YIKES

As it has been almost a month, I figure I'd better provide an explanation as to my absence. These past four weeks of classes have been intense. Not so much for the classes, since I only have two different topics between the four classes I'm teaching, and I've taught both before, but because of the other work I have on top of them.

First, there's a little matter of a dissertation. I've given myself the goal of "finishing" a chapter a month this semester, to use next semester to revise and hopefully defend by the end. (I'm ambitious, but at this point, the tunnel needs some light somewhere).

But in addition to the dissertation writing, I have also been working on a presentation I am giving tomorrow at school. It's on teachers from our university, back at the end of the 19th century, who went to Argentina to help start/develop Normal Schools there. It's at one in the afternoon, so this lecture series is not usually super packed, but people have been telling me all week that they saw in the paper that I'm speaking tomorrow (it's just a basic write-up with the topic, place, and time- they do it for each one of the series, but STILL, that means people might actually come to this thing!) And it's been a looooooooong time since I've spoken in public in this way- reading a paper I wrote. I've never been particularly bothered by speaking in public, especially if I have everything written out, but I've never done so in a "professor" capacity. Juan tells me I do it everyday, but I don't- I never read lectures to my classes, and anyway it's not to my peers. I'm not a historian, so I guess I'm a little more concerned about the post-talk questions and someone asking something that completely throws me for a loop.

Last night I dreamt that I got there 10 minutes before I was scheduled to speak and realized that I was missing some pages. So, I went back to my office to get them, and by the time I got back five minutes past the hour, everyone had left. So, all that hard work I've been putting in for the past month was all for naught. Needless to say, I didn't really sleep the rest of the night. THEN I get to my office this morning, and there's an email saying that the president of the university wants them to record my talk, but that it's up to me, and they won't if I don't want to. But, what non-tenured faculty is going to say no to the president's request? So, now I've really had to give some thought to what I'm going to wear, because it's going to be taped for all posterity.

If you happen to read this before 1 pm (central time) on Wednesday, send some positive thoughts my way. And if it's after, hope that I am finally going to get some decent sleep.