Hello friends,

I hope this special post finds you well since my New Years 2024 post was published a few months ago! Things have certainly been busy on my end — personally, professionally, and creatively — and I’d love to share some details about it here. Let’s dive in!

Life Update

I mentioned in my last post that our fourth child, Eliza-Jean, was born in November and has been healthy and happy in the first couple of months of her life. She has grown so much in the last three months, exhibiting all the tell-tale signs of a curiously alert infant whose smile lights up our world. The other three kids adore her, always looking to entertain her or make her smile; she’s just starting to develop her laugh, so we’re looking forward to when she finally “finds” it. Our third child, Adler, is ornery as ever but is also sweet and kind, and tries to figure things out and do things on his own. Marin is also finding her place as part of the older pair of kids, sharing responsibility with Everett to help keep an eye on Adler and even EJ at times; she also is growing up too fast — she’s signed up for kindergarten in the fall already! The oldest, Everett, is becoming a fine young man; he’s just getting into the start of the spring soccer season and is enjoying his time at school. He has a family heritage/culture project due in a couple of weeks which he’s excited about completing, so that’s on our agenda over the coming days. Sarah and I are on the cusp of celebrating our 10-year anniversary in May, which will be before the next blog post; sometimes it’s hard to believe it’s been 10 years because we’ve done and experienced and grown so much in that amount of time, but it’s 10 years that I wouldn’t trade for the world!

New Job at the University of Jamestown

If you’ve been following along the past few months, you should know that I pivoted away from teaching at the secondary level after 8+ years online into an instructional design (ID) role in the world of higher education. Working remotely for UJ (whose physical campus is based in Jamestown, ND) has been utterly refreshing and rewarding, in more ways than one, and I’m so very grateful to have found this position when I did. I’ve made a handful of new work friends and have settled into a more comfortable routine in the work that I do, which involves collaborating with subject matter experts (SMEs) to design courses at the undergraduate and graduate level; I haven’t gotten to work directly on any postgraduate courses yet, but I will eventually. A few people have asked me if I’ll ever “go back to teaching,” to which I usually reply something to the extent of “not in the K12 world.” I enjoy educating others, especially on topics relating to history, but at the moment I have no desire to return to that part of the education field; I think I can thrive more in higher education. For the foreseeable future, I intend on continuing to adjunct lecture history courses through Mount Union when I can, while working my full-time job as an ID at UJ.

For those interested in a more detailed description of my work process as an ID (because many have asked), here’s the basic gist of what I do:

• I hold a virtual kickoff meeting with the SME contracted to aid in designing a course — they offer their content-related expertise from their field (nursing, philosophy, technology, math, etc.) while I offer my education-related expertise (learning theory, design principles, LMS knowhow, etc.)
• the SME and I examine the course’s learning objectives — we determine what it is the students are really being asked to do or the knowledge they’re being asked to demonstrate at the core of their learning in the course
• from there, we reverse engineer the design of the course via Backward Design — this means that instead of dividing a textbook by the number of weeks in a course and building out weekly content to reinforce the book’s topics chronologically (i.e., “forward design”), we begin with the assessments in mind and then determine what content the students will engage with in order to demonstrate their knowledge on those assessments
• once we have this worked out, we transfer all our brainstormed and collaborated ideas/material onto a formal document that spells out everything needed for the course to be built and “come alive”
• after that document is completed and filled out with as much detail as is needed, the SME and I either 1) have a closeout meeting to wrap things up and formally end the design process, or 2) we communicate this through email (which usually ends up being the case if the SME will also be the instructor who teaches the course)
• at this point, the course is ready to be built — this is done by our instructional technologist, but I also help clarify wording or other details on the document they use as reference, and sometimes will help build out parts of a course (e.g., rubrics) if the technologist is crunched for time

I repeat this process for each course that I help design, and I have anywhere between 3-5 courses that I’m working on at a given time.

Progress on The Ivory Obelisk

Six and a half years — that’s how long I’ve been working on this story idea. It’s a crazy time frame given that I pumped out my first four books in four years, but it also speaks to the comparatively larger degree of focus and attention I’ve given to this project. Granted, most of the writing didn’t take up all those years, and I didn’t work for consecutive days or periods of time early on…but still, it’s something I’m proud of looking back as I also look forward to finishing this project in the next eight months or so. I mentioned in my last blog post about expanding on my original rough draft after considering editor feedback as well as reading through some books on the craft of fiction writing; I can say that this expansion of ideas has really taken the plot of the book into places I wouldn’t have originally conceived but am so glad that I did because I truly believe it’s improved the story in multiple ways. My goal is to finish rewriting the final two chapters (one of which has been added onto the original manuscript) by June 1 to then allow a few weeks of proofing and revision; this will then be followed by about two months of beta reading, which will give me a solid “last look” at the manuscript by someone other than myself to ensure any spelling/grammatical/aesthetic errors are caught and any gaps or holes in the story are addressed. I’m still aiming for a release in the fall, sometime in late November, but that isn’t necessarily set in stone. As the summer months wane, I’ll have a better idea on the timeline and will update you accordingly. In any case, the end is in sight!

