Summertime

Last summer was intense--I presented at a conference in Italy. We drove across the country for a wedding. I taught an intensive Shakespeare course for gifted junior high students. In one week, I went through seven time zones. All this while reading for exams, which I started the week before school started in the fall. I swore this summer would be different. And yes, I'm staying in the country, and I'm teaching here. Today, however, I was trying to figure out when to schedule my trip to Duke to do research in the archives there, and realize that I don't have a lot of weeks free. My best bet is to go the week before I go to the Dickens Universe, because I know that that week will be exhausting, and when I get back, there's only two weeks until school starts.  Before that, I'm teaching for five weeks, I'm presenting at the Southern Writers/Southern Writing conference (finally!  I'll get to go to Oxford!), and this week I'm leaving for a week and a half to do a grand tour of friends and family, hitting Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Ohio.

Plus, you know, dissertation writing and job market preparation.  Is this just some perverse quirk of mine, that I can't stay still?  I would say that I can't say no, but I've said no quite a few times lately.  After having been president of the WGS grad student association this year, I switched positions with the VP for next year.  And I don't have any position in the English grad student association.  For my summer class--which is an intensive introduction to fiction which meets five days a week for five weeks--I just cut a whole novel and two short stories from my original plan.  Surely, this is progress?

It's not as though I'd want to say no to any of the things I'm doing this summer.  I'm hoping to think of them as rewards along the way to keep me writing and working on my bigger projects (ie, dissertation and job docs).  That, at least, is my plan for now.  Stay tuned to see how it actually pans out.

(However, I will observe that last summer, though I was tired, was quite a success.  I did accomplish all that I set out to do--so perhaps I should recognize that the more I do, the more I'm able to do, generally.  So perhaps I should focus less on how daunting the summer seems, and instead focus on how much fun it promises to be.)

End of Spring Break

Oddly enough, I can't seem to find a video clip from Heathers, of Veronica's dad asking how spring break withdrawal is coming along.   Oh well.

Tomorrow is the first day back after this terribly late spring break.  I'm mostly happy with the balance of work and not-work I achieved, although I'm still erring on the side of not-work.  I'm quite pleased that I met my goal of finishing the 518-page Haunted Bodies: Gender and Southern Texts, an edited collection on my southern list.  It took a while--after getting through that behemoth, it only took me a day to read The Color Purple (which I'd read before, but it's been years.  Plus, it has the line, "The lord don't like ugly" in it, which is pretty important to my work).  I also finished the abstract for the Berry Southern Women Writers conference I've been working on, and got that submitted.  And I polished up a paper to submit for the department writing contest, which has tomorrow as its deadline.

In not-work news, we went to New Orleans Thursday for the book release/Eudora Welty's birthday event at Maple Street Books.  There was wine, champagne, cheese & crackers, and birthday cake.  The book, which is about the restoration of Welty's garden in Jackson, is a beautiful coffee-table book, and that author was quite entertaining.  I love Welty people.

I slept a lot the last week, and worked out a decent amount.  Knitted some.  Put away my clothes and suitcase that was still out since the SSSL conference.  Wore my pajamas until 3 and 4 in the afternoon many days.  Repotted some seedlings.  I also discovered that there's a jazzercise location much closer than the one I tried when we first moved here (as much as I love jazzercise, there's no way I'm driving 45 minutes each way for a class).  This one's in more the 15-20 minute driving range, which is much more reasonable.  And the student rate is $25/month, which is cheaper than the Y, which I was considering joining.  I love jazzercise.  So, I intend to try it out this week.  That would be fabulous if I could start going to jazzercise regularly.

I also managed to go a week without washing my hair, which may be a record (yay for ponytails!).  I shall now go and wash my hair in preparation for returning to school.  Still, this week is logical fallacy week in the classes I'm teaching, which is a not-labor-intensive week for me.  It's a nice way to ease back in.

Today

Though I had Tobacco Road out to read on the bus ride home, I instead put it away, closed my eyes, and listened to my headphones all the way home.  It was a delightful break.

In which I try to not too much of a yogahead, but I'll probably fail

The last couple of days I've had several moments of paralysis, where my to-do list feels like it has so many top priority things on it that I've just not been sure what to do next.  Sure, I'm a big believer in do the next thing, but it's been hard to figure out what that next thing is.  Ironically, my to-do list seems a bit shorter than normal, but everything on it is important. 

Part of the difficulty has been in taking on this new class, though the benefits of the second class so far seem to be outweighing the negatives. Though it's the same class I've been teaching, this group seems so much sweeter than my other class. Perhaps it's a function of their being new and shiny, but--so far, at least--no one's been reading the paper in class or been nearly as chatty as my other class.  And I enjoyed the challenge of figuring out how to transition them to a course schedule that more closely matches the other class I'm teaching.  As soon as IT can figure out how to get me access to their grades, I'll then need to figure out how to integrate their previous grades with the ones I'll give them.  Midterm grades are due Tuesday; while it would be nice if I could submit them on time, if I can't, I can't.

