The Night Before Christmas

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Last night, Vickie picked up Billy and me from the airport after an eventful trip back to Oregon for the holidays.  While we were home, I submitted my final paper of the semester, which felt like a huge weight off my shoulders.  It was a very rigorous term, so it feels great to have most of the work behind me.  I began working on my winter break project, which I'll need to submit before the semester is officially finished, but I am looking forward to undertaking that reading list over the next few weeks.  I also checked my grades for the two classes I've completed, and overall I was quite pleased with how they turned out.  I may have finally learned that perfection on my transcript is unimportant as long as I feel like I gave the classes my best effort.  I know I could have done better in one of the classes if I hadn't also been taking two other ones and teaching, but as a whole, I feel very satisfied with what I was able to accomplish this term.  I also feel relieved to have it behind me and to know there'll never be another one like it.

It was really nice to be in Oregon.  I finally got to introduce Billy to Jordan, Krista's husband and my old friend, and we both got to meet their girls for the first time.  I was so glad to have time to catch up with Krista and Jordan, and Clara and Evie were even more adorable in person, which I didn't think was possible.  When we were saying our final goodbye and Clara waved and said "Bye Liz!" my heart grew three sizes that day.  We also hosted a get together of old high school friends, and my friend Tina arrived early so we could meet her new baby, Sophia.  Sophia was happy and smiley, and it was fun for me to see Tina as a new mom and talk to her about how she has begun to figure things out.  (It was NOT fun to hear that she'd been in labor for over 24 hours.  Yikes!)  It was also great to see my friend Kelsey and several other girls we grew up with.  We are all doing such different things, and we're in different phases in our personal and professional lives, but everyone is doing so well.  It made me thankful that I grew up in a time and place where it was cool for girls to be smart and kind.

I was also glad to have a chance to spend time with family.  I'm spoiled now that Vickie lives with us, but especially after such a difficult semester, I was really looking forward to going home to see my mom and dad.  Mom continues to work really hard in her job downtown, and she told us that she recently realized she has worked 22 Saturdays this year.  She has had to put in a lot of overtime, and her job sounds like a lot of work, so I was really thankful that she was able to take some time off to spend with us.  My dad's parents, Mimi and Papa, finally got to town after several flight delays, and it was great to be able to see them for the holidays again this year.  I was also glad to see my dad, and we finally got to hear more details about his trip to Chile.  He also shared his photos of the trip with us, and it was nice to hear how much he enjoyed seeing the country with Nate and Judy and how nice his visit was with his exchange student host family.

Dad says he felt well during his trip, but unfortunately the tumors in his liver seem to have spread since his return.  Shortly after we arrived in town, his doctors determined that he has some kind of blockage in his liver, so he underwent a procedure to try to alleviate the obstruction.  The procedure was not as successful as the doctor had hoped it might be, so they are continuing to try to figure out what the next step will be.  My dad has kept such a positive attitude and a determined spirit throughout his battle with cancer that it just feels so fundamentally unfair that the cancer does not recognize how badly he wants it out of his body.  My dad and I are both such do-ers that I know it's hard for both of us when there doesn't seem to be anything that we can do.  I was really thankful that we were home to try to help out and keep him company since he wasn't feeling well.  Given Dad's health, we've decided to forgo the trip to Australia we had planned for January and will instead return to Oregon to spend some more time as a family.  I had been looking forward to this winter break all semester, and now I am more appreciative than ever that I don't have to "report for duty" at school until late January.  Billy has never been to Seattle, so I am also hoping we will be able to get up there with Mom during this next trip out.  It will also be fun to have the chance to see Jordan, Krista, Tina, and their girls again.  We're all hoping that Dad will be feeling better then, but if he is not, I am glad that I will be able to be home to help out with whatever he needs me to do.  Plus, now that he has a DVR, we can catch as much Australian Open tennis as my heart desires!  : )

It was hard for me to leave Portland, but it is always nice to come home to our own house, and Oscar is definitely happy we're back.  After sleeping in this morning, we went up to Patti and Chuck's to exchange gifts before heading to Nana and Mr. Dick's to spend Christmas Eve with Chuck's side of the family.  Billy's cousin Gina is newly engaged, and his cousin Chuckie recently finished his nursing program, so there was plenty of Christmas cheer with that side of the family this year.  It was fun for me to have Vickie there, too.  Billy's family has made me feel like one of their own for several years now, but having them adopt Vickie into the swing of things makes me realize anew how kind and welcoming they are.  Now she's off to work at her church's Christmas Eve service before we all head up to Billy's Aunt Mary and Uncle Gary's house to celebrate with Patti's side of the family tomorrow.

I'm sorry that I won't get to see Nate or my Gramma Kingston this holiday season, but I feel more thankful than ever that I've gotten to spend the holidays with all of the other people who are most important to me.  I hope all of you out there are enjoying plenty of good food, fun, and laughter with your loved ones this holiday season.  My tendency to get caught up in my academics makes me appreciative that I have so many people in my life who remind me that the most important things in life are not printed between the covers of a book.  I feel like I must have overused the words "thankful," "glad," and "appreciative" in this post, but I can't help feeling like my heart is full this Christmas.  Cancer infuriates me, but it also reminds me that life doesn't promise us anything, and in just one day everything can change.  I feel so fortunate that I got to hug and laugh with so many people I love this month, and I hope you'll all take a few extra minutes this season to do the same.

Growing up, my dad read us The Night Before Christmas by Clement C Moore every Christmas Eve before bed.  In the spirit of that book, I'll close with:

Happy Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

(I almost like this picture better than the proper one at top.  The camera has fallen over, Oscar has jumped out of his spot, and Vickie and I are laughing, but Billy is still trying to play it straight to get the shot.  Such is life in our house these days.)

Third Girl

On January 18, I wrote:
A few weeks ago, I officially joined the Annapolis Striders. This year's goal: qualify for the Championship Series. There are 8 races in the series, and to qualify, you have to run in at least 6 of them. The distances are 5k, 10mi, 10k, 1mi, 8k, Metric Marathon (26.2k/16.3mi), 5mi, and 15k. 


Yesterday was the last race of the year, and so I officially qualified for the Championship Series.  And because I dragged myself (and Billy) out in the cold drizzle for 15k/9.3 miles, I secured my third place position.

Yesterday's race was pretty difficult.  It was in the 40s with a light drizzle, so although that was highly preferable to snow or 40s and pouring rain, it was still a bit bone chilling by the end.  Neither Billy nor I could peel my banana until we had been in the car long enough to warm up our hands.  I ran slow, and my legs are still aching from the rolling hills, but I finished.  And that was the main goal.

I also wrote in that post that I wanted to get close to a 9 minute mile pace, but that just hasn't happened.  I'm running slower and slower every time, it seems.  After a too-hot-to-run-outside summer and a demanding, exhausting fall semester, though, I'm pleased that I stuck with the goal and continued showing up for races even though the times I was able achieve were not my best.  Maybe next year I can work on improving my pace.

