4/29: the last regularly scheduled office hour
...of the academic year was this afternoon, and it was a good one. A student reflected very thoughtfully on a project they had recently finished.
4/28: receiving official word
...about the decision of a student conduct case that's taken up a lot of mental and emotional space.
4/27: Charlotte's words
Every week since the end of October I've been posting a new positive/encouraging adjective derived from Latin or Greek elements on the bulletin board at school. It reminds me of how Charlotte in Charlotte's Web wove words. She did it to attract attention to Wilbur; I'm just trying to have some goodness available for people's eyes (and minds) as they walk by the board. A colleague today mentioned how much she likes seeing them.
4/26: 4 Bs
...on my morning walk: bees, butterflies, a bunny, and berries (as yet unripe, but something to look forward to).
4/25: the luxury
...of having two rice makers. While one is cooking jasmine brown rice, the other is working on Jasberry rice. (I like to mix the two when making fried rice.)
4/24: re-reading
...the last bit of "The Old Vicarage, Grantchester." It goes:
Say, is there Beauty yet to find?And Certainty? and Quiet kind?Deep meadows yet, for to forgetThe lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yetStands the Church clock at ten to three?And is there honey still for tea?
4/23: a trio of good things
On my drive to school I saw a decommissioned school bus that had some of its letters whited-out so it said "cool bus."
I forgot to bring soy milk to school for my coffee, so I used some of my "free" money in the snack shop to buy chocolate soy milk to use instead.
Our Ovidian stories for the day's reading in Myth class show up in Shakespeare, so I could give shout-outs on Shakespeare's birthday. (The timing wasn't planned, just luck.)
4/22: being glad
...that we read Victoria Turnbull's Pandora for today's picturebooks class meeting. It's a tired and tiring time of the semester, and Turnbull's book was oh-so-welcome amidst the busy-ness and exhaustion. And I really liked hearing the students' thoughts: each one took a different 2-page "opening" and talked through what they liked about it.
4/21: seeing a bronze cat
...sculpture on a bench outside the library. It was last year's senior class gift, dedicated in honor of one of the former campus cats who had claimed that area as his territory.
4/20: no appointments
...in my regular office hours this afternoon. This may be the first time in years that that's been the case. I like working with students, and that's what office hours are for, but today it was a welcome change to have some time to catch up on other work.
4/19: picking up prescriptions
...in a hassle-free way. For months the pharmacy's fulfillment system hadn't been working smoothly. Prescriptions would get stalled in the automated queue, leading to extra check-ins with the pharmacy to move the process along. It seems to be working correctly now (knock on wood), which is welcome on my end and I'm sure is better for the pharmacy people too.
4/18: remembering
...a good thing from Friday morning. As I was walking to my car to head to school, a neighborhood cat ran by with a lizard in its mouth. I got the cat to drop the lizard, which managed to get away before the cat could catch it again.
4/17: remembering another good thing
...from yesterday. Yesterday morning, as I was getting ready to leave for school, I noticed some blue stains near the hem of my pants that weren't there when I had ironed them a little earlier. I showed them to Chris, and he asked, "Did you walk by any spiderwort?" I had: I had passed spiderwort as I was taking out some garbage and must have rubbed against them. I didn't mind the stains so much then: I was wearing flowers. Remembering that this morning--when I was again taking out some trash--made me smile.
4/15: folding
...artist-book poem pamphlets with a student at the end of the day. Though it prolonged my time at school, it was a good interaction.
4/14: reading
...a student's thoughts about milk in "The Miraculous Pitcher" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
4/13: reading
...Yeats' "Song of Wondering Aengus" today in A Poem for Every Day of the Year. I remember first reading it in Cricket magazine when I was a kid.
4/11: black seed powder
...in my coffee and in my fried rice. I'm trying it out for its possible health benefits, and I like the taste.
4/10: a lacewing
...that I helped get out of the house this evening. Such a beautiful green body and amazing wings.
4/9: morning & evening
Receiving a Facebook message this morning from a mail-art friend who took a picture of clouds reflected on water and wanted to share it with me to let me know she was thinking of me.
