Saturday, June 14, 2008
random bullets of the ultra-fettered
* In a conversation about grad school and scholarship and life, my adviser/committee chair/let's just call her "AR" described me as "fettered." It is an absolutely accurate description. Luckily, since I have the most ass-kicking adviser ever in the history of the world, this description wasn't followed by "and you have to change this immediately," because it's common knowledge that I can't (thank you, tanked housing market). It was part of a conversation about having my time spoken for by others without my input/approval/etc, and how she is there to help make sure that doesn't happen. One of these days I'll get around to writing that post about the week of awesomeness, because it really is all related.
* Our six weeks of theory is over. We had a really good time, and I have a to-do list.
* I start teaching Summer Session II on Monday. I'm teaching the same thing I taught in the spring: Tech & Prof Writing for ESL. I swapped in a couple new projects, inspired by stuff that Kristin does in her classes, which are not for ESL, but—as I fervently contend—that doesn't matter. There's no reason at all to teach different things. Just teach the same things (as the non-ESL class) differently. You should really hear me rant about this. Or not, actually. Anyway, that was a digression from the main point: this course begins on Monday.
* I'm really writing these bullets so I can engage my brain just a little bit and get through the tremendous amount of stuff I have to get done in order to catch up to where I should be at this point in the summer. I have a work project that we've been trying to finish for weeks and weeks, but the regular maintenance work has been taking up my available time (thus leaving nothing for the project). Although I finished up the 4th edition of my book, which is available in Rough Cuts format and will be on shelves in a week or so, I'm helping out with the revisions on another related (not mine) book.
* I'm so busy that I haven't opened the box to my shiny new laptop, which has been sitting next to me for two weeks now. I told myself I couldn't start the switchover until I cleared out my backlog of stuff. Sigh.
* Our six weeks of theory is over. We had a really good time, and I have a to-do list.
* I start teaching Summer Session II on Monday. I'm teaching the same thing I taught in the spring: Tech & Prof Writing for ESL. I swapped in a couple new projects, inspired by stuff that Kristin does in her classes, which are not for ESL, but—as I fervently contend—that doesn't matter. There's no reason at all to teach different things. Just teach the same things (as the non-ESL class) differently. You should really hear me rant about this. Or not, actually. Anyway, that was a digression from the main point: this course begins on Monday.
* I'm really writing these bullets so I can engage my brain just a little bit and get through the tremendous amount of stuff I have to get done in order to catch up to where I should be at this point in the summer. I have a work project that we've been trying to finish for weeks and weeks, but the regular maintenance work has been taking up my available time (thus leaving nothing for the project). Although I finished up the 4th edition of my book, which is available in Rough Cuts format and will be on shelves in a week or so, I'm helping out with the revisions on another related (not mine) book.
* I'm so busy that I haven't opened the box to my shiny new laptop, which has been sitting next to me for two weeks now. I told myself I couldn't start the switchover until I cleared out my backlog of stuff. Sigh.
Labels: misc life