Why "Idyll"

This morning, passing through Idyll, I saw a group of children from the Montessori school (5th/6th graders, maybe) demonstrating on behalf of the Snap program, and, about 15 seconds later, an older man with a bagpipe in fully kilted attire.

Other reasons that I call this town Idyll, and the university Idyllic State:

Functionally free public transportation; an endless succession of town fairs, festivals, and markets; aging hippies handing out Bernie materials; a very strong union culture; activist students; multiethnic, multilingual children frolicking in town squares; hand-painted wooden signs for Christmas tree sales; abundant farmers' markets; "Support Local Agriculture" signs and stickers on every third car, every second restaurant window, and every university food service table; people who, when they find out that you've just moved here, enthusiastically say, "Welcome to the [topographical feature]!"; distant views of mountains in three directions; eating a cider donut on a town square and watching my son having a skipping race with a little boy he'd just met; stopping in at a coffee shop for lunch and unexpectedly getting to see a ragtime band perform; yoga studios; coffee shops; restaurants; brilliant maples; white-steepled clapboard churches in every single town; winding roads through hills; gangs of wild turkeys roaming our neighborhood and yard; chipmunks; playgrounds; concerts; lovely public libraries; fantastic public schools; a populace who wants to live here.

On the downside: very cold winters, high property taxes (which pay for great schools and libraries, so I'm actually okay with this, but it is an expense), and the need to drive everywhere. The only walking that I regularly do is the 10-minute hike to my campus parking lot (yet another downside). But at least the drives are pretty.

(Idyllic State, viewed from the library)

Modern marginalia

In the Idyllic State U Library's copy of the Life of St. Clare, of the pope:

An otherwise dispassionate annotator gets carried away.

Haiku in the persona of a student who does not want to do the in-class activity, which is to write a haiku

I'm not doing this;
writing haikus is no fun.
You can go to hell.




(I came up with this while the students were writing their haikus, and I found that I could neither share it with them nor let it go entirely to waste. So here it is, for you.)

Maybe I'm ready for the end of the semester, after all

I don't feel like we're only 3.5 weeks from exam period. I don't feel that burnt-out, sick-of-everybody Novemberishness, probably because I spend most of each day alone in my office.

But lately, what I really, really want is a day at home, alone.

No offense to my wonderful husband and son! I love spending time with them. But I haven't had a day at home, alone, since we moved into the house, and...I think I need one.

So maybe I'm ready.

On the other hand, the pile of undone work frightens me, and I want to hold off on semester's end until it's smaller, at least.

Well. Three-point-five weeks. I should get to it, I guess.

What's New: Nothing Much

Yeah. So. Today:

• I had an unprecedented six students come to my office hours. Of those, three wanted to talk about their midterm exams and how they could do better on the final. Oddly, never in eight years at Field College did one of my students come to see me about a past exam...although now that I think about it, I typically only gave final exams, not midterms. That would explain it. Never mind. Anyway, I'm glad to have students--especially those who aren't doing terribly well--stop by for help! But wow, that was a tiring two hours.
• Excitingly, two of the students who came by are thinking about majoring or minoring in Comp Lit. And I signed up two new majors last week. Recruiting, yes! (Most students--undergraduate me included--don't really know what Comp Lit is when they get to college. So our major is smaller than it ought to be.)
• Best news of all: I got my hair cut today, for the first time since July. Amazing how good that feels.

Other news.... Hm. I'm feeling pretty mentally fried and am not even close to accomplishing my overly ambitious research goals for the semester, which were

1. To finish an article for an edited collection (done--this was pretty quick)
2. To revise an article that has been boomeranging around for years now (done, sent to writing group; writing group comments received; now I need to read some more stuff and revise AGAIN before I resubmit it. In my loveliest of dreams, that will happen this semester)
3. To submit an abstract for Kalamazoo (done; accepted)
4. To submit another conference abstract (due next month; not drafted)
5. To revise a chapter of my book draft (not started; this is my lowest writing priority at this point)
6. To write another chapter (what on earth was I thinking? I'm working on one, but I'm about 3500 words in, and I have research to do to write this thing, and probably a research trip, so clearly this won't be written this semester. I am working on it, though, so that's something).

I do need to work on realistic writing goals.

So yeah, that's that. I don't want the semester to end too soon because then I won't be able to believe in the possibility of accomplishing All The Things before December 15 or whenever. And yet, accomplishing the Things will be easier once classes are over. So it goes.