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content/blog/2004-04-05-im-not-dead-yet-2.md

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+---
+title: "I'm Not Dead Yet"
+date: '2004-04-05T10:29:00-04:00'
+permalink: /im-not-dead-yet-2/
+tags:
+    - 'general whining'
+    - teaching
+    - travel
+---
+
+But I am drowning.
+
+[Jake](http://www.livejournal.com/users/calamityjake/) writes to ask where the heck I’ve been, which is a really, really good question.
+
+Alas, I’ve been more or less right here, grading papers for class, reading senior thesis drafts, desperately trying to get the paper written that I’m delivering this week in France…
+
+And thus I’ve had no thoughts worth sharing, unless you find yourself interested in the babblings of someone periodically exclaiming “*Where* is for physical locations only! Use *in which* to talk about parts of the text!” Or “That quote isn’t going to do all the work for you! You must explicate, explicate, explicate!”
+
+When I am grading, I think in exclamation points. And no one here wants to read my exclamation points.
+
+Ah, but tomorrow, I’m leaving for France. (Have I packed? No. Do I have a plane ticket? Yes. That, I consider a major triumph.) I’m speaking at a conference of the Laboratoire Orléans-Tours de la Littérature Américaine (otherwise known as LOLitA), focusing on the work of Richard Powers. (Along which lines, I get quoted [here](http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-0403040026mar04,1,5962607.story?coll=chi-leisuretempo-hed).) So things could be worse.
+
+(Apparently stress also produces an abundance of parentheticals. A sure sign not of too little to say but too much, and no time for proper organizing.)
+
+In any event, I’m outta here until Sunday, but will hope to post from there, if this “world-wide” part of the web allows.
+