Review: The Warcraft Civilization

I just finished William Sims Bainbridge's sociological study of World of Warcraft, The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World (Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2010).

I picked it up because I think MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing games) form potentially interesting social groups. I've played World of Warcraft (WoW) a little (I got a char up to level 20, so not a huge amount), and Everquest (EQ) a lot (though not for a number of years, now). (My advice to grad students and new faculty: do not play either unless you have a lot more self-control than I do.)

For those who haven't played one of these games, imagine Tolkien's world, with all the back history and lore. Now imagine you can start a nobody avatar or character in that world, and adventure around, killing dangerous enemies or nasty beasties, and learning in the process. Many computer games are built on the idea of levels or experience. In MMORPGs, geography often works in a similar way. Players start their avatar (or player character) in a relatively safe "home area" where they kill rats or bugs or local nasties. The avatar can get killed by these nasties, but generally there's a mechanism to make dying not too much of a penalty for the player (but enough of a penalty in time or whatever to make dying unappealing). As the avatar gains levels, s/he moves from the home zone into increasingly more difficult encounters; often death becomes a greater penalty.

Like many computer games, these games quantify learning into experience points and levels, which seem to me sort of like grade levels or scouting ranks if they actually mean something and were highly individualized.

Now add a lot of other people, all contributing in varying ways.

In a way, it's sort of like a Renaissance fair. You have a big "backstory" of history and lore and practice, some of which is more fanciful than not, and lots of people participate with varying degrees of engagement or buy-in. Some people visit in street clothes and watch the entertainment, enjoy some food, buy some handcrafts. Some people visit in costume, but do basically the same things. Some people know other people in the community, and become more involved, creating character identities, organizing, and so forth. And some people make crafts, pay rent, make sure the modern toilets work. Most people don't "believe" the lore, but enjoy participating.

Back to Bainbridge's text. It's very readable, and does a good job of explaining some of the basic terms gamers use (at least, it seems so; I recognized some of the terms and the explanations seemed good). But I think it falls short in some interesting ways, at least for me as a reader. I'm not sure other readers would find the same problems.

One of my friends likes to say that we English scholars steal from pretty much any field we can. Another likes to add that we steal badly from many of those fields. Nonetheless, lots of English scholars have read enough Durkheim to be dangerous, as it were, and that includes me. So I found some of Bainbridge's book most interesting in helping me get a better sociological understanding of some of the theoretical folks I've glanced at. There's a level of recognition for me that helps me add a bit of knowledge and pleasure at the same time.

I see MMORPGs as being complex texts (the backstory, game mechanics including non-player characters, aka NPCs) in which regular people interact through avatars. To some extent, the regular people interact with the backstory, but most interact far more with the game mechanics and with other people.

So it seems to me that if you're really interested in the backstory stuff, you approach that through textual analysis, as you would Tolkien's works, or Beowulf.

And if you're interested in player interactions--with the backstory (through role-playing, for example), with the mechanics, or with other players/player characters, then you take a socological approach or an economics or a game theory approach.

A Short Discourse on Reading Games as Texts

The designers of MMORPGs are incredibly creative in terms of graphic design, backstory, and game play. Players tend to learn the backstories by interacting with NPCs or other in-game experiences, or by reading outside the game, including materials created by the game company and materials created outside the game company. I think this is fascinating, because it reminds me a lot of fan fiction, where people will write stories about Star Trek characters and such. In a way, these are a lot like reading Shakespeare's histories; for some people, Richard II is how they understand late 14th century English politics. But Shakespeare took information from a variety of sources and made drama. Yes, something happened way back, but we only have information about the events from texts. And Shakespeare's play has become one more text, though historians will tell you that it doesn't accord well with more authoritative texts. That's important, because we care a lot about which texts have more authority and why in the real world.

Let me give you an example from Everquest. When I started playing, the game came with a booklet that had basic maps for the starting cities. But the game didn't provide maps for other areas (called zones). But there was an EQ map site that had basic maps for different zones; I could print them out and find my way to different spots (and even note grid locations from within the game) in a new zone. In a way, it was antithetical to the spirit of exploration to some extent, but as I got more into the game, it also helped me use my time more efficiently and have more fun. Similarly, there were non-company sites explaining quests, game mechanics, etc. (Eventually the makers of EQ realized that people were using maps and computer add ons to have in game maps, and added them to the game interface.)

