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Showing posts from May, 2018

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Stewing on Course Evaluations

on May 18, 2018

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It's End-of-Year Report Time...

on May 03, 2018

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Talking Religion and Sports on the Radio

on May 01, 2018

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Stewing on Course Evaluations

Course evaluations. I looked at mine on Monday. I've been stewing ever since.

Yes, stewing is the right word. The recipe is rather simple. First, you toss in all of the stages of grief, then you add a dash of self-doubt and self-loathing.

My numbers were fine(ish). A little lower than in the past. But I did make some changes to the course. So revisit, revise, and try again.

I can handle the numbers. But the comments... Actually, it's one comment. One comment that is literally surrounded by positive comments. But one comment, nonetheless. The theme is something to the order of I HATE YOU!

It's been a while since I got one of those. And I can rationalize past it. I'm not perfect--not at all. I can accept that some students just won't like me. It happens.

But this doesn't stop the "feeling like a fraud" stew.

Instead, all of my worse insecurities have come to the surface. Specifically, there is my persistent fear of becoming irrelevant, of becoming Tha…

A Personal Best, Re-Defined

Somewhere at around 22 miles at this year’s Toronto Waterfront Marathon, I joked with my friend Andrew that the race ought to have a 1-kidney division.

“You’d definitely win that!”

He chuckled and, perhaps temporarily, forgot the muscle spasms rippling through his legs.

Then it was back to walking, stretching, and shuffling.

“We’ll get there,” I assured, as the crowds of runners passed us by.

Truth be told, I was beyond impressed to see Andrew running in this moment. It was a little less than a year ago that he donated a kidney to his son, who had struggled with health issues ever since birth.

Soon after Andrew recovered from his surgery, he set his sights on running a marathon as a way of celebrating the health and wellbeing of his son. He also asked me to run with him, and I immediately said yes—even though I had considered myself a retired marathoner.

After Andrew and I ran together in college, I was determined to conquer the marathon distance. In my formative running years, I w…

30 Minutes A Day

Completed day 1 of 30 days of writing for *at least* 30 minutes a day. Puritans and sports--some Augustine tossed in there. #BetterThanNothing #FinishTheDamnBook — Art Remillard (@ArtRemillard) August 27, 2018 Last May, I was on a radio show talking about religion and sports. At one point, the host asked me when my book would be finished.

"The end of summer," I assured him.

This wasn't an act of academic wish fulfillment. I actually believed this was possible.

All I had to do was stay on task.

[he clears his throat]

All I had to do was stay on task.

The summer started well. Chapters were improving. My argument was developing. My story was becoming coherent.

But then... stuff happened.

Everything stopped.

And the longer I stopped writing, the harder it was to open those documents. The ideas that were once so clear in my head were fading.

The anxiety accumulated. Will I ever really finish it? Or will it finish me?

When classes resumed, I found comfort in the rhythm of old r…

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