My gosh, there *is* hope.

This morning I went into the seminar class at my new college, planning on discussion but well-prepared to lecture. Usually when I teach seminar at Small Private College, the students refuse to discuss... at all. Seriously, I've started to feel like a failure at teaching seminars (well, except for the fact that all my colleagues say the same thing about their seminars).

Today? I threw out the first question and they talked about it for 20 minutes. There was discussion. There were disagreements.

People, there was LIFE.

This continued, with occasional questions from me, for the full 75 minutes of class. At least 10 of the 12 students were fully participating. They left happy; I left happy. There was much rejoicing.

Class #2 was good, but possibly only for the majors. It's so tempting to take the conversation to that level, because I'm not used to having majors in my classes... I'm going to have to find a balance between teaching to them and teaching for the non-majors. The non-majors still seemed interested, but I think it went over their heads a couple times.

Am trying to make decision:

Mr. Squirrel switched courses with me, solely to make my schedule easier.
After we switched, the course he took from me was cancelled.

Financially, we're both okay this semester. This course basically allows whoever has it to put some money in savings. (Yes, we're somewhat financially merged, but still mostly not, for various reasons. There really is no "our savings," yet.)

It seems logical that he gets the course back, doesn't it? I offered immediately when all this first happened, and brought it up again today -- the course is tomorrow. It's not a class either of us has to do much prep for, obviously.

Bullets O' Random Updates

• Yes, I was right that there's a reason my mentor is pushing me to finish.
• "Chocolate Cherry" hair color? Rocks.
• I feel sooooo much hotter when my hair is freshly colored. It's as though I'm some tough chick who could eat you for breakfast and then teach for 3 hours.
  
• (Above is good, as I have 3 hours of teaching tomorrow morning.)
• Update at BPAL tonight, people. Heads up.
• Our annual department party went well. Convinced super-cool professor that he should be on my committee. Have been trying to do that for... more than 2 years?
  

It all starts again tomorrow. I've spent the last week rethinking my syllabi, scanning articles, and generally staring at my closet wondering "what still fits?" Today I must go photocopy things and hope that I come up with a great idea for my one remaining syllabus issue.

I have a tiny golem statue that sits at the base of my monitor. He's supposed to be a writing good-luck charm (in my head alone, I mean. I've never heard people referring to the golem for that purpose, but come on). Yesterday, due solely to the massive humidity, golem kept coming unstuck and falling over. Now, while I obviously do blame it on the weather, there's something unsettling about golem trying to get OFF my computer all day.

Was he trying to run amok? Are my syllabi still in danger>

I think that maybe, if I don't get a full-time job this time around, I may need to pursue other things for awhile. It's not the best time to draw that line - I'll probably be more marketable next year - but I've reached the point where I might need to get out.

I don't know what else I'm qualified to do, or if I really want to leave academia... and certainly I can't imagine pulling the normal 8 to 5 job. But there have to be options, right?

It's not the dissertation, because I fully plan to finish that, whether or not I stay. It's the lack of full-time jobs in the field: even contract positions are few and far between, and TT jobs seem nigh impossible. I don't think I can keep teaching 5 courses at 3 schools (for very little money, with no benefits) and stay sane.

Part of this train of thought is surely from coming off two summer courses and feeling I've had no break. Plus, it's not even going to hit 70 degrees today, and I'm just not ready for fall and winter yet... (please tell me that summer weather will return for awhile. Please?)

I don't doubt that I'll get everything prepared by next Monday - of course I will - but as I look at my half-finished syllabi, I want to cry. Or go back to bed and stay there.

Mr. Squirrel has brought up the notion of going full-on hermit this semester. In other words, both of us would do nothing but work (classes, but more importantly, dissertation) until things are just. finally. done. I'm tempted by that as well, although I don't think I can commit to a full three months of it... maybe one month at a time?

Then, if nothing came about on the job market this year, I could go find a full-time job elsewhere, knowing that I had, in fact, finished the degree (even if I don't "use" it). I think my degrees would be welcomed at some types of non-profit organizations, which is what I would be most interested in, anyway.

