Race, Ethics, Jobs

One of our students here is interested in going on to grad school. She's not quite sure, but is really interested in African American Lit, based on her two classes here. She's white, and has had little experience with African American communities, but she's a smart student.

On the one hand, I think people who want to go to grad school should study what they want to study. I don't think there's any reason a white person can't be a really good scholar and teacher of African American lit, any more than there's a reason I can't be a good scholar and teacher of early modern English lit. It's not like we have a genetic understanding or anything (I don't think there are many English ancestors in my background).

And yet, given the misery of the profession, what do you advise this student?


The job thing: In terms of race and hiring issues, I think there are four types of schools. And within those schools are departments such as English and History.

1) Historically Black colleges. I know relatively little about historically Black colleges, alas. But I just spent a few minutes looking at faculty pictures at a couple, and they look to be pretty diverse. There are faces that seem to me Black, and Asian, and Hispanic, and White. My impression is that they probably do a pretty good job hiring diverse faculty members in all the departments I glanced through. But there are also relatively few of these schools. And given the numbers of well-qualified African American candidates, it's hard for me to imagine a white candidate standing out for an African American lit position.


Among the historically white schools:

2) Schools that really don't hire many people of color. Maybe the people at the school consciously choose not to hire people of color, as, I'm guessing, at the school that asked me during an interview if I were Jewish, with the clear implication that they didn't want me if I were, though they couched it in terms that a Jew probably wouldn't feel comfortable at their school. I'm guessing when these schools do hire a person of color, that person doesn't feel especially welcome. But, of course, the hiring committees probably say they're not racist and believe it.

If my white student finishes a PhD in African American lit, she might get a place at one of these schools, I suppose. But I keep hoping these places are disappearing. Are they?

3) Schools that hire people of color to teach [subject matter] of [ethnicity], but don't much hire people of color to teach in chemistry or math. At these schools, English and History departments can look impressively diverse, because they have an Asian teaching Asian history, a Hispanic teaching Latin American history, and so forth.

Hiring committees at these schools, and mine definitely counts, often believe that diversity is important, but somehow stuff such as, say, "theory" is always "white" unless defined in the search as "post-colonial." So, the hiring committees tend not to hire a person of color to teach, say, intellectual history. But the hiring committees looking for scholars of African American lit mostly think in terms of African American candidates.

I imagine there are a lot of departments out there that look like this, and that wouldn't tend to hire many white folks for an African American lit position.

4) And then there are schools that hire diverse candidates, so they have African Americans teaching Shakespeare, Indian scholars teaching medieval European history, etc. This seems to me a more healthy diversity, but I've only really seen this happen at R1s that are big enough that they can have their load of traditional white male scholars doing Shakespeare along with one Asian American doing Shakespeare. Have you folks seen these schools hire new white PhDs to teach Ethnic lit or history? (I've seen them hire well-established full profs who are white to teach ethnic lits, but not beginning assistant positions.)


So, back to my student. Should she ask, what do I say?

In my mind, if she wants to study African American lit, she needs to go to a school with some really strong scholars of African American lit in an area where there's a strong African American community. Am I off the mark? Where would you suggest a student apply?

/Rant On

Why is it that the Christian students who most want to share their faith in essays and such are insipid and unquestioning?

I started reading a paper in which a student shared some Christian faith stuff and I just put it down. I couldn't bear for the moment to read another word of insipid, unthoughtful idiocy.

And why are these sames students so offended at the idea of reading about another cultural tradition?

I wonder when was the last time their church "taught the controversy" with an eye to deepening understanding of evolution?

Seriously, I do not want to read your "research" paper about how you learned in church that things are too complicated to have evolved.


College is about changing your mind. It's easy when that means you change your mind from not understanding integrals to understanding integrals. It's not nearly so easy when changing your mind means you question what you've been taught. But that's the point; if you question it, and what you've been taught is well supported by reason and evidence, then it's worth holding onto it. If you can't find reason or evidence, then you should drop it like a hot tooth fairy. But at least you should question it.

Or just go away and don't whine that I'm asking you to think too much, and that I'm ruining everything by asking you to think.

/rant off

Tamarack

When I left a couple of days ago, the Tamaracks in the yard weren't really greening up yet. But I came back to a hint of green on them. Up close, you can see the needles coming in, and scattered in a few areas, tiny pinkish flowery-looking growths.

I went and cleaned the garbage up from the undeveloped open area behind the house. It's a little less depressing now.

Down there, the maple is starting to swell at the tips, and the tiny pine trees seem to have survived another winter. The spruce is looking really good these days; it's about twice the height now that it was when I moved in here, six years ago or so.

The Plain of Despair

Sometimes, life feels way too much like Spenser's in charge.

Yesterday, I went to a real museum to see a real display of real artifacts, put together to tell a meaningful and complex narrative, focusing on the interpretation of provenance and such. It was lovely.

We then wandered around other parts of the museum. There were stuffed pronghorn antelop so faded that you could barely see a difference between the dark area on the back and the light underside. There were stuffed birds galore, but with few identification labels where I most needed them. There was a rainforest display that felt packed to the gills with stuff and more stuff, but less explanation or interpretation. Seriously, they had a big old jeep-like vehicle in the middle. It felt like they'd put everything into the room because there was nowhere else to put it.

And yet, it was still a museum.

The local archaeology part, which I made everyone detour to see, involved a small window display and a side tray thing of arrowpoints.

The city was a city; we drove by buildings that had more than seven stories, by restaurants that promised something more interesting than lefse. It was empty in that Saturday before Easter way, but still, it felt like a real city.

Today I drove home across farmland where the what forests there are grow in rows, where there are no mountains, and where there is a dismaying abundance of garbage.

Seriously, it seems like in the past 8-10 years or so, there's more and more garbage floating around, tossed on the side of highways and byways.

And now I'm back home, looking over garbage tossed somehow into the undeveloped area beyond my yard, in a community where the museum features a mythical blue beast of burden prominantly, though not as a myth.

Grading Queen of Spring

Two weeks ago, there was this. The crocus were starting to bloom, and this was looking like a tiny blue pineapple.

And now the tiny blue pineapple is becomming a flower, a grape hyacinth even. It's still pretty tiny, but it's there!

On March 15th, the crocus were looking promising, and the daffodils were just starting to come out of the ground.

And today, the daffodil blooms are opened up! It's really looking like spring!

I did a bunch of grading yesterday, and I'm going to do a smaller bunch today, to finish up the second pile, and then I'm going away for a couple days. For once, I procrastinated a bit less than I could have, and I'm feeling a lighter load as a result.

Hurray for spring!

Mystery Bulb

Last fall, I was a bit late about going to get bulbs, but I did want to put some in. I ended up getting some crocuses (as you've seen). I also got some grape hyacinth. And I got a mixed bag with daffodils and something else. And then I promptly forgot what the something else is.

But this is what it looks like. It's got a very small flower; these are maybe an inch to an incha and a half across.

Anyone out there in blog land good at bulbs?

Hosting?

I like the way there's a bit of blur and then the orange sort of pops there. (This is with my new macro lens. I'm having fun, but driving all my friends nuts with constant pictures of crocuses. I hope the other flowers get fun soon.)

I had a phone interview today with someone from our campus international student services office about acting as a host "family" for an international student next year. We had a nice conversation. Now they have to check my references, and then they'll make their decisions. I think it could be fun and challenging to be a host "family" for an international student, but my heart's not set on it. I won't be heartbroken if they say no.

Big Bird!

This is Angel (I think), from the National Eagle Center. I love bird eyes.

When I had a parrot, it's eyes would turn bright orange when it got excited.

In other news, my eyes got checked today, and while not eagle quality, they're healthy and not overly dry (I've been focusing on drinking more water and staring at a computer less for the past couple of weeks, and they aren't bothering me now).

I always feel like a failure getting my eyes checked. Once my contacts are out, the tech sort of asks me, laughing, if I can see the letter on the wall. I can see a bright grey splotch. That's it. I could see that she had fingers, though, so at least there's that. And then there's the whole part about which is better, a or b. A or B. a or b. I find those really hard.

