End of May

Take THAT, May. I owned you.

I hate May. School ends and things tend to die on me in May. So, I'm a little wary of May. But May, 2010 made the score 1 and 2. And, I'll take that.

So, graduation happened, Mother's Day, anniversary of my brother's death day and Norman's death day, and the anniversary of my knee surgery. I survived. I need a t-shirt.

I battled a cold for 2 weeks, but I made it to Computers and Writing 2010 @ Purdue. It rocked, like always. I love being around excited, smart people. I made some new friends and I saw a TON of BG folk, so my heart and brain were nicely filled.

RSA 2010 in Minnesota was next. Fewer BG folk, but a nice, quiet time. I like that I presented 2 different papers at the conferences and that both were pedagogical in nature since my latest pubs have been philosophy based and really get away from the composition classroom.

So, I'm academically stimulated. It's nice. And, the pool's almost frog-free...so I'll be able to enjoy the sweltering heat.

Meanwhile, Heba and I finished up the first major draft of our Whedon/Neitzsche paper and though we know we'll have to cut about 1k words and clean up the documentation from MLA to Chicago Style and footnotes, we're as good as done. I focused on Firefly and Serenity and he did Buffy. As a result, I'm watching Dollhouse now, Season 1, on direct Netflix. I like it, but I liked Echo better as Faith. Speaking of Whedon, if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, you're late for a very important date.

I'm wondering, after some talk with folks, James!, at the CW conference, if I need to start focusing on narrowing my research agenda. And, if I do, WHAT do I choose? The nice thing about BG's PhD program is that it's a great generalist program. Lots of Rhetoric, Pedagogy, etc. So, it makes it tough to decide what I want to be a specialist in. Do I have to choose to be a real part of the academy? If so, shouldn't I do that, like NOW? I'm in year 3 of a tenure track position. Should I stake my claim?

but I LIKE being a jack of all trades.

And, remember May, I kicked your butt. See ya in 11 months.