Visiting Canyons, Pt 1

I went for vacation on a trip to Bryce, The Grand Canyon, and Zion, and it was good, very, very good.  Amazing, in fact.

First, the smell.  OMG, the wonderful smell of western fir and ponderosa pine forests.  Forests here just don't smell quite the same, but that western smell fills my heart.

We started at the northern part of Zion, at Kolob Canyon, and took a walk along the path, and saw our first wildlife, a beautiful snake.  I decided not to pet it.  I like to respect wildlife like that.

You can see rain off in the distance at the right of the picture.

From there, we went to Bryce, which, did you know, isn't actually a canyon?  That's what I learned.

Nonetheless, sunrise the next morning was spectacular!

I took some pictures into the sun, but it would be better to get the sun rising behind you, I think. 

The views are just so stunning, aren't they?

Bryce is known for something called "hoodoos" which are these towery geologic formations that happen when water freezes and melts and refreezes a lot during winter, forcing tiny cracks apart with the amazing strength of that ice formation.  At least, that's what we were told.  They don't form (so I'm told) where the water is just frozen all winter, but only where there's freezing and melting again and again.

That was our first and second days.  We spent the nights in cabins at Bryce Lodge, and they were perfection.  They're comfortable, have indoor plumbing, and are a great size for a couple people to share.

I'll post photos from the third day before long.

Back!

I'm back!  I didn't fall off the edge of the earth (or even a cliff), but had a really good time, saw some beautiful sights, and didn't end up in jail.  All of these are good.

Now I have some professional responsibilities which will keep me busy for a few days, but then, I'll sort through my pictures and start telling you all about my trip to Bryce, the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, and Zion!

I Should Be Packing

I'm going on a trip with my Mom, leaving tomorrow, meeting up in a southwestern city known more for excess and consumption than anything else, taking a shuttle to another city, and then in the morning, going on a bus tour of Bryce, Zion, and the Grand Canyon.  It should be good.  And I should be packing.

Instead, I'm futzing around, looking at my sunflower, playing with aperture sizes, and trying to figure out what to take.

The suggested packing list says to bring hiking boots.  I have a pair that I got in the UK, but they're bulky.  And I'm wondering how much I'm likely to need hiking boots on a trip with my 80+ year old mother. 

If I don't take the hiking boots, then I take a pair of supportive sneakers and a pair of really light runners (for the day we're supposed to plan on being wet; they suggested closed toe sandals, but I'd have to go out and get those, and these I have).  If I take hiking boots, do I leave behind the sneakers?  Hiking boots are bulky, and I don't want to end up carrying them in my backpack a lot.

Then there's the base layer question.  I love my long johns.  But when I think of putting on long johns for a cool morning, and then ending up at 90+ degrees, I'm going to need to take them off.  But they're always under all the other layers.  At least they're light and not bulky!

Anyway, I'll be afk for a bit.

Meanwhile, does anyone know if sunflowers are self pollinating (or can be pollinated by bees or whatever from their own pollen)?

I planted some sunflowers from a mixed packet of heritage seeds, and I'm hoping I can collect some for next year to replant.  (I've done that with regular sunflowers before, but since I wasn't here to harvest in the fall, I didn't have my own seeds to start this year, so had to buy some.)  This is the only one flowering so far, so it either has to pollinate itself or the seeds won't be fertile.  And I'm not sure all the others are the same species to pollinate one another.  (Are there many species of sunflowers, or mostly different cultivars?  So many questions!  Much more fun to futz around with the sunflower than to get packed!)

And as a side note: I can't quite really believe that a year ago I was getting ready to go spend a month in London and more in the UK.  My mind can't quite wrap around it somehow. 

I've been watching the tour, and when they show pictures, say of Paris, I think, hey, I was there.  And I was, but wow, was I really?  Really?

I've been doing this a lot this spring, especially when I see pictures on TV of castles or cathedrals or whatever, and think, hey, I WAS there. 

Class Status and Racism

I posted last week about the discussion group, and I felt like posting again this evening.  As you may recall, we're discussion class issues, in conjunction with reading bell hooks' book Where We Stand: Class Matters.  Tonight was an interesting discussion.

A person of color came this time, who hasn't been in the group before (I think she was out of town).  It changed the dynamics a lot.  (There's another person of color who's come the whole time, but most of us are white women.)

So, this first timer was talking about how she doesn't get proper class respect from some staff people on campus.

Now, as a white woman, I've learned that I don't experience racism as a person of color does, and I also know that as a middle class person, I'm probably missing a lot of what happens in terms of class disrespect towards other people, too.   So when a person of color tells me s/he's experienced racism, I listen, and I don't respond by saying it didn't happen or that they didn't interpret what happened accurately.  And I try to do the same with class disrespect, too.

But it struck me how very much she was arguing that staff folks should respect her for her class status, and how she talked about their interactions.  She said, for example, that when she "orders" someone to do something, they should do it and not question it.  I'm interested in how she used "orders," here, because it's not something I usually hear someone say.  I don't "order" my students to do X or Y, nor do I "order" the handyman, the roofers, staff people or whatever.  I tend to use "ask."  And when I ask a staff person, I don't tend to be upset if s/he asks a question about it or makes a suggestion to do something a different way.

Another white woman was also talking about how irritated she was that someone didn't show her proper respect as a tenure track person and thought she was an adjunct.

I tried to ask something (carefully worded) about how we were being defensive about our class positions, and that the book really wanted us to question the ways we uphold status and privilege through class, but I didn't get it out right and/or it didn't get taken up.

Another white colleague was trying to ask something that was ignored, so I did the feminist strategy of looking intently at her and (when a pause came up) asking her to repeat her question because I hadn't quite understood what she was getting at.  And then I understood, and it was a really good question, though I didn't have an answer, but then the first timer mis-recognized it (in the, is it Lacanian or Derridean sense, of meaningful mis-recognizing?) and went elsewhere with it.

It's so difficult, sometimes, to think about what was happening. 

I'm guessing the first timer thinks I'm rude, racist, whatever for going back and asking the white colleague to repeat.

Maybe she thinks I'm rude, racist, whatever because I wasn't paying her proper attention?

I'd like to think I'm not racist, or even rude, but I breathe racism along with the rest of the culture, and I don't want to lie to myself about that.

I can't tease out how much of my response to the first timer has to do with me being racist or with me reacting to her personality.

I'm also trying to think about how I expect my own class status to be respected.  For example, the adjunct thing.  Why should I be treated more respectfully than another person based on my job?  based on my degree?  Maybe respect isn't the word?  I mean, on some level, we should all be treating everyone with respect.  But if my job is to do X, and their job is to do Y, then asking for Y shouldn't be a sign of disrespect or a power play.   And my doing X isn't a sign of disrespect.

And yet, I can't say there's no racism on this campus (I've heard stories from every person of color I know here), or that the first timer hasn't experienced racism and disrespect.  But I also felt a sense of disrespect based on class coming from the first timer towards the staff people.   I don't know that one disrespect trumps the other, or outweighs it.

Unfortunately, while I've enjoyed talking with the group about bell hooks' book, and I've enjoyed much of the reading, I don't have a sense the hooks has as many strategies for changing things as I'd like.  I want strategies for change, still.  But not too hard, because I also want to protect my privilege, of course.  :|

Discomfort and Crankiness

I'm working with someone on a big project, but am not the primary author at all.  Still, as we pass the project along to reviewers, I'm feeling a distinct lack of confidence.  I've given the primary author feedback, but I'm really not happy with what's been forwarded to the reviewers. 

It's an odd position, this, for me.  I don't have the power to totally change the project, but I feel like our reviewers will lose respect for me based on what's being turned in.  I have reasons for letting it go forward while less than satisfied, but I also have real doubts about my judgment about letting it go forward.

In reality, it doesn't have to be "perfect" (and it won't be), just "good enough."  But it's on the edge of even "good enough" for me, and I'm uncomfortable about the whole thing.

And I'm cranky that I've put in so much time this summer on something I'm not satisfied with.  I wish I could say "never again," but there are so many complicating factors that I really don't have any control over.

Bump

I finished my 100 miles for the week today, for the fourth straight week.

As I was almost back, on the bike trail in town in a semi-narrow area, I passed a group of kids riding, let by an adult, and swept by another adult, coming my way.  I was going fairly slowly, as were they, and kept an eye out, because though they were riding nicely on the right in a line, they were also riding like kids, a little quirkily. 

