Hi all. I hope everyone is enjoying their break, or, if your break is over, that you are enjoying the fresh start of a new semester. I’m just sitting here, suffering from vacation fatigue, wishing that I had accomplished something productive–anything, really–but all I’ve done lately is eat, drive to SLC, and sleep.
A couple of notable eats: Moochie’s (perfect Philly cheese steaks), Lamb’s (good ambiance), and, of course, the “Utah” In-N-Out (I dare you to click on this and watch/listen to the entire advertisement). Granted, I have had two friends from Taiwan with me for the past two and a half weeks, so I shouldn’t feel guilty for not reading anything for the last little while. But, I still do.
How do you all feel? What do you do during these breaks? I feel like I need to work in some way, but all I want to do is sleep or watch movies (I saw _True Grit_ today and quite enjoyed the Coen brothers’ sweetness). Anyway, am I alone in feeling like an unproductive lump of whatnot?
karobison
DLewis
Jeremy
bdbascom
I’ll admit: I got a lot more done this break than I expected. I came in planning on doing nothing but helping with the twins and maybe a little reading on the side. I’ve been able to get through a few different books I’ve been anxious to open up–including my first one by Foucault (“The Order of Things”–it was interesting and I hear it’s one of his better works). Right now, I’m trying to polish up my syllabus for this next semester.
Of course, you have to remember that reading is about ALL I’ve been able to do this break. I wanted to go see True Grit, but…alas.
Ah, True Grit was fantastic. But I think I’ve warmed up to westerns since moving to the Midwest.
I’ve only read the introduction to “The Order of Things.” I hear it’s a really important book for literary criticism, but die-hard Foucaultians in the social sciences write it off because Foucault supposedly wrote the book off. There’s an interview, somewhere, that he’s like, “Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote that book.” At least that’s what a prof here told me when I asked why that book wasn’t on a syllabus for a class on Foucault. I quickly dropped the class.
I’m the opposite of Dallin. I had ambitious plans for the break which were quickly squelched. The house sold on the 31st, and we had to move out a few days later. There went a good week or so. The bad news was that I was supposed to read Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (which is huge), Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (decent size), Sidney’s Defense of Poetry (shorter), and Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (not so short, esp. in Middle English) before classes started. So in the three days before the semester began, I read like a wild woman. (Ryan tells me this sentence doesn’t make sense, because wild women likely can’t/ don’t read.) The only thing I didn’t finish was Tasso. I guess that was a procrastinated sort of productivity.
I was also supposed to write a paper for a conference I’m going to in March–yes, I succumbed to submitting an improvised abstract–and work on another paper I’m going to try to publish. Neither of those happened. Oops. Next time I’ll set my expectations lower.
Thanks for the movie tip. The Tourist was a pleasant surprise; I liked that. Also, I know we’re a little behind the times, but we just got the A-Team from Red Box. Hilarious.