Ker-plunk

I scrolled past the Facebook notifications, newsletters and general SPAM in my inbox this weekend, homing in eagerly on a message entitled “ker-plunk”-- mostly because it was from a friend I’ve been waiting to hear from, but also because I seldom, if ever, receive email in which the author employs onomatopoeia in the subject header.

Opening the email, I found the following assessment of my communication skills:

“That's the sound a pin makes when it's dropped. Why so quiet out there? How's life? Talk to me!”

Now, I fully acknowledge that my last post may have read like a grim elegy, no doubt fueling speculation among my friends and readers that I simply withered away at the end of the summer season. With a twinge of guilt, I’ll also allow that there have been more than one or two emails and Facebook greetings that seemed to float off, unanswered, into cyberspace. And, yes, the dust got a bit thick here, too.

Life has been very, very full for the past three weeks. I have taken—and rocked—two major proficiency tests while studying for an even more important third. I finished my hang gliding lesson. I helped my daughter get her driver’s license and buy her first car.

And then school started—oh, did it ever! The semester began with a two-week full time stint in a 7th grade classroom that I will return to at various points throughout the year (most notably, February, when I will teach these students for 10 weeks). This two-week assignment was rough because I also had to attend my normal classes—two of which go until 7 PM. I don’t like to run the numbers much, but the whole thing involved a few too many 12-hour days and even more coffee than I’m used to drinking.

Things have settled down a little now that my two-week rotation is complete, and my guess is that everyone will probably be willing to overlook my recent negligence and I’ll start showing up again in all of my favorite places (online and otherwise). Although I’d love to mirror the professionalism of other successful bloggers who post like clockwork on set days, that’s a feat I can’t pull off as long as I’m in grad school. I can, however, feel pretty safe speculating that you’ll find at least four or five new posts here each month. For those who appreciate a helping hand with the math, that averages to at least one new post each week, a consistency rivaling numerous major publications but with the added advantage of being absolutely free!

So the next time you pull up this page and think that the plinking sound you heard was the fall of a stray pin, it’s probably safer to bet that you’re just hearing my fingers at the keyboard as I type my next post.