A Brief Hello....

Hello and Happy New Year!! (Okay, so it's a little early for that greeting, but I don't know when I'll be online again before school starts; I figured I may as well share it now.) Anyway, I drove back from Mom and Dad's (homehome) yesterday, I'm running errands and doing random stuff today, and I'm catching a plane to New Orleans tomorrow. Busy, busy....

The holiday break has been very nice so far. I got to spend some time at homehome with most of the family and I got to spend some time with just Mom and Dad too. I didn't get much schoolwork done over break (surprise, surprise), but I did manage to get a few Christmas presents finished. (I knitted a few stocking hats and a few scarves this year.) I got quite a bit of rest over the break and--save a sore back and a trip to the chiropractor after Christmas--had a generally wonderful break.

Jimmy's currently in New Orleans (putting new roofs on houses), so I'm going to go see him over New Years. We'll get to celebrate in the city....

"So long, farewell...

...auf wiedersehn, good night." (Oh, come on, sing along...you know the rest!!)

This is probably my last blog for a while as I'm getting packed up and ready to go homehome for Christmas. I think I'm ready for a few weeks of the peace and joy that comes with being deprived of computers and technology. I had hoped to leave a few days ago, but some snowy weather and a pesky cough and cold have delayed my departure a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to get homehome tomorrow.

I could ramble on about the events of the past several days, but I think I'd rather just wish everyone a Merry Christmas instead....

WOOHOO!!!

I finished my papers and gave a presentation on Tuesday, and I turned in grades today...which means that I am officially FINISHED for the semester, WOOHOO!!!

I've been trying to catch up on things during the past few days. Everything tends to get neglected during the last couple of weeks during the semester, so it's time to recuperate from the end of the semester. I've been eating and sleeping on a somewhat regular schedule, my apartment is looking somewhat cleaner than it has in a while, and my car went in for an oil change and general check-up this afternoon. I did some of my Christmas shopping yesterday, so I slept in late this morning to recuperate from shopping. (In case you didn't know, I don't like shopping much....) Anyway, now I'm starting to get things ready to go homehome (homehome is where Mom and Dad live) for the break; I haven't made any definite plans yet, but I think I might leave on Saturday....

Don't Walk...Yet.

Another crosswalk. This is a picture somebody took on our trip to Ireland this past summer. I think they painted on the streets just to help the tourists.

Don't Walk....

I cross the street at the crosswalk every day on my way to school. When are they going to make the one at my corner like this?

Writing (Again)

Back in the office to work on another paper. Pages remaining in the semester = 10. This one's due on Tuesday, but I would like to have it finished by tomorrow afternoon. (I'm meeting with one of my classmates tomorrow afternoon to work on a presentation that's over our paper topics, so it would be helpful to have the paper finished by then.) Anyway, back to writing....

Christmas Parties and Papers

Pages remaining = 10. I finished my British Romantics paper and turned it in this morning. Only one paper left, and that one's due on Tuesday (along with a presentation covering the same topic). I think I'm going to be lazy for most of the rest of the day.

Our department Christmas Party was at noon today. We had a nice little lunch and visited for a while. The Christmas Party at my church is tonight. There will be a supper and gift exchange and all sorts of other fun stuff. I might go out and do some Christmas shopping this afternoon. I don't particularly like shopping and Christmas shopping's even worse then normal because of the crowds, but I might go out anyway; I know I have a few rolls of film that I need to take in for developing.

Still Writing.

I have 15-20 pages due tomorrow morning, so today's a writing day (as was yesterday, and the day before). At this point I have 14 actual pages written, but I'm only happy with about 6 of those. I need to do more thinking, writing, and revising. It will probably be a very long night....

Writing

It's that time of the semester again...the time when papers all come due. My 'pages remaining' count is down to about 20 now. I'm making progress, but not as quickly as I would like. I managed to finish all of my grading for the semester, now it's simply writing (and writing, and writing). Anyways, back to my writing....

