***Thanks for the excellent comments (both on the blog, and via email) about my crisis in masculinity. To celebrate, I am wearing my Edward Gorey "Real Men Read" T-shirt. Today's brit lit classes have student groups running the show today with lessons on "Victorian Ladies and Gentlemen," which, conveniently enough, calls both class and gender into question.

***My transition here seems to be going well, professionally. I do feel like I might be in danger of being one of those overly outspoken newbies always proclaiming, "when I was at (Grad U) or (contract position), we did it this way." So while I can't entirely keep my mouth shut, I am trying to ask more questions than filling in my own answers. That said, I think I've already been pegged as a committee sucker, with three significant service activities already on my plate. And while service and collegiality are intertwined here, I feel confident that the collegiality of this place is going to make the service that much mroe invigorating.

***Speaking of collegiality, today is the first meeting of the Faculty Research group here, a group where 8 or 9 of us get together monthly to workshop some kind of work in progress--and the group ranges from full professors of Anglo-Saxon lit, and both named chairs, as well as several Assistant Professors with foci ranging from contemporary performance to digital studies to 19th c. Native American women's writing. I'm not sure how much I'll have to contribute today, given thta both peices being workshopped are from our very distinguished named chairs, but the ride seems like it will be a blast.

***The leaves are beginning to fall already, and I am preparing for an absolutely magnificent autumn. October has always been my favorite month: the beautiful leaves, fall foods, Halloween parties, the meatiest part of the semester before the real anxieties set in. Stir into the mix the recent notable addition of the kids' birthday on the 30th and two highly anticipated visits, and I havve myself a great month to look forward to. I'll try to remember to post some campus pics to Flickr during the next month.

***On a less optimistic note, I am scared by Rita. I posted very little on Katrina, in part because my feelings of sadness and outrage were at onece too hard to tease out coherently, and expressed amply by others. Here I suspect that the target site (Texas), the greater oil risk, and the black eye left by Katrina will have the administration acting faster, but so many already displaced, so many resources on the line . . .

***Finally, far more petty outrage: If you are going to cite one policy in the syllabus on late papers, please read all of those policies. One cannot expect papers handed in on Friday for a previous Monday due date will not be penalized. And you put me in the unpleasant position of having to tell you that yes, the course policies do apply to you, too. [I can only assume that part of the education on how to succeed in the academy is to not coddle irresponsible students. I just hate having to level the boom.] Check out this funny little bit in Inside Higher Ed