Thank you all for the congratulations and good wishes...
As I dipped into my fanmail bag this week, the question that came up over and over was a pretty obvious one: how did you spend your first week as a tenured professor? Well, the first thing I did was to abandon all active research projects. Then, I printed up all of my class notes, and smoked them on cedar blocks, so that I could turn them as brittle and yellowed as possible in preparation for next year, where I will recite them verbatim regardless of what course I'm teaching. Finally, I damaged my hearing irreparably, to the point where I am only capable of hearing the words "raise" and "sabbatical."
Okay. Maybe not.
If I were really on my game, I would have turned each of those into full-length, dryly humored entries, that I would disavow only at the very end. The fact of the matter is that a week with tenure is not all that different from a week without. Last week was Computers and Writing, which is almost always timed really badly (or well, if a body prefers that I not go). I spent Tuesday and Wednesday struggling with my presentation (which I read rather than spoke, I fear), and was only able to come out with something satisfactory on Thursday after our trip.
Derek rode out to Detroit with me (and returned to Syr today by train), and we had a nice, leisurely trip where I managed to pick up a sinus cold (although the stress of struggling with my talk might have planted the seeds) somewhere at Niagara Falls. So tenure has included a throat tickle, sinus drain, stuffy head, and a great deal of kleenex. I blame the Lady of the Mists, personally.
We arrived in Detroit on Thursday night, and went to a bit of the conference on Friday, enough of it to deliver our papers, meet up with various and sundry, etc etc. But my energy was low, truth be told, in part because of the cold, in part because of the timing, and in part because of my franticality.
I'm now in Iowa for a spell, where I plan on minimal net connections, copious sleep, and finishing more than a couple of books.
Oh, and after my C&W paper, I have a new summer plan for the blog. I'll unveil it soon. (It does actually involve posting, and more than once a week.)
That is all.