welcome back, your dreams were your ticket out

Back from vacation in Ohio. Overall a sucessful trip. I quite enjoyed seeing the family, of course. They're a lot of fun.

Now I'm getting into full "final projects mode." I did a brief rough outline for my first paper and most of a 3-page outline for my Jackie Robinson project. I'm just worried that after getting through all my baseball stuff I won't be as interested in doing my last paper on 1970 war movies. But I guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Tomorrow I'm hoping to get around 5 pages written (even if they're very rough) for my Joe Jackson paper. I did have a bit of a breakthrough on how to approach this paper today, though, so that's good. It's a pretty 'out there' angle, so I hope it comes together like I'm envisioning. I watched a good chunk of the 4th inning and the 6th inning of Ken Burns' Baseball. I'm well-versed enough in these areas now to know that the documentary is somewhat flawed, but I still really enjoy it. I should have bought it last summer when I had the chance.

I really am excited about these papers, though. I wish I could focus on them all the time, but I've got that dang teaching gig too. Actually, if given the choice I think I'd rather focus on teaching all the time and just study what I feel like when I feel like it, but I guess that's a privilege only the tenured really have.

Oh, and Michael (the teacher I ranted about a couple weeks ago) finally responded to my theory response that I turned in a month and a half ago. He called it "a damn good response." How come that praise--even from people I don't like--still makes my pleased. I think the guy is a pompous fool, but I still am glad he liked my response. Why is this? Am I just a vain egomaniac, or is that a natural human impulse? Feel free to share your thoughts.