I want to get at two points with this example. The first is that non-game text may be accurate and useful, though not condoned by the game company. In this way, these texts are like fan fiction that's disavowed by the author who created a given text-world and characters (think Harry Potter slash fic, for example). The second is that games are dynamic in terms of mechanics and backstory; companies add and change things all the time in response to players. (There are things that changed in the Harry Potter world as Rowling received critiques on the earlier books; think about the representations of race and race relations, for example.)

All this means that it could be fascinating to read these games as texts, including considering the in-game textuality, extra-game company textuality, and non-company textuality. But you have to think about how these different sorts of texts mean differently.

And that brings us back to Bainbridge's book. He needs to think about the texts he's using as texts. He needs to explain when he's "talking to" an NPC, when he's reading Blizzard materials, when he's reading novels approved by Blizzard, and so forth. It's not that any one of these is invalid, or even "less valid," but that they mean differently. He's not sensitive to those nuances. Partly that may have to do with his being a sociologist rather than a text person. Partly it may be because he's trying to look at both the game as a text and the game as social/cultural space. I think the book would have been stronger if it had focused more clearly on one or the other aspect of WoW.


A Short Discourse on Player Interactions

Once you've played EQ or Wow for a bit, you begin to realize that only the most naive (in terms of new to the game) players don't distinguish in their behavior between other player characters and NPCs. And so you should be careful to think about the ways players make those distinctions and how they work.

Here's an example. When I was first learning EQ, one of my characters got in trouble and was helped out by a more advanced character, Snork. (If you know Snork, give a shout out!) Not long after, Snork took my character (a Wood Elf druid) to meet Bonecaster, a necromancer, which is a character class in EQ that has to do with interacting with disease and death. The thing was, I didn't quite know that Bonecaster was a player character and not an NPC. Nor did I realize that a player character couldn't directly attack me without my consent (through a "duel" request).

In my experience, most advanced players in EQ learn the lore so that they can use the game mechanics as effectively as possible, rather than for the lore in and of itself. Understanding how that works would be fascinating, much as understanding how a pitcher uses some arm/hand motion to throw is fascinating in terms of how the pitcher understands physics and morphology (or not) is different from understanding the actual physics. You can understand the physics beautifully without being able to throw, and you can throw without knowing much physics.

Here's another example from EQ. In EQ (before, say, the Luclin expansion), characters started with a faction based on race and character class that made them relatively safe in some city zones, and very unsafe in other city zones. So, as an Wood Elf, my character was welcomed in the Elven and Halfling communities, well tolerated in most areas of the Gnomish, Dwarven, Erudite, Barbarian, and Human communities, and unsafe in Dark Elven, Troll, Ogre, and Iksar areas. (Players describe unsafe in terms of being "Kill on Sight" or KOS; the NPCs may not be able to kill a given character, but if you get within range, they'll try.)

At low levels, characters of some races rarely interact, and roleplaying characters may roleplay the racial antipathies. But no one (well, no one sane) really believes in the racial antipathies of Dark Elves and Wood Elves. We joked about such things, but no one really believes in Tunare. And that's hugely important, because at higher levels, there's a huge advantage to a guild to have players of all character classes for groups and raids. So druids of nature cooperate with necromancers and shadow knights. That is, the mechanics of the game give an advantage to those who have access to different character spells and abilities. (To be honest, a guild could do fine without druids, but having access to necromancers was vital for raiding before the PoP expansion.)

WoW enforces the distinction between Horde and Alliance factions through game mechanics in a way EQ didn't (doesn't still, I'd guess). Horde and Alliance characters can't group, talk, mail directly, or auction easily with each other.

That makes me wonder, though, if at higher levels of WoW, guilds worry much about faction except as it affects gameplay through mechanics? I seem to recall there can be advantages to killing player character members of the enemy faction who attack one's own areas. But do raiding guilds or most players get involved?

And that brings me back to Bainbridge's book, once again.