This year, though, in running and in life, has been about putting my head down and sticking with it.  The Championship Series is a nice reminder that sometimes there is a prize for slow and steady, even if that does not win the race.  (Literally: There's a prize for 3rd place.  My first running prize!)  Of the 12 people in my age group that registered, only 4 of us stuck with it through the end, which reminds me that my determination will continue to set me apart from others.

Speaking of which, I've got to get back to this final paper for my Postcolonial studies class.  It's the last thing standing between me and my winter "break," though I took a break yesterday to run the race and do some Christmas shopping.

(Third Girl is a novel by Agatha Christie.  I've never read an Agatha Christie novel, but the title works. : ))

The Little Engine That Could

Hi everybody!  Yesterday I submitted a 32 page seminar paper on Eliza Haywood's Fantomina and the 17th century scientific revolution.  I have been busting my brain on this project for several weeks.  At the end of the day, I have no idea whether my professor will find it adequate or not.  I took on some very complex theoretical frameworks, though, so I'm really proud of where the project ended up.  I think that's supposed to be the point of a seminar class, anyway, so I'll consider it a success no matter what grade my effort garners.  It's funny how sometimes the class you thought you'd be least interested in is the one that motivates you to push yourself to produce your best work.

I also taught my last undergrad class of the semester, so it finally feels like some of the pressure I've been under is lessening.  There's still a lot of work to be done; I collect final papers from my students tomorrow, so I have to grade those and finalize their grades for the semester by the 17th.  Yesterday, when I collected their final participation self-evaluations, one of the most quiet girls had written a short note about how much she had enjoyed the class.  It reminded me that one of the things I learned while teaching high school was that you have to consciously make the effort to avoid doubting yourself just because some of your students frustrate you.  They're the most vocal ones, but they tend to obscure the fact that for most of the class, things might be moving along quite well.  I always want to feel like my courses are ones in which students get out of them what they put in, so I need to re-learn to stop getting so frustrated by the students who don't put in much effort, and re-learn that the students who sit there quietly and periodically compliment my shoes before class might be learning as much as I hope they are. I also had three students schedule appointments during office hours to go over last minute questions about their papers, and all three of those conferences went really well.  I quite enjoyed talking to those students and could tell that they had been putting a lot of work into their research projects.  I hope I'll be able to take those moments away with me and leave the grade complaints behind.

I also have to research and write a 10 page paper for my postcolonial class, due December 20.   Though I think I know where I'm headed for that paper, I don't feel like I have a great idea.  I think I may have run out of great ideas and/or the energy to conceive great ideas for this semester, and I think that's okay.  Just do the best you can is the mantra that has been on repeat through my head this semester, so I'll give that paper as good a shot as I can muster.  Everyone likes to tell me things like "Nobody loves every paper they submit" and "Sometimes a course just doesn't strike a chord with me," but I've never actually submitted a paper I wasn't quite proud of, so we'll see how it goes.  At least I can direct my focus on that paper once my grading is done rather than trying to work on it while doing 18 other things simultaneously.

Then I have the entire holiday break to work on a research project for my American modernism seminar.  I am actually quite excited about that because it feels like I will finally be getting the chance to focus specifically on my area of interest.  It will also give me some increased motivation to read some of the books/articles I've been meaning to read but haven't been able to find time to get through.  I hope working on that will keep my momentum going through the break while still allowing me to feel like I've had a break from the intensity of the semester.  After this week, I don't have to be on campus again until the end of January, and I realized recently that this is the first time I've had over a week off since I began graduate school.  Even this past summer, when I had a month off of work, I still had to go to class four days a week for my intensive German class.

I'm also looking forward to going back to Oregon for the first time in two years.  It will be fun to see my parents and several friends, and I'll finally get to meet Krista's little ones.  My dad recently told me that my grandparents are going to be in town for part of our visit, so that was just like icing on the cake.  While we're home we're also supposed to finalize plans for our Australia trip!

I hope that in the long run, I'll be thankful that I put in these few hard, high pressure months to get a little bit ahead of schedule on my funding package.  It's comforting to know that I'll never have to teach students and take classes in the same term.  And I hope that next term will feel a lot more manageable by comparison. I still have a lot going on, but I'm not teaching, so I hope I'll be able to avoid the feeling of being completely and totally overwhelmed.  The comments of my classmates and professors suggest that they don't feel like my work has suffered too much as a result of my over-commitment, but I know that Billy and Vickie and a few friends have seen just how close to the edge this semester has pushed me.  I hope for all of our sakes I'll be able to continue getting better at finding a healthy balance between school and home life.

Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!

This is what we did on Thursday.

Also, Cash likes to take pictures of himself with camera phones.

And this is what I've been doing ever since.

My brain is too zapped to say any more.  But I hope you all enjoyed as nice a holiday as we did, and that those of you who have been hard at work have at least been able to enjoy the delicious leftovers, as I have.

("Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!" is a short story from David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice collection.)

Long May You Run

Today starts my Thanksgiving "break."  My professor re-arranged our schedule to cancel class on Tuesday, so to save myself a trip to campus, I cancelled the class I teach and gave them an additional assignment instead.  This means I have 11 days at home to work on grading, final lesson planning, and most importantly, on my end-of-semester papers.  I hope there will be at least a little time for relaxing, but we'll see.

I told my friend Katie that the professor who cancelled class is like a marathon trainer.  Her class was really intense at the start and pretty rigorous throughout, but the way she arranged the end of the syllabus indicates that she knows about "the taper."  In order to produce our best work at the end of the semester, we need a little break to gear up for that assignment, she seems to know.  I could hug her.

Speaking of running, I went for a 9 mile run on Sunday, thus confirming that if you can run 5 miles comfortably you can run 9.  After the results came in from my most recent race, I realized that if I don't run in the December 15k race that ends the Championship Series, I will likely lose my 3rd place spot to the girl behind me.  She doesn't seem to run very fast, so if I can run a fairly decent time, I can beat her... but if I don't run at all, she'll move up enough in the points to surpass me, I think.  I won't really have time to train my way up from 5 miles to 9 miles, so I figured I'd see if I could get through 9 miles without training.  I ran about a minute slower than my regular pace but didn't have any trouble finishing the distance, so I think I'll just keep my regular workout schedule between now and then and hope for the best when that race day comes.  It always makes me laugh a little when it's my legs that get tired before my lungs do-- when I first started running in 2003, and when I first started running again last year, the burning I experienced in my lungs made it seem like running until my legs hurt would never be possible.

Anyhow, after "sleeping in" until almost 8 and then wasting some time online, I must get started on today's grading.  I'll leave you with the photos of the last race that the club photographer shared last week.  It was chilly!

(Long May You Run is actually a book I'd never heard of until I searched Amazon for "run," but I like the Neil Young song and I don't have any better ideas for a title, so we'll go with it.)

The History of Pompey the Little; or, the Life and Adventures of a Lap-Dog

Today is Oscar's 6th Birthday!  So it seems fitting that this week's reading assignments included a book that purports to be about a lap dog.  The History of Pompey the Little offers a pretty scathing criticism of the different types of people who trade him around as a commodity, so I informed Oscar that he should be happy to be living a fairly stable life with one devoted family.  To show his appreciation, he sat with me while I read the book.

