Wow. What a semester!

I've finally started breathing normally again after the most brutal semester of my entire academic career.

Somehow the stars, or perhaps school schedules, aligned poorly this year, and by about week 7 of the semester, I was on the verge of being behind.  But here's the thing: I've established routines and protocols so that I don't get behind.  For me, for the last several years, even one day behind was unusual.  So, in early November, when I was about 12 days behind in my grading, well, panic began to set in.  The car accident I was in on October 29 didn't help matters any, as I was unable to think--and therefore work--for days.  And as my cognition slowly came back, I was still unable to move quickly enough through assignments.  Oh, did I mention I was teaching 6 writing courses?  Two freshman composition courses, one business communications course, and three graduate-level writing-intensive courses.

I began spending weekends up at my parent's cottage in order to have uninterrupted time to grade.  I never got caught up.  I have a strict policy on returning student work in a timely fashion; I reserve the right to take up to two weeks to grade major assignments.  I usually get assignments back to students in 7-10 days.  By week 10, that stopped happening.  Stress.  Huge stress.

Throughout all this, a proposal that a colleague and I wrote was accepted, and we presented at a conference.  It's a lovely thing to put on my CV, but it's a lot of work to prepare for an academic presentation.

But it was a nice excuse to show off my sleeker self.  I went back to WeightWatchers and lost about 17 pounds and am able to fit into my suits again.  This was essential, as I TEACH IN A SUIT.  I wasn't able to do this last spring or over the summer because the suits didn't fit.  I was not going to enter this busy semester unable to wear a suit.  This cute dress was a side benefit.  :)

Evie is the cutest thing on two legs.  Now that I'm finally able to spend some time with her, she's warming back up to me nicely.

Still, she's 3 1/2, which is a rough age.  Kudos to people who make the conscious decision to have more than one child.  It's, frankly, a concept I cannot grasp.  Truly.  Beautiful, smart, silly as she is, I can't do this again.

Plus, did you know that kids are expensive?  I'd love a vacation.  We haven't taken one since 2010, not even a short one.  But, apparently kids need things like food, clothing, shelter, and preschool.  And books.  So many books.

Now, back to me.  Of course.

I'm suddenly severely underemployed for the spring semester, having just lost a course at my highest paying school.  I didn't realize the course was being run as a 200-level elective; I thought it was a Gen Ed requirement.  Only two students enrolled--and both were former students of mine who I would have loved to have in class again.  So I'm hoping and praying something will come my way, as two courses next semester is not enough to financially sustain me.

Maybe I'll get my darkroom all set up, and I'll start printing amazing, saleable prints from the comfort of my basement.  Yeah.  I think I'll put all my eggs in that basket.  (I can't even post pictures of my b&w stuff because... it's not digital.)

Yeah, it's been a while

Sure, it's been a year and a half since my last post, but who really cares?  No one reads this anyway.  But I'll share/update anyway.

We moved about 5 months ago.  It's a nice house on a golf course (which isn't all it's cracked up to be, by the way).  Our old house was on the market for 10 months, 10 agonizing months.  We had hoped to build in Byron Center in a great community, but those plans fell through when our house didn't sell, and didn't sell, and didn't sell.  When we finally got and accepted an offer, we had to scramble to find something.  I knew this was the house when we walked in.  The floor plan works great for us, and there wasn't much hesitation for me.  I wanted this house.  It had been on the market for 2 days when we first saw it, and we made an offer just a few days later.

Then shit started happening.  It's a  long, frustrating list, which includes (as just a few examples): the water heater at the old place broke before closing, so we had to replace it.  The master bath at the new house had a crack in the bathtub that was actually leaking into the garage (and the owners claimed it was just a cosmetic scratch).  The furnace broke at the new place 2 weeks after we moved in and needed replacing.  The contractors we hired to redo part of the master bath and finish part of the basement ....well, that's another story.  Let's just say it was a really bad experience that lasted 4.5 months (rather than about 3 weeks).

But, the master bath is now gorgeous, and the basement will be getting carpet very soon and will be a lovely room for us to hang out in.  I'm very excited about this.  It will be so nice to feel like everything is complete and finally start REALLY LIVING in this house.

I have a good-sized office, which is a disaster area at the moment.  I'm still trying to figure out the best places for stuff, but this is a process that I almost enjoy.  I'm really going to make this a great, functional space.

We're attempting to build a darkroom in the basement so that I can pursue my photography hobby.  I love being in a darkroom and just making the best print I can from a negative.  For me, it's fairly relaxing (without being boring), and I have a real, actual product at the end.  This is actually an important thing for me.  Though I love to read, there's no product at the end, so I sometimes find it hard to justify (to myself) my reading time.  There are also time-wasting computer and phone games, which, again, definitely don't produce a product at the end.  With darkroom photography though, I get a beautiful (if I'm lucky) print at the end.

There's more, but that will have to suffice for now.  Or for a year.  Who knows?

Fantasy novels, really?

