- did the back burner go out? -

Toby walked in tonight and said, "I checked your blog and decided that your back burner was on the back burner."

He's right.

School is starting. Freshman have been arriving all week. We've just (finally!) finished hiring two new (one semester & one year) faculty members.

Daniel and Andrea just left after three days of lots of fun (they were patient and allowed our fun to flow in and around a hundred meetings / activities / etc....).

The joke of the weekend became me turning to Andrea and saying, "has it been ten minutes? Can I tell you another student-story?"

I've said before (somewhere) that I consume people -- not devour or prey, mind you, but I just get resourced by BEING WITH.

So I'm pretty excited about my job right now.

Despite the fact that the principalities and the powers of this world have been trying to thwart that excitement-- (eg. a long speech about how the most important thing that a Malone Faculty Member could do to Raise the Standard of Excellence (not something I'm all that interested in anyway -- is a commitment to the nebulous inheritance of arete' my birthright as an American -- i've done "quality-stamped-all-over-it", thanks, and I'm not goin' back) *by* (and this is the kicker) lowering our average GPA score & increasing the reading we assign (not the depth of or value in -- just the page amounts) -- despite these cultural norms of pedagogical evil -- I'm excited to be returning to the classroom. And the hallways and the office and the yellow chair.

The Great Bathroom Renovation is nearing completion. My syllabi are really close to being ready to being printed up. Addison learned the difference between the nominative and objective cases in reference to one's self today. Jaelyn is about to start Dance Lessons next week. Lynn likes her first year students quite a bit(though she's pretty tired tonight). The new _Over The Rhine_ CD is still (so far) living up to expectations -- and I'm looking forward to watching _All the Real Girls_ -- finally out on video and available in the midwest this week.

I hope your front and back burners are burning brightly...

Peace~