Well, it's been almost 4.5 years since my last blog post. I won't even attempt to fill you in on all that's happened in that time, but here are a few things you should probably know: I'm an Assistant Professor of English at a lovely liberal arts university in central Missouri, after finally finishing my Ph.D. in English in August of 2011; I'm currently on a winning trivia team called That Team Over There; I work out semi-regularly (for me, at least) and I'm still single.
I tell my students that if they want to write, they should just do it and only recently did I realize that I'm not following my own advice. I did make a commitment to write a full page in my journal every day and so I'm also going to start writing more blog posts. I think the tenor of my blog will be similar, but I do think that the name change (Desipoem's Diatribes to Desipoem's Desiderata) does suggest that there will be less ranting and more exploring. I do hope to stick to that particular tenet, with regard to my blog.
I'm also writing more in anticipation of my upcoming trip to Innsbruck, Austria. I will be teaching at the University of New Orleans' 37th International Summer School in Innsbruck for the 2nd time. Back in 2010, I made my first journey to Europe. I taught two classes and in addition to seeing the sights in Innsbruck, I also visited Hall in Tyrol, Salzburg, Vienna and Venice, Italy. For some reason, I only posted a few of these pictures to Facebook. I think I was more interested in the experience itself rather than reflecting on said experience. Now I'm dedicated to the reflection part. This year I have trips to Paris, France & Prague, Czech Republic planned. I'm very excited about seeing both of these places, since I've been to neither of them previously.
Before I go to Europe, I will be doing some additional traveling--Columbus, Ohio (to my parents' place), Brampton/Toronto, ON (to my aunt & uncle's house), and then to New Orleans (reuniting with some friends). I'll try to post about those as well.
I'm not necessarily setting any goals regarding my blog, but let's just say the next blog post will be much sooner than 4.5 years from now. :)
