Veronica as Netflix Properties

30 April 2022: Realized I have created a mini-gallery...

Spring 2022 Grading: DONE!

29 April 2022: Hit "submit" on my last set of grades a little while ago. What a long, quick, tough,  discouraging, affirming, stressful, joyful, sad, tough, strange, and beautiful semester it's been. Gonna take a couple of minutes for some chair-dancing before heading out for my walk. (A bit later today since I was late getting to campus; had to go to Ranson to get Dunkin Donuts for my seminar class.)

"The Adventures of Dillon Helbig"

28 April 2022: Boy, was I charmed by this episode of This Is Love, which I listened to on my walk this morning. I love that this child--like so many children--sees himself as a writer. And he is! I found myself thinking about conversations we have in my Young Adult Lit class and even in the Dickinson seminar. What makes a text a "book"? And who decides which books have value and why? Or how we label them? 

And you know: I love a weird kid.

"i can make do lord i can make do"

27 April 2022: I first heard Quraysh Ali Lansana's poetry on this episode of Poetry Off the Shelf back in 2008. I bought They Shall Run that day. 

Today, I got to meet him in person and hear him read it. It was amazing. Hearing him read "hole" brought me right back to reading the poem for the first time.

15 years!

26 April 2022: Got my "15 years of service" pin and certificate today! Hard to believe it, but I will now officially stop thinking of myself as "new." 

How quickly the last five have gone by. And how slowly. Such is time...

Speeding up...

25 April 2022: Knocked out a pretty detailed outline for my entry on Sui Sin Far today. For me, this kind of outlining is time-consuming--more than one would think, perhaps. But today, parts of it went more quickly than usual (compared to other entries). I am really getting a sense of what ends up in the "Further Reading" section, what might make the final version of the entry (my outlines always include more than I need), and how to connect the pieces inside each entry. 

I am anxious about getting a lot of entries done this summer, so realizing that I am getting better at working efficiently eases my worries a bit. 

Midnight Breakfast!

24 April 2022: Heading out tonight for my first real Midnight Breakfast since April 2019. I missed December 2019 because I had this awful stomach virus. And there wasn't one in April 2020, December 2020, and April 2021. There was an event that I helped with in December--a smaller version called "Nite Bitez," and that was fun--but it wasn't the same. But we are back tonight and I am excited. 

Shep Arts Fest

23 April 2022: First annual (?) Shep Arts Fest at Sam Michaels Park today. A very nice way to spend the day.

McMurran Convocation

22 April 2022: Another long day (though not nearly as long as yesterday) with another great capper at the end: the first in-person McMurran Convocation since 2019. Our department had seven scholars, each of them truly amazing students. I got to watch from the stage in my role as Senate President, which was a fun (if hot--those lights!) perspective. 

Capstones...

21 April 2022: Fourteen hours on campus today and I am beat. But the last part--the first set of our capstone presentations--was so wonderful. I was moved almost to tears by these students, what they've done, and what a pleasure and blessing it has been to know them.

What I'm putting out there...

20 April 2022: It's pretty clear to me that I am not doing a great job hiding my stress and feeling overwhelmed from my students, at least not in my seminar. Today one of them said (in class), "We're worried about your mental health, Dr. H!" It was sweeter and funnier than it sounds. I think I'll take a couple of things away from it: 1) It's really lovely to know they care--and they really do. 2) I need to maybe do a better job reassuring them that I'm okay. Ha. 

Emotional labor...

19 April 2022: I've been thinking about this twitter thread since I read it a couple of hours ago. I like that so much of it is familiar but it also pushed me to rethink the way I frame and value things.

Surprise April snow...

18 April 2022: Same spot as this post, just three days later.

Got home around 8:15 and here's the view of the house. Come back, Spring!

Easter 2022

17 April 2022: So incredibly blessed to have Erin, Eric, and the girls nearby every Easter. And today was also Erin and Eric's 12th anniversary. 

"The Spring Has Many Silences"

16 April 2022: 

"The spring has many silences:
Buds are mysteriously unbound
With a discreet significance,
And buds say nothing.

There are things that even the wind will not betray.
Earth puts her finger to her lips
And muffles there her quiet, quick activity…."

Full poem by Laura Riding Jackson here. 

Both the dogwood out front and the redbud out back have flowered in just the last day or so. Sometimes I find myself just caught up in staring at them. The miracles of spring...

Favorite spot on campus...

15 April 2022: On my way back to my office after running an errand across campus, I paused for a bit to sit on the bench overlooking the Knutti garden. It's quite lovely right now and the warm weather had people moving through: students, community members, a young family with a toddler and a baby. Just a brief pause, but it helped. 

Scrappy...

14 April 2022: Today I had a two-hour (!) Marketing and Branding Committee meeting where we did this fun exercise: we came up with 100 words to describe our Shepherd brand and then narrowed it down to eight. From here, the folks in charge will work on a visual representation. I have no idea how that part will work, but the word part? That was fun. By the way, the talked-about word was my suggestion and the single best word I have found to describe Shepherd since I've been here: scrappy. 

