It's Real Now

Well, for those who have contacted me the last four days, I'm sorry I've been missing-in-action. Just as I was beginning to feel pretty good about things, I caught a little cold Friday evening, and have been in the cave recuperating, slamming Airbourne every two hours, and catching up on some bad TV. The good news is that I kicked it in three days, faster than any virus I've ever had. The bad news is I have a lot of things I need to catch up on, particularly projects at work, as well as this new collaboration I'm trying to put together.

Unfortunately, yesterday I received an email from my favorite student ever, informing me that she was going to Iraq in January. I knew she was in the military and this was a remote possibility, but to get confirmation just left me bummed. Prior to this, even as I became sickened everytime I watched the evening news and saw all the casualties - on both sides, the war was this distant thing, and it was easy for me to express my feelings about what was going on, armchair-quarterbacking a war that has little effect on my day-to-day life. Now there's something real at stake, a person I care for, a brilliant mind who could do a lot of special things in this world. Perhaps she still will. I just am regretting having to compose a note that says, essentially, come back alive, especially since it was just two years ago that we were reading Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, and were discussing the Vietnam War in a little portable classroom on the back side of campus.

Hopefully, everything will work out for the best.