At the beginning of each chapter, Bainbridge sets up a narrative through the point of view of one of his characters. The narrative is set up as if the character actually "believes" the backstory; it treats the NPCs as sentient beings rather than characters in a complex text, undifferentiated from player characters. And it treats words by player characters as if the narrating character is naive of there being players "behind" the characters. In some ways, these narratives were fascinating for me, but they seemed unanalyzed and thus somewhat purposeless in the text except to establish that the character "existed" and that Bainbridge has authority to talk about the experiences.

On the other hand, these are also some of the more intersting bits of text in terms or representing the complexity of MMORPG interactions and experiences, where each character experiences some level of a unique story while roughly paralleling in many ways the same plot line that every character of similar race/class or profession experiences. (That is, pretty much all dwarven hunters start out in the same place, with the same equipment, and start off doing the same beginner quests, killing the "same" trash mobs, and so forth. Because of the quest organization, there's a whole lot more common experience between beginning characters in WoW than there were in EQ (where people spent a lot more time wandering around getting lost, at least in the earlier days).

Bainbridge hints at the complexity of WoW interactions between characters through groups and guilds, but doesn't focus on that in the ways that seem most likely to really shine through a sociological approach. He mentions in passing homophobic remarks, but doesn't really analyze gender/sexuality deeply. He doesn't seem to recognize the way clothing representations or dance graphics work in WoW, and takes an oversimplified approach to the ways characters embody and enact gendered avatars. I think there's real room for serious thought about how these issues work in Wow, especially since WoW and other MMORPGs bring together people from different cultures in new ways. It's especially interesting in terms of player ages, because a lot of younger players are encountering people from different cultures (within game culture and meat-space culture) through these games.

What sort of sociological study would help us understand WoW groups? Groups in WoW seemed to me to be short term, based on a need for mutual assistance in accomplishing a short-term goal such as a quest. That organization seemed very different from the groups in EQ that were often, especially in my earlier gaming, grinding experience in one place for ages. Thus, the WoW groups seemed to form short term, not include much conversation, and then disband. In contrast, in EQ, grinding groups would have downtime (for respawning and mana regeneration, especially), and so include time for chatting. And rather than disbanding as groups, people would enter and exit grinding groups as time and space allowed, so the group might continue with different player characters for hours on end. I have no idea how higher level groups work in WoW, whether there are grinding groups, whether guild groups form as they did in my EQ experience, or whether the typed chatting we did has become voiced chatting in WoW.

(One of the things I found frustrating about WoW was that social interaction seemed more limited; that's because Blizzard consciously minimized mana regeneration downtime and made all character classes able to solo content more than in EQ. It's a far faster game in terms of moving around and getting experience, but seemed too "twitchy" for me as a player. EQ, on the other hand, had gotten too grindy and I had computer issues.)

I'd love to read some really good analysis of how MMORPG guilds work, internally, with game mechanics, and in terms of other guilds. I know instancing has reduced some of the interguild conflicts that were rife in EQ (at least on my server), but I'm guessing there's still lots there.

Bainbridge also hints at the complexity of WoW player interactions with game mechanics. I didn't play EQ even at a high enough level to get really into mechanics, but I knew people who spent a whole lot of time parsing dps and healing, and figuring out high end strategies to beat encounters. There's an amazing mindset that really understands the mathematics behind the game mechanics. And even I learned to make choices based on most effective mathematical strategies in my character's development and encounters. My sense is that WoW is way beyond EQ in terms of what it enables in terms of player interactions with the game mechanics (allowing players to parse dps and such, for example). It would be fascinating to read really good game theory analysis of how players strategize in WoW, especially because character "builds" (the way a player chooses and trains specific aspects of a character's abilities) are so complex and variable.

I've run up against my mechanical ability to read and proofread within the blogger box. Were this a for real review, I'd be working in a text editor and printing out to play with the text, but it's not, and I'm about to be done.

In Conclusion

I wanted more from Bainbridge's book about the social and cultural aspects of players interacting in WoW, and less about the game as a text, I think.

If anyone wants my copy, I'd be happy to send it along to someone else. I don't think I'll need to reread it, nor do I know anyone so into WoW that they'd love it.

A Tiny Bit of Character

Sometimes, heck, often, Shakespeare blows me away. Take this little moment from The Winter's Tale. The information from the Oracle has just been delivered, and Leontes, "knowing" that he still has a son and heir, has scoffed and called it false. And then a servant comes in:

Servant
O sir, I shall be hated to report it!
The prince your son, with mere conceit and fear
Of the queen's speed, is gone.