A New Lens on Life

I got a new camera lens today, a macro lens designed for taking more close up shots of small stuff.
The top picture here is taken with my regular 18-55mm lens, which is a basic, take a picture lens. It's good for pictures of people and such, okay for landscape stuff (at my level).

The picture below is taken with my new 50mm macro lens. It's weird because you'd think at 50mm, it wouldn't work better than the old lens for close ups, but it has a closer focal distance, so it does. But it doesn't zoom at all, so I have to move back and forth a bit.

This is my first effort; I took the first picture this morning, just for fun. But I took the other about 4pm, so the light isn't as good and the crocus isn't quite as open as it was.

But it's the same crocus flower.

I keep taking pictures of the same two little patches of flowers, because that's what's up and flowering. A couple other flowers are beginning to look just about ready, soon.

Now I have the ganas for a fancy zoom lens. /nod

Nondisclosure

I was teaching the first of my back to back classes today when two of my students burst out laughing. I gave them a puzzled look, and one of them said, "This really weird looking guy just walked by." I glanced over my shoulder, and saw the disappearing back of, yes, a really weird student, one who just happens to be in the next class, heading there.

I turned back to the tale at hand and didn't say anything.

Adding about student weirdness: I really, really dislike when a student brings in an overpowering stale tobacco smell to the office... and then leaves it behind when they leave. Ugh, gross.

Invaluable and Useless at the Same Time

I keep my teaching notes in my office file cabinet. The top drawer is folders for specific texts, authors, or teaching topics. The next drawer is not as full, and is for composition assignments and such. I also stuff committee notes in there.

Last week, I couldn't find one of my teaching files, the one for "The Nun's Priest's Tale." Fortunately, I'd worked through the notes for the library series, so they were fairly fresh in my memory. And I had a handout (computer file). But I didn't have my actual notes, so I had to reread some extra stuff and put things back together again to teach it.

And then, of course, I found it hidden behind the notes for "The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale" earlier this week. It had to have been there the whole time. I'm relieved to have it back.

If I were smart, I'd alphabetize or organize the notes by author, class, or something sensible. But I just stuff them in there. (My office books, on the other hand, are alphabetized in groups: Shakespeare, Theory and Crit, Med/Ren lit, and Modern Lit.)

It occured to me as I was searching for the NPT file that my teaching files are pretty much invaluable to me. I use them every teaching day. I depend on them. I make up a new file for each text, and try to make it good enough that I can use it again.

But they'd be absolutely useless to anyone else because the value of them comes in large part from having worked through how to teach the text (or whatever) and put things together for myself. So even if I handed them to someone teaching the text for the first time, they wouldn't be that helpful.

When I retire, of course, I'll toss my teaching notes. But if I die before I retire or clean out the cabinet, someone else will have to toss them all.

If I do it, I imagine I'll take my time, thinking back over times I've taught the NPT or WoB, looking at the thick Lear notes. But if someone else does it, they'll probably just grab armloads as big as they can and dump.

The Health Care Thing

I dunno. I hope it helps.

I'm willing to pay more taxes to help people get health care; I'd prefer single payer care that wasn't tied to jobs. But there are some important changes here.


I've read on a couple blogs that doctors will retire in droves because they won't make enough money.

Here's the thing. If you're making enough money that you can retire at age 50 because you're cranky about the pay, then you're making enough money.

Yeah, tell me about the length of education. 8.4 years for an English PhD, on average. I'll bet philosophy runs longer.

But I bet the stress is less for faculty folks. No one dies if I accidentally say that Shakespeare was born in 1603.

On the other hand, I bet the stress isn't less for the one-third of PhDs in English who never find tenure-track jobs, because being unemployed or freeway flying is stressful. And having to move across the country because you have one job offer is stressful.

I'm not going to complain about my salary. Nope, you see, my household (me) makes about the average for a US household. I don't make three or four times that average, but I'm happy to have a job and make a decent living. (Yeah, my state institution doesn't pay nearly what our "peer" institutions do, much less what our "aspirant" institutions do. And yet, I make a living.)

Insta-Anxiety

I've been putting off getting my eyes checked. I was supposed to get them checked in January, but I've been putting it off.

It's inconvenient. You lose the rest of the day, pretty much, if you're in my line of work and need to be able to read to get work done. Once my eyes are dilated, I pretty much can't read for a long time. Nor can I go out in the sun.

The eye doctor I went to (that's actually on my insurance) is okay, but not totally comfortable for me. The first time I went, he gasped when he looked in my eye and saw the silicone "rubber" band thingy, even though he had been looking at the chart questionaire where I'd filled in about it. The gasp scared the beejeezus out of me, and I'm tense about my eyes anyway. Why do I have to fill out the damned chart if he's not going to bother actually looking at it? On the other hand, it's not that big a deal, and I'd feel awkward firing him. Did I mention I'm a coward?

Anyway, the other day one of my eyes sort of hurt, a dull hurt, which lasted a blink of an eye, literally, and wasn't that bad. But still, it's weird. And I'm not used to it, so it's very noticable.

So I called to make an appointment today. And instantly I felt sick, like sick like I wanted to vomit out my window sick. Ugh. It's purely anxiety.

I never used to be anxious about eye stuff, but then I had a detached retina, and now I'm anxious about eye stuff.

Then I looked up, and I think my eye thing is dryness, and the first cause listed is menopause. Well, yay, because really, about time if it is. But also, yet another way being a female human sucks. You get discriminated against, paid less, cramps, blah blah, and by the way, dry eyes!

I really, really do not want to hear that I can't wear contacts. I love my contacts. I'd love even more to be able to see without them, but I love having peripheral vision!

Even more, I do not want to hear that I need eye surgery (which I really don't think is even a possibility, but just saying). Or that I'm going to go blind soon. (That was my nightmare last night.)

The mid-life thing: you realize that life is already going downhill, and that it's only going to get worse. At what point does it become just not worth it?

I'm going to try to get really well hydrated (bourbon should work, right?) and put my eyejuice in my eye more, and see if that helps.

Old Lear New Lear

I ordered the Arden3 Lear for my Shakespeare course this semester, but most of my Lear notes are in a New Cambridge edition, so I spent some time this morning transfering textual notes.

It surprises me, though it probably shouldn't, how differently I react to some things in the play because of the typesetting. I think the NC is a tad clearer as a typeface, and I'm finding it hard to move from one edition to the other.

But the NC notes tend to overwhelm students more than the Arden notes (at least, those who remember to look at the bottom of the page occasionally). And Arden is a step cheaper, which can make a big difference to budgets (though not as bad as science textbooks, I bet).

This is the excitement of my life right now.

Wild Swans at Northwoods

I got pictures today, but even with my little telephoto, they're pretty distant looking.

More Hope for Spring

A lot more of my crocuses are blooming now, and it's exciting.

Earlier today, one of my colleagues said he'd seen some Tundra Swans flying in a V overhead. Then another said he'd seen some in a wet field outside of town. So I drove out and saw them! (I didn't stop at home to get my camera because I had a short time to get there and then back for an appointment, but I'm thinking I'll try to take my camera tomorrow.

I'm thinking about getting a macro lens because I like taking pictures of my crocuses every spring. These were taken with my Canon (Eos Rebel) digital slr with an 18-55 lens (the one that came with the camera). So if anyone knows anything about macro lenses, feel free to help me decide!

In Praise of [Enter Title]

Every six months or so, we go through a new naming thing for the people who hold down the fort in department offices. At one point, I think they were called "department secretaries." Then they weren't secretaries, but something else, and so on.

Anyway, you know the folks I'm talking about. Here, they're mostly women, mostly from the region, and mostly they keep things running in our department offices and over in the administrative fort.

We got a new one a couple years ago, a replacement for a goddess of wonderfulness who herself was a replacement for another goddess of wonderfulness, each of whom left for the glories of a better life (retirement, or moving to be closer to family). So, our new person, let's call her A, likes to be busy. A also has high standards. Some months ago now, when I was doing some official thing and was about to handwrite (which is, at best, a generous term for my writing) a letterhead envelop, A gently admonished me that it would look better if it were done on the computer, and offered that she'd be glad to do it. So she's gradually trained me to email her whatever I have that needs an envelop, and she takes care of it magically, and it looks perfect.

