Thursday, November 15, 2007

Ancient History

Reading a student paper about a movie set in the 1980s, and realizing that to the student, the clothing and everything else from the 80s really is old, as in OLD!

I despair.

I've become my parents and grandparents. When did that happen?

Another blogger is angry at the "old guard." Having been at this teaching thing for over 10 years now, I probably count as the "old guard" to some people.

I had a grad school dream last night, the first in a long time, probably 8 years or more.

In it, we grad students were carrying cardboard boxes with a big rock in each, bowling ball sized, and it was raining hard, a soaking, cold, nasty rain, and we were all trying to get one of the very limited plastic file folder boxes with a lid to put our rock in. The plastic boxes were on a big, grey, metal bookshelf thing, the scaffolding kind businesses use to hold BIG stuff. And it wasn't that we were beating each other up physically, but we were definitely competing for a very limited number of boxes for our rocks.

I woke up after the plastic boxes were gone and I didn't get one. I was standing in the rain with my cardboard box melting, trying to keep my rock as little wet as I could, and then I woke up. I was glad to wake up and know I'm not still in grad school.




(I don't know if other schools do this, but where I was, people had a habit of carrying their printed out dissertations to the filing office in cardboard boxes, usually boxes that had once held computer paper with the holes on the side or boxes that had held heavy cotton rag paper for CVs and stuffs.)

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:23 AM

    yeah, they carry them around like that here, too.

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  2. Anonymous9:35 AM

    Wow. I must say, your symbolic dreams are much more interesting than mine (my equivalent dream would involve trying to deliver a box with the diss in it to a closed office). Would you be willing to syndicate them?

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  3. OK, I am old too. And thanks for your welcome chez moi!

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  4. Hey, you found my rocks! Thanks! I need to start rolling them around again. (carry them in boxes? How strange!)

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  5. The 80s are not old. *cries*

    And wait if things from the 80s are old...why are they wearing the clothing from the 80s? Or rather, how can we make them STOP wearing the clothing from the 80s?

    (And how does one tell some of these girls in the overlong shirts that their supposed to wear leggings with the shirts?)

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  6. I once said in a lecture, "Remember back in 1986 or so how ...". When I saw the blank looks on my students' faces, I clued in. One of girls in the front row (cute, blonde, perky) put up her hand and reminded me: "Uhm, Professor, we weren't alive in 1986."

    History Geek -- when you figure out how to quell the rising tide of 80s throw back fashion disasters, lemme know. Our campus here is overrun with girls in giant sweaters cinched by giant belts over black leggings. I want to scream "That look was unflattering then, and it's even more unflattering now!"

    *sigh*

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  7. Anastasia, It may be a really common thing? Makes some sense.

    Richard, Alas, my dreams are rarely worth remembering even a moment later.

    Dame Eleanor, have you seen Chaucer's blog? You're not alone! And Pepys, too, is out there!

    Sisyphus, Hey, I KNEW I got the rock thing from somewhere!!!

    History Geek, eww, 80s styles?

    Amanda, I died a little inside when I realized that my students really didn't get my cultural references in the least. Star Trek? What's THAT???

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