Last Day of Classes

Returning to the computer after a relatively long weekend...or at least what felt like a relatively long weekend....

Friday was a lot of fun. I spent the afternoon reading books and cleaning house (which is a wonderful method of productive procrastination). Janet came through town in the evening and took Jimmy and I out for supper. We went to a little British place (British in atmosphere, not necessarily cuisine) that's tucked away in a little corner in the middle of town. After supper we went back to my apartment and played some Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. (It was nice to play Scrabble with a mediator present; Jimmy and I tend to argue when we play Scrabble with just the two of us. Janet won the game too; she uses big words.)

Saturday was a rather fuzzy and overcast day. I did homework, but that's really about all. Jimmy and I went to a theatre production in the evening: The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I'd seen the play before, but this production was still quite good. (Jimmy seemed to enjoy the show too. He certainly liked it better than the opera.)

And Sunday was spent reading books and grading papers. I haven't finished all the reading that I need to do for my projects, but I did manage to finish grading all of the major projects that my students produced this semester. I still have a stack of shorter things to grade, but all the big things are graded.

So now today is Monday...and the last day of classes for the semester. I met with my students this morning for our last set of presentations, and I returned all of the papers that I graded yesterday. Now I need to finish the last of the grading and get started writing all of my papers....

A Commentary on Creativity

Okay, I'm a teacher and a student. At this time in the semester, I'm both writing and grading papers. I encourage my students to be creative and original in their work, but at the same time I am forced to place limits on their creativity. (I'm under a certain departmental obligation to have my students write certain types of papers and produce a certain number of pages during the course of a semester.) I want my students to have freedom with their thoughts and writing, but at the same time I also realize that I will eventually be grading their work. Creativity gets rewarded, but creativity must also operate within certain limitations. Similarly, I struggle to find the balance between creativity and academic accessibility within my own writing. I can produce scholarly work on John Wayne or The Matrix, but that type of work typically isn't seen as acceptable in my discourse community (it isn't 'academic' enough). Thus we're stuck...we're encouraged to be original, to try new things, to think outside of that awful metaphorical box, but then we are punished--or at least not rewarded--when we're finally able to come up with something new and fun and original.

"When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

I found the above quote written on a bookmark that was tucked away in a book that I hadn't picked up since last semester. The phrase is from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a 1962 movie with John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart. I like the movie and just thought I'd share the quote with the world at large (or at least with the few people who actually read this blog).

Nothing New.

Nothing new today. I've been working on my portfolio quite a bit during the past several days and turned it in today; it's a bit of a relief to have one more project finished for the semester. My students submitted their final projects yesterday, so I have grading that I need to do in addition to my own writing. The current 'pages left to write' count for the semester is about 25...not too bad....

I'm back....

Back from home, back to the office, and back to work....

Thanksgiving break was nice. Jimmy and I got to spend several days at home with Mom and Dad; most of the family came home only for Thanksgiving Day. We had the big family dinner...turkey and stuffing and pumpkin pie and all that stuff. I took books and homework with me over break, but I didn't get much of anything done (which, by the way, isn't too surprising). The only problem is that I still have a lot of work to do this week....

I've been working on my portfolio today. I have all of the materials, but I just need to organize them so I can find everything. I think I may have to add a trip to Staples to today's agenda in order to get more supplies.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Okay, so we're not quite at Thanksgiving yet, but 'Happy Thanksgiving' anyway!! I'm out of school all week this week, so I'll be headed home to visit Mom and Dad for the rest of the week. Jimmy and I are driving home tomorrow and we're planning on staying until Sunday. I think we're actually having our family Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, so quite a few people should be home for that. Anyway, it should be a nice, relaxing, relatively uneventful week (a pleasant change from this past week).