I had just passed the last kid when at the same instant, I felt this big bump under my bike and saw something brown.  When I looked back, I saw a rabbit moving into the brush at the side of the trail, dragging its back end (or at least one leg of its back end).

Ugh.  I hit a rabbit.

I'm guessing it had been waiting for the group to pass, and hadn't realized I was coming from the opposite direction, and timed its dart across the path just wrong.

I didn't stop because I wouldn't have been able to do anything for the rabbit.  (I couldn't have caught it, even, I suspect, and chasing it wouldn't have helped it at all.  And even if I'd somehow caught up to it, grabbing a wild rabbit and carrying it on my bike, and then in my car or something?  No.)

I sort of take comfort from the idea that any rabbit uncautious enough to be hit by a bike going 10-12 miles an hour on a heavily used part of a town path is a rabbit likely to be caught by a fox, dog, or something else.

Still, I'm sort of grossed out by having hit a rabbit.  And surprised that I stayed up.

Discomfort in the Discussion Group

A week or so ago, I posted about a discussion group I'm in for which we're reading bell hooks' Where We Stand: Class Matters.  For this week's reading, we read chapters on African American community and race, and on religion.  It seemed to me that hooks was nostalgic about her religious upbringing as a time when the church was central to the community and belonging, and also worked against greed and racism.

In the discussion, pretty much every other woman talked about her church, or searching for the right church/religious community, or something similar.

Except me.  I pretty much kept my mouth shut except when I said that I thought hooks was being nostalgic, and that my sense was that the African American church (as much as one could use "the" there) has been historically unwelcoming of gays and lesbians.  I also added a response to someone's comment about how students go on missions to other countries to benefit the people there, more than to proselytize, by saying that I thought the students went for a number of reasons, including resume building and tourism.

Other than that, I didn't have much to say.

It strikes me that I'm really bad at discussing my atheism.  I don't think these women would have been mean about it or anything, but I'm bad at it, uncomfortable, and tend to avoid it.

Partly, I'm uncomfortable because I don't have a sense of religious feeling or spirituality.  I don't see evidence, and I'm pretty sure if there were a diety out there performing miracles, we'd see evidence.  But I don't.

And in the absence of good evidence, I don't see a need or have a desire for a deity. 

Partly, that has to do with the pain/evil thing.  Why would a benevolent deity give a dog cancer?  I mean, sure, if you really believe that pain and disease of humans are punishment for original sin, but dogs by definition can't commit sin, so why punish them with disease ?  (That goes for all the animals out there that get horrible diseases.  Cancer is not a circle of life thing.)  A deity that would treat dogs (or other animals) horribly is not a deity I would want to worship even if I believed that deity existed.  And if the deity were evil, again, I wouldn't want to worship it.  (And just to say: the idea that a benevolent deity would hold a parents' behavior against a child is abhorrent.)

At the same time, I recognize that a lot of people really feel a need or desire for a deity and are comforted by believing.  I'm not out to attack people for their needs and desires, but I also don't want them trying to attack me for my needs and desires.  But it sometimes seems that even acknowledging that I'm an atheist is seen as an attack on someone else's religious belief.

Sometimes, my atheism seems to be seen as an elitist attack on their beliefs in a way that I'm looking down on them or condescending.  And maybe I am in a way, because I just don't understand that particular sort of need/desire.

It was an interesting discussion, but uncomfortable, too.

Bike, Bardiac, Bike!

I went out for a ride on the trail today, and since I was feeling good, I went hard, and checked my time at 15 miles: 16.7 mph average.

That's the fastest I've gone in a long time.  I kept riding fast, but then I saw some friends, and turned to ride more with them, chatting and relaxing.  It was even more fun.  (That probably says a lot about my biking attitude.  I was happy to turn around and ride a bit with friends chatting rather than pushing to do a time thing.)

Here's some perspective: from May 2007, I rode just under 16 mph.

From October 2008, 17 mph.

And from July 2009, 17.4 mph.

For me, then, this was a really good ride.  I think the bike fit helped.  Certainly, it's even more fun to ride with feet that aren't numb.

I've done just under 400 miles this month (compared to about 450 all of last year), and almost 800 miles so far this year (my goal is 2000).   I'm on a good track to finish my fourth week of 100 miles/week, and I'm really happy about that.

Overwhelmed

How is it that I'm overwhelmed by work and yet it's summer?

And weeds are overwhelming the yard.

I have to read stuff now, and respond.

And then I have to read stuff and learn.

And then I have to read other stuff and learn, and write a thing for the student engagement project.

And then I have to read some other stuff and write a paper.

And then I have classes to prep, and a paper to revise, and SAA stuffs to sign up for.


I need to get up earlier to get a ride in, or weed, or mow before it's too hot, and then work inside when it's hot.  Happily, today isn't too hot.  Nor is the area on fire, and I think this is a good thing.

Am I procrastinating because this thing I need to read and respond to isn't "mine"?  Or would I procrastinate just as badly if it were mine?  (The second, probably.)

Revelation

I just got back from a 35+ mile ride.  It was GREAT.  How great, you ask?  Very!

I usually go out to ride with a rough plan.  I'll choose a route based on wind direction, how I feel, how much time I have, how hot it is, and so on.  Today, my plan was to go out QQ for 15-25 miles; depending on how I felt, I'd turn back at whatever point.

I turned back at about 13 miles (which is where the quieter road hits the busier road, and so it's a good place to turn back and stay on the quieter road).  My feet weren't numb AT ALL, though in the past, they've started going numb at 8-10 miles.    In addition to adjusting a cleat to be straighter and my seat, the bike fitter had given me a few stretching sorts of things to try on the bike, and they seemed to help a lot, but not as much as the cleat adjustment did.

I rode back most of the way, to the point where I cross a bike path, and then because I was feeling so good, and my feet weren't numb, I turned onto the bike path and rode a while more.  When I turned back, I turned more because I was hungry (I stopped on the way back to get a sandwich because I hadn't taken one since I hadn't planned to ride so far) and tiring, and didn't want to get too far out and face a headwind coming home. 

It's so much better to ride without numb feet!  I can't believe I didn't get a bike fitting sooner! 

Now I'm tired, but not sore or anything. 

I loved my bike a lot before, but now it's even better!

Retrospective

I went off and talked to some folks in different stages of their academic careers recently, and it struck me how much I changed in the first couple years teaching (after my phud) and what a difference that made for me in getting a second job.

One of the folks, let's call her Betty, was talking about her work.  She was excited, and the work sounds interesting, but there was something that I can't quite put my finger on that stood out to me as telling: she's still in grad school mode.  (She finished a couple years ago.)

I don't know what exactly it was, though.  And I know for me, teaching as a lecturer helped me learn to talk about my teaching AND my research in much more effective ways.  And during my first tt job, I somehow learned to have totally different conversations about my work and other peoples' work.  The thing is, I wouldn't have believed when I was a grad student, how very much I didn't sound ready.  I couldn't have recognized it until I hit it myself, though retrospectively, I'm pretty sure a couple of my friends were already there in grad school.  (So it's not just a grad school or not thing, or an age thing, but there's some change that happens to most people, and they're in a different mode and it shows.)

I was talking with another old hand later, and separately, and we talked about Betty a bit, and the other old hand had the same impression.

The sad thing is that in a super competitive market, Betty doesn't stand much chance against the people who have made it to the different mode already.  But I wouldn't know how to help Betty change modes, or even how to explain to Betty about the modes.

Have you noticed this phenomenon?  Can you explain it better?

Fresh Start

I had my teeth cleaned today.  It always feels like I get to start anew, in a way, when they've been cleaned and polished.  No problems, just needed a cleaning.

I also went to a bike shop and got a bike fit.  It was helpful, and really interesting.  I wonder at myself at having numb feet after 12 or so miles pretty much every ride, and not getting a fit sooner.  He adjusted a cleat to straighten it (I moved them up earlier in the week), moved the seat a tad up and then down, and then about a half a centimeter back.

I finished my hundred miles for the week inside this evening (since it was raining outside), and the new fit seems to help!

Bourgeois

That's me.

The women's studies folks on campus put together a summer reading group to read and chat about bell hooks' Where We Stand: Class Matters.  We're reading a couple chapters at a time, and then getting together mostly once a week to chat.

