Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Random bullets of again with the start of classes

  • Somehow, I got done everything I intended to get done over break. (Well, except for assembling an album of wedding photos.) I'm not sure this has ever happened in my entire life.
  • It's been strangely unwinterlike here in the land of winter--we've had virtually no snow this year. And it's light perceptibly later each evening. I dare to hope.
  • I'm teaching one entirely new, one totally re-designed, and one slightly reshuffled class. So far it feels like the right blend of the comfortable and the challenging.
  • I'm particularly pleased by my plans for my composition class, which I was rather dreading (I haven't taught comp for a few semesters, and the last two times were to Honors kids). But my old syllabus and assignments really needed shaking up, and the prospect of reading NEW THINGS does wonders for a bad attitude.
  • So far so good on my tenure case. There is, I think, only one more level of review that matters--after that it's just rubber-stamping.
  • I'm almost done with this round of book revisions.
  • I bought a second-hand raccoon coat (probably 1960s, mid-thigh length). It's indescribably awesome.
  • Our second bedroom is now fully furnished. The cats are happy. Any guests we eventually have may not be so happy.
  • The fact that I am not getting married, not co-organizing a lecture series, not preparing my tenure file, and not co-teaching a totally new class means the beginning of the semester feels calm, unoppressive, doable. (Remind me not to do all those things at once again, will ya?)

3 comments:

Sisyphus said...

Not to nitpick or anything but I'm pretty sure, from the shoulders, that it's a 20s coat.

It has also been strangely unwinterlike here too! I hope that is just a pleasant diversion and not some sort of sign of the impending apocalypse.

Flavia said...

Sis: Huh! You think so? What about the shoulders? I was judging by the fact that its cut is nearly identical to the white mink coat I inherited several years ago from a co-worker of my mom's, and which I believe I was told was from the 1960s. (The mink is no more--its pelts were dried out and tore, and I bought the raccoon more or less as its replacement.)

The label has been cut out of the coat, so I can't judge by that; I should have asked the furrier when they cleaned it, but I'll ask when I take it back for storage.

Sisyphus said...

I'd have to see it on (well, no, you know I'm just talking out of my ass rather than being a professional furrier) but the huge lapels, fairly fitted shoulders, and then massive size everywhere else is very 20s women's coat (to make you look slender and delicate under this big whomping coat).