The weather is lovely. Pippa and I had cleared out the spare room so as to make room for our Brendan to stay there. We moved the futon from Margaret’s and my room into the spare room (later, we’ll explore the possibility of putting some boxes under it to elevate it), and Michael the friendly,…
All posts in October 2008
Reader, We Bought It
Last week, Pippa and I put a fair amount of time into car shopping, calling around, test driving, even a little passive haggling, and we finally bought a 2006 Toyota Corolla LE, in deep red. Pippa ruled out the beige Corolla, and the White Corolla was an ’07 with more miles on it at a…
Love That Well
I’m having a great time at Duke, but today I had to send in applications for three jobs that would pick me up for next year. It’s a difficult process under the best of circumstances, and when there are so few openings (with surely very many applicants) it’s all the more daunting. Margaret may be…
When That Happens
I know I have an All Souls Day sermon kicking around my hard drive somewhere, but I can’t figure out where, which is a nuisance since I’m preaching an All Souls Day Mass next Monday morning.
Sundry Stromateis
Margaret and I used to feel isolated when we had to explain our un-schooling practices (it’s all made somewhat easier by Nate’s and Si’s shockingly successful transition to higher education), but even the NYTimes seems to have noticed unschooling, with gently neutral approbation. The proprietor of a fountain pen site (I commend his Dollar Pens…
Jesus Shaves
One of the benefits of having two professors in the family comes when we read to one another from the answers on the exams we give. For instance: this morning I learned about the story from Luke’s Gospel in which the disciples doubt that Jesus has really come back from death — so they reach…
Recherche, Recherché
Margaret and I were musing, this morning, about great events of the past — Pearl Harbor (for our parents’ generation), the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK’s assassination for ours — and the extent to which we were aware of them at the time (I myself was quite unaware of Pearl Harbor). Our conversation wandered thence…
Sign Me Up
I don’t know what Apple University is either, but if they’re looking for faculty, I know a biblical scholar-cum-technologist/semiotician/Mac loyalist who’s casting about for a job…
Looking At Cars
Pippa and I went to the Toyota and Hyundai dealerships today, where we spent most of our time looking at a 2006 Corolla (on one hand) and a 2009/08 Aspect (on the other). We may go look around at some other lots, too, but we should come to a decision before too long. Advice is…
Beats Me
Pippa wants to know if there’s a term for the rhetorical device of establishing a rhyme scheme, then departing from it by substituting a non-rhyming synonym (or related word) for a word that would complete the rhyme scheme? Something such as, No blogger’s benigner Than Berkeley’s Dave Winer. But women distress him (Especially J. Sessum,…
That’s What I Mean
It seems pretty clear, at this point, that no one will offer me an administrative position; I’ve been turned down for an embarrassingly large number of such positions. In cover letters and interviews, I typically underscore the vital importance of strengthening faculty and student morale with gestures that could be as small as (well-designed) small…
From Little Acorns
It turns out that if you let your email inbox slide for a few days, all those messages to which you need to respond accumulate and multiply. After months of keeping my inbox around three items, I’ve ballooned to twenty twenty-four, so this morning I’m going to have to crack down on it.