As I think about what to write about this week I glance back at my last entry and see my phrase “due to unfortunate circumstances…” that describes a number of problems that have occurred over the last couple of years. Since I teach children’s literature I immediately think of a set of children’s books, popularized by a comic film starring Jim Carrey: A Series of Unfortunate Events by the imaginary writer Lemony Snicket, the alter ego of an American writer Daniel Handler. To me, the phrase “unfortunate” is an epitome of understatement that seems quintessentially British.

Looking quickly at the OED I am struck by the range of time and meanings for a single word—around 800 years. The children’s books seem to use an obsolete sense:

Of persons: Involved in calamity, distress, or affliction; distressed, unfortunate, miserable. Obs.

These are dire events indeed, but the intense nature of the disasters and the exaggerate rendering makes the sequences funny.

Looking at the list I am relieved to see my problems fall under the most common and still current use:

a. In generalized use: an unfortunate and typically unforeseen event, a disaster, a mishap; (also) unfortunate eventuality.

And of the milder kinds—unforeseen events …

Bolstered with the commonness and relative mildness of the application of the word in comparison to the problems of the Baudelaire children in the novel and film, I turn to my task of thinking about the several reports I have to write for the NEH. There are two major pieces of writing: a formal performance report where I overlay the project description against what has been achieved, and an informal “white” paper where I reflect on my project and give advice to others (and hopefully to myself).  These are daunting tasks of scholarly accounting.

Turning to the aims of the white paper first I wonder:  What can I say dispassionately about the project in terms of what was achieved and what was not?  Do I have any best practices to share? What lessons have I learned? What might I have done differently?  How could I have planned for these “unfortunate events” that occurred several times?

Do I have enough pluses and minuses to make lists in two columns?

Can I counter the unfortunate list with a fortunate list?

As I return to my project blog after winter break, I read over my last entry and realize that it is not accurate. Due to unfortunate circumstances our visit to the afterschool program to make simple movable books with the children has been deferred (hopefully it will still occur in winter for the title of “snow party” to work!). As I reflect on this complication I also think how the clock ticked relentlessly over the break until New Year’s Eve and to the end of the funding. (I deliberately watched the classic 1951 film Scrooge starring Alastair Sim and sympathized with his dread, if not with his parsimony!)  With the end of the funding I had to give a couple thousand dollars back to the NEH which was also discouraging.

Over the break I was mourning about the end of funding without my work being completed. I feel all I have is bits and pieces, digital and otherwise. One evening when I was moaning my plight, a wise friend in Montreal, a professor of Music at McGill University, remarked that just because the funding had ended did not mean the project was over. I looked at her, startled. Had I entered a new phase?

As I begin to reflect on this advice, I wonder. How do I proceed? I know I have to document the project in three final reports due to the NEH (financial, final performance, and white paper)—and my next task is to look up the rules and regulations. But in an intellectual and in a creative sense, what does this mean for my project?