For his birthday gift this year, I am hoping to give him plenty of sunshine, since it is the only thing that can coax him out of his lap dog ways into sprawling out all by himself.

If a little more Oscar is what your day needs, check out the photo retrospective I put together last year when he turned 5.

The Saturday Evening Post

Well, today was a full day.

I woke up shortly after 6 so I could get some grading done before we left for the Navy game.  Billy, Vickie, Brian, Chuck and I got to spend an unseasonably warm day in the sunshine.  Vickie and I enjoyed mimosas-- I was struck by this stroke of genius when I purchased a bottle of champagne earlier this week for my office mate (she passed her comprehensive exams!).  When we got home, I responded to student emails and made it through 75 pages of my reading assignment for the week.  So one the one hand, I feel like I took an entire day off from schoolwork to spend time with some of my favorite people, doing one of my favorite things.  (Navy won when my favorite player came up with a stop on defense during the last play of the game!)  On the other hand, I did actually spend approximately six hours working today.  And now that I'm done with my novel, it's well past my bedtime, so I'll stop writing sentences that probably don't make sense and just share the pictures we took today.  Look at that sky-- I didn't even mess with the color on the pictures.  Hope you all enjoyed your Saturday as much as I did!

(I'm not sure I've ever held a copy of The Saturday Evening Post, but back in the day they used to publish some of my favorite authors.)

At the Bay

Yesterday I ran the Down's Park 5 Miler, which I also ran and wrote about last year.  It was actually my first race since August, and I really enjoyed it.  I haven't been feeling too great, and I certainly can't afford to get sick at this point in the semester, so I tried to put my competitive urges on the back burner and run it just for fun.  It was, indeed, quite fun.  It was chilly, but the course runs through the fall foliage at the park and along the Chesapeake Bay, so along with my own heavy breathing I got to hear the sounds of the water lapping on the rocks and the leaves crunching under peoples' feet.  I ran it three minutes slower than last year, but I think I still finished with a good enough time to secure 3rd place in my running club's year long "Championship Series" for my group, so I was pleased with that.  They still haven't posted results online, so I can't be sure, but I'll update with that info and the pictures from the photographer when they're available.  Billy, as always, came to cheer me on, to meet me halfway so I could hand off my gloves.  Somewhere in the midst of all of that he took the photos of the bay above and watched an 11 year old girl beat every other woman in the race.  (Because of the way the course loops around, I could hear the crowd cheering for the winners when I was just past halfway, which was really funny.)

It has been quite a hectic past few weeks, which helped to increase the satisfaction of spending some time outdoors breathing the fresh air and watching the sun come up.  I'm beginning to check things off the endless list of responsibilities, though.  While the end of this semester is not yet in sight, I'm managing to prioritize my work appropriately and feel pretty good about where I am right now.  In the past, the last 6 weeks or so of the semester have always seemed so terribly overwhelming, but I'm trying to adopt a different approach this semester, which is also kind of inspired by the running.  Thinking about having 2 miles left to go is much less daunting when you focus on the fact that three miles are already behind you.  So rather than focusing on all that I have left to do, I've been trying to think retrospectively, as well, at all I've managed to accomplish in the past few weeks.  This helps to give me confidence that I'll be able to tackle the goals ahead, as well.

One of the things I'm glad to have in the rear-view mirror now is my presentation at the Reading Comparatively conference, about which I last wrote.  After spending several weeks condensing, reshaping, and practicing my paper, I felt pretty good about delivering it at the conference, and I was legitimately excited to share my research findings with more people than just my professor.  We had a pretty good turnout for the talk-- I think there were over 20 people in the audience, including quite a few of my own professors.  Vickie also came to see what the conference was like and to provide moral support. It was fun for me to have her get a glimpse into what I do, even if that glimpse just revealed to her in more detail just how nerdy I am.

I was the first to present in my panel, and then there were presentations given by another grad student and two professors.  One of them is a pre-eminent scholar in the field.  One of them is currently on a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship, working on her second book.  The other one is currently on his second yearlong dissertation fellowship.  So, to say the least, I was expecting to get zero questions/comments about my own paper unless someone thought my conclusions were absolutely wrong.  However, I got all the questions/comments.  I don't know whether I should consider this a sign that my paper was the least well articulated, or that the audience found it interesting, so I've decided it is probably a combination of the two factors.

First, the professor for whom I wrote the paper (and who organized the conference) suggested he had learned a lot from my paper, which was especially exciting news considering that edited the book I wrote about and he edits the Norton Anthology of American Literature.  He also made a suggestion about connecting my argument to Uncle Tom's Cabin, after which one of my co-panelists suggested another text that I might want to look into.  Then another one of my professors asked a series of questions that basically boiled down to "Okay, interesting discoveries, but why should anyone care?"  I gave what I felt like was an honest answer to that question (which I do think I had addressed in the paper itself, if more briefly than I would have liked to have done).  Then a friend of mine who introduced the panel asked the other grad student to talk about his paper in relationship to mine, and his answer gave me some really interesting things to think about in regards to my own argument.  The professor who organized the conference also suggested that he'd like to hold a longer symposium on the topic of "law and literature," which was the theme of our panel, so I might get a chance to give an expanded version of the talk in the spring.  This would be helpful for me, as well, since he thinks I should continue working with my argument in order to get it published.

It's nice to come away from anything feeling like the work you put into it had paid off, so getting to experience that with my race this weekend and my presentation on Friday made for a good couple of days.  I feel ready to take on the rest of the term, which is exactly what I wrote about after the Down's Park 5 Miler last year.  And that semester turned out pretty well for me, didn't it?

("At the Bay" is Katherine Mansfield short story, from her The Garden Party collection.  I wish she was American so I could call her my own.)

Reading Comparatively: Theories, Practices, Communities

Remember when I wrote last spring about the paper I was researching?  The one about Harriet Beecher Stowe and Margaret Garner?

I'm presenting a version of that paper at our department's upcoming conference, which is titled "Reading Comparatively: Theories, Practices, Communities."  If you want to read more about the conference, you can visit its website.  You can even find me on the program if you look hard enough!

I've been working all day on turning that seminar paper into one I can present at the conference.  Why does it take so long to write a paper that will only take 15 minutes to deliver??  Sometimes academia is crazy-making.  Luckily for me, I'm sitting on the same panel as one of our department's biggest names, so I might have an audience much larger than I've earned by myself (which would include my friend/classmate Katie, a few of my new classmates who were trying to be nice, one or two of my students who pretend to be interested in my research but are really just sucking up, and possibly the professor who already gave me feedback on the original draft).

Robinson Crusoe

As you may know, Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is the story of a man who recounts the monotonous details of his life at an excruciating level of detail because, among other reasons, it makes him feel like what he is doing matters (though he is stranded on a desert island for much of the narrative).  In the spirit of this novel (often called the first novel ever written, depending on how you classify it), I thought I would follow up my last post about a slightly more harried than usual day on campus with a description of what I did yesterday, which was a typical work-from-home day for me.

