- 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~

Eating Big At Myrtle Beach

I'm feeling the squeeze of the schoolyear keenly. Even though we're still a week out from start date. I feel like we're at week seven (which is perhaps the worst for me -- in a fifteen work semester -- by week eight, i just surrender to the tide).

I'm keenly aware that my backburner space looms large, luminous and luscious in the summer. (little cross - reference to my baptist-exegetical-preaching-featuring-the-age-old-memory-device-of-alliteration-which-can-handily-parse-almost-any-scriptural-passage-upbringing) And I'm feeling it shrink to a half-operational bunsen burner already. what will it be like at literal week seven?

Good Trip (above) refers to Myrtle Beach. Living with my in-laws in a vacation house on a beach is always an adventure. It's just funny to me to be in the fusion of Beach Culture (as I've experienced it) and Farm Culture. Lynn's Dad and Brother have an internal alarm clock which is a feature of their years / life as hog farmers that goes -ding- somewhere between 4:30 a.m. and 5 a.m.. I try to make my way to the public space to write by 5 - 5:30 everymorning, but I was continuously shocked to find OTHER PEOPLE awake!

And then Keith was up by 6:30 -- ultimately there was only one day where anyone slept past 7:30.

The upside? Lynn and I were looking at each other on the couch by nine each night with the eerie silence of post-apocalyptic desertion. Everybody was in bed.

Big full moons over the ocean every night. Wide beautiful swaths of (relatively) un-touristed beach. Hilarious ongoing laughter of Jaelyn and Keith romping wildly in the shallow surf. Waveboarding huge 15 foot waves.

Oh -- and the other feature of Farm Life. COOKING. Hardcore Cooking at EVERY meal. ALWAYS sausage or bacon in the morning WITH eggs, pancakes, etc...ALWAYS a HOT lunch (they call it Dinner). And big, endless dinners. The whole getting-naked-on-the-beach-thing was an odd yang to the yin of dinner.

So here's the blog plan for the semester. I'm gonna *try* to put some words up here every other day minimally -- but I do want to stay committed to the front burners and fronter-back-burners that I should be. Be assured, though, dear reader, if you're blogging and I have your address, I'm reading you a lot more than I'm writing! I love the ability to be *with* my friends even while so far away.

If you are one of the loyal (two? three?) readers who reads every day -- then you'll recognize that I've broken one of the rules of the non-cyber-universe. I've gone back in time and revised my plan as it was first published. With no indication of what it used to say! Who knows what will happen to Marty McFly now? will he disappear from the photo first? or will the Libyan Terrorists in the minivan kill the professor?

Peace~