mimsy and outgrabe

Where did Day 1 go, you might ask? Read on. (If you're not asking, see you some other time!) Last semester I managed to carve out time during the morning to read and write, and that was going swimmingly for about, oh, the month of September, until the inevitable grading and committee-work creep took over, and then I didn't write much at all. There were occasional two-hour spans of time during October, November and December as part of a program I organized at Stuffolk through our faculty union -- and these sessions were good and productive, but I spent most of that time sending out submissions or writing things for the college, and not doing any genuine creative work -- or creative work that I found, well, satisfying. And, as you know, that's not great. Particularly if I would like to keep calling myself a writer. But -- in the moments in between papers, or driving from one campus to another for yet another meeting -- I thought back to the last two times I ma...

My latest blog posts have felt so solipsistic, particularly in light of the fucking chaos and violence in the world that has always existed but seems, thanks to irresponsible and inconsistent mass media coverage, as if it's escalating inordinately of late -- but I'm keeping up with them as a record of my writing process, which is useful in hindsight but feels something like a giant, unrelenting hangover right now.  Sometimes Twitter provides catharsis. Part of this headache-like pressure is very much due to the upcoming script development lab. I told A. earlier in the week that I was thinking of emailing the program and asking them if I could switch from the script development lab to a writer's residency, and he was of the opinion I should just stick with the original plan. He can probably sense that I'm a gigantic coward and that I don't want other people -- particularly people who know what they're doing when it comes to drama -- to read and critique...

Good god. It's been a while. Welp! Today is the first day of the new semester. We're supposed to get a lot of snow tonight, too. So that should make the beginning of classes go smoothly. At the very least, I can say that my family is 80% healthy. Maybe 75%. At least, healthy enough that my children can go to school and/or the babysitter and I can go teach. I feel like I'm JUST beginning to get my life back from babyland. Vampire Baby, as of last week, is finally sleeping for most, if not all, of the night . . . AND if she wakes up around 5 or 6 in the morning, most of the time I can convince her to go back to sleep! IT ONLY TOOK 10 MONTHS. This means that last week, after realizing I'd slept for more than 5 hours, uninterrupted, I woke up early and managed to work on both my verse play and interview questions I'd been sent by the curator of a lovely blog about chapbooks, Speaking of Marvels .  It took me nearly two months to answer those questions ...

Leadership Fiasco Week might be the death of me. I'm so freakin' tired. It's only Monday. And yet, I'm very glad to be out and about and talking to my colleagues, even if it's about banal 'leadership' drivel. AND . . . even though I relished my freedom, I still missed my Vampire Baby and those squirrelly siblings of hers. My lovely mother helped the girlie do her Postcard Poem today. So I can't account for the pirate poem. Or the creative spelling.   Ghost Girl by Mark Ryden It took me all day to write this. Yes, that's sad.

A photo-essay, of sorts: The paper material I cleaned out of my filing cabinets last week and took home to place in the recycling, since we don't have a recycling program at the school. (Lame, I know.) On the left, recycling that still needs to be brought home (a pregnant lady can only carry so much down three flights of stairs and across a parking lot to her car) along with a stack of papers that remains to be sorted through. Another stack of papers that remains to be sorted through (on top of the filing cabinet) One of those file organizers that I am OBVIOUSLY using correctly and efficiently. The good part of last week. Newly organized file drawer! These are most of my committee-work files. See that big spiral-bound book? That's the Leadership Academy notebook. (It weighs more than a small child. I'm surprised the filing cabinet hasn't tipped over from its bulk.) And another! These are most of my class materials -- I'm only half-way t...

And you thought I'd shut up after yesterday's rant! No dice. I have more to say! Lucky you! Remember back in August when I attended that week-long Leadership Academy Conference? Yeah, I barely remember August, either. Anyway, I attended a week-long Leadership Academy Conference with approximately 30 of my fellow Stuffolk faculty, and we kumbaya'd and held hands and talked about our feelings for 5 very long days , and when it was done we were supposed to have come up with a list of practicable, easily-achievable goals that would get us moving in the right direction . . . the right direction being, of course, toward Leadership Roles at The College. Hey! WAKE UP!  I know, it sounds pretty dry, right? It is/was, to some extent. In other ways, it was actually quite productive . . . only I think it was more productive for me on a personal level, and I'm not sure it made me better-suited to become a leader at our institution. If anything, it made me quest...

The web-world is filled with New Year's Resolutions as well as reflections on the past year, and I might as well put forth my own contribution to this electronic, public Literature of Good Intentions, since I'm going to be doing it anyway, whether it's public or private, and perhaps other people will find my own list helpful/interesting, as I find the lists of others helpful/interesting. 2012 was a relatively good year overall. I feel more confident about my teaching than I've ever felt, but I've loathed the other parts of being part of academia this year -- particularly the politics of department and administration, and to some extent, union, and I find the whole business draining and soul-sucking and I don't think I'm going to engage in any of that nonsense much more. If I can help it. I probably CAN'T help it, by virtue of my nature and by virtue of the nature of the job, but if I can keep "STAY OUT OF IT" ringing inside my cavernous h...

