It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a city wherein a famous author has lived, must be in want of a museum.

I dropped in to the Jane Austen Centre earlier this week in the morning. While we waited for the tour to start, we watched a video on a loop. Having to wait made me think the tour would be more tour-ish. Instead, we were in one room for a while while Jane’s family life was explained entertainingly and then in another room to look at a few verified portraits of Jane and a few pictures that might be her. Then we were on our own.

Although Austen is a writer, the museum was a lot heavier in terms of reading than I wanted. That is, her history was on the walls, but it might as well have been in a book or on a website. I like it more when there’s a lot to look at and then the reading complements it.

One of my favorite things was a painting done of Jane by a police artist, Melissa Dring–using the descriptions of her by people who knew her.

I got my picture with Jane.

And with Darcy.

And since I hadn’t had breakfast, I had a savory tea in the beautiful upper-floor teahouse.

Am considering using bumble to find a playmate or five whilst abroad. They have questions, with sample answers (pictured), for me to answer.

I would, in fact, love to be a part of The Handmaid’s Tale, but it sounds weird to say so on a dating app.

Question from my son last night:

“What are your plans on Monday? Besides being stressed.”

He knows me very well. I leave the country to teach a summer abroad course in Oxford on Tuesday, so I will definitely be stressed. (I also have three healthcare appointments that day.)

But I want to take a moment to recognize what’s behind me before I look ahead.

Last summer, I taught four classes. And then I taught 16 classes during this school year (three were just two-units, but still).

I did six conferences.

I just finished one set of proofs on a book, and I’m about to start on another.

And this school year was hard. The fires threw ash into my already-weak lungs and chaos into my life.

I managed to get my purse stolen in Chicago during the first week of a calendar year I was hoping would be better. And then I herniated another disc in my back in February, resulting in a bunch of days when I couldn’t walk and quite a few medical procedures.

So I’m trying to be proud of myself for surviving it all.

That’s why, when I turned in the last of my grades yesterday, I decided to open my nicest bottle of wine.

It’s finals week, so I have a lot to grade. I leave to teach in the UK in less than a week. I’ve been swamped by my McFarland book proofs (there were four chapters with severe, page-number affecting mistakes).

And yesterday, the publisher of my other book just sent proofs that need to be reviewed asap.

Don’t tell me I can get it all done. I can. And will. I’m really good at working myself to death.

So, friends, I need you to tell me to take breaks, to still take time to do my yoga and PT exercises, to breathe.

In 2017, I taught my first seminar on Doctor Who. This term saw its first regeneration.

Lessons from my class:

Some of the students are just as ambivalent about technology as we are (this comes as a relief).

Many of them were amazed by the revelation that the Daleks are stand-ins for Nazis. (I sometimes forget what surprises freshmen, in terms of literary analysis.)

A few of the students hadn’t watched any Doctor Who before. They all reported liking it, but a couple said they weren’t going to watch the whole series because it’s too many seasons (and they’re just talking about doctor 9 on) to catch up on.

Lesson: some of this generation are quitters.

I let the students vote for themes to discuss in the last few weeks–this doesn’t always go well (the same thing happens in my Simpsons seminar). One of the themes they picked this time was happiness. A few were frustrated that class discussion kept going onto what makes us unhappy (what did they think was going to happen?).

In our poll on scariest monsters, the weeping angels won.

In our poll on best doctors, David Tennant won.

Martha and Clara were both lambasted by many for being our least favorite companions, but many students came around on Martha after I pushed them on it one day. They like that she’s a doctor; they like that she chose to leave–to move on.

We all love Donna.

We all love Jack.

We all love River Song.

In fact, the spin-off series we want to see most is The Adventures of River Song.*

I’m disappointed that none of the students took me up on the challenge of writing the fan script explaining Jim the Fish.

My favorite comment in the whole quarter?

A student’s observation that the humans who travel with the doctor are his emotional therapy animals.

