We faculty all arrive at Hamline for residency tomorrow and my anticipation at seeing the beloved faces of my colleagues is quite high. I’m trying to pack, but it’s hard to know what to bring. Hamline is its own portal universe (I am a fantasy writer and so I am qualified to diagnose these things) and things don’t work like you’d expect. I believe the lecture hall we spend our lives in is about 700 degrees in the winter and -70 in the summer. You might call this inefficient–we just call it fatal. Also, the abrupt temperature changes we experience traveling from the inside and outside put our bodies in a heightened state of alertness that’s quite useful. If you’re going to spend ten days immersed in conversations about craft, it helps to be in constant fight-or-flight.

On Thursday, we have a faculty meeting, and there are sandwiches. One of the many benefits of teaching at Hamline is the sandwiches. We get to meet the new students too. (I should add for the record that this is even better than the sandwiches.) Friday everyone comes in, and I’m kicking things off with a lecture on theme. My computer ate my Powerpoint presentation yesterday, which was thematically unfortunate. I had just figured out how to do special effects and everything. I might have to rely on kazoos.

We’ll keep you updated as the residency progresses, though once again things are bound to get weird very quickly. They probably already are. I’m just so happy to be going. Plus I get to room with Claire. This is good for many reasons, including that there will always be coffee.

Travel safely, all.