I've never been interested in reading fantasy.  I developed a love for sci fi over a decade ago when I discovered Arthur C. Clarke and Orson Scott Card.  I've read a lot of Isaac Asimov over the last 2 years.  I especially like sci fi that takes place off-planet--in a space ship, on a distance planet, etc.  But fantasy--keep that junk away from me.  When I discuss books with people, I have to remind them that sci fi and fantasy are different genres and that "I don't do fantasy." In the past, I have started to read several fantasy novels and always gave up quickly.  I realized that I just didn't have the attention span to learn all of the new rules introduced in each book: new cultures, new magic systems, new worlds with new (and often very weird and unintuitive) customs, conventions, histories, species, races, etc).  No thanks.

But....

Last June, I was desperate for new reading material.  A friend lent me Brandon Sanderson's Elantris.  I was skeptical (it was fantasy, after all), but I decided to give it a try.  At times, I was frustrated by occasional poor stylistic decisions, the sudden drops in action, and changes in character points of view.  However, this was a compelling read.  I was done in 6 days; I didn't want to put it down.  I really enjoyed it.

So maybe I had neglected a perfectly good genre of fiction.  Maybe there was a sophistication that I hadn't expected.  My only option was to read some more.

Based on another recommendation, I bought Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind in October.  Holy cow.  Brilliantly constructed, wonderfully tight prose, compelling story.  This novel showed amazing and deliberate care in its creation.  I was impressed and quickly (i.e. immediately) went on to the next book in the series, The Wise Man's Fear.  I had just started this book when I decided to see how many of these books to expect--and was devastated to discover that book 2 had only recently been published and that I would have to wait until at least May for the next installment.  I was so (temporarily) disgusted that I nearly stopped reading.  Okay, probably not, but there's a reason why I don't start reading a series until the series in completed: I'm not good at waiting.  Harry Potter, Twilight, Mistborn (but I'll get to that): I read them after the entire series had been published.  My assessment of The Wise Man's Fear: pretty darn good.  This book was much slower, and honestly, showed less care with the construction.  Large sections of the text dragged; it felt like little cutting/trimming had been done.  The phrasing was not as controlled and deliberate.  But it was still quite good; I'm attached to the characters and really want to know what happens next in the story.  I'm eagerly awaiting the next volume.

Okay, so I'd found THREE whole fantasy books that I liked.  More research was needed, so I returned to Brandon Sanderson. 

I started the Mistborn trilogy, and read Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages.  Mistborn: amazing.  Careful, well-planned, well-conceived brilliance.  The Well of Ascension: great.  Well-planned still, good follow through on details set up in the first book.  A great, quick read.  The Hero of Ages: a nice conclusion that left me wanting more.  This book was frustrating at times because it did not show the caliber of writing that the first two exhibited, but it wrapped things up nicely, and I was pleased with the trilogy as a whole.  Then I discovered The Alloy of Law, a Mistborn novel that takes place hundreds of years after the original trilogy.  While I appreciated not have to learn a new magic system (Pushing and Pulling was complicated enough, thank you very much), I was not impressed by this book.  Perhaps the setting (in a way, kind of industrial revolution-y) put me off, or maybe the characters weren't as likeable.  But I never really got attached to anyone; I think the characters needed a little more depth.  But I gave Sanderson another try with his novella, The Emperor's Soul.  I really enjoyed this.  I'm not typically a fan of novellas; it seems that just when they're getting started, they've suddenly ended, and I'm rarely satisfied with brevity.  This was an exception.  Though the magic system of soul stamps was complicated and really needed a bit more explanation, this was a complete work: it left me satisfied. 

I'd borrowed Sanderson's Warbreaker from a friend, but when I mentioned to one of my composition classes that I was going to start reading it, one of my students urged me to read Brent Weeks' Lightbringer books first.  Near Christmas, I gave the first, The Black Prism, a try.  It was an interesting combination of clumsy, cluncky, and sometimes awkward prose, a fairly complex but intriguing magic system, and a really great story line.  It was perplexing to be so intrigued by the story but so annoyed by the diction. I immediately moved on to The Blinding Knife when I finished the first installment.  The character development is really quite good, and the story is compelling.  Better yet, the prose has a much more polished feel.  It was clearly given more care in the editing stages.  This book dragged in places, but the slow points were always brief.  I really believe that book 2 was better than book 1; I think Weeks is hitting his stride and has the potential to create a really great book 3.

However, this leaves me with Warbreaker, which is not living up to expectations.  I'm about 200 pages in, and I'm less impressed than I expected.  As with all Sanderson I've read, this is compelling.  I will have no trouble finishing this book in a couple more days.  But after read The Alloy of Law, which left a bad taste in my mouth, I'm wondering if Sanderson is the John Grisham or Danielle Steel of fantasy.  Has he figured out the "fantasy formula" and is now just cranking the books out?  Is he cashing in on his Wheel of Time fame by publishing second-rate novels?  I don't know.  I'm still too new to this genre to have an educated opinion. 

I don't know if I'm ready for dragons or other devices/characters that are so stereotypically "fantasy," but I've discovered that I can handle magic--and that I actually like it.  Perhaps there's still hope for my conversion.

