Eleanor Glewwe's Blog, page 3

Northern Lights and A New Job

This month, I saw the northern lights for the first time in my life, but it wasn’t really like in the pictures. Maybe you too were in the regions where that solar storm in mid May gave millions of people the chance to glimpse the aurora borealis at far lower latitudes than usual. On Friday of that weekend, I went out at night in hopes of spotting some colorful lights in the sky. On Twitter, people had already posted photos from Iowa showing pink beams and flares of green.

Although I live in a ru...

Solar Eclipse II

On August 21, 2017, I witnessed the last North American solar eclipse on campus at UCLA. I remember how festive and fun it was, like a serendipitous holiday. We were not on the path of totality in Los Angeles; we were able to experience a roughly 60% partial eclipse. I’m sure back then we already knew that the next total solar eclipse visible in the United States would take place in 2024, but at the time I had no idea where I would be then.

Well, on Monday, I watched the solar eclipse here in Gr...

Esther Glewwe, The Boy Wonder, and Food of My Friends

This is a post that’s been percolating for a long time, and today, as the snow swirls outside during my spring break, I’m finally drafting it. It’s about my semi-famous distant relative, Esther Glewwe Stassen. Ever since I was a child, I’ve known that the wife of former Minnesota governor Harold Stassen was a Glewwe. It was a minor claim to fame in the family. I remember once visiting the Governor’s Mansion on Summit Avenue in St. Paul, probably to see the Christmas decorations, and finding Esth...

Happy Leap Day

In the history of this blog, I have never posted on Leap Day! Which is perhaps not that surprising, but still.

It’s been quiet around here because there hasn’t been much that’s blog-worthy going on on my end. This winter has been very disappointing for snow lovers like myself. At the beginning of the semester, I did return to around fifteen inches of drifted snow in Grinnell (I missed the two blizzards that gave rise to that whitescape), but we promptly entered a warm spell that made quick work ...

The Books I Read in 2023

I read 79 books in 2023. Fewer than in 2022?! I need to up my game!

I served on the Kids All Iowa Reads committee for the third (and probably last?) time, so I once again read a lot of great middle grade this year, especially toward its beginning. I do recall taking over a week (or even two?) to read certain books, so maybe that explains the lower number. I certainly kept very busy with my academic job. I’m looking forward to more good books in 2024!

And speaking of books, a little over a year ...

2023 in Review

Happy New Year’s Eve! If we didn’t have a white Christmas here in Minnesota, at least we’re having a white New Year’s now. In last year’s 2022 in Review, I asked whether a globe could have corners. This fall, I learned that the regions of Georgia (the country) are called corners! And if I’m reading the Georgian dictionary correctly, the word for ‘regional/dialectal’ is also literally ‘corner-y.’ More on my revived interest in Georgian below. I hope you’ve enjoyed rest and good company in these l...

My Three Favorite Reads in 2023

This is not my 2023 book list post yet–that’s coming up in a few days! Early in 2022, the book discovery site Shepherd invited me to put together a themed book list, and I chose to feature middle grade fantasy novels about fighting injustice. This fall, Shepherd reached out to authors again to invite us to recommend our three favorite books from 2023. We had to have read the books in 2023; the books could have been published in any year. You can find my list and read my recommendations here.

I w...

Fall Break Folk Culture

All my blog posts are latergrams now, so to speak. Anyway! Earlier this fall when our mid-semester break rolled around, I had a whole line-up of folk events I was excited to attend. None were Star of the North, the Minnesota English country dance weekend I was lucky enough to go to last year. This year, Star of the North was the weekend before my fall break, so I couldn’t make it. Instead, I kicked off the first weekend of break with some singing.

This fall, someone in Cedar Rapids revived the l...

Claire Forrest@Grinnell

A year or two ago I started following an author on Twitter named Claire Forrest who had a forthcoming YA novel about a wheelchair-using girl considering colleges. I remember seeing the cover floating around once it was revealed. Then one day I was on Grinnell’s Disability Resources webpage for some reason, and I noticed that in the section with tips from former students there were comments from a Claire Forrest ’13. I messaged Claire on Twitter to ask if she’d gone to Grinnell, and indeed she ha...

Trip to Lorient

This is the last of my very tardy blog posts about my time in Europe this summer.

The second weekend in July, Isabelle, Olivier, and I went to Brittany because Isabelle was participating in Substrates, an art fair focused on printmaking and zines. I hadn’t been to Brittany since a family vacation in 2004. We took the train from Gare Montparnasse in Paris to Lorient, a city on the southern coast of Brittany in the department of Morbihan. My elementary school had an exchange program with a school ...