Is this just beginning-of-semester blues?

It's official...

I'm now teaching at a school that I would not have been accepted to, out of high school. Uh, and if I had been accepted, I couldn't have paid for it.

Huh.

Also, why does my MIL keep sending me Christian Patriotic Crap*? When I told her to stop sending me this stuff, she apparently took it to mean just the virulently anti-Muslim emails that she was forwarding.

Sigh. Back to Snopes we go.

*ETA: By this, I mean those emails that end with "...so get the hell out of our country if you're not white/Christian/working-class/whatever. LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT!" They also usually include some (false) reference to "I heard Robin Williams/George Carlin say this last week" and this last one had a really badly-sung version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" embedded in it.

Y'all? I need a makeover. Or, really: I need to pay attention to things like haircuts, which would - at this point - constitute a makeover.

So here's the deal, and you all can weigh in (or not) with opinions.

My hair has stayed mousey brown the last year, mostly because it makes my roots less visible when I go more than six weeks without coloring (read: all the time). It's also been probably... four months? since a cut, which isn't bad in Margie time. It's just long enough to comfortably pull back, right now; as you all probably know, this is invaluable on some teaching mornings.

I'm going to go get a trim -- not much off length, but with some messy shorter layers (not bangs, much longer than that) so that I can continue to use the ponytail when necessary. I'm going to color it dark brown, and add black "lowlights". I always want red highlights, but it's just so expensive!!

That *should* be maintainable for at least a semester, right? Like, with one or two trims & colors?

I'm comfortably (mostly) at a size 10/12 right now, although I'm still wanting to get that back to an 8/10. Moreso, I think I need to pay attention to looking decent *as* a 10/12, instead of waiting to drop 10 more pounds. Yes?

Thanks!

Thanks for the comments and the birthday wishes!

I just can't stand seeing that much whining (on my part) stay up for more than 12 hours.

I spent a good while yesterday assembling syllabi. I have about two weeks before the semester starts, and essentially three new classes to design:

• Far-too-general-upper-level course: Have taught this several times, and always end up teaching it differently (because nothing works, or I get bored). This class shouldn't even be taught at colleges across the country/world - it's too general - but it always is.
• Lower-level advanced course: This is a course I've taught as a senior seminar, but never as a 200-level. I worry that the students won't get it, as they haven't offered lower-level "basic" course at the college. I've worked some fixes to that into the syllabus - that one's almost done! - but I'm still a bit worried.
• Lower-level odd course: This is (honestly) the course that every student wants to take. I taught it three years ago at Large Private School and it had a waiting list as long as the enrollment. Haven't taught it since then, and now it's filled immediately at Wee Private College. I've tried to revamp it somewhat, but since I never got a chance to work out the quirks the first time around, I'm not sure how much should change. Have updated some of the readings and left it at that, for now.

Other than that, I've managed to not grade final papers for the summer course yet, and I spent some birthday money (hooray Mum!) at Loft yesterday. Despite what anyone says about Loft, I haven't found anywhere else that makes reasonably-priced basic pants for women with hips. And it doesn't matter if I'm a size 6 or a size 12 -- my hips are always the pants-deal-breaker.

It's also Loft's big sale, so I got a lot of really basic stuff for not very much money. Oh, and it's "savings card" time, which means that they give you cards for the fall collection that amount to 50% off whatever you buy later. I usually load up on end-of-summer stuff (mostly to use for Spring teaching*) and then use the 50% off to buy something really nice before Big Damn Conference.

*Yes, I know that pant styles change between summer and the next spring, but I can't afford to be that stylish. As long as it's a basic cut and it fits, I'm good with it.

Day The Last

Usually I'd end this with a very cute picture of the two of us. Instead, a you get a photo of the (very small!) castle we stayed in to end the trip.

So, here ends the picture-a-day, a year later. Overall, it was a good trip, and going through the photos has been fun (and useful, as I'm trying to do an album).

Tonight I give a final; yesterday I started pasting together syllabi for next semester.

This morning I got an email from my advisor that made me stop and say "you're kidding me, right?" before deciding to ignore it completely.

