The Doctor Isn't

Single in Academia

2011-10-05T15:59:00.002-04:00

I can't imagine I have any readers left, but in the case that I do, I came across this and it seemed like it was something that many of you - like myself - might find it worth a read: it's a piece from Antenna about being single in academia.

Hope you're all well. Enjoy.

The Last Blog Post

2011-05-01T15:33:00.004-04:00

Wow, look at the cobwebs here.

Sorry to have neglected this place for so long. Sadly, it's a bit of virtual/intellectual real estate that's only going to be further abandoned. I'm in the slow process of starting up a site that is a more public face (complete with real name) to help deal with an increasingly competitive field, and since I didn't have the focus to do this one justice, I know I won't have the focus to do two of them any service either.

And that's a shame as this was a damn good time. And a new "real name" blog won't allow for nearly the snark this one did (though I bet some still sneaks through). So thanks, dear readers, for the good times. Maybe someday I'll get with it enough to juggle two blogs - or, more likely, I'll find the need for sarcasm that the stodgy professional spot just won't allow.

Til then...

Irritate Your Prof - a MadLib

2010-09-17T19:55:00.003-04:00

In order to fill out the story below, please provide the following:

Name of your major
Name of another major or department which feels like the opposite of your major
keyword which has is mentioned in the course description and in every lecture so far
keyword which has never been mentioned in this course's syllabus or lectures so far, related to your major
Noun
adjective
Proper name
Your favorite letter of the alphabet

When you have those answers for each of those, fill them into the story below and e-mail it to your professor, for much hilarity. They'll love you, I promise. And if you feel like it, you can post your answers in the comments, too! What fun!

Hey __________ (5),
I am writing because I have a question about your class. I was under the impression the course would be focusing on __________ (4). But we're now several weeks into the course, and I think the course may be focusing on _______ (3). I am feeling _______(6). I'm a _________(1) major, and thought this course would be useful. My friend, _______(7), said that only __________(2) people would find this course interesting or useful. Is there any chance you'll change the course so that it works better for those of us in _______(1)?

Thanks! See you in class.
______(8)

North American Calendar Possum

2010-09-16T22:14:00.004-04:00

I'm supposed to be writing. Well, editing and adding. Whatever.

Today's the first day in the new term that I've managed to get completely to myself, free from anything but chores and what-not. Naturally, I have ridiculous writer's block, even though I'm editing and adding. Or whatever.

I made the leap at the start of the term to keep better track of my schedule. I'm on a Mac, and I have an iPhone, and it all syncs up nicely, so why not put stuff into the calendar since my school finally has a set-up allowing Macs to connect to things like campus e-mail and such? And I've been dutiful about it, thus far, making sure to plug in events. I've also been trying not to say no to invitations out.

Only now opening the calendar is enough to paralyze me for awhile. I should at least have the decency to fall over and play dead or something when it happens instead of just standing stunned, waiting for the shoe to drop. But no!

First off, I hate that I've hit a point where I can't remember all the details myself anymore. I'm consoling myself that isn't that I'm getting old, but rather that somehow there's more stuff to keep track of. But second, that level of organization feels more than a little confining to me. It was the fascists who wanted the trains to run on time, after all. This much order in my own life feels confining. Certainly, I like a bit of it - no doubt there are folks reading who are laughing a little to themselves thinking of all the amusing moments where I like to impose rules on myself and others. Still, I like the chaos, too (I'll take a picture of my desk sometime if you don't believe me).

So that's the start of the term. My classes are going well, though I'm still struggling to get enrollment for them, but I'm getting there. And if I can get this writing thing (well, editing and adding...whatever) under control, it won't be so bad at all.

Sí se puede

2010-09-06T14:53:00.002-04:00

Happy Labor Day, everyone!

Remember that without unions and laborers, you'd likely have been working 80 work weeks since you were children for scrip. And don't forget that there people who still are working those long weeks as children from scrip.

And so it begins again...

2010-08-28T21:40:00.004-04:00

There is not much to be enjoyed at the start of a new term, truth be told. For whatever reason, the number of meetings that are crammed in to the first two weeks are ridiculous. And, of course, there are the panicked e-mails from students which are like a slap in the face after a quiet summer. And yet, I'm still having a bit of fun here at the start of the second year. Most of it, though, is happening off-campus.

Need a couple things to enjoy? There's the joy that is @feministhulk on Twitter. And I've finally, after years, paid for the full membership to LibraryThing and have been taking the pleasure that only a nerd truly can in cataloguing all sorts of things. Don't be surprised if you see movies and video games appear in that little box towards the bottom of the right-hand column. But mostly I've been plugging along at book edits, and hoping there are no more calamities that get in the way before I can ship the whole thing off to my (rightly-so) agitated editor, and making sense of the conferences I want to head to this year. Among them are one in San Antonio, New Orleans, and maybe Athens, Greece. We'll see how it goes.

You're Leaving on a Jet Plane...She's Not.

2010-07-30T08:17:00.000-04:00

Continuing with thinking about the trip, there are a lot of good bits to remember.

I found myself running through the best stories from the trip with a friend on the phone last night - most of them involved airport travel or Americans abroad - and other than running into my old undergrad adviser unexpectedly - the best story happened on the flight back, as I was making a plane change in Shannon, Ireland.

In front of me, stood two American recent college grads - a boy and a girl - and they were chatting each other up in the way that American college kids do (you know, with the assumption on at least one of their parts that if the conversation goes well it equates to them likely hooking up later). And so I hear them swapping travel stories, trying to one-up each other with where they've been or how much they've spent or how long they've stayed. And then flight begins to board.

They call for the first round of regular boarding, and the two kids begin to head towards the ramp, with the girl remarking she's not in this boarding group (evidently the conversation is going well). Neither is particularly bothered by this, no doubt assured by their recent college graduate status and certain sense of entitlement that might come from age or from being American or from having been through so many airports. The boarding guard, an Irish gentleman in his middle years, balding, takes the boy's ticket. Then the girl's. Then he hands it back.

"It's not your time to board."

The boy, feeling his victory close at hand, goes for the kill, no doubt wanting to show both his entitlement and the level of cool control, "Oh, it's okay. She's with me."

The boarding guard looks him over for just a second, sizes up the situation, and says with just enough sense of sarcasm and finality that every young male in the room would've winced and cupped themselves, "Not any more she's not. Get aboard, please."

And with that, head hung in defeat, our young protagonist was left to head alone down the jetway, his dreams of summer fling put coolly to bed. And I must say, seeing it, and hearing the Irish accent and the sarcasm saying it, made the many walks through security well worth the trip.

Reading While Traveling

2010-07-29T10:55:00.005-04:00

I read a bit while I was abroad, and thought I'd mention here, by way of catching up a bit, what I ran into and what I enjoyed. So here's the list:

One Day - David Nicholls
Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann
Juliet, Naked - Nick Hornby
Cultural Consumption and Everyday Life - John Storey

Of them, I'd recommend the first three, with strongest marks going to Let the Great World Spin (I'm sure, not surprisingly), though One Day reminded me a bit of what would happen if you mixed the drama of The Time Traveler's Wife with a Nick Hornby book, and the Nick Hornby book saw him finally returning to the other thing that made High Fidelity such a great book (not the angst of a male lead his both something of a fuck up and a success, though that's there, too): music as a center piece.

As for Storey, it's intended as a history of the idea of cultural consumption, but the history itself feels a bit light. Entire areas are set up as straw men, based on one or two citations, and dismissed in a couple of paragraphs. It made for interesting "in the shade at a conference" reading, but overall, it was a bit disappointing, I thought.

I should probably also note that I'm about 120 pages into A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book. I like it, though I do think sometimes an editor could stand to weigh in a little more.

And then, a reminder

2010-07-21T19:36:00.004-04:00

I was, more or less, a fuck-up as an undergrad, trying to manage more than I was capable of: a girlfriend I wasn't happy with, two or three jobs, money home to the family (sometimes from student loans), being young and away from home for the first time, and, oh yea, school.

That I made it out of my undergrad career with a degree is perhaps not a miracle, but certainly a testament to will and patience - some of it, even mine.

One of the good bits, though, was that my undergrad adviser actually saw something in the mess that I was, and pointed it out when he could. I wouldn't have imagined being able to go to grad school - a time I'm not ashamed to admit will probably be the glory days I compare other things to for the rest of my life - without that. And for all the things that keep me up at night - fucked-up family, approaching 40 with the potential of looming genetic time bombs, a mountain of student loan debt - I've got a pretty good life that's come out of it.

I say this because, by happenstance, as I was wandering to get a drink of water between sessions in the conference I'm attending overseas, my undergrad adviser spotted me out of the crowd and came over to say hello.

It was nice to be able to say a quick thank you, and to be reminded of one of the things I have to live up to in my own interactions with students.

On Being Abroad

2010-07-20T19:04:00.000-04:00

"It struck me that distant cities were designed precisely so you can know where you came from."
- C. McCann, Let the Great World Spin

I Write Like...

2010-07-14T16:45:00.001-04:00

And while I'm killing time in the hotel room, waiting for the rain to stop...

I write like
Ray Bradbury

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Overheard at the Museum

2010-07-14T15:41:00.005-04:00

Don't worry - I'm not going to do nothing but strange, semi-sarcastic guides. I've got other tricks of banal humor to use while on vacation.

For example, today at a museum, I overheard an exchange between a man and a woman (both American, judging by their accents) while looking at an Andy Warhol. It went like this:

He: So this is Warhol, huh?
She: Yes! Awesome isn't it?
He: Uh, I guess. I don't get it - what's with all copying of labels and stuff?
She: It's a statement.
He: Of what?
She: Just let me take your picture by the stupid thing.

Already hurt by this irony of the exchange, it was then that I saw - as he turned to have his picture taken by it - he was wearing a Superman "S" t-shirt.

Guide for Americans Abroad on the Day of a World Cup Victory

2010-07-11T18:24:00.003-04:00

Recognize that there are some things bigger and more popular than anything your country produces.
Decide whether this makes you want to get on the bandwagon and/or expand your horizons or whether you want to try uncharacteristic anti-establishment thinking and/or passively grumbling that you don't get it.
Take comfort in the fact that people from your own country aren't the only ones who lose any sense of public shame or consideration when their team wins. But only a little comfort. And cold.
If forced into conversation, to minimize lack of knowledge (due to being at conference, lack of interest, etc.) simply mumble "Some refs, eh?".
Wear earphones - the honking, cheering, and singing might go well into the night.
Day after, claim blisters that are making you hobble developed somehow while you were running victory laps long into the night. Don't admit they were from getting lost and finding yourself in the meatpacking district.
Buy a drink or accept a drink when offered. It's the right thing to do.

Guide to Conference Attendees Who Have Already Presented

2010-07-08T16:01:00.003-04:00

It's never too late to mention your research.
Always wait at least two hours after presenting your research before savaging another presenter. This lessens the likelihood they'll remember the flaws in your presentation.
Interrupting signals not just how much you care but how important your own work is.
Don't worry if they can hear you talking in the hallway.
Your cell phone ring is endearing and witty. Please, please, do let it ring a little longer.
Feel free to generalize about the academic work of people from other schools, genders, or countries. The bigger the generalization, the more insightful.
Always wait two hours after savaging another presenter before going swimming. You'll get cramps.

Guide to Travelers with Cameras

2010-07-07T17:08:00.003-04:00

Be prepared to wait for the shot. It will be worth it.
Remember what it feels like to wait for the next kiss after the first one. That's what shooting with film is like.
If there is a fee to climb on top of something, it is almost always worth it.
Bring band-aids to aid with the blisters.
Expect a ratio of one good photo per roll. This is a better ratio than you will manage in almost any other aspect of your life, so don't bitch about it.

Like All the Great Airplane Disaster Movies

2010-07-06T17:58:00.004-04:00

Somewhere just before we over the truly deep open water, the five year old across the aisle from me began to experience the joys of a tender stomach. Funny how well the sound of a five year old retching fills an airplane at 11:12 at night. He probably had the fish.

It was then that I realized I'd left my journal at home.

The trip was not going particularly well so far. On the way to the airport, someone wasn't thinking about how public transport tends to lurch and, so, grabbed the pull handle on my luggage to steady themselves. They broke it. There's not really an easy way to address this on the way to an airport: you can start to have the argument, but everyone knows you're on a deadline. And worse, they can always jump off with a shrug and a sorry at the next stop. What're you going to do? Miss your transatlantic flight?

Because of the drama at home, I was already operating from behind. I have two conferences to hit, and two presentations to give, plus a panel to moderate, and I've got very little done on most of that (okay, I've got a PowerPoint mostly put together for one of them).

Still, I'm here now, and it's much cooler than being back in my apartment, plus my family can't reach me except by e-mail (which I'll only have sporadically) for the better part of two weeks. It is, as they say, sweet bliss. Except of course for having forgotten my journal, being unable to actually pull my giant piece of luggage through one of the largest airports in the world, and having to listen to four hours of a five year old hollowing himself out into a bag at 37,000 feet.

Reading in the Terminal

2010-07-05T17:50:00.002-04:00

"[he] lay stretched out on a bench as above his head three yellow butterflies danced. Angels, I thought, willing for a moment to give the world the benefit of the doubt."

- C. Smith, Three Delays

In Order of Importance...

2010-06-30T20:09:00.003-04:00

Today, I received an e-mail from an incoming student, asking what they can do to prepare for my Fall term class. Earnest, hard-working, painful. Is it two days before the term starts? Oh, how I laughed and laughed.

Roughly speaking, here is some of what's on my mind, in order of importance, and where my Fall term class ranks.