I woke up at 7am.  I intended to start my day by getting my day's allotment of student paper grading out of the way.  I only made it through three of the six papers I had intended to grade before I gave up to move onto something else.  I showered and got dressed, hoping this would make me feel like my day actually started with the next activity.

Then I got through about 40 pages of Robinson Crusoe before I had to quit that, too.

I read two articles about Katherine Anne Porter's work and typed up their entries for the presentation I'm due to give on KAP on Wednesday.  I emailed the curator of the KAP collection to ask her a question about the letters I read last week, to which she promptly responded with a very helpful answer.

I graded the remaining three papers from the day's allotment.  I formulated a plan for dealing with an act of academic dishonesty and emailed the student to request a meeting.  I considered smashing my head into the desk but restrained myself.

I read 20 more pages of Crusoe.  I cursed Crusoe for feeling the need to be so specific.

I took a 20 minute nap.  It is nearly impossible for me to make it through a day of reading at home without laying down for 20 minutes.  I have been told that my grandfather was narcoleptic, and I don't know if there's a narcolepsy "spectrum" like there is an autism "spectrum," but if there is, I'm on it.  I don't actually need to sleep, really.  I just need to lay down and give myself permission to drift off into sleep, and then I feel recharged.  Usually I am asleep within two minutes and I wake up on my own before the 20 minutes is even up. Sometimes I have brilliant ideas while transitioning from sleeping to wakefulness, but yesterday was not one of those days.

I spent a few hours reading a chapter from Jill Casid's Sowing Empire.  When Billy got home, I reached a stopping point, and we went to the gym.  On the way home from the gym, we picked up a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store.  I made a mental note that grad school is still better than working in a grocery store deli (I used to do this).  I made side dishes to accompany the chicken and Billy, Vickie, and I enjoyed dinner together.  (Verdict: Kraft's new "Homestyle" Mac and Cheese is still inferior to Velveeta Shells and Cheese.)

I finished the Casid article, then read 40 more pages of Crusoe.  Having finished 100 pages by 8pm, I decided I was quitting for the day.  I went downstairs to watch TV with Billy and Vickie until bed.  I felt satisfied that the only thing I had failed to accomplish in my plans for the day were the final 60 pages of Crusoe.  I questioned my level of sanity when I realized that I had assigned myself 160 pages of this dreaded tale in a single day.

In the midst of these activities I sorted, washed, dried, folded, and put away 4 loads of laundry.  It has also been brought to my attention that I ate nearly an entire bag (approximately 25?) chocolate mini-donuts.  I was not aware I'd eaten so many until Vickie and Billy independently lamented the missing donuts.  Over the course of the day I also glanced several times at the 300 page novel I am supposed to finish by Thursday.  I don't have a good feeling about the likelihood that it will be accomplished, but I feel okay about this, because it's a book I will actually look forward to reading over break.

Before I fell asleep I said a mental thank you to my old Graduate School Director, Kandice, for the double course release this year.  Teaching and taking three classes this semester is taking its toll on me, and I am thankful every day that I don't have to do it again next term.

And then I slept.  Well.

Ulysses

As you may know, James Joyce's Ulysses documents a single day in the life of his protagonist.  It's reputation is that it's fascinating but difficult to read (and exceptionally long).  I don't anticipate that this post will be of a length to rival Ulysses, but I thought some of you might wonder what my regular day to day life is like as an overcommitted grad student this semester.  And since I am nearing the end of this crazy, harebrained day, I imagine my prose will make about as much sense as Joyce's but will be must less intentionally obfuscating.

I woke up at 5:45am with Billy because I had to get work done this morning.  Most mornings I try to "sleep in" until 7am, but having to get up early is not an unusual occurrence.

I tried to start the day by reading the essay I meant to read yesterday, but which I didn't have time to get to.  I read the first three paragraphs before deciding it was really important, and I needed to take it seriously, and thus had to push it off until Friday.

I read an article for my Thursday afternoon class because though I'd read the novel assigned, I hadn't read any secondary texts yet.  I had meant to get to them, but I hadn't had time.  I chose the one that was about modernism, and wrote the required post on the discussion board online, which was another thing I had thought I wouldn't get to.  I felt like I had a productive morning.

I drove to work in the pouring rain.  I got to my office, loaded up my bag, and went to teach my freshmen.  Fifteen minutes into class I realized that I'd forgotten all of their handouts, so I had to trek back across campus in the pouring rain to get them.  I had to teach the rest of my class in a clammy, wet state.  It didn't go well.

I went back to my office again.  I ran into a friend I haven't seen in months and couldn't talk to her for more than a few minutes.

I went to the library to read a letter recommended to me by the curator of the Katherine Anne Porter collection.   It was really fascinating and will be useful to my research, but I didn't have time to really think about it.  I made conscious effort to stop and remind myself that this is why I want to be in grad school, even if I don't have time for it this particular semester.

I picked up lunch on my way back to my office and ate it while I met with a student who had asked for help with his writing.  He is writing about net neutrality, so he seems to be speaking a different language, but I am optimistic that he'll be able to help me understand it and I'll end up learning quite a bit from his research.

I went to my own class from 3:30-6.  My professor started class by suggesting that she hadn't gotten a chance to read any of our discussion posts.  Later in the class she said that the essay I read (the only essay I read) is a terrible essay, and is an example of how not to write a critical essay.  I tried to comfort myself by reminding myself that I'd pointed out something I thought was missing from her argument.

I went back to my office to begin this blog entry, but only got about four sentences in.  Katie stopped by and she took a few photos of me for the SSG blog. 

Then we went to our 20th Century Reading Group meeting.  I wanted to go to be with "my people" and to hear my professor talk about his new book.  Plus, there was pizza.  I knew two students were presenting papers, but I assumed my professor would go first and I could leave.  (No offense, ladies, but I'm exhausted!)  I was wrong.  I didn't get out of there until after 8:30 and didn't get home until around 9:30.

I got home and Oscar sat on my lap while I watched The Big Bang with Billy and Vickie. 

I came upstairs to look at the photos Katie took for the SSG blog and they're all blurry.  I answered an email from a student who did not turn in a major assignment today even though I have a policy of not answering emails after 8:30pm.  I realized that I left the powercord to my macbook in my office, so I'll be without a laptop until Tuesday unless I want to waste nearly 2 hours driving there and back to get it.

I sat down to finish this blog post.  And now I am going to bed without even reading through it again.  Every day is not like this.  Sometimes I don't even leave the house, and I get to sit around reading all day.  Saturday I will get to take some time off to go to the Navy game.  But if you happen to catch me on the phone, online, or in person, and I tell you that I have so many things going on that I feel like I'm not doing any of them well, this is why.

Tomorrow's a new day, though.  I'll get up early, brew some coffee, and hopefully the essay I pushed off until tomorrow will remind me why I love grad school despite days like today.

Mourning and Melancholia

It's been one year since Pop passed away.