LEONTES
How! gone!

Servant
Is dead.


I've never had to give anyone news that their loved one is dead, though I've had the news delivered to me a couple times. One of those times, because the death was totally unexpected, I didn't "get it" at first, even though the paramedic who was talking was absolutely clear and honest. It was like, for a moment, I wanted to say, no, there's a mistake, and then I realized there wasn't.

I imagine that it's difficult to give the news. I imagine that it's tempting to say someone is "gone" in hopes of making the news less jarring, less harsh.

The servant here has to know that he's going to give Leontes horrible news, and also has to know that Leontes has, for no reason that makes any sense to the other characters in the play, accused his wife of treason. It's not hard to understand that this servant has to be worried, and so, for just an instant, he isn't quite clear, and Leontes doesn't understand. But then the servant clarifies, and Leontes does understand, and once he understands, the world of the play changes.

Shakespeare could have written a perfectly good play with "dead" instead of "gone" in the earlier speech, with Leontes going on with his recognition. No one would have criticized the moment.

But as it is, those moments of hesitance and then of misrecognition or confusion reveal a depth of character for the servant. They also reveal just how profound the world change is for Leontes and everyone else on stage with Mamillius's death.

If I could get, in a whole slew of words, what Shakespeare gets here with a few, I would be one happy being.

Campus Geographies

We're in the planning stages for a new building. We've been through nearly a decade of preparation, begging the state and such already, but now we're actually planning the building. And it looks like the English department is going to move, so it matters to me.

And the stupidity in planning over at the Fort is rampant.

Here's one issue: The past dean, but maybe not the current "interim but maybe not really" dean, thought that working across and between traditional disciplinary boundaries was going to be the future, and so we talked about ways to do that.

The big metaphor around here (and elsewhere) is the "silo." Each academic field is imagined as a silo (I'm never sure when I think about it if we're a nuclear silo or a farming silo, because the metaphor seems sort of odd to me, but imagine for a moment, a farming silo). Each department lives in it's own individual, highly self-contained ivory silo, and doesn't mix it's grains of knowledge with the grains from another department. But the geography of departments, each on a separate floor, perhaps clustered in separate buildings, reinforces the silo effect. We run into our department colleagues in the lunch room, but we don't run into colleagues from the floor above or below. However, it does make some sense to house people who depend on the same office staff, chair, copier, printer and such near each other, on the same floor or wing.

Now, if you're building a new building, you have some opportunities to break that separation down. Maybe you work to spread people innovatively? Maybe you create shared spaces?

Yesterday, at our meeting, we discussed the new building and got a handout on building planning. Each of the departments moving over will have it's own very distinct spaces.

Someone asked: can we have a shared lunch space?

No, we're told, each space must belong to a specific department. No shared spaces!

Because, evidently, that makes sense. There can be no space for people to interact.


Here's another issue: Our current teaching spaces are ugly. Since they're ours, we've sometimes added some art posters to walls. And we've got dictionaries on rolly stands in most of our rooms. (And yes, I use them at least once in each class every semester, and sometimes way more.)

We have difficulty getting our students to feel a sense of community as majors, too. There's no real common space for them to be, unlike, say, art majors or physics majors, who have some common spaces. And we have a lot of majors, so welcoming them into our small lunchroom doesn't seem practical.

Then we looked at the classroom spaces. There are three departments moving over; each one typically has smaller rather classes rather than large lectures. Think, say, English (our largest classes run 35, but that may go up, of course), Foreign Languages, and Education. Three of the rooms are designated education labs--elementary math, elementary something else, and something else. Other than that, there's no designation. But, there's also no classroom space designed for a class of under 70.

Someone asked: Is there any way we can get a couple of seminar spaces, since we have senior seminars and that would be helpful?

No, we're told. You can't have any designated spaces, but you'll be able to use the elementary school training labs sometimes, when the ed folks aren't using them.

Right. We're supposed to run senior seminars in a room set up as a mock 3rd grade math lab? And that's going to be conducive to talking about Milton or whatever?


Someone asked: Why aren't there smaller classrooms since none of the departments that will be housed in the building needs a 150 person lecture hall?

The administration answered: You have to get over the idea of having your own classrooms in your own building. You'll have classes in another building.