I spent most of the weekend attempting to recover from this past week. I finally feel like I've recovered from the general lack of sleep that accompanies paper writing.... The weekend wasn't all spent catching up on zzz's. Jimmy and I went to an early showing of Harry Potter on Friday night, and then we went to a little coffee shop and spent the rest of the evening playing Killer Bunnies. (It's a cool game. Check out the link.) Saturday was a lazy day. I got my hair cut again--took off about another inch this time. And Jimmy and I spent the evening playing Killer Bunnies. Sunday was relatively relaxing too. Jimmy and I had supper at with his mom and brother, went to Mass at the Newman Center, and then spent the rest of the evening playing Killer Bunnies. And now it's Monday...and I've done all of my laundry and I'm almost packed and ready to go home....

Anyway, I'm retreating home to the land of no internet...I'll blog again when I return to the world of technology sometime next week/weekend....

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Finished

My paper's finished. Today was also the dreaded day that's spent reading portfolio files, and we're finished with those too. I think I'm going to go home and sleep until somebody wakes me up. (And that somebody will probably be Jimmy because I think we're going to go see the Harry Potter movie this evening. I've heard good things about the movie so far....)

Sanity Break....

Still writing. Well, writing again. Same Twain paper, different sitting. I just needed to give my mind a little break from work...a simple little attempt to stay sane as I continue with my writing. I just hope it works....

Twain, Again.

Tonight's a writing night; I have a paper due tomorrow afternoon. I'm writing on elements of gender and race in Twain's Pudd'nhead Wilson. I'm pulling in cultural theory (specifically Judith Butler and the ideas of social construction and performative gender) and playing with ideas. Anyway, back to my ideas (on my wordprocessing screen and not this one)....

"The Issues of Consistency and Estrogen-Charged Humans of the Feminine Species"

I'm borrowing the title and part of today's post from a friend of a friend. (I could explain all the links and connections as well as how I came to possess this text, but that might take a while.) Anyway, this all relates to an ongoing office discussion on the very different natures of men and women....

"So the difference between a male and a female is like the difference between an abacus and a modern computer. The abacus gets the job done, just fine. It's simple and effective. It never breaks down, and if it did, a moron could fix it. A modern computer can multi-task infinitely, but it breaks down all the time, and it takes a trained specialist to even take it apart. The greater the complexity, the more inherently unstable the system."

One thing I'd like to add to this evaluation: even though highly complex systems can frequently be fixed only by professionals (or sometimes these systems are fixed by simply restarting them) men still nearly always insist on dissecting these systems and taking them apart, determined that they can solve the problems....

Blah. Monday. Grrr....

It's Monday. It feels like a Monday. I don't typically like Mondays very much. I'm feeling tired and lethargic, but I don't really know why. I think I'm still trying to adjust to the time change from a few weeks ago. I seem to have gone into hibernate mode--I want to eat and sleep and that's really about it. (No, I'm not depressed. It's seasonal and it'll pass.) Perhaps I should have been born as a bear so I could sleep all winter. Grrrr....

I've spent most of today in the office. I had a meeting this afternoon and then it was back to work. I think I have most of the evening free, save a few pages to write. I'll probably bake a few pies tonight since I have pumpkin in the refridgerator and I'm not sure how long it will keep. I need to track down a recipe for pumpkin bread too; I don't think I have Mom's recipe for that on hand. (Plus, I don't really like pumpkin stuff anyway. I make it more for other people than for myself. I probably never asked Mom for her recipe since it's not among my favorite things anyway. I do have her poppyseed bread recipe, which makes a very yummy loaf of bread.)

A Saturday....

Nothing eloquent today....

Today turned out to be a rather busy day for a Saturday. This morning we had a women's retreat at church. The retreat was rather small, but it was still good. I'd been helping to organize the retreat, so I was still trying to make sure everything went smoothly. Everything went well, and I think most of the girls found the morning to be time well spent.

Janet, one of my sisters, was traveling through town today, so she took Jimmy and I out to lunch. We looked at pictures from her latest trip and just chatted and had a good time. We didn't do anything too exciting, but we still had a pleasant afternoon.

