a short update

       It would seem that every time that I make any sort of promise about future activity on this blog, I find myself breaking those promises for any number of reasons.  My last posting was no exception it would seem. I've been fairly busy for the past couple months teaching.  It's the first time I have had to deal with four classes at the same time, and it was a bit overwhelming for me.  I'm hoping that I will be in a better position to deal with that kind of workload in the near future.  In addition, I'm about to go in for hip replacement surgery in the next couple weeks and I've been dealing with that reality as well, but, if I'm going to be honest, I've also hit a bit of block in terms of writing as well, and haven't gotten much writing accomplished aside from the short talk that I gave at the Comparative Literature conference in Los Angeles a month or so ago.  My hope is that I will be able to take more time to work on the blog as well as my academic writing over the summer as I recover from my surgery.  I'm in the process of reading the material for the upcoming Hugo Awards, which are finally fully Puppy free, and still want to put something together about Charles Dickens' Hard Times.  I'm not sure if I will get around to either any time soon though.  I might also put up a draft of my talk at the conference, which is an essay about George Schuyler's Black No More, a book that I highly recommend if you have not read it yet.  In any case, I wanted to supply a short update and this is it.