Category Archives: personal
“Move it or lose it”: on stagnation and (im)mobility
Craig Monk’s column in the latest University Affairs really struck a chord with me. Energized by the presence of a new colleague, he reflects on the challenge of “elud[ing] stagnation” in academic work. Hiring often happens in cycles, and right now at many places (Dalhousie included — or at least in my faculty at Dalhousie) [...]
“Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing?”: On Audiences and Serendipity
Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing? (Middlemarch, Ch. XLI) One of the things I always emphasize to my students is the importance of considering your audience when you are writing. Knowing your intended audience settles a lot of questions about tone as well as style and content: formal or informal, colloquial [...]
Richard III Redux
Anybody who has known me for more than, oh, twenty minutes has probably learned about my long-time fascination with Richard III. I wrote all about it for Open Letters last year. Little did I know that if I’d only held back my piece for a few months, I could have ridden the wave of Richard III-mania stimulated [...]
Magical Thinking: Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Breakfast at Tiffany’ s is the January read for my Halifax book group: we’re meeting next Saturday at Pipa to talk it over and celebrate the new year. I more or less enjoyed reading Breakfast at Tiffany’s: more because the prose is so elegant, less because I found Holly Golightly tedious. She seems to me one of [...]
Holiday Concerts
Every year we attend at least one school holiday concert, events which are as much a part of our family traditions at this time of year as seasonal music, books, and presents. School concerts are not my favorite special events. I find noisy, chaotic environments very stressful, I find it frustrating to have performances disrupted [...]
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!
It’s Canadian Thanksgiving today. We cooked and ate our traditional dinner yesterday, which means today we can relax, catch up on some work, and enjoy leftovers for dinner. Despite a threatening forecast, it’s a bright sunny day so far; yesterday was gorgeous too. The foliage isn’t as bright as it sometimes is at this time [...]
This Week and Last Week … But (I hope) Not Next Week!
It has been quiet over here, I know. That’s a symptom, as usual, of things not being quiet elsewhere and so my not having enough time and energy to spare for blogging. For the past couple of weeks it seems we haven’t had two straight days in which at least one member of my family hasn’t [...]
Summer Reading Recap
Once again, summer is yielding to fall and Maddie and I have reached the end of our summer reading project. This year, we both reached or exceeded our target of 20 books by the library’s September 8th deadline, and we both read quite a few that we thoroughly enjoyed and admired. Because blog readers are [...]
From the Archives: My Teachers — An Appreciation
My daughter starts Grade 6 tomorrow, which for her is the beginning of the end of elementary school. Talking to her about that tonight reminded me of my own Grade 6 year, which was a turning point for me both personally and academically. This thought, in turn, reminded me of this earlier post. As I [...]
Letters to a Friend
A dear friend has been de-cluttering–a foreign concept to those of us with pack-rat archivist tendencies. She wrote to find out if I’d like back the letters I’ve written her over the years. I didn’t figure they contained much of interest, just everyday meanderings and updates, but they go back a pretty long way and [...]
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