Fall Semester Slog

Actually, this semester is going quite well, but "slog" conveys how I'm feeling about all the things that I'm trying to keep track of... and thus the reason that I'm hitting my usual long-semester slow-down of personal blog posts.

Alex is on his way to Kharkiv, Ukraine at the moment--he should be on the plane from Kiev to Kharkiv now, his last leg of the journey (he had stopovers in New York and London). He'll be back Friday (after an overnight stay in London on his way back, lucky duck!). I'm in my usual state of Alex-ness. That is, I have a list of tasks to accomplish, since I don't have my BFF to interact with, I therefore should have no excuse for being excruciatingly productive... but his absence makes me feel off-kilter, and thus I'm dragging a bit on the productivity front. Meh.

Yesterday's absence of useful activity, however, was partially due to several scheduled activities (such as dropping Alex off at DFW Airport). The other portion was feeling rotten, both emotionally (attending a memorial service with other members of my department), and physically (almost not being able to drive back from Denton with an immense migraine, then throwing up promptly upon arriving home). In fact, I got home at 6:30 and immediately went to sleep at 7pm... and didn't wake up until midnight. Which actually worked out kind of well, considering Alex called 45 minutes later from London to say he was safely there. Then I read for a couple of hours and went back to sleep.

The only good part of the day was that, feeling rotten, I treated myself to Recycled Books trip before I left Denton. I managed to find a great reference work on Egyptian mythology for $4 that Alex will love perhaps even more than me, a London guidebook for half-price that also included a laminated street map someone had tucked inside (score!), and a couple of comics (Batgirl and Thessaly). (This, the day after I scored three cheap books at the campus bookstore, one of them a Catwoman compilation for $6.)

This morning, I've still felt a bit physically under-the-weather, so I started slow with a chapter of the book "Drawing Words, Writing Pictures," a textbook on how to create comics. First Second Books graciously gave me a free copy of this and the comic Prince of Persia (yep, based on that awesome old video game) to review on my professional blog, and so far I am thoroughly enjoying both. First Second always publishes interesting, artistically distinctive stuff, but in addition I am continually impressed by the quality of their printing. Their books are ridiculously inexpensive for the high quality of paper, color, binding, and printing. Open any of their books and compare it to a regular DC or Marvel hardback--it's a huge difference.

I keep meaning to post brief takes on movies we've been watching, and have neglected to do so all summer. Instead, I find myself reading a friend's blog, and commenting when he review movies that I watched recently (like The Fall, which was awesome!). Although now that it's fall, my movie-watching is pretty limited anyway.

Okay, enough stalling--time for homework. Well, actually it's nearly lunchtime... so on to stalling by way of food!