Maybe you all have caught on to such things before?

I was a fill-in secretary/receptionist at the family business for a while in the stone ages, and used to happily type whatever, but there's no typewriter I can easily get to, and I feel awkward asking the [enter title] folks to do stuff I should be able to do myself. (Even though they've all been incredibly gracious here.) And I could probably figure out the envelop thing, but I don't have a printer in my office, so doing it from here means: set up my computer so there's a button to push only; then go to the department office to set up the printer with an envelop; then come back to my office to push the button, and then go back to the department office to get the envelop out before it messed someone else's printing up. I'm way too lazy.

Today I had a bunch of recommendations to print out on letterhead and with envelops. And for once, I took A's advice and emailed them all to her. A few minutes later, I went to the office to see if it was okay that I'd sent her all the stuff, and she looked at me, gave me a big smile, and told me they were already all ready in my box, waiting for my signature. And then she sent me an email telling me she loves when I give her work. I'm not quite sure what that means, but it seems good, doesn't it?

Seriously, A just makes my life better. I know it's a little thing, and maybe you've had someone take care of that stuff for you before, but me? I could get used to this!

Now is the Winter of our Discontent made Glorious Spring!

Look what I saw when I got home this afternoon (before dark and everything!). It's the first full out blooming crocus!

And then I looked closer, and saw another!

And there are some more that are just about ready to bloom, too. It's not exactly a carpet of flowers, but it's a little bit of hope on a sunny spring day, and I'm thrilled.



I turned in an application to teach abroad today; my chair signed it and the dean (I'm told, and I have no reason to disbelieve) signed it. (That is, they said that they could live without my presence for the semester and things would manage to go on.)

Now it's on to the Study Abroad office here, and then if they pass it, a study abroad office elsewhere, which is where I'm most likely to hit competition from a lot of other people.

Please cross your fingers for me.

Inappropriate in Oh So Many Ways

Text of the day?

(I keep trying to make the picture better. It's amazing how hard it is to represent an outhouse.)

To Get to the Other Side

Near our campus, there's a street that's (for here) fairly busy but that has cross-walks clearly marked. On one side of the street is a residential area with a lot of double-income family homes and some student housing (many students sharing an older home, often). A block away from the other side is the campus. So a fair number of people walk from the residential area to campus, students and faculty alike. (It's not the sort of area where staff can afford to live, so I'm not just forgetting that staff exist.) (There's one block with a light, and a lot of people choose to cross there using the light.)

This morning, I was driving towards campus (because I live 5 miles off in a neighborhood that faculty on a single income can afford) and two people reached the crosswalk at the street on the far side of a cross-street. So I stopped behind the crosswalk on my side and waited (so that I wouldn't block the box). And waited. The two people faced each other, standing at the crosswalk, and I guess chatted. They didn't look at the street, or at me, or up and down for cars. (Yes, if they get themselves into the crosswalk, they have right of way.)

So finally, after waiting about 45 seconds, and seeing that other cars were now coming up behind mine, I started forward. And then the two people looked up and seemt to want to cross, but I went by anyway, because I was pretty far along into the crosswalk.

This happens all the time. It's like people here don't know that if they want to cross the street they actually need to look at the traffic and look intentional about things.

In a real city, a pedestrian approaching a crosswalk looks at oncoming traffic, maybe makes sure they're seen by drivers, and then starts in.

Do they not teach basic crosswalk skills here? Do they not teach people that they actually need to be just a little alert and pay attention?

A Bowling Record

I'm on a bowling team. The height of my bowling career so far has been that I haven't injured myself or anyone else... yet.

But tonight, I bowled a 171. My last best game, several years ago now, was a 141. I don't know what happened tonight, but I hope it happens again!

(If I were a real bowler, of course, I'd be bemoaning my score. It's all a matter of perspective!)

Stacks and Stacks

I don't pretend to be the best teacher ever, but my biggest problem as a teacher is procrastinating about grading. And it seems worse, way worse, when a stack reaches a certain number.

For example, a stack of 10 1-2 page journals, fifteen minutes.

A stack of 20, well, just looking at them slows me down. Then I stupidly count them. And then I start, and 15 minutes later, I count them again, and arrange the pile of graded ones neatly. And seven minutes later, I roll over to check my email. And an hour later, I finish up the last few.

A stack of 30? Just looking at them makes my brain want to curl up in a fetal position. I start reading, and then I look at something else, and read a few more, and finally I decide that I just have to write a blog post about my misery. Though, of course, truth be told, the misery of even a stack of 30 is less than the misery of a stack of 60. And even that is less than the misery of a flu. And so on.

When I was learning to teach, one of the things the comp folks tried to teach me was that if I wrote good assignments, I wouldn't mind grading them as much. But if I wrote assignments that inspired lousy papers (in other words, bad assignments), then I'd have made myself miserable. The thing is, even the best assignment begins to feel like a bad assignment after the 18th paper.

Think about it. Imagine you've given your promising young poets an assignment: everyone write a sonnet. It's a great assignment! Sonnets are short! You've got Sydney, Spenser, Shakespeare and Daniel all hanging out in the back of the room making rude comments at each other. And you've got Millay, Milton and Coleridge being studious in the front! What could go wrong? (And add your other favorite 23 sonnet writers, go ahead, just do it.)

Now imagine you get a stack of 30 sonnets. Pick your favorite 30 sonnets in the whole world. (Do most people have 30 favorites? I have maybe eight.) Now start grading and writing responses. (Okay, I could go all fantasy about what my response to Spenser's rhyminess would be, but that's just me. And seriously, don't you bet some comp teacher would tell Shakespeare to be less ambiguous about the gender of his beloved?)

And now you've gotten through five of them, and then twelve, and you're still faced with 18, and suddenly a glass of wine and stupid TV begins to seem a lot more interesting, doesn't it?

And that's sonnets. Explications of sonnets, no matter how well written, pale in comparison as far as reading pleasure. But they're really helpful for students to learn how to close read.

And so, there's that stack of papers. And then there's a stack of comp journals, with four more to go. And a stack of comp peer editing. And two stacks of single paragraphs from my lit classes.

Stacks and stacks, and I just need to plant my rear in the chair and NOT roll it towards the computer. I wonder what the weather's supposed to be like in Caracas tomorrow?

In Touch with my Inner Petty Bourgeoisie Self

The responses to my last post got me thinking. First, thanks for all the encouragement about the bike. It's truly a glorious thing to go out and play on my bike.

That said, thinking about the responses has made me really aware of my inner petty bourgeoisie. Either that, or I've become The Man.

I don't skip meetings, and though I may post occasionally about being frustrated by meetings, and being frustrated by colleagues, I think most of what we do in our meetings has some purpose and is worth doing. No one has to make me prepare for my committee responsibilities, because they're my responsibilities. That's it. The job may pay poorly, but I've agreed to do the job for the pay (well, except for the furlough thing), so my sense of responsibility leads me to do that job. And I try to do it well. I may not always, but generally, I try.

Recognizing how important it is to be well-prepared for meetings and to work hard to make them useful has been a big step in my development as a faculty member. Yes, I always took the meetings that seemed important to me seriously, but now I take the stuff that doesn't seem obviously important to me seriously, either out of respect for the colleagues who've put in work and think it's important, or out of self-respect. And often enough, I've learned something useful. Sometimes, though, I haven't. (I've yet to find an assessment meeting really useful, alas.)

I was chairing a meeting last week, and one of the male members came in late and disrupted the meeting by loudly greeting his buds. He did this while a female committee member was talking, and continued while another female committee member tried to do her part in the work. I think there's likely some sexist attitude there, but in any case, he's being disrespectful of his colleagues.