Day Twenty-Eight: near Regensburg

Oh, crap.

One of Mr. Squirrel's classes was just canceled for low enrollment, and another is under the gun. (They don't put faculty names with classes, so this isn't a matter of reflecting poorly on him, just enrollment.)

What this likely means is... no Italy. If just the one is canceled, it's probably still okay. If it's two? No way.

I am sad. I will hope this works out, but I am sad.

ETA: After some thought, I came to the conclusion that we could still do 8 nights somewhere (instead of 17)... and further, that since we were already spending 7 nights in Rome that we might as well just go to Rome.

Must now check the logistics of a (rather long?) day trip to Pompeii, and whether it's worth the time or not.

Is over now.

There's still an exam to give and far too much grading to do, but Summer 2 is officially over, class-wise.

Thank my good stars.

I may just go order a t-shirt to celebrate. A Little Lunacy, anyone?

In follow-up photo blogging news... the rearranged apartment:
This is taken from the kitchen -- that messy bit in front is the bottom of the pass-through window, and under it is the smallish dining table. Room with cat (that's Little Guy) is the living room, and the far room is the bedroom (which now has it's own sofa/sitting area):

And finally, the other half of the "master" bedroom, in which you can see the new nightstand my brother so kindly made for me. Yes, there's a matching one coming, but handmade furniture takes awhile.

There ya go... the living space of Margie. Other than that, there's a kitchen (quite good), two dens (very messy), and a spare bedroom (aka where laundry goes to die).

I am behind on grading. Summer grading is even worse than normal-semester grading, isn't it? Oddly, I'm probably not as behind as I think I am - I did quite a bit before the weekend - but I can't even bring myself to sort through the graded vs. ungraded papers, today. So far, I've plopped the whole stack of them on my kitchen table and decided that yes, I will do something to them before I take a shower.

How about dividing the large stack into smaller stacks of graded/partially graded/ungraded? Ooh, and I could find my red pen, and get all the grade sheets organized, and staple some stuff together...

Day Twenty-Seven: Freiburg

It's a different kind of canal system, it is:

These little streams (bächle) run through most of Freiburg.

*achoo!!*

Oh. My. Goodness.

We rearranged the flat today, and apparently we've gone too long without dusting under things. I have been sneezing (or wanting to sneeze) for three hours, now, and it's getting beyond annoying.

On the positive side of things, the flat looks much better and it will be easier to have people over for dinner with the new arrangement.

I just need to stop sneezing, soon.

Day Twenty-Six: Heidelberg

Looking up at:

Looking down from:Getting up to the castle is... tiring. My advice: take the stairs. Even though they look very difficult, they are far, far better than the non-stair route.

Day Twenty-Five: Bamberg

Day Twenty-Four: Prague to Bamberg

Squeak!

Okay, after much searching and pulling-of-hair, and advice from Artistic Soul, I have reserved a room here for our last five nights in Rome. The prices are good, the reviews on TripAdvisor are excellent, and it seems to be in a good location (and very close to the Metro).

I can't believe I'm going to Italy.

Day Twenty-Three: Prague

Anyone been to Rome?

Am trying to decide between one of these hostels or this B&B. In the hostels we'd have a private (en-suite) room, and that B&B is much cheaper than the price at TripAdvisor.

Oh, or this one.

I know nothing about where to stay in Rome. Nothing. Mostly I've heard people say "near the Spanish Steps is good," but... how near? Which way?

Day Twenty-Two: Prague

Prague, by the way, had been #1 on my list of "places to go" for 15 years. One of my close friends ended up there when backpacking around Europe in 1991, and told fantastic stories about it.

Though it's obviously become more of a tourist destination since then and is quite crowded in summer, it's also very easy to get away from the crowds. Walk anywhere outside the "normal" tourist loop, and suddenly... peace and quiet.



Note that in the photo (which is taken at a monastery that brews some excellent beer) , I am wearing a jacket: the weather finally broke on this day, as well. For 21 days, we were running around in 100+ degree weather; from here on out, it will stay around 75-85.