As everyone looks forward to the New Year, professors anticipate the beginning of a new administrative and teaching semester. In two weeks, I'll be re-entering the classroom after a sabbatical from giving courses. I'm looking forward to seeing students again, and trying out new pedagogical ideas (fingers crossed, as always). At the same time, I feel exhausted. I went through some proverbially life-changing experiences, and I spent a great deal of energy learning from my daughter. She has been like my personal Yoda, small, occasionally feisty, and cryptically communicative. As I type this entry, she is lying by my desk, figuring out her teether. Why is it cold? Why is it heart-shaped? Why is it not as tasty as the fist, or any combination of one to four fingers? She is flipping from her back to her belly at every given chance, howling and growling, and teaching me that time management as I knew it (work every possible minute, schedule sleeping and eating for whenever I got tired of working) is now infeasible. Very soon, I'll have to wake up early, teach all morning classes, do my research in the afternoon, and give her my full attention when I return home -- like many parents do. So it's been a productive semester of teaching and learning, as I can say with my cranky little tutor by my side.
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