I'm trying to think how to better handle his rudeness if he does it again. Maybe it's as simple as "Mr. A, please don't disrupt the meeting." Or maybe more like, "Mr. A, please don't interrupt your female colleague." I'd really like to make him aware that he's being rude specifically to a woman, because I think he doesn't want to be a sexist, and might actually change his behavior if he recognized it (hey, I live a rich and full fantasy life!). On the other hand, he might also be all the more resentful and rude if I call attention to his behavior.

There's another woman on the committee I know well, and I checked my perception of his sexist behavior with her, and she agreed. So I don't think it's just me misperceiving. There's another female colleague on the committee, but I don't really know her well, so I don't know how she takes things.

Our Meeting this Afternoon

Typically, colleagues in my department who have children under 13 to about 16 miss occasional meetings because of child care issues.

It's a gorgeous day out. My bike is back from the shop after its spring tune up.

I wonder if I can tell my colleagues that I have an inner-child care issue and have to miss our afternoon meeting today?

(The folks who have child care issues have minimal sense of humor about the problem of missing meetings. I could not make this joke with any of my current colleagues who have children. There's a retired colleague who would laugh, though.)

Children trump everything. On one level, I get that. On another, I think that if you know there's a meeting at work--and this isn't a last minute, emergency thing--you should find other care for your child, even if you have to pay a babysitter. I know it costs money, but I'm tired of being asked to always pick up the slack.

**OMG, as I hit post, a parade of little kids from the subsidized day care center (subsidized by our low pay being less than it otherwise would be) coming around doing a fund raiser. Seriously, can we NOT have a parade of kids disrupting the workplace?

Dickenson was Wrong

Hope is not the thing with feathers. Hope is the first sign of green sprouting as the snow melts in the spring.

A friend spotted his first spring robin yesterday, so maybe there are feathers involved after all?

It seems like these bulbs (mostly daffodils in this bed, with some Grape Hyacinth and Crocus, too) are sprouting awfully early this year. But they should be hardy, and not too badly damaged even if we get more snow (and we probably will).

An Observation on Committee Work

There's something very satisfying about working on a committee with people who are engaged and ethical about solving a problem, and actually producing something tangible as a result of the meeting.

I'd like to note that I have some really smart colleagues and they do really good work.

I'm also very happy with how we solved the problem we worked on.

I need to hold onto these feelings!

Is It Me, Dog?

Sometimes, I'll read a blog, especially one that's complaining about some particularly egregious behavior, and I'll wonder if I do the same thing being complained about.

For example, I'm overweight. Any medical/nursing blog complaining about patients who are overweight could easily be about me. Sometimes, there's a fair bit of rancor in the blog, and it makes me wonder if folks have that much hatred for me, too.

Or there's a student blog, and it complains about a prof who doesn't answer emails within a reasonable amount of time, and I wonder, did I just miss someone's email and seem to ignore them? I've been short with students more than once, so I could easily be the nasty professor they're complaining about, I suppose.

You get the picture. Or even more, it's a blogger complaining about the behavior of another blogger or bloggers, and I wonder if I've been offensive without intending to be.

Of course, I complain about folks, too. I was just in the department office, and went to staple some papers together, but all three of the staplers were empty. As I was working on loading one up, another faculty member walked by and mentioned that all three staplers were out. And I wanted to ask, "If you noticed, why didn't you refill them?" But this faculty member has a Y chromosome,* and we all know that doing menial labor is below him. I, on the other hand, have worked as a receptionist, and was capable of refilling two of the three staplers. (I asked for help with the other, and now it's full, too.)

So if you're reading this, valued colleague: learn to fill the staplers or, if that's beyond your capabilities, let the admin assistants know, and they'll help you.

*Edit to clarify: Thanks to a helpful private comment, I'd like to clarify. It's not his Y chromosome that prevents his filling the stapler, and I shouldn't generalize. He uses his Y chromosome as a marker of his privilege; in reality, it's his being a jerk that prevents his filling the stapler. Being a jerk isn't a Y or X chromosome thing, but a generalized human thing. Alas, it's one I'm guilty of on too many occasions as well, along with careless writing.

House Finches

I saw house finches on the deck today, for the first time in a long time. (At least I don't think I've been seeing them since late fall.)

I got myself a copy of Sibley's recently, and now I want to start keeping somewhat better records of what birds I'm seeing when and where. I was wondering when I first saw an oriole last spring, wondering because I wanted to know when to start putting out a half-an-orange for them. In my book, I wrote down a date in May last spring, so I guess I have some time yet.

Still, I'm beginning to have hope of spring.

Alas, I know my hopes will be dashed soon by more cold and snow.

Green

We're having our late February/early March melt right now, which means things are especially ugly. Several months worth of salt, grime and gravel are eating the snow away at the sides of the road, leaving nasty black facings. During the day, snow melts now (rather than sublimating, as it seems to when it's colder) and then freezes on streets and sidewalks at night.

We usually get more snow through April, but what comes from now on is usually heavy, wet snow with the occasional freezing rain. It's way harder to shovel than the light, dry snow we get when it's most cold out.

But yesterday, I had cause to walk over to another area of campus, by the administrative fort. There's a protected area next to the fort, where the sun hits from midday through the afternoon, but where the wind is minimal and the snow seems not to fall as much. I think of it as the earliest place in town to get spring, so I made a point of walking by, and indeed, there are some crocus and daffodil buds breaking ground already. I also saw some dandelions greening up.

For me, winter here starts when it starts snowing, which can be late October or late November, or in between. This year was in between.

Winter lasts until it's warm enough, for me, into the 60s. So sometimes we have winter into May because it's in the 40s during the day, windy, cold, and miserable.

But things look better now, because I can at least walk by the green buds next to the fort.

Power

I've been asked to consider taking on a new responsibility here. It's a responsibility that comes with a lot of responsibility, and relatively little power, though it's very important that the job be done well and ethically. It involves working with folks who have tenure, organizing them to get certain tasks done.

One of my friends, helping me think about my decision, asked me what I would do if someone said simply "no" when asked to do his/her share of a task. Note that tasks aren't exactly equal in this world.

Most of my colleagues wouldn't say "no" without a good reason, but what counts as a good reason is complex, of course. One person's "good reason" is another person's BS.

The reality of tenure means that most of my colleagues are, indeed, responsible and ethical, but that certainly there are a few who don't pull their weight.

So, as a responsible person with relatively little power (I can't fire these folks, affect their pay, or withhold special treats/privileges), what do you do when someone says "no" to doing their share of a group job?

(I do have a couple ideas about how I might handle it, but I'm interested in hearing from other folks. Thanks.)

A Good Day

You know how every so often, a student who seems to be phoning it in, doing the basics, but not really into the class, suddenly finds something that seems to click?

I handed out an assignment today, and apparently that happened to one of the students. S/he has emailed me a couple times now, politely enthusiastic emails with possible ideas about pursuing the assignment.

Sometimes, a smallish thing makes a very good day.

Shiny

Guess who?

Experiential Learning Quiz

I took some anise seeds into class today so that my students could chew and have some fresh breath.

What's the text o' the day?

Click

Sometimes, I'll be in a meeting or something, and someone will say something and I'll just get a whole new insight into that person's point of view. It happened yesterday.

We were discussing a past practical underwater basketweaving search, and one of my colleagues asked about people who have both Masters in Arts in Practical Basketweaving (a terminal degree itself) and PhDs in Basketweaving. It seems reasonable to me, right? Why wouldn't we prefer someone with additional skills and knowledge, able to help out in the history and culture of basketweaving classes as well as the practical classes?

But the practical basketweaver there said that when they read the application letters from MAPB/PhDs, they always started by talking extensively about their thesis, and didn't focus on their practical basketweaving work. But what s/he and the other practical basketweavers were looking for was someone who really focused on practical basketweaving primarily. So the dissertation stuff wasn't important, and in fact took away from what the practical folks wanted to hear.

To me, at first, this sounded backwards because most people finish the PhD after the MAPB, and so it's their more recent work and it's a bigger deal on some level (my bias shows here, doesn't it!), so of course that would be what they focus on. But then I realized that this practical basketweaver really didn't care about the PhD work, but really cared about the practical basketweaving work.