1. New socks which promise no blisters for my European jaunt starting next week
2. European jaunt next week
3. Presentations for conferences in Europe that need to be ready by next week
4. Papers to be turned into presentation for European conferences that need to be ready by next week
5. Why key lime flavored yogurt is so awesome
6. The answer to 5 probably only makes the yogurt unhealthy
7. How long I can continue to go without registering my car in the state I moved to last July
8. Why "How I Met Your Mother" seems to be on every night on CBS?
9. puppies
10. what to do on the 4th of July
.
.
.
12,492. Fall term course that needs to be prepared

You'd be surprised just how far down the list my Spring term course falls. Aside from trying to explain what an article review should do, this may be the toughest e-mail to answer ever.

First Year Progress Report

2010-06-21T21:22:00.003-04:00

Somewhere along the line, this blog forgot a few things: first, that it's a blog (see the giant gap in posting over the last several months), and second, that this has been a big year for things other than personal drama.

I'm almost at the one year anniversary of the move to the new job. And while there have been a lot of personal hurdles this year, the new job has been stellar.

The folks I work with, while high strung and needy as any department might be, are also by and large really nice people. Everyone who's invited me for dinner or drinks has turned out to be someone I like to have dinner or drinks with. They don't quite get what I do in some cases, but they've not dismissed it, and in most cases, they're open to hearing about it. Very impressive considering the idea of multidisciplinary stuff wasn't on their radar even when they hired me.

There's funding. I'm about to launch off for my summer conference fest, and I've been to at least three conferences this year. I've got a teaching release coming up, which will make my teaching load a 1/1.

That's right. A 1/1.

Read it again. I'm okay with rubbing it in. Take a few minutes and grumble. I'm okay. I've got time. 'Cause I'm going to be on a 1/1, suckas!

The new town is better than the old town. There are people here. With interests other than hockey (though the sports fans here are still ridiculous). And there's Thai food that can be delivered to my apartment anytime I want. And it doesn't equate "vinegary" with "spicy" as in some places. I've got friends who, even if they do mostly teach at universities, at least don't all teach at my university.

So, for those of you who've wondered: the first year gets an A-.

Updates and Carry Ons

2010-06-20T14:57:00.003-04:00

I should note, first, for the record that I'm back. Second, I must say thanks for all the kind thoughts and support, which did help more than I can adequately express.

I did what I could, which wasn't as much as I would like. And then I left, knowing that what was left to be done had to be done by my parents, that it would require them to want to change things themselves. I do not have high hopes for these changes to ever happen. The last visits to my mother in the hospital were tense. On multiple occasions, they devolved into arguments at the thought that some her precious things were being moved. Worse, that some of them might simply not be there.

There's something to note about the logic of hoarding that allows it to completely ignore considerations of the laws of thermodynamics. Somehow, it seems to say, that if you just twist things the right way, everything will fit even though there's only a prescribed about of volume to be dealt with.

I brought back with flea-bit ankles, smoke-filled clothing to be washed, a sense of guilt that I was abandoning my parents - particularly my mother who will have to use a walker for quite awhile - to an inevitable accident, and the secret fear that I'm becoming a hoarder, too. Do I need all these books? These CDs? Is the comfort I take from old photographs just the start of these things? Or am I just a slob? There's a feeling of lingering depression, too, that I can't quite shake. I feel like I'm going through the motions at the moment, and little things that I can usually shake off - like someone pointing out that my eyes shake, particularly when I'm especially focused - cut me to the core.

I've taken the weekend to focus. No work: just visits with friends, swimming through the humidity, sleeping late in bed, reading and listening to music. Thinking about what I can possibly throw out. Do I need a couch? Is there a reverse condition to hoarding? I remember thinking at some point that there should be opposites to every medical condition. I wish, for just a moment, that I had the opposite of hoarding. That I needed more space around me. But then I think that's probably how people wind up in cabins in Wyoming or Idaho, and that's never a good way to start.

Inspirational Speeches

2010-06-13T15:42:00.002-04:00

In all the old movies where the hero is leading a group of people away from danger, there's a moment where fatigue sets in and morale begins to falter. Whatever they are running from is, of course, immune to such things and gets inexorably closer. Usually at this moment, our hero makes a speech that recharges the motley group to dig a little deeper, to keep moving and survive.

I imagine there's a good psychological thriller on hoarding for someone who wants to write it. Or at least a really fucked up young adult novel about going to grandma's house and being swallowed up by the mess she thinks keeps her safe from whatever her personal boogie man is. The climactic scene could have our lead character trying to reach a garbage bag. Or the front door. Or even a Broom +2 for all my gamer friends - you know who you are. And the junk, maybe even the walls would be reaching out to take them. That's when the speech would have to happen.

At least now is when it has to happen here, because that's what it feels like is happening. I'm headed back later in the week, and while victory seems impossible, a stalemate would be nice. Otherwise it feels like just going back to wait for some awful accident.

Things

2010-06-11T19:17:00.001-04:00

My sister called.

"How's the cleaning going?" She can't come help - she's more or less banned, and no one really trusts her. From my perspective, she's like inviting a little black rain cloud over. One that'll hit you up for cash.

"It's fine," I said. "As good as can be expected."

"If you're throwing stuff out, I'll take the Egg Chair."

There it is. It's the second reference since I've been here. I blame myself for expecting subtlety. It's never happened before, so I don't know why it would happen now.

My family is fixated with things. Once, when I was visiting my grandmother, just months before she passed away, I was sitting at her bedside, having a great conversation about when I'd stayed with her as a child. My uncle appeared at the door and asked - interrupting the conversation - gestured at the things in the room and said, "What would you like?"

"Just more conversation, thanks," I replied. "And maybe a Coke.".

The other evening, visiting my mother, she informed me my younger brother wants the portraits of our grandparents. I didn't know what to say. Evidently, she expected a fight.

"They're just things," I said. "Let him have them."

The Trip, So Far...

2010-06-07T17:34:00.001-04:00

Imagine a centipede that's six feet high in steel-toed combat boots. Imagine it has a sense of irony.

Say casually, as if to no one at all, "I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

Wait and see.

Confession

2010-06-06T03:53:00.005-04:00

Time is a little fuzzy right now.

Sometime a little more than a week ago, I flew home because my mother had to have emergency surgery for infections on her spinal cord.

Sometime, about a week ago more or less, my oldest friend's father died.

Sometime between then and now, my father decided that - to help with my mother's mobility when she got home - we needed to redo the floors in the house in addition to trying to clean and move things about.

My mother, have I mentioned, is a hoarder? My father, by the way, enables this.

My older sister and my mother have a rotten relationship in which each takes anything the other does as a personal affront. Also, my sister has a tendency to steal from or take advantage of my parents. My younger brother is 30, lives at home, and previously owned nunchucks. Neither are useful for anything like helping.

For example, when my sister heard my mother was in the hospital, she called me, 1/4 crying, 3/4 angry, because when she'd asked a nurse for information the nurse told her she wasn't authorized.

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR MOTHER SAID?" she screamed into my voice mail. "SHE SAID SHE DOESN'T HAVE A DAUGHTER!"

After a 30 second rhetorical analysis, it was revealed that in fact my mother had not talked to my sister, being unconscious from pain pills and two incisions into her spine. But instead, the nurse had said there were three people authorized to get information: my father, my uncle, and myself.

Sometimes my sister misses the point.

Also, she didn't notice how she said "your mother."

The funeral for my friend's father is Monday morning at an hour which only proves my theory that nothing good happens before 10 a.m. As a child, I spent essentially every weekend at my friend's house, as the battle between my sister and parents began when I was fairly young, and the need to mediate wore out even 8-year-old Curmudgeon. His father was the picture definition of terse. We used to joke about him talking like Yosemite Sam, but he never actually let on if he was rightly annoyed that they had essentially adopted me on the weekends.

My friend took care of his father at home for several months as he battled cancer and a hip replacement.

He also did this for his mother a few years back.

He's my hero.

Tonight, after cleaning up several bags of trash that were not even a dent in the already metaphorical crater that is my parents house, I found myself angry. Angry that I get claustrophobic in the house I grew up in. Angry that bags and bags of trash didn't cut into the boxes and boxes of useless shit that litter this place. Angry that I have possibly done something to my right rotator cuff (a friend's diagnosis) in the process of shifting crap around but not actually getting rid of most of the problem.

Angry to the point that I don't particularly want to go see my mother tomorrow even though she's more or less confined to bed in a rehabilitation facility and most of her God loving church friends stopped turning up two days after she got there. Angry at myself for feeling that way. Angry that I took a job intentionally knowing it was away from my family because after 10 days here, I begin to get claustrophobic and antsy and feel bugs which probably aren't quite so imaginary crawling on me, and yet I feel guilty about it. Angry that I'm not quite the good son my oldest friend is, who found it in himself to clean up his parents and potentially lose his job and who just lost his girlfriend and yet kept on and said, like a made-for-TV-movie hero-to-be, "I just keep on."

I'm tired.

I've Nowhere Else to Put This

2010-06-05T14:08:00.003-04:00

List of items discarded in mad attempt to slightly de-hoard my parents house while my mother is away recuperating from spinal surgery:

paper grocery bag of expired Jello mixes
30 year old dead-beat brother who lives at home's nunchucks
books titled "Clean House, Clean Planet" and "Unclutter Your House," both so dusty their titles could not be seen.

I suspect it will only get worse. Also, I'm discovering a latent allergy to dust.

Food for thought:

2010-05-12T12:47:00.001-04:00

I'm loaded.

It's official.

I'm the 54,564,013 richest person on earth!

How rich are you? >>

Traumatized

2010-04-05T20:24:00.003-04:00

So I decided to order a CD a friend recommended to me awhile back - the eponymous album by Year Long Disaster. I had a gift card; I made it happen.

"It's got a Zeppelin feel," he said, "without sounding like a Zep cover band who decided to try writing a tune or two of their own."

How could I not try it? Especially when the term's sprinting to a close, and I'm finding myself confused on a almost daily basis about how many classes are left and what's due, etc. Clearly, I need some sort of reward for making it through almost a full year at the new job.

And today, the package arrived with not one but two copies of this.

The....horror....

This Should Probably Be Two Different Posts

2010-03-31T20:12:00.010-04:00

Holy hell, how did the term get this far along and who is responsible for all this garbage to be graded?

Still thinking about multidisciplinary departments. Somewhere, I've got notes on it for a longer blog post so expect that someday there will be more on it. It seems to me that this is part of a longer historical trend in (at least American) education. I think the "studies" departments (ethnic, gender, global, American, etc) probably are some good examples of them, and how they've coped with the nature of juggling multiple disciplines is something other departments are having to start thinking about.

---

Is it wrong that I'm finding all the enjoyment I had of the band She & Him sucked away by Zooey Descanel's crooning in a commercial for the cotton industry?

Similarly, what's with all the angst towards latte drinkers lately? As a non-coffee drinker, I'm usually glad to see smug java drinkers taken reminded that a beverage won't make you cool. I mean, how man conferences have I been at where there was nothing for me to drink at breaks but six kinds of java? I've choked down the rage, and that's tough when your through is parched. Even so, I find it interesting that coffee drinking has become a sign of fiscal irresponsibility. I'm intrigued to see that idea starting to crop up in commercials from Denny's to Jeep. Am I really meant to believe that somehow drinking a latte makes you more of a twit than running out and buying a new Jeep so you can get groceries?

"Nobody exploded" - on Classroom Observations

2010-03-17T16:08:00.005-04:00

Middle of the week, office hours, too many colleagues ducking their head in to focus on a music post - maybe that was a bad idea. Just to be nice, though, I'll toss you a little border radio sounding gem that I've been enjoying lately: "My Sugar Blue" as performed by the Texas Tornados.

For as little as I'm trying to get done today, it feels like things are pretty hopping. Maybe that's because I just printed up paper copies of my Google calendar so that I could make notes.

This post picks up the thread of evaluation related worry started here and continued here.

My class observation is done; I don't ever have a sense of how they went, and when people ask, my response is usually something like the title of this post. We'll see what happens when the written report comes my way. The one comment we did get to after the initial observation came down to the question about class discussion. I felt like I had a lot of it, while trying to balance making sure that the students got a good springboard for how some of the big ideas have been used and defined. I suppose, at the end of the day, it'll all be fine. It's not like I haven't done this before - or been doing it for years now before this job.

Still these observations feel like a big deal.

What's been good in the observation process here - so far, at least - is that there's been the opportunity to talk about what I see as the strengths and weaknesses of the class and of my teaching style. One of the things that was a little frustrating at previous institutions was Navy SEALS approach to observations: observer parachutes in, observes, and reports back all under the cover of night and with as little record of their passing as possible. Sure, there was the option to respond, but it wasn't a discussion so much as a deposition. And it was an option that always felt a bit of a danger to actually exercise: are you being combative if you respond?

What I'd really like is for someone to come in and see how I set up a class and then to check in later in the term to see whether what's happening fits the model I gave. I try to be up front with students about who I am and how I teach, and it seems like in the consumer/contract model of universities and course design that we see today, that needs to be factored in somehow.

I try to couch student evals in a similar way. When it comes time for them to be completed, I let the students know, up front, that I assume they feel like there is too much reading and that it's a difference of opinion I'll always have with students. In the current class, I warned them there was going to be a heavy reading load, in part because the course needed some legitimizing externally: it's bad enough students look at the title and see "CAKE;" I can't afford administrators doing the same. But it would be interesting to hear how evals might be weighed differently if the third party considering them knew the set-up of the course rather than just the repetitive student refrains we all know and love.

Evaluation in a multi-discipline department

2010-03-13T16:55:00.003-05:00

The day's pretty miserable here, though that's alright. It's been ages since I've posted two days in a row, but today seems like a good time for it. I've got my second in-class evaluation happening next week, and I need to prep for it.