I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we're still mourning, but we're not trapped in melancholia.  I still miss Pop all the time, but I'm happy to be reminded of him in the little things.

Don't worry about me, Pop.  I'm fine as a frog's hair.

(Freud explains the difference between the two in "Mourning and Melancholia."  Mourning is beneficial and Melancholia is self-destructive and endless, to boil it down to the basics.)

The Class

I am finally starting to feel comfortable as a classroom teacher again.  This past week, I was "observed" by my "teaching mentor," which helped me to develop a different perspective on things.  After his observation, he generally had complimentary remarks for me along the lines of "I could tell you knew the content you were teaching," "It's clear that you've taught before," and "It seems like you're a natural."

That last comment got me thinking.  Maybe I'm a natural-- I've always felt at relative ease in the classroom-- but you can't really say, at this point, that I succeed because "I'm a natural." I have, after all, spent four whole years in the classroom.

This made me want to do some math.  I spent four years teaching high school, where we're required to instruct for 170 days a year.  On my schedule, that equates to 3,060 hours in front of the class.  This doesn't count grading, or planning, or organizing Student Government, or even teaching summer school.  I've spent 3,060 hours in front of 20+ kids, and there are some lessons I have literally taught dozens of times.

My three credit English 101 course meets a grand total of 35 hours this semester.  This means that in order to accumulate the number of hours of experience at the college level that I have at the high school level, I'd have to teach 87 three credit course sections.  87!!  I have a double course release this year, but next year my funding package requires me to teach a "full load" of three sections, which is, incidentally, the same number of credits that tenure track professors teach at UMd.  If I continued teaching 3 sections per year, I'd have to teach for 29 years to amass the same number of hours of experience that I got in just four years in the high school classroom.

I discussed this over lunch today with my friend Danielle, who still teaches at the high school I left.  I was telling her how my mentor teacher seemed surprised at how well my students behaved and how well they performed on the quiz he told me was "pretty hard."  "I know they're good kids," I told her, "but I kind of just expected them to pay attention when I talk.  I feel like I'm missing something."  Danielle's an excellent teacher, so it shouldn't have surprised me that she solved the riddle in a single sentence, but it still did.

"It's because you're prepared," she told me.  When I asked her to elaborate, she reminded me that kids know when you're prepared, and when you're prepared, they behave and pay attention.  "You can see it in your own classroom.  On days when I haven't fully prepared the lesson, I know they're going to be chatting.  I expect it."  And she's absolutely right.  We all have the occasional class of rambunctious and/or uninterested kids that are hard to reach, but one thing remains the same: when you're prepared, they focus better.

So thanks, Northern High School, for teaching me to loathe procrastination and to value the importance of being prepared.  It's made me an exponentially better teacher, a "natural" even, and I know it's made me a better person, too.  (And thanks for bringing me Danielle, as well.)  : )

(The Class is a novel by François Bégaudeau about a teacher in France trying to teach French to African students.  It exists in a sort of postcolonial context, as I understand it, which reminds me that I must get back to my actual homework.)

A Grain of Wheat

This morning, I went for my first outdoor run after several weeks of trips to the gym for workouts on mechanized equipment.  The weather was just too great to pass up, and one of my classes did not meet last week, so that has allowed me the chance to make some headway on getting ahead instead of feeling like I am constantly behind.  As soon as I got onto the trail, I noticed that I was in the middle of an official race.  And because of where I'd started, I was just behind the leaders.  This was made me laugh to myself until I got a cramp.  I got to see firsthand just how fast the winners of these events run as they sailed past me, one after the other.  I did get a few cheers at one point, though, from some people who I assume mistook me for the female leader.  Fortunately, after I'd finished my first mile or so, their route took them off the trail, so I got to enjoy my last four miles in (relative) peace.  I don't know how fast I ran, but I pushed myself pretty hard at the end, and it felt great to be out in the fresh air again.  It reminded me of a quote from A Grain of Wheat, by Ngugi wa Thiong'o which I read for class last week. One of the characters is running in a race during his village's celebration of Kenyan independence, and we're told "he used to run in all long-distance races.  He had even developed a theory about such races.  'They test how long you can endure hardship,' he used to say.  'You say to yourself.  I will not give up: I will see this to the end.'"  Indeed.  If I've already unlocked a Kenyan "theory" of long distance running on my own, I'm destined for a faster race pace, right? : )

Since my schedule's not quite as tight this weekend, I thought I'd take a minute to share with you all what I'm up to this semester.  It's a lot of work, but so far I'm enjoying all of it, so that keeps it manageable.

I'm teaching English 101, which is officially called "Introduction to Academic Writing."  I only have one section with 21 students, so I really can't complain.  It's not a literature based course at all-- it's the class the incoming students are required to take to prepare them for the writing assignments they'll have to complete thereafter in their academic careers.  The teaching model is based in rhetoric, so I get to teach some of the things we discuss in our department, but mostly I'm responsible for helping them learn how to become better writers.  All PhD students start out by teaching this course, and a lot of them complain about it because they'd rather be teaching literature and there's a lot of grading.  I like teaching writing, though, and since I'm only teaching one section, the grading responsibilities will not be as overwhelming as if I'd been required to teach two.

I'm also taking three classes.  On Tuesdays I'm taking a class about 18th Century Experimentalism and Natural Philosophy.  Or, as I might title it, "How science as we know it came to be."  I'm technically taking it because I slid through our MA program without taking enough classes in pre-1800 subjects (one of my professors changed the scope of his class at the last minute), so it's a requirement, but I've been wanting to take a class with this professor, anyway, so I'm enjoying it.  She tried to kill us with the reading assignments in the first two weeks, but now that I've accomplished those, I'm hoping it will be slightly smoother sailing for the rest of the semester.  Plus, we've finally gotten started on the literature written about experimentalism, so I'm starting to feel more "in my own element."

On Wednesdays I'm re-taking a class on American Modernism/Modernity that is similar to the one I took in Spring 09, which I might title "Whatever Liz wants to read."  Since we took the class with this professor last time he taught it, my friend Katie and I are taking it as a pseudo independent study.  We're attending class on days that address new texts and working with our professor outside of class that relate more specifically to our research interests.  It's really an ideal scenario for me, because it's precisely the type of literature that I want to be reading, and his flexibility with the syllabus will allow me to get an early start on working on the reading list that will ultimately serve as the basis for my comprehensive exams next year.  (Yes, I am always looking forward.  No use in standing still.)

On Thursdays I have a class in Postcolonial Literature and Theory survey course, which I could otherwise call "Books written by people whose names I can't pronounce."  I feel completely clueless in this class, because after we left Conrad and Achebe behind in week one, I've never even read any of the authors we're covering, not to mention the texts we're assigned.  It's supposed to be a survey, which means an "intro" to the field, but since it's the only postcolonial class offered this semester, a lot of people who specialize in this area are enrolled in it, as well.  The one saving grace for me is that I've read a lot of the critical theory that serves as the foundation for the field, so even though the texts are new, the ideas are ones I'm used to working with.