I cooked up a pumpkin and a squash this evening. I plan on making pies (and maybe a bread too) sometime within the next few days. I roasted the pumpkin seeds and managed to do so without burning them. Janet brought me a whole bag of peppers (4 different kinds, I think), so I probably need to either string them so they can dry or learn how to make salsa within the next few days.

"A psychotic is someone who just found out what's going on."

We were talking about disillusionment in class today. Someone mentioned the William S. Burroughs phrase that's quoted above. I like the quote; perhaps there's some truth to it....

Still Reading Twain....

"There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt." --Mark Twain in Pudd'nhead Wilson

Still reading Twain...and I'm enjoying each new book more than the last. Pudd'nhead Wilson is a good read; it's relatively brief and entertaining too. Today's been relatively uneventful. I've spent most of the afternoon reading and doing research. I'm planning on spending the evening--or what will be left of it after class--grading papers so I can return them to my students tomorrow morning.

Movie Reviews

Ahhh...another Monday. I guess I'll spend a little time reflecting on the weekend before I mentally transition into the new week. I did some reading and work over the weekend, but not as much as I really should have. Jimmy and I went out to see a couple of movies in the evenings....

We went to see The Legend of Zorro on Saturday night. I was mildly disappointed with the film as it was a little too 'Disney' for my taste. (I'm using 'Disney' as an adjective here as the film wasn't made by that corporation.) The movie was entertaining and the plot was generally good, but the humor was a little too trite and predictable. The first Zorro movie was better.

On Friday, we went to see Jarhead. I didn't know much about the movie before we went, but I liked the film. (I generally like war films.) Based on the few descriptions of the movie that I'd heard prior to going to the theatre, I was expecting something of a cross between Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now. The first scene in the movie looked like it came straight out of FMJ and there were numerous references to AN, but the movie certainly held its own. Jarhead didn't have the violent battle scenes like either of the other two movies; instead it showed more of the psychological battles that the soldiers fought within themselves. The movie was still pretty rough (language, content, etc.), but I liked it nonetheless. (My new rule for war movies: You know it's going to be a good war movie when people are leaving the theatre before the opening credits are over.) Anyway, I saw a copy of the book Jarhead when I was browsing through the bookstore in the mall the other day. Maybe I'll pick up a copy and read it over Christmas break....

Flying Disks and Cheap Books

I played some ultimate frisbee last night...and I'm feeling it this morning. I had a lot of fun playing, but now my muscles are complaining. (Not screaming or anything like that, just complaining.) I hadn't really picked up a frisbee since I played intramurals with my church team in late August and early September, so my throws were a little off for most of the evening. I finally learned how to throw a forehand, though it's still a little wobbly and needs some work. I think the group here plays twice a week; my goal is to keep playing with them on Thursdays as the semester goes on. Plus, I think they're trying to put a girls team together, which sounds like fun....

I'm not sure what my plans are for my Friday. (YAY it's Friday!!) I have some papers that I need to grade and some research that I need to do over the weekend, but I'm not sure I want to devote my Friday to schoolwork. I think I might go to one of the local used book stores and wander around for a while; I have a few books that I need, and maybe I'll be lucky enough to find them there so I don't have to pay full price at the university bookstore.

The Conscience

Well, I dutifully re-read the Baillie plays last night, but then we never got around to discussing them in class today (surprise). I guess that puts me ahead on the readings for next week. We spent class today discussing two of the works of Elizabeth Inchbald, Nature and Art and Lovers' Vows. I enjoyed both of the works--they were easy to read and understand, yet at the same time they were both filled with political and social commentary (and irony--the use of language was wonderful). One of my favorite passages from the play Lovers' Vows (which is a very quick read):
B: My conscience and myself are at variance.
A: Your conscience is in the right.
B: You don't know yet what the quarrel is.
A: Conscience is always right--because it never speaks unless it is so.