So, I don't know. Maybe my colleague the practical basketweaver is wrong about how these application letters are written, or has read a skewed sample, or was just justifying her bias against Phds. But maybe she's saying something that might be helpful to MAPB/PhD folks who are applying for practical basketweaving jobs?

So instead of two or three types of letters of application (R1s, teaching, community college), these folks need at least one more, focused tightly on practical basketweaving, and mentioning the PhD in the second or third place?

What's your experience, oh wise internet folks?

Too Many Different Directions

Sometimes, I feel like I'm pulling in too many directions, and if I could just get one off my plate, it would be way better. As it is, I'm ignoring a couple way longer than I should.

1. Committee work. There's this committee (secretary), and that committee (chair), and then the other (chair), and it's frustrating. If I could drop two of the bigger jobs and just be a member, or drop one of the committees altogether, life would be better. (My afternoon has been taken up with committee stuff today, which is why it's on my mind to come first.)

2. Classes. Three. At least I've taught them all before. I'm teaching the one new text of the semester this week, though, so that's extra work. This week is also oral quizzes for reading Chaucer aloud, so that's adding up.

2a. The students who need something special, make up stuff, whatever.

3. Paper. Oops!

4. Summer project. Oops!

5. Guest. My neighbors' pup is visiting for the week. This is good because she takes me out to exercise. And she's good for my attitude. But she's bad for grading and prep and stuff.

6. Life. I had a great weekend, but it's hurting now. I saw Macbeth! It was very good! I learned to make dal with help from some friends. Also very good. I went snowshoing because the pup needed to get out and burn off some steam.

7. Advising. I'm supposed to be advising for a few of our ed students now. They seem a bit more needy, or maybe it's just one or two students who are worried right now?

Sadness

Condolences to the community at the U of Alabama, Huntsville.

I'm sort of surprised, though, at how much information about a tenure decision seems to have gotten out before it was official. One of the victim's husbands sounds like he's talking about knowing, though it doesn't sound like he's a tenured member of the department, but maybe that's just the reporting?

Or maybe their confidentiality rules are way different from ours?

None of which changes the basic and utter sadness of the situation.

Best Mistake of the Day

Sometimes, students miswrite words, perhaps because they've misheard them over the years. Usually, the subsequent mistake doesn't really make sense. But this time, this time it worked:

X was heart retching.


There's some sort of metaphorical brilliance there, even if it came through a mistake. There are things that make the heart want to retch rather than be wrenched, aren't there?

Backbone, Bardiac!

I'm the secretary of this committee, and in this role, I seem to be writing a lot of emails to people and notes and such.

The problem is, I worry about striking the right tone with these things. So I have this urge to check everything with the chair. Now, the chair's patient and kind, but at some point, I just need to not need that reassurance, you know? I just need to get a little backbone, do the job, and be assured that I've been careful and conscientious.

When I was a kid, I thought I'd know everything as an adult, that I'd be confident and know what I was doing. But no, I want reassurance WAY too often, or at least a nod that yes, I've done an acceptable job and not gone off the rails, to mix my metaphors.

At least I'm a bit better about all this than I used to be.

Following Directions

I'm on a committee that takes the work of other folks, reworks and edits, votes, and then, when appropriate passes it on to higher powers. The higher powers have set a strict limit of 3-4 pages for each piece of work. Everyone who's doing the work is told every single year, and then reminded, that the work is strictly limited to 3-4 pages.

I know these folks can read and write and follow directions, because they all somehow got advanced degrees, but I'll be gosh darned if I'm not looking at three, count 'em three, pieces of work, each onto the sixth page.

I want to hand these back with a big fat "fail" on them, but alas, I don't always get that choice.

Here's some advice:
Combine similar points. You're making point X and point X1 and point X2, and they're all very similar. Try combining them in a paragraph that says something about the similarity, and then uses ONE example to make the point. Don't write a separate paragraph about each one.

Get off your hobby horse. Yes, we know you want Y, but since Y isn't the only possible way, and other folks might reasonably want Z or Q, don't harange on and on about Y. Your preference isn't the issue here.

Don't quote yourself extensively. Seriously, summarize and paraphrase. Yes, you love your words, but cut them down!

Nightmare in the Hallway

My sleep pattern has been a little disrupted lately. I go to bed, but have insomnia (which is nothing new, but hasn't been a big problem for a long while), and then want to sleep when it's time to get up. In my humple opinion, there's little more luxuriuos than waking at the usual time (6:20 is when the alarm goes) and realizing I can sleep in. An extra half hour feels like a total luxury. (I think I haven't been exercising enough; digging out the driveway is work, but it's not the sort of exercise that my body seems to like.)

Anyway, this morning I didn't want to get up, but my body was starting the "it's almost time to get up, let's go pee before I burst" thing, but my poor befuddled brain was trying not to admit the time.

It's proofreading day in my writing class. The students will do a proofreading project and then turn in the final drafts of their first essay. On proofreading day, I take in my special plastic bag full of post-it notes (hu-sen in Japanese, in case you were interested), some paper clips (because you know some students won't staple).

In my dream, I left my office with my bag of post-it notes, went down the stairway, and got lost on the wrong floor. Now, my building can be slightly confusing because there's a classroom wing (3 stories) and an office wing (8 stories), and folks sometimes have a hard time realizing that you can't go to the fourth floor (or higher) from the classroom wing. There are other buildings on campus that join together in weird, mazelike ways; and I have a poor sense of direction--shamefully poor. Let's just say that if I'd been leading the Donner Party, they'd have ended up in New Orleans. And the food would have been way better.

So in my dream, I'm walking around, up and down stairs, trying to find my classroom and it's getting later and later. At first, there's five minutes (because I usually aim to leave my office five minutes before the hour, and it takes perhaps two minutes to get to the class), then it's a quarter after, and then it's a quarter to, and I'm still trying to find the room, but now even if I found it, the students would in all likelihood be long gone.

And then I woke up, and lo, it was 6:20, and the radio was on, and I hid my eyes and stayed in bed until 6:38! Slugabed!

Review Letter

It's time for the annual faculty review letter! But this time, we're in for a reversal. Yes, instead of my supervisor reviewing me, I'm going to review the university.

Dear University,

Once again, you've admitted a full class of first year students! Good job admissions folks.

And, somehow, against the odds, you've managed to retain a record percentage of students between the first and second year. Well done, people who've worked with first year students.

We remain an accredited institution of higher learning, though things were iffy for a bit there, related to, well, some iffy behavior in a specific area.

You've cut the employee pay raise promised six years ago, and in addition put everyone on a more than 3% furlough pay cut combo. You've also managed to cut funds for faculty/staff development, travel, etc. And you're continuing to up the ante for tenure and promotion in a mode of "continuous improvement."

And yet, our headmaster made a strong statement about loyalty by continuing the university's contribution to the specialized athletic area owned primarily by the city. Thank goodness the area serves the headmaster's favorite sport!

You've raised the numbers of students in classes by about 5% in my departement except for first year writing classes.

You put everyone in the university through a grueling one year evaluation and self-improvement process. The result for my department is that you think we should combine our linguistics and sci/tech writing majors. I hope the results for someone's area in the department was actually a little more useful.

You've cut tenure lines in most departments, and pulled searches even at the point of verbal commitment. You've hired more adjuncts than ever before, and given them less real job security.

But you've added a couple important administrative positions, including an alcohol awareness educator; this is especially important because our students aren't aware of alcohol, despite the fact that adults in our state have a higher rate of binge drinking than any other state. Go us.

We now serve coffee and have exercise machines in the library. We've cut almost all our journal subscriptions, haven't hired new librarians to fill empty positions, and are continuing efforts to clear our shelves of books so there will be more room for exercise machines. But you did recently decide to go back to buying reserved textbooks so that students who don't have the money to buy their own can read reserve books.

You've managed to hire men to interim serial positions despite their inexperience. For example, the headmaster's drinking buddy became assistant headmaster for a year, and is now filling another administrative position. It's supposed to be for two years, but seriously, who's counting when it's the headmaster's buddy, so you've dropped the "interim" from the title.

In summary, if you were a faculty member, you'd be on the brink of losing your job for incompetence. Thanks for playing.

