"...so this is the new year..."

And what strange weather we're having in the motor city. Rain, rain, and more rain. Several days have seen temperatures climb into the low 50s. Like March.

Classes start tomorrow. In the fall I was spoiled with a course release but this term it's back to three classes (two sections of composition and one section of creative writing) which still leaves plenty of time to write. 2 days of teaching+1 day of meetings and paper grading+2 days of writing = a good work life.

Blogging has been sporadic and unfocused over the break but effective tomorrow I'm back. I'm revising an article for jac (the old "revise and resubmit") on intersectional identity politics and getting started in earnest on a "response essay" for an edited collection on social movement rhetoric some friends from grad school are doing. The latter is a conclusion of sorts for their book that puts the essays in conversation with one another and offers some Springer-esque final thoughts. Oh, and the "Who Says?" book comes out in a few weeks. So, much academic stuff to blog about.

Cliche to whine about break coming to a close, and kind of ridiculous since most of my friends netted only two or three days off work, so instead I'll say that the time away from campus was enjoyable. I wrote most of a short story that needs a lotta work but that I'm happy with so far (thanks to Caribou Coffee for the beverages and atmosphere), spent much time with family, did loads of cooking, and saw a whole slew of films. "Volver" was beautiful and ought to earn Penelope Cruz an Oscar nod. Thanks to Netflix--I'm new to Netflix but I've gotten my money's worth as of late--I enjoyed at home "Wordplay" (slow at times but fun), "Little Miss Sunshine" (very, very well-written, and great to see Alan Arkin in a comedic role again), "Palindromes" (odd, provocative, not Todd Solondz's best work, but interesting), and "No Direction Home" (worth it for all the priceless performance footage alone, and for all the miscelaneous characters who show up long enough to claim Dylan stole records from them).