I think it's time to call it a day.... I think there's supposed to be an all-girls game of ultimate frisbee this evening, but the wind's blow so hard that playing would be either difficult or impossible. Maybe I'll just go home and find something productive to do....

PB&J Day

Happy Wednesday!! Today was PB&J Day in the class that I'm teaching. My students tested the instructions they had written explaining how to make Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches. I don't like PB&Js (I think they're sticky and just plain gross), but my students seemed to have fun with the activity (plus they each got a free lunch).

I'll probably be spending most of my evening tonight reading. I need to re-read Joanna Baillie's Count Basil before class tomorrow. I like that play, but I think I prefer some of her other works (particularly de Monfort). I like reading the obscure women writers of the Romantic Period....

Grammar

Okay, so I just got out of class for the day.... Anyway, I just spent part of the last three hours discussing grammar rules and the varied changes through which our language is currently going. (Rule #1 when studying languages: Language is always changing.) As a class, we decided that infinitives can be split (but we already knew that), contractions are appropriate in formal writing, the first person is acceptable in formal writing, apostrophes will probably disappear within the next 20 years, and pronoun-antecedent agreement can be compromised for the sake of gender inclusiveness. Though I'm not sure I necessarily agree with all of these assertions (I still take issue with the last two), I am quite interested in the changes through which our language has gone and those changes through which it will eventually go. Any thoughts on what else might happen to our wonderful language in the coming decades?

Swords and Pens

I found a comic that I especially liked today....

The Weekend and a Halloween Party

Another Monday.... Today's a busy day--lots of meetings and things that need to be done.

The weekend, however, was quite eventful. The movie party on Friday night was fun. We (the graduate students in the department) transformed our seminar classroom into something resembling a movie theatre, ordered pizza, and watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. The movie was good, and we had fun hanging out and chatting together.

Anna, one of the people that I worked with this summer, came to town to visit for part of the weekend. We spent the remainder of the Friday night just hanging out and catching up; Saturday was more eventful. I made breakfast in the morning (apple crisp -- still have apples), and we went out to a steakhouse for dinner (or lunch or whatever you call that noon meal) with the other two members of our summer teaching team. We all spent the afternoon shopping and running around town; then we all got dressed up and went to a Halloween party in the evening. We didn't win any of the costume contests, but we had a good time together and we managed to win the pumpkin carving contest. (We carved an angel in our pumpkin; the design also looked like an upside-down traditional pumpkin face. We also painted out entire pumpkin blue.) Anna left after the party, as she had some commitments at home on Sunday morning.

Sunday felt like a very long day--and the dreary weather here didn't help. The sky was grey all day--everything was fuzzy and gloomy. The time change probably also contributed to the day feeling long. And now today's another cold and fuzzy and dreary (and rainy) day....

Movies, Witches, and Fish

Lots of movies this weekend.... Jimmy and I watched Bewitched last night. I was a little leery to see the movie since it's a spin-off of the old television show. I like the old series, so I was worried that the movie would be some type of poor re-make of the original. However, the filmmakers (or screenwriters or whoever) did a nice job of adjusting the story and making it work. I actually liked the movie; it was a good, fun pre-Halloween flick.

The grad students in my department are having a movie night tonight. We're going to turn out classroom into a movie room, eat junk food, order pizza, and watch Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I've never read the books (it's a series by Douglas Adams), but I've seen the movie before. The answer is 42. Always remember to bring a towel when traveling through the galaxy. So long and thanks for all the fish.

Apples

Sunday evening I made cinnamon apples--the cooked apples like Mom makes. Monday I made apple muffins. Tuesday I made apple salad. Today I think I'll have an apple salad for supper and maybe make an apple pie or a loaf of apple bread.... Jimmy and I got a box of apples from an orchard when we were in Missouri, and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with all of the apples before they go bad. I've been baking and having lots of fun finding recipes, but I'm beginning to get tired of apples. Maybe I need to freeze them so I can make pies and stuff later....

Explaining Things....

