The Write Stuff

I have just checked into a hotel near my house so that I can get some writing done for the dissertation. I have my books with me, and I intend to spread them out on th table (which I have moved so it's near th window). I have about 1/3 bottle of Chardonnay. I have cheese and crackers. I have a strawberry-rhubarb pie. The only thing I'm missing is something for making tea. I suppose the wine will have to get me through. Or maybe I can get some at the bar.

And upon check-in, I discovered that there is no wi-fi in my room. And no cell coverage, so I can't even use my i-Pad through 3G. The horror! In truth, we all know this is a good thing. No futzing around on the Internet for me.

At this moment, I'm in the lobby because I have to look up a few things before digging into the writing. Then, it's back to my room (which has a view of the water).

I'm both excited and freaked out by this uninterrupted work time stretched out in front of me like a . . .

(Choose your own ending for the simile. I can think of happy ones and scary ones.)

Novel Suggestions, Please

Next fall, I'll be teaching a developmental writing class for the first time in about 7-8 years. It's one step below transfer level, and we're supposed to encourage a lot of reading. Most instructors teach one or two novels, and I plan to do two. But I'm having a hard time deciding which novels to teach, and book orders were due Friday.

I want texts with good, clean prose that will also be high interest. I think I'm pretty well decided on doing Victor Martinez's "Parrot in the Oven." I'm considering "Half-Broke Horses" for the second novel, but I've also thought of doing "Water for Elephants." WFE would probably hold their interest, but I'm not convinced it's good enough or that it has enough heft to see us through.

I thought about doing Jekyll and Hyde or another fun classic, but I really think these students would rely too heavily on SparkNotes, which undermines the whole purpose of getting them to read a lot.

So, at this point, I'm taking suggestions.

Recovery Road

So after the Boy came down with strep throat last Saturday, the Girl cam down with a fever last Sunday. She was already on antibiotics for her case of strep, so I figured it was viral. At first I thought it might be the flu, mostly because of the power of the fever, which lasted through Friday and often got up to 104.5 and lingered around 103. But by Wednesday night, I figured out that it was probably tonsillitis (because of the fact that she was having difficulty breathing at night even though she didn't have nasal congestion). I need to call the doctor today to get results of the throat culture that she had on Thursday, but, at this point, it's mostly academic because she's better.

Thank goodness. Not only is it difficult to see one of my children feeling so sick, but it's hard to maintain other aspects of life during the illness. I'm still tired from spending the nights in her room, keeping a cool cloth on her head and repositioning her so she could breathe.

But now she's better, and I thnk we can back to our regularly scheduled program.

My fingers are crossed.

Meeting the First Deadline of the New Plan

So, with 35 minutes to spare, I can say that I read an article this week and made some (brief) notes. The article is recent and directly relevant to my work--so relevant, in fact, that I was worried it would cause problems for me. But I think the article will be helpful. The author tackles an issue that I will address, but I think my "end game" is different from hers. Therefore, I can rely on her work to some degree, but then I can extend her argument or take it in a slightly different direction to achieve slightly different ends. I hope I can articulate the distinctions clearly enough that they don't seem *too* slight.

The article was good, but I think her argument could have been more unified. But she left me in the dust when she came to the philosophical bits. I have So. Much. To Learn.

Here We Go. Again.

Strep throat, round two. Kid #2. Weekend #2. Let the Netflix, amoxicillin, and jello stream like rivers into my household.

In other news, I downloaded a few new articles so that I can read one tomorrow and meet my first week's deadline for the new plan. One of the titles seems alarmingly like my own topic. I'm hoping to find that it is of great use to me rather than a fatal shot to my "originality."

A New Plan, Stan

I am mostly recovered from last week's illness. Could have been a cold, could have been strep. Daughter was diagnosed with strep today. But now I am better, and she's getting medicIne, so I'm really hoping to be able to get my head back in the game at work. Currently, I'm terribly unorganized. Lots of stray bits here and there.

But on another note, I have an idea for how to try to get more dissertation stuff done. I think I should plan to read one chapter or article per week, typing up good notes so what I read won't be lost out of my head six weeks later. I'm sure that this goal sounds ridiculously modest to most of you, but when I consider that this is week ten of the semester, and I have read mostly nothing so far this term, and I've forgotten most of what I have read, the plan actually seems rather ambitious. Of course, I will still be trying to meet various writing dealdlines, but I'm realizing that it's the reading that is so unwieldy and time consuming.

And now it's time to hit the hay after a late-night grading jag. It's nearly 1:00 a.m. I remember when that was my nightly bedtime after my nightly date with Charlie Rose. My how things change.

Pros and Cons of Illness

Downside to being sick: Feeling various levels of crappy.

Upside to being sick: Taking a sick day.

Upside to taking a sick day: Being at home in comfy clothes.

Downside to taking a sick day: Having to use the time to grade papers and write program review (i.e., work) instead of curling up with a book.