...because when I don't, the updates become little monsters!
Let's see. Hmmm...
I've been up most of the week this week working on creating and modifying bibliographies dealing with 1877-1939 US history... and the next step is to annotate them. (ARRRRGH!). That part terrifies me. Pretty much, I will be spending the next six months doing nothing but reading - and creating incredibly extensive and cross-referenced notes - for the comps I will be taking in August. Oh, and I have a draft of a portion of my dissertation due week after next. This part *is* doable, actually, since Spring Break is here, and I don't have any teaching obligations this coming week.
However, I *do* have grading obligations... oh, and how. Wow. Don't ask.
Physical therapy is probably the best thing I have ever done for my own health other than actually lose the nearly 100 pounds I have lost over the past five years. I am having the most wonderful - and wonder-filled - experience doing this. I am finding I can exercise and push my body hard without hurting it - or hurting at the time (or even much afterward) - but release those endorphins and really strengthen my core and myself as a whole - and do a whole lot of good. This is something I *know* I will be able to keep up after actual PT is over - they are not only giving me exercises, but teaching me how to work with my body *and* how to work with the machines and weights and to determine what is healthy muscle movement and what is unhealthy. I am *listening to* and *watching* my body very, very closely. It's amazing. And I feel good for it. Huzzah!
LOVING teaching still... and I just realized today that I have now taught for five semesters... nine rosters... one course. Some 270 students. I keep seeing students all over campus who know me and say hi... and I feel like an idiot for not knowing their names - but now I realize that I shouldn't expect myself to remember that many students' names over that long a time - and many of my first students have already graduated!! I'm very fortunate to learn everyone's name in a semester - and push myself to do so. Am loving the interaction this semester, too. It seems that the longer I teach, the more comfortable I am with interaction and give-and-take in the classroom. It makes it exciting and fun and ... my, do I ever enjoy it. Next fall I plan to teach first half American history (pre-1877) and will be writing a whole new course's-worth of lectures... and while I am excited about that, it terrifies me; I plan to take comps just before the beginning of the semester! But, it will be a new part of a continuing adventure I am enjoying more than anything I have ever done. What a terrific life I am leading right now in that respect!
Turned in a bunch of stuff today which may lead to a great deal of fruition in the next month and a half. We'll see. :::watch this space:::
Have completely forgotten about photography lately... and things are blooming and popping and looking gorgeous; I just don't have time for it. It really, really stinks, because I miss having the opportunity to look at things through the lens. ::sigh:: Can't do everything.
Still only running on one computer at the moment; the other was hit by the worst virus/trojan attack I have ever seen, and will require a complete scrub of the machine. However, see above for time constraints. I hope to get to it this week.
Also on my list of things to get to this week is a revamp of the Graduate History Association website. I've really been trying to push forward with GHA this semester... but comps stuff (and all the assorted health things - surgeries, procedures, etc) have gotten in the way. Hmmm. Maybe I should set up a meeting for the first Friday after we return from Break? Hmmmm. :::sending myself an e-mail:::
Need to renew all my student memberships in everything... all my professional journals ... crud. Everything has lapsed. Crud! At least I have a few lifetime memberships in a few things... but everything else? It's a matter of outlaying money... and who has it these days?
I am very busy at church as I am able to be, though I have chosen to leave the choir for myriad reasons; I think my time and talents are best served elsewhere for now. I'm thoroughly enjoying the POW women's group - thoroughly enjoying it to the point that it is a sacred day on my monthly calendar; the only thing which would keep me from it is if Crash ended up in the hospital (I think I would drag MY sorry butt out of the hospital for it!!). Seriously. And I have been going to monthly Bible study (stop snickering!) and some other adult religious education things as they come along. I simply need the time away from school, even though I can't really afford the time away from school, if you know what I mean. Church is my sanity time - and I can't lose sight of that.
There's really not much else to say... well, there is, but if I tried, I would be here a night and a day and still not be caught up. This at least gets us somewhere.
I miss writing here as a matter of exercise and practical spirituality; this has been a place I have come now for some five years. Until the past several months, I had made it a daily mandatory thing to come here and write - even if only a tiny thing - something about something. I really want to get back to that. I think things really slipped when my grandma died and she was no longer there to read every day - that connection was lost and I went adrift in many ways ... but then, there are others who e-mail me regularly asking me what's going on in my life that I am not updating... I think that is really kind of awesome to have friends like y'all! So, I will try and get back here on a more daily basis. The entries may be short, they may be terse, but I am going to try to make it a spiritual practice to at least write a little tiny bit every day.
Love you guys, and miss you. And I will do my best to come a-visiting to your blogs a little more often, too. I really do miss catching up on your lives as well.
Laura
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