20150827.0622

Ms. 8 has been suffering from a runny nose lately. It has made her somewhat irritable, as could be expected. (It has also made changing her diapers even more "delightful" than normal.) The Mrs. and I are doing what we can to help her, but when trying to wipe her nose sends her into screaming fits and trying to aspirate her sends her into worse, there is not much that can be done. (We have found that my handkerchiefs work better for her than tissues, and a particular wipe does well, too.) Her nose is still runny this morning; I have already gotten to tend to her today, so I have seen the glaze on her upper lip, and I imagine that I will have a fun time of it while my wife is at work. Such is life as a parent, and I still account myself fortunate that I am able to be with Ms. 8 at this point in her life; I understand that not as many fathers in the United States as want to get to.

Even amid caring for Ms. 8, work continues. I really need to attend to a freelance piece that has been sitting in my docket; I had been waiting for some clarification from the client to proceed, but I think I will not be getting further direction at this time. I also need to follow up on the job hunt; I sent off an application to a school several states to the east of where I am, and I have another that I need to do today. I'll try to do one a day until my docket is clear--if my docket is ever clear. That some of the announcements are growing stale will help with docket-clearing, although not with my professional advancement, and it is to my shame that I have allowed them to grow so. I am supposed to be better than to do such a thing; I am supposed to be able to read and write quickly and for long, and that seems not to have been as true for my job search as I would want it to be.

If I have not been as diligent about some parts of my work as I might be, I have been exceedingly diligent in others. My classroom work is going well; yesterday was an excellent teaching day, with good discussions from all four of my classes. Tomorrow will be a writing workshop, with students practicing poring over papers on one another's work, hopefully making for better reading when the papers get to me. They seem also to benefit from the work I do for them on my more professional website. I am returning to some of my older teaching practices; they seemed to work better than more recent ones, or at least to provoke less complaint and controversy. One or two that I have continued  will also be informing a publication on which I really ought to be working, so brushing up on them will be good for me to do. And I guess that means I ought to get back to work now.