The argument in the first bit is that we (US dominant culture) don't talk enough about social class and its effects on people's experience.  I think we talk more about social class than hooks thinks we do, but I see that we don't talk enough about it.  hooks talks about her family background and her estrangement, and asks how much one can hold onto and how much one gives up in moving from growing up poor to getting to the middle class.  That seems like a really good question.  (She makes the point, since maybe you're wondering, that she's already written books with start their analysis from feminist and race-centered positions.  She doesn't ignore either, here, but starts with social class.)

She talks a fair bit about not fitting in at college where she first went, and eventually at Stanford, where she went also.

I found the book a bit repetitive in its argument, but hooks is readable, and interesting, so it was okay.  But I didn't find it especially compelling as far as we'd read.

When folks started talking, though, it made me really think about how bourgeois my reaction was.  Several of the people talked about growing up very poor on this or that farm in the upper midwest, mostly.

I grew up pretty solidly middle class, and very bourgeois, since my family (grandfather, father, uncle) owned a business, and thus owned the means of production.

So mostly I kept my mouth shut.

The best question of the evening was when someone asked how we define "class."  Me, I tend to think in terms of a fairly Marxist definition.  Others not so much.  A few thought more metaphorically, where "class" became about acting in certain ways, or having self-respect. 

We're meeting again tonight, and I've been thinking about the new chapters and about last week's discussion.

I wonder if the folks that talked about growing up on farms grew up on farms that their families owned (or that their families owned with the bank or credit union)? 

How would that play into the Marxist definition?  Does it mean the same thing if you own the means of production and work with that capital to produce whatever it is?  Is there a difference between owning a farm that way and owning another sort of business?



One of the things that struck another person and came up in conversation later was how many of the people in the conversation had grown up and stayed very much in the same area.  In this conversation, at least, geographical movement was tied fairly strongly to having a phd and being on the tenure line (though not completely).   (The sample size is pretty small, too.)


It feels like there's something untold in hooks' narrative about college.  I think she grew up in Ohio, and I have no idea about how public universities in Ohio were in the 70s about African American students.  I know African American students in my home state went to college at lower rates, and had far fewer opportunities.  But I wondered why she'd chosen to go to a private school rather than a state school?

I guess my wondering comes from growing up in a state with (then, at least) excellent public secondary education, to the extent that very few of the kids I graduated high school with went to private schools.  (I can name two that I know of.  Everyone else I can think of who went on went to public schools.) 

I think private schools are more prevalent in some parts of the country rather than others, and maybe offered scholarships more than public schools?

Pain and Doubt

I was reading a longish written piece today, and it was really hard, mostly because it wasn't well written.  In some ways, it was painfully badly written, with sentence, paragraph, and organizational problems.

I procrastinated about reading it (not horribly, but enough to mess up most of the day), and kept getting frustrated as I was reading it.  But I finished and responded.  I hope my response was helpful.

It's so much harder to respond to a longish piece that's poorly written.  Usually, say, in a writing class, you start students with fairly short papers, and while they are sometimes painfully badly written, it's three or four pages of pain.  This was considerably longer.

And those three or four pages, as you're reading them, you think about the most important things to repond to, and the things you'll be teaching the class as a whole, and you try to focus on a couple things, starting with big picture stuff.  But this piece needs to be right, and it's rushed, and it way harder to know what to respond to.

That's where my doubts come in.  I've read papers before where I felt that maybe I just wasn't smart enough to understand, and wasn't sure that wasn't the problem more than bad writing.  This paper wasn't like that.  Instead, my doubts come in about whether I can help this writer to do a better job writing this argument.  I have such doubts about how good I am at this part of life.

I did my best, focusing first on the bigger organizational stuff, and then including the lesser stuff to the extent that it absolutely has to be at least competent.

Now it's late enough that I'm going to put my bike on the indoor trainer, put food in my face, and then spin myself tired.  (The new week starts today, so I need to do 20-25 miles to feel good about my chances for another 100 mile week.  That also has to do with rain potential, and not just whether I can ride 100 miles.)

Reassurance

What with the news lately, I thought I should take time to reassure you that I ride clean.  Well, not really clean, because I get chain tatoos (or "noob marks") just looking at my bike.  How does that even happen?

What I can claim, is that I don't blood dope.  That's assuming that hormonal birth control doesn't count as blood doping.  I don't think a little regular hormones counts, right? 

I do drink a fair bit of coffee.  Please dog that never gets outlawed!

And while my blood has never actually been tested for doping stuff that I know of, the Red Cross tests it regularly (when I donate) for whatever it is they look for, and I either have it (red blood cells, yay) or don't (a variety of testable diseases, boo!), and they keep calling me every eight weeks for more.

Further, my performance on the bike (and elsewhere) demonstrates that I haven't suddenly become a super biker with great endurance or incredible acceleration on hills to drop whomever I'm riding with.  I can't accelerate convincingly away from mailboxes. 

I've also never won a race.  I think it's obvious that I haven't won because I've never actually entered a race, but there may be other factors in play.  The closest I get to "pro" on a bike is putting my sunglass earpieces on the outside of my helmet straps.  (I still have my lawyer tabs and dork discs in place, though I did lose one of the wheel reflectors a while back.)

So for those of you who follow my biking, you can be reassured!  You will have to ride slowly, or you won't be following for long, though.

This message brought to you by the letters E, P, and O, and the dollar sign.

Second Lunch

Do you remember the part in the LotR films (the first one, maybe?) where the halflings are with Aragorn out in the wilderness, and he's trying to get them moving, but they want to stop to eat breakfast.  Aragorn says they've already eaten, and one of them asks what about second breakfast, and then has names for three extra meals?

Today, I had breakfast, then went for a bike ride with a friend.  She invited me to stay for lunch, and fixed this incredible lunch, a really full plate full, and I ate every bit, and it was really, really good.  We chatted a bit, and I went home.  And within an hour, I was hungry for second lunch.  So I had a peanut butter sandwich.  And that was good, too!

I did finish my 100 miles for the week, though, and I still have an extra day to ride tomorrow.  I also went on a short walk/run with another friend in the late afternoon.  (She's trying to get into a habit of exercising, and I'm trying to be an encouraging friend, and also getting some exercise.)

Click!

A couple of days ago, I went to the big city with a friend, and we stopped at a big sporting goods store.  I got a new daypack, to replace the one that's been repaired twice and went to Japan and the UK with me.  I also looked at new biking shoes because since I've been biking as an adult, I get numb feet after a while and it makes biking longer less and less fun.  (I currently have mountain bike sort of shoes that make it possible to walk because the cleat's recessed a bit, but supposedly, they aren't quite as stiff as road shoes.)  It's a pretty common thing, and I've read that having really stiff soles helps.  They didn't sell me new biking shoes, but suggested some inserts, so I got those and changed out the inserts in my shoes.

Then I was looking at web stuff, and noticed that in addition to the changing shoe advice, some advice said to move the cleats back.

So I figured out how to move the cleats back (there are three possible positions on my shoes to screw the cleats in), and moved the cleat on my right foot back.  Then I put the bike on the trainer, and got on and rode a bit.

Typically, my foot goes numb somewhere between mile 8 and mile 12 if I'm just riding.  On a trainer, I tend not to ride for a long while, but ride in 5 mile chunks because, well, because.  (If you've ridden a trainer, you understand, I bet, even if you have more self discipline about it.)  But sure enough, my left foot started going numb.  And neither of my feet was particularly happy about the inserts.

So then after about mile 10, I moved the cleat on the left foot.  The foot was already sort of numbing, so it never did feel quite right, but the right foot didn't get numb!

And yesterday I rode outside, did 22 miles, and my right foot didn't get numb at all.  My left foot started to a bit, but not nearly as bad as usual.  I think riding may get even more fun now!

(I love the way bikers talk about "clipping in" to "clipless pedals."  It's a weird holdover, I gather, from when bikers used toe clips and used to have to reach down and either engage or disengage them to hold or let loose the foot/shoe.) 

Indignity

I was riding along today and there was a sort of minimally painful scratchiness near my nipple.  I itched at it, but I'm not the best rider, so my itching wasn't very effective.  I tried to see down my shirt to see if there was a bug, but I couldn't find one.  I itched again and again.

Finally, I felt a hard pea-sized thing.  But by this time, I was near traffic.  So I gave it a good squeeze through the jersey and bra.  Ewww.

The poor little bug paid the ultimate price for ending up in my bra somehow.  I have no idea how he got in there, but the scratchiness stopped as soon as he did.

What I do for fun!

