The Beautiful Blogger Award

Oh, that Ann T....she's going to make me reveal "stuff" about myself!  As a means to avoid working on my course syllabi (wow...spellchecker doesn't recognize "syllabi" as a correct plural form...it likes "syllabuses"...is that a sign of the apocalypse?) for the fall, I seem to have created a blog.  Ann T. Hathaway, on whose ever thought-provoking blog I have commented this summer, liked my little blog so much that she bestowed upon me this award:

In order to accept this award, I must tell you ten things about myself.  I think I will do a "top ten" countdown of the reasons why I should not have a blog!

10.  I loath HTML!!! am a full-time professor of American history at a small liberal arts college...meaning I have no life apart from school, at least not once the semester starts: I get paid to teach and hold office hours, but I'm also expected to advise the history club, participate in public history and humanities initiatives on campus and in the surrounding community, attend extra-curricular activities on campus, participate in shared governance of the university, and more.

09.  I am the only full-time history professor at present...and likely will be the only one for the next two semesters, at least, which means I have to do all the advising for majors, selection of textbooks, etc., as well as teach several courses I've never taught (U.S. Womens History last fall, two sections of World Civilizations I this fall).

08.  I am scheduled to give five...FIVE...public lectures this fall, varying in length from 15 to 45 minutes, on these topics: the Underground Railroad north of the Ohio River (45 minutes), Alexander Gardner's 1865 photo of Lincoln (15 minutes), Augustus Saint-Gaudens' Robert Gould Shaw Memorial (15 minutes), white supremacist terrorism in Civil War era Kentucky (45 minutes), and the history of Thanksgiving (30 minutes), plus Q&A for all.  Admittedly, I am well read on such things, but still....

07.  I may have to revise a conference paper I presented last March for possible inclusion in a volume of essays on life after slavery in the American South, and I have several other professional obligations that, while unrelated to my professorial duties in the strict sense, are a part of what I expect from myself, and will look good in my tenure file.

06.  I just signed a book contract for my manuscript on post-emancipation racial violence in Kentucky, and my editor wants a revised manuscript in her hands by January 15...ROTFL!

05.  Did I mention that I find the Blogger program *most* annoying am happily married to The Bug, and would like to stay that way?  One blogger in the house is enough.

04.  I still have yard work to do!  There's grass to mow, a small garden to tend, flowers to look at, birds and butterflies to watch...there will be autumn leaves and woolly sheep and Christmas and snow and spring and baseball, oh my!  How can I possibly have time to blog with all that going on around me?

03.  I have the great family struggle going on down south, 450 miles from us.  My father needs help, and I can't be there for him every day, or even once a week, or realistically once a month!  How can I possibly spend time blogging when there is such great need in the world?

02.  There is great need in my life.  I am in pain...constant, throbbing, equal parts physical, mental, and spiritual.  I endure, but I often forget to live.  I am hurting, and I can be bitter and mad as hell...why would anyone want to visit the blog of someone like that?

01.  Okay, so HTML isn't so bad, and I can manipulate Blogger, but I still don't know if I really want to "social network."  I mean, I hate when I'm tending one of my virtual farms on Fb (yes, I play multiple farm games) and I keep getting pop-ups telling me to go do this or go do that or to let my friends know this or that.  Just leave me alone and let me farm!  I'm talkin' to you, Zynga.  Even at that, there are times when my crops wither on Farmville, and my poor flowers on Farm Town have been dead most of the summer, and My Farm has forgotten me.  Will I let you wither?  Can you wither?  Can I?

Well...it seems obvious that I have no business being here...none whatsoever...and yet...here I am.

To state it more plainly, I. Need. This.  I need you.  So there.

At this time I am supposed to bestow this award on ten worthy bloggers...but I'm just too new!  I'll have to let The Bug make some selections for us...heh.  Thank you, Ann T.  You are a beautiful blogger, indeed.