Two and a half...years

Life can take some unexpected turns in 2 1/2 years.  I stopped blogging in January 2010, which coincides with the worst news I've ever received: there was something abnormal about the baby I had been carrying for 5 months.  Our lives changed.  Jon and I were told in mid-January at our 20 week ultrasound that our baby had problems and that we needed to see a specialist immediately.  The specialist diagnosed Trisomy 18 a few days later; there was nothing we could do to help her.  Eleanor Dene Shelley was stillborn on February 11, 2010.  It has been now been over 2 1/2 years since our loss, and it still hurts.  It always will.

Each time I thought about blogging, I've thought about why I stopped, and it's brought back a flood of grief.  But, over time, grief and pain diminish, and gradually, joy re-enters.

Our joy is Evelyn.  She was born May 16, 2011.  Evie is a healthy, happy, toddling little girl, who smiles and laughs and lights up our lives.  We are richly blessed to have her.

On the work front, I still teach at Aquinas College and will be adding a new class to my repertoire there--Business Communication.  I'm nervous to teach a new course--though I have taught Business Writing for Cornerstone's PGS program a couple of times this year.  For Aquinas, though, it's brand new for me--I chose the text, I create the lesson plans.  It's a lot of work.  I will be teaching Inquiry and Expression (a freshman writing course) for Aquinas, as well.  This will be my ninth semester teaching this course.  Of course, I can't make it easy for myself: I've changed textbooks and completely revamped the course.  I'll also be teaching Written Rhetoric at Kendall College of Art and Design for the fifth semester.  I have two sections there.  Each section at each school is at or above capacity.  It's great to know that I have some job security this semester (last fall one of my sections was cut at the last minute due to low enrollment), but I'm nervous about having so many students.  There are lot of names to learn and A LOT of papers to grade.  I will also be teaching some writing workshops for Grand Rapids Theological Seminary for the third time, as well as providing some one-on-one tutoring.  It's going to be a very busy semester!  But I'm so glad to be employed!  (I was even offered sections at a couple of other schools, but I already have my hands full!)

I've read a ton of books this summer and hope to write a bit about them later.  My good friend Nicky inspired me to begin a book journal, to keep track of what I've read and what I thought about each book.  I've been keeping track for about two years, and it feels great to add each new entry.  So far, I think I've read 52 books.  It's not much to brag about considering I have two literature degrees and should probably be reading much, much more, but I'm happy with my total thus far.  I generally have one audiobook that I listen to in the car, one or two print books, and a Kindle book going at any given time.  My pace will slow significantly in ten days, when the new semester starts.  But that's okay--less time for reading means more time for working, which means $$.  Yey!

new job for fall?

I received a verbal offer from the new dept chair at Kendall to teach writing for them in the fall. YEA!!!! She was very nice during the interview on Wednesday, and their refurbished building is really, really cool looking. There are 2 morning classes that she offered me, and I accepted. Unfortunately, I won't get the contracts until July. I can only hope that nothing changes in the meantime. And, even if I had the contracts now, I've learned the hard way (a couple of times) that a signed contract for teaching adjunct doesn't mean much--it can be cancelled at any time.

The classes have only 20 students, which is LOVELY. Writing and writing intensive classes should be capped at a low number. Aquinas caps theirs at 18, and I love it. And the pay at Kendall is really great. It ranks up there with GRCC, which is the top paying institution in GR (from what I've found). Although I love Aquinas and they have a fond place in my heart, the pay is pretty lousy, at least for the area.

So, I have some hope for the fall! I certainly need to increase my pool of options for where I can teach. I should be okay (fingers crossed) for fall, but I'm going to have a similar problem next winter (similar to what I'm facing right now). Everyone offers fewer classes of the classes I teach in the winter. I really need to teach 4 (full semester) classes per semester to make ends meet. This semester I have one class at Aquinas and two mini classes (5 weeks each) at Cornerstone. I can't even pay half my bills with that pay. The adjunct life sucks. It really, really sucks.

birthday

I had been "looking forward" to having some pictures taken yesterday at my birthday party. For months I've been putting off looking "good" because I figured "I'll have some decent pics taken on my birthday." Well, hopefully no one will notice that I still don't have any pictures from 2009 posted anywhere because we didn't get many taken yesterday. I (stupidly) forgot my camera at home when we left for the restaurant in the cold, snowy mess that surrounded West Michigan last night. Miserable driving, partly because of conditions and partly because Michigan drivers are morons.

We bought a cake, but it's still sitting the kitchen unopened and uneaten. It was a nice birthday, though. Thanks for those who came out to help celebrate.

Blogs

I wish more people I used to know had a blog. Blogs are am amazing way to feel like one hasn't lost touch with someone even though one may never want to see the other party again. I don't like losing touch with people, although sometimes it's in everyone's best interests or is fairly unavoidable. Blogs are a great link to the past somehow, even though they're generally about the present. I often remember what I liked about the person to begin with. Sometimes, though, I read a post and wonder if we'd get along now--political posts mostly.

Is is stalking to occasionally check someone's blog that one knew years ago? Is it stalking if one used to date that person? I hope not, because I get a kick out of blogs.