Bearshorty's musings

I finally got to Staples to buy my Roster book. My old one finally run out after eight years. I haven’t been teaching all the semesters or at full load and some classes were not included. Still it feels weird to start a new one. I was pretty much working on my Luther lecture and Powerpoint today and doing some comments on the close reading assignment. My students all seem capable of understanding the main concept in the paragraph I gave them to read, but they can’t seem to understand the 15th century quote in its historical context – or show that the quote referred not to modern technology but to introduction of the printing press. I’m so going over that in the discussion on Tuesday.

I was looking at some wedding books again and they just irritate me for the most part. So I will just buy a $1 notebook and use that to plan everything and use internet for occasional guidance. First up, our parents are getting together this Saturday. Mama invited Bear’s parents over. Bear and I will have to serve as conversation starters/buffers. I’m thinking of various topics of conversation we could introduce. In our thirteen years of dating, our parents met once, very briefly in college, a month into it. And they talked on the phone once when Bear was visiting me in London during the 2005 terrorist bombings. And mostly they send each other food/treats for the holidays and fruit baskets during illness. But not really long sustained conversations. We’ll see.

I finished the Stephen Fry book. I enjoyed it a lot even when it got to be a little long at some points. But I do love the way he writes. And it was a good view into the world of British comedy in the 1980s. Now I can focus on reading the slave narrative "Interesting Narrative of Life of Olauda Equiano" that I assigned my class. I need to read all the books for class first before I pick up a fiction book for fun. I did put a Book List on my journal page to keep track of the reading and everything I want to read this year. I’m trying to be realistic about it (and fanfic does take away a lot of my already scarce reading time).

Season 2 of Downton Abbey continues to be lovely. It is a great cap to Sunday.

We started the morning with a nice hike in the very cold weather. Not as cold as last year but still. I could only do an hour and a half, mostly because I needed to get back for 12:15 spa appointment and partly because after all the walking and working out my legs didn’t want to walk anymore.

I decided to splurge on a spa, since I never do this. So I signed up for an Organic Facial – and it was very relaxing. It was an hour lying on my back on a heated bed under warm blankets while there were creams on my face and even shoulder, arms and foot massage. It felt decadent. I don’t usually spend money on this – since it is an indulgence but I decided to just go for it.

Bear and I went out to eat to a pub. We usually cook while we are here except for one dinner out and a breakfast diner when we leave. I got Shepherd’s pie and a hut and fruit martini – all was very delicious. It was a bit crowded this year – last year we came in a week with not too many people around. This week proved popular.

I spent part of the evening by the fireplace again, reading Stephen Fry with a clear conscience since I finished all the other books and December National Geographic too. I’m including my favorite quote from “The Fry Chronicles” this evening. He was discussion his relationship with tobacco and cigarettes:

“Substances seem insignificant compared to the big things in life: Work, Faith, Knowledge, Hope, Fear and Love. But the appetites that drive us and our susceptibility, resistance, acceptance and denial of substances define and reveal us at least as much as abstract expressions of belief or bald recitations of action and achievement.”