Marmalade

After or during a bike ride, I love a peanut butter sandwich.  One of my friends was teasing me gently about my love on fb the other day.  It's not the most sophisticated food, but darn, with good bread, it's great.

I have friends who cook.  One of them gave me some homemade marmalade, so I had that on my sandwich, and it was very, very good. 

Weirdly, perhaps, I didn't grow up eating marmalade.  My Mom made wickedly good boysenberry jam from our bushes, and we ate that a lot.  But not marmalade.

But eating the marmalade got me thinking:  why do we have a separate word for a fruit preserve made from oranges?  The others are all jams and jellies (until I thought of apple butter, but maybe that's different?).  But orange, and it's marmalade.

Being a curious type with access to the OED, I started looking stuff up and learned that "marmalade" is first used in the early 16th century in England, a borrowing from Portuguese.  But it wasn't originally used for orange preserves, but for quince.  I didn't even know what a quince was, really (except for Peter), so I had to look that up. 

Originally, marmalade didn't refer to what we call marmalade, a citrus (I learned that there are other citrus marmalades) fruit preserve, but that it was boiled (to get at the pectins in the fruit) and served as block of gel with rosewater.   That doesn't sound nearly as good as our marmalade.

The thing that surprised me, but shouldn't have, was that fruit preserves in general come in to use pretty late, like in the 18th century, mostly.  I think of jam as a sort of old fashioned food, but not so much.  The thing is, you need sugar and a way of sealing up a container to do fruit preserves, and neither was really much available earlier.  If you don't seal up the container, then you have to use it more quickly, I guess.

I would also like to note that "marmalade" has good mouth feel as a word; it's fun to say.  It tastes great with peanut butter, too!

Another Weekend in June, Another Dairy Breakfast!

Dairy breakfast this morning!  They started at 5am, but we didn't get there until 6:30 after a bit of a drive.  Still, I got one of the free mugs for early folks. 

There had to have been several thousand people there when we got there, and way more in line when we left.

This breakfast had scrambled eggs made in huge skillets (with three or four people stirring each from a different side), curds, milk, juice, muffins, and frozen custard over corn flakes with strawberries.  That may not sound good, but it's pretty darned incredible.

I had my picture taken with a dairy princess and everything.  We saw a cow getting really irritated with inexperienced people trying to milk her from both sides at once.

All in all, good food (though not waffles) and a fun mug!

Curtain!

So cool!

Excavators in London have found remains of the Curtain Theater.

I should go back, right?

Goals

I had a goal of riding 100 miles in the first week of June, and in each week thereafter.  So far, so good.  I've ridden about 110 miles this week, and there's still another day. (I may or may not ride; we'll see.)  I also didn't ride every day, since I had the neighbors' dog visiting with me last weekend.

The next goal is for next week.

For the year, my goal is 2000 miles.  I biked 450 miles last year, so that would be up a LOT.  Then again, I was gone part of the biking season walking around London and such.

I've biked just over 500 miles so far, so it's potentially do-able.  But I will be away for just over a week next month.  And then I have commitments to other stuff in August.  So it will depend on a long fall.

My heel is doing much better.  Yesterday, I was walking on one leg tiptoe and the other semi-tiptoe, and then iced them in the afternoon.  Today I'm walking as normally as I usually do.  I think I'll give it another day before I try a short run again.

There's also an article to write, books to read, classes to prepare.  I love summer!

Ouchies

I have twin boo boos.  The other one isn't nearly as impressive, though.  I think I did the initial ouchie yesterday, when I went out to play outside with a friend.  And then we went again today, and I made it worse, probably.  But I may be wrong.  It seemed to hurt right when I started today, but then, it didn't hurt when I rode my bike this morning.  Ice helps.  (That's the bottom of my heel, by the way, just so you're not confused.  And let me say, if you're not very flexible, taking a picture of the bottom of your heel isn't easy.)



MA Misery

We have a small MA program here at NWU.  It serves mostly people who feel geographically located and don't want to move elsewhere along with the occasional person who did a BA here and thinks this school is the be all. 

Our program isn't great, alas.  Part of it has to do with resources, and part with our students.  It's not that some of them aren't capable.  But even the most capable students tend to think of getting an MA here as a part-time thing, so they put it on the back burner, especially after their first year.  That means that they take a partial or full load of classes their first year, and the structure means that they usually get the work done.  And then they're basically told to find someone to write a thesis with.  Sometimes, they have a good idea, find someone, and get right to work, finishing in a year.

But sometimes, not.  Other things get in the way.  And then a couple years go by, and they think, oh, I need to finish that.  Or they get a letter telling them that they need to finish by the next semester.  So they think of something to write on, and do a desperate search for a thesis director.  Then they apply for extra time.

I'm working with three thesis students now.  Two of them are on their final extensions.  Both had extensions before they even asked me to be their director.  And both are desperate to finish. 

The thing is, with both of these two students, they tend to contact someone (me, in these cases) and they want to finish.  And they have an idea, so I give them feedback.  And then six months later, they come back with a half-assed draft of a prospectus or something, and want to get things hopping.  It's not that I'm unsympathetic, and I try to read quickly, but when I hear from someone only after six months, and suddenly they expect me to tell them they're geniuses and doing great stuff when they aren't, I get frustrated.

I think the problem is that my expectations are that graduate work should be a fairly high priority, at least as high for the student as it is for me.  And they have way higher priorities, but still expect me to read and respond to their work quickly, even during the summer (when I'm not on contract, but I am trying not to be a jerk about it).  Further, it's all done longish distance, because they're closer to here than anywhere else, but don't want to arrange to drive 50+ miles to talk about a chapter.

Now back to reading.  I don't know what to say to this student about this chapter. 

I've told the third student that I don't want to hear every six months, but expect more regular contact.  And I actually have high hopes, since this student hasn't gotten anywhere near the point of needing an extension, has done a draft of a chapter, and has a really solid idea.

Academic Cog's Summer Meme

This seems like a fun idea from Sisyphus at Academic Cog!  And where did all the memes go?


1. What is your favorite part of summer?


Warmth.  Wearing shorts and still being plenty warm.


2. What's your favorite quintessentially summer food? Least favorite?

Ice Cream!  Maybe a root beer float.  And Dairy Breakfast!

3. Best beverage to beat the summer heat:

Water from a hose.  I don't know what it is about water from a hose, but it's so good!


4. Least favorite/most annoying thing related to summer?

Knowing that fall is around the corner?  Rain.  Who the heck thought it would be a good idea to have rain in the summer?  (So says a person who grew up in a near desert.)

5. Pick one: the lake /the beach. Why?

Beach.  Because it means there's a coast.  And there's fresh air and sea smell.  And maybe a summer fog rolling in to burn off as the morning warms up.  (Not that lakes are bad, but beach!)  Beaches are best when dogs are playing in the surf.

6. Most amusing summer vacation trip you've ever taken?

Amusing?  I'm not sure.  I think I've only ever been on one summer vacation trip that wasn't pretty darned wonderful, and that was a family trip across I-80 from the Bay Area to Salt Lake City in a car with no air conditioning towing a rented rv thingy.

Among the best: during my teen years, my folks would pack a bunch of my cousins, maybe an aunt or two, and we'd go car camp at a lake and waterski.  Good times.  My bike trip in Yellowstone was also a highlight.  And London last year, totally a great trip.

7. Most ridiculous/cringe-inducing/blush-provoking summer outfit you have seen? (Bonus points if you yourself were wearing it!)

Me in biking lycra.  My not so secret super power is that people laugh.

8. Your absolute dream summer afternoon would be:

Not too hot, bike ride among redwood trees, or even a walk among redwood trees.  Just thinking of the smell fills my heart.  Pine tree smell is also good.  And if I'm dreaming, then there are hills and I absolutely fly up them.

That was fun!  Thanks, Sisyphus!

Political Mail

I got a piece of weird political mail the other day.

It lists my name, along with the names of about 10 people in my neighborhood, some on my street, some on streets near, and then in two adjacent columns, headed by recent election dates, either a blank or a "voted" next to each name.

In the other part of the piece it talks about doing one's civic duty and voting in the upcoming election.

I'm guessing this is something my party put together trying to personalize the voting process and make us think about each others' voting record?  It seems so weird, though.  They wouldn't want to do the "get out the vote" thing for members of another party, and I'm registered with a party through my voter registration.

While the local county clerks obviously keep track of who's voted, I wouldn't have thought that those records would be available to just anyone who walked in. 

