No Title

For the last three and a half minutes, I have been listening to Michael Buble's version of "Try a Little Tenderness", drinking white wine, and alternating my gaze between the stack of books on my bedside table and the blank box waiting for me to fill it with my next blog post.  This is all to say that I have no idea where this blog post will be going and if at the end i still have no idea, well, i suppose that will be okay.

i suppose the first thing i want to blog about is that i just finished reading louise penny's "still life".  i chose this book for my fall english lit class and i'm so glad that i did because there's a lot about this book to like.  it really is well-written and it's well-paced.  the characters are engaging and i must say, i'm glad that the one whodunit wasn't the one person who i really didn't want to be the one whodunit--which just means that i was satisfied with the conclusion of the novel.  or shall i say...the denouement? (perhaps this is one of the literary terms i can discuss!).  i picked up the book because it's the first in a series, so if the students like it and want to read more they can, but also because some of the reviews compared the detective--armand gamache--to hercule poirot, and well i just love poirot. i can see the comparison, especially when they make the distinction of calling gamache a 21st century version of poirot.  but i've read a bunch of poirot novels and i gotta say that gamache's character is much more fully developed than poirot's.  suffice it to say, i totally will be putting the next book in the series into my amazon wish list, and will plan to read it on the plane trip home at thanksgiving.

however, all of this talk of books (or shall i say 'this book'?) is just a convenient distraction.  i haven't been sleeping very well, and the only two things i can really attribute this to are stress and too much caffeine.  but i'm not buying too much caffeine as a plausible explanation.  i really think it's stress.  though, i must say, in comparison to june, i have gotten so much more work done in these 20 days of july than i did in all 30 days of june.  just now after a quick count, i've familiarized myself with all or part of 23 of the 54 items on my 2nd exam list. and i still have 10 days left.  granted, i may not have all 54 covered by the end of july, but i know i'm going to be in a much better place with this list than i was at the end of june with my 1st list.  and well, it's stress, and i'm very used to stress.  thrive on it even.  is that really what is troubling my sleep? because i do sleep--i can just tell i'm not getting good sleep.  even after my second cup of coffee today i was absolutely and utterly exhausted.  perhaps i need to start working out, though i have no idea how i'm going to fit that into my schedule, though i have been trying.  and well, i've gone three whole days without taking a nap.  frankly, i thought it was the naps that was making it difficult to get good sleep, but i'm almost into a routine now.  well, at least i am on the going asleep side.  i've been getting into bed by 1am rather than the 2.30...3.00...3.30...habit i had fallen into during late june/early july after i was finished teaching.  now if i can just consistently get up earlier...but no, i'm still hitting snooze on my alarm until 10am.  at any rate...sleep has been an issue, one that i need to solve quickly, especially since school is just around the corner and i'm going to have to teach at 9.10!

so what is the point of this blog post?  what is the purpose?  i have no idea, though i know that i'm asking this question because i was reading a blog post by someone who said that they excelled at the personal essay and so blogging is just a natural writing outlet for them and i thought to myself, huh, do i excel at the personal essay?  have i even ever written a personal essay, much less a good personal essay?  i suppose my personal statement for grad school applications counts, but i certainly wouldn't affix the descriptor of "good" to any of those.  i'm also asking this question because i know i'm going to ask my 101 students to write a personal narrative for one of their writing assignments.  i know i will give them examples of personal narratives but i'm also thinking to myself could i even write a personal narrative?  and what do i consider to be a good personal narrative?  i dunno.  certainly not this blog post.