Smelling flowers in the night air when I got home from an evening work-session at school.
4/8: remarking
...on the amazing weather with a colleague heading to their car at the same time I was. We lingered and talked about various things, appreciating the chance to pass a few words while enjoying the air and light and greenness.
4/5: having stollen
...for breakfast. I made it yesterday but didn't try it until this morning. It baked well (which was particularly happy, since the stollen loaves I made at Christmas and New Year were less successful, though still good). Before putting it in a tight container last night, I drizzled it with a lemon juice + powdered sugar glaze (something I usually forgo in order to cut down on sugar), and it was the right extra touch.
4/4: waiting
...until today to read yesterday's poem in A Poem for Every Day of the Year. When I opened the book yesterday morning and saw that it was a multiple-page "nonsense" poem by Edward Lear, I felt like I wasn't in the right place to read it and enjoy it. This morning I was.
4/2: some beauty
...at the end of a very unsettling day. As some lucky relief, for my last bit of work this evening I got to read the end of Hawthorne's Wonder Book.
4/1: no new grammar lesson
...in Latin class today. We needed a breather, and we spent the day working on translations together.
3/30: making
...a double batch of fried rice in the morning so that I could take it to school for lunch today and tomorrow.
3/28: trying
...a new-to-us and relatively new-in-town restaurant for lunch. We haven't been going out to eat much at all in the past 6 years, and when I think back on how often we used to eat out, I'm a little shocked. It makes it more of an Event when we go to restaurants now. Today's fare: burrata with endive leaves and a honey balsamic dressing, then some pizza.
3/26: hearing and watching
...conference videos in preparation for the conference meeting on Sunday. There were some good things to learn about and think about! And I kept myself focused by making some scribble books as I listened.
3/25: finding
...the main source of a cat smell in my home office that has been eluding (and vexing!) me. I know: this is not a particularly pleasant "good thing" to post, but the smell was so much less than pleasant that finding it and, with luck, getting it gone is worth noting.
3/24: doing
...spring break things: reading for pleasure, taking a walk on a weekday, working on house tasks, watching a movie, fiddling with a pamphlet.
3/23: a good temperature
...for walking outside this morning. It felt good to do before dealing with some work-tasks in the afternoon and evening.
3/22: working
...on formatting a pamphlet for which I did the initial erasure almost 4 years ago. The format isn't finished (more possibilities to try and tinkering to do), but it feels good for it to be actually underway.
3/21: postponing
...chores until tomorrow so that the first day of spring break could be a day of rest.
3/20: a surprise
...thank-you card and gift certificate from a former advisee, left in my mail-holder this afternoon.
3/17: looking at
..."Typhon," a painting by Peter Tobias, with my Myth students. I'm always glad when I find a more abstract piece that I can use in class, and the students seemed to enjoy talking about this one.
3/16: lens wipes
...from last century, probably the 1960s or 70s. Chris brought some quality lens-cleaning sheets back from his last visit to New Jersey. His father must have had them for his cameras or other equipment. I am using them to clean my glasses, and they are really (really) good.
3/12: hearing
...the students' thoughts about Aman-Jean's painting of Hesiod and the Muse (link here). I show it most years in the Myth class, and I think this year's comments about it were especially good. It's also a nice reminder of my years in Los Angeles, during which I came across this painting in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
3/11: finally
...the forsythia is blooming. Its flowers are later than the other forsythia bushes on the ridge, so I had begun to think that it might not blossom at all this year. I'm glad I was wrong.
3/10: falling
...when I got out of the car at the end of the day was not a good thing. But I was glad that I was at home when I did it (rather than school), that it didn't damage my clothes, that I was wearing my wrist brace (so that I didn't further damage my wrist), and that my shirt had long sleeves (so even though the cut is bad, it didn't get dirty).
3/9: reading
...Richmond Lattimore's translation of Hesiod's Theogony in preparation for tomorrow's Myth class. It's the version through which I first encountered the Theogony (back in 1988 I think?), but I've used different translations when I've taught the text. Re-reading it now makes me realize why I liked the poem so much when I first encountered it those many years ago.