I'm sort of creeped out by the mail.  I think there are two reasons.  First, it identifies me to other folks as a registered member of the party, just as it identifies those other folks to me as a registered member of the party.  Second, I live on a street with 9 houses, near other streets with lots more houses, and there is only a small number of names on the list.  Does that mean that only a few of us are members of this party?  Or did they just put in a few on each mailing list?  Are there really so few of us?

A few years ago, I was at a family party and a cousin's wife asked me something about if it was horrible to live in an area that was so not where we're from.  (Yes, people where I'm from are as parochial sometimes as people from anywhere.)  And I said, no, there were great people here, and jerks, just as there were great people and jerks where we're from.  There are really fine people whose politics I disagree with, and there are jerks whose politics are right in line with mine.

And I believe that.   But the attacks on teachers and public employees here have been so viscious and so sustained that I also feel a bit that voting for/with the attackers is personal.  And I'm tired of feeling attacked.

I'm also tired of the emails and mailings I get from my party re-emphasizing the nastiness.

I have friends who've been working dedicatedly on election stuff, and if we lose, I'm sure I'll feel bad that I didn't do more to contribute, but I'm so sick of all this.  And to think that it's going to go on at probably this level and more into November makes me want to wretch.

I'm going to dig up some irises today to make room for some strawberries.  And I'm going to give the irises to some other folks, one a neighbor who isn't on the list, and one a colleague whose politics I'm unsure of.  And I sure as heck hope they enjoy the flowers.

Another June, Another Dairy Breakfast!

  It's Dairy Month, and Dairy Month means Dairy Breakfast!  Belgian waffles, butter, whipped cream, and maple syrup.  Life only gets better when there's ice cream for desert.

Here's a curious calf.  I have a feeling this is going to be veal fairly soon, but I'm not sure.  But s/he sure was curious about my ipod trying to take pictures.

In other news, I'm so sick of politics I could spit.  It's not like all the ads are going to change my mind.  Nor, I think, are most people going to change their minds. 

'Nuf said. 

I'm frustrated by our administrative folks.  I got an email (on a department list) asking for folks who were interested to say so.  I did.  The list sender forwarded my interest.  And then I heard nothing.  So last week, I asked, and found out that I was supposed to have known to send a statement of interest and that the person who sent out the original call didn't bother to contact me or the list sender to say anything.  EFF that.

Then I found out that something I signed up for in part because the call for interest said we would be paid isn't going to actually PAY us, but is going to let us purchase books, technology, or travel.  It may be worth doing still, but I'm not happy that they mislead us.

We had a meeting last week, and had an assignment to do before the meeting.  We were supposed to read some stuff, and write some discussion questions, and then bring in a syllabus for the class we planned to work on.  I spent the morning of the meeting working on the syllabus, basically writing the whole thing, revising a couple assignments, and so on.  And we didn't need any of the stuff after all.  To cap it off, the person facilitating the meeting condescendingly kept saying about how s/he was modeling this or that thing that we should do when we teach.

I wanted to raise my hand and ask if s/he were modeling how to teach students not to bother to do assigned work.  But I didn't.  And I've changed my mind about which class I want to work on for this thing.  And now one of my classes is pretty much prepped for fall.  Bonus for me!

Time to do some reading.

A Week into Summer

Or just over. 

I'm working my way through the Herman and Bucholz and Key history texts, trying to decide which to order for my class.  They're both good reads, for me at least.  But what I'd have my class read in B&K would be about 200 pages, and in Herman about 100 pages.  And that may be enough to help me make my decision because they'll be reading a lot of other texts.

I'm trying to figure out a way to have my seniors do presentations again, but this time more effectively.  I'd love to hear suggestions.  I've had great luck with end of the semester projects in my Chaucer class, but not so much with the senior class doing presentations as the semester goes along.

One thing I think about is how miserably bad most of the presentations were in my seminars while I was a grad student.  But I would like to give my students more responsibility for their learning and more experience leading. 

Here's what I'm thinking of trying:  put students in groups, and have each group lead two shorter discussions, one on a play text, and one on another sort of text.  For the play text, I'm thinking of asking each group to come up with one passage they really want to discuss.  And for the other, one issue they really want to discuss.  Is that enough? 

I'd love to hear ideas or see assignments you've had success with, please.

Help! Good General History of Early Modern England?

I'm teaching a senior seminar on early modern English lit, and I think my students would find it incredibly useful to have a good history book.

I'm a drama person, so a focus as narrow as 1570-1642 would be fine.  A bit broader would be fine, too.  I'm thinking of something along the lines of Wrightson's English Society or Sommerville's Politics and Ideology.  Both of those are a bit old now, and I'm sure there's something better out there to introduce my students to the period in England.

Thanks!

Apathetic?

I'm participating in a campus project on student engagement which starts with reading a few chapters from Barkley's book on, yes, student engagement.  I started reading yesterday.

In the introduction, Barkley talks about being a deanling and then going back to teaching and finding that her students were apathetic and what she'd done well in the past (lecture) just didn't work.  I'm not disputing that.

What I want to ask, though, is: are your students apathetic?

I ask because I wouldn't use that word to describe my students at all.  It's not like they necessarily love whatever I'm teaching at a given moment, but they aren't apathetic in the sense of not feeling or caring. 

If I have a conversation with any student, an advisee, a student in a class, a student checking through my groceries, any student, they reveal pretty quickly that there are things they care a lot about.

When I read my first year students' research essays, they reveal that there are things they care a lot about. 

I don't necessarily care about the same things, of course, but that doesn't make them apathetic.  And it doesn't make the things they care about unimportant or useless.

(Of course, I'd like some of them to care more about writing well, or Shakespeare, or whatever, and that's why I'm working on the program.)

We're supposed to read a few chapters and then go in with some prepared questions, and I'm thinking I'll ask one about student apathy.

What about you?  Are your students apathetic?

(Coincidentally, from what I can figure, Barkley was teaching in a community college not far from where, at about the same time, I was enrolled at a community college.  I wasn't apathetic, but I really don't have a sense of the other students in the classes at all.  We didn't do group stuff and they were all night classes with students who were probably working full time, and we weren't very social as I recall.)

Let the Summer Begin!

I turned in my final grades today.

I sent off the checks for the insulation and roof.

I paid other bills.

And now I'm ready for the summer to begin.

Yesterday, I took my rear wheel to the bike shop and decided to get a new tire as well as a new tube, since the old tire was showing some wear and had flatted the new tube I put in.  And then after I put the bike back in the car, I was sweeping the front tire to get rid of junk, and noticed a hole.  So I took it back in, and after consultation decided that another new tire is in order.  I need to go take the wheel in today to get the tire (they had an order in for Gatorskin tires, which is what I'd had put on the rear).  So, baby gets new shoes!  And for the first time in a while, my tires will match.  AND, Gatorskins have this red sidewall thing, so my bike will look racy even though I don't ride racily at all.

The handyman came to look at the disposal, did a turn on the bottom thing with a hex wrench, which fixed it, and then showed me how to do it just in case.  YAY!

I have a couple of short projects for today, and summer is on!

Next up: prep for a meeting on Thursday.  Deal with the roof shingle class action suit thing and hope I get some money back.  Put in some more plants.  Dinner at the drive in with friends.

I think my blood pressure has dropped 10 points already.

Feeling Lucky

My kitchen disposal died yesterday, alas.  It's like the house is sort of falling apart around me.  At least it's not the walls or somthing!

The bitey bugs, these nasty little gnatty flies that bite like demons, are especially nasty this spring.  I planted some pots yesterday (artichokes and flowers) and again this morning (flowers and stonecrop), and was driven inside after less than an hour.   (Both days I had put bug juice on, and I started by a little after 6am, so it wasn't like the heat of the day or anything.)

I needed something more to do, so a bit after 7am, I went for a bike ride.  I went out a road I've driven once or twice a long while ago (there's a dog kennel out there that my dog stayed at a couple times), but I've never riden out.  It was going great, a bit hilly, but good.  I'd turned back, and on a hill, my back tire punctured. 

I went a bit onto the lawn next to a drive (to get further from the road), and was changing it, but having problems because the new tube wasn't seeming right.  I ran my fingers along the inside and outside, but couldn't find anything sharp anywhere.  I mentioned the bitey bugs before, yes, well, they were out in force.  Then, happily, a very nice, sainted woman pulling a horse trailer with a big pickup stopped and asked if I needed help.  She gave me a ride back to my car, and we had a pleasant chat about spring, the loveliness of the morning, and such.