Dances with Avatar

I finally saw Avatar this afternoon. I'm a couple months behind everyone else, but since I'm 400 years behind in my reading, I wouldn't worry about a couple months.

A couple things struck me. First, it felt like a movie that knew colonialist fantasy narratives are a problem, and yet it just has so much desire that it does colonialist fantasy anyway. It's like when you're hanging out with someone who doesn't want to be a sexist, and doesn't think of him/herself as a sexist, but just can't resist telling sexist jokes. And then s/he excuses the jokes, because they're just jokes, and so on.

The colonialist fantasy narrative is powerfully appealing to white folks, isn't it?*

(*And by "white" here, I mean dominant white Anglo-American culture, though there were some people of color represented within that dominant culture.)

So we get the white guy who goes native and becomes a better native than the natives, and so can save them, but look, there's a strong female native character who just happens to want to mate with the white guy who is now better at native stuff than the natives, but look, it's not all about high tech because she saves him at the end with a bow and arrow, just moments before she figures out to get his mask thing on just in time, but look, the spirituality stuff here is really real so he can get his fantasy body better than the old one, leadership of the group (since the old chief and next in line guy are dead), and the native woman.

The return of the repressed ghost of Rudyard Kipling.

The movie could have been a whole lot shorter, and a whole lot different if the helicopter pilot (imdb gives her character name as Trudy Chacon) had, at the moment of deciding she wouldn't participate in shooting up the hometree, also backed and raised up a tad and shot down the big helicopter ship and as many of the others as possible. She could have taken a lot down before they got turned around to fire back. Game over. Or if not over, seriously shortened. Take out the big gun helicopter things, and the indigenous folks could have taken out the rest in short order (because they'd have been convinced of the need, even with the big helicopter thingies down).

What would happen if a woman of color saved the day, and it wasn't the one the white hero is having sex with?

But then what would have happened to the white colonial fantasy? The white guy wouldn't have been needed to save the day by mastering the universe. And there wouldn't have been the need for the big fight at the end. And he wouldn't have gotten his temporarily-abled life with the indigenous folks back.

Speaking of the big fight, all I could think of, for both sides, was

Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Yes, someone had blundered, on both sides. You just knew there was massive death in the making, but unlike the disastrous Ewok battles in whichever Star Wars film, I felt enough identification with both the white folks and the indigenous folks to think about hell and the jaws of death. That's something I never felt about the Storm Troopers, so maybe that's a good point about this film?

I went to the film with a friend from the Indian sub-continent, whose experiences of the world are really different from mine. My reaction to the film was sort of as a Native American allegory; she read it more from a world colonialism point of view. So, at the end, when the colonists were being kicked off, my reaction was that no amount of kicking white's out would work for very long; there's no way that a bigger, badder white army isn't coming back. That's my reading through Native American history. But, from a world colonialism perspective, if WWII messes up the European powers enough, one can end colonialism (even if just to morph it into imperialism).

The naming was interesting. There are two names for the indigenous folks in the film, Na'Vi, which is what the whites use, and the other name they use for themselves, Omaticaya (I think; I found something on the web that looked right). Is Omaticaya the name for the beings, or a subgroup? I could only remember "Na'Vi" when the film finished.

It felt to me like the way some indigenous groups have an outsider's name that's in common use, and may or may not have anything to do with what people call themselves. For example, if you were studying anthropology in the 60s, you might have learned about the Jivaro. "Jivaro" is a Quechua word that means basically "barbarian" and not what the Shuar call themselves. But because westerners had contact with Quechua speakers, and through them with the Shuar, they used the Quechua name. (Most now use Shuar, I think.)

How come the dragon thingies can only have one rider, but apparently a rider can have multiple dragon thingies? Seriously, if the bond is all that, shouldn't the rider feel something about his/her dragon thingy? (Yes, I realize, we had to have the very special dragon thingy to demonstrate just how much better than almost all the natives the white man is at doing native stuffs.)

There were points where the mechanics of the movie jumped out at me as very mechanical. It's like reading Titus compared to Lear. With Titus you can see the strings being pulled; that makes it easy to teach, because if you can teach students to see how the strings work in Titus, then they'll get Lear in a deeper way.

We get to meet the dangerous hammer beasties, big black scary beastie, and wolf pack-ish beasties because we'll need them later. But then they never figure into anyone's wanderings around the forest. Seriously, if there were big scary beasties wandering around the woods where I snowshoe, I'd make sure to mention that to my friends when we went out, and we'd keep our eyes open and not rub our braids together in the woods. (So watch, suddenly a grizzly's going to show up in the woods near my house having decided to vacation instead of hibernating; black bears are around, but not during winter!) It's the same thing with the very special dragon thingy, which jumps in as a concern only so we'll get the story of the five super special dragon thingy riders, which will matter later, because it's oh so important that the white guy can ride the biggest, baddest dragon thingy. Then, all the rest of the riding, no one ever bothers to watch out for them.

Another thing about the big predators. Why is it in films with big scary predators that the predators are just about to catch the hero when they get stuck in a tree because they're apparently too lousy at being predators to realize that trees have branches? (I'm looking at you, Jurassic Park.) Have the people who write these films never seen a dog go through the woods? And dogs, dogs are lousy predators compared to predators that actually have to kill to get a meal every single time. I bet no leopard ever has been slowed for a moment by a fork in a tree, certainly not when pursuing a slow humanoid.

I did enjoy Sigourney Weaver playing the role she did. I also thought she had one of the best lines about not playing with his braid or he'd go blind. Which made me wonder, shouldn't there be a whole braid thing instead of humanish kissing? Wouldn't you think these folks would rub braids or link up or something, instead of kissing and getting in a sort of hetero-human sexual position?

As long as I'm going scientific on you for a moment, did you see how the creatures tended to have two sets of front limbs, but the indigenous folks only had one set? Humans and others in our evolutionary line (say, vertebrates) tend to have a one limb set up front, one limb set in back, with a general tendency to one, two, many bones as you look at the limbs away from the main body. So, take our arms, one big bone at the top, two biggish bones at the next area, then a whole bunch of bones. That's the general form vertebrates have on earth. Now there's no reason to think that another planet might not evolve along a different model, but would two very different models happen to animals that are similar enough to do the link up thing? It's like if we were to be linking up with molluscs or something with a radial organization, or maybe insects with a bilateral organization, but really different segmentation evolution.

So, anyway, like everyone else, I thought the visual was pretty amazing (though the three D thing gave me a bad headache) and the narrative clunky with some serious colonialist narrative fantasy problems.

One Step Closer or Further Away

The powers that be in the Great State of the Northwoods gave NWU permission to raise our tuition/fees. The funding the state provides to our state system and our campus in particular has been dropping for a good long time. As far as I know, most state university systems have experienced the same sort of drop in funding.

In the late 70s, state funding paid for about 75% of a given student's eduction. Now, state funding pays for something like 22% of a given student's education. (Your state, system, or campus will probably be different, but it's likely to have experienced a massive drop in state funding for colleges and universities.)

Our plan is to raise tuition an additional chunk (over $1000, but under $1500) for each student; a fair portion of the additional funds will go to aid people with economic need. We'll move from being pretty much the cheapest four year school in the region to nearer the middle of the public pack at about $8000/year for undergrad tuition. If our students were already paying $30,000/year (as they do at Marquette), the additional money wouldn't seem like so much, but it's a huge jump for our students.

Basically, we're recognizing, accepting, and reacting to the long process of reduced state funding by asking students to pay more.

Some public universities have moved towards being private universities in all but name, I'm told. We're not there yet, but it seems like the pendulum is swinging pretty far that way.

For a while, the pendulum was more towards public funding. Programs like the GI bill (which helped pay for my father's education, along with my Mom working), grants, and so forth recognized that education is a public good, that having an educated citizenry helps us in all sorts of ways. You can be totally pragmatic and say that an educated citizenry is more economically productive, or you can be more holistic and say that an educated citizenry is more democratic.