Pre-order for “‘The Faces of the War’ Collection”

I mentioned in my New Year’s post that I am re-releasing my first four books as a combined single-volume edition to mark the 10-year anniversary of my first foray into writing and self-publishing in April 2014. The Kindle version has been available for pre-order since January 1, and will continue to be available alongside the paperback version until they both are released on April 25, 2024:

• Combined Edition – Kindle & Paperback Pre-Order

In addition to that, the four books will be individually discounted on Kindle over the coming days in the run-up to the 25th:

• Resistant — FREE between April 2-6
• Unguarded — Kindle Countdown Deal between April 7-12
• Imminent — Kindle Countdown Deal between April 13-18
• Needless — Kindle Countdown Deal between April 19-24

I am excited to be able to celebrate this milestone in my writing life, and to share it with you and others who support my love of storytelling!

That’s it for this post. I look forward to my summer update post where I’ll have a solid update on the status of The Ivory Obelisk for you, among other things. Thank you!

Until next time,

Mike/”Eli”

Hello friends,

I hope this post finds you well and enjoying your summer, wherever you may be and whatever you may be doing! My family and I just got back from an extended family vacation in Florida, during which time we went to three Disney parks (Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios), visited Clearwater beach on the Gulf side, and relaxed in our AirBnB house on our off days. It was a crazy, hot vacation but one in which we spent time with family and friends, and generally took a break from our normal routines. Now that we’re back home, I’m ready to enjoy the rest of my summer before the new school year starts in August. There are a few things I wanted to talk about in this post, so let’s get to it…

Master’s Degree Progress

In my Spring 2023 post, I revealed that I began a second master’s degree with the hopes of eventually securing employment in higher education working as an instructional designer. I started on March 1 and had completed five courses by the time we went on vacation. I have five courses left, which I hope to finish by early November (more on the why later). Part of my capstone project for this degree is that I will implement an e-learning unit that I create into a class I already teach, so I’ll be utilizing my pre-existing student population to complete this task and finish out my degree. I’m excited for the possibilities that await once I officially finish the program; ideally, I’ll be able to continue working from home in a remote position, but I will certainly be grateful for anything I can find that allows me to better provide for Sarah and the kids.

The Ivory Obelisk Progress

As mentioned in my last post, the release of this work-in-progress won’t be until later into 2024, but I have been chipping away here and there at details and aspects of the story that need attention per my editor’s suggestions, as well as my own desire for changes. While these revisions will result in eliminating chunks of text from my manuscript, what I’m changing and adding will hopefully improve the story and make it more impactful; after all, deleting chunks of text is all part of the revision process. The current manuscript is around 66,000 words, which is right around where I originally aimed to finish; however, the finished product might eclipse the 70,000 word mark — which wouldn’t upset me, to be honest. While I didn’t set out to write a huge book, the story is developing in a way that is seeing elements of the story enhanced and expanded…and it’s kind of a cool process to be a part of.

‘History of the Holocaust’ Curriculum Development

If you’ve been following along for the past few years, you probably know that I have done a lot of work in curriculum development for both the high school and college courses I have taught. As part of starting my second master’s degree program in March, I was quickly inspired by the competency learning model and felt compelled to apply those principles to my ‘History of the Holocaust’ class that I teach with my high school students. The curriculum currently in place is okay, but in my opinion doesn’t challenge the students as best as perhaps they could be challenged, nor does it offer an authentic opportunity for student-led learning and inquiry (not to mention assessment). After getting the green light from my administration, I began implementing curricular changes I had already been plotting and planning. At my current pace of development, this new curriculum should be finished the week before I go back for teacher pre-service on August 14.

The basic gist of this competency-based format is that our live class sessions will be very student-centered and interactive, gamified by various tech tools, and all built to help students brainstorm, develop, and produce final versions of a piece of competency evidence — essentially the demonstrated proof of students’ understanding of each course competency. There are 10 competency statements in the course, and students can complete up to 4 competency evidence assignments each, resulting in a total of 40 assignments across a semester. The more evidence a student submits, the higher their grade; and they must demonstrate competency on all 10 statements at least once in order to pass the class. There is a summative assessment over larger concepts and topics in the course at semester’s end, which contributes to 20% of their overall grade (with the competency evidence portfolio constituting the remaining 80%). I’m excited to implement this new system and see how it positively benefits my students.

There’s a lot going on this summer and into the coming school year, but I’m excited for how I’ll learn and grow from everything I do and from those with whom I work — whether learning, writing, or teaching. I wish you well over the coming few months and hope you enjoy your summer!

Until next time,

Mike/”Eli”

Friends,

I hope this post finds you well as we enter into warmer days ahead! There have been some exciting developments in my life since we last touched base, so let’s dive right in…

The Ivory Obelisk Progress

As of the New Year’s 2023 post, I had been working on refining my manuscript based on my editor’s feedback. Part of that included rewriting the beginning of the story to reshape how the plot is framed as well as adding in elements from two books that I read and found very insightful (as someone who’s never seriously read about writing creatively): Creating Character Arcs and Writing Your Story’s Theme, both by K.M. Weiland. I certainly feel more confident and comfortable with my writing process and the future of my story.