"I hate explanations; they fog a thing up so that you can't tell anything about it." --Mark Twain

Okay, so I've been reading Twain again. We're currently on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. I've never read this work before, but I'm finding it very entertaining. One of my favorite things about the work so far is the language. I'm enjoying how Twain shows the differences between Arthurian English (or what he sees as the English of that time period) and the English of his day. An example:
"Who are they? Where do they hang out?"
"Where hang they out?"
"Yes; where do they live?"
"Ah, I understand thee not. That will I tell thee eftsoons. [. . .] Hang they out--hang they out-- where hang--where do they hang out; ah, right so: where do they hang out."

Winter and Hot Tea

BRRRR!! The weather's gotten colder here lately. I've started to pull my sweaters out from their drawers and summer homes, and I probably need to turn my heater on in the next few days. I don't think the temperatures here have hit freezing yet, but it's been down in the 30s during the past few nights. I'd been warned about Oklahoma weather before I moved here: fall only lasts about a week, it's more like an abrupt jump from summer to winter instead of a gradual transition. (But then again, for all we know we'll see summer temperatures again this weekend....)

I'm having conferences with my students this morning to discuss the projects on which they're working. My office is dreadfully cold (as usual), so I decided to pull out my electric teapot (actually, it's a hotpot) and have tea this morning. It looks like I'll be drinking peach tea since that's the only thing that I seem to have in the office....

Lazy Days....

Well, it's been a rather lazy Saturday.... Yesterday was relatively uneventful too. My apartment's clean and my laundry's done, but that's about it. I'm spending this evening watching "The Godfather, Part II," one of my favorite movies. (I'm still not sure whether I prefer the original or II, though I prefer both of those to III.) I'll probably stay up and read a bit yet tonight before I go to bed...lots of pages to read before the week starts....

A Thought for Today

I have one of those little 'thought-a-day' calendars on my desk in my office. Today's message: "Make seeking the kingdom of God your top priority." Yep....

Word of the Day

I have a 'Word of the Day" section that shows up on my "My Yahoo" page. Just thought I'd share today's word with the rest of the world....

"procrastinate"
DEFINITION: (verb) to put off, to delay.
EXAMPLE: If you habitually procrastinate, try this technique: never touch a piece of paper without either filing it, responding to it, or throwing it out.
SYNONYMS: dawdle, drag, linger

Road Trip

Since I didn't post over the weekend, I'm playing catch-up a little bit today. I'll try to be relatively brief and only include the more interesting stuff....

I got my hair cut on this past Friday. One of my friends who's going to beauty school cut it for me. She cut off nearly 14 inches, so it was easily long enough to donate to Locks of Love (http://www.locksoflove.org). Now I'm re-learning how to take care of my short hair. I had to dig out my blow dryer again, and I need to put all of my pretty little clips and hair chop-sticks (and pencils, and paintbrushes) away.

Friday was also the beginning of a little weekend road trip. Jimmy (that's my boyfriend) and I made a nice big loop up through Missouri and Kansas to visit friends. We first stopped in Conception, MO to visit some friends who go to school (seminary) there. Our next stop was Manhattan (Kansas, the Little Apple, home of Kansas State University). While in Manhattan, we attended a friend's percussion recital, went to Mass at St. Isidore's, wandered around Aggieville, and spent time simply visiting with friends. Wichita, KS was our next (and quasi-unplanned) stop. We decided to stop there and visit people when we were driving south out of Manhattan; we made a few phone calls and surprised a few people, and it was fun to see everyone. Our final (and also even more quasi-unplanned) stop was in Stillwater, OK. As we were driving back home, we decided to take a little detour and go to Eskimo Joe's for supper. The trip was fun, but now I need to try to transition back into my regular week and weekend work schedule....

I managed to sleep in a bit this morning (in an attempt to catch up on the lost sleep from the weekend), but the rest of the day will be busy. I'm working all afternoon and then there's class in the evening. A typical Tuesday....