But the pendulum's been swinging the other way for a while now, and the public believes that education is only a private good; we (the public) vote for people who promise to limit funding for the "undeserving," creating welfare queen nightmares, when in truth, the funding limits are for everyone who can't afford better, and to be honest, that's most of us.

To paint it with a broad stroke, I think private education is unethical. I know a lot of people go to private schools at some point, but I think (broadly speaking) if wealthier folks sent their kids to public schools, public schools would be better funded, because those wealthier folks would be willing to pay taxes to give their kids those opportunities. And they'd be arguing publicly for better school funding. And their arguments get heard.

Now my own NWU is taking a step closer to being private. Yeah, we've got a long ways to go, but there's another school down the road that's doing very well stepping ahead of us there, and our administration looks longlingly at them.

To be totally self-centered about this, the additional money should be good for me. There's talk of reducing comp class sizes from a standard 28 to 20, for example. That would reduce my grading load by a nice chunk. I still won't get the 3%+ "furlough" paycut back, nor will I get the 2% raise I was promised six years ago, that kept getting put off.

Unfortunately, I don't see how we can afford to do that without hiring ever more adjuncts. We treat our adjuncts with minimal decency; there's health insurance most semesters, because we try to put together full loads. But the pay's worse than it should be (as it is for we humanities folks here), and there's not even minimal job security, except that we keep hiring the same people. So maybe there's about the same job security as anywhere: we need warm bodies, and if you're moderately competent, you'll get rehired.

My department is already more than 50% adjuncts. So maybe the funding will help us hire some tt folks for lines we've lost in the past several years?

***Edited to add***

I should probably acknowledge that I taught at a private SLAC for three years. There were good folks there, faculty, staff and students. And there were some folks I don't miss at all, pretty much as anywhere. So, there's a level of hypocrisy, perhaps, in my saying I think private education is unethical. I'm not the first person to "sell out" because I needed a job.

I certainly don't think we're getting rid of private education, just the opposite. But I think we'd be a whole lot better off without it.

Relief and Generosity

I just finished facilitating that meeting. I guess I was really nervous about it, because I'm wiped now.

Sometimes, I really love my colleagues. Even the most cantankerous were thoughtful and generous. People listened to each other and responded with further thoughts. I looked around at the end (and we ended exactly on time) and everyone looked tired, but I sure learned a lot.

And I have hope for our future in a way I haven't much lately, hope that I'm really not the last generation of folks in English studies, hope that English studies will morph in ways I'll be proud and happy to be part of, even though I'm one of the most cantankerous.

Several people have stopped me in the hall or dropped by my office to say they thought the meeting was really good and even to say that I did a good job.

I have almost NO grading this weekend, but I am expecting the neighbor's pup to spend the day on Saturday, which should give me a reason to go try out the new snowshoes. I have things to read and a paper to work on, but it's so nice not to be staring at a stack of papers. (I have a partial stack of short paragraph assignments, but even that is partial.)

Now I'm going to go home. Maybe I'll take a shot at making fudge again!

Special Snowflakes: Senior Edition

I'm supposed to facilitate a meeting today in the department; it's a fairly important meeting, and comes right after our regularly scheduled department meeting. And since we're all supposed to attend department meetings unless there's some really important reason not to, it shouldn't be a difficult issue for folks to attend. They also had notice of the meeting a fair time ago.

That is, it's sort of like classes for students; you know when they are, and you attend unless something important comes up.

Why is it, then, that several colleagues have stopped me in the hall to let me know they couldn't attend because something important came up: a birthday party, an arts festival in the another town, etc.

One, I'm not taking roll and I'm not your mommy. Two, I know at least one of these people is going to want a "full report" about what happened, and you know what, I just may have something more important to do than take the time to give them that report.

It's not that I think choosing not to attend is a problem, but they really do sound a lot like the very special snowflakes who think I should make accomodations for their choices.

Grateful

I came home to a warm house this evening. It was totally wonderful to walk into the house and know immediately that the heat was working.

The furnace blower was out, and it seems like that's a sort of expensive part. At least I hope that's a more expensive part, because I don't want to see when a more expensive piece goes out.

And so, I'm grateful that the furnace company was able to send someone today, and that the furnace repairperson was able to figure out the problem, get the part, and repair things. And I'm especially grateful to have rejoined the middle class some years past, so that I can afford to pay for the repair without struggling.

I'm grateful that there's a minimal bump on my head, unworthy of all the whining I want to do about the door falling on me. As much as having the door fall on me hurt, I should have a bump the size of a melon to be convincing.

Amusingly, one of our office staffers ordered a new color paper; it's violet, and pretty much everyone is having all our copies made on violet right now, and there is much oohing and aahing about the lovely violet copies. We are all way too excited about this new-to-our-office paper color.

Irony?

Yesterday, I clicked and sent some money to the folks at the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota because they've had ice storms and lost water and electric systems pretty much. I've lived without potable water and without electricity for short times, and it's not great, but I was living in a warm, rainy area where I could boil my water and get some from the town water truck if the water system wasn't working. In South Dakota, in the middle of winter, though, that's a whole 'nother story. That's dangerous. So I clicked.

This afternoon, I got home around 5:30, ate, took a picture of my new snow shoes and got all excited about the prospect of going snow shoing maybe tomorrow afternoon, if I get home before dark.

Then I went and did the third of my four Chaucer discussion sessions at the library, and it was lovely. The folks there were great, the discussion fun. And a few stayed after to ask me if I would be doing more, because they were enjoying this, so we talked about some possibilities. It's very nice to feel appreciated.

Then I got home, sat down for a sec to check facebook and put a picture of my snowshoes up (because that's the sort of exciting update my friends get). And dang, it's cold. But unless I'm actively running around or teaching, I'm pretty much always cold in winter. My hands get cold typing, even. But boy, it really felt cold, so I thought, hey, I'll go to bed early and get warm!

And for a change, as I passed the thermostat in the hall, I bothered to turn on the light to look and make sure I hadn't screwed up the temperature, and it showed 56F. Now usually I set it to 67F, so it's not like I'm living in a sauna, but 56F is cold for inside my house! COLD!

I went down to look at the furnace, which is sort of futile, because I don't think Shakespeare ever wrote about furnace maintenance. There, on the furnace, is the instruction book that goes with it. At least that's something. So I try to figure out and remember where the pilot is supposed to be, and I think I found it, something that said "pilot viewing window" at least, and I didn't see a little person in a plane, so I think that was it. But there wasn't any light there.

I looked at the furnace "if this isn't working" instructions. Check the breaker switch or fuse is the first thing. The circuit breaker box is in the back bottom bedroom, in a corner of the closet behind a plastic organizer, so it's nigh unto difficult to see at best. I opened the closet, looked in, and the heavy oak folding closet door fell, hitting my head. That made me extra cheerful about the stupid builders of my house. (It was a folding door that hung from the frame on a sliding thing. Now it's a folding door that's sitting on the floor where it can't hurt anyone for the time being.)

But I didn't fall or lose consciousness, and there's not a spongy spot where it hit on the skull, nor do I even have a headache, so I don't think it's too bad. But if it were, I wouldn't be found for months, you know.

Have I mentioned that I had a detached retina once, possibly from a fall with a load of books while I was helping a friend move after her apartment tilted badly in an earthquake? I don't know for sure that's when it happened, but that seemed the most likely thing. Anyway, when I had the silicon "rubber" band put in (lots of fun that was, only NOT), the doctors put a lot of emphasis on my need to not take up boxing and not get hit by my boyfriend. (That seemed to be their theory of how I'd done it, although I told them it wasn't. They kept asking, though, because really, I guess they couldn't imagine a woman not being attached to a man who could beat her.) I mention this because I'm sort of paranoid about whacking my head, getting punched, or falling really hard. (Yes, I know the paranoia there isn't strong enough to keep me from jumping out of an airplane on purpose, riding my bike around, or trying to learn to ski. It's not logical. But I've been very careful not to pursue a boxing career.)