I hope she has the BEST day possible, because she made mine quite a bit better.  (I would have called a friend to get a ride rather than walk back 6 miles, because I'm that lazy.)  Once I got home, I finished changing the tube, and found out that it wasn't holding air.  I think I must have missed something sharp.

And then we had a downpour, so I was even happier for the ride back to my car.  (It wouldn't have been horrible to ride through, but would have been nasty to walk drenched after.)

One More Stack

That's all!

My bike took me for a lovely ride this morning before my meeting.  It was just great.  But slow.  Oh well.

The meeting went well. 

And now I have one more stack to grade, grades to enter into the spread sheet, and then grades to enter into the campus system.  And then I'm done for the semester.

And what I want to do right now?  I want to go buy some annuals for my yard and plant them.  And I want the yard to be weeded without me having to do it.  (Not likely, but if I weed and then plant the areas I'm thinking of, that will be a good start.)

I have a ton of stuff to do this summer, so I need to keep focused well.

First up:
Grade stack of finals
Enter grades
Submit grades
Read a couple chapters and do my homework for a meeting next week
Read some stuff about composition and come back and tell you what I've learned (that should actually be good!)
Work on a paper
Work on another paper
Prep classes for fall enough to order books


I was in a meeting yesterday for the writing class; we're doing a new program, and it's still in the initial stages.  Those of us interested in participating will do some professional development this summer and then teach the course in a somewhat specified way.  Part of the specification has to do with having a theme.  Most people teach themes that have something to do with their interests.  So, someone who loves to cook might do a theme on food.  Someone who likes pop music could do pop music, and so on.  I was going to do race in Shakespeare, specifically Othello.  But the responses I got from my colleagues were, to say the least, negative.

They thought it would be too limited and boring.  Shakespeare, limited?  boring? 

The thing is, I don't really find most current popular cultural stuff compelling and fun.  I can deal with sexist crap in the 16th century, but I don't like living with it, so I don't engage it when I don't have to.  Yes, that may mean I'm a coward. 

And I don't feel like much of an expert on anything but early modern literature, because I've invested a lot of time and money to develop that expertise.  And I already have a secondary expertise in teaching writing, which I've also put a lot into.  So suggesting that I need to be an expert in something else that will seem relevant to every 18 year old out there frustrates me.  And seriously, if I were supposed to take a themed course on "food" or whatever as an 18 year old, I would have been frustrated.  (I would have been especially frustrated by the food one, I think, because food is such a gender-normed issue, and I really, really resented being shoved into the tiny box of "you need to cook for your family because you have to have kids and blah blah" that I got as a kid.  I'm not saying my colleague does that, except that there's a whole lot of gender norming around.)

So, anyway, one of my colleagues said in passing at the meeting where everyone was frownng about Shakespeare that I should do biking.  And I thought a bit about it, and I am planning to do biking.  (Then another colleague said that if I get someone who doesn't like biking or is disabled, it could be bad.  But that's pretty much true of any theme, isn't it?)

So, anyway, biking.  The idea is to give students a theme and then show them different sorts of rhetorical stuff coming at the theme differently.  With biking, I'm thinking we can think about high end biking a tiny bit, maybe to think about women's biking, or epo, or such.  And we can think about biking in communities for commuting, in Europe, programs like they have in London for bike-share stuff.  And we can think about biking for fitness.  And we can think about biking as a way to make education available in some African countries.  And we can think about materials and bikes, and design.  And we can think about mountain biking and impacts on land usage.  I think there's a lot there, and I DO like biking, and I don't worry about feeling like an expert because, hey, bikes!  Fun!

And maybe I can encourage my students to look at and even use some of the rental bikes on campus.

My bike took me for a ride this morning, and my bike thinks biking is a great idea.  Fortunately, my bike is very supportive.  I smiled a lot on the ride this morning, and that means I won.

Now, on to look at flowers and grading!

Victory Lap

I just finished grading and recording the third of five major piles I need to do before the end of finals.  And I finished this one over a half an hour before I need to go hand them back!

We should get to take a victory lap around the department with our hands raised and everyone else cheering when we finish a pile.  Think of the ends of bike races, when the stage winner raises his or her hands as s/he crosses the line.  We should be able to do that.

And then we're on to the next stage or the next pile.

I've got a class to meet with shortly, and will get a small stack from them, and then a meeting this afternoon, and another meeting tomorrow, and then it's all down to the grading.  At the end, or maybe even before, if the weekend weather is good, I'll take a bit of a lap around my yard and pull some weeds.  Maybe I'll get on my bike again and go for a nice, easy ride.  There will be celebration involved, though it will probably be a bit more sedate than my students' celebrations.

Still and all, a fair number from one class should be graduating soon, and I hope they'll feel that walking across the stage is a sort of victory lap.

Happy end of the semester!

Head Meet Wall

Here's what one student has to say in a final essay:

"Many view [Hamlet] as a dramatic character."

The student means well, but it isn't going well.

Death in the Age of the Internet

Someone I knew only on-line has died.

We met in EQ.  I joined a new (to me) guild after my previous guild broke up when the folks who started it up decided to leave the game.  I was in a place where I wanted to play, wanted to raid casually, wanted that community, but really didn't want the drama that had been part of my former guild.

I'd gotten to know a few people from different guilds, and the one I joined had good people, but of course, it wasn't my familiar guild.  (yet.  It got to be.)

S was one of the guild officers, and a tank, a really solid tank and a better person.  He wasn't flashy, but he was thoughtful and smart and decent.  He fit well in the guild because thoughtful, smart, and decent would characterize most of the people there pretty well. 

I saw a posting on effbee about S being ill, but didn't know what was up until I sent a message to D, a mutual friend, and found out that he was really, really ill.  And then he died.  And now I'm mourning someone I think of as S, when his real name wasn't S at all, someone I've never actually met but knew in this one limited way.

In EQ, death is a pretty frequent thing for avatars.  That's especially true of folks who raid, though probably truer for folks who raid more intensely than we did.  Nonetheless, the game has built in ways to deal with death; you can just loot your corpse and lose experience, or get a cleric to rez (resurrect) you and get some amount of your lost experience back.  (If you lose your corpse, then you lose everything you had on it, but that probably hasn't been an issue for a long, long time.) 

Death is so frequent in EQ, especially on raids, that I remember lots of corpse art after wipe outs; the monks who were dragging corpses would arrange them just so, in lines or patterns, and then take a screen shot before everyone got rezzed in.

But that's not how things work off line.  S will not get a rez, will not loot his corpse, will not wait for the mana folks to start buffing so we can get back to raiding.

Today, there are postings on S's effbee page; I put one up, but it feels weird to do so.  I vaguely recall reading at some point that the company would store the pages of people who died if someone requested it, so that the pages would be available, but given how fleeting things are in the digital age, I don't think that's going to be quite the same as a newspaper record or grave marker.

Good bye, S.  I miss knowing you are in the world being kind, and thoughtful, and decent.

Crash and Burn

Sometimes, you write an assignment and think it's pretty good.  You do prep work in class, and you think it went well.

And then the assignment comes in, and you despair.  That's where I am now.

Here's the asignment:

Research Question and Project - We'll work on developing research questions together. You'll write a research question and turn it in (yes, typed). Then, once I've approved your question, you'll use the MLA bibliography to find one essay that answers your question to some extent. You'll get a copy of that essay (make a hardcopy). Read the essay carefully, and write a one page summary/response to the essay. The first part of your summary/response should summarize the essay (identifying the thesis statement). The second part of your response should explain how the essay answers your research question.


Make sure to cite your essay. When you turn in the assignment, staple your summary/response to the front of the essay. Make sure to highlight the thesis statement (which may well be more than one sentence) on the original essay.

We'll practice for this assignment with the Traub essay, so you should have a good sense of how to do the assignment and what's expected.

We worked with an essay by Valerie Traub, and talked about how to find the thesis, summarize it, and what sorts of evidence it uses and assumptions it makes.

We worked throughout the earlier part of the semester on writing research questions, and I read and gave feedback on their final question.
 
But I surely didn't do something right, because so far a fair number of these papers aren't doing what I was hoping for at all.  Some people chose bits of books rather than essays.  Some chose book reviews; I'm guessing they didn't recognize them as book reviews.  Some didn't really summarize.
 