3/8: visiting
...the flowering plum trees in the woods on the ridge. It is a good year for them, and Chris and I spotted many that we did not know about (or did not remember from 2021, the last unexpectedly robust plum year when we did a survey).
3/3: reading
...Hawthorne's description of Shadow Brook and remembering being there with Chris. Meeting up with that paragraph this evening gave me a boost I really needed.
3/2: tomato galette
...leftovers for dinner. It was nice, at the end of a weird day, to have to make only a little salad to go with food I'd made over the weekend.
3/1: returning
...to our brownie experiments. How long to bake them so that they're done but not overdone? What counts as "just right?" Today's time, 28 minutes, might be the answer.
2/26: end-of-the-day
...conversations with colleagues. They weren't long, but they were genuine. One colleague mentioned that she had heard about my pamphlets being exhibited and offered congratulations; the other shared impressions of the semester so far and the challenges it's presented.
2/25: simultaneously
...reading Hawthorne's Wonder Book and Walpole's Castle of Otranto and noticing some similarities.
2/24: looking at similes
...in the Odyssey with students. They noticed and thought of many good things.
2/21: seeing
...a dandelion during my morning walk and the beginnings of blooms on the Japanese quince on our deck. It made me remember that I also saw dandelions and Japanese quince blossoms at school this week.
2/19: the beginnings
...of tree blooms. The magnolias on campus are opening up, and I saw some blossoms on other trees as I drove to school this morning.
2/17: taking the time
...to make Shrove Tuesday pancakes even though it was a long day and we both had work to do in the evening. The lemon sauce turned out well, and I remembered just in time that last year I added za'atar to the crepes and it was good, so I did it again this year.
2/16: organizing
...a long shopping list to make the grocering smoother. (I know: obvious. But I usually don't do it, which leads to a fair amount of backtracking.)
2/15: getting out
...of a funk by making good-for-me (Jasberry) rice, taking a walk, watching the water, and beginning to listen to Love, Sex, and Frankenstein by Caroline Lea.
2/12: having
...lunch at home on a school day. It felt like a luxury to do course prep at home in the morning and make myself fried rice before heading in to teach.
2/11: posting
...the last of the poems for Heron Tree volume 12. There's still the PDF compilation of all the volume 12 poems to put together this summer, but tonight's posting marks the end of an era, since we'll be taking a hiatus from Heron Tree. Though Chris and I both need a break from being publishers, I'm glad we did it. It's something we had wanted to do for a long time, so now no regrets. I also learned a lot, made connections, and re-engaged poetry--things I'm grateful for.
2/10: realizing
...that I needed to explain to the students that a page is not just a conveyer of information: it can be an experience.
2/9: listening
...to Frolic Architecture by Susan Howe and David Grubbs, which I learned about through a friend's Facebook post.
2/8: quiet writing
...this morning. It was a little shorter than usual because I wanted to make time for a walk before lunch, but I managed to write myself into some clarity about an upcoming assignment I need to devise for one class and to begin sketching plans for a new pamphlet (prompted by the Swift vowel riddle poem).
2/7: morning, afternoon, evening
In the morning I wrote valentines. In the afternoon I mailed them and took a walk. In the evening I worked through a stack of grading.
2/5: learning the names
...of the Myth students. Many of them seemed happy when I called on them correctly in class and even supportive when I had to pause for a second to remember who they were.
2/4: a benefit
...of a boring TV show: it helped me fall asleep when I was too wound up to concentrate on bedtime reading.
2/3: beginning
...The Odyssey in the Myth class. It's the first time I'm using Emily Wilson's translation, and though I've been glad to teach Robert Fagles' translation in the past, it's good to have a change. I also had to change the first day of readings to start to make up for last week's cancellations due to weather. We read both Book 1 and Book 2 for today (instead of just Book 1). That worked well and took us comfortably just to the end of class.
2/1: being glad
...that I found Ruth Manning-Sanders' short story "The Skull" so that students could compare it with Jon Klassen's picturebook The Skull. (Klassen was inspired by Manning-Sanders' short story but takes the tale in different directions.) I'm looking forward to tomorrow's class discussion.