Spring Cozy

13 April 2022: Thirteen hours on campus today. Part of that (the last hour) was attending a lecture, but I am still pretty spent. At the same time, the weather is lovely this evening, the windows are open, and the Yankees are on. Wes is sleeping behind me and BabyCat is staring from a few feet away. This is my kind of cozy--"Spring Cozy," I guess. Tired but comfy and relaxed, feeling okay about getting a decent amount done today. 

18!

12 April 2022: 18 years old and still the sweetest boy!

Tri Sigma's Go-To...

11 April 2022: So I come back to my office mid-morning after picking something up from the copier, and a couple of students (not enrolled in my classes, by the way) are waiting for me. 

Me: Hi???

Student: We've got a favor to ask.

Me: Okay...

Student: Can you be on Tri Sigma's trivia team again?

Me: When?

[Pause]

Student: That's the thing...tonight.

[Pause]

Me: What time?

[Longer pause]

Student: 9:00...

Me (simultaneously moans and dissolves into laughter while realizing how old I am...)

END SHOW

But seriously, like a schmuck, I said "yes." Lord help me. I couldn't tell them that I was also thinking, "That's when I watch 911: Lone Star!" 

First mow...

10 April 2022: First mow of the season today. It was cloudy and cold, but the grass--tall, so green, lush--itself made it clear: spring is here. Though I was stressed about taking the time to get it done before it got out of control--and it's been so rainy that this was the first chance, it felt good to be out there pushing the mower. There's so much on my mind these days but tasks like these--that just demand your attention but also give you time to pause and think--are welcome. 

The sun came out later and I snapped a picture. Nothing too gorgeous yet. The dogwood has yet to bloom, but the greenness is lovely. And I still get excited over a clean and neat lawn.

Sentences I never thought I would type...

9 April 2022: Just submitted my first-ever Congressional Directed Spending Request. What is my life? But seriously, I am glad to have this done and really hope we get it. 

A busy, work-filled weekend ahead of me (typing this just before noon), so the bit of fun mixed in--meeting Kaitlyn and Kenny's baby for the first time this afternoon--will be quite welcome. 

Bringer of treats...

8 April 2022: Today was so long and insanely busy, but I took some time to go to the Sweet Shop to get some treats to bring to folks on campus who have been helping out with various projects. I am not kidding: doing that made me feel so good that I am going to make it a habit, I think. I got out of the office for a bit, took in some sunshine (for the brief period it was out), got even more steps in, and made people happy. Amazing serotonin lift.

A bright spot...

7 April 2022: Hard to imagine sweeter words to read in an email about a publication than these: "the readers did not request any additional revisions of your article." In fact, from the start this one has kind of coasted right through. On another rainy day with lots to do, this was a heck of a nice thing to receive.

Energy images...

6 April 2022: Two statements I heard today that made me marvel at the poetry we hear in everyday language--and both were about energy.

1) A little girl having walked up the two flights of Knutti steps, telling her mother, "My legs are out of breath!" 

2) A student showing me the pages she generated quite quickly last night: "I got a splurge of energy..." I liked this one because it was a sort of portmanteau (splurge/surge) and malapropism that still works--like, she had fun writing those pages, like you would splurging on something.

"the most ordinary thing about human beings..."

5 April 2022: "And I want that. To prove that the most ordinary thing about human beings is not violence or greed, but love and care. To prove it to whom, I wonder? Myself, maybe." --Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You?

Finished listening to this book this morning. Its ending pleased me: it's not naive or unblinkingly optimistic, but it is forward-looking and quietly hopeful in the face of a painful world. It rests in that beautiful paradox that an individual doesn't really matter, but that what an individual does always matters. Felt right and earned.  

Sans Merci

4 April 2022: Whew, this Monday kicked my butt. Long and frustrating and stressful. So to end it by going to the first in-person Sans Merci release party since 2019 was such a respite. Talented students showcasing their work, honoring and celebrating each other--what's not to like? Another one of those events when every student I see, I think to myself, "One of my favorites!" Such a blessing.  

"All I Know"

3 April 2022: This morning, I listened to a Mark and Sarah Talk About Songs episode that introduced me to this version of the song (in their discussion of the better-known Art Garfunkel version). Jimmy Webb wrote it originally and it's really cool to hear his interpretation. Adding in Linda Ronstadt is never a bad thing. Anyway, it's giving some perfect, quiet, melancholy, wistful, cloudy Sunday vibes.

"'we're engaged!'"

2 April 2022: "I love TV. And if you're about to say, 'Well, why don't you marry it?' you should know that we're engaged!" --Gene Belcher, in "Ancient Misbehavin'" 

This isn't the funniest line in the episode, but given that I am re-watching it just as I wrap up a complete draft of my Watanna entry and am using TV as my "big" reward/fun thing on a Saturday night, let's say it hit close to home. Sigh.

Romeo and Juliet

1 April 2022: Friday vibes were all over the place; some good stuff, some hard and frustrating stuff. But by the evening, they settled into quite nice. Hannah and I had dinner and then saw the Rude Mechanicals' production of Romeo and Juliet, which was quite entertaining. A perfect way to end the work week.