Comps, Books, and Comics Forums

We've had a wee bit of a delay since our last post. As happens to everyone, life gets busy.

Emily and I have both wrapped up our last comp exams. I've informally been told I passed mine (on Latino/a Culture and Literature), and Emily has her defense in a week. Emily's comp was on a phenomenon which is called ego-depletion (or in other words, mental fatigue- if you perform two mentally demanding tasks consecutively, performance on the second task will be worse than if nothing had been performed prior to that task). For both of us this means that all we have between us and our PhDs are little things called dissertations.

I received a copy of X-Men and Philosophy in the mail. This was exciting because I have an essay in the book. Emily's name is also in the copyright info, because my essay has a few photos that she took.

This last weekend was The Michigan State University Comics Forum which I helped to organize. The event came off really well, and it looks like we'll be doing it again next year. Our keynote speaker was David Petersen, who is the creator of a comic book series called Mouse Guard, and he gave a great talk. Attendance was good for the keynote, all the panels, and the Artist's Alley.

(Emily's writing now.) We're trying to get a regular go-to-sleep routine for Lizzie, with the end goal being that after this routine is performed at naptime or bedtime, she will go to sleep on her own without fussing. We've found that a key part of this is watching Lizzie's cues and starting the routine right when she gets tired. Otherwise, you can enter the 'I'm so tired I can't fall asleep no matter what you do' zone, which nobody likes. Sometimes it's hard to keep on a routine, especially during periods when all one of us can think about is looming deadlines. However, this past week has been pretty good- specifically, yesterday and today we have put her down for naps and bedtime, walked away, and did not have to return. Part of the routine is reading to Lizzie. Currently, I am reading Pride and Prejudice to her. Hey, it's never to early to start with classics. She needs to know the work that inspired her name. Joe reads her kid-friendly comics such as Owly and Jellaby. This can be fun to listen to because Joe has to describe to her the pictures and what they mean and also what may happen in between panels that is not explicit.