At Least Watch the Video at the End

So I have been tuned out for quite some time now.

Sorry to have neglected you, dear reader. I find I either have too much to say or nothing at all and both at the most inconvenient of times.

As I gear up to start the new semester, I am looking forward to a year of monumental changes (again).

Tom is working on his last push toward his degree. We will both be on the national job market this coming fall... and we both want to be the spousal hire. (If you are in higher ed, the primary hire tends to have more pressure for tenure review, I believe. This means we are both scared shyteless about the whole prospect of academic and scholarly scrutiny.)

I will be teaching six classes (150 students roughly, give or take the ten or so I intend to scare off the first week of class; kidding [kind of]). (*UPDATE: In my pure insanity, I agreed to take on a 7th class in April; add 30 graduate students to that total.)

Plus, I landed a gig as a subject matter "expert"--I still cannot type that or say it without cackling-- for a university starting a Master's program in my area of "expertise".

It is colder than frozen hell here. Yet, our old chimney is leaking beneath the litter boxes in the laundry room. The plague continues to plague us (me, mostly). I am working up the strength to return to a workout routine after a couple of weeks of "bed rest" (read: sleeping until 10AM) and holiday "merriment" (read: gorging on everything naughty and fattening. Might as well just rub it on my ass, 'cuz that's where it goes...)

Thanks to all who sent holiday greetings: family, friends, bloggy companions. I would resolve to be better at keeping in touch this new year of the second decade of the second millennium but I am a terrible liar, even in print. I miss you all and miss this blog thing... I will try to post at least once a week. I will try. And I have been reading along with your blogs.

I leave you with a video sent to me by one of my students from last semester with Happy 2010 wishes to all: