first efforts

Morrill-inois

Throughout the month of October, the Krannert Art Museum here on our campus is hosting the Morrill Act. Yes, THE Morrill Act, the ACTUAL act, signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 to create land grant universities like ours. It's on loan from the National Archives, here as part of our Lincoln Bicentennial campus commemorations.

I'm dying to see it in person. I'm hoping that it glows a little. And smells like corn.

One reason why I haven't blogged or spent much time on FB lately

I don't usually like to bring my sorry-for-myself Eeyore moments online. But, given that I haven't blogged in nearly two weeks (my longest non-vacation absence, I believe), I figured I should at least offer an explanation. Or an image. For most of 2004 and part of 2005 I wrestled with bad neck, jaw, and teeth problems - stuff that had me waking in the middle of the night in pain and popping Advil every 4 hours like an infant on a feeding schedule. Not fun, as those of you with similar TMJ problems likely know. Back then I got it under control with a combination of massage therapy, behavior modification (no gum chewing!), expensive orthodontics, and cheap exercises.

Sadly, since late summer, it's all back: same sleep-stopping pain, same Advil needs, same awful everything. I'm working through it yet again, trying to behave myself and control things as best I can. Not surprisingly, though, computer time is a big trigger for most of my symptoms. So for now I'm reserving my computer time mostly for work. 

Which is the other big reason for my online absences. I'm just damn busy.

Happy Labor Day!

My love affair with the National Archives' Flickr photostream continues...

 

Image credit: "Kellogg Company: Women Inspecting Boxes of Cereal Before Boxes go to Sealer, 8.22.34." National Archives Flickr Photostream.

Hey, you missed a spot...

My Google Reader coughed up this new addition to the National Archives Flickr site this week...

 

According to the National Archives, this is a photograph of workers cleaning a mural in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, circa 1970-1971. I love how the guys on the scaffolding are just about the same height as the guys in the mural. You have to look hard to figure out who's a person and who's a painting.

Given that the murals chronicle the nation's founding, it's also of note that the guys on the scaffolding are way more racially diverse than the guys in the mural.

Image credit: National Archives Flickr site

Phew.

I teach on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so just finished the first two weeks of the semester about twenty minutes ago. The first few weeks of a term are always hectic, as we all try to get into a new rhythm and figure out how life will work for the next three and a half months. At Illinois our ability to settle in is hampered by the academic calendar, which allows students to add a course up to two weeks after the start of the semester. This means that rosters change constantly. Students add, drop, come, go, appear, and disappear - sometimes more than once. Some beg to be let into full classes, while others who plan to drop stay registered up to the last minute and make it impossible for others to add. Still others treat the first two weeks as a trial period, hopping from course to course trying to find just the right mix for the semester. It all makes a professorchick want to channel her inner Heidi Klum and simply demand, "Are you in or are you out?"

It can also be somewhat hilarious. One student in my 11 am class asked me if she could switch to my (different) 2 pm class because "she'd heard it was much cooler." Another student who skipped the first week of class finally showed up; after class she approached me to announce, "If I'd known the class would be this interesting I would have come last week!" Still another asked me if I could "recommend other 11 am classes where there wouldn't be so much writing."

I know that there are lots of reasons why students add and drop classes and I never take it personally (even when students' comments suggest I should). Still, every semester I'm so relieved when the add date passes and I finally know to whom I get to say,"Auf wiedersehen!"