That being said, my originally planned release date was to be sometime in the autumn of 2023. I had targeted this time given that I would not be working on developing or teaching any college courses in the interim, and would thus have free time in which to write. However, through some discussion and self-reflection, I decided to enroll in another master’s program with the intention of better equipping myself with credentials that would allow me to do what I’ve been doing in developing online college courses but as a full-time job. This leads me to my next bit of news.

Master’s Degree from Western Governors University

I came to the decision to pursue a second master’s degree mainly from the notions that 1) I don’t want to teach at the secondary level forever, 2) I enjoy developing college courses currently, and as such could use that as a gateway into working in higher education, and 3) I want to bring home a higher salary that would enable me to better provide for my family and to start saving for a PhD, if I opt to pursue one in the future. I never really gave much thought to working in higher ed in any capacity other than as a professor, so this route was a little foreign to me. But a colleague encouraged me to enroll in the MS in Learning Experience Design and Educational Technology program through Western Governors University, which would allow me to complete my program fully online and at my own pace. My intention is to complete my program within a year (so, by or before February 2024) and then finish out that academic year in my current job; ideally, I’d then transition into a full-time higher ed position as a learning experience designer (also known as an instructional designer).

Due to my accelerated pathway through this program (by default, the University paces students out to a two-year timeframe in which to complete the degree), much of my extra time is now dedicated to progressing toward the end of my program. As such, my original intention of knocking out my book and publishing it before Christmas of this year has been pushed back. It pains me to know that I am minimizing the utility of that creative outlet, but I know it’s for the better in that I’ll be able to be more secure in my occupation and provide more for my family. Silver lining — I can still write here and there; I just won’t have as much free time in which to do it.

For anyone interested in better understanding what it is that I’m doing, feel free to check out this 2-minute video or this 3-minute video.

That’s all for now. This post is on the shorter side, but that’s okay…bucking the trend periodically never hurt anyone.

Until next time,

Mike/”Eli”

Friends,

I hope this post finds you well and ready to take on the start of a new calendar year! At the start of last year, I began with a post about books I’d read and planned to read, emphasizing the aspiration to increase my literacy and reading stamina both for pleasure and in preparation for my PhD program (whenever that may begin). In keeping with that trend, let’s start this year’s first post off with what I ended up reading in 2022.

Like last year’s post, I won’t go into detail on all the books; instead, I’ll address a few of the more notable or impactful titles in my opinion…

First, we have Why? Explaining the Holocaust by Peter Hayes, which I found to be a straightforward and enlightening read for anyone not engaged with Holocaust history and discourse; being someone who is, though, this book — compounded by the other Holocaust-related books in this year’s list, especially Denying the Holocaust by Deborah Lipstadt — further deepened my knowledge and grasp on the subject. If you don’t know much about the Holocaust (especially beyond the basic gist of “the Nazis’ persecution of the Jews”) and would like to better comprehend it, this is the book for you.

Next, the book In Defense of History by Richard J. Evans was something I wish I had read during my undergrad studies, if not my graduate studies. This renowned historian, who wrote the two Third Reich books in this list and also was the expert witness in the Holocaust denial case sparked from Lipstadt’s book mentioned above, did a wonderful job of conveying the historian’s craft while expounding on its evolution and underlying premises that all facilitates how history “works” in the modern era and why studying and understanding historical developments is such a necessary endeavor. Historians (myself included) lament the fact that not everyone can engage with historical study to great degrees; such a reality would theoretically lend better insight into how people understand and perceive the world, its history, and how we as a society came to be the way we are now. This fact emphasizes the need for historians and other scholars in similar fields of study, so that the future is informed by deeper understandings of historical truth and memory rather than ‘fake news’ and misinformation.

Third, we have Atomic Habits by James Clear, which was one of my non-history books this year. Though I listened to this title via Audible, it was still impactful because I wanted to engage with the content in an attempt to improve my life. The author breaks down the psychology and physiology behind how we function as humans, how we think and process, and how we develop habits over time — all with great clarity and purpose. He elaborates on his own experiences and how he shaped his own habits to improve his daily routines and replenish his mental state, and how those same methods can be replicated in the lives of others for their own benefit. There is a website that goes along with the book that houses a myriad of downloadable sheets and resources that you can use for making new, positive habits and breaking old, negative ones; I intend on working through some of these as the New Year gets up and running, with the purpose of improving myself little by little.

Lastly, the book The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray provided some interesting insight on the seemingly unraveling fabric of European culture and society resulting from a number of factors over time and space. While some points in the book may have walked a controversial line, overall it was an informative read on developments relating to the state of Europe in recent years. A good chunk of its content tied directly into aspects of recent history that I taught in my Contemporary Europe college course a year or two ago, so it was nice to build on that knowledge and understanding. It also touched on important historical, diplomatic, and geopolitical questions that plague European politicians, intellectuals, and citizens in general — questions that have been asked more and more as of late and could (and probably will) have dramatic and profound implications for Europe’s future. For anyone interested in European affairs in the present day — which you should be, if you’re interested in our place as a country in the globalized world — then this would be a great book to check out.

