Cheerios and snot

With an appetizing name like that, who could help but read along?

I'm pretty tired, fighting off a cold. At my campus, the number of H1N1 cases has shot up remarkably over the last week from 20 to something like 200. The student health service is overwhelmed. Everyone's going to get it, mefears.

Was introduced to the college faculty today. It was really the only reason I was on campus today. I was told to wear adult clothes. (I asked, "Does that mean that I am a big boy now, and nobody tells me what to wear?") Then it was out for noodles with my fellow new hires. I managed to get a noodle onto a chopstick, which was quite an accomplishment. After that, I went to the first meeting of a committee I signed on to. They are organizing a conference for the spring, and I thought that I would check it out since it was the type of thing I often did in grad school. Well, the topic was not really where I am hoping to go with my research in the future. But, you know, I'm pitching in for the good of the department and trying to show them that I am a team player. Yippee hurrah!

I have had such a hard time organizing this semester's classes, and I am not sure why. There is the whole "Completely new program with unique, specific objectives" thing.

My God, I hate the rhetoric book I'm forced to use. That's what's doing me in. I'm used to sitting down with the sucker and lining up my topical assignments with the technical readings in the rhetoric book. The book is inaccessible. That's all I have to say.

I feel like I have been slacking at the blog lately, for which I apologize. I'm not teaching a 1-1 load this year, as I feel is my birthright. That means I spend a lot of time actually working. Yikes! I certainly have not had enough time to do a podcast! Whew! I mean, I'm still collecting weird, as I do, but I just haven't had a chance to sit down and sort through it, chop it into little awful nuggets of goof and mock it mercilessly. Part of the problem is a sort of burnout that you get when you slog through the weirdness and unreason of the world every single day. It's taxing and demoralizing.

Gonna read for class tomorrow.

HJ