White flag

I briefly toyed with the idea of committing myself to NaBloPoMo, or at least trying it out for the first few days to get back into the bloggy groove, but clearly that ship has sailed. So I'm going to throw in the towel instead, and acknowledge that this semester is just kicking my ass all over campus.

Here, as Exhibit A, are some random bullets of Things That Demand My Attention:

• a volume of collected essays I'm editing with a colleague, for which I really really need to start pulling my weight
• the conference I'm organizing for the spring, for which proposals (good!) and stupid questions (bad!) are beginning to roll in
• my field's student honor society, for which I am the faculty adviser, and responsible for organizing the fall initiation ceremony this week (I came so close to forgetting to make arrangements with the caterers...)
• a conference paper, for a Really Big Deal conference, that needs to get finished in the next three weeks
• work for a major departmental committee I'm on, that's tackling some Important Issues for the department
• participation in a campus-wide discussion of some even more Important Issues that are finally getting attention from the administration (yay administration!)
• meeting with our new dean, who is making the rounds and spending half an hour with each faculty member in his college (yay new dean!)
• the last three points are things I'm really excited about, but to get the most out of them requires a little more thought and energy than I have left at this point, and why do they all have to be happening at the same time?? but if I don't get fully involved, I'll become one of those people who whines about nothing ever changing and then sits back and does nothing when the actual opportunity comes for change. These chances really deserve to be pounced on, but all I can manage is a sort of exhausted collapse in their direction.
• and then all the usual grading and letters of recommendation and meetings that wear me out by this time anyway.

So I'm going to give up on blogging for the time being (though, gift-pyramid people, fear not! I will be contacting you for addresses one of these days, and sending out nifty gifts). As many of you know, I'm still alive and well on Facebook, so pop in over there if you miss the bar and want some free drinks and a game of Scrabulous. :)