I either need to revise and rework the assignment extensively or drop it.  I like the idea of the assignment, though.  I want students to read a work of criticism or historical research carefully for what it is, rather than to quote mine in an attempt to find something that "agrees" with their own argument.  But boy howdy, this assignment did not do the trick very well.

Bardiac Gets a New Roof

I've blogged a little recently about getting a new roof.  And now it's getting done.  They started on Tuesday, and I think (hope!) they'll finish up tomorrow.  (They can't work on it when it's going to rain and storm, so that adds time.)

Here's a before picture from the side of the garage.  You can see that the color is sort of browny-gray, and the shingles have this specific look, and they're not in good shape.

And here's the same area, from a different angle.  You'll notice that it's a different color and a really different shingle pattern.

At this point, it would really help if you said that the new color is a great choice, because I don't have a lot of confidence in my choices about such things.

Hopping

I'm having extended office hours today, and it's been hopping.  I've lost count of how many students have come in, but I'm probably onto my toes, or nearly.

A few have come in for specific help, some for reassurance, and one who's lost.  The lost student started later than zie might have on the assignment, and it shows.

I was hoping to get some grading done, but there have been too many students in and out.  I did read two grad student pieces, and sent each an email response. 

And now to some serious grading.  I have just over another hour of office hour scheduled, but I think it's slowing down.  There's a short break right now, anyway.

Is your semester an uphill finish, a group sprint, or a sprint from the breakaway?

(And yes, the Giro was streaming in my office quietly, which caused nearly every student to ask if I understood the Italian commentary.  I don't get much, but I get names and the occasional important words.)

Expectations

I was having lunch and a conversation with a couple of colleagues in out lunch room this afternoon, when a student stopped in and asked if someone had office hours.  He explained that he needed to have someone proofread his portfolio right away before he sent it off, and the writing center didn't have an open slot, so he needed one of us to do it.  None of us jumped up to offer to proofread, but we did suggest that he talk to the professor he'd written it for.  That, it seemed, wasn't possible.  None of us recognized the name he said, so it wasn't someone any of us knew.

And off he went.

I later heard that he walked into another prof's office and put the portfolio on her desk, expecting her to proofread it.  She declined.

I hope he doesn't get to fill out a satisfaction assessment form, because we'll all fail on the "doing everything we can to help all NWU students succeed" part.

Grading Desperation

I'm grading papers, and they're desperate sometimes, and I'm desperate, too.

I need to remind myself that when students are writing to learn, their writing shows it.  It's painful for both of us, I'm sure.

If you don't teach writing (or music), you might think that once someone has learned to write a basic sentence, s/he will always be able to produce a basic sentence.  But that's not how it works.  If a student is grappling with really difficult concepts or learning new material, and trying to write about the new stuff at the same time, basic sentence writing sort of goes to hell. 

You can take a perfectly able, wonderful, great student writer, and send them to grad school where they'll study Derrida, and while they're figuring out how to write about Derrida, their writing will go to hell.  It's not Derrida's fault, nor the students, that's just how writing is.

If I give my students a short writing assignment to tell me about their family or something, they'll all write pretty much in good sentences.  The sentences will work as sentences.  But ask them to learn about something really new and difficult and write about it, and most students will have trouble, and their sentences will demonstrate the trouble.

In an ideal world, the students would take that horrid draft and go to the writing center, come to my office hours, or just get really good help peer editing, and that would help them fix the sentence level problems.  But, since the students are still (at this level) learning about whatever the topic is, they find revision incredibly difficult.  The ones who visited my office a lot with this paper turned out really solid work, unsurprisingly.

But it's also really important to remember that writing about something you're learning is a great way to solidify the learning (just as trying to teach someone about something helps you learn it), so we can't just ask students to write only about stuff that's comfortable.

Still, reading and grading these makes me really want some cookies.

Happy Monday!

XKCD is especially brilliant this morning!

I put out an orange half on Sunday morning, replacing the mangled and very rained on one before, and was rewarded in about half an hour by seeing my first oriole (Baltimore, male) of the season.  I saw the same or another male oriole in the afternoon, and both were going after the orange with vigor!

I sent off an abstract to MMLA, and was rewarded by having it accepted with alacrity.  I'm guessing they haven't had many submissions to this specific subgroup?  Anyway, those who will be at MMLA in November, let's do a bloggy meet up!

Tomorrow, the roofers and insulation folks come to work on my house.

And it's the last week of classes, so finishing up time.  And grading time.  Then more grading time.  So much grading time!

Feeling the Failure

In writing classes, I spend a lot of time talking about and having students practice a couple pre-writing strategies.  We do these in class, because I think they're important and I'm pretty sure that students won't actually spend the time to do them on their own unless they've been convinced by doing them already that they're worth doing.

Today, we discussed strategies for preparing for and writing essay exams.  You might think in the context of a writing class where students have discussed and used pre-writing strategies a lot that students would mention something about using pre-writing strategies to help prepare for and write essay exams.  You would be wrong, at least based on the limited evidence of my class.  I'm feeling the failure.

On one level, of course, I could try to argue that college students have a really difficult time using what they've learned in once class in other contexts.  It's really difficult to do, and students tend not to do it easily or well.

But I'm still feeling the failure.  So, yes, I tried to convince them that actually using the strategies we've been practicing all semester might be useful. 

And I'm really feeling the failure.

Maybe freewriting really isn't useful to most students.

Or maybe they don't take what they learn in one situation and apply it in other situations.

I want to run away and join a circus (where my snow shoveling skills may well apply in other situations).

Summer Plans

We're a few short weeks away from the end of the semester now, and things are heating up.  I'm working on an abstract to submit to the Midwest MLA.  This one's an abstract on a US author, so I'm a little out of my league about it.  But I think the basic idea is good.

Yesterday, I had another guy out to do an energy evaluation of the house prior to all the work of roofing and adding insulation.  I had to have another guy because the insulation company says that the only way to apply for a rebate is to have someone through this specific program out.  They didn't charge me, but I'm sure it's in the total somehow.

This guy, he irritated me.  He was one of those pat the shoulder of the idiot woman types.  And he kept suggesting more and more work.  I'm on edge anyway, since I've dipped pretty substantially into savings to have this work done.  (I know that's what the savings are for, that's why I've been saving, but it's a substrantial dip.  On the other hand, it's so cool that I can sell mutual fund shares via the internet and have the money show up in my bank account.)

Between the house and the paycuts around here, I'm applying for several project things on campus over the summer based on meeting my interests and getting some extra money.

So far I have one confirmed, have applied for another, and am in the process of applying for a third thing.  It's going to be busy!

Disappointed

Administratively, we're bouncing from one problem to the next around here, while things in the classroom are moving inexorably* towards finals week.

There's an administrative person I like.  There, I said it.  We've been known to have a cup of coffee on occasion, before he moved up into the headier reaches.  There were hints of history before my time, but he's a smart, witty, nominally feminist person.

And now I hear he's been having an affair with someone who reports to him.  And that someone?  Yeah, I like her, too, what little I know of her.  We're a tiny community.

What I heard is just that, something I heard.  I don't have real knowledge of it, don't have occular proof, as it were.  But it does fit with the history.

So I'm disappointed.  I'm not the biggest defender of marriage.  Heck, I think we should do away with the governmental privileges associated with marriage.**  But, and I know you're all thinking how naive and stupid I am, I think that if you are married and don't specifically have an open marriage, you should avoid having sex with other people.  There, I've said it.  Keep your pants zipped unless you're with your partner.   Now, I don't precisely know the details of said administrator's marriage arrangements, but I know his partner, and yes, I'm assuming it's not an open marriage.  But maybe I'm wrong.

It reminds me, though, of how much energy and effort get wasted because people can't keep their pants zipped, and how often I'm disappointed by powerful (in a given context) men who can't keep their pants zipped.  Clinton's presidency would have been a different thing if he'd kept his pants zipped, wouldn't it?

I also realize that I've lost much respect for the male administrator, but not as much for the female partner.  In my old fashioned way, I think people with more power have more responsibility.  Somewhere I read recently (Tenured Radical, now that I look, in her review of some books about JFK) about the fine line betwen sexual consent and sexual harassment; that gets at the responsibility, I think.