One of the things that is making life interesting here is the realization that I'm one of a few folks who recognizes that this is actually a multi-disciplinary department. That realization, if it happens, is going to be horrifying for some folks (most notably some of the tenured folks who were here back in the day). I knew it coming in - it was part of the attraction - but I also thought everyone here knew it, too. More than once this year - and I'm sure I've commented on it in the blog at some point - I've found myself thinking "didn't they read my CV?"

I've been thinking about this multi-discipline problem as a sort of theme that would likely guide my posts for a bit, because now that I feel like I've got some grasp on the day-to-day here, I feel a bit more comfortable writing about it. The big point, aside from thinking about what's goes into evaluating teaching in such an environment, is that it seems to me that multi-discipline departments are going to become more and more prominent.

From the standpoint of the teaching observation, I'm realizing just how different the assumptions from one discipline and, I suspect, from one generation of a discipline to another really are. There were shocked looks when, in a job talk someone was giving, I asked the more senior faculty to define a term they all using. But very quickly it was apparent that they all used it differently without realizing. There are similar assumptions here about teaching.

I'm a lecture guy in the classroom. I like a little discussion, but I recognize that I'm prone to tangents that way. And I think that if you're talking theory, it's best to provide a workable platform for students to work from rather than hope they'll get there in a 50 minute discussion. I don't think it's an invalid move to emphasize discussion; I just don't think it's the be-all/end-all of teaching. The view here, as it has been recently expressed to me (and as it was suggested in my first teaching evaluation), is that good teaching equates to discussion. In part, the justification is that discussion is what students indicate they prefer. It's a nice bit of vapid hocus-pocus: students also prefer not coming to classes or being told they've done something wrong. If we inch unthinkingly that way - the student as "always right" consumer - we're going to wind up doing a grave disservice to them and to ourselves.

So I'm struggling with what I'll be doing in the class, because there's a conflict between what I think I should do and what I think I'm expected to do.

Donna Haraway: Futurist of Old Age

2010-03-12T19:32:00.003-05:00

[edit 3/13/2010 - thanks to that able proofreader for catching the misspelling of Haraway's name. It is truly appreciated and wasn't annoying at all. Much thanks.]

Most of my Spring Break has been spent plugging away on book edits that have been long overdue. I'd like to claim I made more progress - I've managed to get about 12,000 words edited and supplemented - but I'll take it. Still, it would've been nice to have done something truly enjoyable and different with the break.

Part of why the progress has been so slow, though, is that when I was away at the recent conference, I did something to my hand which seems to be the start of carpal tunnel syndrome. It's made getting through tons of edits a pain, because after about an hour or so of typing, my left hand gets pretty throbby. I know; "throbby" isn't a word. I'm an academic though, so at some point each year I have to make up a word and hope that it catches on.

And that has resulted in my second gadget purchase of the break, one much less fun than the guitar.

Yes, I'm becoming more and more the cyborg as I get older - glasses, hand braces, and when I run, it makes that noise that Steve Austin made on the "Six Million Dollar Man." That last one is the only cool bit of the bunch.

(And it isn't true. I'll never be cool-bionic! *SOB*)

I found myself wondering on the drive back from picking the little beauty up this evening what other gadgets I'll be adding to the "aging" collection. How long til bifocals? What gadgets don't I even know about? Is this the start of a mid-life crisis?

Johnny Guitar and other tales?

2010-03-09T13:29:00.002-05:00

So it is Spring Break at last, and while I could be worrying about the reaming I'm currently getting as part of my 120,000 mile checkup, I'd rather focus on the positive. Making it halfway through the term certainly isn't a bad thing, though how we got here, I'll never know.

First up - and pictured to the right - is the treat I bought myself to make the new year seem a little brighter. I've always wanted to play an instrument. These days piano is just as intriguing, but it is completely unrealistic on a single person's budget (not to mention space questions), so guitar it is. I've taken guitar lessons before, though ages ago and not for very long. We'll see whether any of it comes back or not.

The other big news is that funding for the first of the summer conferences abroad has come through, so I'll manage some travel this summer even if car repairs keep me from doing anything fun between now and then. This trip will be sending me to England, and I think I'll be able to linger in London for a few extra days, so if you've spots to lobby for me to visit or any great recommendations, let me know.

Smooth Sailing

2010-03-01T13:45:00.003-05:00

I haven't forgotten about you, dear blog. Let the first song off the iPod today be my apology for having so neglected you (not to mention the post title).

While I was away at the conference, I did something to my hand. It left two of the fingers on my left hand close to numb, and that's made typing more than a little bit of a pain. The caps-lock key is often much too close to the letter "a."

That said, things have been crazy. I've been working to drum up funding for an international conference, and I went through the first year review process required here (even though, I've only been around a term). That went well, though I'm still feeling a bit bothered by the student evals. But what are you going to do? I also put in for course releases for next year and received them, so as things go work-wise, things are smelling like roses.

When the finger feels better, I'll try to write more. Onward, towards Spring Break.

Evals

2010-02-17T15:59:00.005-05:00

One should never look at teaching evaluations in the middle of the workweek. Or the middle of the term, really. I don't feel like my evals are ever bad, but they're so contradictory that it worries me how on earth they'd actually be factored into promotion and tenure. I grade tough, it's true. And I explain that at the beginning of the course and what to do to avoid it.

My favorite comment of this round: "[students here] don't agree with 'the class average was a B, and that's above average'." Funny, I wasn't aware that was a matter that the average of your grades was a matter that could be disagreed with.

Really, this isn't so surprising. It happened at both universities I've taught at previously in the first terms, but this feels like - probably because it's the most current case - the most outlandish example.

Back from the conference babble

2010-02-14T17:00:00.005-05:00

Really, this is just a bunch of random notes. I'd intended to blog a bit while I was away, but things got too busy for that (which certainly wasn't the plan). So, here's a little catch-up.

---

Most importantly, welcome to the world, Leif! Can't wait to meet you.

---

When a conference is bad, it's really bad. This, sadly, is the state of things at most of the big discipline wide conferences, or so it seems to me. I've tried to avoid them, even in job-hunting years, because it feels like talking quietly into a mob.

Fortunately, the conference I've been at recently has been smaller, and the energy of it has been good - I've got a possible project coming out of it, and a little kick in the pants to finish the projects I've been working on.

---

I love the scenery here - desert and mountains and cool air. I'd been tooling around a bit in the rental car, enjoying being able to take a drive with the window down. If I'd managed a musical entry for the week, it would've been "Poet: A Tribute to Townes Van Zandt" which would've been perfect for the winding road and this scenery.

It's a little hard to think about how to discuss the album. It's a tribute, after all, which means it is highlighting the songwriting and the interpretations of the folks appearing on it. Worse, I don't have it all with me when I want it. The rental doesn't have any way to play from an iPod (how demanding we get as consumers), and when I really want the album is when I'm driving towards the mountains. It's got some gems: Emmylou Harris singing "Snake Song," for one. Willie Nelson's heartbreaking take on "Marie" for another. It's not the only tribute to Van Zandt - Steve Earle recently released an album of Van Zandt songs. And his songs crop up here and there across a number of Lyle Lovett albums as well. But it's my favorite of them, and that says a lot considering.

I first heard Townes Van Zandt's music in second grade music class. He was wedged in among a lot of the famous song writers that my music teacher at the time liked: Dylan, Guthrie, and I think - though my memory may be playing wishful tricks on me - even a song by Cohen. I didn't blink much over him then, but heard some of his music again in college. His music has been a fixture of road trips for me ever since. He's got the wanderlust that I so often feel, and sometimes he's cornered it. Most times, however, it's got him instead. I sympathize. Or empathize. Whatever. Part of the joy of his music is the tension that exists in his songs between the heartbreak life can bring and the joy just being in the world can offer.

And who among us isn't wandering down those roads?

In the air

2010-02-09T22:41:00.001-05:00

Somehow, improbably, I have dodged snow and nemesis airports. I hate the quest for outlets and the overpriced mall food and the weird realization that walking through an airport provided about just how small the space of awareness - or the awareness of space - truly is.

How very strange to land and check e-mail. I'm trying to decide if it is the inevitable irritation that builds with travel - doubled by being stuck in the middle seat at the back of the plane - that has left me cranky that a good grad school friend turned occassional conference friend has decided the one time outside of a conference it is okay to communicate with me is to hit me up for a donation. Isn't that why I have family?

But there's good news too: I've had a paper accepted at what I now realize is a ridiculously selective conference. If I'd realized, I probably wouldn't have submitted. Now, I guess I know what I'll be working on for the next couple of months.

Nightmares

2010-02-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

Often, I'm a lucid dreamer. Lately, however, I've had dreams where I've been aware of the dream nature, but unable to influence the dream or to wake up from it.

The recurring motif is a black cat - more of a very small, very thin (almost emaciated) panther - that is slowly gnawing off my right hand. In some dreams, I'm surrounded by people - in the first, we were playing Trivial Pursuit. In others, I'm alone, headed somewhere. Sometimes I can shake it off for a moment; other times, it has its claws too deeply in my arm.

It starts at the space between the thumb and pointer. Though I swear that it pauses to savor those first bites, it eventually picks up speed, tearing and gulping, almost unhinged and careless. It does not make a sound. Nor do I. I only try to shake it off, for as long as I'm able, before my arm gets heavy, before it stops to look at me, coldly, as if it could stare me into acceptance.

Or worse, as if to let me know acceptance or struggle matter not a bit.

...a solid soul and the blood I bleed...

2010-02-03T15:30:00.004-05:00

It's been a productive office hours day so far: a recommendation letter written and sent, tomorrow's lecture prepped, my reservations for an upcoming conference checked and modified appropriately. It's amazing really, since my colleagues are swarming the hall today, having conversations about sweaters and injuries and the like.

I'm tempted to close the door. But that feels a little wrong to me, having complained more than a few times as a student about walking down a department hallway and getting treated to a sublime exhibit of Far Side cartoons, newspaper headlines, and event announcements, but rarely ever actually seeing a faculty member. It was especially acute when I was supposed to catch them in their office hours but found only that well-decorated door. I wonder at what point this happens - is it a change that I'll one day go through? Is it like academic puberty? One day my voice in department meetings will change, and I'll slink off to my office and shut the door, grumbling about how no one understands me? Is the sabbatical nothing more than the equivalent of getting the keys to your first car?

Hipster music may be one of the forms of music that the academic adolescent blasts to drown out crude authority figures who just don't understand. Think about it.

So, it's with some irony and distress that the album I'm listening to today is one that came across on a number of "Best of.." lists recently. Today's disc is "Merriweather Post Pavilion" by Animal Collective.

Let me be upfront: I bought the album because it turned up on so many lists. And unlike many of the things from those lists that I passed over, it seemed like it was worth a listen to me because it wasn't quite like what seems to be the dominant indie/hipster musical preference d'jour: whiny voice, coffee house guitar, I'll try to channel Connor Oberst if you'll tell my ninth grade girlfriend she was a bitch sort of feel. You know the sort. I love lo-fi as much as the next guy, but when it turns into a formula, well...it's like the anarchist I saw in grad school who smashed out a turn signal while the driver was still in the car, then cried for the police when the guy got out of the car to give him his own version of street justice. I don't care if your formula started out with some cred: once it reverts to type, it's less than interesting. It's I loved you but you jumped the shark funny.

The songs I checked out from this album before picking it up had a sort of experimental feel to them. My suspicion is that Animal Collective would fail the "does the album sound like them live" test that is one of my more trustworthy musical tests. It's all well and good if it flies in the studio, but does it feel the same at the show? I saw Modest Mouse a few years ago, and to this day, feel like I saw someone masquerading as the band who I might have liked better than the band whose album I'd been enjoying.

Maybe it's the same for Animal Collective: the album's got a little bounce but not so much to burst your working quietly vibe, but perhaps the band brings a little more menace to the show. I feel like it's a background noise album, rather than something that has an anthem or a song that I'll find myself quoting or humming or even wanting to sing along with.

Maybe that's why it works so well for moments like this at the office: not just because sometimes you need background noise, but maybe because the pre-tenure process functions similarly. If pre-tenure is your safe time to be produced and made to sooth the masses, post-tenure could be your moment to revisit your menace? That hardly seems the case, but it's an interesting possibility.

Laughter Amid the Ruins

2010-01-31T20:48:00.005-05:00

While the Grammy Awardss reminds how much I hate watching the Grammy Awards, I'm finding things that amuse me. So far, this - maybe because of the site name - makes me laugh the most.

Observations from a Faculty Meeting

2010-01-29T21:00:00.003-05:00

What happens when you put a large department in room to argue about strategic planning? Chaos, of course, and maybe little fragments of genius.

It occurred to me that one of the things that happens in a moment like this is the tendency to seek out exact languages. In such a large group, of course, you find that every term is loaded. And if there is a term that isn't, then it's almost certain to be empty.

And when it comes to deciding on a mission, ultimately the mission of every department is one that is doomed to failure, as often as not: to educate, to help someone to know themselves, to do whatever it is the department dresses up its mission. We can quibble about those things, but really, we have to step beyond them to recognize that it's the rare moments we do succeed that matter the most.

They sing "I'm in love, what's that song?"

2010-01-27T16:18:00.004-05:00

Office hours are a nightmare this week. Actually, this week is a nightmare, and office hours is a angst ridden bit of respite. This says something, because between weird departmental duties (like hosting a workshop and touring a candidate around campus and showing up at a presentation I don't get to voice my opinion on), I am only managing about an hour of my office hours anyway.

Still, that should be enough time for me to delve into a little bit of music to help pass the time. The album for the week: "Pleased to Meet Me" by The Replacements. If you've not heard them - or the album - it's worth checking out, and a fortunate choice on my part for an afternoon where I'm pretty exhausted from the chaos of the week.

