bang bang

i have been working way too hard. i am burning myself out. i have overscheduled myself with back to back grading teaching meeting teaching meeting and then a ton of events...attending visiting lectures. (last night tommie smith, today linda gordon), promoting the spring classes and events with honors and scholars students, concert with bang on can all stars with glenn kotche, sweeping my computer for spyware, hosting events for new colleagues and students.

it's an unsustainable pace.

but the good news is that i get to teach american studies classes to undergrads. it's such a relief/pleasure to have the same preps as last year. it's such a relief/pleasure to continue to develop these ideas with undergrads. i get to work out these ideas and projects and to work through it. it's so great. it is always always hard to teach new classes, especially with undergrads. i know how to run a grad seminar...it's a whole different level of work and engagement...but somehow less exhausting than the panic preparations and performances for passels of students scrubbed in sunshine.

i had some real fun working with my storytelling class today on the final thoughts on p.l.a.i.n. janes. we then switched gears and i busted out my topsy turvy little red riding hood doll and asked for a teller to recount the story. one did with gusto. then i used molly bang's picture this to get my students to think about how pictures work. it was fun. they smiled and sighed as i flipped the slides to reveal lil red riding hood disappearing into the woods with the vicious wolf. i concluded by asking them to draw a symbol for the hunter. i liked what they came up with. lots of green rectangles some with axes.

today, as i walked out of linda gordon's phi beta kappa lecture on visual democracy, it was 4 pm and brilliantly sunny. the campus looked like a prozac ad, but without a person in the quad on the hub. not one soul. i turned on my heel and saw two young women seated under the arch. i exclaimed: has the rapture come and i have been left behind? they were bemused and mos def not amused.

i need to remind myself that i shouldn't joke about the rapture on this campus.

i wish that i could drive to ocean city maryland and sit at my parents' place at the beach.

p.s. i am going to suspend my campaign and postpone my debate for friday.