From Sheri

It's good to hear from everyone! I'm living in Salt Lake City, wedged between the enormous mountains of the Wasatch Front and the Great Salt Lake. The city is wonderful, bicycle-friendly streets and a very nice music and film scene. In fact, my neighbor is actually a documentary filmmaker. He did This Divided State, which is about politics and controversy surrounding Michael Moore's visit to Utah Valley State College, which is how I will segue into the career portion of this update. I combine two adjunct positions at UVSC and Salt Lake Community College to create what would be one low-paying, full-time job. I love it. It is the best job, although the reading can get tiresome, and I sometimes read too many disappointing essays in a row and lose my faith in humanity. Otherwise, it is rewarding and fun. The English faculty at UVSC are some of the best writing teachers I have ever been around. They are a very smart, very passionate, very supportive group of people who have the ability to inspire desire and passion in even the most apathetic students.

On a more personal note, I fell madly, stupidly in love this spring while taking French lessons for fun. Following that, I studied French in France for a month and a week. Most of my time was spent on the beach or a pub in Nice with a rowdy group of opinionated European students. A highlight was discussing French philosophy with a university student and getting his perspective (and the correct pronunciation of some of those names). After France, I visited a friend in his hometown of Helsinki, Finland for a week. I did not want to leave.

Now, I'm recovering from my travels and preparing to teach way more comp courses this fall than anyone should ever have to teach. I must agree with what some of the others have said, that the instruction at WWU definitely
prepared me to be a contender in teaching and talking about comp studies in the work that I have done so far. I look forward to hearing from the rest of you.
~Sheri