Intellectual stagnancy

At present, I am faced with a sort of duality in my life. On the one hand, I want to leave behind Academia for a brief period in order to give myself a break from the tedium of lesson plans, grading, and classes; on the other, I sorely miss the pleasure and enjoyment of taking classes, being challenged by research papers, and learning new things. I enjoy teaching, but Continue reading →

TKT #13

Savez-vous…?

Today’s TKT isn’t so much about learning linguistic fact or research method as much as it’s about how important language learning is in general. Recently, the department was asked to create small posters giving facts about why language learning is so crucial. The idea to do posters was mine (Our Basic Studies supervisor’s idea was to play music in the classroom; Continue reading →

Bateau

Well, I came in early today to have my directed studies class with a student from Belgium. I guess one of these days I’ll get into what a mess all that was, but I’ve got far too much of a headache at the moment to care. Instead, I’m far more interested in the fact that I’ve finally gotten around to configuring the new laptop computer they gave me here at the office. It’s a Continue reading →

More boredom

Sure, I could be grading something right now or checking my e-mail or putting the laundry away or taking the trash out or cleaning my desk or rearranging my desktop icons or curing cancer or cleaning the litter box or working on my comic or doing research or cleaing out the fridge or cuddling with Kitty or washing dishes or bringing about world peace . . . but, no. I Continue reading →

Au boulot

It’s Thursday now and I’m back in the office. I’m half-expecting a student to come within the next fifteen minutes, so I don’t want to get into something just to have to stop it. Therefore, I’m posting. Go figure. At any rate, yesterday at work was something of . . . an experience. I can think of many choice words to describe it–after all, I did my thesis on insults, slurs and other such invectives. Continue reading →

Happy fat flying baby with projectile weapons day

Classes have been cancelled today until noon which means I miss two of my four. The sun’s out at the moment, but that’s not a good indicator of what the temperature will be or the condition of the roads. I’d say we only got a couple inches of snow last night . . . after having gotten freezing rain for several hours. It’ll make getting to work and getting around campus interesting, to say the least. Continue reading →

Icy

They closed the university today at noon, so I scraped some more ice off the van (She’s coated in about an eighth of an inch of ice already.) and drove home. What had been about an inch of slush covered in some new snow is now an inch of slush covered in some new snow covered in a thickening layer of ice. All the branches and trees are absolutely coated with ice, and most every Continue reading →

Watching cardinals

Well, I’m at the office right now for lack of better judgement, but I needed to get my grading and my texts for tomorrow’s classes, and I thought I might try to stick around for my office hours today anyway despite the fact that none of the students slated to come will probably come. At any rate, I’ve been watching the birds outside my window–mostly the cardinals but a crow just Continue reading →

Doing better?

Well, I think I’m finally getting over the lung infection (finally). I haven’t had nearly as many problems breathing or with chest pains this week as last, so I’m thinking that all the rest I’m getting is finally starting to pay off. Also, work is going a bit more smoothly, and I’m not feeling nearly as irritated with the world as last week (or the previous month or six). I am irritated at the five inches Continue reading →