Here are the books with links to Amazon for anyone interested in checking them out:

After Nationalism
Alexander the Great
Atomic Habits
Classics – Why It Matters
The Coming of Neo-Feudalism
The Coming of the Third Reich
Denying the Holocaust
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing
The Guilty
History – Why It Matters
In Defense of History
The Last Jew of Treblinka
Masters of Death (note: I already mentioned reading this book in my Fall 2022 Update post)
The Renaissance in Italy
The Strange Death of Europe
The Third Reich in Power
Why Liberalism Failed
Why? Explaining the Holocaust

Progress on The Ivory Obelisk and Other Projects

I am excited at the developments my WIP has experienced over the past few months. In the Summer 2022 Update post, I revealed the book’s title and blurb, and mentioned my hopes of putting my manuscript through a professional editing process. That has indeed occurred, with some major yet needed and important changes made to the plot, as well as fine tuning dialogue and some other aspects of the story. My editor read through the manuscript and gave me her thoughts and suggestions, we discussed a few things over email, and then we had a phone conversation to dig deeper into my plan to improve the story’s direction. I feel great about putting my manuscript through this process, as it will make it better and hopefully more enjoyable for readers.

That all being said, I’m planning on taking my time over the coming ten months or so to really polish up the manuscript to produce a quality story. Given that I’m not teaching any college courses in the spring or fall of 2023, I can devote that time to writing and revising, which is exciting. I don’t yet have a solid release date, but I feel like I can safely say it’ll be Fall 2023 at the latest. As part of this process, I intend on taking some writing classes (hopefully through MasterClass) that will reinforce the revisions in areas of my story that need work. When the dust settles, hopefully I’ll be a better writer for it.

As for other projects, I would like to revisit my Short Story Collection by adding another volume to it; however, I don’t feel that I currently have any great ideas to expand into properly sized narratives. I do have a few ideas that have either been on my shelf for a while or that I’ve jotted down just recently, but I’d have to sit down and really try to develop them enough to feel comfortable taking the time to write them. Perhaps as the year progresses, something will develop and I’ll have some stories to work with and publish in the near future!

One final thing about my books: I am running Kindle discounts on Books 2-4 of my WWII collection ‘Faces of the War’ between January 1-8, while Book 1 and the two Short Story Collection books are free from January 1-5. You can easily access all titles from my Amazon author page if interested in purchasing.

Family News

Aside from periodic bouts of illness, everyone is doing well. Everett’s kindergarten year has been a whirlwind so far — it’s hard to believe we’re halfway through the year — but he’s loving his classes, the friends he’s made, and the things he gets to do and tell us about. Marin has also enjoyed her preschool/daycare routine, though she isn’t as elaborate or wordy in expressing those feelings; she’ll be in preschool/daycare again next year, but she’ll advance to kindergarten sooner than we know it. And Adler — well, he’s our first climber and is obnoxiously cute while also managing to act lovingly anarchic. He specializes in loud noises (parroting his siblings), getting on top of the couch and kitchen table, and being a little clingy…and we love him for all of it!

Recently, I got to attend a surprise wedding vow renewal for my oldest sister’s and brother-in-law’s 25th anniversary in Kentucky. Originally, we all were invited and had planned to go, but the kids were sick and then Sarah got sick as well, so I went alone to be there for my sister and to celebrate her and her husband. It was nice to see them and their kids, and to be with some of my other family even for just a short while. I’m a firm believer in trying to change up our routines from time to time — even just a quick shake-up here and there — and even more so when it involves being with family.

On the same token, we all missed the Christmas night party at my parent’s house (historically it’s always been there, but this year it was at one of my other sister’s home) because everyone still had a little bit of sickness. We video called them and chatted for a few minutes, and they all sang Happy Birthday to Marin since her big day is December 26th; she really liked that, though she was shy about it. I am so proud of the young girl she’s growing up to be, and for her brothers for loving her so much (even when they can be mean to her at times, as young siblings often tend to be). Hopefully we can all get better soon and can get together in the initial weeks after New Year’s!

That’s about it for right now. I’ll have the next post up sometime April, by which time I should have some more updates on The Ivory Obelisk and maybe a few other things. Until then, I wish you a Happy New Year and ‘good luck’ getting started with any goals you might be setting for yourself or any routines you’re trying to develop.

Take care,

Mike/”Eli”

Friends,

What a wild few months it has been since I last posted! A new academic year has begun, a new soccer season has commenced (both for my 5-year-old son and for Liverpool, whom I follow in the English Premier League), and a new college course I’ve been working on has developed nicely. Now that things have settled down in this transition period of my year, I can talk at length about a few things…

Work-in-Progress Manuscript

I’ll begin with news on my story. I worked over the summer on the rough draft, finalizing it as best as I thought it could be within the time frame I had. Just before the new school year started, my draft hit 66,000 words, of which 5,000-8,000 will likely be eliminated in a solid revision. I have initiated the process of utilizing a professional editing service on this project, which hopefully will render a better quality manuscript in comparison to my previous books. Depending on the timeline on which the editor and I agree, I hope to have the finished manuscript uploaded into Amazon for a spring or summer 2023 release, though it could be sooner. Either way, I will likely wait until at least January 2023 to officially publish so I can enter my book into a writing contest or two; those things usually require publication earlier in the given year of the contest. The Kindle version will be available for pre-order, and I may even look into getting my book produced in hardback in addition to paperback. Lastly, there are two details of the book that I want to share prior to its release, with one of those details being the story blurb below:

In the fall of 1959, Fabian Loxley hosts a masquerade dinner party at his rural New York manor. The revelry is halted by a series of developments that forces Fabian into a corner, makes his guests ask questions, and brings revelations about the host and his guests to the surface in the process. What will the end of the night bring for them all and how will it change Fabian?

