Monday, August 25, 2014

20140825.0630

The weekend just past was not the best for me, as could be guessed from the annoying brevity of my posts. For various reasons, I found myself less able to write than I prefer, a situation I found vexatious and which colored the rest of the days' events. Already, however, I feel better in that regard; I feel more able to write, and that gives me some hope and confidence for the day ahead.

How much of either I will need, I do not know. It is a teaching day, and I will be going in early so that I can more effectively mark papers. I am not recording grades, as such, but I will need to see what my students' writing looks like so that I can push them as they need to be pushed. If it follows the usual pattern, the proofreading will improve but the content and argumentation will not.

As a teaching day, and what looks like will be a long one, it is not necessarily a difficult thing to face. I have been at the front of the college classroom since 2006, after all, and after eight years of doing the work, I am relatively sure of my material and my professional identity. I may still be a bit behind in my readings, but only a bit; my information is not so far out of date yet that it does not apply.

I am aided in keeping current by the fact that I am contributing to those emergent understandings. I received word today that the issue of CCC in which I am to be published is going to print soon; I will have proofs before long. I may also have a chance at getting another book chapter out, although that will take a bit more work. And I have work for conferences yet to attend to, so I am still on the front edge of my field.

Less formally, I contribute to disciplinary knowledge in this webspace and others. My efforts for the Tales after Tolkien Society blog, Travels in Genre and Medievalism, are a bit slower than is best, perhaps (if you are interested in contributing, let me know), but they continue, as do those for a professional social network and other writing work I do. So there is that to consider.

Today, then, I face my regular work bolstered by a better feeling informed by my resumed ability to write--and that ability finds support intrinsic and extrinsic. All that remains for me to do is to seize upon it and use it in such a way as positions me to support those who depend upon me, two in particular, while balancing the other responsibilities I have to them. There is nothing about which I need worry; it is not as if I am the only one facing such a thing, and others appear to manage without trouble. Surely if they can do so, I can do so; surely I have the wherewithal to make it happen...

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