I really was going somewhere with that thought, lo these many weeks ago. But, in typical acafanmom fashion, RL intervened. I'm back from our 10 day incarceration visit with family in California (requisite trips to the Orange County Fair, Disneyland, the casinos of San Diego County, and Las Vegas inclusive), and now I'm struggling to put together a survey-level film studies syllabus. I'm used to talking first about film language, so having to bump that in favor of a more generic, broader overview of "film" is a bit counterintuitive. 

I'm hoping to pick up my thought, though - or, at least, parlay it in a different direction - soon. Once classes are underway and kids are back in school. I find myself wondering how FT academics do this with children in the mix; Amanda Klein works through some thoughts on this on her blog, which ties in to a panel she did with Jason Mittell at Console-ing Passions, but it speaks to people on the tenure track. I can't help but feel that we need to have this kind of conversation at the independent scholar level, but, then, I can't help but think that we have to talk about independent scholarship more seriously period.

Over on Phinished.org, it's something of a truism that it takes two years to get back to 'normal' following the completion of a PhD. I passed my defense 15 months ago, and all I know is, at this point, I'm nowhere near normal again. The aftermath has been an extended exercise in dealing with burnout - not just academic, although that's there, but a broad, all-encompassing burnout that includes family and everyday life. Once upon a time, I was on the borderline-OCD side of organized and efficient; today, I can barely be bothered to put the mountainous piles of mail and papers that seem to collect everywhere into my catch-all of an office. Procrastination has devolved into one of those problems that is affecting my quality of life, and I seem caught in a spiral of self-recrimination and vague despair that shows no signs of abating.

So, when people ask me if I'm going on the job market this fall, what I want to say, in no uncertain terms, is HELL, NO.

( Long post is long. )

I'll check it twice later.

Since I seem to be stalled on the syllabus front, and since at least one course is looking like it will make enrollment, this is just a quick breakdown of (pre)syllabus tasks:

• read book (I know. It's pathetic that I haven't yet - it's not even terribly long)
• cull clips (it's an intro to film class that's very film clip-intensive, and looking for film illustrations for different subjects - cinematography, editing, documentary film, non-Western film, etc. - is incredibly time-consuming and best not left until the day before class)
• choose films (since we don't have a dedicated screening, I require Netflix; as such, the pickings are good-but-not-great)
• map out the term, write writing assignments

Little list, lot of work. Especially the clips.