The year that was 2011

As I look back at past blog posts from this year, it occurs to me that 2011 has been a year that has taken me further away from a lot of blogging, writing, and reading activities. And it occurs to me that I’ve done a lot of other quasi-administrative and otherwise not writing/reading/blogging things this year– being on the search for the department head for example, not to mention all of the things I mention in this post.

So while there were plenty of highlights from the last year, not as many of them seem to have made them to the blog this year.  Among those posts and events I’ll remember though:

I’m leaving stuff out, of course.  I was kind of surprised to see it, but it doesn’t look like I blogged at all about our travels through the UP to Minnesota or to Glen Arbor, for example.  But you get the idea.

I don’t usually have New Year’s resolutions since I always think of the “year” starting when school begins in August, but I do have a few resolutions I’m hoping to work on starting this January:

  • No mornings at EMU.  And as a related resolution, not be up at school quite as much.  I was there almost every day/all day this fall and, as I think about it, close to that much last winter.  A lot of that had to do with teaching an overload and “ramping up” as I was stepping into the writing program coordinator job, but now that the dust has settled, I can settle in a bit too.  I already have things on my calendar that will break this “no mornings at school” resolution, but still, a boy can try.
  • Get serious about the “immediacy” book thing.  The most satisfying writing experiences I had this past fall was practicing what I was preaching in ENGL 621 and “touching it every day,” and by “it,” I mean going back to my dissertation in an effort to revive that project into a book, something I should have done literally a decade ago.  I don’t know if I’ll get there or not, but it is worth a try.
  • School myself on HTML 5 (which I’m teaching this term) and PHP/MySQL.  We’ll see how that goes.
  • And the usual eating right/losing weight/exercise thing.  I have more thoughts on that, but I don’t want to jinx myself here, so let’s just say I have some goals and plans I’ll keep to myself for now.

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