Yes, I *AM* Here! Somewhere.

Well, hello there. Long time no bloggie. What can I say? I blame it on a combination of extreme busy-ness and I-ain't-got-nothin'-to-say-itis. Finally, though, I worked my way through some major swaths of the to-do list and I actually feel like I can justify making a post regardless of whether I have anything to say or not. Maybe I don't! We'll find out.

What have I been up to? Lots of traveling, which most of you are already aware of. I went to the Welsh course for the first time in a couple of years, and celebrated finally stepping down from the Board of Directors. (You can see me on the lower left, a few people in, in the picture on this page.) A couple of weeks later, I went to Seattle to give a teen writing workshop at the Lynnwood Library and visit friends. Just a few days prior to that, I had gone deep-sea fishing for the first time, on a boat that left from the Berkeley Marina and went out past the Golden Gate and into the ocean off the coast. I left with one salmon (see photo) and a wicked sunburn that I still had, slightly, when I gave my presentation, much to my chagrin. Also to my chagrin, I got seasick and barfed over the side of the boat. Twice. But then I felt better and was actually able to eat my lunch and keep it down. Maybe that means I'd eventually get used to the bobbing on a boat thing, although the jury is still out on when and whether I plan to do it again.

And, this past weekend, I went out of town again, on a short visit to my mom and a trip to Las Vegas for my cousin's bachelorette party. She's getting married in November. I feel extremely adult because we're serving as immigration sponsors for the husband-to-be. It's kind of weird to be a financially responsible party, not that we haven't been homeowners for the past 9 years (!) and therefore, theoretically, fairly responsible.

Between all of those outings and happenings, I mostly was just scrambling to keep up with everything else: work, housework, e-mail, whatever. So if I owe you an e-mail, I can confidently tell you that I'm finally getting caught up. FINALLY. I suppose it's helped that my ongoing freelance job of the past two years, that has been keeping me in steady part-time work on a regular basis, has gone away. Bad for the pocketbook, but good for getting caught up on everything else. Currently, the tentative plan is to start teaching a class in the spring semester, assuming something else more appealing doesn't come up in the next month, after which I have to decide for sure. It would be an online humanities class, taking it over from my mom, who is starting to think about retiring in a few years. At her college, which is very small, there won't be anyone to teach that particular class after she retires, so she's offered me the opportunity to try teaching it. (Assuming, that is, that I'm able to get hired.) So basically, I'd be able to make use of the humanities classes I've already taken to get equivalency ASAP--which sure makes those classes seem like a good idea, despite the fact that they made my life insanely busy this summer.

Oh. Oh, yeah. Did I forget to mention Rob and I are enrolled in a second master's program? In humanities? Yeah. We took two 2-unit classes online this summer. The Defining the Humanities: Music class was excellent, though it was basically a correspondence course rather than a true online course. The Defining the Humanities: Literature class was, surprisingly, a pain in my ass. I'm convinced that I got suboptimal grades on my first three papers because (cue MASSIVE EGO) the professor couldn't believe that I actually wrote the papers without somehow plagiarizing or cheating. When I wrote the final paper as straightforwardly and unoriginally as I could, making everything as dull and obvious and BASIC as possible...why, there was my only A paper of the semester. SIGH.

But it's over. And now, I can actually prove equivalency to teach humanities, so I suppose no matter what happens I'll most likely have a new source of regular income by spring. Yay for that!