I'm getting better of letting go of such things. I've been working on expanding my Wise Blood paper I gave at SAMLA into an article-length piece, with the intention of submitting it to Southern Cultures for their music issue.  However, its deadline was March 5, and last week I realized I wasn't going to make it in on time.  I had a finished, article-length version of my Edith Wharton paper that just needed its citation style changed for a women's studies journal which is having a special issue on fashion coming up; as that was quicker to finish, I focused on that, and was able to submit it on time.  Last week in writing group, I brought an abstract for a southern panel at MLA that's focusing on southern sexuality; that's a big priority, too.  Between my professor's comments and my awesome writing partner's comments, I was quite happy with how it turned out.  I continue to really appreciate my writing group/partner--having a reachable goal each Friday has been working really well to keep me on task.

Anyway, despite these accomplishments, I have kept hitting the wall of not knowing what to do next, which gives rise to unpleasant feelings of anxiety.  This anxiety has the snowball effect that I then keep doing work, and haven't been nearly as active as I'd like to be.  I have been doing other activities--my mandolin has been played, and over the course of several work breaks, I've made a bonnet for the Jane Austen Festival this weekend.  Still, I think the anxiety and fatigue have been interacting in a way to make me reluctant to do anything active.

I broke that cycle today, and did the online pilates/yoga class I like a lot this afternoon when I got home from a good day at school (the positive feedback loop thing).  I noticed, though, at the end of the video, how much I missed savasana, that wonderful pose at the end of yoga classes where you lie in corpse pose, usually while the teacher talks you through a relaxation exercise.  Happily, it occurred that nothing was keeping me from doing that myself, so I laid down on my mat and spent probably ten minutes walking myself through conscious relaxation and paid attention to my breathing.

I felt so good afterwards.  Though I've always felt suspicious of the yoga talk that savasana is needed to let your activity "sink in" or something, it occurred to me that such a pause is a good thing, and perhaps that's what I've been needing in my not knowing what to do next.  I get so into crossing an item off my list that I immediately move on to what's next.  I'm now going to try not going on immediately to the next thing--rather than do the next thing, I may try, do something, pause, take a break, do something else. 

Teaching and Tech

This Chronicle article has me thinking more about effective teaching, especially as I continue to struggle with my current class.  Its primary claim is that technology works best in the classroom when it fosters stronger connections between teacher and student.  This has been the idea that I've been circling around in the past week, that key to a productive classroom is one in which there is a strong connection between teacher and students.  In my current classroom, because the students came in with such strong connections already among themselves, it's been difficult to get their attention focused elsewhere. 

I've spent the past week meeting with students about their first papers--part of my intention in doing so has been to try to forge stronger connections individually with students, in an effort to improve the classroom.  I want them to engage with the class material during class time, rather than be chatting and passing notes about their social lives.  Friday, they workshopped their rough drafts in class, and I had them pair up with a random partner, in order to cut down on extraneous "underlife." 

I noticed an interesting change Monday.  In general, the students were a bit more focused and participated in class discussion more (partly after realizing that they wouldn't get 10s for participation just for showing up).  However, my overachiever student had the student newspaper out and read for part of class instead of participating.  I wonder if he's protesting my not letting him write the treatise on the effect of commercialism on marriages he wanted to write, instead of the assigned rhetorical analysis of a print ad?  Or perhaps I'm reading too much into it.

Either way, I realize that for the first time I'm missing that sense of "wonder" in the material.  This is definitely a sign I need to shake something up.  I really wish that the department would go ahead and announce fall teaching assignments; knowing what I'm working toward in the fall might be helpful in facing the rest of the semester, too.  I think I'm more generally missing a sense of "wonder" right now--even though my reading for class/comps is right down my alley right now, I don't want to read.  The part of my brain that translates words into meaning is tired.  It's not too terribly bad--when I feel this terribly, I get up and work out, or do something crafty (I haven't been too musical lately--that might help).  Still, when I come back to the book,  it's still feeling like work.

As I write this, I realize that (with a few exceptions), I have been enjoying the writing side of things more lately.  I'm quite happy with the pedagogy conference paper I'm giving this week (ironically, I suppose--though it's about group projects, which I really enjoyed last semester), and once I get through this new round of revisions for the <expletive omitted> Transatlantic paper I received two days ago, I'm looking forward to the writing projects I have going which I actually am excited about.  Hmmm.  Perhaps I should keep my focus on writing--I've got a really good writing partner right now, and our commitment to meet once a week has kept me working diligently on writing. 

And here's why writing is important--it allows me realizations such as this.

Intentions for the new year

I don't say new year's resolutions--perhaps it's my basic curmudgeonliness, or perhaps I just don't think that they work.  New year's resolutions just mean that it's hard to find an exercise bike at the gym in January (I say, sounding as if I go to a gym regularly.  I used to--but January always put me off it).  Instead, I usually make resolutions at my birthday the end of May--it's a much better time for me to assess and set goals.