The Replacements turn up in odd places these days. They've got a song in "Rock Band II" now - probably more - but I've had more than a couple of friends who've played the game pause because while the song - "Alex Chilton" - was familiar, they couldn't place the band to save their lives.

I was a late comer to the Replacements, having heard bits of them before - I'm sure I saw their (in)famous Saturday Night Live performance - it resulted in them being banned from the show. But I really didn't hear them until a friend introduced them to me in grad school. Critics back in the day loved them back in the day. Like Bon Jovi, who once asked how the Replacements could be the best bands of the 1980s if he'd never heard of them, I missed the boat. And that's a shame, not just because the boys from Minneapolis were a band destined for - maybe even built for - self-destruction, but because lead-singer Paul Westerberg had - no, that's not correct: has - a way with words.

And that great, rock and roll vibe is perfect for the week which has felt like a bus with only two wheels doing 90 mph. It's been a workload equivalent of a flogging. And having limped through a workshop on how one might use technologies in the classroom, I'm inclined to wonder if, in the same way doctors make the worst patients, teachers don't make for the worst students. At least my years of doing tech support weren't wasted: always good to remember how to properly growl the phrase, "Sir, please stop clicking."

One of the more surreal moments of the week came when I mentioned being tagged to lead a candidate around campus for their informal tour, and another young faculty member felt slighted. I guess the grass is always greener: I wish I hadn't had to do it, and they felt bad because they weren't asked to.

And yet I'm here in the office - just down with "Skyway" and onto "Can't Hardly Wait" on the disc - and the little bits of resentment are seeping off, and the day's feeling fine. I'm due for a beer or two with a friend tonight. It's the mark of a good disc, even if it means office hours and the job have been less than successful.

If the Replacements - the 'Mats to their friends - taught us anything, though, it's that you take those bits of success when you can get 'em and don't worry too much about the rest.

Radio Doo Doo

2010-01-23T18:59:00.004-05:00

Okay: just so it's out there before I start the office-hour/album posting next week, and because it so desperately needs to be said, let me gripe a bit in response to my brief attempt to listen to radio today:

Any day now, pop music will get over vocals that involve high pitched trilling. Mariah Carey wasn't that interesting after her first song. Clones and derivatives are less so.
While you're at it, get rid of that ridiculous robot voice effect (esp. you, Hip-hop).
Indie music, it's time you get yours: enough with nasal vocals and constant time changes. We get it. You're not a typical pop singer, and it sounds like you're fucking around. Move on.

We clear? Okay.

First Day

2010-01-19T14:42:00.003-05:00

Today's the first day. I always forget how important the first week is for getting up to speed. I'm doing a course that's double-blocked (meaning two class sessions back-to-back rather than meeting two times), and after an hour, I could feel my voice giving out. It was the vocal equivalent of standing on quicksand.

I'm not sure if office hours will happen this week or not - lots of faculty meetings cropping up - but I'm trying to decide on what album to listen to just in case they do work. Stay tuned.

"...a lonely island of poverty in a vast sea of material prosperity."

2010-01-18T13:06:00.004-05:00

It's an revealing moment to think about Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in light of the disaster of Haiti. It's "I Have a Dream" writ large. For all the progress we've made, there is, of course, progress yet to be made, and it isn't far off our borders.

If you haven't had a chance to make a donation to help out, let me offer you the chance.

And with that, take a moment and enjoy this speech. Take something from it.

"We cannot walk alone."

Identity and the Sexy Research Topic

2010-01-17T23:08:00.005-05:00

I've been struggling to put together my final syllabus for the term.

Way back when I was writing my dissertation, I stumbled onto a topic that let me deal with the theory I wanted to and the way of viewing making sense of my field that works best for me that had a certain bit of sexiness to it. Of course, the way these things work is that to a large subset of people who've come into academic contact with me (doesn't that sound like we're talking about a virus vector? Ugh.) are most inclined to thinking of me in terms of that sexy topic rather than in terms of the theory or the way I make sense of my field.

Teaching this course - about the sexy topic - is one outcome of that. Of course, I've forced a couple of weeks of all the stuff I feel a bit more identified with, but there's still a question: which of these things do I really want to be?

It would help, of course, if the last time I'd taught this course it had gone well. It wasn't a disaster - certainly not like That One Course My First Term that actually once made me think about quitting or driving off a bridge or something else reasonably drastic. But it was an absolute slog. Some of the problems have been addressed by the new job, to be sure, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit I'm more than a little gun-shy at this point. And I do like a challenge now and again.

But I do wonder if all this angst about the sexy topic isn't a battle between biting the hand that feeds me. Still, I do wonder.

Planning for the Term

2010-01-12T18:32:00.003-05:00

The new term is almost upon us. Or upon me.

I'm slogging under some sort of lingering sickness that has me sore and congested in a manner that only compares with an L.A. freeway. I've been capable of maybe 45 minutes of focused work these last several days.

My syllabi aren't done. I'm teaching a course I've only taught once before - and it was a nightmare. I've applied for a grant, submitted my first year review, and now I'm pressing. Two abstracts due at the end of the week - trying to get to two summer conferences - and one more grant proposal. God help me. Most importantly, though, I've been lamenting how the iPod has stopped me from listening to full albums. And so it is my plan to make office hours useful by listening to as much of an entire album as possible. I think I might even blog about the experience. Because, goodness knows, nothing useful gets done in office hours, so I should at least get a blog post out of it.

It Must Be Something in the Water

2010-01-10T22:10:00.003-05:00

Never have so many people worked so hard to get me some play. Yeah, that's right. I said it: get me some play. I was going to say "get me a booty call" but "get me some play" seemed funnier. It was a game time decision. I made it and never looked back.

And besides, it was better than titling this "Pimp That Professor."

I said that, too. And I'm not sorry.

But it just occurred to me that every person who has ever tried to fix me up has some sort of time in the area that I'm now living in. At the last job, there were two professors who'd evidently begun to hatch a plot to fix me up. Both had strong connections to this region. And when I came for a job interview here awhile back, a friend went out of their way to make sure I met a friend of theirs they thought would be perfect for me.. If that's the case, I wonder if there's a point where I'm going to start shoving my single friends at each other.

The other option that seems most possible is that at dinner parties here, it is customary to attempt to hook up the new guy. Heck, maybe it's not even about being the new guy: maybe it's bring some wine, get a prize. If that's the case, I probably shouldn't have been bringing six packs all these years. Whatever the case, it's odd but funny. I've now been to at least three dinner parties where someone has tried - most recently explicitly - tried to fix me up with someone also invited to dinner.

And every single one has been hilarious. They're like the Road Runner stealing birdseed from Wile E. Coyote. At one, I cleverly avoided talking with the intended. At another, a different guest was so talkative that the party broke up before dessert made it to the table.

Who could resist this kind of fun?

Stupid Facebook Trends..

2010-01-07T21:48:00.004-05:00

Seriously, let me just ask this of those of you on Facebook: how is posting the color of your bra helping breast cancer exactly? Because since anyone who didn't get the e-mail (really, I'm told there was an e-mail) has no idea what you're talking about, how exactly are they aware?

Worse it doesn't seem to inspire giving or anything close to intelligent discussion. If most of the comments I've seen about this bit of viral whatnot have been adolescent (at best), did it really help a cause?

Maybe I'm missing it.

Liminal Thoughts...

2010-01-01T07:36:00.004-05:00

Starting out New Year's Day at an airport. I'm figuring there's a reasonable chance I'll wind up spending the night in one, though I haven't heard any real problems with travel thus far (still, it's only 6:30 in the morning).

The trip home's been about as good as it can go. Last night, my mother mad the mad rush to clear things out of the DVR she wanted me to see, including a dog doing tricks on Oprah. I've managed to keep my wits about me most of the trip - one snap at my brother two nights ago being the only moment I can think of - and so I was fairly glad to have been able to simply leave the room.

It's hard to think positively about 2010. I've got two relatives with major health problems, the one with the worse bout of them refusing to - and in some ways not in the best position to - follow the most important of doctor's orders. I should probably worry a bit that two of my relatives have pulled me aside to explain the rules of bereavement fairs.

And still, it's a New Year, and there are things to be thankful for: the new job, the new city, friends, family. I guess this is probably one of those moments where you have to keep repeating it.

Curse You, DVR

2009-12-28T23:38:00.004-05:00

If there is one thing I would change about my family it is their ownership of DVR. If my weary eyes didn't deceive me, my family had something like 90 different programs DVR'd. Really, this is my mother and brother. My father's primary relationship with DVR seems to be asking others to stop recording things so he can watch a program in the other room.

For my mother, the DVR is the modern equivalent of sending newspaper clippings. Every moment of pop-culture advice over the past six months that in any way suggests to my mother something about me has been saved for my pained perusal. For my brother, it's a means of making sure that every inane thought that passes through his head gets heard in real time. We used to get to wait for commercials, when we at least could prepare by going for a drink. But not anymore: just getting into something when a flash of something red moves in the background? Pause that puppy and launch into a sermon about a that one time at camp some guy I never met said something factual about frogs.

You know how I know the DVR is evil? On December 26th, my mother and brother - denied their Christmas madness by my sadness - could contain it no more, and sat down to watch....Santa Tracker.

As I retreated to my hideaway, I asked "We are all over the age of 25, right?" There was no response. I didn't have the remote.

My Father Designs Christmas cards...

2009-12-24T19:31:00.001-05:00

I'll spare you all the poem inside, but I will wish you a happy holiday season!

Hope you're all merry and bright and such.

Less angst, more creepy

2009-12-24T00:51:00.002-05:00

creepy Santa photos!

Enjoy. Or something.

Worst bar story ever

2009-12-24T00:48:00.000-05:00

My oldest friend's father has been diagnosed with cancer. We were, to be sure, the happiest customers at the bar.

For years, we joked we shared a brain. Tonight we were strange opposites. His girlfriend is starting to want children. After nursing his mother through illness and with his father now ill, he fears the burden of responsibility to children: that one day, they'll be in his position. Trying to cheer him up, I told him first how that level of maturity made me sure he'd be good as a father. And we talked about how I'd like kids but can't seem to get past the fears of the things that might actually get me there.

Seriously, didn't trips for Christmas once involve whole moments sans angst?

In the manner of my people...

2009-12-22T23:01:00.000-05:00

...I shall drink a little too much, get a little too emotional, and go to bed too early.

---

Home: four people, five TVs, four dogs.

For whatever reason - call it irony or what you will - my whole day has been inundated with talk about dogs. Three members of my family have asked if I'm planning to get another dog. One person asked me if I read a story about dog fighting. Tonight, my mother found a stray that she wanted to talk about the right thing to do to help.

---

From the book I brought home to read:

She said, "What are you going to do out at sea?" and I said, "Don't worry about the future."

---

My parents have been renovating. Tonght I was forced to ask, "There are two buttons on the new toilet. What do they do?"

I feel like my parents' home has become a weird hybrid of "My Name Is Earl" and "Tetsuo II: Bodyhammer."

Go on. Try to reconcile that. Netflix and Advil will help.

---

And now, to bed.

The Holidays

2009-12-21T09:06:00.004-05:00

I'm due to head home for Christmas today, which is not the easiest decision. I'm on edge, and having conversations is an effort.

I debated staying here. Depressing, I know, but less likely to end in argument, as my family inevitably irritates me by the end of a long trip, and I'm usually in a good mood at the start. Who knows where I'll be by the end of this one? But my family has been fraught with illness of late, and it seemed like there was too much potential for regret if I didn't go.

So for now, I'm packing the bag for a late night flight, and hoping I don't get seated next to anyone too chatty.

---

In an effort to feel a bit more Christmasy, I spent much of last night trying to duplicate an old holiday tape - actually tapes - that I had from my radio days of holiday music by all sorts of old blues and Motown artists (okay, there were some more modern ones in there - Springsteen's "Merry Christmas, Baby" is well worth hearing).

It's been a challenge, mostly because I haven't seen the tapes in about 12 years and can only remember a few of the songs I was thinking of. I am, at the moment, trying to decide which song is more of a holiday imperative: Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" or Clarence Carter's "Back Door Santa."

---

Thanks to all for the warm thoughts in the midst of this calamity. It's helped. I hope you're all enjoying the holiday, whatever your persuasion. Hope that bit of music is the start of a fair thank you.

Assorted Lines from the Journal

2009-12-19T01:56:00.007-05:00

The heater in my apartment makes strange creaking noises in the walls. I was to go to a party, but I couldn't. I felt sick. Groups make me tired, even on good days: all that networking and shaking hands and small talk. There was work to do and nothing to come home to, so why leave?

I don't go down the back stairs. I cannot look at the park.

I don't look under the coat I wore, collapsed over all those things. I thought I'd give it away for its proximity, but now I can't stand to lift it.

I try not to sneeze. For whatever reason, you loved that. Each sneeze, a phantom limb.

There's no snow out. Finally, I had something good to say about it: that it gave you a little pleasure to eat once, to run through. Perhaps I am cold enough without it now.

My friends are blooming with babies. Thinking of it in the shower, I coughed out to the steam and the empty room: it's springtime somewhere.

At night, I wake up - less now, but still too often - and reach to your empty spot. Sighing, I repeat to myself that there is work to be done, even if there is nothing to come home to.

Make Of It What You Will...

2009-12-16T01:19:00.003-05:00

Perhaps it's a generational difference or perhaps it's the joy of having tenure. It could even have something to do with where one went to school (it was noted to me that all the faculty in my grad program who went to a particular graduate school shared a certain year-round tendency towards red noses and rosy cheeks).

I don't know.