So who will be using these large lecture halls? People from other buildings will come use them.

Right. I have an idea. We should test the feasibility of having everyone moving around campus to different buildings by having every administrative meeting for the next year held outside the Fort. Yep, let's ask the administrators to walk five minutes in one direction for one meeting, then five minutes in another direction for another, and see if they find that efficient.

It's not the going outside, it's that we've got 500 instructors, many of whom will be adding five minutes to each end of class time for all their classes. Are we going to count all the walking as contributing to our collective health? And how much time will we spend in this walking that we could spend talking to students, grading, prepping, whatever?

And you know that when they have a 100 person lecture hall, they'll find some class that was had three sections of 30, and fire two instructors and make the remaining instructor teach 100 students at a time. And no, we don't have PhD programs to abusively supply endless TAs and graders. And according to the rules, we're not allowed to have our few grad students teach or grade. (That's the privilege of the R1s in this system.)

I wonder if my chair would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation? I saw a community college job listing yesterday that seemed tempting.

Cluster Headache

We're trying to inaugurate a new general education system. It's going to start in a very small way next year, at least that's the plan. We got an email about a week ago, suggesting that a call for proposals would be forthcoming soon, and if we were interested, we shoul start thinking about it.

The idea is that students are going to take a group of classes meaningfully clustered together.

During the planning stages, all the clusters I've heard about are all very focused on modern issues: Sustainability! STEM! You get the idea. I don't really feel like I fit any of them, so rather than just whine, I decided to email everyone I could think of who might like really dead guys and see what we can do about putting together a cluster of classes about historical/cultural stuff. Because otherwise, you KNOW we English department folks are going to be asked to contribute by teaching a "writing about sustainability" course. And while I think sustainability is important, I want to teach my really dead guys.

So, I sent out email to a bunch of folks. And folks are busy, and overwhelmed, and no one knows what the heck is up with things, so I got a few responses. And I chatted with some people and got some responses.

Which is to say, I've emailed with probably 20 faculty, including the administrator who sent out the warning, my chair, another chair.

So today, we got the real proposals information and deadline (they gave us three weeks!). And saw, for the first time, that there's been a big set up over in the Fort Section where we're supposed to get help with teaching (the email had a link). They've had workshops on setting up bundles!

I apparently missed this information. And so, apparently did the chairs, administrator, and other faculty I've been emailing with. At least none of them mentioned to me that there was this site set up. And I don't think it's because people hate me or anything; I think it's because the people I'm in touch with didn't know or think about it.

But I'm guessing the STEM folks got personal, engraved invitations. Okay, maybe not, but I bet if I get on the computer board thing, I'm going to see a lot of names of men who drink on the right porches.

Sometimes, I really hate our administration.

***

Edited to add the latest information: I'm told that a colleague was in a meeting with the administrator who has the final word on the cluster proposals and the administrator there said s/he'd basically already chosen the clusters for next year, and that no, English was NOT included.

Feeling the love, feeling the love. The proposal date isn't until mid-May, but they've already been chosen. Hmmm.

I may be drinking on the wrong porch, but I definitely feel like drinking tonight.

Cash Crop

If dandelions were a cash crop, I'd be a lot less worried about retirement savings. I have a most excellent crop. Yes, I know you can eat them, but I could probably feed the whole department, and I don't think most people really want to eat dandelion greens.

I went in to the human resources folks today and adjusted the amount that goes to my 403b. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what it will cost to retire.

I went around the yard today and took some more spring flower pictures. The crocuses are done as are the Glory of the Snow flowers, just about. The daffodils aren't far behind.

There are only a few tiny Forsythia flowers left. Forsythia are difficult for me to photograph because my plants live in cages to keep the rabbits out. Anything not in a cage that's edible pretty much gets eaten. You can see the shadow of the chicken wire in the background here.

When you stop to take a close up of a flower, the least little wind becomes an issue. I hadn't noticed the wind much until I started to take pictures, but it added complications.

I have a little Hawthorne tree in my yard. The thorn part is for real. Why didn't I think about that before I put it in? That's the downside. The upside is that it has little pink flowers that look lovely. (And, I've been told, birds like the fruit.) It looks like these are next in line to bloom.

