The Return

After a 6 a.m. flight, giant winds, and obnoxious tourists, I've returned. Waiting for me was a rejection letter from #1 School on my list. To be fair, this feels like progress, as last year I received nothing from them and am only certain they had my materials because I called to make certain of it after not hearing anything for what felt like much too long.

But the trip home was pretty good. I do finally have proof that I have a grand niece, though in form true to my family, I only managed to see her for 10 minutes after a series of events that could be prevented if that segment of the family could only be bothered to live life on this side of the grid long enough to actually know their own address. For those of you who are curious, here she is: my niece Antoinette. Having received a billion cards (okay, maybe seven) from friends with pictures of their kids, this seems fair as it's as close as I'm going to come for the foreseeable future.

I also got numerous discs, the best of which right now (at least overall) was probably Spoon's "Ga ga ga ga ga" (though the best song I've heard is probably Les Savy Fav's "Patty Lee"). I also got halfway through a movie called "Black Sheep" that was embarrassingly funny to the point that the rental DVD stopped working. It should arrive shortly from Netflix.

Now I have two syllabi to write in time for the start of classes, plus the impending start of the book this term. And, of course, I need to sit down and start answering all those e-mails I haven't answered over the break and catch up on blog reading which I entirely ignored while I was away.