July Homage

Good riddance to a soggy, steamy July--at once blazes quick and also unbearably sluggish. I've capped off the month with the following:

• Turned in grades today for the eight-week online term. Two courses: research-motivated writing and introduction to humanities. The writing course might be one of the best I've ever taught. Can't gloat quite the same over the humanities course (a contagion of confusion over one project option, even though it's a project that has soared in terms past).
• Wrapped up course overhauls for the three courses I keep buffed for old U. This probably doesn't mean much to you. To me, it means I won't have to scramble around when core outcomes statements are revised in the whenever ahead, and I get to relax for the remainder of my contracts, bask in the royalties, and so on.
• Read through to the final page of Mieville's The Scar. I'd been taking it slow--twenty pages here and there--for most of the summer, but tore through the last 280 pages over the weekend. A wildly violent turn of events caps the novel. I won't spoil it here, but I will say that while I enjoyed reading this one (especially the bits about the scabmettlers' battles early on and the mysteries of the avanc and city's mysterious course), it felt just shy of being an equal to Perdido Street Station.
• Recaulked the tub. Mowed the back lawn. This morning, walked Yoki (1.6 miles; 00:26:06.12). Chauffeured D. and Ph. to their various classes and work-appointments today. Before the day's done: Ph.'s soccer match in the mosquitoed marsh-fields by the airport (L, 1-0).

I can't think of anything else I need to say about July.