Monday, May 16, 2005

Degradation

I just wrapped up the last bit of grading for the spring semester. A restless early morning, read: what am I doing wide awake at 5 a.m.?, allowed me just the amount of quiet time I needed to encode the last few essays, to each a letter.  Forms are due later today or tomorrow--one or the other, but I must have left paperwork in the office on campus.  Cause for a bicycle ride.

I was slower than usual with grading this time around.  A combination of factors: sapped, more methodical.  Now there'll be one week of down time before starting in on the Summer I course in genre theory.  The stuff I'm teaching doesn't begin until June 6, which means the course I'm taking will be solidly underway when the steepened workload involving the reading of student work hits in mid-late June.  That's the plan.

Other: I've been thinking about blogging lately, but, being sapped, I figure now's as good a time as any to lollygag.  I installed a Wordpress site for experimentation; re-designing it seems a bit tedious though.  I was interested in using the easily modifiable shell of a weblog for a Site of Self I'm pulling together this summer.  What do they call these?  Professional sites?  Personal-professional sites?  Vita, teaching philosophy, syllabi, etc.

Yet another: Should we move this summer?  Seems like a hassle to switch to another place, but Landlord--who lives clamorously with his energetic dog on the paper that is our ceiling--has an apt.-mate moving in over the summer, the neighbors, who share the driveway, were loud-banging a second basketball hoop together into the late-night hours, and Ph. will be at the high school in the fall--a high school beyond walking distance from where we now live.  Oh, and the hoop wouldn't be a problem except that the south sideline is our relatively new and yet un-paid-for Honda Element.  So when the kids are in the drive working on their cross-overs and sending long-careening rebounds into the door of the car...eeg.  And I really mean EEG!  That's the sound for deep down vexation.  No matter how hard I try, I can't get over the angst I feel when I hear the basketball pounding the car.  Yeah yeah.  Material things and whatever.  But no matter what I do to exorcise the in-creeping aggravations of car-door-ball-shots, I am my dad's son through and through. I can't block out the irritation I feel so deeply when the ball hits the car.  So maybe I'll try moving the car more often (where?).  Because I'm in favor of kids playing basketball, I have to think of something.  Help me out, people.

So moving.  Thinking about it.  For now, just thinking.

Posted by Derek Mueller at May 16, 2005 8:16 AM to Unspecified