No Longer MIA

Picnic Time!

Bridgette has been doing a fantastic job keeping this blog up-to-date. The last time I posted something was towards the end of February! What on earth (and in France) have I been doing!?


It's a good question. First up: Bridgette already filled everyone in on our Ireland trip. And this past weekend I had some time to complete editing my own pics from that trip... 5 weeks later. After our arrival back to Paris, I had merely a few days to prepare for an interview back state-side with the University of Illinois. That was a whirlwind experience because I had to squeeze a round-trip voyage to Champaign between regular classes here in France. Jetlagging schedule aside, the interview itself seemed like a success to me. But considering it was my first 24-hour academia gauntlet, only the search committee knows. I believe it'll be a few more weeks before I get any word from the school regarding the position.

Meanwhile, classes, homework, quizzes, and grading raged on. And thanks to Bridgette, our social lives have even picked up a sensible amount. I'll leave comments on that for another time.

I gave my second semester final exam on Friday. Typically, finals are several weeks later, but in this program we compress the schedule to leave time for study-travel breaks in April. Because of this, I had a few weeks this semester with an extra class, adding a few late nights for extra grading and lecture-prep (yep, I'm still in the newbie boat, throwing together fresh powerpoints the night before). I'm happy to have my class nearly over, though -- it was another eye-opening semester full of great challenges and good times. I just have this menacing pile of exams staring at me now, asking "when are you gonna take a red pen to me?"

Anyways, I'm happy to be able to write on the blog without feeling too guilty about neglecting other important duties. And there are plenty of those... more news to come shortly!

Another random food pic... no real reason. I'm hungry?