The other detail is the story’s title: The Ivory Obelisk. As I’ve mentioned before, this story is different in terms of how I approached its creation and how it’s told, but I’m very excited to polish it off and share it with you next year!

College Course-Writing

The next bit of news is the progress I’ve made on writing the Early Modern Europe college course. I finished compiling information included in the shorthand notes that I provide the students, which allowed me to then start recording the video lectures using those notes. In the spirit of student accessibility, the school encouraged professors to amend their online lectures to be broken down into multiple videos of shorter length instead of one long lecture video. That being the case, I have 50 lecture videos to create in total; between the time I started and when I got sick with a sore throat and cold, I had recorded 16 lecture videos. This week at the time of this posting, I have resumed recording lectures and hope to finish them before Halloween; this will afford me plenty of time to upload all the lecture videos and other course content into the online course platform and get it finalized and approved before Thanksgiving. Then it’ll just be a matter of finishing reading the few books I’ve earmarked for that course so I’m ready to start it when the spring semester commences in January 2023.

In addition to the Early Modern Europe course, I’ve been green-lighted (green-lit?) to develop new versions of the Western Civilization I course for summer 2023 as well as Revolutionary Europe for fall 2023. This will occupy most of my time in terms of working on college course materials between November 2022 and July 2023, at which time I’ll transition into working on the Western Civilization II, Medieval Europe, and Ancient Greece and Rome courses. I am excited to dive deeper into these courses and their historical periods, reading more on them as I work on their content and thus cementing my understanding of their developments.

Amended Reading List

I’m a planner, and it oftentimes serves me well. However, things don’t always go to plan and so we must adapt and rearrange variables in the equation. Part of that includes the books I decide to read. Most times, I set out with high expectations and perhaps even lofty reading goals, only to change my plan in accordance with other factors that require me to shift gears in what I’m aiming to do. That being said, I’m already banking on including a tentative reading list for 2023 in my New Year’s post just a few months away. For now, though, I’ll expound on some of the year’s remaining reads as well as others I plan to read in 2023 as they relate to the aforementioned college courses I’m working on.

The first pair of books is for the Early Modern Europe course, of which I’ve already talked about in my last post:

• Europe’s Babylon: The Rise and Fall of Antwerp’s Golden Age by Michael Pye (Amazon) 
• London and the Seventeenth Century: The Making of the World’s Greatest City by Margarette Lincoln (Amazon) 

After that, I aim to read two books that I’ll use for the Ancient Greece and Rome course as well as the Medieval Europe course, but which will also aid in my revisiting content for the summer Western Civilization I course:

• The Story of Greece and Rome by Tony Spawforth (Amazon) 
• Medieval Europe by Chris Wickham (Amazon)

Then, into the summer I aim to read two books in prep for the Revolutionary Europe course next fall:

• The Wars of German Unification by Showalter and Strachan (Amazon) 
• Blood and Iron by Katja Hoyer (Amazon)

There are other books I intend to read next year, but as I said — I will reserve those for a later post.

Lastly, I just finished reading all the way through Masters of Death, a book on the Einsatzgruppen — the mobile killing squads attached to the German army (Wehrmacht) as it invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 — as part of my self-guided professional development this year for my full-time teaching job. It is a grim account of the gruesome mass killings of Jews and others in the occupied East that was the realization of Nazi racial policies aimed at obtaining the much-desired Lebensraum for future German settlement and colonization. I concede that it’s a tough read, and certainly not something of the everyday reading type that most people would consider, but for anyone at all interested in this significant and pivotal component of the process of the Holocaust, I highly recommend this book.

Family News

In closing, I will add that my son, Everett, has started kindergarten and has loved it so far; he goes to school every day and comes home with stories each afternoon. My daughter, Marin, has also started school this year, but she’s in twice-a-week preschool for half a day and then goes to daycare (through the school) for the other half of the day; she’s home with me or at work with mom on the off days. Each and every day, though, I have my other son, Adler, at home with me while I work; he plays and enjoys the little things, then takes a good nap while I teach. It’s definitely not the routine I thought teaching would entail when I declared 7-12 Social Studies as my minor way back in 2009, but times change and I wouldn’t change it for the world. As I alluded to earlier, we have started another outdoor soccer season and Everett has shown improvement from last year already. He enjoys it but still has much to learn. Marin and Adler like cheering him on from the sidelines; I can only imagine what sports and organizations all our kids will eventually get involved in over the coming years…but I can’t wait for it.

That’s all for now, so in case I don’t see you…good afternoon, good evening, and good night!

