Friday, December 26, 2014

Random bullets, holiday edition

  • Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy Boxing Day!
  • Happy celebration of grades being turned in and the semester being over!
  • I just wrote a comment over at Fie's place about why I'm still keeping up with the blog even if I'm trying to go full tilt on getting the book edited with footnotes done. It's an alternative to the other writing, and I find myself thinking of little things I would like to write here. The words want to be here, and it doesn't take that long to write them down. 
  • Speaking of writing, Historiann's Christmas post really lit a fire under me ("now that the book is off to the editor"), so Historiann, thank you for that.
  • Once again this year I thank the goddess Rosemary Feal or whoever is responsible for the later MLA dates. It is so wonderful not to have to wake up in the middle of the night on the day after Christmas to transport my suitcase, my paper anxiety, and myself to the airport for a full day of travel and wondering whether the conference hotel will give away my room before I get there (yes, this happened to me even though I guaranteed the room with a credit card). Just having the chance to regroup before that trip makes the whole holiday season better.  This year my paper is a section from the book, so it needs to be trimmed and spruced up for reading but is otherwise done, I hope.
  • In Alice in Wonderland, people are always advising Alice to keep her temper. This is sound advice that I am following with the people who email me to ask admin questions on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I keep my temper and write back after a day or so, being careful to spend no more than 10 seconds and 10 words on the message.
  • Latest insight: University offices are like everywhere else when it comes to dealing with the people there. Some are lovely, like going into a bakery; some are so bureaucratic that the DMV sounds like a day at the beach; and some, you learn, will be confrontational, like dealing with an insurance company that automatically and aggressively denies your claim even if you're in the right.

4 comments:

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I'm glad you're still blogging. To be fair, you've written about 70 posts this year and I've written around 200. My going to weekly posts is still blogging a fair amount -- about as much as you. It's not a contest, by any means, but I haven't given up entirely. :)

I may or may not keep the blog restriction going. I'm not sure I'm getting the result I want from it.

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

PS - I hope this didn't sound shitty. That wasn't my intention. I admit I'm in a shitty mood following the holiday madness, but I didn't mean to take it out on you. :)

Historiann said...

Thanks for the shout out and the link! Congratulations to YOU on your book, which is much further along than mine. (I've just sent my book off & will now await readers' reports, so I've got a long while until it's in production.)

undine said...

Fie--Sorry about the bad holiday madness. I wasn't trying to pressure you to write more, though I enjoy your posts, just to write if you felt like it. My writing on this blog has slowed down a lot since I realized how tired I was of perpetual outrage, mostly other people's but sometimes mine. I also worry a lot more about how a comment that I would think is harmless (like about MOOCs) would fan the flames of outrage in some way, and I just got tired of worrying about stuff like that--hence the slowdown in posts.

Historiann--thanks! It still needs final readers' reports but I'm hopeful.