*I’ve spitballed a few alternate titles:

Dr. Song, Non-Medicine Woman

Professor Song and the Temple of Doom

Kiss of the River Song

Melody/Song

For Whom the Angels Weep

Alias River Song

Bringing up River Song

River Song and the Chamber of Secrets

It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad Universe

I Walked with a Time Lord

Touched by a Time Lord

River Song’s Guide to the Galaxy

Red Lipstick Diaries

Interview with an Assassin

A Wrinkle in Time and Space

The Woman Warrior

The Professor is In

Welcome Back, River Song

Not Mostly Harmless

Spaced

River Song’s Adventures in Wonderland

Mapping the River Song

Let the Right River Song In

Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous

My Big Fat Gallifreyan Wedding

Lost in Tardis Translation

Professor River Song, Actually

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Assassin

River Song of Arabia

River Song’s Web

Educating River

Spoilers!

The Diary of River Song

Are You There Doctor? It’s Me, River Song

Diatribes of a Mad Professor

Doctor Song, I Presume?

Hello, Sweetie

Love’s Labors Lost

Close Encounters of the River Song Kind

[Note: almost all of these could also be porn titles]

My black cat, Thoth, thinks I’m his mother. He suckles my ear at night before he falls asleep. Once, Dante suggested I wear clip-on earrings to bed, to try to stop him.

A very frustrated Thoth went to the top of my ear and suckled, hard, almost like biting.

Sometimes, when I deny him my ears, he tries my nose or chin.

But that’s not what makes me a bad cat mom.

I don’t bathe him. And he really wants me to.

He sometimes hops up and hugs my face. In other words, he puts his arms around my face and presses himself against me for a moment, just like a hug.

Then he starts bathing my face. He’ll do a couple licks, and then he presses his face against my mouth.

That’s how cats teach each other about bathing.

I’m not going to lick my cat.

He hasn’t given up on me, but he must think I’m really stupid.

Or stubbornly untrainable.

I haven’t been trying as many new recipes as I’ve wanted to lately. There’s just way to much going on. So I’ve been doing family favorites and variations on themes–doing a hoisin flavored chicken rice bowl instead of teriyaki, for example.

I did get the chance to enjoy these Shrimp Enchiladas from Mel’s Chicken Cafe.

I tried the chicken recipe below, but it just didn’t work in a crock pot–I want to try it the right way soon.

One Pot Spanish Chicken and Potatoes

To make up for the lack of new recipes to share, here’s a family favorite.

Appetizer Meatballs: 1 large bag frozen meatballs; grape jelly; bbq sauce. Mix and cook in a crock pot on low.

by D’lana Pearce

On June 15^th, 2019, I will be a college graduate. This is supposed to be the culmination of my hard work and yet I find myself dreading the future. I have a substantial knowledge on inequality (racial, sexual, and gender), I know a lot about colonization, political processes and corruption, what ATP is and how it works, cellular death, regression analysis, integration, and what a comma splice is (though I still have them in my writing–no one is perfect). However, I feel unprepared for the future. I have a large amount of student loan debt (well above the average), as well as credit card debt, and a general concern for life outside of the cushion of being a college student. I find myself asking a lot of questions, most of which don’t even pertain to college but are things I will have to learn quickly to be successful. Some of my questions are for far in the future but others I am stressed about at this very moment. I find myself up late at night, distracted by my thoughts about what I will do with my life once I graduate. I worry I will make the wrong career choice, professional behavior, or financial decisions and all my work in college will be rendered useless.

Some of my questions are:

1. How do I focus on health and wellness with a busy schedule?

2. How do property taxes work?

3. How do I understand my health insurance benefits?

4. How do I know if I am making enough money to buy a house?

5. Is better to not get a tax refund (and not owe anything) or to get a refund?

6. Is it better to have a will or a trust? At what age do I draft them?

7. How often do I *need* to go to the doctor?

8. How do I prepare for a professional interview? I’ve worked various minimum wage jobs but I have no idea what to expect when I go into interviews for a career.

9. What exactly is business casual?

10. How should I manage my personal finances?

11. What jobs value the skills my major teaches?

12. How do I network?

13. How do I apply theoretical course concepts to a job? I find it hard to believe that Karl Marx will be a daily conversation topic and yet I learn about him in almost every Sociology course.

14. How much do employers care about what I have posted on social media?

It’s not that I would expect a college to have a course teaching these things. In fact, many of these questions cannot be taught in one course. However, as I find myself pushed into the real world, I am finding that everything I know is not nearly as useful as I thought it was. It’s scary to find yourself in a position where you must make decisions that will truly alter your life with almost no experience and no textbook to look for answers in.