Archive for category Academics

If I’ve been a bit absent of late, there’s a reason: The 4 weeks or so that I’m right in the middle of at the moment are probably my busiest of the year.

First off, there’s the teaching load. Papers have been coming in for each of my classes, and having two new courses to teach this term that require “from scratch” preparation — my Tolkien lecture class and Medieval Outlaws — is sucking up a lot of otherwise free time. Oh, and I also have a couple of big mid-terms to write.

Second, there’s The Shako, the literary magazine of The Citadel. It’s a lot of fun to run, and through much of the year it’s a piece of cake. But for about a month of the year it’s intense work. This is especially true in the week or so leading up to the submission of the journal to the printer. That’s this week.

Third, there’s my annual review. Every year the department meets to determine whether I’ll be able to continue my employment here at The Citadel. (In a few years, after I hopefully get tenure, they’ll meet to pass judgment on my performance, but it won’t be quite the job threat that it is now.) For this meeting I have to put together a Personal Data Sheet (PDS), which is really a multi-page, single-spaced narrative of what I’ve done this year along with all the supporting documentation thereof: tests, graded papers, publications, work in progress, student evaluations, and a partridge in a pear tree.

Fourth, there’s the Brunanburh book I’m putting together. It’s in the last gasps as we heave toward the finish line, legs and lungs are burning. That’s good news, of course, but it also means lots of last-minute, must-act-now items.

Fifth, there’s the family that one doesn’t dare lose track of in the tumult. As busy as I am, time must be found to run around with the kids. Or, as I did this morning, to walk the boy to preschool.

Sixth, there’s the 10 minutes I set aside to write this summary. Actually pushing 13 minutes now, which means I need to take my leave.

What’s my life like these days? Well, here’s a selection of snapshots from my life this past week:

Saturday, 2:54 pm. Idly thinking about what Wednesday’s Tolkien lecture will focus on, I begin to ponder the possibility of a new philological reading for a line in The Hobbit. The idea is scribbled on a slip of paper upon my desk, where it will languish among the dozens of other article topics I don’t have time to write up.

Sunday, 4:02 pm. Our 9-month-old daughter is a guided missile for the staircase. Set her down on one side of the house and — zoom! — she’s fast-crawling like a Marine, headed for the foot of the stairs. Up and up to the top, giggling to herself. Catch her, set her down in a new place, and she’ll head back to it. Spin her around, try to confuse her, and like a carrier pigeon it won’t matter. My iPhone and my baby are both GPS-enabled.

Monday, 7:08 am. I wake up feeling the twinges of an illness coming on. The subsequent week will find me fighting off some plague caught from my cadets and/or my son; as a result, my voice teeters on the edge of breaking and I’m far more tired than I’d like. The need to project across the 30+ kids of my Tolkien class does not help, but I love them (and the class) anyway.

Tuesday, 9:15 am. My daughter sets a new personal record by standing unaided for over a minute. You go, girl.

Wednesday, 11:38 pm. I’m poring over manuscript readings for the Old English Battle of Brunanburh poem, trying to determine which rune I should use on a given line of the casebook’s edition. For the record, I decide on an eth.

Thurdsay, 9:04 am. The little girl decides to try walking. Two steps, boom! Stands up. Three steps, boom! Stands up. Four steps, boom! Crawls for the next few minutes.

Thursday, 6:10 pm. Sitting down at the dinner table, I reach across to tussle my son’s hair. He smiles through a face splattered with burrito stuffings. “Can I have your hair?” I ask.

The boy stops chewing, and his innocent eyes look up at my shaved head. Then one of his hands rises to pull upward on a fistful of his own thick locks. “No, Daddy,” he says. “It’s really stuck.”

Thursday, 7:18 pm. Burrito + hair = boy in bathtub. Baby sister joins him for a bit of clean-up (her problem is smushed graham crackers) and the fun lasts a few minutes before the elder child is booted from the bathroom for refusing to share bathtoys. Much screaming ensues.

Friday, 5:11 pm. After a long afternoon of working on some stressful Brunanburh matters, I arrive home to two rambunctious kids. The boy wants me to swing him around. The girl wants me to watch her latest attempt to climb the stairs while carrying a rubber duck. I tell everyone to hold off while I go change out of my uniform. Within five minutes I will have broken two toes on my right foot.

Friday, 11:01 pm. The pain of my toes sends me to bed early. I spend some time thinking through a novel idea (literally an idea for a novel). I decide the idea is sound but still in need of revision. It is subsequently pushed to burner #5 in my mind.

Saturday, 8:46 am. I notice some very fascinating patterns of color on my toes. The next ten minutes are passed in a close examination and a series of flexing exercises to determine how much I can live with the pain. Wife advises urgent care. I decide in favor of some mole skin and an old roll of athletic tape. In hindsight, I’ll wonder if duct-tape would have been more appropriate for the mood.

Saturday, 7:32 pm. I’m putting my son to bed, just getting him tucked in, when he (shall we say) passes wind rather loudly. He giggles a bit, but I try to ignore it (the time for high-fives will come later). But then he suddenly sits bolt upright in bed. “I saw something,” he says.

“Oh? What did you see?” I ask, expecting him to say shadows.

“I saw something bubbling,” he says.

“Bubbling?”

“Don’t worry,” he says, “it was only my butt.” And he laughs and laughs and laughs.