Mike/”Eli”

Friends,

I come to you now in my February post with some thoughts and musings on the eve of my 33rd birthday; I will admit that I am writing this in a sort of stream-of-consciousness manner. While this is by no means an occasion to reflect ‘on a long life well lived’ (for hopefully I have quite some time still to go), I do think birthdays offer an opportune moment to reflect and hold an inner dialogue with yourself. In this instance, though, I’m bringing you along for the ride.

Something that has gradually made itself clear to me over the past few months is that I think and do too much. Those who know me know that I like to plan, and to follow that plan because I know it will lead me where I want to go in order to achieve or obtain something I need or want. However, for whatever reason, my mental capacity – and to some extent my physical stamina to complement it – has lately felt strained and overwhelmed. At times I feel pulled in too many directions to be able to meaningfully function and think: ideas for my PhD pull me this way; things needing done for my college courses tugging me that way; the ever-present feeling of the need to be doing something productive pushing me over the edge. In the words of a worldly hobbit, “I feel thin…sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” And though I may need a holiday, even a long one, I know that I can’t really have one right now. So that leaves me with the choice of either pressing on with everything I fill my plate with, or to take my foot off the gas and risk the internal battle of knowing I’m not being productive but that it’s probably better for my health. The choice seems clear and obvious, but therein lies the dilemma.

I suppose I shouldn’t be so hard on myself on the one hand. After all, I have always thrived on seeing out my plans and productively doing what I need to do. I know 33 is a good deal beyond conventionally conceptualized ‘youth,’ but at the same time I am equipped with life experience and a clearer understanding of things which I study and teach about on a weekly basis. Logic would tell me, then, that minor adjustments here and there will help me alleviate unneeded pressure I place on myself. However, I have been making minor adjustments ever since I can remember; it’s part of how I’ve gotten to where I am. At the end of the day, though, I still come back to the idea that when I devote time within the context of my work and academics, it should be executed meaningfully and without waste. How, then, can I justify taking my foot off the gas? How would I feel about myself if I looked back ten years from now and saw clear signs that I could’ve read more, wrote more, enriched myself more…anything more? I don’t like wasting time on something when it could be better used for productivity, but perhaps that mindset has run me aground on Burnout Reef. That has brought me to thinking that I should set about my new year of birth in a healthier and less high-strung manner.

Stepping away from all the humdrum of that notion for a moment, let me put a positive spin on it by focusing on a couple of things. First, as fate would have it, I won’t be teaching any college courses over the summer, and my fall semester course load went down by a class. My wife optimistically pointed out that ‘this is a blessing in disguise’ because she knows my struggle with keeping productively busy. This reduction in professional responsibilities can afford me more breathing space in which to write the next college course I’ll be teaching next spring (Early Modern Europe, spanning from roughly the 1550s through the 1780s). Second, I have come back around to feeling motivated to work more on the manuscript of my current work in progress (called a WIP by all my writer friends out there). I haven’t talked much about this — in fact, I may not have let on before that I’ve been slowly chipping away at a new project — but I will certainly do so in a future post. For the time being, just know that the story I’m developing stemmed from an idea that I had shelved back while I was writing Needless, it doesn’t relate to my “Faces of the War” stories set during WWII, and it is a very different approach to my storytelling in comparison to what I’ve already published.

Though it doesn’t necessarily bring me joy, following current events has proven helpful in expressing worry and doubt from my mind. At the time of this writing, there is a situation that has been developing in Ukraine regarding a potential Russian invasion. This, of course, has historical significance over many centuries, with the most recent example manifesting in the 2014 invasion of the Crimea and the ensuing chaos involving Russian-backed separatists fighting Ukrainian government forces in the eastern region of the country. For anyone interested in following along with events as they unfold, check out this Conflict Tracker from the Council on Foreign Relations. For me, I would like to think that full-scale warfare won’t break out between an invading Russian force and NATO-led Western forces, but there are too many factors at play that are either unpredictable or unknown, especially to me.

Something that I can say does bring me joy is a number of new films coming out this year. I don’t consider myself a pure cinephile in a critical or philosophical sense (I am too much of an optimist to consistently point out the flaws and errors of movies; instead I just like to be entertained for the most part), but I do hold affinities for certain films or genres. For example, Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile just came out this past week; I read the book and have anxiously awaited the film adaptation. After having read the book and watched the film of Murder on the Orient Express, I was keen to do the same with this next installment. Furthermore, the Super Bowl was just a couple of days ago and a few more more trailers were released: the Amazon Prime show The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, which excites me due to my love for the LOTR and Hobbit books/films; the new Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness movie, which taps into my cultivated love for the Marvel films; and the third Jurassic World: Dominion movie, which looks awesome as it encapsulates the hypothetical situation of dinosaurs among us today that I dreamed about while watching the movies as a kid. Though the trailers aren’t out yet, the third season of The Mandalorian as well as the new Disney+ series Obi-Wan Kenobi both will have my attention when they arrive. I surely hope that over the coming months I can learn to relax by enjoying the simple pleasures of things like new films.

In closing, I will say that I don’t not look forward to turning 33. Sure, I’d love to have the athletic stamina of my early 20s, but I wouldn’t trade Early 20s Mike for who I am today. Part of growing up is figuring out the how to life; I’m just glad that I have loving family members — namely my wife and kids — that support me every day and provide me with constant reminders that no matter how many books I read, or classes I write curriculum for, or whatever else I try to plan to do…they will always be there and I will always come home to them at the end of the day. For anyone else who might be struggling in similar ways to me, I encourage you to do what you can, how you can, when you can. In the words of Bob Wiley, “Baby steps…”

Until next time, I wish you all a very fond farewell!

