20151209.0652

Some smaller notes appear below. I never claimed I would always be coherent.

Exam-giving continues today. I am administering but one test, so things should go both easily and smoothly. I was able to get the Monday exams graded in a relatively short time, so I am confident I will be able to do the same with those I have today. That I know the text well and read quickly help, I think.

There are two tests for me to give on Friday. I have managed to draw Friday exams every term I have been at my current institution. It is something of an annoyance, although it is less so this term than it has been in others. My travel plans are not such that reward my being done earlier in the week. It is a small thing, but a useful one.

I have received official notice of my teaching schedule for the upcoming term. I have three sections of second-semester composition, at least at this point. My schedule is subject to change, of course, even up to the week before classes begin--if not up to the beginning of classes, itself. Such fluidity is one of the perks of life on the contingent faculty; if I could get non-academic employers to recognize the skills involved in successfully negotiating the dynamic environment and rapidly-shifting constraints of contingent academia, I think I could land private-sector jobs more easily. Perhaps I ought to think about how to explain it more effectively.

I got a freelance job done yesterday. Another has yet to come in. The job gave me a chance to read some Philip K. Dick, with whose work I was passingly familiar but which I had not previously read. I understand some of why he is as highly valued as he is. It is a welcome revelation, and it reminds me that I need to go through and read or re-read some of the other luminaries of the genre. Time will soon perhaps permit me to do so.

Time will also soon perhaps permit me to attend to other writing entirely. I have several projects in progress, of course, including at least one conference paper; I have perhaps noted that I was accepted (late) to present a piece on the Malorian Kay at the 2016 International Congress on Medieval Studies. Other papers are also waiting for me to do more work on them. It is difficult to do so while teaching and grading and freelancing so as to support the Mrs. and Ms. 8--as well as tending to the last while her mother is at work. The upcoming break and the lower teaching load of the spring should help with that.

I continue to cough. That matter seems to be improving; I have been good about following the prescribed course of treatment, and it seems to be helping. I am sure there is more I could do, though, even if I am not sure what that "more" is. It is a thing I can look into while I am overseeing today's test, perhaps.