Winter break has been super relaxing. There isn't a single part of me that misses the hectic stressful grad school semester, and I've been doing a pretty good job of just putting it all out of my mind for a little bit. At least til January. The next semester seems like it'll be just as busy and stressful as this last one, though granted I won't ( Read more... )

Today while taking a facebook break, I saw that a friend had shared this blog post on her wall. Its a bit long-winded, but it was an inspiring read and I agreed with the message.

I'm a Christian, Unless You're Gay

I wanted to know who this person even was. Apparently he runs a popular blog, and there was a link to his more popular entries. I liked ( Read more... )

I had another *teaching high* moment today. My 8am class is usually asleep, but today they were very engaged and responsive and had smart, thoughtful things to say. A lot of them admitted to being surprised by the texts they read, which is just what I wanted to hear! This is amazing to me because I'm always hoping to teach people to look at history ( Read more... )

I'm glad we're going to Mexico, and that pottery starts again on Monday. I need something to remind me that I do have a life, and not just a boring "apartment to cubicle to class to apartment to couch/netflix" routine. Academia doesn't leave a lot of room for adventure in the day to day I'm finding (you know, other than reading about dead people's ( Read more... )

Happy Birthday to me! My life is ruled by the academic world, and I'm very self involved, so when it comes to milestones, the start of a new academic year in the fall, and my birthday are really much more significant to me than the calendar year changing in January. So, time for some milestone reflection ( Read more... )

I turned it the Schoenig paper on Wednesday. I finished my Arabic final on Friday. Since then I've been leisurely grading and thinking about doing my Latin homework for tomorrow.  I can't believe I have class this Monday of finals week, but I've loved Joan's class so I really don't mind ( Read more... )

I'm ignoring schoolwork during my office hours right now. I'm feeling pretty burnt out and bored by the whole work-your-ass-off-every-day grad life thing. I am le tired ( Read more... )

I loved the history BBQ tonight - we have a really fun group of people in our department and I am so glad that I really feel like I'm getting to know them well. I also like that I'm getting to know people's wives really well, because there's a lot of untapped female friendship potential there. I spent a lot of time tonight talking to Julie, Koen's ( Read more... )

My advisor emailed me that he's back in town on Wednesday and that we should meet this week before the semester starts up again ( Read more... )

Hey again LJ, I meant it when I said I was back. It's been a crazy week. Last weekend Casey and I went up to Iowa with Charlie, and it was so great to see how well he got along with Newman and Uno, as well as Casey's family. Actually made me a bit sad to bring him back here where he doesn't have a cat or dog friend to run around with. That was a ( Read more... )