The dogwood are getting ready, too. The red bark is really noticable in winter and spring, as you can see here.

And finally, the Tamarack are getting some new cones ready and greening up fast this spring.

I saw the first cowbird of the season in my yard today, too.

And just in case you're not sure why your allergies are acting up this spring? I'm guessing my pines are contributing their share.

ps. Have you noticed that if you try "preview" it doesn't really show you what things will look like? The distortion is even bigger if you've got pictures.

Institutionally Slow

I've been at NWU about ten years now. When I first came, as a relatively inexperienced faculty member, I had a lot to learn. I figure, you spend your first year or so just trying to do your work and get the hang of departmental stuff. Second year, you add advising, committee work (if not before), and you'd better begin to get a sense of things.

Then, in the third year, maybe you start to think about curricular stuff more broadly.

By the fourth year, maybe you're getting involved in university service, and you begin to get a sense of how things fit in a bigger way. That takes a while, because there's no program that allows you to work on this or that committee for a month, and then change to learn something new, because it's not really about you learning, but about serving the university and such.

When you get tenure, you add in personel stuff.

So, I've now served in my department as schedules chair (we figure out our own scheduling according to needs and protocols and budget stuff), as curriculum chair, as planning committee chair, and several times as secretary to the personel committee.

I've served as a university senator, on the policies committee of the senate, and on my college curriculum committee. (Yes, I've done more service than I should have. I suck.)

But as you first begin to serve on university things, you take things in, and people act like things just are that way, so you think that's the way things are. And you don't necessarily know the people who know more, so you aren't told what's what. Here, if you're not a married straight white male who drinks on the porch with the other straight white males, it takes longer to get to figure out even the basic politics over at the fort. (I assume it's easier if you're drinking on a porch, though you're drinking with one faction more than another, so maybe your view is just way different?)

Or maybe I'm just slow to figure things out. That might be.

And then there are institutional changes. Since I've been here, my college has been through an interim dean, two deans, and now another interim dean. We've had a headmaster, an interim headmaster, and another headmaster. We've had a provost, an interim provost, another provost, and now a new provost.

But even I've begun to notice some patterns, at least with the current lineup over at the fort.

One: The headmaster is constantly pointing out that "we" could/should have applied for state funds for X, but he didn't know about it and it's not his fault and so we didn't but the other schools did and blah blah. This happens about something new pretty much every year lately.

For example, one of the state schools down the road has gotten on the state docket for new buildings sort of regularly. Like us, they have old buildings, but unlike us, they seem to have a master plan for replacing or refurbishing them, and have somehow been doing this all along.

We haven't. Evidently, though, most state schools have this sort of master plan, and carry it through from administration to administration. We don't seem to do that.


Two: We end up rushing stuff because the administration gives us short deadlines or doesn't tell us the deadline until just before it's due. And don't forget special rules!

We do these self-analysis exercises only to find out that yes, we're pretty much doing our jobs, and yes, we could all use more funding. But the self-analysis is not the basis for more funding, but the basis for more cuts. But we do these self-analysis projects on strict timelines in a rush, and wear ourselves out. And then, gosh, another year later, OMG, we have to rush a self-analysis and figure out where we should put money! And then, oh, wait, there is no money. Never mind.

Why are these things always needing to be done in a rush? Do administrators not realize there's going to be a self-analysis needed ahead of time?

For example, we've been going through this budget process which is actually going to allocate some new money. The budget process has taken over a year. But in late February, the administration sent out forms and basically said, apply for these funds. Fill out these huge forms according to these special and limited rules and get them back to us by mid-March. HURRY! And be sure to include evidence from a new self-analysis.

Do you ever get a feeling that the departments whose chairs are drinking on the right porch might just have an advantage here?

And with the pay cuts this year, and increased class sizes, morale is low, energy low, and interest low. It feels like we're on a treadmill of make-work, with ever more administrators hired to assess our assessments and think about where we could use money if only we weren't paying new administrators and finding a building to put them in.

It's a Miracle!

You Should Read This

Dr. Crazy has a great post up about the ways we think about education and how we're (as a culture, not you and I) policing teachers as sort of bad mommies. Except Dr. Crazy's take is way better than my mini-summary. So you should go there and read it. << That there is the link.

And then come back and help me think of a strong metaphor for student-centered learning.

