I Care a Lot

 28 February 2021: 

Same energy...

(This is only funny if you've seen the movie...and know the cat.)

This is a fun movie. The performances are excellent. I texted Hannah and told her it is precisely the kind of movie we would have seen and then talked about afterwards at Waffle House. Oh well. 

WV Symposium, 2021

 27 February 2021: I am not exaggerating when I say that all of my classes, particularly my Emily Dickinson seminar, helped me get through these extraordinary days. Today, I got to hear three of my Dickinson students present their amazing work at the WV Undergraduate Literature Symposium. I just sat back, watched them shine, and remembered how very lucky I am. (My students are the three young women in middle of the second row.)

Back to Middlemarch

26 February 2021: "One can begin so many things with a new person!—even begin to be a better man." --George Eliot, Middlemarch

Such a pleasure to return to this book again and (re)discover gems like this one, where the narrator hints at Lydgate's appeal for Bulstrode. The book is packed with these very specific insights about its characters that nevertheless still ring true today. 

LBC showing its age

25 February 2021: My beloved Mazda, "Little Blue Car" (LBC for short), is starting to show its age. To be clear, I haven't spent much money on it at all--over 12 years and 160K miles. But today, I had to take it in because the driver's side window wouldn't go all the way up. And a working driver's side window is pretty important in general and even more important in a pandemic, when so many things are better done via drive-through. When I got to the dealer (always my first choice for repairs), one of my favorite former students was working today, a wonderful bonus (we got to catch up and talk about her new baby). 

As I anticipated, it will cost about $300 to fix. How can I not do it, even if I am pretty sure I'll be getting a new car soon-ish? Just feeling lucky that I have the money. As with so much lately, I am continually reminded of my privilege. 

Anyway, they got the window up, ordered the part, and I'll bring it back on Tuesday morning for the repair. Not too bad. And I still managed to make it to all three of my meetings on a day that got coopted by an unexpected car-repair trip to Hagerstown. Again, feeling blessed, but as I said to Hannah via text earlier, in a non-hashtag, unironic way. 

16!

24 February 2021: If I am doing my math right, this little fella turns 16 today. This is one of the very first pictures of him on my blog, from back in 2007 (the year it started). I haven't seen him face-to-face in over a year, but I sure do love him and am looking forward to giving him a call later today.

Generosity

23 February 2021: "The solution is less to try to stamp out variation and more to try to exercise the same kind of generosity with each other as my schoolmates unwittingly extended to me in my 'How are you?' 'Not much' experiments. There's enough genuine malice in the world that we don't need to go hunting for more of it in what is truly a case of harmless difference." --Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet

I finished McCulloch's terrific book just a few minutes ago, and beyond it's wonderful insights about linguistics and the internet, I was continually impressed by her ethos and overall demeanor approaching this topic. Again and again, she encourages openness, generosity, and curiosity over judgement, denigration, and dismissal. It's a wonderful gesture with ramifications well beyond her subject matter. 

"Overwhelming, if you will"

22 February 2021: "Imagine yourself sitting on the surface of Mars and listening to the surroundings. It's cool, really neat. Overwhelming, if you will." --Dave Gruel, one of the engineers for Perseverance, describing hearing the first ever recorded sound from Mars. 

Two overwhelming stories in today's news. First, the sounds and images from Mars. It's a story that  conjurers words (some of them conflicting) like pride, awe, joy, loneliness. Sometimes I struggle to even imagine Mars, but here it is, on video. And we can hear it, this place we've never been. 

Second: 500,000 COVID deaths in the US. I remember so clearly saying to some friends (via videochat, of course), "Eight thousand Americans--gone! How do you make sense of that?" And here we are at half a million. And it didn't have to be this way.

I guess these stories both make me feel so small, but in different ways. Overwhelming. 

Basketball!

21 February 2021: Earlier today, I felt the urge to just sit on my steps and think about how normal (life before the pandemic) might never come back. It's a feeling that overwhelms me sometimes. 

So when later in the afternoon I got to watch the Shepherd Women's b-ball team play their first game in almost a year (via ESPN+), it made me so happy. I could feel the big old smile on my face as I watched our girls back in action. They gave Liberty (a D1 school) a run for their money and only lost by 8 points. 

They'll only play a handful of game this season, but this one was a blast and a tiny glimpse of normal.

Also, watching these girls play in a big fancy gym with a professional crew (on my HD TV) added some sweetness. 

Yes, he's on all three...

20 February 2021: 

Me, earlier today: I should get those three blankets on the bed and throw them in the laundry. I hope Bing isn't asleep on one of them.

[Arrives upstairs...]

Me: Okay. That can wait.

Another snow day...

19 February 2021: Fighting off some blues today, made worse by the university being closed. Had some scrambling to do to get online assignments up for my classes, but I think they turned out okay. I got some other work done, like my annual report, a ton of emails, etc. I also got my walk in (outside, as opposed to yesterday, when I hit my goal mostly by pacing the first floor).  Just called in for my weekly take-out and will soon settle in for the evening. And so it goes...

Two parents vaccinated...

18 February 2021: My mom got her first shot yesterday and my dad got his today. Deeply relieved and grateful that they've started this process. Feels like a quiet but long-delayed miracle. 

The entire man...

17 February 2021: Day Four of Jane Eyre discussion and the students are unanimous in their view of Rochester. I was playing some mean devil's advocate, but the #youth weren't having it. (This does make me feel reassured re: their romantic choices.) Seventy pages or so to go and I don't imagine their opinions will change much.

"a linguistic trust fall"

16 February 2021: "Irony is a linguistic trust fall. When I write or speak with a double meaning, I fall backwards, hoping you'll be there to catch me. The risks are high: misaimed irony can gravely injure the conversation. But the rewards are high, too: the sublime joy of feeling purely understood, the comfort of knowing someone's on your side. No wonder people through the ages kept trying so hard to write it" --Gretchen McCulloch, Because Internet

Really enjoying this book, which Hannah enthusiastically recommended to me. I am going to use it to help structure my summer class, so I've been thinking about it on a bunch of levels. 

Counting shots...

15 February 2021: In the past two days, three of my favorite people in the world (Beth, Tim, and Hannah) got their first doses of the vaccine (along with a bunch of my other co-workers). My parents have appointment for this week, thanks to Tara's dogged efforts on the Walgreen's website. Each one of these makes me feel such relief even though still have a long way to go. 

Flashback: 1998

 14 February 2021: Just got done offering some feedback to a recent graduate who is working on a statement of purpose for a graduate program. Every time I get asked to do one of these, I say, "You know I haven't done one of these since 1998..." And because of how time works, every year 1998 is further away.

Yet I always end up recycling some of the advice my advisor gave me back in 1998: give us your voice, find the little stories you can tell in a phrase or an example, make us see you. It's not easy to do--to blend the academic and the personal, argue a thesis that is about you. But when you can do it, it works really well. 

Anyway, no doubt because I am currently reading Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch, my thoughts went back to my "hook" for my own statement--the story of finding myself going down an internet rabbit hole to learn everything I could about Christina Rossetti. It's kind of funny now. In 1998, after all, the internet was still a bit "new" for many of us. Clear as day, I can see my advisor telling me he liked it a lot, but I wanted to be careful not to come off as some "cyber-punk." He had even written "cyber-punk?" in the margin. You know, I didn't want to scare off professors by seeming too obsessed with this internet thing. Ha. Very 1998.