Last week, I had fun commenting on student papers. I know what you’re thinking, no one has fun commenting on student papers.  Well, I did. I made audio comments, using Audacity to record and save my comments as mp3’s. You could also do this with Garageband or a few other recording programs. My students found…

High school was not the best time in my life. As I was explaining to Mr. Geeky on the way down to my 20th reunion, the stories I tell myself and others about high school are not happy stories. There are plenty of happy stories (I think) that I could have chosen to represent my…

This evening I’m heading off to my high school reunion (the 20th). Shockingly, I did not buy anything new or go get a haircut or anything like that. I’ll get to see this person and I checked the list and there are quite a few people who say they’re coming that I’m looking forward to…

Like many in the academic blogosphere, I’m engrossed in work at the moment. I have papers to comment on, reading to do for the dis, the usual 9-5 work, and the usual family stuff. I’ve been distracted by my continuing health issues, which, at this point, are simply mildy annoying. I sit around wondering what’s…

In an attempt to alleviate my health issues, I’ve given up caffeine. I’ve been a caffeine addict since childhood, drinking coke and then in college, adding tea and in grad school, coffee. I used to drink two cups of coffee in the morning, a coke at lunch, often a cup of tea in the afternoon,…

I’ve been thinking a bit about my teaching this semester. I don’t think it’s going as well as last semester. Partly this has been my own distraction with health issues and stuff, but also I think it has something to do with the way I teach. I put a lot of responsibility on the students…

This has been a long week. It’s been busy at work and dealing with the mystery illness has been no fun. It’s amazing how mentally distracting it is when you think a kidney is failing. I’ve been thinking about a few things as I’ve tried to take my mind off the failing kidney. There are…

Unfortunately, I have no idea what’s wrong with me. Oh, I’ve been to doctors. They haven’t found anything. I seem perfectly normal. But something is definitely wrong. One of my office mates thinks we should all just get annual CAT and PET scans since a lot of things that go wrong have no symptoms. I…

So tired. Too anxious to sleep. Too much work to sleep. Still. in. pain. Medical crap (for those who visit Phantom’s) continues. Can’t find anything wrong and yet. still. pain. Unbloggables. Decisions. Bleh. Laundry. Need I say more. Where’s my chef? Is it vacation time yet? Please consider donating to my efforts in the Susan…

I originally started this as a comment, but thought it deserved a place in the sun. Anon, I don’t take your questions as confrontational. They’re perfectly reasonable. I don’t believe my grandmother’s spirit is anywhere. I believe we live and die and that’s it. There is no scientific evidence for an afterlife or a god…