Group Work

One of the big liberal arts goals things is that students should learn to work well in groups or teams. It's also something employers say they want of new hires coming out of colleges. And it makes sense. I know I appreciate it when my colleagues pull their share of the cartload of work and when they help make coming to work pleasant rather than not.

And so in our classes, we instructors try to give our students experience working in groups.

Now, I don't know that we teach them how to work in groups. Do we? I haven't really thought about it. Should I give a little introduction to working in groups and say something about keeping in touch, communicating, recognizing that other people will get sick or have other problems that make being flexible vitally important? Hm. Okay, I'm not sure what I'd say or how, but it's something to think about. Does anyone out there actually teach students to work in groups?

One of my classes is doing a group project this semester. And my first year writing class does regular group work, especially for peer revision sessions. (Now that I think about it, I do guide peer revision groups more than groups in upper level classes.)

The thing is, on any peer revision day, at least one person will be absent which means rearranging some (since I've probably already made arrangements for the person out for a band or athletic trip), and then another will come in 20 minutes late, and blah blah. And for any class doing group work, at least one group will have some serious problem along the way.

This semester it seems to be that a student is ill a lot, and so not meeting with the group or doing work or whatever. And the others are frustrated. And he's frustrated and ill.

I need to figure out a more flexible strategy for dealing with the student who gets sick and doesn't participate in group work. What do you folks do for the group and for the student?

Cat

The neighbor's cat seems to be hanging around my deck a lot the past week or so.

Okay, I'm not absolutely sure it's the neighbor's cat, but it sits on her deck sometimes, and runs there when it sees me come out to the porch. It also only appeared after she moved in about 18 months ago.

I have a couple of bird feeders, so this cat is hunting. And at the least, it's keeping birds away. I'm thinking I should go over and ask the neighbor (who seems nice enough, but I barely know her) to keep her cat in.

I know some cat lovers who think their cats absolutely NEED to spend the day outside once the weather's warm enough. And that would be fine IF the cat stayed in their yard, but this one isn't. And legally here, you have to keep your cat inside or on a leash or in your yard somehow. Just like legally, I had to keep my dog under control (which alas, didn't always happen) and clean up after him (which did happen).

I know, cats aren't "natural" in this part of the world, but neither is feeding birds. And even though cats don't do nearly as much damage as humans do, they're a part of the human damage. Still, I don't want this cat killing off the birds I'm encouraging to feed here.


NB Most cat owners I know are responsible and wonderful, and I'm happy to get cat therapy on occasion when they need someone to go by and feed and care for their kitties.

Another Day, Another Text

Okay, in light of the confusion, and despite my incredibly realistic artistic rendering, I revised the drawing, adding a bit of detail here and there. But I revised on my laptop, which seems to default to a different font (and doesn't seem to have an easy way to change fonts), and which seems to have some autofill confusion happening. Nonetheless, here goes:



One more try:

Shopping Sucks

The last time I bought pants, I blogged about it. Notice the date, January 2008.

Well, today, I was using the restroom and noticed some wear places through the bottoms, not exceedingly visible, but likely to become so at some point.

And so, I went to the store. I couldn't find the pants I bought last time, which have side pockets, perfect for carrying my wallet on one side and my reading glasses (in a case) on the other.

But I found two pairs.

I hope I don't have to go again for three years, this time.

Out of Season

And the text of the day is?

Advising Ups and Downs

It's advising season here at NWU, so I've had extra appointments today with advisees.

I advised one person away from an English major, and she seemed happy. We had a lovely, fun conversation, and I gave her a couple things to follow up on. She's interested and interesting. What a pleasure.

And then I had an energy sink advisee. There's this problem, exacerbated by this other problem, which can't be solved because of this additional issue, and by the way, there's also this dismal predicament.

In a way, it's like talking about Gertrude Stein's version of Oakland, except less fun. (And Oakland is okay by me. One of my greatgrandmothers and a grandmother lived there.)

I confess, I have minimal experience with mental illness, and less with medications, but if you have the stereotype of someone who is sort of sedated or of a movie version of a staring electroshock patient/victim from the 1950s, my student would look the part.