I feel as though I have run out of steam, although this really isn't a convenient point to have run out of steam, considering I have a full week of final grading ahead of me. Thankfully, though, there are no more classes to teach. I will have to meet with my students in my comp and developmental writing classes for a final time on Wednesday, but my literature classes on Tuesday/Thursday are simply dropping final assignments off in my mailbox and office this week, up until a 3 p.m. deadline on Thursday. And that feels kind of strange, because I enjoyed those classes a lot and it would be nice to see them again and wish them luck in the next semester -- but none of us really want the commitment of meeting as a group again when we have so many other things to do. This has been such a strange semester. Last night I evaluated developmental writing portfolios and I'll begin those again in a short moment. This morning I felt the need to weigh down the blogosphere with more end-o...

I am, of course, just kidding. But there is a very real chance I will not survive this week's deadlines at school and the onslaught of "ANSWER ME NOW" emails. I'm just giving ya'll a heads up. xoxo Sarah

Wow. Quite a posting blackout, huh? I haven't really had anything to say for the past week -- I've been keeping my head down, trying to play catch-up where grading and class prep is concerned (and failing miserably). My mood, however, has been steadier during the past week, which is a really good thing. Less ambivalence, more genuine laughter. Over the years I've streamlined my courses so that I only grade what's absolutely necessary and I use a check/check minus system for the small assignments; and yet, frustratingly, I find myself faced -- every semester -- with a backlog of grading. And it's not for want of focus at work. I've been more focused than ever this semester. My friend and colleague A. jumped ship and went to another campus, so he's not around for me to pester when I feel like avoiding work -- and I'm not even sure I would have resorted to that old habit this semester, if he was around, simply because of the sheer desperation I f...

Oh, hello again! This morning I actually woke up early. Well, sort of early. Around 7 a.m., which is not the same as 5 a.m., but is at least before my children have stirred, so I have a few minutes to start (and perhaps finish) a blog post. Lately I've been thinking about what's been going on in my family/home life and wondering if I should post anything about it, and then I argued (with myself, of course, because I'm crazy) that this blog is, after all, about the intersection of kid-raising and poem-writing and teaching . . . so perhaps I should offer up an explanation to my readers (all 2.5 of you!) about why I've been silent throughout much of June and July. Actually, I already explained June -- we were traveling a lot, and there wasn't much time for writing or reflecting or reflective writing and so, you know    . . . but I haven't explained July. The few (2?) posts for this month have been chock-full of oh-I'm so tired and oh-this-is-so- unu...

I'm super-tired at the moment, but fairly content. This has been a rough week, with a lot of changes occurring during a very small time frame at work. I wasn't really expecting this to happen -- in fact, I was striving to have a calm, non-interesting semester in terms of teaching and commitments at the college, but once again I've completely abandoned my previous notions and expectations in order to thoroughly embrace something new and exciting but also potentially disastrous! 'Cause, apparently, that's how I roll. I took on a temporary administrative position at the college that will, hopefully, help out my department and also be a good fit for me in terms of easing back into teaching and working full-time. The colleagues I've asked for advice are evenly divided as to whether this will actually happen. Some think that the job will allow me to accomplish more when I'm physically at work, so that when I return home I can emotionally/mentally "be...

On Friday I finally met with A.P., after what seemed like an eternity, to discuss poetry, and more specifically, our poems. Really, I should say that we met to discuss our poems, and that a more general discussion of poetry developed from our responses to those poems. I have other friends who write poetry who, in turn, have other friends who write poetry also and with whom they conduct weekly or bi-weekly or monthly or yearly workshops. There was an article in Poets & Writers (this month's issue) about the importance of writing groups, but I'm sure most people missed it because this was also the issue in which they posted the oh-so-controversial MFA Program rankings . (By the way, the editorial in Slate that I've just linked to is about as bogus as the rankings themselves -- enjoy!) Anyway, W(here)TF was I? Ah, yes. The column in Poets and Writers by Ann Napolitano was a nice account of how the novelist has continued to maintain her friendship and writing relat...

I hate to be a Debbie Downer so early on a Monday morning, but this article by Ann Larson on contingent faculty and the money machine of academia is really fantastic, albeit grim. So . . . no writing done during "quiet time" this morning, but there's still the rest of the day left . . . although I do have a committee meeting this morning. (It's for the committee that's charged with developing and overseeing the creative writing curriculum and emphasis, so it's probably in my best interest to be there, if I want for the college to regard my field seriously and with some modicum of respect.)