why i have not read livejournal for the past month and a half, exhibit A
today i:
woke up at 6 am after 4 hours of sleep, having finished frantically reading Smith's excellent foundational modernization theory study The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan at 2 am.
worked on grading the first set of weekly response papers for the classs i'm TAing for about an hour.
rushed into school, got in around 8:15 am.
wrote a 2-page commentary on Smith, made it to class ~5 minutes late at 9:05, after fussing with the printers a bit because the people who use and stock the graduate computer lab are moderately incompetent.
managed to say interesting stuff and not sound like an idiot in our first real Modern Japan seminar discussion (9-11:50 am) despite not having actually read the 2 additional articles (amounting to ~130 pages) we were supposed to read. i think i may have skimmed them before in years past. or perhaps their content was just sufficiently predictable and easily described by the students assigned to present.
ran to lecture for the class i'm TAing, 12-12:50. took notes while simultaneously brainstorming ideas for discussion sessions later in the day.
ran to grab a sandwich to eat on the way to my 1:15 lecture, a special talk by the head Stanford EAL librarian who came to talk about this incredibly awesome collection of PRC documents they've been gathering recently, required as part of my PRC historiography seminar.
skipped out early around 2:40 to do a little last-minute prep for my discussion sections
just barely made it on time to discussion section 1, 3-3:50. but the students seemed to have an absolute ball with the activity i came up with for them (involving pretending to be ancient Chinese philosophers and trying to convince me they were the best and arguing with each other), so, yay.
ran halfway across campus to discussion section 2, 4-4:50, did the same. they were a little more subdued, but did all right with it anyway and we got some decent discussion going. both classes got so into it i'm going to have to finish up next week because they talked so much. and they seemed totally inclined to forgive me for not managing to finish grading their response papers because i had failed to get up at 4 am as originally planned (not that i told them that last part).
wrote a 2-page review of the 400+ page soon-to-be-coming-out awesome early PRC history conference volume edited by one of my profs and one of the senior grad students.
spent 20 minutes fighting with the printers, but finally managed to get it and my notes printed.
prepped to co-lead discussion, given that i hadn't had a chance to think about the book again since first speed-reading and discussing it on Monday.
7-9 pm, co-lead discussion of the book over dinner, with both the editors of the volume present. may have been a bit overly critical, and talked too much, but overall i think it went well.
ran to the library to get a book that i know i have in my basement somewhere (along with my notes from last year about said book), because i still haven't unpacked yet.
had 1 phone conversation on the way home, chatted with eowyns a bit when i got home, found myself still talkingveryfastbecausei'mstillhighonadrenalineandsleepdep and had another phone conversation until i finally started to speak slowly...
found i still couldn't get to sleep so read email and wrote this up.
hopefully after this i can get to sleep, so that i can get up early and quickly re-read the book i got out from the library in time to discuss it over lunch at 11:30 am.
hi! *waves hands around madly* i love you all, i swear, i just haven't had time to read lj in forever and ever and ever and maybe someday i will start again, hopefully soon, but it is a bit unpredictable at the moment. please tell me things and let me know how you are, and if there are particular entries you've made since August that it would be good for me to see, please point me at them?
3 classes+TAing+auditing classical Chinese (ha)+taichi+unpacking (double-ha)+TV watching (um)+having a bit of a life (occasionally, and still not as much as i'd like) is a lot. as it turns out.
the going to 3 weddings in Sept thing didn't help with the whole crazy time shortage issues. though they were all wonderful and totally worth it. collectively made me pretty darn homesick though. for all of my homes.
woke up at 6 am after 4 hours of sleep, having finished frantically reading Smith's excellent foundational modernization theory study The Agrarian Origins of Modern Japan at 2 am.
worked on grading the first set of weekly response papers for the classs i'm TAing for about an hour.
rushed into school, got in around 8:15 am.
wrote a 2-page commentary on Smith, made it to class ~5 minutes late at 9:05, after fussing with the printers a bit because the people who use and stock the graduate computer lab are moderately incompetent.
managed to say interesting stuff and not sound like an idiot in our first real Modern Japan seminar discussion (9-11:50 am) despite not having actually read the 2 additional articles (amounting to ~130 pages) we were supposed to read. i think i may have skimmed them before in years past. or perhaps their content was just sufficiently predictable and easily described by the students assigned to present.
ran to lecture for the class i'm TAing, 12-12:50. took notes while simultaneously brainstorming ideas for discussion sessions later in the day.
ran to grab a sandwich to eat on the way to my 1:15 lecture, a special talk by the head Stanford EAL librarian who came to talk about this incredibly awesome collection of PRC documents they've been gathering recently, required as part of my PRC historiography seminar.
skipped out early around 2:40 to do a little last-minute prep for my discussion sections
just barely made it on time to discussion section 1, 3-3:50. but the students seemed to have an absolute ball with the activity i came up with for them (involving pretending to be ancient Chinese philosophers and trying to convince me they were the best and arguing with each other), so, yay.
ran halfway across campus to discussion section 2, 4-4:50, did the same. they were a little more subdued, but did all right with it anyway and we got some decent discussion going. both classes got so into it i'm going to have to finish up next week because they talked so much. and they seemed totally inclined to forgive me for not managing to finish grading their response papers because i had failed to get up at 4 am as originally planned (not that i told them that last part).
wrote a 2-page review of the 400+ page soon-to-be-coming-out awesome early PRC history conference volume edited by one of my profs and one of the senior grad students.
spent 20 minutes fighting with the printers, but finally managed to get it and my notes printed.
prepped to co-lead discussion, given that i hadn't had a chance to think about the book again since first speed-reading and discussing it on Monday.
7-9 pm, co-lead discussion of the book over dinner, with both the editors of the volume present. may have been a bit overly critical, and talked too much, but overall i think it went well.
ran to the library to get a book that i know i have in my basement somewhere (along with my notes from last year about said book), because i still haven't unpacked yet.
had 1 phone conversation on the way home, chatted with eowyns a bit when i got home, found myself still talkingveryfastbecausei'mstillhighonadrenalineandsleepdep and had another phone conversation until i finally started to speak slowly...
found i still couldn't get to sleep so read email and wrote this up.
hopefully after this i can get to sleep, so that i can get up early and quickly re-read the book i got out from the library in time to discuss it over lunch at 11:30 am.
hi! *waves hands around madly* i love you all, i swear, i just haven't had time to read lj in forever and ever and ever and maybe someday i will start again, hopefully soon, but it is a bit unpredictable at the moment. please tell me things and let me know how you are, and if there are particular entries you've made since August that it would be good for me to see, please point me at them?
3 classes+TAing+auditing classical Chinese (ha)+taichi+unpacking (double-ha)+TV watching (um)+having a bit of a life (occasionally, and still not as much as i'd like) is a lot. as it turns out.
the going to 3 weddings in Sept thing didn't help with the whole crazy time shortage issues. though they were all wonderful and totally worth it. collectively made me pretty darn homesick though. for all of my homes.