Personal Curriculum Update

In this post here, I outlined my fall personal curriculum. At the end of month one, I looked at my husband and told him I made a mistake. I planned too much for the curriculum that I made and designed for myself. For fun. He laughed and said that he was not surprised that I, an overachieving, reformed perfectionist, overloaded myself.

Werewolves

Let's start with what was worth my time.

I started this section on werewolves by reading Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison. I would definitely recommend it as it was a fun and entertaining read. I devoured it in a few days. It really set me in the direction of research. She-wolf: a cultural history of female werewolves by Hannah Priest was in the acknowledgements for Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison and was mentioned in Howling at the Moon. If you are looking for well-researched, in-depth looks at the modern werewolf lore, Howling at the Moon and She-wolf should be your first stop. As I'm finding more and more to research, I have really loved finding webinars like Howling at the Moon to give a focused look at the topic at hand.

After reading She-wolf, I really struggled to get back into the "werewolf story" of Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf. So I set it aside. I still have Sabine Baring-Gould and Montague Summers' 19th century works on the werewolf lore.

You'll note that none of the extra credit or fiction books are included here. I was so immersed in She-wolf that I did not have much time for anything else.

Writing Craft

Not much to update here, except to say that the video linked in my curriculum: The Degeneracy of Modern Writing, is not worth the time. It pretty quickly equates romance novels with pornography. Which if I accept that argument, fine, but the vlogger then lumps romance readers into the same category as porn addicts and speaks to the increase in empathy from reading as a negative. I genuinely cannot tell if the video was rage-bait, but I greatly disagree with the interpretation of the science she presented as fact.

I have a lot of thoughts about romance novels being considered pornography that I don't need to go into here. But I do think it's a dangerous argument in today's political landscape where censorship laws are genuinely trying to ban books like mine for explicit content.

Sourdough and Soups

On socials, you can find a picture of my magnificent pumpkin loaf. It has the best crumb of any gluten free bread I have made, so my celiac-having self was very happy with the result. The butternut squash soup I made was from the New York Times Cooking. I would definitely make it again.

What else have I been doing?

I do have to confess that I have not adhered completely to the curriculum. Some of the topics I set aside for Winter sprang to the forefront and I went down a research rabbit hole. Both are related to works in progress, so I'm being a bit hush-hush about it. But it did keep me from completing my werewolf module.

My Thoughts

Some of my problem with a personal curriculum is that I think I enjoy the process of making the curriculum more than actually doing my "required" reading. This doesn't surprise me given my history as an academic. But I like having dedicated topics that I can choose from for my down time. That said, I think I will be a little more loose with my expectations moving forward. I think I can jump back into my werewolf, vampire, and witch research now with some new eyes.