As this sabbatical winds down, I'm doing two things: 1. Obsessively checking the enrollment stats for next semester's courses. Here's an academic conundrum: I (and we, really) want the courses to fill, because, like Sally Field, I want reassurance...

I think I first heard the term "slowcoach," as in "Slowcoach McClellan," in the sonorous tones of David McCullough. At any rate, I think I'm going to adopt it as a cautionary epithet. Tenured Radical, a blogger I admire, said something in passing this...

Not screaming, but writing. Not as in "I make writing wake UP!" but as in "I wake up early, about 4 a.m., and since that's too early to get up, my brain busies itself by writing things in my head." This morning's writing was about Sandra Tsing Loh's...

Profacero and some other bloggers keep up the practice of "reading for pleasure Wednesdays" posts. Although I'm not organized enough to do that, it made me think about stolen reading time. Stolen reading time is the time you get to read when you're...

*poof* The more I thought about this too-dramatic post, in which I argued that going to 5-year contracts would mean kicking everyone over 45 to the curb, the more uncomfortable I was with it, especially after reading the judicious responses from...