But today, a colleague saw me in the hallway and noted I appeared to be having a rough day. I nodded, not wanting to go into any particular detail, and made some vague excuse about finals week.

They nodded sagely, and ushered me into their office where they pulled from the bottom drawer of their desk a bottle of their finest libation and poured me a cup. It was all terribly "Don Draper," and I'd lie if I said I wasn't grateful for it, particularly as it turned out to be my old libation of choice as well. And it did hearken back to grad school days of alcoholic blended drinks in the office.

I'll assume it means they've accepted me. But still, an odd moment.

Stuck In My Head

2009-12-15T01:36:00.001-05:00

A little music for the broken hearted...

Practice

2009-12-13T16:06:00.001-05:00

The one time I road a horse, my aunt told me to expect to fall off. No rider, no matter how good should always be prepared to fall she said. So if it happens, practice how to land.

Today I am practicing how to walk in the door to an empty apartment.

Tomorrow, I will practice how to talk to people.

Lymphosarcoma

2009-12-13T00:06:00.003-05:00

Today my dog fell down the stairs; he'd been diagnosed (tentatively, of course, because no one's sure of anything in medicine) with lymphosarcoma. There had been some small hope dangled and latched onto that it might be something viral.

And so you can imagine my shock and horror, discovering today that my dog - my truest companion for nearly a decade - had lost his sight. Every noise scared him. At the pet ER, more small bits of hope were given - maybe a month, maybe two, maybe remission. And all the while, my dog was more scared than I'd ever seen him, sought the center of the room so he wouldn't smack his head into anything even as he started at every noise. When I finally calmed him down enough to get him to lie down, I heard his breathing change: there was a rattle, and he was obviously uncomfortable. I realized why he'd been so antsy the last few nights - he couldn't breathe right when he was lying down.

I sat there with him on the floor for a couple of hours, petting him and trying to work the angles. And all the while, my sad dog, shaky on his feet, unable to find me if I wasn't whispering to him, was trying to make me feel better.

Letting him go wasn't easy. I thought about seeing him when I came in the door. About the way he'd peek over the bed in the mornings, infinitely patient with my laziness. I thought about how he's been the constant for almost a decade, the one thing I always always always looked forward to, who made every day, any day, better. Then I thought about the hours I wasn't home, and what it would be like to be left home in the dark. I thought about pacing the floor, unable to sleep, and not getting to do the things ones loved.

I had to let him go.

As the Term Winds Down...

2009-12-07T21:56:00.004-05:00

As a bit of catching up, it turns out that it may not be lymphosarcoma (but it might). It's the pooch, by the way - my family has confined their illnesses to pulmonary embolisms, high blood pressure, diabetes and fainting episodes.

I am beginning to suspect the pup faked the super swollen lymph nodes as a way to get me to cook him sausage every morning. Still, at least he's eating.

The weekend was spent visiting with friends. I'm convinced my friends have cuter babies than other people's friends. And they - the friends, not the babies - seem to make better desserts. A Saturday night eating chocolate baclava, cupcakes, and flan isn't a bad way to spend an evening.

The term's winding down, and I'm debating how best to spend the break. I'm flying home, I think (assuming the pup recovers enough to be kenneled). But I feel like I should be working on some things beyond that. For tonight, though, I'll bake some brownies for the students of the first class at the new job that's winding up this first weird, wild term.

Just So You Know

2009-12-02T18:36:00.004-05:00

Added to the list of words I didn't want to learn the real definition of (right up there with "pulmonary embolism" and "heart failure"): "lymphosarcoma."

Seriously, why doesn't medicine have long words for things like "nice ass" or "very congenial"?

Belated Happy Thanksgiving and Such

2009-11-30T01:09:00.005-05:00

Dear Readers,
If, in fact, there are still readers here, I want to wish you a belated Happy Thanksgiving. As I've probably said once or twice before, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and this year I took a slight bit of techno-vacation with it.

Why is it my favorite holiday? A story from this year's dinner explains it well. Sitting at a back corner of a big, cobbled together table with some dear grad school friends and other Thanksgiving orphans, the charming Swiss woman to my right asked the charming German woman to my left and me whether there were any Thanksgiving songs. The German said not that she knew of, and I said that's one more thing to be thankful for. There aren't cards for it, songs about it, decorations that HAVE to be put up. My traditions aren't your traditions, and no one really blinks about it.

The charming Swiss woman patted my arm and said she could see why I liked it. Then she offered me more mashed potatoes. She gets it.

---

Evidently, after I left the celebration to return to my own home to wait out the food-coma, I became quite the topic of conversation.

Earlier in the evening, I noted to my charming German friend that I have accidentally perfected a sort of scruffy orphan vibe that causes people to want to look out for me just a bit. I'm getting invited to lots of dinners and sent home with lots of food. Folks in the department have been e-mailing me links to restaurants and grocery stores and asking if I need anything. And people are trying to fix me up.

In case I haven't said it before, the fix up is particularly distressing. Generally speaking, people are either strongly for or strongly against the fix up. I'm clearly strongly against.

One reason for this is that the logic of the fix up generally works like this: "I like Person A. Person A is single. I also like Person B, and they're single, too! They must meet! And mate! And produce beautiful babies that I will be partially responsible for in that I'll have made it happen but won't actually provide any support for, not even changing a diaper!" The fix up is the relationship equivalent of an unruly child throwing spaghetti at a white wall and coming up with Monet's "Water Lilies."

In part, this desire to fix me up is my own fault: I'm wickedly private, and so even when I'm dating, most of my friends don't know it. Being so private, you can, of course, imagine how thrilled I was to have the topic of my love life become an after-dinner conversation starter. But I also think it owes to the other tendency that seems common to folks in the pro-fix up camp: the certainty that other people's lives can be handled - and enjoyed - like theater.

To try and get the full effect of my fear and distress, imagine this: think of a friend who makes your head hurt. Or one who you have to think really hard to explain their charms. Now imagine they're the one who has decided to fix you up. Without consulting you. About anything. At all.

What is worst about all of this is now, whenever I see anyone present at the dinner, this is now a source of discussion. Except, of course, for the folks fixing me up, who are content to believe that I'm oblivious and naturally don't want my input anyway. It's like being confronted over and over again with a mistake everyone is convinced you'll make before you ever actually come to the choice about it.

Curse my scruffy orphan-like vibes!

---

And that, dear readers, should catch you up and give you plenty to speculate upon. Perhaps in the coming weeks, I'll get my shit together and start some sort of pool about all of this chaos. In the meantime, enjoy some leftover pie for me!

Stuff I've Been Up To

2009-11-23T22:36:00.003-05:00

Lordy, it's almost Thanksgiving, which I love. That also means the term is almost over. I also love that.

It's been maddening - two family members have been juggling hospital stays: one in, the other out. Of course, my family doesn't really speak well to each other, so I've juggled more than a bit of that drama. It hasn't quite died down: pulmonary embolisms are nightmares and they don't get dealt with quickly.

Since last I wrote, I've tilted multiple times with the school's curriculum committee and come out with an approved course. I've also been to another conference where I found one of the secret joys of Twitter: watching sycophants scoop quotes from their leader like pearls. I've been to dinners with senior faculty members, filed my expense reports, asked for more money for a conference next term (and been approved), been evaluated, responded to the evaluation, and written yet another biography.

And I am proud to report that I think I'm getting the hang of it. Now if I could just manage to get some actual research done when I wasn't away at a conference.

Walking to a meeting, my department chair said to me something to the effect of : "They're going to ask you to be department chair, one day." I laughed and was then advised "Of course, tell them no."

Conference thoughts

2009-11-06T22:33:00.002-05:00

I don't sleep well when I'm away, and so last night, I lay in bed trying to find the perfect music to put me to sleep. The closest I managed was "Sketches of Spain" by Miles Davis. And tomorrow, I've got a first-thing-in-the-morning presentation which is just lovely, so you know tonight's going to be lovely. Recommendations?

Today, though, what I spent a lot of time doing was thinking about the difference between presentation styles by discipline. Mine tends to do informal presentations, built off notes. Interesting how many focus on reading an entire paper, though. I also got treated to a debate about the relative merits of presentation software. Is Google Presentations really better than PowerPoint or is it just that it isn't made by Microsoft?

Wish me luck!

Reasonable Question

2009-11-05T20:15:00.001-05:00

Why do I only get writing done in conference hotels?

Chillin' and writing in Northampton MA after driving out for a conference. And since the I don't get TNT to watch the Spurs game, I guess writing is it.

RBOLove and Hate

2009-11-04T20:58:00.004-05:00

Love:

that I have tilted with the charming folks at curriculum and only made one awkward suggestion about their math skills
that I made it through my in-class observation without dropping a single curse-word
that I'm off to a nearby conference for the weekend
Blueberry Cobbler ice cream
the Lose It! iPhone ap (and because the FTC or somesuch say so: no, I'm not sponsored by anyone or getting paid for that): I just hate the gym but this harnesses my own brand of anal-retentiveness, yolks it to my sometimes-love of technology

Hate:

the gym. But I've said that before.
that males of a certain age think a spray down of Axe equals a shower. As if men's locker rooms didn't start with some disadvantages smell-wise, Axe takes it to a whole new "if they bottled Victorian hooker sweat" sort of level
that I have managed three whole words of writing this term so far. Holy crap, do they love meetings here.

Just a quick test...

2009-10-17T14:40:00.001-04:00

Using Blog Press from my phone while I consider the next steps in the online whoring of myself started with the creation of a "professional" Twitter account.

Things I'm pondering: should I switch to Word Press? Where should I put up my "professional" web site? And, of course, what have I, what have I , what have I done to deserve this?

Little Breakdowns

2009-10-15T21:21:00.002-04:00

In the hallway tonight, I felt a little panic nibbling around the edges. Naturally, someone stopped me to talk.

The last few weeks have been a lot of little hoop jumping moments, and they've added to the vague sense of distress that I had the wrong idea about what I was being hired to do. There are, I am reminding myself, a few ways to build a department and to handle new hires. You can hire someone who does something your department is lacking. This is what I'd thought was happening. But you can also hire someone who does something similar to what your department or someone in it already does. And, realistically, there's the possibility that you weren't being strategic at all.

So there was some mild discomfort when I discovered the two of the courses I thought I was being hired to teach were already being taught. But I bucked up, little campers, and got on with it. Imagine, though, the horror when I found out today that the other course I'd been developing and shepherding through various hoops and hoopla is being taught in another department.

Superfluous?

An economic luxury?

Soon-to-be bureaucratic piñata?

Oh, how tired I am tonight. If you see anyone coming with sticks, warn me. Or at least stuff me with candy. They shouldn't disappointed.

Three Pointless Confessions

2009-10-12T21:04:00.006-04:00

Finally, some understanding of why people claim to like Fall.

Sometimes a quick road trip is just the thing.

There's still no sense to the people who like Winter (I guess Goths have to have a season to enjoy, too), but it's nice to finally have some grasp of the mentality of the elusive Fall lovers.

---

Long weekend - zero productivity + big car repair = Ah, well!

The only plus side to this is that for the first time in something approaching five years, I was able to afford a big car repair without having to wait for months and give up things like friends and name brand canned goods. We'll call it progress.

---

Honestly, watching "Heroes" is like sending myself to nerd-conversion camp. Every week, it's like a beating that I've earned for liking comic books. It physically hurts me. And yet, I can't seem to stop watching. I think this may be the equivalent of wearing a hair shirt or self-flagellation. It's like a super-hero train wreck, attempting to set back every moment of mainstream acceptance of anything comic bookish.

And since I'm still stinging over the last 10 minutes of BSG's finale and am feeling a little underwhelmed by "Dollhouse" in Season 2. I need some nerd-hope to latch on to.

Catching Up

2009-10-08T11:48:00.003-04:00

I promise, I haven't forgotten the blog. I'm still struggling with scheduling, though at least some of the giant scheduling errors weren't actually mine. Of course, all of this is fueling doubts: if I'm having this much trouble, am I cut out for this job at this place? Or is it just the first term at a new place?

---

Of course, I've recently been convinced that family is the worst committee I've ever been asked to serve on. The meetings are always painful, the solutions always half-assed and obvious. And as someone pointed out, the work always gets pushed off on the person not in attendance.

My sister has developed blood clots, a few of which are near her lungs. And because of her, shall we say, "slacker status" health care is, of course, an issue, as is how she's going to get things like disability without raising all sorts of red flags. But it's the family questions that are most vexing because my sister and my parents have had such an adversarial relationship over the years.

So you can imagine my irritation when my father called the other evening to tell me that he'd heard that my sister was in the hospital and did I know anything about it. I didn't. And to my surprise, he had no idea of what hospital she was in. My father gave the phone equivalent of a shrug and said he'd wait to hear from her then.

Mind you, they're in the same city.

---

And there's all the madness here. In the last week, I've helped with an open house, schilling for prospective students, put one course in to the curriculum committee, submitted two for special status, started the scheduling process on my evaluation process, and attended two campus film events.

The best moment of awkwardness in all of that: after one of the events, I stopped to chat with a colleague and was asked "Are you going to the thing after?" I didn't know there was a thing after, and in new-faculty-panic-mode that I might have missed someplace I'm expected to be, blurted "There's something after?"

Their reaction, naturally, was to make the face of someone who just mentioned a party you're not invited to.

---

The great Twitter experiment continues. It was funny, initially, to realize that Twitter is where people go to spam you about teeth whitening. It's an impressive notion really - e-mail for porn and Viagra, Twitter for teeth whitening and ponzi schemes. What is it for blogging? My favorite new trend: watching right wing Twitter folks sign up as followers the minute sexuality is referenced in a tweet.

The Most Tedious Bit About Being New Faculty?

