What's New With Nate?

Heads up: I almost titled this post "A Big Fat Brag on Natey." So get excited.

Nate is insanely busy these days. It seems like we are always thinking our lives cannot possibly get busier and then they do. I daresay, however, that Nate is really becoming quite a pro at balancing all his responsibilities. He's taking two graduate classes on top of a full-time work week plus a daily commute time averaging two hours and twenty minutes. And he's the elder's quorum secretary at church. I'm ready for bed just thinking about it.

As far as school goes, we're beginning to see a light at the end of the tunnel. One more semester. One more class. And it is NOT a night class. HOOrah! He met with the graduate advisor a few weeks ago and he has officially applied for graduation in May! I will now insert a shameless brag: She did a double-take when she saw the results of the portion of the MA exam that he took last spring. Apparently he passed with honors, which is quite unusual, according to the lady. And which no one bothered to tell us. My buttons continue to burst every time I think about it.

I think he's really enjoying his classes this semester. One of them is an environmental criticism class where they explore the way nature is represented in literature and the resulting attitudes toward the environment readers come away with. Fancy, huh? Grasping the concept is slightly beyond my mental capacity, so on Tuesdays and Thursdays when Nate's in class, I like to picture him among lots of un-deodorized barefoot hippies wearing fringed vests (the girls' armpits identical to the guys') sitting in a circle on the floor reading books with the word "tree" in the title. I think that basically gets the gist of it.

He's also taking a letterpress class, where he learns all about and gets to use real live type and printing presses. Despite the fact that it means the kids get to tag along to Young Women every Wednesday night and don't see him from the time they go to bed on Tuesday till he gets home on Thursday, I am so glad that he's taking it. He's LOVING it. Who knew I married an artist? In all seriousness, though, he has done some really cool and creative projects in that class, such as this poster that he just worked his fanny off to finish on time.

The background is actually an impression of a piece of wood. How cool is that? Up close you can see the knots and grooves. I like seeing him excited about this class. And in his defense, I am well aware that he's busting his behind to be home as much as possible by leaving for work well before the crack of dawn on a daily basis. Just for lil' old me and our kiddies. What a great guy.

Work-wise there's certainly no lack of things to do either. Histories 1, which is Nate's current volume, just went out for scholarly review on November 1. This means after months of working with the volume editors on revising and rewriting, the book is now going into the copy editing stage. Then it will be typeset and he'll index it. You might as well go ahead and schedule a day to bring us a meal/clean our house now. Because in my esteemed opinion, which does count, the last index he did put him in the hospital not once, but twice in 2009, and technically once in 2010. But I digress. The volume is scheduled for publication in early 2012.

He's also been pretty heavily involved in the Joseph Smith Papers website. They just launched a new version of it at the end of October. It's pretty cool. Check it out here.

Nate's masters program doesn't involve a thesis, just a written exam. But he's doing a couple research projects of his own on the side. He's submitted a few proposals for different conferences this coming year, and we're excited to see what comes of it. One is for the Mormon History Association, which is having its conference in St. George next year. It explores the first Mormon settlers' aesthetic and utilitarian reactions to Zion canyon in southern Utah. Side note - if you ever get the chance to go to Zion, just do it. It is breathtaking.

The other is for the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment, held in Bloomington, Indiana next year. I think this one's fascinating: an ecocritical reading of the Book of Mormon. For example - Nephi being smitten with a rod by his brothers: "C'mon guys! Stop it! What a waste of an intrinsically valuable piece of wood!"

And to top it all off, Nate took a little trip to the dentist last Wednesday and was cavity-free. What a stud. I = luckiest girl on the planet.