These seem like a strange hodge podge on paper (or online), but as always, they begin to grow together more than I had originally anticipated.  One of the articles I had to read for my PoCo class last week mentioned one of the texts I'd read for my Experimentalism class the week before.  And so it goes.

The final thing I want to mention is that I've decided to stop making this blog "searchable" via google and the like.  This means you'll no longer be able to type "Literature is where I go" into google and pull up the blog (I hope), so if that's how you're used to finding your way to me, please add the URL as a bookmark or put me in your blog reader instead.  I'm careful about what I write here, since I know I'm sending it out into the public world, but the blog is not really meant for consumption by those who don't know me personally, so I don't see any reason why people need to be able to find it in their search engines.

Hope you've all enjoyed a restful weekend, and that your week ahead is productive.  Vickie is set to return to MD tomorrow, and the new season of Glee premieres the night after that, so things are looking good for us this week.  No races coming up anytime soon, and a whole month before the next Navy football game, but maybe that means I can get even farther ahead in my studies!

And just for good measure, here are a couple pictures of Clara and Cash enjoying the brand new additions to their families:

Thanks for sharing the pictures, guys!

The Truth of Fiction

"The Truth of Fiction" is an essay published by Chinua Achebe in 1988.  I can remember reading it in undergrad and thinking, "Yes, that is why I love to read."  I had to read it again for class last week, and I was hoping to be able to find it online somewhere, because I'm so frequently asked this question:  "Why do you like to read so much?"  I couldn't find an online text (it's included in this compilation), so I wanted to share instead a few of my favorite quotes from the essay.


"...art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of realty from that which is given to him; an aspiration to provide himself with a second handle on existence through his imagination."

"It is a truism and a cliche that experience is the best teacher; it is even arguable whether we can truly know anything which we have not personally experienced.  But our imagination can narrow the existential gap by giving us in a wide range of human situations the closest approximation to experience that we are ever likely to get..."

"The life of the imagination is a vital element of our total nature.  If we starve it or pollute it the quality of our life is depressed or soiled."

"... reading the novel explains so much to us and affects radically the way we perceive the world thereafter."

"My theory of the uses of fiction is that beneficent fiction calls into full life our total range of imaginative faculties and gives us a heightened sense of our personal, social and human reality."

"... when a desperate man wishes to believe something however bizarre or stupid nobody can stop him.  He will discover in his imagination a willing and enthusiastic accomplice.  Together they will weave the necessary fiction which will then bind him securely to his cherished intention.
      The fiction which imaginative literature offers us is not like that.  It does not enslave; it liberates the mind of man.  Its truth is not like the canons of an orthodoxy or the irrationality of prejudice and superstition.  It begins as an adventure in self-discovery and ends in wisdom and human conscience."

A Kiss for Lily

Remember a few months ago, when I was going around saying "Everyone I know is pregnant!"  Well, the babies are coming!

Billy's cousin Jacelyn had Lily Reese on Thursday.  She weighed 6 lbs, 15oz, and mom and baby are both healthy.  Welcome to the world, Lily!  Congratulations, Jay and Allen!

Cash is a big brother now!

We can't wait to meet her!

(A Kiss for Lily is a children's book with a cute, applicable title.) : )

Anchors Aweigh

Still no time for words.  But here are some pictures!  Navy lost, but the sun was out, and we had fun.  And I got to take a bit of a break from all this craziness.

I took this next photo thinking, "I can just flip it around and the M will be right side up!"  It didn't occur to me that the whole world would then be upside down.  I think I'm brainfried.

So I tried again.  The marching band on the big screen above the Mids' seating section.  (How do they pack them into such a tight space at the stadium in Annapolis?

Other news in brief:
-We lost our second softball game via slaughter rule.  For some reason unknown to myself, I tried to dive for a ground ball that went between me and the shortstop.  I did not get an out.  I did not even stop the ball to keep it in the infield.  I just ripped open my knee and am now developing the only scab I can remember having in recent memory.
-We went to our friends' new house for a housewarming party on Saturday.  Billy can now add beanbags to the list of tossing games he excels at.
-I finished the syllabus for the class I'm teaching.
-I had the distinct pleasure of wading my through the single worst/most difficult text I've been assigned in grad school in between all of the above.  I managed to say something about it in class tonight that I don't believe was completely idiotic.  So I will count that as a success.
-I have had very little time to follow the US Open.  This depresses me.  I'm trying to carve out enough time to watch a match in the case that Nadal and Federer both make it to the final.  I like Rafa's chances this year.

(Anchors Aweigh is apparently a very popular book title.  I don't know what any of these books are about, but I must go to bed if I am going to accomplish a full week's worth of reading tomorrow.)

Our Sister (Killjoy)

This morning, I woke up early to get some reading done before we head to the Navy football game.  I opened up Ama Ata Aidoo's Our Sister Killjoy, and it begins with this: "Things are working out/ towards their dazzling conclusions."  This reminded me that I texted Vickie last night to find out the results of her NCLEX, which she took on Friday, but she texted back that she'd have to tell me later when she got home because she hadn't seen the results yet.

So I went to check my phone, to find out, SHE PASSED!!!  On her first try!  Not that I ever actually doubted she would pass.  But still.  Now she's officially Victoria Chambers, RN!

This calls for some celebration!

Dazzling conclusions, indeed!  (That was worth watching again, no?)

The Deep End of the Ocean

Classes started this week.  In my first one, my professor said "Cold water, meet deep end."  No kidding.  I'm actually a fan of jumping unabashedly into the deep end, but this is all a bit much for me.  I'm treading furiously until I can get my bearings and adjust to my new schedule of teaching and studenting, but until then, I'm feeling completely overwhelmed.

So I've got pictures for you, instead of word vomit.

They were supposed to give us a sample syllabus for the course I teach, and I was fully planning to follow it.  Don't try to reinvent the wheel, I'm always trying to tell myself.  However, they still haven't done it, and I can't keep waiting forever.  So I found myself planning it like this:

I believe this to be bordering on certifiably insane.  But I have something even crazier to share.  This is a photo of my assignment book, for the assignments that were due this past week, which means they all had to be accomplished before classes had even begun:

And here's the list for next week.  Please note how few cross outs I have yet managed to accomplish.  Yet, I've been reading and planning almost non-stop since Tuesday morning.

Other news in brief: 

I dove for a ball in our softball game last night and tore open my knee.  A nasty scab is forming.  And I didn't even stop the ball.  And we played such a bad single inning that the game ended early on account of the slaughter rule.

Andy Roddick did me a favor by bowing out of the US Open in the second round, so I am no longer tempted to set aside my work for tennis watching.  Though yelling at a lineswoman for mixing up her right and left can hardly be considered "bowing."  I have a lot more to say about this but no time in which to say it.

Must get back to work. 

(The Deep End of the Ocean is a book by Jacquelyn Mitchard that I can remember reading back in the 90s when Oprah put it on her booklist.  I believe it fed nicely into my John Grisham crime novel obsession.)