I found what turned out to be my retina detachment by realizing that I had a blind spot in my eye at the upper inside corner, which I figured out because I'd learned about the Hinman Collator, and how differences between what the two eyes saw would flicker. And then I was able to check by waving a finger up where the blind spot was, and seeing it disappear. (This wasn't the normal blind spot we have in each eye.) So you have to understand that I've been waving my fingers around the edges of my eye to see if I've suddenly developed a new blind spot. See, early modern text studies arcana has a purpose!

I pushed the door aside, negotiated myself around to try to see the breaker box door to find out which circuit breaker to turn off and on again for the furnace. It's #26, in case you were wondering, four up from the bottom of the unnumbered switches on the right. At least I hope so.

I went back to the furnace, and it made a little sound and then stopped.

Next on the list is to check the filter. I changed the filter in September, but I checked it, and it's dirty grey, and I had an extra, so I changed it again. Nothing.

There's a switch on the side, that looks like a light switch, so I tried flicking that on and off, and it did the same make a sound thing and then go off.

I called the emergency number of the furnace installers from when the house was new in 2000, and decided that 56F was not actually an emergency worthy of getting someone out of bed for, with the help of the answering service woman, who was kind and helpful. $200 minimum charge might have played into that decision. But also, 56F isn't likely to kill me when I have blankets and stuff.

It was cold when I got up this morning, and maybe the morning before, but I haven't been really at home enough to think about being cold since Sunday, so the furnace could have gone out whenever, and I might not have noticed for a day or two. Which is to say, it seems unlikely that a house would drop another 15F to something really unbearable in 8 hours, right? (Please tell me that's right!)

Have you ever noticed how all sorts of services assume there's an adult either home or who can easily come home whenever to take care of furnace stuff? It's a pain a lot of times for me as a single person, but at least I don't have the added responsibility of a little kid. I don't know how single parents manage. But I know a lot who do.

Tomorrow, I'll call my neighbor and see if she's going to be home, or have a friend who's either retired or likely to be free, to see if s/he can let in the furnace service folks if I can get an appointment tomorrow or Friday. If I can't get something tomorrow, and it's getting colder, I may stay with a friend for the night or get a hotel room. Brrrr!

I still haven't lost consciousness or gotten a headache, so I think I'll go try to get warm in bed and figure it's likely I won't die of a bad brain injury in my sleep. Nor do I seem to have a new blind spot.

So, is it ironic, or just pathetically stupid?

By the by: Here's the official website of this Lakota Nation, and the Disaster Relief information page they've set up. There's a donation link at the bottom of that page should you have resources to share. They sent me a nice email for my tax returns next year.

***

Addendum: When I checked this morning, the thermostat said it was 60 in the house. But there's still no pilot light or anything.

And my neighbor isn't home, and it's too early to call another person I know who could go.

AND, I read over the website of the local heating company that I would call, adn they have a trouble shooting thing that says if you have a self-igniting furnace you should turn the thermostat off for five minutes, then turn it on again and it should reignite.

Yay, my neighbor just called back and she's going to do that test, so maybe we can solve it!

In a final bit of news, I survived the night without further evidence of head injury, so I think that's okay.

It's Only Wednesday

It's been a sort of frustrating day. Some of that's my fault, some not.

I have a junior level class, and they had an assignment today. About a third of the people said they didn't know about the assignment because I hadn't mentioned it the class session before. It was on the syllabus and we had discussed it on the first day of class, just over a week ago. But I hadn't reminded them.

Other people had lineation problems. I should have foreseen that, because I know different people are using different editions (from the library to save money and such), but I didn't.

Then there's the line of people after each class who need to tell me about their special individual problem that prevented this or will prevent that and they didn't do the assignment due today, but can they make up the quiz if there's one tomorrow even though it says on the syllabus that they can't make up quizzes except in exceptional circumstances but they have a job interview and it's important and they didn't check their class schedule when they scheduled the job interview on Monday and doesn't that count as exceptional even though they didn't do the assignment for today?

Mostly they're patient and explain the issue, and not at all unreasonable, but at least a quarter of each class seems to have basic issues with something and needs special consideration, which means some 20 people a day want me to remember their special circumstances, which they've told me as I'm erasing a board and trying to get to my next class.

But there's inevitably one student who just barges into another student's explanation because he's so important that he just can't wait. (So far today, those have all been men.)

Students are sick, too. One is supposed to be out for two weeks, and wants to know what he should do to keep up. That's ten hours of class missed. I don't know if he's too ill to work on class stuff now or not. (Is this two weeks of keeping an injured limb still but okay to write, or two weeks of throwing up and sleeping a lot?) I suggested if not getting notes from classmates and then going over what we'd done, and contacting me with questions, but I sure don't want to have to reteach ten hours of class. Nor do I blame the student for getting sick. But I also know that student notes might not be sufficient to help a sick student keep up. (It's a writing class; how many students take notes about the freewriting and other stuff or would remember what they did freewriting about? How do you reproduce group work?)

We had the third quiz in my comp class today. The quizzes are open notes, closed book. It says so in the syllabus. When I gave the first quiz, I told them that, then didn't collect the quiz, handed out a copy of my reading notes and talked about notetaking. The second quiz went fine. But today, a student complained that he'd taken notes in his text and JUST NOW realized he couldn't use his text and could I just tell him this one thing from the quiz?

We're halfway through the second week of the semester. Are other folks having a crazy time still/already?

Trouble Closer to Home

I haven't heard about it in the news, but the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe members living on the Cheyenne River Reservation are facing a state of emergency due to ice storms that hit recently and previously this winter. Water and power have been systems are mostly down, and people are at risk. It's worth remembering that Native American communities are among the poorest in the US, and those of us whose lives are more advantaged should reach out a hand to help.

Here's the official website of this Lakota Nation, and here's the Disaster Relief information page they've set up. There's a donation link at the bottom of that page should you have resources to share.

Here's the Huffington Post article on the disaster.

And here's an article from KTVU in Oakland, CA.

Why aren't the mainstream media folks at least mentioning this? It doesn't affect as many people as the disaster in Haiti, but the people it affects are in trouble, too.

Advising Arcana

A few extra folks in my department have been "asked" to advise English ed students. Today we had a meeting to teach us the basics. I took a page and a half of notes, as well as writing extensively on teh 8 pages of handouts.

There are a lot of special rules, all of which make sense to someone and a few of which make sense even to me. But dang, there are a lot of rules. I live in a letters and sciences sort of world, but the ed students live in an education world, and the rules are different at that level, so it's not just learning a different major or emphasis, but learning different general education type requirements, too.

The powers that be have assigned me four ed majors. It seems like a lot of work for four students, doesn't it? I mean, why don't they take one or two of us and have that one person (or two people) learn and advise all the extra ed students?

Because of the structure of the university and department, and since we all teach composition and the lit folks teach a lot of GE, we have a substantial number of lit faculty for the number of lit emphasis English majors, so my advising load isn't huge. (Compare that with, say, business, which serves minimal GE or university-wide requirements, and has a lot more majors per faculty member; they have more advisees per person.)

I hope I don't mess up someone's life with bad advising!

Beginning of the Semester Blues

I'm grading some basic assignments before classes this morning. I'm frustrated.

I used the word assignment Sisyphus shared a while back; in the instructions, I specifically said to cite the text they're using. Almost no one did. I'm guessing they'd blame this on their other instructors and claim that no one ever told them to cite their texts before, except someone who's taken two classes with me before, and who's certainly heard me rant about citing also didn't cite. It's frustrating when someone who's an attentive student doesn't retain that much between classes.

Please dog, if a student is going to do internet "research" to find out what a sonnet means, make him/her actually cite the source rather than just claiming to have done extensive "research."

I got some emails about assignments, usually about something like whether an assignment should be double-spaced. Yes, it's good to double-space. And usually the student who sends these emails is at least doing the assignment more than 10 minutes before class. It's the students who don't actually respond to the assignment that get to me. I don't care how brilliant your analysis of the whole of Shakespeare's sonnets is, the assignment asks you to choose one word from one sonnet and write about that. (And that analysis, not really brilliant. And certainly not original.)

And finally, the most important issue of all. Who is stupid enough to give herself grading during the first week of classes?

On the other hand, we're doing this sonnet today!