We are getting ready to leave Houston after a fantastic weekend celebrating Madison's high school graduation. Here's a cute photo of me, Madison, and Jeff eating tacos at the festive before party at Marc and Kris' house.
It has been a very festive month. The first weekend of the month was Jeff's Friend's Weekend. That has also been a nice side benefit of marrying Jeff, getting to know all his various high school and college friends and seeing how they have stayed in touch and got together over the years. There was some very dramatic weather complete with Mamary clouds that I had never seen.
Jeff and I did kick off "birthday fortnight" with a visit to Odd Duck last Saturday, courtesy of Christmas gift card from Lenore and Henry.
Then back to Waco for the final on Monday. The students did a great job on their presentations on a censored book of their choice. They built the project over the course of the semester. I am very pleased with this format of work. It seems to promote investment and ownership in their own learning process.
The most remarkable reads for me were Slaughterhouse Five and Lolita. Both are literary masterpieces that deal with very unsettling content particularly Lolita particularly in light of all we now know about grooming, sex trafficking #metoo. I'm going to read more about it and its reception.
This is the very dramatic sky last night as Dad and I were leaving Diamond Backs for an end of semester early birthday celebration.
We had a good time though the service was typically Waco-painful. Not that Jeff and I go out to eat that much in Austin, but the overall food scene in Waco was a small, though significant, part of my decision to relocate to Austin in 2007.
On birthday night proper, I decided Wink on the Wine Bar side would be good. We had not been since the pandemic. And it exceeded my memories of its excellence
Anyway, enough about food.
It has mostly been a fantastic semester. I continue to love not BIC directing. I absolutely loved teaching Philo in Lit: The Censorship Edition. I really enjoyed teaching a class I had never taught before. I'm going to teach it every spring. Quite a few students are taking another class with me and several are adding a secondary major or minor. So it feels really great to be making a difference in the department and not just efforts toward BIC.
It has also been a particularly rich philosophy semester conference wise. The APA in Montreal was fun. Caitlin and I gave a paper on Plato, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien for the Teaching Hub and we now have it submitted to a journal. Also a real high point was seeing Duane Davis, fellow Penn Stater.
The following month, I did my first poster session ever at AACU in New Orleans. zWe had a fantastic time, caught a bit of Mardi Gras, stayed in the Ritz
and also caught up with Becky Lloyd from Iyengar Land.
I really enjoyed the North Texas Philosophical Association at the end of March
Here's me and Kristi Sweet sharing the philosophical love.
and the APS was truly glorious.
I should write a whole post about APS and maybe I will, but one funny part was how younger scholars were so impressed that I was a student of Stanley Rosen. I knew him IRL and they know him through books. My student Juilana gave a fabulous paper and it was just wonderful catching up with so many of my heart philosophy folks. I also got to see family friends Bob and Janet Yinger and Bella as an added bonus.
Caitlin and I got our paper submitted to a journal and I've got two other articles in the pipeline for publication. I've not made as much progress on the book as would be optimal, but I have given a lot of thought to overall shape and scope and have done a good bit of secondary lit work.
So grades are submitted and I'm looking forward to a bit of down time before Summer I begins. I'm teaching an online version of Classical for the first time. A compressed romp through the presocratics, Plato, and Aristotle.
Anyway, the professional stream of my life is wonderful.
On the domestic front, we have gotten a new fancy air conditioning unit and are dealing with a stressful situation getting a mistake on our house appraisal fixed. The dogs are good and Jeff has started a new venture with growing cordyceps.
Health wise there have been some challenges. My back and hip are still pretty painful on a daily level. I have decided to get my hip replaced. I'll do it in July after we get back from Italy. I'm in the process of getting the pre-surgery stuff scheduled. Heart seems okay. Blood pressure meds are working. Cholesterol coming down very slowly. Went back to cardiologist for a check up and mentioned extreme tiredness. He said that sounds like sleep apnea so I got tested for sleep apnea. Got to wear a finger/chest monitor for a couple nights. It turns out I have in mild level at non REM and moderate level at REM. So am starting treatment process for that. I am not thinking any of the devices are really going to help my overall sleep experience, but it would be nice to be less tired in the morning.
I have been listening to Sherry Turkle's book about the lost art of conversation in the digital age so I've been making a conscious effort to not be on my phone when I'm around others. She also makes the point that our curated online life is typically a "best version" of our life. I suppose that is true, but to a degree I don't think that is a bad thing. It seems to follow the Momzy dictum of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." Also, to me it is a good reminder of dwelling on the positive.