2009-10-01T11:59:00.002-04:00

Right now, it's got to be writing bios of myself. Honestly, we're like a third of the way through the first term, and I just had to write another one. It's been a bio a week for this or that publication. Sum yourself up in two sentences. Now expand that two 500 words. Can you write a 500 word, two sentence bio? Which Ring of Hell is this, Dante? What did I do to get here?

But notice how positive I'm being, after being told that the one piece of equipment I need for the one course I'm teaching didn't actually make the purchase list last summer. But no problem, right? It's only central to the last eight weeks of the course. That should be easy to adjust, right?

Things I Should Not Be Doing

2009-09-29T15:30:00.003-04:00

Sitting in office hours, playing this game
Mixing up dates on my calendar. Seriously, I feel like I'm developing some scheduling-centri version of dyslexia
getting frustrated at my ill sister to the point that I had to say (in an attempt to get her to focus and abandon a little of the melodrama): "Just write a note and tack it to the refrigerator about what we should do if we find your body."
looking this forward to this, and its soundtrack by Karen O

The Great Twitter Experiment or...

2009-09-27T17:27:00.003-04:00

...the Trouble With On-line Identity

or

...Climbing the Ladder 140 Characters at a Time

---

So, as I mentioned previously, I'd been quietly encouraged to think about starting a Twitter account. It's seen, in the current university climate I'm in, as a way of promoting one's self to the broader world. And I, suffering from a whole range of insecurities with this new job (though not just related to the new job), could think of no truly compelling reason why I shouldn't. If having an account might help a bit, so be it.

Except that I forgot about the delicate dance that is juggling dual (or dueling) identities. I mean, if keeping my voice distinct here while not ponying up revealing details was problematic, what would it mean to welcome into the now budding constellation of voices one that has only 140 characters to convey itself? I like to think there's a flavor to how I communicate - or at least some consistency to each medium. I mean, there are things that I've adopted as rules for e-mailing students; there are things I do and don't allow on Facebook. There's the whole host of hoops involved in posting here.

Throw into the mix the fact that, this week, an ex who I think may be well and truly crazy now - the kind of crazy you imagine when you're splitting up with someone to make you feel better about it, the kind you make jokes about while locking the doors and thinking about firearms - actually found not just the Twitter feed I'd created but, worse, my private, non-work-related e-mail address. I am, I think it is safe to say, a private person. The possibilities raised by this - ignoring the visions of said ex doing her Glenn Close impression, manically turning off and on a light while thinking about boiling my bunny - are more than a little distressing.

So, Twitter? How do you help one of those voices? And how do you help someone who is fundamentally private market themselves.

The answers, respectively: you don't, and you're not sure yet.

But there are other benefits, even with my meager following and my slightly less meager feeds followed. For one thing, I'm able to keep a little bit of track of what the public intellectuals I have so admired and wished to be like are thinking about. And thus far, what I've seen suggests one of the following possibilities:

Public intellectuals are assholes, and Twitter exposes this
Twitter makes assholes of even public intellectuals
I only like public intellectuals who are assholes

Twitter, for the public figure, seems to demand focus on the thing that made you public. And that, sooner or later, comes across badly. If you're not careful, Twitter helps you to believe your own press in the same way that getting interviewed by a network might. I should note that this experience hasn't made me like these people less intellectually. It has just made certain that I am no longer in any hurry to communicate with them. I mean, if you're going to show what a twit you are, at least take your time doing it, I say (hence, the blog).

At the same time, I've found some people and sites that don't do exactly what I do, but that have information and interests that intersect. Twitter has become a useful scratchpad for me that way - rather than trying to talk about what I'm doing, I'm starting to use it as a means of archiving things that seem interesting to me, in hopes that I can come back and draw some meaning from particular postings or groupings of them. And that it might help someone who's reading is great. Even better if it might get them to send a little something back my way.

Wednesday Night Fortune

2009-09-24T01:50:00.003-04:00

One of the benefits of the move is the decent Chinese available for delivery (it's not great, but then that's sort of how I like my Chinese food). And in the midst of all the little attacks of insecurity that have been plaguing me of late, my fortune was - for a change - not some trite aphorism but actually advice:

Welcome change.

Good advice, though probably not what the delivery person wanted me to read.

The Reading List

2009-09-18T22:54:00.004-04:00

Still making sense of the week and the push towards Twitter from colleagues and various sundry other career-related sources. So, while I get my head on straight, here's what's being read or in the chute to be read:

Quantum Lyrics - A. Van Jordan
The Interrogation - J.M.G Le Clezio
Naked Economics - Charles Wheelan
Shoplifting from American Apparel - Tao Lin
Push Comes to Shove - Wesley Brown
The Painter of Battles - Arturo Perez Reverte
Smashing Open the Door - Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno
Let Fury Have the Hour: the Punk Rock Politics of Joe Strummer - Antonino D'Ambrosio

So if you've read any of them, or you're dying to talk about any of them, let me know, and I can put some period posts up about them as I go. And, of course, if you've got some great recommendations, I'll take those, too!

New Job, New Media?

2009-09-15T20:24:00.004-04:00

Guess I really wasn't thinking about some of the bigger differences going.

In a meeting last week, one of the things that came up was the desire for faculty to find ways to use all these new fangled media devices to promote themselves - and hence, the U. - better.

"Consider running a blog," someone said. I snickered and tried to look aghast. But worse, they want us to do things like Facebook (Okay, I'm already there) and Twitter (which I'm less than convinced is useful for me to promote myself, and hence, the U.). I don't think I'm at the point in my career where I have profound things to say every hour. Honestly, there are days where I find myself stretching to complain in this blog.

Really, though, what I wanted to ask was: what's the model you're thinking about here? Because it seems to me a half-assed attempt to use something like this only looks bad (I was going to say makes one look like a whole ass, but isn't the phrase "half-assed" implying that a "full-assed" attempt would be the way to go? I don't know...). Is there any evidence that prospective students are using presence of a Twitter account to make their decisions? Are grant givers factoring it into their assessments on whether or not to give funding?

Because on some level it feels like that, best case, we've become convinced we need Twitter because we hear the word so much. Thoughts? Is this happening elsewhere? In particular disciplines?

Many Forms of Panic

2009-09-14T14:30:00.003-04:00

I am in my office, reading a book of poems I ordered to help lessen the trauma of reading all the books that will hopefully catch me up so that I can appropriately mention names at parties, and many forms of panic begin to visit my lonely office vigil.

First, the colleague the chair talked to in the office next door about her loud study sessions. I've heard much about this in the last week, though as a music listener, I'm largely unfazed. Does she, with all her tenured might, think it was me?

Second, a parade of faculty down the hall, muttering about a conference room. Am I missing a faculty meeting? Why can't I find it in my e-mail? Who can I ask without exposing my horrible skills as a new colleague?

Third, the realization that my old lecture notes are all in a format that Microsoft Word for Mac refused to admit exists. Will I spend my whole term reinventing the wheel of my thoughts?

Excerpts from the Weekend

2009-09-13T20:59:00.003-04:00

"I don't understand how you could not like networking," she said. "Meeting people is fun."

"Networking isn't meeting people. Meeting people is meeting people. Networking is meeting people with the express hope of bettering yourself. I find that more than a little sad."

"It isn't that calculating. Anyone can do it."

"Given many homeless people your business card?"

Doubt

2009-09-12T12:16:00.003-04:00

And, lo, it was fated that not long after our hero began his new journey that doubt crept in. Like a thief in the night. Like a boorish party crasher. Like a bug in your bed sheets.

Having wandered through a couple of get-togethers in the past few weeks, listening to people name drop and conference-check, I began to wonder whether I'm about to be out of my research depth. Four years on a 4/4 didn't exactly do wonders for my knowledge of the field. Over the course of the term so far, I've been read by colleagues as working in at least three different areas - all close to theirs - none of which are the areas I actually work in.

This is what I love about academia - no matter how good things are going, you can always find a reason to believe you're there on a loophole.

Random Thoughts From Office Hours

2009-09-10T14:46:00.003-04:00

So, I've been made aware that no students know me. This made them less likely to take my classes., and it seems to follow that they won't be beating down my door at office hours for awhile yet.

Okay, they really probably won't ever. I do want to be realistic. But the office next door is learning French loudly. I have to do something.

In theory, this means office hours can be productive (or at least a productive as I'm capable of since the thought that students MIGHT come by and interrupt stops me from doing any truly intense work). Instead, of course, I'll spend my time thinking of random things. And since I haven't blogged in ages, today I am compelled to try to make your lives better with some of the things that have made mine better:

First, Kathleen Edwards. Her most recent album, "Asking For Flowers," is probably the most consistent listen for me over the past six months. It haunts me. In a dream the other night, I was back in class, and when it was my turn to present, I tried to start a sing-along of Johnny Cash's cover of "Pocahontas" and Kathleen Edwards' "Goodnight, California." I closed with her song. That's how impressive she is. You should check her out. And if you don't like her, you should check yourself in. To a mental hospital.

Second, cayenne pepper on corn, especially corn on the cob. Especially when it's been grilled. Especially at summer barbecues.

Third, Breaking Bad. Think of it as "The Sopranos" meets the health care debate. I wish there were more episodes in a season, and I need to figure out what the first episode of season two is so I can catch up, but it's good. I'll also plug "Dollhouse" though it took me an age to get into it. TV is getting tough to enjoy as I bought an HD TV, and I'm convinced that everything looks awful on it. I'm not swayed by those people - typically sports fans - who rave about how clear it is. "You can see the grass on the field," they gush. Newsflash: I don't want to stare at grass on my TV or elsewhere.

So that's it. What am I missing?

DisOrientation

2009-09-07T19:07:00.005-04:00

In my experience, the first truly bad experience with any new academic job is orientation. Think back to your own, and I'm betting you'll agree with me. While there's a ton of things to complain about - there is, for example, invariably someone with hyper-specific questions and tedious back story to the question. Really, it's like any class you've ever taught or attended, ever. That might explain why it's so frustrating to attend them when they often seem so poorly thought out.

But rather than spend much time worrying about those things, I want to offer some quick suggestions to make orientation a bit more useful, rather than the enormous time-suck that they so often are. So with that in mind, here's what I need from an orientation:

enough time in advance of the term to make use of the information given
a comparison of the benefits and costs of each
someone who can actually answer my benefits questions (it's interesting that at every orientation I've had, the HR reps seem to actively fear answering benefits questions - is it a legal thing?)
any specific language that's expected in my syllabi (for example: plagiarism policies, disability policies, departmental objectives, etc)
how to get my parking decal and ID
my e-mail id and how to contact IT
a brief profile of the student population
a copy of the faculty handbook and an explanation of who to go to with questions
a copy of the campus directory

What I don't need from an orientation:

a parade of people
a meeting with different groups whose benefits options differ (honestly, do you need to rub adjunct noses into discussions of health care, etc?)
meetings that involve decision making about long-term university projects or anything that has a context an incoming freshman couldn't intuit
people talking about things that I won't be dealing with in the first two weeks (for example: study abroad). And if they must be there, then they should speak for a minimum amount of time
acronyms and buzzwords
references to policies that are no longer in effect
references to web pages without a written URL
references to forth-coming e-mails
discussions of teaching that include the phrase "I'd never do what I'm doing now in the classroom" or anything similar

I think that's a pretty good start. I'm probably missing some, though. Thoughts?

Notes from (A Bit After) the (Now?) End of the Road

2009-09-05T22:47:00.004-04:00

It's been awhile.

Sometimes I've felt a bit overwhelmed, sometimes a bit lazy. I've jotted notes - a few of lines of which made it into this in different points. Really, I've been writing and rewriting this post for a bit. But it feels overdue.

So let me catch you up.

---

After the move was so crazy, the arrival was much easier. On each end of the trip, I'd hired someone to deal with getting things moved between the truck and the apartment. In the old town, as you may recall, they didn't show. In the new town, they turned up 15 minutes early, finished a half hour early, and were polite, smooth, and funny the entire time.

Getting unpacked, however, has proved less than compelling. There are still boxes which I simply can't bring myself to get to. The couch, which I spent awhile worrying about here, does indeed go okay with the carpet. Here's a picture, as promised somewhere in the distant past. But the apartment is set up for the most part, as is the office, though it needs some artwork to deal with the tremendous amount of blank, white wall space. The bright side there is that it means I've got a bigger office than I ever had before since my usual calamitous mess hasn't been enough to fill it.

The expected fireworks over Tupperware never happened with the former roommate; instead, we spent nearly a month haggling about how the deposit should be split. It was tedious and a little ridiculous; in the end, I gave him close to what he was asking simply to make sure that he didn't bad mouth to me former friends and colleagues, as he's never had much of a poker face about his grudges. Honestly, I had bigger fish to fry.

---

A week or two in the door, I had to leave for a conference, which meant that the week or two I was here were spent not just wrestling with boxes, but trying to figure out how to get funding through the system double-time.

It was, I must say, one of the nicer surprises to see that not only could it be done, but that no one blinked, everyone said "please" and "thank you," and I didn't have to pay a dime out of my pocket.

Until recently - IT again my nemesis - that has been the experience here.

---

I haven't explored much. The drivers frighten me a little. Once, driving to help a friend unload his U-Haul (I've moved two people since I've been here, plus a trip with another to buy furniture), a police officer stalked up to my window and seemingly wanted to pick a fight because I didn't get a local driving queue (I still, frankly, don't know what it was that I missed, but he made it clear that I did something).

Where I have spent time has been with some of my dear friends from grad school. While we haven't been going to a bar the way we used to, I've probably had more drinks in the past month than in the last year and a half at previous job.

---

At my first real meeting in the department, I was caught unaware. It's what I get for focusing on my cake and thinking that birthday get-togethers would be staid affairs.

