This afternoon, I’ll be…

This afternoon, I'll be sitting on the dissertation committee for one of our Ph.D. creative writing students; this isn't something I've done before, and I'm excited. :-) I've only been on the other side of this ordeal. (It's not really an ordeal -- thesis defense isn't nearly as terrifying as oral exams.) As clinical faculty, I'm not super-involved with the graduate program at UIC, but I do have grad students who take my cross-listed 400/500-level courses on occasion, and I advise various students, sit on thesis committees on occasion, etc. Essentially, the department pulls me in when my own area is a good fit for what the student is working on -- works for me. :-)

I also have a bit of admin work I'm doing for ASAM, so yesterday and today feel oddly like semester instead of summer. I had a moment of frustration about it all, because I had somehow thought I'd be able to dive into the summer writing this week, finally (after WisCon, Kevin's conference, helping the house and yard recover to a sane level from the neglect of the semester, and just reading for a few days). And then I reminded myself that there are still more than two months of summer left, and it's okay if writing gets delayed a day or two. It will wait. I can always think about the new novel on my drive to and from work. And maybe I'll have some time this afternoon to pull out the poetry chapbook and start on that, at least. Poetry can be attacked in small pieces, right?

In other local news, we have a new eight foot redbud to replace the one that died (pics soon), the garage will finally be painted this week, huzzah (don't ask me why we didn't do it when we painted the house, there was some reason -- oh, right, we were thinking we might re-clad it in wood instead of stucco, but now we're not doing that because expensive, right), and we should finally get a proper backsplash in our kitchen (the anaglypta did not hold up at all, more on that anon), with painted anaglypta wallpaper above, either this week or next.

I'm also, as time and energy allow, slowly sorting through the baby toys that my kids have outgrown. If any local folks would like nice wood block-type toys, suitable for a 1-2 year old, please do let me know; I'd be very happy to pass them along (it'll save me the effort of photographing them and putting them up on mom mail). Most are in great condition. There's also an array of clothes, mostly for boys age 2-3 and girls age 4-5.

And that's the news!

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