In which I return to posting
It's been so much easier to post status updates and a couple of tweets than it is to sit down and write a blog post. This is so much more private--who knows if anyone will actually read this?
I just read back through the last year or so of entries--what an unbelievable year and a half it has been. Uncle Rick is still alive, though I don't know what state he's in--his last blog post was November 20th, in which he compared himself to the Aging Mariner and talked about qualities of fatigue that people who have not been through chemo might not be able to grasp. His tumor hasn't responded, and has grown a bit. I called a left a message for him today--I'm not terribly surprised he didn't answer, in that besides his cancer and all, today was Aunt Julie's birthday. It's a tough day for me--though I realized when I was putting on my pajamas tonight that I had put on one of her old jazzercize tshirts under my sweatshirt today, so that was comforting to re-realize that I am surrounded by memories of her, both physical and not.
Today was an official winter break day. After taking my last final Thursday, and submitting my 101 grades Sunday, and going to campus Monday to pick up a paper (which had over two pages of single-spaced comments by the professor, which I haven't had the heart to read yet--though they end with him urging me to revise and try to get it published, which is good) and have lunch with Mark and his boss, today I stayed home and did nothing school related. I did three loads of laundry, and knitted, and read a novel, and wrapped Christmas presents. A wonderful day.
It is weird switching down from the high gear I've been in all semester. I knew it would be tough, and indeed it has been. All I've done is work. And work. And work. And then at Thanksgiving it hit me that part of all the work I've been doing has been heading so that next Thanksgiving, we'll be someplace else. And that was weird. Plus, filling out all ten phd applications (lord!!), I had to write lots of "what I've done with my life" sorts of things, listing all of the undergrad and graduate English classes I've taken, I realized a bit more just how much I've done the past five years. It was sort of vertigo-inducing.
It's exciting and anxious-making, and now I have to wait until at least March to get some sort of answers from the apps. Of course, I have a 102 class to plan for and teach and comps to study for, and two classes of my own I'm taking starting in January, so I'll be busy again (though certainly it won't be possible to repeat the level of busy of this semester). I'm excited about 102--I actually get to teach a class about the South. It's a research methods class, and they make a big deal about how it can't be just literature, but I am teaching Lee Smith's Oral History both to talk about Appalachia as well as at the idea of an oral history. I'm teaching my first novel!!
I am so glad to have reached a place of rest for now.
I just read back through the last year or so of entries--what an unbelievable year and a half it has been. Uncle Rick is still alive, though I don't know what state he's in--his last blog post was November 20th, in which he compared himself to the Aging Mariner and talked about qualities of fatigue that people who have not been through chemo might not be able to grasp. His tumor hasn't responded, and has grown a bit. I called a left a message for him today--I'm not terribly surprised he didn't answer, in that besides his cancer and all, today was Aunt Julie's birthday. It's a tough day for me--though I realized when I was putting on my pajamas tonight that I had put on one of her old jazzercize tshirts under my sweatshirt today, so that was comforting to re-realize that I am surrounded by memories of her, both physical and not.
Today was an official winter break day. After taking my last final Thursday, and submitting my 101 grades Sunday, and going to campus Monday to pick up a paper (which had over two pages of single-spaced comments by the professor, which I haven't had the heart to read yet--though they end with him urging me to revise and try to get it published, which is good) and have lunch with Mark and his boss, today I stayed home and did nothing school related. I did three loads of laundry, and knitted, and read a novel, and wrapped Christmas presents. A wonderful day.
It is weird switching down from the high gear I've been in all semester. I knew it would be tough, and indeed it has been. All I've done is work. And work. And work. And then at Thanksgiving it hit me that part of all the work I've been doing has been heading so that next Thanksgiving, we'll be someplace else. And that was weird. Plus, filling out all ten phd applications (lord!!), I had to write lots of "what I've done with my life" sorts of things, listing all of the undergrad and graduate English classes I've taken, I realized a bit more just how much I've done the past five years. It was sort of vertigo-inducing.
It's exciting and anxious-making, and now I have to wait until at least March to get some sort of answers from the apps. Of course, I have a 102 class to plan for and teach and comps to study for, and two classes of my own I'm taking starting in January, so I'll be busy again (though certainly it won't be possible to repeat the level of busy of this semester). I'm excited about 102--I actually get to teach a class about the South. It's a research methods class, and they make a big deal about how it can't be just literature, but I am teaching Lee Smith's Oral History both to talk about Appalachia as well as at the idea of an oral history. I'm teaching my first novel!!
I am so glad to have reached a place of rest for now.