Ugh

It's the first sunny morning in forever, and I'm glad for it, but also tetchy.  S and I are slowly chipping away on the distance course; that slowness makes us both edgy, and we're worst when we have to work together, as we did first thing this AM.  I think he resents having to do the course at all, though he doesn't blame anyone since he did agree to it, and we both are frustrated with how slow it is and with having to try and coordinate our efforts, even though i suspect it will be a better, stronger course for the combined work.  Basically it sucks and we'd rather be working on other things, but we can't, it needs to get done.  I'm trying to think whether we'd enjoy it under other circumstances... but I suppose there's a reason I wanted out of multimedia design.  I kinda forgot that just because I can doesn't mean I want to.  Blech.  Only now we are committed

Yawn.  This is boring.  But I don't really want to get down to the next lecture - I'm off to the hospital soon and I'll have al afternoon to work on this.  My mind wants to pick on all the other projects I'm not doing - the SSHRC re-write, several book reviews, articles in various states of revision, my renewal application.  And then there's baby stuff... mostly needing to get a mattress, but also setting up a registry, maybe an amazon list.  None of it is really that urgent, though.  tinker tinker.  Soon I'll have a baby to take up all my time and mental and physical energy, and then as soon I'll start finding time on my hands to pick away at all those other projects if I have the focus for them.  I don't know.  I don't feel clear cut about anything theser days.  Except maybe that it's sunny and birds are singing and croaking and the breeze smells sweet and I really don't want to be grumpy all day. 

I should get new glasses.  And see a dentist.  And arrange for massages.  And take the care in.

My hips hurt like a hobbled horse.  I just can't bring myself to care this AM.

Oh gods

It's Monday morning, the sun has already dissappeared behind rain clouds, Laird's car is dead, I'm nauseous and headachy, and it's hard to reach the keyboard over my burgeoning belly.  It's swiftly a day begging to feel sorry for itself, but I know I can't let myself get started down that road.  As of today, I have four weeks to finish two grant apps and the distance course among a myriad of other annoying tasks.  It's doable, even given my reduced capacity, but only if I stay on task and do what I've set out each day.  And today, it's this module of the distance course and restructuring the CFI grant. But i really donnnnn wannnnaaaa.  Ya know?  It just feels so futile - and our styles are so different and I don't even know why we're bothering except we promised and so feel this need to drag ourselves over glass and salt until we've created something filled with the bitterness of its own production.

Wow I'm definately trending towards melodrama today and I feel so utterly useless.  I can't keep feeling this way.  Empty vessel, right?  I was lying in bed thinking about these lessons.  Not sure how to start - talking bout the lyre/lyric connection perhaps and then word sound - Western wind and Cuckoo to get them thinking about sound and emotion, then the specifics of diction - kinds of sounds and the terminology that describes sound patterns more generally; then rhythm, metre, pace; then rhyme.  There's a lot to cover.  Sigh.

Sounds
Western Wind p23 - sound (sad)
Sumer is icumen in p24 - sound (happy)
Holy Sonnet XIV p44
London p102
Dulce et Decorum p226-7

rhythm, pace, metre
The Windhover p182 - sprung rhythm (echoes images)
To His Coy Mistress p62 - pace
Shakespeare sonnet 55 p36 metre
next to of course god I p229 - pace

rhyme
Shakespeare sonnet 55 p36 - sonnet
next to of course god I p229 - sonnet
When I consider how my light is spent p58 - sonnet
Constantly Risking Absurdity p278 - internal rhyme
The Flea p43

Making courses

This blog served me well to get the Kalamazoo conference paper out, but I've been on the road or focused on other tasks since then.  Today, besides looking for some references for a grant application, I'm committed to tackling another sticky writing task: the first year distance course.  Despite my assurances to Scott, I've been avoiding this.  I like the flexibility and spontaneity of teaching in a classroom environment, and I'm nervous about fixing my ideas on screen, afraid they will look mundane and simplistic when written out.  I know I need to breathe through that - I'm writing for the same first years as I teach, and what seems simple to me is complex to them.  Plus this will give me the chance to fully develop what I always feel rushed in delivering in a class.  it's really the one-on-one teaching mode I wish I could invoke most of the time, and much of the slippage and oversimplification that happens in the classroom comes from having to speak to 40 different people at different points of comprehension.  I told NIcole yesterday that it's about goals - what's the goal of the lesson, and does everything lead towards it.  So for today, that'll be _my_ goal - identify the goal of a lecture and aim for it.  And today's lectures: Intro to poetry!  (I'll be back later if I get stuck)