I'm so so at the sit-quietly-and-wait-for-the-other-person-to-talk part of life, at least as far as advising goes. Let's say that we spent a fair bit of an hour sitting looking at each other on and off. I have a feeling that this student really needs a lot of adult attention, to the point that the hour this week was a drop in the bucket. And the time with the counselor, another drop in a bucket, and so on.

I don't think I had any idea when I started in on the PhD thing how much time I'd spend counseling troubled young adults. If this student were juggling, about half the balls would be bouncing away on the ground. No wonder, I'm thinking, this student is depressed.

Then there were a couple of meh students; you know the sort, they're okay, not excited, not miserable, just okay, pleasant enough but not really satisfying. When I speak with these students, I always end up wondering if I've left something important out, if I'm meeting their needs as advisees.

I have a student who thinks he's graduating who should be more worried about that than he seems to be. Our upper level students aren't required to see an advisor to register for classes, and usually, that's okay. Most of them are capable of seeking help when they need it and making good choices. But sometimes, they leave something to the last minute. And some requirements can't be finished at the last minute.

Every month of the school year, I pretty much send out a letter to my advisees. It's basically a "hi, I'm here! Think about these things!" sort of letter. And at least a couple times a year, the thing I tell them to think about is what this student has put off. Oops!

Foodgasm

You should be sitting down.

Sit down now, if you're not already. Sitting? Okay, you can go on.

I'm not much of a cook. I can follow a basic recipe, and I make a pretty good oatmeal raisin cookie, but day to day dinner type cooking, I just get by. I don't much enjoy cooking, so that's part of it.

But, about a year and a half ago, I decided to try to learn to cook a bit, so I asked my Mom for a Joy of Cooking book, because it's basic and stuff.

I'm still not much of a cook, but since winter, I've decided to try to eat more veggies. Now, I like veggies okay. If someone cooks for me, I'll eat pretty much anything (with two exceptions, which almost disqualify me from ever returning to my home state, alas). But cooking them, blah. It takes forever, and they're boring. But still, I've been trying.

So, I took my cookbook and tried making a basic quiche, and it was basic, and okay. And it's easy to take to school for lunch, and to heat up a bit and have for dinner. I got a bit creative; I tried adding some veggies from a frozen mixed veggie bag. That was okay, too. I've done that several times this semester, almost once a week.

And then I got an idea. As I've said before I think, my favorite vegetable is artichokes. But artichokes don't thrive up here in the Northwoods, so when you get them at the store, they're not great. They're sort of like cardboard with a slight flavor. But, I thought, what if I got canned artichokes and put them in a quiche!

Last week I tried that for the first time. I made a basic quiche with bacon, cheddar cheese, baby artichoke parts, and sauteed mushrooms. And it was pretty good. But the cheese wasn't quite right and sort of overpowered things in terms of consistency. It wasn't sharp enough for the artichokes, if that makes sense. And the bacon, surprisingly, didn't really work with the artichokes.

I finished that at lunch today, so tonight I made another.

I got some grated asiago cheese and some grated parmesan cheese at the store, and some more cut up mushrooms.

I sauteed the mushrooms and added a little frozen spinach. And then I added nutmeg. I know, you're thinking, NUTMEG???? But the book had me adding nutmeg to the basic quiche, and I'd done it once but then not. But somehow, I thought I'd give it a try, so I sprinkled some in. Then I added the artichokes so the veggie stuff was all mixed up well.

I made a basic custard mix.

When the pie shell was cooked, I put in a bit of both sorts of cheese, then some veggies, and more cheese, and more veggies and cheese, and then I poured the custard mix in. And baked. I could smell the nutmeg, and that worried me. It smelled just a bit too strong.

Once it was out and had cooled a tad, I cut a piece. And then, OMG, this is about the best non-sweet thing I have EVER cooked. Look:

The cheese is sharp, and sets off the artichokes beautifully, and the nutmeg adds just something, and it's sooo good.

Now I'm going to cut myself another piece and enjoy the foodgasm.

Shopping or Metaphor?

We're phasing in a new on-line registration system, my third since I got to this job.

Students pick classes by putting them in a "shopping cart" just as they do when they shop at whatever on-line retailer.

Do the people who design these things even think?

Is shopping really the metaphor we want to use for choosing a curriculum, a course of study?

Maybe it's not a metaphor at all, after all, the customer is always right, and I'm sure not the customer in this model.

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.