1/31: reading
...The Book about Moomin, Mymble, and Little My out loud to Chris as just a little pleasure this morning.
1/29: dandelions
...on a card in the mail. It was an unexpected and very welcome note, and the fact that the card had dandelions on it put a smile on my face even before I read the message.
1/27: listening
...to 2 pieces by Pancrace Royer which were mentioned in a novel I was reading today: Le Vertigo and La Marche des Scythes.
Later in the evening I texted my brother about them, and he suggested that I compare La Marche des Scythes to Yngwie Malmsteen's (metal) guitar music, a connection I never would have made.
1/26: using
...brown jasmine rice (rather than white rice) for my lunchtime fried rice. I want to see if I can move toward having more whole grains.
1/25: birds
...eating sunflower seeds that Chris had scattered for them. And bluebirds drinking from the heated (hence not iced-over) birdbath.
1/23: seeing
...one of my advisees at her campus job today, and she was so happy to be there working that it made me happy too.
1/22: figuring out
...some logistics for a new ongoing assignment I'm trying with my Myth class this semester, an "illuminated reading diary."
1/19: articulating
...new policies for making up missed class meetings. I don't know how smoothly they'll work out, but I've thought about them a lot. Now it's time to put them into practice, so I added them to the syllabus information I'll distribute when I meet my classes for the first time tomorrow.
1/17: finding
...this (link) image of Cerberus and Psyche by Edmund Dulac as I was thinking about a possible multi-day class activity involving depictions of Cerberus.
1/16: dropping off
...the materials for the travelling exhibit that my pamphlets will be part of. Then Chris and I went out for lunch.
1/11: meeting up
...with a poem I remember from my childhood. Instead of getting a page-a-day art calendar, I bought myself A Poem for Every Day of the Year, and today's offering was a Robert Frost poem that I remember from a grade-school reader. I can even picture the illustration that was in the textbook: a crow in motion amid snow shaken from a tree.
And another good thing: Emma the Cat realizing--as soon as we walked in the door at lunchtime--that we had brought french fries home. He loves them, so I gave him a few, and it made me happy to see him so happy.
1/9: connecting
...a poem by George Herbert to Hesiod's Works and Days and Hawthorne's story of Pandora in his Wonder-Book.
1/8: making
...jelly donut cake with Chris and, while it was baking, writing a business-y email I had been putting off.
1/7: 2 things
From the morning: While eating breakfast, I watched a video of Mary Beard's lecture for the Friends of the Bodleian. A former student had sent me the link. It was about the representation of libraries as places of danger and mystery (in, for example, fiction).
From the evening: When I went to post this week's Heron Tree poem, the site wasn't accessible because the security certification installation process got stalled. Needless to say, that wasn't good. But after a freak-out / melt-down, I contacted the folks at DreamHost, and it got sorted out. The relative quickness of the sorting-out was good.
1/6: writing thank-you cards
...for holiday gifts. Since today is the Epiphany (the "end" of the Christmas season), it seemed a fitting way to mark the close.
1/5: oregano
...on the pizza at the new-to-us pizza place we tried at lunchtime! I love oregano on pizza because it's what I grew up with--it was pretty much standard on pizza in western Pennsylvania. But here in Arkansas oregano on pizza is rare, and a lot of places don't even have oregano on hand when I ask for it specially, so I've stopped hoping for it. Which made today's unasked-for oregano a happy surprise.
1/4: less busy
...at the grocery store this morning. I'm glad I decided not to go yesterday afternoon.
1/3: getting to it
I need to make copies of old pamphlets for an upcoming exhibit, and the prospect has been difficult for me to face. Not because making the pamphlets is hard, but because the exhibit context is so different from my usual m.o., and that's thrown me for more of a psychological loop than I anticipated. This evening I finally got started, and I'm hoping to finish tomorrow.
1/2: morning, afternoon, evening
Morning: talking with Chris about The Great Gatsby.
Afternoon: walking solo in the cool grey day.
Evening: collaging with Chris.
1/1: a walk
...in the woods at Woolly Hollow. We wanted to end at Gold Creek, but the creek-bed was dry. Still, the light and air were good, and other people were enjoying time outdoors too.
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