20150812.0647

Work continues, the refrain to my song coming perhaps more rapidly than the structure of the tune ought to allow. At least this time is a variation on it, one not heard in some months, for the work I have been doing and am doing is the work of preparation for teaching. I spent much of yesterday drafting teaching documents, mostly a final report on my summer bridge work and a combined syllabus and course calendar for my upcoming assignment to four sections of first-semester composition. The former was more difficult than the latter, to be sure; I had to compile the data for the report, but the syllabus works largely from materials I have used before and required statements from my program. As such, much of the work of syllabus-building is already done; I need only plug in the information and massage it in with appropriate, if informal citation. I do need to model appropriate behavior, after all.

I did spend some time on other work-like activities. For one, in the evening, I sat for a Skype interview with a professor researching the conditions in which technical and professional writing are taught; I have taught the former many times across some five years, now, so it was easy to contribute somewhat to the researcher's work. I believe in collegiality, after all. For another, I pored over the call for papers for the next International Congress on Medieval Studies, trying to plot out the panel to which I ought to send an abstract. I need to get onto that piece of work, since submissions are due by 15 September; I have a little more than a month, but I have to think that some of the sessions are already full. The next step in that project will be generating an idea; given other concerns I have had of late, I have not had my usual glut of ideas for medieval/ist papers (although I have been having others). And thinking on it reminds me that I need to transact some business with the South Central Modern Language Association about its conference.

Thinking on that reminds me that I need to start to look at the Modern Language Association site, as well. I am still on the job hunt (and I will try to attend to some job applications today, since I seem to have time to do so), and the organization's job list is the focal one in my discipline. I do not know if it is yet online; there is a dead period on it each year. Still, it bears checking, as do several other job sites for the academy and outside of it--at least until I have a continuing contract of some sort in hand, or a "regular" job that will actually allow me to keep paying my bills. (I already need more money; taking a job that pays less seems a foolish idea.) I have already pumped out several hundred job applications this year; I can send out more, to be sure. Hopefully, something will get caught in the shotgun blast that I can use to my benefit, something struck by the machine-gun spray that seems to be keeping heads down...

As I said, work continues.