The semester's not over yet, but it has been a tough one. One of the challenges has been teaching in-person again for the first time since the fall of 2019. Another is that we've all had to stand or sit around in masks, which hasn't made the interpersonal part of teaching (where you actually get to see others' facial expressions) particularly effective. Another is that I think we all were trying to come out of our caves this semester, and I don't know how the students felt, but I felt a lot of sensory overload as a result of being on campus again. I tended to spend my time between classes huddled in my office with the door shut. (I didn't curl up on the floor crying, as I had predicted, but I did nap on my chair a few times.)
I didn't get much writing done on those projects I mentioned back in August. I had switched my attention to my Kerr project, but after a conversation with my department chair a couple weeks ago, I felt encouraged to look again at my other project (until I looked at my draft and threw up my hands). Anyway, I noticed a cfp for the North American Taiwan Studies Association conference next June, and I think my paper is at least partially relevant to the theme of the conference. Maybe writing an abstract and a conference paper--having a clear deadline--will motivate me. Will have to see if it gets accepted, of course. If they're interested in hearing some guy pop in every 8 years to talk about George Kerr! (Actually, I wasn't really there in 2014; my paper was presented in absentia--at least I hope it was!)
