b l o g o s

falling

A couple years ago, I blogged about the phenomenon of "octobering," that crush of work that hits the second full month of the new fall term, and includes all manner of the kind of labor we do in this profession: writing rec letters for job marketing grad students; attending can't-miss talks; preparing for conferences; going to meetings about everything; more letter writing. Oh! And teaching happens somewhere in there usually.

I've noted this to other people, and others have noted it as well, but this year there seems to be considerable October creep. For starters, deadlines for job recs are inching up earlier and earlier, probably because folks lucky enough to have lines want to get the ball rolling before higher-ups change their minds, and also they are seeking a competitive edge over the other two or three schools with lines. True, a lot of this work could spill into October, but I have such an insane travel schedule in October (trying to pack it all in before traveling becomes difficult, flying impossible) that I'm having to frontload some of the work before the end of this month, and thus Octobering has come to be something more like "fall"ing. 

The new liberal arts course I'm directing comes with a ton of meetings, and though I'm grateful that it takes a village for this kind of thing, I'm having a hard time figuring out how to schedule the work that should follow these meetings, all the while composing two talks for mid-October--one I found myself structuring, I kid you not, while I slept last night--and helping my advisees make it to their dissertation defenses this semester (both of which require me to travel back to Champaign-Urbana). All told, between now and December I will make a total of four trips back to the midwest (including NCA's Chicago and a Minneapolis/Madison trek in mid Oct.--I'm ever grateful to M-city hosts for helping me combine those). I won't even be home for my favorite holiday--halloween--so those little Kiss costumes I was hoping to create (Tillie as Gene Simmons and Jada as Paul Stanley) are unfortunately going to have to wait until next year. Of course I'm not alone in my busy-ness, and knowing that actually weirdly helps.

Even so, at 6:30 this evening I fell into a deep, twitchy sleep while watching "Flight of the Conchords," waking up when JM started giggling at some crazy dance Brett was doing. I pulled myself out of my grog so that we could walk the dogs and clean up from dinner. There was just enough energy to answer some emails about courses for 2010-2011 (!) and write this blog entry, and very soon I'll be heading to bed. 

here's a little kiss for you.

office hours

I held two extra office hours today, and I'm so glad I did. I got to talk with three smart grads, two of whom are already hammering out topics for their final project, and one of whom wanted me to take a look at his RSA abstract.

And when folks weren't here, I got a chance to tinker with a little teaching grant proposal, copy a section from a rare greek book that I have to return to the farflung place that lent it to me this summer, fiddle with my new psu website, AND write a blog entry. How productive is that? 

Wildly. Even the little sprog is kicking around, seemingly with excitement.

netflix blogging: sugar and eastbound and down

On the face of it, the movie Sugar and the HBO series Eastbound and Down don't really belong in the same blog post. Except that at one point while watching the movie I found myself thinking the two main characters, Miguel "Sugar" Santos and Kenny Powers, could easily cross paths, though that would probably end badly. Both the movie and the film also happen to be about baseball players--indeed, both Powers and Santos are pitchers, and both characters' situations offer commentary on U.S. professional baseball. Both heroes suffer; they struggle with the ladies and with their slumps. Life without baseball is fairly unimaginable. The similarities pretty much end right about there. Well, actually they don't. But I don't want to give any spoilers.

So I'll stick to character analysis. Miguel is far too humble and serious to live his life by Powers's mottos: "If at first you don't succeed, maybe you just suck," and "Why give 100% when 35 can get you paid and laid?" Nor would he write--ahem co-write--a memoir titled "You're Fucking Out, I'm Fucking In," a memoir Powers listens to on cassette while driving in his truck and also while lifting weights. Powers is far more hilarious and infinitely more quotable, thanks to the work of EBD's creator Will Ferrell (who also plays a hilarious bleach-blond BMW salesman).

And however much you might enjoy sitting around with friends recalling curse-filled zingers delivered by Powers, like we pretty much did all weekend with C and E, Sugar is the character that will actually stick with you, his courage matched only by his comparative silence.

rhythms

It's September now, so I imagine I ought to put up a post. I know, inspired, huh? This week brought the first faculty meeting, the first full-on seminar discussion in the Kenneth Burke seminar (it rocked), and a host of other meetings, lunches, and whatnot. In other words, this week was pretty busy. My weeks this semester will be heavily frontloaded, with recovery time in the middle (when you teach until 9:30 at night, you need recovery time, especially if you are me). This leaves the end of the week for heavy-duty writing time. That's good, because I have two talks in mid-October I need to prepare this month, and there's also NCA, hovering, as it always does just before Thanksgiving. Hooray, Chicago! Oh Chicago, how I miss you.

This busy-ness also means that I don't find my way to facebook, email, and this blog as frequently as I usually do (though admittedly blogos has all but slipped into dormancy this summer). Such are the rhythms of a new semester: shifting, adjusting, going hard, recovering.