More peony days

Peony days

With all Senior Week and Commencement activities finished, grading done, and grades posted, the 2012-13 academic year has finally come to an end. Though I'll be working a lot this summer with the Summer Teaching Institute in June and KEEP in July, I'll still get some non-scripted periods before the 2013-14 academic year begins in late August.

This coming year I'll have the challenge of teaching English Honors for the second time, which I hope will mean I can anticipate the issues before they arise, and plan ahead now that I know what is expected and what needs to be done. Though I'll be teaching two courses in the fall, which will be nice, my spring rears up as a challenging time when I'll be teaching two new courses (a Latin@ literature and film class I'm almost finished designing) and a Poe/Alcott senior seminar on the Gothic that will be next on my list of class plans. The third class will be a class I designed when I was a grad student on American Fear, and which I've taught twice at my small college on the hill, but which can be difficult to teach because I use critical lenses of gender, race, and sexuality to examine horror texts and some students resist the notion that you can actually find some meaning-making in what is supposed to be "entertaining." So we'll have to see how that goes.

But, for now, I'm not going to waste time anticipating what is so far in the future. Instead, I want to focus on the daily enjoyment of my time off after a challenging year of tenure review and directing Honors.

The end-of-term activities with the seniors were bittersweet since I am glad that they are embarking on their after-college life with what I know is a solid preparation. But it was also sad to know that I will no longer see some of them, especially those who have been "with me" (as students or advisees or both) since their first year four years ago. I will most especially miss those few students who took the time to tell me that my teaching had made a difference and how it had made a difference. Sometimes, as teachers, we think we clamor in the desert where no one hears or cares so it's nice when we do get positive and encouraging feedback, instead of the usual gripping about grades, or teaching style, or curricular choices. It's the students who notice that make it all worth while, and energize us for the students-to-come.

Now that one more, but important, year is over, it's time to slow down and smell the peonies, some of which, like the white ones above, are already displaying all their glory, and many of which are still unopened and eager to show us their marvelousness.

Since it's the season of graduations, I leave you with an adaptation of David Foster Wallace's now famous "This is Water" 2005 Commencement speech at my small college on the hill, one that the outgoing president yesterday described as probably the best such speech ever written or given. I hadn't heard it before but NPR did this story and the speech is just as described and more (of course, the saddest of ironies is that Wallace went on to commit suicide). Enjoy!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/05/17/184785020/david-foster-wallace-tells-us-about-freedom

New reading

A new book on a beautiful day. A perfect combination.

Dorothy's Garden

For Mother's Day, my husband and I headed down to West Virginia, to the beautiful hill on which my parents-in-law live. There, my mother-in-law, who has the greenest thumb I've encountered on this side of the Atlantic, walked me through the beauties that she has growing all over their lovely property now that it's late spring.

 

Her irises, in particular, gave us quite a show, putting to shame my own irises at home. Mine haven't even bloomed yet even though it's already high time for irises. After that visit to my mother-in-law's garden, I've decided that I must replant my irises this fall since I've definitely located them in the wrong place (I think they have to compete too much with the peonies I have them planted next to).

While we walked around on this leisurely Sunday, and I admired the May beauty of The Hill, we came to where my beloved Rusty and Geni are buried. On a slope, overlooking the front of the property, which my two old satos loved so much. I miss those old dogs every day, and I'll be eternally grateful that my parents-in-law (who used to sit up with Rusty during thunderstorms, when they dog-sat for us, because he got so scared) allowed us to take them both there as their final resting place.

That's why my husband is so special. Because he comes from very special and loving people.

This Sunday was the first, since the end of the semester (which I welcomed with a flu-like cold that felled me for several days and then got my husband), that I felt relaxed and like break is really just around the corner. I had a first taste of what that will feel like and it was ever so sweet, like the lovely flowers in Dorothy's garden.

Spring glory

Every April these two trees regale us with their Spring glory. 

Jubilation

Yesterday, I heard from the college president that I had been officially approved "for the promotion to tenure." The 11-year journey that began in 2002 when I started in the M.A./Ph.D. program at Ohio State culminated with that news.

Of course, this happened at the same time that I directed Honors for my department for the first time with 10 students being examined and five outside examiners. But, thankfully, everything went well so I am thankful and relieved.

Also yesterday, my husband decided to take an "official" portrait to post on my website, marking the day I was approved for tenure and also the first day of my first Honors weekend. On Friday, when I arrived at the college, my husband (the best thing that ever happened to me!) had colluded with a former student who now works as the department assistant to get a bouquet of flowers into my office.

I won't be able to feel fully celebratory until the semester ends this coming Friday, since there are still classes to plan and papers to grade and events to attend. But in addition to the physical and mental tiredness there is the immense satisfaction of a job well done, both for my department's Honors program and for the tenure process.

I am so grateful to my mother, my siblings, my family, my friends, my mentors, my professors, my students and everyone who, in one way or another, helped me through this process. And though absent, I know my father rejoices as well. We did it, papito! We did it!

Pink Moon

Every time I see the swollen moon, blazing on the pitch-black background, as if burning a hole through the skies, I think of that beautiful Andalusian romance about the bull in love with the moon.

For some reason I don't remember, I actually know part of the lyrics of this song but haven't heard it, I'm sure, since I was a child. I found it on YouTube (what can't you find online these days?)  and here it is!

For all the toros enamorados de la luna: