"Desiree's Baby"

12 October 2016: Wednesday was a long and busy day, but like so many others, a good one. One of the highlights was teaching "Desiree's Baby" in my ENGL 204 class. This is probably in my top five of the pieces I teach in this class. It never fails and teaching it is always energizing and exciting. So we'll call this story Wednesday's good thing.

Heck of a rant...

11 October 2016: This twitter rant is today's good thing. I see so much that I recognize here--this was me not too many years ago, realizing that I could no longer defend or identify with the part that I used to love.

Sometimes humor really saves you...

I'm a Muslim, and I would like to report a crazy man threatening a woman on a stage in Missouri.  #debate

— Moustafa Bayoumi (@BayoumiMoustafa) October 10, 2016

Here are some more great ones from last night's debacle.

Midterm grading: DONE!

9 October 2016: Made it through this stack of grading.

Now heading home to mow the lawn, get some more work done, and get ready for whatever the heck will happen during the debate. But first, some chair dancing.

Happy birthday...

Thinking a lot about this guy today. Wishing I could talk to him, buy him a present, tell him I love him. He would be 42 today.

Canadian Thanksgiving

8 October 2016: After another long day of grading (midterms week, y'all), I found myself enjoying yet another lovely dinner break, this time with some friends/colleagues who invited people over for Canadian Thanksgiving. My Canadian host and his American wife are just wonderful people and this dinner was a perfect extended pause on what has been a crazy couple of weeks.

Kelsey and Emily

7 October 2016: After a long day of grading, the highlight of my Friday was definitely having dinner with Tim and Kelsey and Emily, two of our former students. Emily is now kicking butt as a reporter for the local paper and Kelsey is about to head to California and start a position with AmeriCorps. Quite simply, they are the best. We miss having them around every day, but moving on is what they are supposed to do. (It's one of those wonderful/sad things about this job...the good ones leave, too, but then they go out and make the world better...) Anyway, it's lovely when they keep in touch.

Anthony Ray Hinton

7 October 2016: I have been to a lot of terrific events at Shepherd, but I've never been to an event like the one I attended on Thursday. Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent 30 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit, was like no speaker I'd seen before. I was riveted, as was the entire audience.

Check out this article about his talk--an article written by one of my all-time favorite former students, by the way.

And cheers to Shepherd's Common Reading Program. I am proud to have been a part of this committee since my second year at Shepherd and I continue to be excited by the work we do.

Graduation application

5 October 2016: I met today with one of my advisees who has, as I told her, one of my all-time favorite advising stories. Basically, we first met when she was a freshman and a major in another department. She took my ENGL 101 class and did just fine. I do remember thinking she seemed to have a bit of an attitude and seemed kind of angry (often signs of immaturity), but otherwise, she was fine. After that, she (understandably) fell off my radar.

Imagine my surprise when, over a year after I met her in that class, she showed up on my list of new advisees, returning as a student on probation--and one who had now declared an English major. She had, the previous semester, been forced to sit out. Now here's the deal: lots (most?) of the students who return and are on probation...they don't do well. So I was really skeptical.

And I was proven so completely wrong.

Each semester, she took just what she could manage, knew her limits, applied herself...and freakin' killed it. She's been amazing. And today we filled out her graduation application. I love being wrong when it's like this.

"Down to the River to Pray"

4 October 2016: Heard this song mentioned on one of my favorite podcasts and then listened to it while walking down by the river today. Quite a nice moment.

That student...

3 October 2016: It is always a pleasure to work with that student--the one who stood out to you from the first day you met her. The one who pushes herself to do even better than you expected. The one whose writing makes you nod your head emphatically, stop and think, and sometimes say "wow" under your breath because she's that good. When that student comes to your office hours to talk about her done-three-days-early midterm essay because she wants to make it even better, that meeting--which will be a blast--is definitely that day's good thing.

"Wherever Is Your Heart"

2 October 2016: Today's good thing is this Brandi Carlile song, one that got my day off to a good start and helped me get a lot done, some of it work-work, some of it house/yard work, and some of it just relaxing.

Don't Breathe

1 October 2016: Today was another chilly and rainy day, which isn't great. However, seeing Don't Breathe today with my friend Amy was great, and maybe the gloomy weather (on the first day of October, no less!) added to the effect. It's a heck of a film: disturbing but really ambitious and fascinating.

Reading Emily Dickinson

30 September 2016: I got to participate in a really cool event on Friday night: an annual fundraiser for the Shepherdstown Public Library. It's an evening of poetry and music and I was invited to read Emily Dickinson's poetry. (All of the other readers are actual poets who read their own works.) Honestly, I was a bit nervous before taking the stage, so to speak, which is strange because I speak to big groups all the time. Maybe the difference this time was that these folks had paid good money to be entertained? Once I got going, though, it was a blast. Emily never fails to entertain. What fun!

Apple pancakes

29 September 2016: Dinner at IHOP with two good friends at the end of a chilly and rainy day? Not bad at all. And these yummy apple pancakes? Yup, they can be today's good thing.