Mike/”Eli”

Friends,

After some months off during a surprisingly busier summer and start of the school year, I have found time and a rejuvenated aspiration to bring you another blog post. With the New Year just begun, I wanted to write about something new. I hope that this effort both helps me stay accountable and perhaps helps inspire others to follow suit.

A Surge in Reading

I’ve never been a strong reader. Part of this stems from my childhood, where I never read as much as I probably should have; this created a lower literacy in me, hampered somewhat by mild dyslexia and an average reading comprehension. Another side of this issue is that I never thought of reading as something that could bring enjoyment; it was always because I had to for one reason or another. This lack of reading was compounded in my undergraduate studies by added page volume, which was even more the case during my master’s program. I had to resort to merely skimming the books I read in order to find a sweet spot of efficiency.

Since I finished my master’s program in March 2020, I have read far more books than I ever did in all the years before. I’m not entirely sure what got me going, but I’m to the point now where I’m lining up books to read and planning on applying that information to the work I do. So what does all this have to do with ‘something new for the new year?’ A friend of mine who recently finished her master’s program did something pretty cool: she laid out all the books and printed articles she read for her degree and snapped a picture, using it as part of her celebratory social media post for completing her studies and achieving the goal which she set out to achieve. That’s what I’m aiming to do here, for the books I’ve read in the past 21 months since the pandemic started and I finished my own master’s program.

Now given that I didn’t set out with this goal in mind when I read all the books I did – and therefore didn’t list them out beforehand for the sake of accountability – this post will only partially address this endeavor. However, at the end of this post I will list out the books I aim to read in the coming year, and will then follow up with a post next December/January – and will therefore make the circle complete. And so, here is the picture of the books I’ve read since March 2020:

In an effort to not draw out this post longer than it needs to be, I will simply make note of a few books that really stuck out to me and have made an impact on me and the way I think about history one way or another. The first is The Politics of Our Time by John B. Judis, which is a 2021 publication that combines three books he wrote on populism, nationalism, and socialism between 2016-2020. I had actually read the second of the three books and used it for my Contemporary Europe class in the fall of 2020, then read the other two parts after purchasing the combined edition – finding it all very enlightening if not always agreeable. If you’re someone who wants to understand the overarching reasons why current political trends developed the way they have in the last 30+ years in both the US and Europe, this book offers some great insights into that phenomenon and also provides some commentary on future implications on both the national and global levels. I’ve never been one to get wrapped up in politics, especially in election years, but this read has proven relevant and helpful, and I’d recommend it to anyone hoping to find a similar understanding of our world today.

The second book that made an impact on me, even if to a lesser extent than the Judis book, was How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley, originally published in 2018. Having studied the Nazi Third Reich more extensively than the average individual, I have read my fair share of information and commentary relating to National Socialism and the ‘us versus them’ mentality that saturates fascist politics. Using that as my baseline of knowledge, listening to this audio book really aided in broadening my understanding of and appreciation for the nuances that characterize fascism both historically and in contemporary contexts. I think when people hear the word “fascism,” their minds immediately conjure up images of the Hitler salute and the Nazis’ nationalistic attempt to overpower their European neighbors in the name of cultural domination; by extension, thoughts of Mussolini giving fervent speeches from a balcony in central Rome may also be conjured. Either way, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as there are many other contexts in which fascism rears its ugly face. This book illustrates those contexts and the general structure and thinking of fascist politics down in a very understandable and relatable manner.

Some of the other books opened my eyes to the history of their subjects in a more general sense. The books Why Nationalism, Neo-Nationalism, Borderland, and The Twilight of Democracy all lent insight into the world of European nationalism – and even populism, in some parts of some books – that has defined the last 10+ years of European history and continues to inform the present decade. This also reinforces what I’ve already read and learned about contemporary Europe, as well as how I teach it at the college level. This Sovereign Isle and Britain and Europe in a Troubled World provided me with clarity and detail regarding the UK, Brexit, and the implications of the whole ordeal on the UK and Europe in political, economic, and even social terms. For anyone looking to better understand Brexit, why it happened, and what it means, these books would be my reads of choice.

Here are the books above put into list form:

Cosmopolitanism by Kwame Anthony Appiah
The Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum
Borderland by Anna Reid (on Kindle)
This Sovereign Isle by Robert Tombs
Britain and Europe in a Troubled World by Vernon Bogdanor
Nations and Nationalism by Eric Hobsbawm
On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
Why Nationalism by Yael Tamir
Neo-Nationalism by Eirikur Bergmann
How Fascism Works by Jason Stanley (on Audible)
Disputed Histories by Omer Bartov
Lessons of the Holocaust by Michael R. Marrus
The Politics of Our Time by John B. Judis

If any of you have read or plan to read any of these on the list, I’d love to connect and discuss your thoughts and reactions to the arguments included in what you read.

