Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Last night we had a number of philosophers over for dinner.  Given that this is the first group we’ve had over since Katherine was born we found ourselves a bit rusty (not quite the fluid cooking and hosting machine we hope to be someday!), but it was great to re-enter the sociable world.  Katherine was good, as usual, though she’s had pink cheeks and a clinginess the last two days that suggests she’s working on more teeth.  So I put her in the backpack while cooking and cleaning and she was happy to be close (and I was happy to spare my shoulders!).  She still seems okay with other people, so we enjoyed seeing her interact with other people.  As usual, we cooked way too much food, and now we have lots of wonderful leftovers to carry us through a busy week.

Tomorrow afternoon Sydney and I both have mock job interviews in our departments.  We’re expecting ludicrousness.  I mean, we have to pretend that people we know are not people we know, and that they’re from some school without a name (giving us little with which to tailor our preparations)?  And the questions may be awful: isn’t your research a bit outdated?  how do you deal with inept students?  in these hard economic times, what can you contribute to our college in addition to your teaching?

Yeah.  Boatloads of fun.  So we’re going to spend today trying to focus on the things we might have some control over (answers about our research and possible teaching we could do) and leave the other stuff to be discovered tomorrow.

Erin

This afternoon FedEx delivered a new stereo receiver to our door.  Sydney had bought our old one on ebay a long time ago and all was fine–except that it would suddenly stop playing and require a quick thump on the top to resume.  As bad as having a skipping record!  We’re excited to get this new machine going; I have Christmas music to be playing.

Katherine’s excited, too.  She loves the big box that the receiver came in and is having great fun pulling herself up on this new thing in the house.

Erin

On Tuesday I received my students’ final papers.  On Tuesday afternoon I came down with what seems like my 10th cold of the semester.  As did Katherine.  Sigh.  On Thursday I handed back the final papers, graded, and managed dig up the energy to conduct my final class.  It was fun, really, and funny to see my students try to figure out whether the end of class called for a quick duck out, a murmured “Thank you,” a bit of loitering and chatting, or something more melodramatic (clapping, “best class,” etc.).  Very cute.

Although I love teaching I am always glad to see the end of the semester, with what I hope are larger blocks of time to do work and live life.  Since I’m required to assign lots of writing and lots of multi-stage assignments it can start to feel like I’m on a hamster wheel that goes a bit too fast: assigning reading, preparing short writing exercises, commenting on drafts, grading papers, preparing the next set of materials.  Nice to have a smaller set of things for which I’m responsible for awhile!

Erin

The new trick of the day is pulling yourself up and standing. It’s the only thing worth doing now:

And Erin wanted me to post this picture as well:

I guess we’ve been negligent on this front. So here are a few pictures. First, an old one (October 28) of somebody that I hardly recognize having great fun with one of my potatoes:

Moving on to more recent photos:

And we had a cute — albeit slightly less chubby than Katherine — visitor recently:

Sydney

A few new positions still show up periodically, but I think I’ve sent off most of my job applications for the year. Most of my applications are for tenure-track positions but there are a few for temporary positions. Here’s a geographical breakdown:

United States:

• Minnesota – 1
• Wisconsin – 1
• Illinois – 3 (one cancelled already)
• Indiana – 1
• Michigan – 2
• Ohio – 1
• Pennsylvania – 2
• New York – 6
• New Hampshire – 1
• Massachusetts – 2
• Florida – 1

Canada:

• Ontario – 3
• Nova Scotia – 2

United Kingdom:

• Scotland – 1
• England – 2

Okay, time to worry about my job talk, mock interviews, grading final papers …

Sydney

We did indeed have a great evening out while Katherine entertained our friend Rosemary on Saturday evening (bless that woman for giving us that time!).  Sydney and I had dinner at Hazelnut Kitchen in Trumansburg, where we ordered the full roster: appetizers, main courses, and desserts!  The restaurant was great, and its focus on local, seasonal food didn’t keep it from seeing a far cry from what I manage to do with the local food in my house!  Chestnuts, mashed sweet potatoes, fresh pesto, crispy chives, cooked greens with lots of goat cheese.  Really rich, complicated flavors.  Yum!  Not to mention the delicious hazelnut ice cream.  Now I’ll be looking for an excuse to go back . . .

Unfortunately, Katherine really kept us up that night (apparently she didn’t realize it was her dad’s birthday), and we’ve been struggling to recover since then.  I wish you could just fill the sleep void with food, because then we’d be all set.  But I tried that in college and it didn’t do much for my waistline, or for my tiredness.

Erin

Saturday is Sydney’s birthday, and we’re actually going to celebrate!  A friend is taking care of Katherine for the evening so that we can go out to dinner (our first date since she was born).  Unfortunately, all of the presents Sydney really needs (time, sleep, no stress) are ones I can’t give him, but I hope we can at least fill the sleep gap with food!

Erin

It seems that there is plenty of work, but also some good times, in the next few weeks.  I’ll be meeting up with Heidi (my best friend from high school and a frequent commenter on this blog) to go suit-shopping in a few weeks.  She’ll get to meet Katherine and I’ll get to see her for the first time since–is it really since you got married 1 1/2 years ago, Heid? I hope that, by then, I will have heard back from some schools to keep me motivated through this job-application process.

We’re spending Thanksgiving here, hoping to catch our breath a bit.  There will be a Christmas tree this year, not that Katherine will notice this, her first Christmas, but her mom could really stand some Christmas traditions and celebrations!  And my mom will be flying out to spend Christmas with us . . . and to accompany Katherine and me to Philadelphia in the event that I get interviews.  Sydney’s got the clothes ready and is frantically trying to get a job talk ready so that he can present it to his department in three weeks; the toughest critics are the ones at home, it seems.  And we’re both gearing up to endure mock job interviews from our professors.  What do you think the chances are that there will be a few awkward moments in there somewhere?  Oh well.

Erin

Sometime near the beginning of October Katherine suddenly stopped sleeping through the night.  At best, she now wakes up once a night.  But more common is the scene we had last night, with a wake-up session at 1:30, 3:00, 5:00 . . . you get the picture.  So, with one “good” night out of every two or three, just enough to keep us from the madhouse, Sydney and I are starting to look and feel pretty worn down.  Our doctor assured us that this new trick is probably just linked to a period of high development, when Katherine wants or needs both food and comfort in quantity.  This morning I walked in the door after a set of conferences with my students for which I was far too tired, sat down, and looked at Katherine, who leaned waaay back in my lap, opened her mouth in a huge grin, and revealed Tooth #2, just coming out of the gum.  Six weeks of no sleep and two tiny little teeth.  I’m not going to think too hard about how many teeth little kids get . . .I mean, she can decimate a slice of apple with just one tooth, so how many more does she need?

Erin