However, there are some changes I'd like to make, and have decided to take advantage of the calendar page turn to do so.  To that end, here are the two intentions I have:

Three times a week, I intend to get an hour's worth of exercise.  This includes drumming.

Six days a week, I intend to actively do something not school-related.  By active, I mean not passive (ie, tv watching or web-surfing).  Knitting, playing music, sewing, sun salutations in the morning, something. 

I think these are doable goals toward balance.  Do you all have similar intentions?

Smack dab in the middle of winter break

I gave myself the Christmas present of absolute laziness today.  Yesterday we went to New Orleans to exchnage presents with friends--one of the presents was cookie cutters, cookie dough, and accountrements for the kids, with whom I then spent the afternoon making cookies (so, a gift for all of us).  We had planned on going to see the bonfires on the levee after that, but were pretty worn out from Christmas cheer (and rather tired), so we skipped it, planning on going by the store and getting some cold cuts for dinner--who knew that everything closed on Christmas Eve at 6?  I have no interest in stores open at 4am the day after Thanksgiving--I'd much rather have a grocery store open the night before Christmas.  Mark ended up getting McDonald's.

The semester came to an end--I gave exams on Wednesday and Thursday of exam week, got on a plane Friday and flew to Columbus, Ohio, where I then drove an hour through snow to Marion, Ohio, which was half an hour from where my dad's wedding was held the following day.  I made it through the wedding and stuff, grading exams in between, and had a blast playing with my nephews in Dayton for the rest of the weekend.  The rest of the week, I was in Cincinnati, where I blew off a ton of steam--at one point, finding myself playing backgammon with a friend, I was struck by how lovely it was to be playing backgammon and not working on anything school-related. 

I also danced a remarkable amount--in addition to dancing at the wedding reception, there was dancing Thursday and Saturday nights until 3.  Saturday was particularly amazing--as "Warehouse Reunion Night," it was basically the feeling that I wanted from a high school reunion and didn't quite get.  Seeing my friends on the dance floor while Ministry and New Order played was such fun.

My body, however, wants to know exactly what I think was doing.  My right knee is still complaining--so much so that I got a brace today to wear on it.  And last night, my left had started complaining loudly about all of the knitting I've been doing (close lace work on a shawl from the "Jane Austen Knits" magazine I've been waiting about a month to start playing with). 

While I was out of town, I applied for the position of "communications officer" for the Women's Caucus of the MLA, and interviewed for a summer job teaching gifted junior high students.  The WCMLA application was rather straightforward, though I did put a significant amount of thought into the cover letter.  The TIP job wanted to set up a skype interview, which turned out to be impossible on my travels.  We scheduled a phone interview for Wednesday afternoon, which they managed to forget, and had to reschedule for Friday morning.  It's a good thing skype wasn't available, as I was out until 3am dancing the night before.

The interview went very well--the woman I spoke with started out by saying that the writing instructor positions I had applied for filled up rather easily, but she was interested in hearing more about my Drama in Stratford and London course, as she thought it made me a good candidate for teaching their "Shakespeareance" course at Davidson.  We talked for 45 minutes--it was a lot of coming up with things on the fly, as I hadn't prepared for an interview about teaching literature, but it went very well, and she said I should expect an offer in my email that day.  And indeed, I had one. 

The WCMLA position came through, too.  So, I've now got a stack of books from the library on web site maintenance, and on teaching Shakespeare and drama games, all of which I need boning up on.  I also sent in my registration for the Wharton in Florence conference, which is the beginning of June; Shakespeare is three weeks in July.  I'm quite excited about all of it.

This was a tough semester, but tough because there was so much work (much of it hitting the end of November), not because I didn't like the work.  Unlike this time last year, I'm not seriously considering trying to transfer programs.  Now, I'm officially done with coursework (hooray!) and bearing down on studying for exams.  I picked up Philip Roth's American Pastoral this week, after putting it down out of boredom once before.  I admit, I put it back down after Peter Elbow's new book arrived--I love this work, and this one is about the connection between spoken and written language.  I'm intrigued by the importance of the body on speech and writing.  I'm happy to feel excitement about teaching writing, because it's going to be tough to go back to teaching comp after the wonderful experience I had teaching women & gender studies this past semester.  It was so wonderful to have the kind of committed, enthusiastic students that I had last semester.  I hope I'm able to have similarly enthusiasm this semester.  Of course, going back to teaching 23 students (rather that 68!) will be nice. 

And being done with coursework, it will be very nice to not have response papers and things due. 

I'm also working on cutting an article that I had submitted to the Southern Literary Journal--they responded that they've changed requirements, and would be happy to read my article if I'd cut 1,000 words.  So, I cut.  It's better than a flat out rejection, like I got from the Mississippi Quarterly.  I've got a to-do list for winter break, but I hope to make it leisurely.  My body is insisting on it.