The Painful Nowning Process

January is very, very busy. I’m juggling five courses, and even though three of them are essentially the same course, they’re on two different schedules, so after I’ve presented the same lesson on literary symbolism three times over two days, I’m a bit boggled.

Had dinner last night with some friends we hadn’t seen for a long time, but had to miss seeing Bride and Prejudice, which I’d encouraged all my students to see, for various reasons. Of course, I’ve seen it myself several times—but it’s still fun. Tonight, another social event—my sister’s Mardi Gras party.

Now, I love my sister, and I fully expect to enjoy myself at her party, but in doing various things around the office this afternoon, I came across this essay reprinted in one of the potential composition readers publishers keep sending, which explains quite well why I look forward to some quiet time now and then. Maybe next weekend!

…after an hour or two of being socially “on,” we introverts need to turn off and recharge. My own formula is roughly two hours alone for every hour of socializing. This isn’t antisocial. It isn’t a sign of depression. It does not call for medication. For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.

Not surprisingly, a lot of professors tend to be introverts, high energy in the classroom, then hiding out in libraries or offices.

One of my favorite [TV] writers, Jane Espenson, writes about why she writes. Jane rules. I have no aspirations to be a television writer, but I still enjoy the way Espenson writes about it—as well as the actual TV shows and episodes she has helped create. In much the same way, I have no ambition to become a surgeon (as if!—besides, enough of my relatives have already taken up that career, and they know I admire them), but I greatly appreciate Richard Selzer’s essays on his work as a physician.

Or something like that. What I mean is that as I’m updating links for my composition classes, I re-discovered last year’s CNN story about Grammar Girl podcasts.

Her recent commentaries include a number of issues I see students stumble over weekly, such as “who vs. that,” “effect vs. affect” and even the dreaded “generic singular pronouns”–where she and I do not quite see eye to eye. But she still has some advice worth considering.

Looking forward to a Spring of improved writing.

I’m looking forward to some adventures and improvements in 2008, but I’m not going to talk about them now, because—as Bruce Cockburn sings—”Anything can happen…” Although I am fairly sure that I’ll be teaching Comp 2 (Intro. to Lit), British lit. survey 1 (Anglo-Saxon to 18th c.), and another course, which I hope will be the scheduled “Postcolonial Literature.”

Instead, some other interesting developments that don’t depend on me:

I’ve been following with intermittent interest the plans to change all US broadcast television from analog to digital in 2009. According to this story, the government will issue coupons to defray the cost of converter boxes for TVs that receive programs via antenna. It seems like the least they can do, although the article reports that only 13% of the US population are believed to rely solely on antenna reception these days. But what really caught my eye was

The Association for Public Television Stations reported in September that 51 percent of participants surveyed were unaware that the transition was taking place.

That statistic would seem to include many of my first-year students, who generally expressed shock and disbelief when I suggested the change to DTV as a research topic last semester. I don’t know if this indicates that (a) most of them don’t watch TV, (b) most of them have cable or satellite reception, or (c) most of them don’t watch or read news.

So, never mind TV, what about books? Everybody’s Libraries has an interesting discussion of copyright and works entering the public domain around the world. Apparently Dorothy L. Sayers’s work (among others) is now in the public domain in some countries (December 17, 2007, marked the 50th anniversary of her death)…let us hope they treat her right.