The Rise of Public Science

Last night before bed, I was complaining to Billy that I had to start reading this book before classes even begin.  (Full title: The Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660-1750, by Larry Stewart)

He was not buying it.  "You signed up for this," he told me.  He also reminded me that I like it.  (I did not remind him that not only did I sign up for it, I exhausted myself for 18 months for the opportunity to do it.)

When I suggested that I should get a little bit of a break because I read a whole book the day before (Achebe's Things Fall Apart), he told me that all I'd done was proven his point.  "But anyone would rather read a story than an essay," I tried to get him to acknowledge.

"If it was all candy and gumdrops, everyone would have a PhD," he said.

I love my husband.

(And dare I admit, I began the book today, and I actually find it quite interesting.  And he will find it interesting, too, when I've read enough of it to talk to him about it.  Though he might not admit it.)

Questions of Travel

image source

Dad bought our Australian Open tickets today!!  THANKS DAD!

He bought us passes for the first four days to Hisense Arena.  I think we'll be sitting somewhere under that red smudge in the corner of the photo above.  One perk of getting tickets for this court?  It has a roof that prevents rain/heat delays.  This past year, each of the following players had matches on this court during the first four days:

Andy Roddick (2x)

Venus Williams (2x)

Juan Martin del Potro (2x) 

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (2x)

Dinara Safina (2x)

Serena Williams

Novak Djokovic

Justine Henin

Elena Dementieva

Fernando Verdasco

Jelena Jankovic

Caroline Wozniacki

James Blake

Marcos Baghdatis

David Ferrer

Taylor Dent

Plus, a Hisense pass allows you to see matches played on any of the outside courts, as well.  We're also hoping that by purchasing tickets for opening night in Rod Laver Arena, when the defending champion usually plays, we'll get to see Roger Federer.  (If not, it will likely be Rafael Nadal... not a bad replacement!)  The only players we're unlikely to see are Aussie favorites Lleyton Hewitt, Sam Stosur, and Kim Clijsters (who isn't even Australian but is still beloved down under because she used to be engaged to Hewitt).  They always play in Laver Arena.  But, I kind of think it would be more fun to watch one of these matches outside the stadium with this crowd, anyway.

image source

In related news, Andy Roddick made it to the semi-finals of the Cincy Masters tournament this week, despite admitting that he still doesn't feel 100% physically recovered from his mild case of mono.  He beat #5 Robin Soderling and #2 Novak Djokovic en route to the semis, where he lost to his BFF Mardy Fish, who is playing better tennis this summer than he ever has before.  (If you want to know my theory, I think Andy might have been less than devastated to let this one get away.  He served for the match in the second set, but Mardy broke him and then won the tiebreaker.  After that, I got the feeling that Andy knew he wouldn't be able to compete with Federer the next day given his level of fatigue, so losing to his best friend, who was playing well and had more energy, suddenly seemed like a not-so-bad idea.)  Mardy put up a good fight in the finals against Roger Federer, but lost 4-6 in the third set.  Can't wait to see what happens at the US Open!!

The Australian Open opens on January 17.  Just under 5 months to go!!!

("Questions of Travel" is a poem by Elizabeth Bishop in which she questions why we feel compelled to travel to distant locales.  Check out that link for the full text.  As for me, I know why I feel compelled to travel to distant locales during January-- it's summer and tennis season in Oz then!!  Do you remember what I was dealing with this past winter?!)

Teacher (Wo)Man

My German class is winding to a close, and though I'm not sorry to have workbook assignments behind me, I will kind of miss some of the friends I've made in the class.  (There are certainly a handful of complainers I will not miss, but who needs to talk about them?)  We've gotten comfortable enough with our small class (12 students) that those with whom I regularly do "group work" have started teasing me about a) being so old and b) asking too many questions.  Today's heckling was actually kind of insightful, however.

Friendly Overachieving Undergraduate #1: Have you ever tried speaking German with a cold?
Liz: No.
FOU1: It really helps your pronunciation.  It's like someone was speaking Old English back in the day, and then they got a really bad sore throat, and German was born.
Liz (laughs, and says): Oh, well English and modern German both developed out of old German, so maybe someone had a surprisingly clear throat one day and decided to invent English.
FOU1: (laughs) Sounds good to me.
Military (and thus closer to my age) Undergraduate #2: Is it hard being so smart?
Liz: Huh?
MU2: You know everything.  Who knows that stuff?
Liz: Oh, I had to study the history of the English language.  When you've been in school as long as I have, you pick up lots of information along the way.
MU2: No.  It's because you have teacher's brain.  You don't even realize that you never stop teaching.

This prompted an inquiry about what he meant by "teacher's brain."  He informed me that the good teachers are the curious people, and he can tell I am one of them because I ask so many "random" questions.  As in,

MU2: No offense, Liz, but nobody else cares if the "green movement" originally started being called that because it was associated with Germany's Green party.
Liz: What do you mean?  I always thought it was called the green movement because earthy things are green.  So I was trying to figure out what was called "green" first: the movement or the party.  Did you know that Germany started the green movement?
MU2: No, and I didn't care.

More laughter.

This got me thinking about to what degree my teaching is influenced by my natural curiosity about things.  To be perfectly honest, one of the hardest things for me to get used to when I started teaching was realizing that other people aren't as curious as I am.  It doesn't help that I live with another of the world's most curious people.  I've always wanted to learn because I want to know.  So it was interesting to me that the very thing which he suggested makes me a "good" teacher is also something I would identify as one of the things that makes teaching difficult for me.  And I was also intrigued by his suggestion that I don't "realize" that I never stop teaching, because somewhere in the middle of the course I realized that I had been listening to my classmates' questions, realizing that they didn't understand the instructor's answer, and raising my hand to ask the question in a different way that would make the confusion more clear to the instructor so she could answer the question more clearly.  I guess I just can't help it.

And then I realized, the amount of time I spent thinking about his suggestion r.e. my "teacher's brain" kind of proved his point, right?

Incidentally, today marks 2 weeks until I'm back in the classroom!

(Teacher Man is the memoir of Frank McCourt, who is probably even more famous for Angela's Ashes.  It was really insightful in a realistic way, which I loved.  I like stories like Dangerous Minds, the Freedom Writers, and especially Stand and Deliver, but they always seemed so pie in the sky to me that I found them more discouraging than encouraging.  I could never imagine myself being that successful in the classroom.  Frank McCourt, I could relate to.  And I completely ripped off his idea of teaching the parts of the sentence by equating them with parts of a retractable pen... and it totally worked!)

Hardcourt Confidential

Last week, I watched 21 tennis matches-- in person!  I realize that the desire to sit on a metal bleacher for six hours at a time probably sets me apart from most reasonable people, but the Legg Mason Tennis Classic in Rock Creek Park is, for me, a small slice of paradise (though I might design paradise with more comfortable seating).  For the second year in a row, my birthday present from Billy was a pair of tickets for all 11 sessions over the course of the 9 days of the tournament.  I don't quite know how to explain why I love this tournament so much, but I'll try.  (And feel free to click any of the photos to enlarge them.)