An older colleague looked up over her cake and mentioned her son going to a strip club. I blinked a little - about the same way I did when a friend in grad school announced they liked to go to massage parlors. Then, my horror was that "massage parlor" was, where I came from, a gentle euphemism for brothels and gun fights, while around my grad school, they were simply another form of hippy delight.

Evidently, strip clubs might be seen somewhat similarly here.

As the only male in the room, I wasn't quite sure what to do. So I looked down at my cake and tried to move on. Obviously there was nothing I could say to this. But everyone in the room began to offer up stories. One of them told of the time HR at their school organized a trip for faculty and staff that ended up at one. Another told a story about their favorite club in a nearby city. They swapped brutally punned club names they'd gone to. In short order, every possible thing I might say began to feel like it would be taken wrong. Even complimenting that tasty cake seemed like a bad idea.

But the conversation was funny.

---

At night, in the hotel room at my out-of-the-country conference, I received an e-mail: "No one has signed up for your class. Please advise." My time, attempting to speak the language, slowed me a minute. Was I supposed to know enough, two weeks in, to advise?

If so, I was in trouble.

Evidently, promoting my class at the end of the Spring fell a bit by the wayside, and so I was offered a choice: teach "horrid freshman class" I've never taught before and that no one ever wants to teach, or teach a single course in Fall and three in Spring.

Easy choice.

---

At orientation, the History faculty member began to detail for us, in rapidly devolving tangents, about the time classroom technology let us down. She told the tale earnestly, as though she had made a great discovery that all professors should be aware of: technology fails. The Accounting professor was not to be topped. With each item related to health care, she offered a story of her teenage son's clumsiness. With each retirement option mentioned, she spiraled about her ex.

It was, as most orientations are, a tennis match of boredom. Only later would I be tossed into the deep end of acronym heaven. The VP of Something Or Other spoke for six minutes using only simple verbs and acronyms. Everyone nodded sagely. It seemed like we might make it out only 45 minutes late.

But then the History prof had an epiphany.

---

Sitting at the closing reception, the Latin American journalist who'd crashed the party looked at me and proposed a strange question. We'd been talking about H1N1 and about our favorite authors, and it didn't seem so bad, until that moment, that I didn't have full command of the language. He told me how he feels people from his country have a block - a sort of psychological vomiting reflex - that keeps them from ever wanting to learn or speak English. I explained that I think for many people from the U.S., to learn another language seems like a sign of weakness.

But then, across the table from a group of older, established Australian scholars I'd been giving a slight effort to impressing, he asked me if I wanted to drive out into the desert and do some peyote.

I paused. Maybe I'd missed something in my translation. Just to be safe, I declined, and mentioned that I'm really only into alcohol.

He was incredulous. And persistent. The Aussies could only manage awkward silence.

But we recovered. We went back to discussing publishing across the Americas. He suggested he could get me published in Bolivia. Then he gave me his blog URL, so I could read his theories about the CIA and various pandemics through the ages. And then, because perhaps the Ausssies got too comfortable, he returned to peyote. And when I didn't bite, he went a step further.

"You like the women here?"

I did. I like the women everywhere, really. But that wasn't what he was asking. Oh, to understand the nuance.

"They're not too expensive. We should get some, and have a good going away party before you head back."

The Aussies, it seems, spoke the language better than I did. They all looked at each other and left the table as a group. It seems, in addition to being a journalist (of sorts), I may have been drinking with a pimp.

Swigging my last shot of mescal, it seemed time to leave the table. And so I did.

And so I am doing now.

Notes From (Just Before) the (Now?) End of the Road

2009-07-13T21:39:00.004-04:00

I have neglected this. Consider it part one.

---

The whole move started with rain. It was a sign, much as it was in Biblical times (if you believe in that sort of thing), that there was a cleansing coming. Or that God was pissed. Or something.

It rained and it rained. Omens. Portents. Soggy things.

In the weeks preceding the move, I spent much of my time either putting things into boxes or going out for drinks with various colleagues. I only went in small groups because if the group got larger than five, there was was no way to avoid having the same guilt-ridden "you're leaving us behind" conversation which would have killed the entire buzz. But I made sure to pack. The plan was to have everything boxed and ready to go two days prior to the move. I stayed on track.

What could go wrong?

---

The rain followed me from there to here. Halfway in between, at the point where I would most likely have to pull the truck over to feed my dog, it rained like Tammy Faye's tear ducts on losing the mansion.

The food for the pup was in the back of the truck, and so there was no way to keep from opening it. I had been hoping to park the truck beside an 18-wheeler to steal a little shelter from the elements. I could do it, if I got lucky, because I was towing my car behind and that meant the only spots for me would be ones for large vehicles. One of the few advantages of driving the big truck with the car behind is that parking is rarely a problem because truckers really only stop when they need more amphetamines, so I figured I'd have good luck.

Pulling through, around the outside, I could see a spot that would be perfect....naturally, some idiot in a Lexus SUV had taken the spot and parked dead center in it, so there was no way for me to pull in.

And thus, no shelter from the storm.

As I opened the back of the truck, a box fell out. The one with my photos, of course. It'd been put to the back so nothing heavy would go on top of it, but the load had shifted.

This was in no way surprising. Looking to the heavens, I issued a quiet fuck you, quieter than the day before. Even fury wears down over time.

---

The plan went like this: I was getting good money to move, and I was going to take advantage. It's part of why I took this job over the other, honestly. They were going to help pay my move. I know times are hard and all, but honestly, if you're going to move hundreds or thousands of miles, if they can't kick in a little bit of something to help out, do you really want to be there? And when you've moved as many times as I have, often almost entirely on my own, the prospect of someone paying to help is so exciting one could wet themselves.

I got lucky this go-round. They were giving me enough that I actually found myself struggling to try and spend a significant portion of it. I don't have a lot of things. When I moved in with the roommate way back when, I got rid of most of my furniture. All I really kept was the stuff for the bedroom, the boxes of books, and my photos.

I was going to do the packing. And the driving. But I'd worked it out so that I wouldn't have to actually lift, unhook, or load anything if I didn't want to. Take a look around you right now. Imagine picking all that stuff up, ordering it in a truck. Now imagine someone else could do it for you. You'd jump at the chance if you had to move. Some of you are drooling right now, if you have any sense. It's a dream to have someone else do the moving. It's the blue collar equivalent of the joy some folks get of having children but paying someone else to raise them.

---

Two hours into having the uHaul, and the loaders haven't shown. I'm too hands on to have let it go without me loading some things, but still.

I call. No answer. I leave a message. I have two hours until I have to go and get the trailer hooked up, the car loaded, so that I'll have some time to clean and still hit the road in the evening after traffic has died down.

I call again.

No answer.

I'm not going to make my deadline, and I've crafted this carefully. It should take about two hours for all of us to load my things. My roommate's gone for the afternoon so as to be out of the way. The dog is in the crate, anxious as he's been for about a week. If I don't get on the road tonight, everything goes out the window. I'll miss my unloading time. I'll miss getting the keys to the apartment.

The first drops of rain begin to fall. So, too, the first round of cursing.

---

The loaders never show. They never call back. They never call. I leave one final message, containing every curse word in every language that I know.

It is, I conclude. one final kick in the pants from a place that's made a hobby of it over the past four years. And so, I begin to load in the pouring rain.

---

I load into the night, when the rain allows. I sleep on the floor in my sleeping bag, or I try to. During the night, my dog paces the room nervously.

In the morning, when I finish, just as I'm loading the pup into the cab, my roommate tells me he wants to change the big-talk plan we'd agreed to a month ago about the apartment. We were sure the landlord would give us none of our deposit back, as they'd been - much like the loaders - quite conversant at finding ways to screw us over the last year. And so we were going to do a minimum of cleaning. But no.

I close the door on the pup, and prepare to walk to my side, when he asks if I can come back in and help him clean.

I stare in a way I hope is inclined towards blankly. He's been a good roommate, and it would be a shame to end that by killing him with my words. Or my hands. The blank look fails.

"I'll just clean. But I should get more of the deposit back if they give us any back."

Fine.

---

Other than the rain and being 12 hours late, having missed all the appointments I'd set up, the drive itself is uneventful. My dog is good in the car, and having his head to scratch and my own music on the radio helps immensely.

And so, I arrive at the new job. To be continued...

Are There Any Sadder Words

2009-06-26T13:05:00.003-04:00

...than I packed the stereo?

Okay, I know there are. But seriously, the stereo being unhooked is the moment at which I realize just how far things have gone.

Of course, there's lots happening here. The roommate is also moving, and this has caused a sort of apartment version of Risk. First, I took the living room for storage. Then he struck back. Now I have retreated to my bedroom, where I am marshaling my forces in the form of cardboard boxes. It's like when I built forts when I was a kid, only now, the walls are all my belongings - particularly books. We're in a holding pattern now, though this morning while he was away, I began to sift through the Tupperware drawer in the kitchen - one of the few places where our things have co-mingled.

I expect shots will be fired come dinner time.

The process has been harder than any other move, or so it seems to me from the midst of it. Having everything so packed around me at night has begun to give me odd dreams. It's tough to even be in my room because it reminds me of the clutter of my parents' house, and I'm finding myself claustrophobic in the room that used to be a sort of sanctuary. Lying on my bed to take a phone call is almost panic inducing, and I find that I'm having a hard time focusing on conversations or saying much of anything even when I am.

I narrowly headed off a visit from my parents, who claim to now - after four years of me living here - have an interest in seeing the Great Attraction of the Area.

And yesterday, I had coffee with one of my best students, who is thinking about graduate school but who is trying to work with my most absent minded of soon-to-be-former colleagues. While I probably don't have to be as delicate in suggesting that they, as an undergrad, are going to have to learn that most useful rule of graduate students - that committees are things to be managed and carefully fed information - it wasn't an easy thing to explain that what matters is a finished Senior thesis as much as the masterful work my colleague is threatening to make them conjure from thin air.

So it's back to packing and the odd little almost-panic attacks that come every time I step in my room. More to follow.

Too Far Gone

2009-06-18T18:16:00.005-04:00

Today, in the store, the clerk complained to me.

"Jesus," he said, "it's cold out there. It's killing me." (no, my name isn't Jesus, and the only time anyone ever uses it for me is when something is exasperating them - usually that something is me).

"Oh, this?" I replied, "This is nothing. And better this than humidity."

Four years, I've been here. And now I'm telling locals to stop fussing about cold weather. Just in time to pack it off elsewhere.

---

New job, new town, new purchases. Here is the partial list of things I have bought:

couch
recliner
new glasses
new sunglasses
new dvd and vcr player
a big boy prestige cell phone
all sorts of car repairs
moves here
movers there

Things I am preparing to buy:

a tv?
a faintly modern computer
some sort of big bookshelf/entertainment thingamajig
end tables and lamps
a big boy prestige vacuum

My Marxist ideals are stinging.

---

Yesterday, a sweet package - or a package of sweets - arrived in the mail for me. Among other things, the card said, "...maybe cookies for strength [are] just what a guy might need int he middle of a move."

And I thought, "Hooray! Cookies...and another box!"

What Makes a Microcosm

2009-06-16T11:14:00.005-04:00

It's funny the things that you can obsess over in moving. Today marks exactly 14 days to the move, and I'm in what I think is a good stage of packing. In a day or two, nothing you say about this will convince me that I am, in fact, in good shape.

But aside from the couch and what it says about me in life, the thing that is truly funny is just how obsessed I've become with what goes in the bathroom.

That's right: I'm obsessed with designing my bathroom.

I won't try to count up how many trips I've made to the Target bathroom aisles trying to decide what shower curtain I wanted. It has become a topic of dinner conversation. Multiple dinner conversations, in fact. And that I actually had a 20 minute discussion about what type of bath mat was ideal with someone probably makes me a candidate for Chief to help poor old McMurphy me out of this pickle once and for all.

And I've been debating it, to be sure. If the big guy won't bring the pillow to put me out of the misery of becoming fixated on things like this, I'm clearly going to have to do it myself. This is not who I am. I mean, I almost never have anyone over (I could probably count on one hand the number of people who've actually sat and talked with me in my apartment in the last four years). And yet, here I am.

What I think has happened is that in all the chaos of the move and fighting with the university and having the roommate come home and explaining to my parents that coming to visit me during a move is the worst possible time is that the bathroom of the new apartment was recognized as the one part of this move that is of a size and complexity that I can actually think about and still feel like I'm on top of it. One of the frustrating things about these moves is that, inevitably, you want them to be perfect: to land you in the perfect job, in the perfect city, etc, etc. I've moved enough though - and this doesn't have to be about what places I've moved to: just the process of moving serves for this example - that I know imperfection is a part of the game.

In the end, I did decide on a shower curtain and a bath mat. And I've bored more than a couple of friends talking about it (and now, I've bored you, folks of the Intertubes). It helps, though I still haven't decided what kind of soap dispenser to get.

Kidding.

I think.

Is This Thing On?

2009-06-12T21:49:00.003-04:00

Hm. A blog.

Yes, I used to have one of those. Poor, neglected thing, lost and alone wandering the Intertubes. Oh, I'm a bad blog owner. And this is probably the 1,217th time I've tried some apology for not turning up on the blog and suggested some vague commitment to being better about it.

I have no excuses. Not because I don't want to have one, but because I don't know what the reason for the the neglect really is.

Maybe it's the move. Certainly that'd be a good excuse. No one could fault me for ducking underground because I took a new job and have been planning a move. I should use that one. Mental note. No, I've been scattered. I'd better not trust a mental note. Someone take that down for me.

Thanks.

