Well, hello there, little bloggie. I haven't been on here for months, but I think I have rather good reasons... the most unfortunate reason is my health.  Towards the middle of May, the day after our last contract day, I had a biopsy done on my face (a weird bump near my left nostril that had not healed over since fall!), and the dermatologist was pretty sure it was basal cell carcinoma. Skin cancer, although not the total evil kind. Within weeks, I was "signed up" for 21 radiation treatments in Fargo, and that sucked up my summer. The radiation itself was 30 seconds worth of nothing, even if halfway through (treatment 10-ish) my skin did freak out a bit, which threw me into a spin of anxiety. {The same thing happened with my breast reduction; at some point, your brain wonders why you are doing what you are doing, and you question all of your decisions.} I was able to get away to two cabins to attempt to recalibrate my soul and body, and those little trips did help, even

I hadn't popped into a CCCOER (Community College Consortium for OER) webinar in months, so I gathered links like a cave woman today. The Open Faculty Patchbook is one resource I would like to dive into; one participant said when he was getting into Open Educational Pedagogy/Resources, he read one story from that site per day to help him prep for that sort of work. https://wicked.liberatedlearner.ca/ https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/learner/front-matter/beats-to-study-to/ https://openfacultypatchbook.org/ https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2022/oer/liberated-learners/ https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2023/open-reuse-remix-adaptation/modern-humanities-on-manifold/ I don't think I'll move to a "site" for my OER, beyond Google. I like having a folder of all the stuff, backed up on my computer, and I like that anyone has access to that folder and they can download my stuff at will and tweak/revise to their hearts' content. Right now, I like the "less cl

Easter 2024. As much as I detest the Easter holiday (insert traumatic childhood story about my pet bunny), this “date” marks five years since I decided against a Ph.D. program and fell into a rabbit hole (ooh, a pun!) on Twitter that led me to #OER webinars and #ungrading posts (that freaked me out), among other learning opportunities.  The summer of 2019 is when I took a MOOC class on Open Pedagogy and spent $500 of my own money to enroll in the Creative Commons Certification Course for Educators. That summer marks the turning point in my pedagogical journey. And it was a path set out by the universe after Sadie passed away in October of 2018. I wanted to distract myself, so I applied - sent in the application on Christmas - to the School of Ed at my alma mater. Yes, they eventually, sometime after Easter that spring, informed me that I didn’t make it into the program, and I believe that was the second time I applied to NDSU (first time might’ve been to the earn a Ph.D. in English). A

*reading through the draft of what might be my next book* I found this nugget from when I was brainstorming for the Great Plains Alliance in Computers and Writing conference (2007):  This presentation comes out of frustration.  It finally occurred to me after reading Kinsey’s piece (and other pieces online regarding recording/reflecting one’s thoughts somewhere) that it was okay to have a teaching blog, to be a teacher who put her thoughts OUT THERE for public display. I knew it was okay, to a certain extent, before I found these articles and online postings by others, yet I didn’t have any evidence beyond the fact that it was working for me, so bugger off type of excuse/answer/reason.  Sure, some colleagues thought I was showing students how “human” I was which was detrimental, according to “them,” but, um, who cares? Aren’t all teachers human, really? And aren’t the best teachers those who bring a part of themselves into the classroom?  [If you are a teacher of writing, you should be

I just sent out this announcement to students: “ My apologies for the delay in updating the gradebook; I’m out sick right now. I’ll assess things asap. Thank you for your patience.” For some reason, just this brief note lessens my stress over not “keeping up” with things, and I hope it’s a gentle reminder to students that I will extend grace to them, too.

Anytime I feel “off,” I really have no idea what to blame it on. My age? Did I forget to drink lots of water? Did I take all my supplements? Did I simply sleep weird? Is it my body and its general mental and physical complexities: anxiety, past depression, headaches, dairy issues, vertigo…? Is it the white matter disease in my brain? Is it just a phase? Is it long covid?  And when I deal with these off feelings, I have to ask myself: if I’m dealing with things like this, others are too, so truly, that’s why you should extend kindness to colleagues and students. Message given to me on my birthday recently:

With all the reflecting I do, and with how much I emphasize it in my own classes, you might think I would always refer to it as a good thing - a good process to take one's self through from time to time. But I'm second-guessing that today. You see, I have a birthday tomorrow. I found a pic from 2014 (at left below) from today. I was hours from turning 37. On the right, I snapped a selfie before heading to campus this morning, hours from turning 47. I like taking time to reflect on what has happened in years' passed. I like reflecting on almost everything in my life: what I thought when, what I used to do in my classes, what things bothered me and what things I was extremely passionate about. But today, there was a pause and a question: What if reflecting TOO much is causing me harm? So, tomorrow marks the first birthday in decades I will not have a pet. This may not seem like a big deal to most people, but I said goodbye to Sushi (my 20yo kitty) last February, and I don'