She's baa-aaaack.

I guess anyone who’s still keeping up with this blog – without any incentive, I might add – could have guessed what kind of semester I was having last fall. Without any complication, four courses including two grad seminars, and teaching two sections, was way too much; but having to switch courses a few weeks into the term seem to leave me perpetually behind. I never really got caught up and in fact still am not, though a new term has started; I still have two papers due.

I wrote a paper on the reception of spiritualism in England in the mid-19^th century for English History; and one for Word & Image on Edward Gorey as a reinterpreter of Victorian myth about death and childhood. I was a little too frenzied to enjoy doing them, but they were still very, very interesting to research and write. I still have due a paper on Maria Luisa Bemberg, a self-taught Argentinian filmmaker who wrote and directed her first film at age 56; and the long-overdue paper on film and music.

This is my last semester of coursework. I keep trying to remember that, but I guess it will soak in when I’m a little less busy. I have Latin III which seems a bit easier as it’s not as much memorization and much more translation. Digital Revolution is a hell of a lot of fun – exploring what’s out there and how it affects us and particularly learning. It’s forcing me to confront a lot of conflicting feelings I have about the digital/information age and my place in it. And Political Economy of the Media is also fascinating – if depressing, at least at first. I really didn’t want to know how few hands pull the strings of the media and what other pies those hands are in. Ignorance was bliss!

We have terrific selections for the Film course this semester and my two online sections are going very well. Screwball comedy's coming up this week, featuring The Awful Truth, and that's always a favorite of mine though many of the students have a hard time with old films.