In other disappointing news, I started teaching The Tempest on Friday, and started by putting up some headlines about it being banned in Arizona, and asking students what's so dangerous about this play that it's banned in Arizona.  It was a good start to the class, but damned, Arizona, banning ethnic studies is utterly inane.  Banning Shakespeare, though?  The good news is that banning Shakespeare is likely to make people who wouldn't question banning ethnic studies question that ban.  The bad news is that it takes banning Shakespeare to make some people question a ban on ethnic studies.  That's called "cultural capital," folks.  And it sucks that ethnic studies doesn't have as much cultural capital as that dead white guy.  I love Shakespeare in all sorts of ways, but learning about people, all sorts of people from all sorts of places is actually more important in the big picture.  Go take an ethnic studies class!



*I originally spelled this "inexhoribly," not as some witty thing, but because my spelling is positively medieval.

**Though I don't think we're going to do that, and if we're not, I think two consenting adults blah blah. But yeah, I resent that married folks around here get up to another 9k in untaxed benefits. And oh so many non-financial benefits.

There's Got to be a Better Way

Here's a typical classroom layout in my building.  The student seating is either at those small, uncomfortable student desks with foldy desk parts or at bigger tables.  The tables are hard to move around, but give students more room for spreading out stuff, which is great for writing classes especially.  Even for lit classes, it's helpful to have room for notes and a text, and the little foldy desks are pretty tiny.  Our classes are usually packed.  We may have a few empty chairs, but few, so students are against both walls and all across (except for the walking space between big desks, which I've sort of indicated here.  (Think of the "student seating" as either indicating several longish desks in rows or lots of small foldy desks.)

Our building was built in the 60s, I think, and the powers that be have done a lot to update and improve classes within the structure that we have.  Since I've been here, we've added desks in some rooms, and also added computer stations, internet access, projectors which work with computers, document display, and a big screen so that you can see stuff from across the room.  The computer station is set up so that a person can stand at the computer and see the screen, which means it's about 3-4 feet tall with the monitor in place. 

All this technology is great in so many ways.  I regularly use the document display and computer stuff.

But except in very rare cases, I don't do powerpoints.  Instead, I write on the board.  I think writing on the board is better for some sorts of information.  It works better, for example, when you're asking students to contribute ideas and want to be open to their order of ideas and to ideas you hadn't thought of.  Yes, I could write on a small piece of paper and use the document display, but the board seems more natural to me (though natural is a crazy word to use for such an artificial environment). 

And now you grasp the problem: the red area indicates the board space that's really usable, that's not blocked from access by the huge screen, by student seating, or not blocked from view by the computer monitor.  (The classes that are more horizontally oriented have better board access, but a lot is still blocked.)

What I'd like to know is how your spaces work, and if you have the same problems or has someone figured out a better way to have all the computer and high tech stuff while still preserving access to board space?  And if you have, can you tell me what it looks like, please?

Thanks!

*Blogger will no longer let me change the size or location of inserted pictures.  Bleargh!

Writing: What We Really Need

We need a book for folks who've never had any training in teaching writing to help them teach writing.

We all sort of know this, that a lot of people who get PhDs in English never took a composition class and never had any training in teaching composition.  As a group, we tended to be the folks who figured out writing more or less pretty early and found it fairly easy, and cruised through the writing part of college.  We also probably loved reading (a likely contributor to the ease with which we picked up writing).

And so, we're exactly the wrong people to teach writing on some level.  We don't struggle with writing the way a lot of students do, and we haven't had to work through steps to getting writing projects done.  We probably struggled with the dissertation, but that's a different thing than struggling with a three page paper on whether you support campus efforts to stop using cafeteria trays.

If there were a book on teaching writing for folks who are suddenly teaching writing in college, what would it look like?  (Is there such a book already?)

Audience:  for English and related fields: grad students, faculty members, others?  What about people who might be getting involved in writing across the discipline or writing within the discipline?


Background stuff, short and positioned, on the current thoughts on "correctness" and writing.  Also, something about how non-linear writing development is, and how utterly crappily we all write when we're using writing to learn difficult, complex, new stuff.

Assignment strategies, specifically for writing assigments that will work well for a college writing class, including research type assignments, and also a variety of writing assignments for writing in and across disciplines.

Grading strategies, omg, there must be a better way than what I've done and it must not involve a machine.

Pre-writing, both strategies and a why do this section: freewriting, listing, bubble-mapping (call them what you will), summarizing.

Teaching critical reading skills, I can't even begin to list this stuff this morning.

Teaching research skills

Proofreading strategies


Should the book include syllabus writing strategies?  Building skills stuff?  What else?

What Do You Do?

Not long ago, a student came into my office and asked for help getting started on a paper for my class.  This is a fairly advanced student, and a really solid student.

I started by suggesting free-writing, and then asked what zie'd learned in hir first year writing class, the one I struggle mightily to teach.   Nope, zie hadn't done free-writing in the first year writing class, but zie was familiar with free-writing from other classes.  So I suggested free-writing about each of the sources or passages zie thought would be important, labelling each, and then using them to create a bubble map.  Nope, zie hadn't done bubble maps in hir first year writing class, but was familiar with them.

I didn't ask who'd taught this person's first year writing class, but zie said that a number of other instructors here have asked basically the same question of the student and been surprised to learn zie hadn't learned these writing strategies. 

My question is, what the heck do you do with a writing class if you aren't teaching them to use brainstorming and other writing strategies?

I don't think I have all the strategies, nor do I use them all well, but I do tend to have my writing students do freewriting in class (because it's the only way I believe I can convince them to actually do it until they learn that it actually works for them, and I know it doesn't work equally well for everyone).  We also do listing, peer responding (to lists and other pre-writing as well as to drafts), bubble mapping, thesis brainstorming, and topic sentence writing.

I know one of my colleagues spends time diagramming sentences, and would probably be shocked to learn that I not only don't diagram sentences, but that I've never even learned to diagram sentences.  (Is that shocking?)

What do you do in writing classes to help your students write?

What are you shocked to learn that I don't do?

And finally, when you're writing, do you use pre-writing strategies at all?

So Tired

I'm just feeling worn.

Today was a non-teaching day for me, but there are student presentations on campus, so I went in to be supportive, planning to have lunch with a visiting faculty member and some colleagues, and then go to presentations from 1 to 4.

Instead, just before 11 am, I got a desperate email from a colleague who's responsible for much of the organization asking me to come to a presentation since there was no one else in the room but her.  So I ran over, literally, ran.  (I'm a lousy runner, but there you go.  At least I can run across campus still.)  By the time I got there, two other people had gotten there, but I stayed.  And I tried to ask a couple good questions. 

That seemed to be my role today: trying to ask good questions.  Unfortunately, I failed at the "good" part, since most of the presentations were on 19th century lit, so I'm not as up on stuff.  So the questions I tended to ask were mostly beyond the students' experience.  I wasn't trying to be mean, but I think I seemed that way.  And since I was sometimes the only person trying to ask a question, it probably didn't feel great to the students.

Last year, I had one class do presentations in groups, and had ten groups.  It was overwhelming.  This year, I didn't do that.  I haven't figured out how to give an assignment with two options, one a presentation and one not, in a way that is about the same amount and level of work for students and which I can grade well and fairly.  But that would be ideal.

There's a bit of disagreement about the student presentation program.   No faculty member wants to take it on (and the current person is ready to be done after several years of good service).  But some people have strong ideas about how it should be run.  Unfortunately, they aren't people who've had classes do presentations (in recent years) or who attend presentations, but they have strong opinions and are very critical of what's been done of late.

After I finally got back to my office, I started printing out an assignment that students had turned in electronically.  Along the way, I noticed that about one third don't have names on the assignment.  Now, I know from the students' point of view, they know who they are and don't think everything needs a name.  But from my point of view, well, I send stuff to the printer, and then I go to the office where the printer lives and pick it all up, and I don't want to go back and have to figure out which person attached which file for the whole class.  (I won't.  I'll grade them, and ask students to claim them and put their names on when we meet next, and then I'll collect those again and record them.)

But at this point, I feel defeated by this place in all sorts of ways.  (There's all sorts of craziness coming out of the fort and capital, all of which adds to the feelings of defeat.)

Aunt for the Win!

I usually have a lot of difficulty thinking of good presents for my niece and nephew. They're middle class enough to get all of what they need and most of what they want, and don't seem to have a lot of desires for stuff just to have stuff.

It's actually a lovely combination, but tough for an aunt.

My niece has recently decided that she wants to go to a certain university. It's a fine school.

So I got her a t-shirt with the logo and name on it for her birthday. She found an excuse to put it on last evening (I got here after dinner and gave her her present after dinner). And this morning she had it on again when we went out.

I win at being an aunt!