Geez, two weeks since I last posted an entry? Shows you where blogging is on my list of priorities. So, what have I been doing?

Reading, mostly. I finished my ninth book in three weeks tonight. If you’re interested to see what I’ve been reading, count backwards on this list (or everything between Gordon Henry’s The Light People and The Kingdom of This World by Alejo Carpentier. Tomorrow I begin Gerald Vizenor’s Bearheart, and I plan on finishing Ben Okri’s The Famished Road and hopefully one or two others before school starts again on the 25th.

I also finished my prelim rationale and book list and sent it along to my committee. Two have already signed off adding a book a piece (gah!), but I’m still waiting on two others. My minor area of “digital pedagogy” currently has about 12 books and 70-some articles and that’s probably going to grow, but hopefully not too too much or I’m down the proverbial creek. Fingers crossed all goes well.

Over the past couple days I’ve been plugging away at my spring courses, College Writing and Research and Intro to Creative Writing. In the former I’m changing very little, and in the latter I’m changing quite a lot. I’m also setting up custom websites for both and I plan on using D2L for a bare minimum, although that bare minimum will include submitting all assignments and the grading. This way students can have an accounting of how they’re doing as the semester goes on, and allows me to keep all versions of their work so I can quickly compare draft one to subsequent drafts.

A number of my colleagues have noted a lot of students lobbying (*cough*whining*cough*) for better grades at the end of the semester. I too have noted students trying to apply pressure on me for a specific grade, and I have to say it doesn’t go down well especially when they’ve done mediocre work for most of the semester. (As a related side note, two students have asked “What does it take to get an A in this class?” in the first couple weeks, and then went on to be two of the lazier students I’ve ever had. As if asking the question somehow convinces me from the get-go that they’ve got the right stuff.)

The biggest and most disturbing news to come out of the world of soccer has been the machine gun attack on the Togo National Team’s bus during the African Cup of Nations. Every once in awhile, a news story really strikes home and this one has unsettled me a lot. I think it’s because with the World Cup in South Africa this summer, this was supposed to be the year to showcase the brilliance of African football, but this event sends all the wrong messages. It’s tragic, and my heart goes out to the families, the players, and the fans who should be celebrating the exciting of a major tournament rather than mourning the needless loss of life.

I can’t keep up with all of the twists and turns in the Premier League anymore. One week it looks like Ars*nal are out of the title race and Liverpool will be lucky to finish sixth, then the next week it looks like Ars*nal are contenders once again and Liverpool are right in the mix. And Man Ure and Chelski can’t decide whether they’re even going to put their foot down on the pedal or not. Crazy, riveting stuff. The same is true for the teams chasing fourth, including Tottenham, Villa, and Citeh.

I would much prefer the leagues in England, Spain, and Italy to resemble the German Bundesliga in terms of the competitive aspect. Every year there are six or seven teams vying for the title, which makes it much more exciting to follow than Spain (is it going to be Barcelona or Real Madrid) or the constant shuffling of the top four in England and, to a lesser extent, in Italy. With Man Ure and Liverpool in dire financial trouble right now and Citeh being bankrolled by billionaires, the order could be upset in the next decade. And not a decade too soon…

My story “The Lighthouse Keeper’s Daughter” is now online at Zahir: A Journal of Speculative Fiction. Go read it!

In other news, Ellen Datlow has been forwarding the reviews of The Best Horror of the Year #1 to the book’s contributors and they’re overwhelmingly positive, although a few people complain that the stories aren’t scary enough—which as Ellen points out, horror works in a variety of ways. One Amazon reviewer says that “‘The Hodag’ is the kind of story I would write if I could write better,” which is probably the best compliment I’ve ever received, full stop. The vast majority of reviews, both good and bad, haven’t singled out my story for individual comments but that’s okay. A lot of gushing reviews say the book is great cover to cover, so I’ll take it!

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Yay! for the Badgers, whipping up on Miami in their bowl game. I had serious doubts about this one. And boo! on the Packers for losing to Phoenix, having spotted them the first 14 points. Oh well, better to lose to the Cards than F*vre…

I’ve been playing a lot (too much?) indoor lately, both on the O30 team I signed up for and the open-division team that’s perpetually short of players. Both teams started out hot with a streak of wins, and both teams have hit the skids having lost the last several. I’ve got a strong goal streak going having scored in the last six games or so (including a hat-trick a couple weeks back) but too many of these are in losing causes. Still, I’d rather be scoring goals and losing than not scoring goals and losing. I would take not scoring goals and winning over both, though.

Current Mood: Sure |
Currently Listening To – Wilco – “A.M.”