Hello . . .

. . . to those of my colleagues who have found their way here. You are most welcome to have a look around, poke around the Archives, visit links, post comments and ask questions, etc. Although some of my posts here might seem a bit dumb or wrong-headed, I don't think you'll find anything here that will otherwise embarrass me. My greater hope is that YOU won't feel embarrassed for having wasted your time by deigning to spend some time here. And I sure as heck hope you might deign to return.
To my more regular readers, I should explain: This afternoon, one of my school's Continuing Education opportunities was an introduction to wikis and blogs: what they are, and how we might incorporate them into our work as teachers. Most of my colleagues have at least heard of these things, but not many knew much about them beyond that, or they knew about blogs chiefly as sort of electronic diaries published by high school and college students. Anyway, I volunteered to the group that I am a blogger and would welcome their visiting my site. I've also begun, this semester, to put the URL for good ol' Blog Meridian on my syllabi.
Though I've never hidden this blog's existence from anyone, I've not exactly talked it up among my students or colleagues, either. The chief reason for that is that, though I post about some school-related things here, I didn't otherwise see a direct connection between this expression of myself and my classroom/professional persona. But this week, without my having been aware that I'd been thinking along these lines, I came to realize that the more proper term is not "connection" but "continuum." Why not make known this blog to my students and colleagues as a way of rounding out their sense of me as a person? Besides: it's not like I gossip or complain about the people I work with or teach, except, almost always, in the most positive of ways (since I really DO have very little to rant about with regard to where I work).
So. Again, welcome.
In other Blog Meridian news . . . something I've noticed that some long-time bloggers do is provide links to their favorite posts in their Links column so that past work they deem worthy might get looked at rather than collect whatever the blogosphere's equivalent to dust is. This blog, I see, has been around for a year and a half now, and so I've decided the time has come to do the same for those few posts that I think newer visitors might enjoy. So, that'll be something I hope to get set up in the coming week.
Finally: Today I received an e-mail from one of my summer Humanities students that is of the sort that causes a teacher to want to keep getting out of bed in the mornings. She wrote, among other things, that after the class ended she went to Virginia to visit her brother and that on a trip to Washington, D.C., she went to the National Gallery because I had mentioned it in class. She said she was thankful to me for letting me know that it existed, that she would never have gone there otherwise, and that she was so enthralled (her word) with the Gallery that she stayed there for a full day.
SHE thanked ME because SHE decided to darken the doorway of a museum and was glad she had done so.
Sometimes, teaching really IS easy.

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