mimsy and outgrabe

Yesterday I returned to campus for the first time in months. It feels awesome to write that sentence. I mean, I like my job, but I really needed a good long break. The bad part about taking a big long break is that reentry can be kind of painful -- like when you realize that you have only a week left to prep for your classes. You know what's ALSO kind of painful? Reentry into your work pants after a summer of ice cream and cocktails. (Not necessarily together, but not always apart, either.) Nonetheless, despite these shocks to my system, I'm trying to be calm and collected and just keep plugging away at the course outlines, the lecture/activity prepping, the assignment-writing. As with every year, I'm trying to prep as much as I can before the semester begins so that I can grade during my non-teaching hours instead of frantically preparing notes for a lecture or activity right before class. Teaching some of the same texts from year to year helps, but sometimes you have to...

So sayeth The Boy. I think he's trying to say, "Holy Guacamole," and I'm not quite sure where he heard this expression, but I share the sentiment. Being 32 weeks pregnant and teaching is tiring , yo. This has been a good but long and busy week. I have a list, already, of emails I need to send out, and tasks that I have to accomplish. I have quizzes to grade. Recommendations to finally, finally , write (my poor students). I have phone calls to return. I have that damn Leadership Academy report to write (yup, I missed the deadline). And I have an office submersed in about 2 tons of paper because I decided to clean out my filing cabinets. (And yes, this is a task that doesn't really scream out Important! Must be done now! unless, of course, you're me, and particularly sensitive about the fact that you've hoarded about eight years of paper scraps that you barely look at anymore. Everything must go ! scream the cells in my body. I think this is a preggo-...

I sat down to write and started reading instead, which is okay, I suppose: (I half-heartedly forgive myself for trolling the internet because I found these:) The Journey by Yvor Winters. This interview with Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco. (Can I just say how disappointed I am in both asshole journalists and even fellow poets in their reaction to Blanco's poem ? Writing occasional poetry is wretched work, and Blanco made good work of a wretched assignment.) Last week brought three rejections, two of my manuscript, and one from a literary journal. Two rejections even arrived on one day! ( Good day .) I think I need to steel myself for this -- all the stuff I sent out in the fall is going to come rushing back now as magazines begin their prep for spring issues, and those book contests have to choose winners. It would be nice to receive a little bit of good news, though. The new semester begins today. I have office hours before teaching my first class at 12:30 p.m., and ...

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...

I've been quiet for the past few days. (On here, that is. It's almost impossible for me to be quiet in real life.) (Shut up, A.P.) A.P. and I postponed Poetry Friday until Monday because I was having a little Pre-Semester Freakout, and then we moved our meeting until next week because we realized how futile it would be to speak about poetry when the large, ugly shadow of course outlines and class prep loomed over our heads. And thus, once again, writing took a back seat to teaching responsibilities. But, as Vonnegut would say, so it goes . . . some times you just have to put away the poems and focus instead on the paragraph about not texting or surfing the web in class, because that paragraph is what pays the bills. (Sort of. Not just that paragraph, but you get my drift, right?) My problem this week ended up being that I didn't put away the poem. For me, this is a good problem to have -- I'm truly not going to beat myself up too much for writing. But it made the ...