Sade and Recess

Well, class today didn't quite cover what I'd anticipated. We spent nearly two hours reading and discussing the work of Marquis de Sade. (If you haven't read his work, DON'T!!) The last hour, when we actually began discussing Camilla, was certainly much more pleasant than the first two hours....

I went to "recess" with a few other graduate students after class. ("Recess" is when a group of graduate students goes out for supper between the afternoon and the evening set of classes. We started calling our supper outings "recess" when one of the nontraditional students in the department said that his daughter had asked if he had any friends at school that he could play with during recess. Thus, we have recess.) Now it's back to grading papers....

Weapons Against Procrastination

A random quote taken out of context for today:
"I usually get at least one new weapon every year."

Despite what the quote might suggest, there's not much excitement here today. (No, I'm not quoting myself. Someone else said it and it was appropriate in the given context...it's just more fun without the given context!) Anyway, I tutored this morning, have class all afternoon, and will probably spend the evening grading papers. I know there's Adoration and other stuff going on at Newman tonight, so I'll probably spend some time over there. The papers, however, are a priority. I've already had them way too long and I need to return them to my students very, very soon.

We'll be discussing Fanny Burney's novel Camilla in class this afternoon. I haven't finished the book (it's massive, over 900 pages!), but what I've read of it has been wonderful--it's relatively easy to read and generally entertaining. I need to start being brilliant and coming up with topics for my papers for this semester....

Huck Finn....

Okay, so I just spent the last three hours in a seminar class discussing Mark Twain's Huck Finn. I'd read the book before, and I entered the classroom discussion thinking that everyone in the class had probably read the book before too. (I assumed that everyone probably read it in high school just as I read it in high school. I thought Huck Finn was considered standard reading in most Kansas high schools.) I was quite surprised by the nature of the discussion simply because we spent most of the class talking about the elements and debates surrounding the text rather than the text itself. Well, I guess that's a common trend in contemporary academia....

So the questions for the readers (if there are any readers out there): Have you read Huck Finn and, if so, when? (And watching the movie--though it may have gotten you through your high school English class--doesn't count here.)

"She was a totally normal schizophrenic."

No, this phrase wasn't said of me. (And I'm neither 'totally normal' nor 'schizophrenic.') Anyway, I saw this line in an on-line news article and thought it was something that most definitely needed to be quoted out of context.

Just Playing....Photos from Ireland

I just wanted to play with putting some photographs up on my new little blog. (Basically, I just wanted to see if I could figure out how to get pictures up here all by my self...and I did it!!) These are a few pictures from my trip to Ireland this past May. Ireland was absolutely beautiful, maybe I'll go back someday....

Words, words, words....

Still generally unmotivated to do any real work....

While I probably should have been working, I spent several hours last night playing Scrabble with my boyfriend. We had fun, but we got a little too competitive. (I still need to check and see if 'il,' 'ye,' 'meshing,' 'devile,' 'quib,' and 'taxe' are words. All of the above were challenged and most were removed from the board as we didn't have a dictionary on hand. A pair of graduate students without a dictionary--pathetic, I know.) I graded a few papers after we finished our games, but I didn't work as late as I probably should have.

Similarly, I was a lazy bum this morning. I read the papers (and thus feel like I'm quasi-informed of the events going on in the vast world around me) and worked on random little projects. The task for the remainder of the afternoon and the evening (preferably before my night class tonight) is to finish grading papers and finish re-reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn so I'm prepared for class tomorrow. Always pages to read, pages to grade, and pages to write....

My First Post

The title's brilliant, I know....

Anyway, I'm feeling generally unmotivated today and I don't want to work. I have books that I need to read and papers that I need to grade, but I'm spending my time putting together a blog instead. (Since we were discussing the value of blogs in my Composition and Rhetoric class the other day, I'll pretend that I'm putting this blog together as an experiment in rhetorical styles and composition pedagogies, but that's not necessarily the truth....)

Seems like somebody's got a case of the Mondays....