Mern Þonke

I spent last night putting the finishing touches on an essay for Viator on Havelok the Dane and report for Teachers of Old English in Britain and Ireland (TOEBI) on the teaching of Old English in North America. That pretty much clears up my "pending" tray until Spring Break, when I have to write a paper for the International Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo (on the textual tradition of Havelok). That's nearly a week with nothing on the agenda (except the omnipresent paper grading). Something must be wrong! Perhaps I can get a head start on writing my paper for the International Conference on Layamon's Brut in August. It would be nice to have something substantial written by the end of the semester. Keeping up my research is pretty difficult when I'm teaching four classes (some of them with double the normal enrolments). I'm walking around in a haze much more than I really like. As for exercise--not normally possible. I think I'll make it a priority for the rest of the week.

On another note, I am excited to learn that one of my graduate students is to attend the conference in Kalamazoo. The prospect of steering my students into the academic world which I so happily joined (got sucked into?) is not one that I can normally look forward to at CSUN. The portion of our jobs known euphemistically as "Contribution to the Field of Study" (aka research) is shrinking due to lack of time, but the heavy teaching load which supposedly contributes that lack of time is not making up for the difference. The university's mission is all about access--access to the institution--not to scholarly activity. Encouraging students to attend conferences is one way to do thumb our noses at this misguided direction, but at several hundred dollars a conference, how many of our students can afford to follow in our footsteps?