Or maybe it'd be because of the conference we were planning. That was crazy busy. Balls were dropped. Balls were picked up. Dinners were planned and a good time was had by all. That'd be a good one, too.

Or maybe because of leaving a good program at an okay university in a place that feels dubious and students who I've grown to enjoy for the unknown. Well, not the completely unknown, but you get the picture.

The point is, I don't know why exactly the blog has fallen to the wayside. Some days I feel really bad about it. Some days, I think about it not at all.

---

The move is in 15 days.

---

The big struggle with the university is mostly done. They still haven't paid me for last summer, but, oh, they've paid dearly for this one. I am not popular at the moment, but I have been paid.
If nothing else, bureaucratic revenge feels nice. It'll feel nicer when they do the right thing once and for all.

---

My father wanted to come help with the move. I, of course, opposed this.

My father, with the heart and respiratory conditions, all 73 years old of him, wanted to come help me move. All I own is books and a bed. Right now, my office is packed (12 boxes of books). There are boxes of books under my bed (10). I have books yet to pack (???). My apartment looks like I knocked over a paper supply company. And into this, my father - with my mother's blessing (no, with my mother's boot in his ass) wants to come help me move. My family, as ever, is crazy but sweet. I'm blessed.

Fortunately, he can't come. But I do appreciate the thought.

---

The other day I bought a couch. This, I feel, marks me officially being old.

When I move in here, I got rid of my furniture - what furniture there was - except the stuff for the bedroom. Paying off bills was a priority; having my own stuff wasn't. So my roommate got to keep his furniture and got to choose how the living room worked. But now I'm headed off to the new job and to my own place, and it was time to replace the stuff I got rid of.

For a long time, I had a policy that I'd not own anything I couldn't move myself. A couch clearly violates this.

This hurts me worse than the fear that I'm approaching 40. It distresses me just a little more than my most recent thoughts about buying a cell phone.

A couch. And a matching chair. Grownup. Scary.

---

I am so excited for this move. And I'll try to keep you posted.

Anyone Know a Good Labor Attorney?

2009-05-20T13:43:00.003-04:00

So rather than go out on a high-note here at my soon to be former SLAC, it's going to be a struggle. I'm still working to get paid what others were for a canceled class from last summer (the university incorrectly canceled classes, and when the mistake was pointed out, paid $1,000 to all the faculty this happened to except me because mine was a graduate course).

This summer, when I pointed out that I was in the same situation that caused the courses to be erroneously canceled in violation of the union contract last summer and that I expected the university to adhere to the contract this time, I've been informed that even though I'm teaching two summer courses (they've met for two days now), the union contract doesn't apply to me because I gave my letter of resignation. Of course, things being what they are, I was never offered a different contact to work under.

Only In Your Dreams

2009-05-15T23:18:00.002-04:00

Here's a little goodness I stumbled across while nursing my apartment searching sun burn in the soon to be New Town. Proof that if there is a God, they're a fan of the ridiculous.

Don't say I never gave you anything.

Creative Ways to Experience Anxiety

2009-05-08T16:52:00.003-04:00

I received another thank you letter from a student today. They've been very sweet about my departure. One of the students this morning told me they want tow write a letter demanding millions so the school could keep me. I told them it wasn't entirely about money.

And in the midst of it, I began to fret about what all these student letters might mean. There are some commonalities to them, after all. First, they tend to come from working class students (though this isn't particularly unusual here as most of the students are). They tend to be from students who struggled as part of their time here. And they tend to be from students who have been casting about for what they want to do.

The connections aren't particularly surprising. I was a working class kid, though I didn't quite realize it until the middle of my undergraduate. I struggled quite a bit myself. Between the freedom that college offered, the first true romances, and the working load that comes with putting yourself through as a working class kid who doesn't know any better, it was a struggle to get out of and a shock when I actually went back to school. I started out pre-med, jumped to a much more liberal arts focused degree, and took enough outside classes to have had five minors had the university allowed it.

And then I thought about what I know about the student population at the New Job, and those things aren't particularly present. Most of them don't seem to be working class. I'm told they all have very well-defined goals of where they want to be. What if my teaching doesn't match up?

Really, there's no way to know until I'm there and into the swing of it. And it's fair to say that it wasn't until maybe a year into my time here that I started to click with students, so it could take awhile anyway. But I think the impending departure has had weird reverberations on my thought processes. I was telling a colleague today that I think I might be grading senior seminar papers with a little nostalgia grade boost. And the other day, I tried to explain why a big goodbye party creeps me out.

End of Term Follies

2009-05-07T13:16:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, a minute before I was to leave my office, a student stopped in to ask if I could be the third member of her honors' thesis committee, who would be "meeting tomorrow for the defense."

It's a busy end of the term here, not just because of it being my last term, but also because of the workload. I've already served on two honors committees. I'm supervising 17 senior research projects. I've got portfolios from 21 students, and essay exams from 12 others. Also, I have an article to restructure. I've no business on last minute committees.

Naturally, I said yes.

The topic seemed interesting, and I've known the student through some of the causes happening on campus this year. It felt wrong to say no.

And now I've read the thesis, and I realize that there's a reason there was no third committee member. And worse, I don't think they could have been thinking about what my own research and interests are or they wouldn't have asked me to be on this because there's almost no way I can avoid shredding this.

What's frustrating, though, is that I tried to speak with the chair about this, and there seemed to be little recognition of the problems and even less interest in hearing out my difficulties so they might either prepare the student or their own defense of this. Because at the end of the day, a failed thesis defense - and that's what I think this might wind up being - is a failure of the committee.

And While I'm Posting Ridiculous Things...

2009-05-04T01:19:00.004-04:00

...media scholars - are any of you media scholars? - tell me what you think about this?

Clearly, I should not be grading finals and watching late night television. Honestly, AMC, who the hell is your after midnight audience?

I'd Feel Better About This if Rabbit Said It...

2009-05-02T20:33:00.004-04:00

...I never quite trusted Rabbit.

Their graduation, mine.

2009-05-01T01:31:00.004-04:00

It has been far too long since I've written, longer still since - maybe - since I wanted to write.

The days have been filled with writing, of course. There's a conference to be planned, and I am reminded that I am, however reluctantly, a Type A- personality: not quite type A, but a little too something to settle into Type B. I envy Type B's; I dread Type A's. But the conference begs for it. This is the problem with folks of a particular ideology (I wont say which: you can fill in your own blanks): they mistake organization for fascism. And, so, I find myself answering the e-mails for the conference: dull, banal little things in great numbers like gnats. To put any thought down became a chore, swatting at these things just a little more when I should be resting.

Tonight, I feel like writing.

---

Sometime back, I started writing a letter to our Seniors before they graduated. It was born out of a sort of necessity: herding cats in the graduation rodeo to a place where we could send them off into the sunset, though I have yet to attend a graduation that wasn't cold and rainy (at least for part of it). It became a tradition for me, a touchstone. And so, this year, it took on extra importance.

I'm leaving.

My advisees - many of them, anyway - are leaving with me. Well, not with me, but at the same time, to similar questions. In a strange way that no one ever told me, I walked the same path as those scared little Freshmen four years ago. Their steps were mine, and now, a tiny piece of their parting. The letter this year was much the same - congratulations and a little bit of a wish for them.

And a little bit of thanks.

---

The last two days have been awash in bureaucratic frustration. I find it's process that makes me lose my temper. And these last two days, I've found that a lot: everywhere I looked, there were problems: invitations sent to people who shouldn't have been; people who should have been who weren't. Names left out of programs. Programs out of order. I've found myself very protective of these students here at the end.

In recent weeks, we took a busload of them to a research conference. They rocked it. We took several to the school's research presentation. Most of them blew it away. Even my most problematic students - the ones who gravitate to me - have done well. Pick the student who you thought was the picture of unrepentant, unearned privilege. Remember how they walked into your office two years ago like royalty and made demands. Even that student got it, enough to make a couple of heads turn and faces pause at their moment of lucidity.

I am trying to focus on these things, amidst the chaos.

---

This evening I received a letter from a student that made me think of poetry. It was a letter that made me want to sit down and write. I want to share it, but that wouldn't be right. It was a private thing, but it reminded me of all the things we so rarely know as teachers, and that just because we don't know doesn't mean it isn't there or isn't happening.

It reminded me of the postcards friends used to send me, with haiku of their days on scrawled in thin, small writing. It was true, and tangentially I was a part of it.

Naomi Shihab Nye wrote "No one sees/the fuel that feeds you." Tonight, this term, these four years, I have been fed.

RBOC: More Catching Up

2009-04-07T12:02:00.002-04:00

Attempts at blogging have largely failed. I'm still trying though. I promise.

In the meantime, things worth noting:

April snow froze my car shut this morning
for those wondering about when it would happen, word of my departure has reached the students. It happened largely by accident. The first reveal was intentional - a student asked if I could be the faculty moderator for a student atheist group. The second was my slip-up in discussing an event being planned. And more recently, a candidate was brought in for my position, and the department took them to a restaurant where a number of our students work.
Surprisingly, the stack of boxes in my office has yet to draw a single question.
I came in 7 out of 63 and 9 out of 33 in my March Madness pools. Good enough for a little bragging, but no actual financial gain.
I've recently watched Synecdoche, New York and Gran Torino, and loved them both for very different reasons. I strongly recommend both, but each with a warning: the first is not an easy film intellectually, the second is not an easy film in terms of cultural sensitivity.

Hope you're all well.

Signs of Growth

2009-04-05T21:02:00.003-04:00

Spring is here. And gone. And back again. And likely gone again tomorrow.

---

The conference planning continues along, in that way that suggests that the ruling members of the planning committee don't exactly have their feet on the ground. I spent a significant portion of last not looking for my temper which got off leash and access to my e-mail. Drafts were written. Things were quoted - perhaps the worst thing one can do in an e-mail argument. In the end, I found it and reigned it in.

I was tempted to resign, to cancel the things I'd organized and to let them go it alone. I was tempted to give back funding and salute as the remaining organizers were left to twist in the wind.

Cooler moods prevailed. It's been awhile since I've found myself pushed to that point. Had it not been for the love I have for this organization, which has been kind to me and instrumental, I might have.

---

The other day, coming out of the gym, strangers were talking in the hallway. They were circled, and sprawled across the corridor, so no one could easily pass. There are boundary issues at play here. It's one of the things I won't miss - that sprawling lack of awareness that others might also - must also - pass through space. But I digress.

One man said, "As you can see, I have a problem with shrinkage."

The others laughed. And as I squeezed through, I suppressed the reply that raced automatically to my lips. Ten years before, it would have slipped out before I'd seen it coming. Growing up, my friends and I made jokes on each other whenever they came up, whatever they may have been. It was hard to ignore the urge.

But I couldn't help laughing a little on the way to my car, and wishing I'd only known one of them so I could have let fly.

"You can't call it shrinkage if it's always that way."

Checking In

2009-04-02T00:47:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here, sore from the gym, tired from the whirlwind of the term, reading "Joe Gould's Secret." Lurking at the back of my head over the last few days has been the fear that I am not the academic I thought I was.

I am thinking about writing, which isn't what I do, and thinking it is something I might like to try more. I'm thinking about how the research I do isn't the thing that my students connect with. Shouldn't it be? Why is it when I teach the things around the edges of my part of the field, trying to define it, that it is those things the students connect with?

I'm feeling guilty as my department is slowly descending into panic about my departure. It would help if, when people asked me about the new job, they didn't always begin with "So, you're abandoning us...." A friend mentioned wanting to throw a party for my departure, and I immediately thought of 40 people all starting their celebration for me that way, followed by loud demands for a speech.

Earlier this week, I looked at an ad for an apartment that said tenants could get use of the washer and dryer in the basement for $50 in additional rent, provided the use was limited to one load per week. Everything about looking for apartments depresses me.

All of this is funny as I'm still excited about the position.

Whirlwind of Productivity

2009-03-26T11:57:00.004-04:00

Today, I'm in my office, which is freezing though it sounds like the heat is on, and I've got the song "Mercedes Boy" by Pebbles stuck in my head, though I haven't heard it since probably 1989 and I've got iTunes on loud shuffle trying to exorcise it from my head.

Go on, click that link and suffer with me. I bet you didn't know there was an extended version. Thanks, YouTube!

As the title says, I've been all kinds of productive in the last 24 hours. Yesterday, I graded 25 projects and provided detailed feedback. I wrote two reference letters - though I need to proof them this evening. And for the conference we're "helping" to co-host (the other co-hosts have largely vanished and my co-conspirator here has been the usual level of disorganized) was falling behind on things, so I also sent out 50+ acceptance letters.

The conference is tiring me out, as I knew it would. All the things I was afraid would go wrong have. Big Ideas/Bigger Mouth from the other U - who asked to co-host - has found all his promised funding gone, all his "friends who would do us favors" vanished, and may well have gone on vacation. That's left us to find the keynotes, to review the proposals, to send the acceptances, and thus far, to come up with all the funds that have been come up with. For my part, I've put together a banquet, transportation to the banquet and a local tourist attraction, found a band, ordered drinks, ordered the furniture and the setup, found the funding for all of that at a tiny university in an economic recession, and last night, sent out all the acceptance letters.

I'm tired. And yet my grading is caught up, and my lectures are planned. I do not deserve "Mercedes Boy." I don't. If this is karma, I'm sorry for inventing polio. I didn't mean to. Please stop this song and let me rest.

Place Your Bets

2009-03-23T23:02:00.003-04:00

So a few of you have asked about this, and I thought it'd be a good thing to bet on. Tonight, at 7:04 p.m., I told a student that I've taken a new job and won't be here in the fall. The student isn't in my department, but I'm at a university of about 2,700 students.

Anyone care to bet on how long until my students hear about it and begin to ask questions (and possibly freak out)?