are not.  Students sign up for professors, not literature topics or periods.

3.  The campus reorganization that merged my department and the foreign languages department was an exercise in shuffling deck chairs.  The positive results have been negligible, but the hit to morale has been devastating.  It needn't be that way, but that is the way it has turned out.

4.  To Miss Saucy Student:  that act is appealing as long as it is paired with adequate attention to the requirements of the course.

5.  I wish some of you students would show me your personalities before the very end of the term.

6.  Gentlemen and ladies:  stop running down your dating partner in public.  If he or she is that awful, then move on to another, better person.  No one is forcing you to date so-and-so.  Also, if that person is showing some glaring character issues, just be ready:  they will not get better over time.

7.  I understand why english professors get to the point where they write assignments with huge stipulations regarding formatting, numbers of sources, source quality, page number, quote integration, and so on.  I have resisted such tactics up to this point, thinking that I can use the positive rather than negative approach.  This semester has taught me to rethink that attitude.  First new stipulation:  if you use a source that sounds idiotic (like SHMOOP), then I'm going to treat your essay is if it is written by a person who uses idiotic sources.

8.  I am supposed to do writing all this month.  I can't see straight at the moment, so time will tell if that is going to happen.

Adventures with Students, Vol. 38

The best exam response I've gotten so far:  In response to a question about Beowulf, this student writes "Best I remember Beowulf rips his arm off or something and he bleeds to death, but either way Beowulf won."