An exhausting, hot summer ends, a new semester begins

I'm working on course syllabi for this semester -- for courses that begin next Tuesday, Aug. 24.  They'll be posted to the website on that date.

This has been a long and exhuasting summer.  The summer school graduate course was a great experience. I enjoyed discussing the academic experience with the graduate students and look forward to seeing them this fall. We shared many good ideas for creating course syllabi, which are coming in handy now.

But teaching the course was a little complicated by the slow healing of my broken foot.  But now, I am happy to report, that I'm walking, albeit with a slight limp, and am toward the end of recovery.  My mom and I last November

As soon as the doctors reported that I could walk, my family and I drove to Birmingham where my mother was becoming more sick and frail each day.  I spent the rest of the summer helping my parents.  My mother died at the beginning of August.  We had a wonderful memorial service at her church.  Her death is bittersweet as she was in great pain at the end, but until she became seriously ill, she had so much life and enthusiasm and had accomplished so much as a pharmacist, Lutheran church volunteer, environmentalist, world traveler, parent volunteer, Braille worker, artist, tennis player, and so much more it was always hard to keep up with her. Jodie and I wrote her obituary in the Birmingham News.  Here's a link: Betty Susina obituary

This has been a hot summer, hasn't it?  Seems as if some days it's been even warmer in central Illinois than in Birmingham.  Here's looking forward to cooler days ahead full of great days of literature courses.