 

 If you've been following my blog for a while, you know that I love tennis, clothes, being out in the sun, and that I also love my husband and my friends but my schoolwork cuts into the time I get to spend with them.  The tennis tournament gives me the opportunity to combine all of these interests within driving distance of my home.  While the tournament has never attracted the current biggest names in the game, I still get to see quite a few top 20 players and plenty of high quality play.  The tournament is hot and outdoors, but it's still a pretty big social outing, and I enjoy observing all the different ways women choose to dress for the event.  I get to spend several whole days with my husband, whose love of the game is not as strong as mine but whose love of me compels him to sweat patiently on the bleacher beside me long after he'd otherwise be ready to head home.  For two years now I've also gotten to spend an evening at the tournament with Danielle and Anne-Marie, and having sixish straight hours to sit and chat with each of them is a luxury that's impossible during my regular in-semester schedule.  I have to admit I'm a little jealous that some people get to take in their sporting events periodically over the course of an entire season (and I get to do this with Navy football), but there's also something exciting about allowing the tournament to completely absorb my attention for an entire week that must be my version of what others experience during the NCAA basketball tournament.

 

Another reason to love this particular tournament is that Andy Roddick loves it, too.  He's won it three times, and he regularly says its his favorite stop on the US Open Series tour.  Maybe that's because the crowd loves him, or because he thrives in the heat, or because he's usually the top ranked player at the tournament.  Last year, he made it to the final and lost in the 3rd set tiebreaker to Juan Martin del Potro, whom you know went on to win the US Open itself.  This year, he didn't do so well.  He looked fine in his opening match, so I was glad Danielle got to see that one, but in his second match against Gilles Simon, he looked like this.

Honestly, the version of Andy that was on court that night was the opposite of everything I've come to love about Andy as a player and a person.  I've seen him play badly before, but I've never seen him slump in his chair and bury his head in his towel.  He's always the first one out of his chair on the changeover, but that night he was kept sitting there when the chair umpire called time.. each time.  It was depressing.  It was heartbreaking, really.  I was actually relieved when he announced after the match that he can't figure out why he hasn't been feeling like himself and is going to undergo some medical tests.  I hope it's mono or something that can be treated fairly easily.  There's one thing I love about Andy more than anything else, and it's that he fights to win until the last ball drops.  This wasn't that Andy.

That meant that this tournament also made me face the reality that Andy's best days might be behind him.  I hope that's not the case, but his losses here and at Wimbledon combined to make me realize that I may not always be able to cheer for someone whose playing style, attitude, and personality I so deeply relate to and appreciate.  And there might never be another active tennis player I like so much again.  What am I going to do when that happens? I asked myself.  Who will I cheer for once he's done?  Will I lose my interest in tennis?  These thoughts were even sadder than this sight: 

Thinking about what the ATP will be like post-Andy was sad, but his early exit also helped me realize that one of the things I really love about the game of tennis are the stories.  After Thursday night's rain delay, we got to sit in the third row up to see the match between Ryan Sweeting and Fernando Verdasco.  I've liked Verdasco since his impressive showing against Nadal at the Australian in 09, and I was excited to see him post such good results this spring after he spent some time working with Andre Agassi's trainer.  (I like this trainer even more after finding out that he says you "know yourself" "on the other side of tired.")  Plus, Verdasco's not bad looking.  Ryan Sweeting is 23 year old American who made his first big breakthrough in this tournament-- he made it in through qualifying, upset James Blake on stadium court in his first match, and beat Llodra for the chance to face Verdasco.  We realized early in the match that we were sitting only one row in front of his coach, so I really enjoyed observing their interaction.  I'm intrigued by the mental aspect of tennis as much as any other part of the game, so it was cool to see how Sweeting attempted to stay competitive against a top 10 opponent and how his coach tried to encourage him to keep his head in the game without breaking the "no on-court coaching" rule.  Afterwards, I googled the coach, Dustin Taylor, and found out that he was recently named the head American coach by the USTA and he graduated from Lakeridge in 2000.  Small world!  Sweeting lost a close 2 set match, but I'm looking forward to seeing how he fares at the US Open.

We also watched the beginning of the Mardy Fish/Marin Cilic match on the grandstand court, and though I saw Mardy win in the stadium earlier in the week, it was extra cool to see him up close.  He's having the best summer of his career (after losing something like 30 lbs and improving his fitness), and he lost this match in 3 sets, but he ended up winning the doubles title with Mark Knowles.  Truth be told, I wish we'd stayed to watch this match play out rather than heading inside to see Andy Roddick crumble, but hindsight is 20/20, right?

Another storyline I was excited to see firsthand was the return of the Bryan Brothers to this tournament, which they've won three times.  The weekend prior to the Legg Mason, Bob and Mike won their 62nd doubles title in LA (near their hometown of Camarillo), which broke the record for the most doubles titles won by any single team.  Anne-Marie and I got to watch them compete in a close opening match with this past year's NCAA doubles champions from UVA, and Billy and I got to see them play a competitive quarterfinal match that they eventually lost, eliminating our hopes of seeing them win #63.  I was never good enough at singles to learn much about the strategy involved, but I always did okay as a doubles player, so it is extra fun for me to watch the winningest team ever deploy the strategies I failed to execute in my own short-lived playing career.  : )

One big highlight of the week was meeting Patrick McEnroe and having him sign my copy of his recent memoir, Hardcourt Confidential, for my tennis-loving grandmother.  I sent him a message on twitter prior to his arrival in DC asking if he'd sign it for me, and he responded! to say he would be happy to sign the book.  Billy spotted him on the grounds, and when I approached him, he was super friendly and even asked me if I was the one who had sent him the message.  I managed to speak to him for a few minutes without shouting "OMG can you introduce me to Andy!? I know you're friends!", and he wrote a nice note to Gramma in the book, so it was a success!  Also, I was surprised at how good looking he was in person, and I still can't believe he's only 7 years younger than his brother John.  Maybe being a curmudgeon takes its toll on your looks, too?

After Andy lost and Verdasco was upset by Marcos Baghdatis in the quarters, I didn't have a vested interest in who won the tournament, but we got to see some high quality play in the semifinals anyhow.  After 5 days in a row of sitting on the bleachers and driving about an hour each way, I decided that I'd rather watch the final between David Nalbandian and Marcos Baghdatis on my couch at home.

When we turned on the TV on Sunday, Billy and I couldn't help but laugh when we realized that the TV feed had almost the exact same view of the court that we had from our seats.  The match turned out to be a little more competitive than I was expecting, and Baghdatis put up a decent fight in the second set, but I wasn't surprised at all to see Nalbandian win.  He definitely looked the most consistently strong throughout the tournament.  I can't wait to see how everybody we saw does during the US Open!

Thanks again to Billy for the world's best birthday gift in the history of birthday gifts.  And thanks to you for reading all the way to the end of this blog post, which has allowed me to relive the experience a little bit.  Today's the first day P.L.M. (post Legg Mason), and I'm a little down about the fact that there's no DC tennis match to watch, but now I feel rested and ready for my upcoming semester.  I even got a little bit of a tan!  And hey, it's not that long before the Australian Open, right?!