It's Sunday and I'm sitting here drinking tea and reading live journal. First I read my private journal and I realized that a number of my friends, who used to post quite a bit there aren't doing so anymore. Then, when I was reading some of the journal readings for cometprof, where you all (my students) post, I realized why. A number of of my ( Read more... )

Well, summer session 2 has started and I'm almost done with my grades for session 1. I really love this topic and I hope the students get some understanding of the importance of this part of the world to the rest of us. We tend, I think, to see the region in terms of violence or, conversely, not to see it all. (Who among you ever gives Western ( Read more... )

We're on to St. Louis (want to see the Gateway) and Cahokia. Then, home. Sigh. I love being on the road but I'm looking forward to being home too. My husband emailed me last night, he was too upset to tell me on the phone. My old dog, Jedi died. He was 12, a good old age for a Golden. He was the sweetest, nicest, dog. He was the epitome of ( Read more... )

This little intro is actually newer than the rest of this. I’ve had spotty wifi and uploading has been difficult, which is rather a pain so rather than mess around, I’ve just been compiling my notes. Sorry about the length of this post ( Read more... )

I’m sitting watching the rain pelt down and listening to the hail hitting the air conditioner outside the room. We’re in Grand Island, Nebraska and there is a tornado watch on. There actually was a tornado a bit north of here so... The weather here is so mid-continental. Well, the tornado siren just went off again. Got to go out in the hall ( Read more... )

Well, this is day two of the trip. It's morning in Missouri Valley, Iowa. We didn't get here until 11PM local time last night (midnight at home) because the start of the trip was like a three stooges comedy. We finally got on the road at 10:30, only because I had to do this and that and...oh yeah, bring the degu food to the college so farsarian can feed ( Read more... )

Well, we're going to be getting going an hour later than I wanted. Why? Because I'm sitting here typing this. No, not really, just all those little last minute trip details. Today is bright and sunny, it will be warm and the kid and I will be on the road in a bit. Now I just have to fit this computer and my texts in amongst all the boxes of ( Read more... )

Well, I scanned all afternoon and got several of my lab manual sheets done. Then this evening cleaned them up and caught up on a lot of my grading. I've been at this 5.5 hours. It is so time to sleep. I'm enjoying this. The students are interesting, those that participate and it stretches me. I'm doing another couple of podcasts this weekend ( Read more... )

Summer online has begun. Three different classes, very different areas. This will be fun. The hard part is getting everyone online and, in one of my classes, some of the students transferred in from a face to face class so it is a bit of culture shock for them. It's nice to sit at the desk, drink coffee, look out the window and hear the birds, ( Read more... )

I’m looking for analysis of the gender implications of the Rick Warren/Gene Robinson dichotomy with regard to the invocations during the inaugural process. The political implications of the choices as well as how it has all played out (Robinson’s invocation not being televised) illustrate the effect that religion can have in a political ( Read more... )