Reading List for 2022

Building off of much that I read in the list above, here is my list for 2022:

Nineteenth-Century Europe by Michael Rapport
The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabriele & David M. Perry
The Enlightenment by Dorinda Outram
Lost Kingdom by Serhii Plokhy
The Strange Death of Europe by Douglas Murray (on Audible)
Why Liberalism Failed by Patrick J. Deneen
The Idea of Europe by Shane Weller
The Future of the Holocaust: Between History and Memory by Berel Lang
In Defense of History by Richard J. Evans
Denying the Holocaust by Deborah Lipstadt
The Virtue of Nationalism by Yoram Hazony
The Road to Unfreedom by Timothy Snyder

The first four books are intended for use in future college classes that I’ll offer over the coming semesters (like Revolutionary Europe, Medieval Europe, and Early Modern Europe), but the rest of the list is comprised of books that interest me both personally and academically. My plan is to read through a class-related book alongside one of the others; this is my attempt to stay sharp mentally as I read but to also ensure that I work through all the books I can. Of course, things may come up through my jobs or personal life that will force me to alter my plans, but I at least have something concrete in place moving forward. In the short run, I look forward to learning more and further honing my reading skills and literacy rate; in the long run, I hope to build up my reading stamina, so to speak, in preparation for my PhD program.

That is all for now. I wish you all a Happy New Year and look forward to connecting with you again soon!

Take care,

Mike/”Eli”

Friends,

I hope this message finds you well and ready for summer to arrive in earnest. The weather has been beautiful lately, which is exciting!

For this month’s blog post, I wanted to blend the themes of ‘books I’ve ready recently’ and ‘curricular development of the East Europe college course’ that I’ve been elaborating on over the past few months. Some of you have told me that you’re enjoying seeing into this side of my academic life; on the same token, I’m happy to share. So let’s dive on in…

Borderland by Anna Reid

I first saw this Ukrainian history book pop up on Amazon sometime in early 2020. After having added it to a wish list and finally purchasing it just after Christmas 2020, I came to find myself thrown into the evolving history of Ukraine as told by correspondent-author Anne Reid. In this updated version, she juxtaposes her contemporary travels to different cities and towns in Ukraine back in the 1990s, where she gained invaluable firsthand information from Ukrainians themselves (and others), against historical accounts years and sometimes centuries before her interviewing and writing. For me, this style of writing – journalism with history – is engaging and enlightening. Anyone interested in Ukrainian history in general and even more recent events (such as the Crimean crisis of 2014 that is still ongoing) in particular should check out this book.

As I read and highlighted passages of text, I was concurrently working on developing the East Europe course to which I’ve alluded here and there since January 2021. Specifically, I worked on a lecture that addressed the Crimean crisis directly as a more recent/current event; the main goal in doing this was to show that, as the title of Reid’s book implies, Ukraine is still something of a borderland between the Western-European sphere of influence and that of the Russian-Eastern world. Certainly, Ukraine has strived to mold itself in its own right and shape its own destiny, but as history shows us there are still external factors that play into the equation – Russian influence under Putin being one of them.

The basic gist, for anyone who doesn’t know or isn’t aware, former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich did an about-face on orienting Ukraine toward Europe (namely the EU and NATO) in 2014, and when popular protests erupted in Kiev and other cities, Yanukovich felt his power was slipping and he fled to Russia. A provisional government then formed, upon which Vladimir Putin declared it illegitimate and ordered an invasion of the Crimea ‘to protect ethnic Russians living there,’ after which he had it declared independent and then annexed to Russia. This was a clearly illegal move, which explicitly broke a 1994 agreement that Russia would respect Ukraine’s national boundaries. Soon after the invasion, which the Ukrainian army or new government in Kiev could do little about, another crisis broke out in the Donbas – the easternmost region of the country with more or less Russian-leaning separatists (though there are also those there who wish to separate from Ukraine but also not fall into the Russian sphere). Since then, the conflict has produced a stalemate that has not seen the Ukrainian or Russian governments give way to major changes or resolutions. This article details what has gone on in the past six years since the invasion and annexation.

This string of events, which actually have many of their roots in the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine, acts as an important and salient lesson in modern European history in general, and in Eastern European diplomacy and history in particular. That is why I chose to focus half of a lecture on the topic; and hopefully being a current event, students will more likely connect and engage with it. Furthermore, it illustrates older historical trends and norms, especially in that region of the world, by illuminating them in a new light – making the study of history more relevant to the students. That’s the theory and hope, anyway.

Currently, the course sits close to 80% finished. I have two full lectures to write still, along with two half-lectures. Each week of the course, I include supplemental resources (articles, videos, etc.) to help round out the information the students receive, so it’s not all coming from me. The vast majority of that is done, as is the writing assignment prompt and most of the discussion forum prompts for each week. It certainly is a process that takes time and dedication, but in the end is totally worth it. I don’t yet know when I’ll offer this course again after Fall 2021 – perhaps by 2023 – but I’ll have a good deal less work to do that time around by developing the course now. My goal now is to complete this course in its entirety by July 4, then taking a month or so to read through some books in preparation for the new academic year.

That is all for now, so I wish you all a happy rest of May until we meet again in the June blog post!

Mike/”Eli”