Whoa — I hadn’t even…

Whoa -- I hadn't even realized it's been days since I last posted. Too busy! Mostly with socializing; poker was much fun Friday night, even though I got creamed. Saturday I spent a lot of the day cooking for Sunday's tea, which was also fun, with lots more people. More tiring too, though, even though by my old standards I was restrained with the cooking -- only three different kinds of tea sandwiches, scones from a mix, and I even had Kevin make the pumpkin cake (mostly 'cause Kavi was clinging to me at that point and refusing to let me do anything). Still exhausting, which either means that I really do have a low-level cold, or I'm getting quite old. Oh well. Guess I'm going to have to keep my grand entertaining plans scaled-back for now, at least.

Yesterday's teaching went really well, and as a bonus one of my students asked if I was teaching the advanced fiction workshop in the spring too (which I'm not), and he was sad because he would have taken it again with me. A few other students chimed in at that point to say they would too. That's nice to hear! So far, the teaching at UIC has gone really well; maybe I'm finally getting the hang of this teaching thing. I realized recently that I started teaching when I was in grad school at Mills -- my first class was in spring 1998, which means that this past spring I hit my ten-year anniversary of teaching, and didn't even notice. I'm celebrating it today. :-) Ten years of teaching and I still love it with a deep and abiding passion (although I hate grading more than ever). That's got to be worth something, right?

Had a playdate for Kavi this morning, which was a bit challenging, as Kavi kept trying to hug Laura (six months older), and Laura kept pushing her away. Kavi was bewildered -- I'm not sure anyone's ever refused her affection before. She'll learn, I'm afraid. In the afternoon, Lori came over with Ursa, which went reasonably well (I couldn't seem to concentrate on writing, but I read through a guide to writing nonfiction query letters, so that was useful, at any rate) -- at least until the dogs managed to trip poor Lori and send her knee crashing into one of our pipes, gashing the knee open and bruising it badly. Hopefully the injury isn't worse than that, but Lori did go limping home, looking not so happy with either puppy.

I'm in the midst of planning some UIC events; we're bringing in writer David Mura next week for two classroom visits and a lunch with faculty; I took a great writing workshop with him years ago (in grad school, I think), and I'm looking forward to talking to him again. I really admire how he works in kazillion different genres: memoir, poetry, plays, criticism, novels, etc. and so on. I want to do that!

The other thing I've been planning is a S. Asian chai social -- if you're in the area and interested in S. Asian arts and culture, please feel free to stop by!

---

South Asia Chai Social
Monday, October 27, 4-5 p.m.
2nd Floor cafe space, University Hall

Bring a cup of your favorite beverage to a teatime gathering of those interested in South Asian and diaspora arts, culture, and politics. Undergrads, grads, and faculty are all welcome to this free-form chat space where we'll talk about our favorite SA books, movies, and more. This may become a monthly event -- come to the first meeting to help us decide what we want this to be! And if you're interested in helping to plan next April's Kriti Festival of South Asian and diaspora arts and literature, we'd particularly love to see you then.